Chapter Twenty-seven

Gareth

 

 

After Abbot Mathew left, Evan explained more about what Barri had told him, little as that was, and his vague accusation of Anselm. It was Barri’s words, coupled with the bits and pieces they’d acquired along the way, that had given Evan the knowledge to question Mathew, and for that Gareth was grateful. He did lament the foul layer that seemed to underlie Dinefwr, much of it just below the level of villainy. Unfounded accusations and gossip appeared to be a way of life.

It made him wonder if there was something unusually wrong with the moral fiber of the people here. Was it due to a general disregard for right and wrong that started at the top with the king, or was Aber no different, and Gareth was so used to encompassing the misdeeds of the people of Gwynedd that he couldn’t see it? He was, however, perfectly happy to indict Anselm, sight unseen, for everything that had happened at Dinefwr. Unfortunately, if he was to do so in the presence of King Cadell, he needed more than Barri’s word.

“Where did Barri say he would meet you?” Gareth said.

“Here at the monastery.” Evan frowned. “I didn’t think too much about the specific spot.”

“Let’s have a look around, shall we?” Gareth grabbed a torch from a sconce outside the church door and walked across the courtyard with it. Evan had a lantern of his own, and he followed Gareth towards the graveyard. Sir Robert had met his killer there, and despite that fact, it was still a good place to meet someone after hours.

Gareth took a few steps past the gate and slotted his torch into another sconce by the entrance.

Evan handed Gareth the lantern and then crossed his arms and leaned against the post. “I’ll wait here. That way I can see anyone who comes through the main entrance or out of the cloister.” The rain had let up, and he pushed back his hood. “I know you’ve been wanting to have another look at the cemetery when nobody else was about.”

Gareth lowered the lantern to a few inches above the grass. When he’d been murdered, Sir Robert had fallen between two gravestones, surprised from behind by his attacker. Gareth began to circle the area, not necessarily looking for anything specific, but looking for something—anything—that would give him a perspective on the killer. With both Robert and Alban dead, plus the poisoning, the death toll had risen to such a height that he was surprised Cadell hadn’t picked a man out of the crowd and hanged him just to be seen to be doing something.

Of course, that didn’t appear to be the way he worked. Gareth had to respect him for his patience, though that didn’t lessen the pressure on Gareth himself to find answers where up to now he’d found none.

The graveyard was in the form of a triangle, since the road that ran by the church didn’t run exactly north to south but off at an angle, and the church itself had been oriented east to west. An oak tree the builders had chosen not to cut down took up the far western corner, with enough room between the trunk and the wall for a man to fit, were that man looking to hide. It was as good a place as any to start, and Gareth moved behind the tree, bending to shine the lantern deep within the grass, hoping to see footprints or a token to indicate a man had stood there.

“I wouldn’t have said it was a nice night to be standing in a graveyard.” The voice was Anselm’s, and he wasn’t talking to Gareth, hidden as he was behind the tree, but to Evan. If the fact that Anselm was in the graveyard at such a late hour wasn’t bad enough, the second question, following hard on the heels of the first statement, raised Gareth’s hackles. “Are you alone?”

“I’m here to meet someone,” Evan said.

“Is that so.” It wasn’t a question.

“Not you, obviously,” Evan said.

Gareth doused the lantern and eased further behind the tree as silently as he could while still making sure he could see Evan and Anselm. He’d kept the lantern low to the ground because he’d been looking for boot prints, a fact for which he was grateful now since the grass and the tree had hid the light from Anselm’s eyes. There had definitely been boot prints in the earth too, making him think his guess about where the killer had stood was right. If not for Anselm’s arrival, he would have taken a measurement, but instead he stayed still and listened.

Anselm looked right and left. “I don’t see anyone.”

Evan eased into a more ready stance, even to the point of dropping his left hand to his sword. “He’s late.”

Anselm spread his hands wide. “There’s no need for that. I am not your enemy.”

“How do you figure?”

“Your prince allies with my king. Thus, we are allies ourselves. Who are you waiting for?”

Gareth noted Anselm’s habit of tagging a question onto the end of an otherwise innocuous string of thoughts. It was an interesting technique for catching a suspect unawares.

And, with a start, Gareth realized that’s exactly how Anselm was treating Evan—as if he was a suspect and someone to interrogate.

Evan, who may or may not have realized himself what was happening, answered calmly enough. “Barri.”

“Maurice’s man. Why?”

“I’m not sure that’s any of your business.”

Gareth swallowed down a laugh. If the shaking of Anselm’s shoulders was an indication, he was amused too, but what he said next was not so amusing. “Then perhaps you won’t be pleased to hear that I saw him taking the western road not a quarter of an hour ago.”

Evan frowned. “What do you mean?”

“As I reached the bottom of the castle hill, I saw Barri riding past on the main road, coming from the east. He kept going, however, so if you were thinking to meet him tonight, I suspect it will be a lengthy wait.”

Evan looked at Anselm for a long moment. He held himself so still Gareth wasn’t sure he was even breathing. Anselm’s back was to Gareth, so he took a chance and showed himself for a heartbeat, signaling to Evan that he should go. Evan made no sign of recognition that Gareth could see from this distance. But then he scoffed, turned on his heel, and stalked away, back through the gate. At first his footsteps resounded on the cobbles of the courtyard, and then they faded away.

Gareth himself moved back into hiding the instant Evan departed, retreating behind the tree and barely daring to breathe.

Anselm stood silent for a moment, letting Evan get out of sight, and then he shoved the gate closed, turned, and began to walk deeper into the graveyard, towards the several dozen newly dug graves that men had spent all day digging in preparation for the funeral tomorrow. He passed Gareth’s position, though still fifty feet and many gravestones away from him, and then finally stopped, facing away from Gareth, his hands on his hips. “I know you’re here. You can come out now.”

Gareth didn’t move.

A few heartbeats later, he was glad he hadn’t. Barri himself straightened from where he’d been hiding behind a stone crypt. He came out slowly, almost haltingly, while Anselm waited for him, still amused. Fortunately, the distance and angle between their two hiding places meant Barri couldn’t have seen Gareth when he’d shown himself to Evan.

“What game are you playing?” Barri said.

Anselm scoffed. And then, before Barri knew what was happening, the spy had swept Barri’s legs out from under him, landing him face first in the grass. With his knee in Barri’s back, Anselm pulled on Barri by his ponytail, lifting his head and chest off the ground, and put a knife to his throat. It was a series of moves Gareth had never seen done so well—and so quickly Gareth himself had hardly been able to keep up with the steps.

“You might want to save your thanks until after you tell me what I want to know. Where’s the treasure?”

“I don’t know!”

“Try again.” Anselm jerked harder on the ponytail. For a small man, he had a startling ability to be menacing. “You are at the heart of this. You killed Sir Robert, and then you killed Alban. Why?”

“I didn’t! I didn’t!”

“It had to be you. There’s nobody else it could be.”

Barri was trying desperately to hold his neck away from the knife, but Anselm gave no quarter. He tugged once, and Barri screamed. From where Gareth crouched, he couldn’t see what Anselm had done, but whatever it was, it had been painful. If Barri had been Gareth’s own man, he would have intervened, but he didn’t trust either of these men.

“I have no problem slicing your throat and leaving you to bleed out right here.”

Barri screamed again and then with gasping breaths said, “All right! All right! I killed Alban. But he’s to blame for Sir Robert’s death.”

Anselm didn’t ease up. “Keep talking.”

“We did have the treasure, stored in the cellar of Alban’s shed, just like Sir Gareth thought. We’ve been quietly selling it, a piece at a time, for years.”

“How did you come by it?”

“We were both at Oxford, on Stephen’s behalf. We caught Maud’s men after they sneaked the treasure across the river. They were supposed to take back roads and meet Maud at Devizes. She got away, but the treasure couldn’t move as quickly.”

“Surely the two of you didn’t do all this yourselves?”

Barri didn’t answer immediately, but then the scream came again. Gareth couldn’t see from where he crouched what Anselm was doing to Barri, but it was enough to keep him talking. Barri was in genuine fear for his life. Even if Cadell chose the Norman punishment of hanging over the Welsh practice of sarhad—payment to the victim’s family—death later was better than death now by Anselm’s hand.

“Not at first.” Barri’s voice trembled. “We-we killed everyone else in our company.”

“That sounds like you, not Alban.”

“It was my idea,” Barri said sulkily. “Alban went along with it because of the gold.”

“Why were you not caught?”

Barri’s voice came a little stronger, now that he was speaking the truth. “It was such chaos and confusion after the battle that once the men who helped us were dead, it was easy to hide the treasure and return to our respective companies. A bleeding head wound can explain a day’s absence.”

“What was Sir Robert’s role? Was he there that day?”

“No. But somehow Cadell and Maurice learned the treasure hadn’t made it to Devizes and had come to Wales instead.” The words tumbled over themselves. “They began to openly look for it, and Robert was getting too close!”

“What about Alban?”

“He was losing his nerve. Those men from Gwynedd don’t back off for anyone. I knew Alban was going to betray me, so I followed Robert to the church and killed him before Alban could tell him the truth.”

“Why not just kill Alban then and save yourself the trouble?”

“Alban is never alone. Besides, if Alban died, Robert might return to his manor. I couldn’t risk him searching the property. Of course, while I was in the graveyard here, someone was moving the treasure from the cellar.”

“Who?” The question came with a jerk of Barri’s head.

“I don’t know!”

Evan had spoken of Barri as clever and secretive, and his plan had been just that. It was disconcerting that he and Alban had managed to keep it a secret all this time, right under King Cadell’s nose.

“What about Meicol?” Anselm said.

“I don’t—I don’t know anything about why he died.”

Anselm didn’t believe him, and more screams erupted from Barri but no more answers. The rain had started to fall again, and the water and blood ran together down Barri’s neck.

“Where is the treasure now?”

“I told you the truth!” Barri was sobbing. “Don’t you think I would tell you if I knew? It was in the cellar of the shed, and then it wasn’t. Someone moved it, but I don’t know who. Neither did Alban.”

“So say you! What if he lied to you? You’ve killed him, and now we’ll never find it!”

In that moment, Gareth really thought Anselm was going to slit Barri’s throat. Throughout the interrogation, Gareth had been watching Anselm’s face more than Barri’s, and it was terrifying in its coldness and certainty. He could have been whitewashing a house, so little did what he was doing to Barri affect him. And still, Gareth had to admit that without Barri’s confession, they might never have discovered the truth about the murders or that the treasure had been moved on the night of the celebration.

The question, of course, which Anselm had already asked, was by whom?

What was also clear to Gareth was that all Anselm cared about was the treasure. He had no feelings one way or the other about the murders. Information about them was a means to an end. It also occurred to Gareth that were Anselm to silence Barri, it would leave the spy to pursue the treasures himself, for his own gain.

Truth be told, Gareth had learned as much about Anselm in the last quarter of an hour as he’d learned about Barri.

Anselm finally seemed to accept that Barri could tell him nothing more, and he came off Barri’s back. Barri collapsed onto the grass, weeping.

Anselm turned his head and looked directly to where Gareth was hiding. “Did you get all that?”

Gareth laughed under his breath, though entirely without humor, and stepped out from behind the tree. “Yes.”

From his pocket, Gareth pulled the short length of rope he always carried, the one he could have used to measure the length of the boot print. With Barri’s confession, that was no longer necessary. Kneeling, he tied Barri’s hands behind his back and then lifted him to his feet.

Turning him, he held him by the upper arms. He had looked into the eyes of many murderers over the years, but few showed as little regret about what they’d done as Barri. He regretted being caught, certainly. He regretted losing control of the treasure. But he didn’t care a silver piece for the deaths of Sir Robert or Alban, his co-conspirator. Admittedly, Alban himself had sold out Barri earlier in the day.

“Do you know what Robert was doing here that night?”

“No.” Barri spat on the ground. “And I don’t care. It’s just my bad luck you didn’t take the bait.”

Gareth’s eyes widened briefly as he understood what Barri meant. “You planted that signet ring to make us think Robert was spying for FitzWizo.”

Barri tsked through his teeth. “Why didn’t you believe it?”

“We’re asking the questions.” Gareth had no need to explain himself or his methods to Barri. Though the truth was, with Robert dead, pursuing that lead hadn’t seemed important. It did mean that if there was a spy within Cadell’s domains, he was still out there. “How did you come by it?”

Barri’s scorn was tangible. “I pulled it off one of FitzWizo’s men. How else?” He had poured out his guts to Anselm, but now that the pain had ended, he could be disrespectful to Gareth.

“If he wasn’t a spy, why was Robert here?”

“How should I know?”

“Guess.”

“The stables at the castle are full, so he left his horse here. He’d done it all week. Alban said Robert was seeing a woman.”

“Why would Alban care who Robert saw?” Anselm said.

“If they married and had a child, Alban would lose everything.” Barri sneered. “We had more than enough gold to see us through, but Alban wanted the status and land he would get through Robert upon his death. He wanted respect.”

“So you got it for him—for all of a single day before you killed him too.” Gareth found himself sickened and disheartened. Gone were the days when men like Barri could spark a righteous anger in him. Now they just made him want to sleep for a week. “Do you know where this woman lives?”

Barri jerked his head to indicate west. “Somewhere that way. I don’t know her name. Nobody does.”

Gareth eyed his captive. A thought had just occurred to him, and he wanted to speak of it now, since he feared the moment he gave Barri to Cadell, he would lose access and control. “Were you the one who spread the rumor that Walter FitzWizo had the treasure? You’re Maurice’s man, so you could have done it easily.”

Barri had the conceit to look proud of himself, but it was Anselm who answered. “Walter FitzWizo is a supporter of King Stephen and a far more loyal one than the Fitzgeralds and the Earl of Pembroke have ever been. If the treasure had come to Wales, Wiston was a logical place to have stored it until it could be safely transported to Stephen’s treasury in London.”

Gareth nodded to himself. “And the reason it wouldn’t have been transported already is the miles of territory controlled by Earl Robert of Gloucester between here and there.”

“Indeed. It was sound logic, just not what happened to it.” Anselm began to walk away, not towards the monastery courtyard, but out the other side of the churchyard.

“Where are you going?” Gareth called after him. “This is your arrest, not mine.”

Anselm waved a hand above his head without looking back. “You heard everything he said. I don’t care to waste any more time with a murderer and thief.” Then he paused as he reached the last gravestone, finally turning his head to look at Gareth. “The treasure is out there, and I am going to find it.”