Evan
“My lord! Sir Robert’s death is not something for you to investigate alone.” Gareth’s voice was raised enough to carry to the far side of the clearing in front of the manor house.
Evan had been lounging in a circle on the grass with Llelo and the other Dragons, but he got instantly to his feet and ran towards the front door, following Gareth, who had entered after Richard. By the time Evan reached the threshold, Gareth had caught the young lord’s arm, and the two men were glaring at each other.
Alban didn’t live quite like a prince, but Robert’s hall was well built. Before Evan had settled in the grass, the Dragons had done a circuit of the holding. The manor’s interior consisted of a large main room with a second floor loft, a kitchen off the back, and a master chamber and adjacent room in a ground floor wing to retreat to off the hall. It was smaller than a typical royal llys, but not by much. Admittedly, it was built entirely in wood, without even a palisade, so it had never been intended as a defensible holding. It was to the castle of Dinefwr that the people of this region would retreat if the area came under attack.
Perhaps if he’d lived here, Robert would have paid a few men-at-arms to serve him, but Alban didn’t have the wherewithal for that. His duty was steward, not chieftain. Still, Robert was obviously an important man, upon whose lands a hundred people depended.
By the time Evan came halfway across the floor of the hall, Gwen had arrived from the opposite side where the kitchen lay. Richard had halted at Gareth’s insistence, but he was clearly struggling to control his temper. His anger may have been feigned earlier, but now his color was high, and he was glaring at Gareth.
But Gareth didn’t let go of Richard’s arm, and Evan arrived in time to hear Gareth whisper urgently, “Robert was on loan to you. Cadell is his liege lord—and Alban’s. This is messy enough without you going in there with your arrow nocked when you don’t know the full story.”
Gwen hurried closer. “I know you are angry about Robert’s death, but you don’t want to murder Alban yourself in cold blood only to find he didn’t do it!”
Richard didn’t quite jerk away, but from his expression he really wanted Gareth to let go of his arm. Evan stepped closer too, mirroring Gwen on Richard’s other side. “I have known Alban nearly the whole of my life, and unlike me, he has lived in Deheubarth his entire life. His family is here. His life is here. If he killed Robert, it was because he felt that life threatened. He isn’t going to run.”
Richard’s anger dissipated the more Evan talked, and by the time he stopped speaking, Richard’s eyes had turned thoughtful. “I never thought about murder that way before. The only murders in my father’s domain I know about have been crimes of passion, perpetrated out of anger and in the spur of the moment.”
As Gareth finally released the young lord’s arm, Gwen nodded. “Robert’s death, coupled with the poisoning up at the castle, is different. Someone has a plan, and we don’t want to go trampling all over the evidence when we don’t even know yet what that evidence might be. You must see that.”
It was in moments like these that Evan understood why Gareth continued to allow Gwen to participate in his investigations. Sometimes she could do and say things a man could not. Richard would never harm a woman, so he listened to her reasoning, whereas Evan and Gareth might have had to wrestle him to the ground. Nothing at all good could have come from that.
Fortunately, Alban had delayed his arrival in the hall until now. Evan had assumed he would seek out Caron when he’d left the porch, but he’d come from his private apartments, prompting Evan to look at him with new respect. Alban could have ventured into the kitchen to see what story Caron had put forth. Instead, he’d ignored the women, as if he couldn’t care less what tale his wife told Gwen.
Gareth gestured Alban closer. “Lord Richard tells me that Robert intended to disinherit you and Caron.”
Alban blinked, either as surprised as Evan to hear this news or shocked Gareth would mention it. Before he could answer, however, a wail came from the loft, and a middle-aged woman appeared with a crying child of two on her hip and holding the hand of a second child, a girl of six or seven with long dark hair and luminous blue eyes. Alban looked up at them and motioned that the woman should bring the children down. “Caron’s in the kitchen. Where are Bedwyn and Rhodri?”
“Mucking out the stables, just like you asked.” The woman spoke with a thick south Wales accent. It was Evan’s guess that Bedwyn and Rhodri were Alban’s two middle sons. The eldest two were already squires in the Dinefwr garrison. Alban would not be of a high enough station for his sons to be fostered out to another lord, as had been initially done with Llelo and Dai. Gareth’s boys were back among Hywel’s teulu because of Hywel’s needs, not because they hadn’t deserved to stay with Cynan.
Gareth had asked his question specifically to catch Alban off guard, but the delay had given Alban time to think, and he chose acknowledgement, which on the whole was a wise decision. “I’m not going to pretend I wasn’t disappointed to hear Sir Robert’s plan.”
“So you knew,” Gareth said, not as a question. “When did he tell you?”
“Yesterday.”
“Were you disappointed … or angry?” Richard said.
Alban scoffed. “Of course, I was angry, but I didn’t kill him! Why would I? He had agreed to give me another chance, at least through Christmas.”
That jibed with the fact that his sons were cleaning the stables.
Richard’s eyes narrowed. “That isn’t what he told me.”
“I obviously talked to him after you did.”
“When was this?” Gareth asked.
“Last night at the feast before everything fell apart. He told me he’d discussed the inheritance with the abbot, who urged him to give me another chance.”
Evan glanced at Gareth, who was frowning. As far as Evan knew, the abbot hadn’t said anything to Gareth—but then, he may have felt that to do so would have been a violation of confidence, even after Robert’s death.
“Ask Abbot Mathew,” Alban urged. “You’ll see what I say is true.”
“I will,” Gareth said.
Then Alban’s chin jutted out. “It’s one of those Normans you should be looking to for answers. Robert lived among them recently. Obviously he fell in with unsavory folk down south.”
Good Norman that he was, Richard looked affronted. Alban had spoken in Welsh, but Richard’s family had lived in Wales long enough for him to speak Welsh as easily as French.
Evan wanted to laugh, but he swallowed it down. “Few men have lived as upstanding a life as Robert. It’s a hard thing to blame him for his own murder.”
Alban looked like he was struggling not to make a sullen retort and ended up saying somewhat lamely. “Well, then it was Barri who did it. He killed Meicol after all. He was sent to Lord Maurice twenty years ago because of what he did to Meicol, and I know Robert was one of those who argued for a harsher punishment than he received.”
“Barri didn’t kill Meicol, and the rest was a long time ago, Alban,” Evan said.
Alban’s chin stuck out. “Barri had inquired recently about returning to King Cadell’s service, but Robert intervened and counseled against it. You can ask the king what kind of soldier Barri was.”
Evan had already spoken to Barri himself, of course, as well as John, Maurice’s captain, and Alban’s assessment wasn’t far off from what he’d already concluded.
“We will question everyone,” Gareth said soothingly.
“Are you really suggesting Barri killed Meicol over a twenty-year-old grudge?” Gwen asked.
Alban shrugged. “Meicol didn’t kill himself.”
“It is my understanding that Meicol served unwaveringly in Dinefwr’s garrison since the accident,” Evan said.
“Is that what you heard? He was a poor soldier. He knew it too. Just the other day he told me he’d decided to quit. He was going to make a living at his craft instead.” Alban scoffed again. “He used to be good, I’ll grant you that, but his hands had started to shake, and there were days he could barely hold a knife. Too much drink, to my mind.”
Alban’s listeners all raised their eyebrows. “Craft?” Gareth said.
Alban swept a hand around the room. “Meicol did the carvings in here, and when you visit his house you’ll see how much more he once could do.”
“So Meicol had a house.” Gareth met Evan’s eyes, and his expression was annoyed and sardonic at the same time. “I didn’t know.”
“That would explain why he had so few possessions at the castle,” Gwen said.
Evan gave a low laugh. “I’d just assumed he had few possessions.” It was an odd feeling for Evan to be unfamiliar with the situation at Dinefwr. He felt like he should know what was going on, but twenty years removed from living here, he didn’t even know the right questions to ask.
Alban was unaware of these undercurrents and simply gestured west, beyond the walls of the manor. “His house lies a mile back closer to the castle. He rents it from Old Nan.”
“The blind woman?” Gwen said.
“That’s right.” Alban nodded vigorously. “The answers you’re seeking lie with Meicol and Barri, not with me.”