Gareth stood, and as he helped Gwen to her feet, his fingers entwined with hers, both of them holding on tight.
“We should move the body inside.” Gareth turned to Prior Rhys. “Is it customary here to place a body in the chapel or somewhere else?”
“They have a small room off the nave set aside for it,” Rhys said.
“Good,” Gareth said. “It will be far cooler inside than out here. As it is, he’ll have to be put in the ground by the end of the day tomorrow at the very latest. It’s just too hot.”
“Probably before,” Gwen said.
“Hopefully, we’ll know his name before then,” Prince Rhun said.
“We’ll do our best,” Gwen said.
“Surely someone will have missed him,” Gareth said, “but at the very least, I can draw his face.”
“That’s a good idea.” Gwen nodded approvingly. “Any loved one will find him unpleasant to look upon as he is now. Better to show them the image instead.”
Gareth went to his saddlebag and removed paper and charcoal. With quick movements, he sketched a rough image of the dead man’s face, trying to draw him as he would have been in life, not bloodless and cold from the water as he was now.
Meanwhile, Prior Rhys beckoned the two monks out of the shade. With Prior Rhys and Prince Rhun assisting, they loaded the body into the largest of the handcarts waiting by the entrance to the mill. Gareth finished his drawing and returned to Gwen’s side.
After the men heaved the body into the cart, Gwen pointed to the man’s face. Despite the movement required to lift and load him, no pink foam trickled out of the corner of his mouth. “He really was dead when he went into the water.”
“You thought you’d made a mistake?” Gareth said.
Gwen shrugged. “Sometimes it feels like all we have are guesses. I’m comforted when they appear to be good ones.”
“What are you talking about?” Rhun said, ever curious.
“When a man drowns, he spits up the water he took into his lungs, even after death,” Gwen said. “This man is missing that telltale sign, once again confirming our initial supposition.”
While Gareth stowed the picture of the dead man in the bag with his paper and charcoal, Gwen said, “Give me a moment,” and hurried away towards the mill, disappearing inside.
Everyone stopped, looking after her and uncertain as to what she was doing. Then she returned with a bundle of cloth in her arms, which turned out to be several large bags used for carrying grain.
“None of us wore cloaks today so we have nothing to cover him with, but we don’t want him on display as we travel down the road,” she said.
“That was thoughtful of you,” Prior Rhys said. “Thank you.” And between the two of them, they laid the sacks over the body to cover it completely.
Gareth signaled to the monks to start pulling the cart. Prince Rhun and Prior Rhys tugged on the bridles of their horses, but like Gareth, neither man mounted, choosing to walk behind the cart with Gwen. The monks got the cart rolling, and the companions began the half-mile walk back to the monastery.
As they walked, Gareth could just hear the sound of music coming up from the festival grounds on the other side of the river. Music came more clearly from travelers moving along the road, whether from a bard warming up his voice and his fingers on his instrument, or spectators singing the latest ballad they’d heard. Regardless, each person turned his or her head as the cart passed, peering curiously into the bed to see what had prompted such a somber walk by three monks, a knight and his lady, and a prince.
Most of the looks—and many bows—were directed at Rhun, who acknowledged them without fanfare.
“Gwen, it might be a good idea not to discuss any of this with Mari,” Gareth said.
Gwen and Mari had rooms in the guest house because Mari’s quarters at the castle, approximately a mile and a half away from the monastery as the crow flies, were less than adequate to her current needs. She was pregnant again and sicker even than with her first child. Six months after Tangwen’s birth, Mari had been delivered of a healthy boy whom she and Hywel had named Gruffydd after Hywel’s grandfather. Thankfully—and despite the difficult pregnancy—Gruffydd had been born without complications and was now a very active one-year-old.
But Mari’s pregnancy meant that she could bear neither the press of humanity at the castle nor the smell. The latrine, in particular, wasn’t functioning as it should, and Mari had found the stench unbearable every time she walked outside, prompting her to lose whatever was in her stomach. Prince Hywel had arranged for Gwen to stay with her at the monastery guest house until the heat wave passed, the festival was over, the latrine was redesigned and fixed, and/or Mari managed to get her pregnancy sickness under control.
It would have been more appropriate for Mari to stay at the local convent, but that was no longer possible. Although Alice, Prince Cadwaladr’s wife, had given birth to their daughter there three years ago, it had been in serious decline since before the 1136 war and had failed the previous year. None of the interventions implemented by either Cadwaladr or Hywel—or the sisters’ order—had managed to turn the tide, and the last nun had died last Christmas feast. With Hywel’s permission, the monks had taken over the lands the convent had controlled, including the mill and pond on the Rheidol River.
“Oh, I know,” Gwen said. “I wish I could do something for her other than hold the basin and look after Gruffydd. At least we have her eating on a regular schedule now. I’m hoping that the worst of her sickness will soon be over.”
“Speaking of Gruffydd, where’s Tangwen?” Gareth said, trying to make the question sound casual. He would not want to imply, even obliquely, that she’d mislaid their daughter.
Gwen smiled. “She fell asleep moments before Prior Rhys arrived.” Gwen checked the position of the sun in the sky. “I would hope she might still be asleep, but you know Tangwen.”
Gareth did. He adored their daughter, but she had never been an easy sleeper and fought it at every turn, as if by sleeping she might miss something important. If her desire to stay awake left her cheerful instead of petulant, they could have let her be. As it was, some days Gareth might pace in circles with Tangwen for an hour to get her to sleep, only to have her wake the moment he laid her on her pallet.
The first time he’d seen Mari set Gruffydd on the bed and tuck a blanket around him, Gareth had laughed at the absurdity of her expectation that the boy would close his eyes and fall asleep on his own. But then he had. If Gareth hadn’t seen it with his own eyes he wouldn’t have believed it possible.
And sure enough, as they turned in to pass through the monastery gatehouse, Elspeth was just coming out of the guesthouse with Tangwen on her hip. The daughter of Gareth’s steward, Elspeth was buxom and blonde, and if she wasn’t currently living in a monastery, she would have had men circling her constantly to court her. Her father hoped that a year or two as Tangwen’s nanny, under Gwen’s sober influence, might steady her and prepare her for adult life. Gareth didn’t have much hope of that and might have picked out a man for her to marry already if he didn’t selfishly want her to continue as Tangwen’s nanny for a little while longer at least.
Elspeth set the child down, and Tangwen dashed across the courtyard towards Gwen, who moved forward to intercept her. With a mop of curly brown hair and brown eyes, Tangwen was the most beautiful little girl in Wales. She was also only eighteen months old, and Gareth was glad when Gwen scooped her up before she reached the cart. She was a little young to be introduced to her first murdered man.
Tangwen waved to him over her mother’s shoulder, and Gareth called to her from across the courtyard. “Cariad, Papa has work to do. I will find you later.”
That seemed to mollify Tangwen, though sending up a wail of frustration would have been equally usual for her. As it was, she had no choice but to go with her mother, who carried her around the corner of the guesthouse a moment later.
Sion, the gatekeeper, had come out of the gatehouse to see who’d entered, and Prior Rhys hustled forward to meet the hosteler, who’d poked his head out of the chapter house. He’d probably been watching for guests to come through the gatehouse, not for a cart with a body in it. Several carts already parked in the courtyard implied that even more travelers had arrived for the festival. Gareth had no idea where they were going to put them all, but no matter the press of people, presumably the chapel would remain free of guests.
He had been hoping to take Tangwen to see some of the performances this afternoon, and Prince Hywel himself would perform tomorrow night. The whole event would conclude the day after that with performances by the finalists and the presentation of awards and prizes.
The festival was taking place in and around a large pavilion in the field below the castle. A small fair and market had grown up beside it. Gareth had counted no fewer than four dressmakers present, one of whom he hoped he could arrange for Gwen to visit. He’d like to commission a new dress as a gift to her.
Various contests were also occurring on the many stages set up around the field. In addition to musicians of every type (among them genuine bards like Meilyr, Gwen’s father), dancers, jugglers, and actors had come to perform.
“Is that-is that him?” The hosteler gaped at the shrouded body in the back of the cart.
Gareth took the hosteler’s words to mean that their arrival wasn’t as unexpected as he’d originally thought. Sion bent to whisper in the man’s ear, and he ran off.
“What did you say to him?” Prince Rhun said.
“I told him to stop gawking and fetch the prior,” Sion said.
The two monks had disappeared into the stable immediately upon putting down the arms of the cart. They came back with a board on which to carry the dead man, which would provide a more dignified means to bring him into the chapel than to carry him sagging between them. Gareth and Prior Rhys helped them load the body onto it, with Sion carefully replacing the burlap sacks over his body. Then he went back to his watch while Rhun, Gareth, and the two monks each took a corner in order to move the body into the chapel. Prior Rhys walked at the front to lead the way.
The doors to the stone chapel had remained closed all day, keeping the natural coolness of the stones inside. The contrast between the heat outside and the darkened interior was so great Gareth shivered, feeling the sweat cool instantly on his skin. Prior Rhys directed them across the nave towards one of the side wings, through a small doorway, and into a vestibule that contained a small altar, two upright chairs, and a six-foot-long table. This was clearly where the dead usually resided until the burial ceremony. With a heave, they settled the dead man on the table, leaving him on the long board rather than shifting him off it.
“Thank you,” Prior Rhys said to the monks. Gareth had figured out by now that silence was considered a virtue in this monastery. The two monks hadn’t wasted a single word. Or spoken one, for that matter.
But still, he put out an arm to block their immediate departure. “I know that you heard and saw much today. If you have a need to speak of it, please talk to me, Prior Rhys, or your own prior. I would prefer that nothing of what we know or have surmised leaves this room to reach the murderer’s ears.”
“Do you hear that both of you?” Prior Rhys’s warning tone was like a father might use with a son.
The monks nodded.
“If you think of anything else that you haven’t told us, even a detail so small you think it couldn’t be important, I want to hear it,” Gareth said. “We don’t know this man’s name, and yet, we have to catch his killer.”
Both monks nodded again and left. Gareth turned back to Prior Rhys. “It only occurs to me now that I didn’t actually ask them if they knew the dead man.”
“I asked before I sent them to hunt through the underbrush. They claimed not to,” Prior Rhys said.
“Did they actually say that, or did they merely shake their heads?” Prince Rhun said.
Prior Rhys gave a short burst of laughter, which he stifled instantly. “The latter.”
Footfalls came from the nave of the church, and a moment later, the hosteler appeared with the prior of the monastery, Pedr. In looks, the prior was the complete opposite of Prior Rhys, who even in middle age was tall and well built, still with the bearing of the soldier he’d been. Pedr had a stooped, slightly rounded figure and had red hair going both gray and bald. From Gareth’s few interactions with him so far, however, his intellect was on a level with Rhys’s.
Pedr dismissed the hosteler immediately upon seeing the body, and bent his head in a bow to Prince Rhun. “My lord.”
Rhun nodded. “Prior.”
This little ritual was repeated with Prior Rhys, who returned the bow. “Prior Pedr.”
Gareth nodded too, though Prior Pedr hadn’t yet looked at him.
“I see we have lost a parishioner,” Pedr said.
“It appears so,” Prior Rhys said, “though we do not yet have a name for him.”
“Brother Adda says he was found in the millpond,” Pedr said.
Gareth inferred that Adda was the hosteler who’d just left. “Yes, but he didn’t drown.”
Pedr look quickly up at Gareth. “He didn’t?”
“Prior, what Sir Gareth means to say is that we believe the man to have been murdered before he was put into the millpond, but we would prefer that as few people as possible are aware of that,” Prior Rhys said. “So far we have kept it among us few, though the two monks whose help I enlisted to pull the body from the pond also know.”
Pedr stayed at the foot of the table, studying the dead man. “It goes without saying that you are sure of this or you wouldn’t have declared it, but I have to ask: you have no doubt that he was murdered?”
“He was stabbed with a knife to the chest.” Gareth reached for the man’s shirt. “If you would like to see—”
Pedr raised a hand. “I acknowledge your superior wisdom in this matter.” He took in a breath. “How long ago did he die?”
“Some twelve hours, give or take,” Gareth said. “It is my guess that he spent all that time after the moment of death in the water.”
“I have little experience with murder, but I have been made aware of some of the activities Prince Hywel requires of you. Do you need—” the prior’s lips curled in distaste, “—to look him over?”
“If I may.” Although Gareth would have preferred a private room in which to examine the body, if he could keep onlookers out, he could do his work just as well in here. Unlike some who had accused him of profaning the dead, he didn’t believe that searching through a murdered man’s clothes or examining his body somehow defiled him or was a crime against God. Quite the opposite, he believed it would be the far greater crime to let a murderer walk free.
In this instance, Gareth didn’t think that the prior was so much squeamish as personally offended that any man would murder another. Still, Gareth was glad that he was going to be allowed to work, though it might be that he already knew most of what the body could tell him. “I realize that we must bury him quickly, and I would do what needs to be done now and then leave him in peace.”
Pedr gave a jerky nod. “I can give you until tomorrow morning. I’m afraid that doesn’t give you much time.” Then Pedr looked at Prior Rhys. “If you would walk with me, I know the abbot would appreciate a more detailed explanation of what has happened here. I would be most grateful for it as well.”
“Of course.” Prior Rhys followed Pedr out the door and departed, though not before he raised his eyebrows at Gareth behind Pedr’s back in a quick glance of helplessness and amusement.
Gareth was grateful that Rhys was available to act as go-between for the investigation and the abbot. The last time Gareth had been inside an abbot’s office, he’d been in the company of a murderer and a traitor, though he hadn’t known it at the time.
With the departure of the two priors, Prince Rhun and Gareth were left alone with the body—though once again, it was only for a few heartbeats. More footfalls came from the nave, and this time, it was Prince Hywel who entered the vestibule, accompanied by a young woman.
Slender, of short stature but with a bearing that spoke of privilege, the woman wore a dark brown headdress, which covered all of her hair, and a matching wool dress of a fine weave. She clutched a handkerchief in one hand and dabbed at her eyes with it.
At the sight of the body on the table, she halted abruptly. As she stared at it, the hand holding the handkerchief dropped, revealing her face: clear, pale skin set off by red lips and dark eyes, brows, and lashes, and an upturned nose. In short, she had the most even features Gareth had ever seen on anyone, man or woman, and was, for lack of a better word, beautiful. But then her face crumpled, she gave a sobbing gasp, ran towards the dead man, and threw herself across his body. “Gryff! Oh Gryff!”
Gareth looked at his lord, one of the most handsome men in Gwynedd himself (according to Gwen), with deep blue eyes and a voice that could charm any woman who heard it. At the moment, his face was showing an expression closer to impatience than sympathy. Prince Rhun moved to his brother’s side. “Who’s this?”
“I met her at the gatehouse. She claimed to have heard in the village that a body had been found in the millpond. She feared it was her husband and—” Hywel gestured towards the woman still prostrated over the body, “—it seems she was right.”
“At least we now have his name.” Gareth observed the woman impartially. Instead of abating, her sobs rose in volume. He frowned, deciding that the woman wasn’t doing Gryff or herself any good from that position. Gareth gently peeled her off Gryff’s body and made her take a few steps back from it. The woman’s eyes streamed with tears, but the sobbing reverted to occasional hiccupping gasps.
Gareth patted her back. “I’m sorry for your loss.”
The woman didn’t seem to hear him, just continued to sob. Then she gave another gasp, said, “I can’t bear it!” and then turned on her heel as if preparing to leave.
Hywel was planted in the doorway, however, and she pulled up at the sight of him.
“Please—” she began.
“We really do need to ask you a few questions before you go,” he said.
The woman looked at the floor. “If I must.”
Hywel took the woman’s elbow and guided her to one of the nearby chairs. She sat, and Hywel pulled the second chair close. “I’m sorry you have lost your husband, but I have a few questions before I can leave you to mourn him in peace. Please tell us your name.”
“I am Madlen. His name is Gryff.” She sobbed into her cloth anew, though even as she did so, her eyes flicked to the prince’s face. “Was Gryff.”
Gareth felt a smirk forming on his lips. Hywel was so handsome and personable, he could charm a widow at her husband’s laying out.
“When did you last see your husband, madam?”
Madlen looked fully into Hywel’s face, tears streaming down her cheeks. “Yesterday evening. He had been working at our booth at the fair, which was open late, so I didn’t think anything of it when he hadn’t returned to our lodgings by the time I went to sleep.”
“And this morning?” Hywel said.
“He wasn’t next to me, but he often rises before I do. It was only after I went to our booth myself and spoke to my uncle that we realized something was amiss.” Madlen’s voice gained in strength the more she spoke, and her story became more coherent. “When I asked my uncle when he’d last seen him, he said he’d dismissed Gryff well before midnight and hadn’t seen him since then. I didn’t know what to do.”
She’d finally mastered her tears, which was all to the good as far as Gareth was concerned. When they’d arrived at the chapel with the body, he’d been almost at a loss as to where to begin the search for the man’s identity. The population of the region was growing with every hour as travelers continued to stream into Aberystwyth for the festival. Even with knowing Gryff’s name as they now did, sorting through the people to find the murderer was going to be difficult. It would have been far worse without his name, however, and Gareth was grateful to Madlen that she’d come forward so quickly.
“Who is your uncle?” Gareth said.
“Iolo. He has come to the festival to sell his cloth.”
“And your husband worked for him?” Gareth said.
“Yes.” The word came out a sob as Madlen fell apart again.
Like most types of traders, cloth merchants ran the gamut from very wealthy to little more than peddlers, moving from house to house and village to village, hawking their wares. Gareth had never heard of Iolo, but he was far less familiar with the people of southern Wales than those who lived in the north, and he’d had little interaction with merchants in his time here. Other than his wish to buy Gwen a new dress, he hadn’t had a need for fabric for new clothes this summer. He’d have to ask Gwen to have a look at Iolo’s wares, however. She would be able to tell him something of the quality and selection.
“We’ll have to speak to him,” Hywel said.
Madlen had gone back to her weeping, but at Hywel’s words, she looked up. “Why?”
“Your husband died at the millpond. We’d like to know how that came about,” Hywel said.
“But—” Madlen broke off, looking from Hywel to Gareth and back again. Then she caught sight of Rhun standing in the darkness, out of the candlelight. Her eyes widened, but she said, “I was told he drowned.”
Rhun had been leaning against the wall throughout the interview, his arms folded across his chest, but now he stepped forward. “Madlen, allow me to find someone to escort you back to your uncle. Let the prince and Sir Gareth take care of Gryff.” He held out his elbow to her.
Madlen’s shoulders sagged, and she rose to her feet to take the prince’s arm. She and Prince Rhun disappeared back into the main part of the chapel.
Hywel raised his eyebrows at Gareth. “I can’t leave you alone for an hour without you stumbling across a murder?”
“Was it that obvious?” Gareth said. “I was hoping we were more subtle than that.”
“It was obvious only to me, I think,” Hywel said.
But Gareth was staring at Gryff’s body. Something about it had changed. He hesitated, deciding that he must be mistaken, but then he looked back and realized what he’d noticed. Gryff’s purse, which had been suspended from his belt earlier, was gone.