Gareth hadn’t thought very hard about what he would do when he got to Offa’s Dyke. Yes, King Owain and Ranulf, the Earl of Chester, were on good terms—or as good terms as a Welsh King and a Norman baron could be when each guarded their territory carefully—but Gareth would be pursuing a fugitive from Wales into England. Most rulers didn’t like that. In fact, English villains could find freedom in Wales, and often did, since the Norman writ stopped at the border. It would be hard to find a Welshman who was above harboring an English criminal if it meant he could thumb his nose at Norman law.
In turn, King Owain’s writ stopped at the border of Gwynedd. Still, from the looks of things, if Pedr had told Prior Rhys the truth, it was to Chester that Gareth had to go. He left the monastery before first light, passed the Dyke by mid-morning, and shortly after noon, approached the gates of the city. Chester was the most substantial settlement in this part of England. Once, it had been the home of the twentieth Roman legion, whose job it was to control Wales. The Saxons, and Normans after them, had fortified it for the same purpose.
A curtain wall fronted by a ditch circled the entire city, which had four gates: the water gate to the west, by which flowed the River Dee and which allowed access to the city for shipping and trade, the north gate, the east gate, and the bridge gate. Gareth headed for the last of these, riding over the bridge that spanned the Dee as it passed south of the city. A few paces further on, he found himself in a narrow passage, with sandstone walls twelve feet high on either side of him. A gate faced him, flanked by two massive towers.
Men, women, children, horses, and carts crowded into the passage. They passed in and out of the city in a near-continual stream. Gareth had arrived on market day. The crush of people forced Dewi to one side and Gareth edged him along the wall. Gareth kept his eyes on the tower above him and his bearing upright. He hoped none of the guards would shoot him when they realized he was a Welshman. He slowed, allowing a few people to get ahead of him. He had a terrible feeling that the passage could prove to be a funnel leading into a cage.
Although the two men guarding the entrance to the city allowed most people to pass without inspection, Gareth didn’t even try. He waited for the guards, who were now joined by a third man who’d watched Gareth from the moment he set foot on the bridge. As Gareth had entered under the gatehouse, this man had gone so far as to lean over the battlement to glare down at him. Finally, Gareth reached the front of the line and dismounted in front of the guards.
The man who’d come down from the battlements spoke first. “Who are you and what is your business?” He wore a big Saxon beard and spoke in English. Gareth wasn’t fluent in the language but spoke it well enough to understand and be understood.
Gareth bowed slightly at the waist. “I come on business to your Earl.” Gareth felt it best to keep the reason for his journey to himself, for now. Certainly, he didn’t want to broadcast to just anyone what Pedr had done, but more to the point, he had forgotten the English word for ‘assassin,’ if he’d ever known it (which was in Welsh, llofrudd).
The man’s eyes narrowed. “Many do. What makes you different such that I should let you in?”
“I am seeking a man,” Gareth said. “He rode here from Wales on horseback. He would have arrived yesterday.”
“We cannot help you,” one of the other guards said.
The first guard shoved at the man’s shoulder. “You weren’t to answer.” He turned back to Gareth. “You are Welsh.”
“Yes,” Gareth said.
“Perhaps you’re a spy? And this man—perhaps he’s a good Englishman if a Welshman hunts him.”
This attitude was nothing less than what Gareth had expected. “I have a letter from the court of Aber in Gwynedd that vouches for me.” Gareth didn’t explain that the letter of safe passage was from Prince Hywel, not King Owain. Hopefully, such a distinction would be minor to this Saxon guard.
After another long stare, which Gareth endured impassively, the bearded man grudgingly waved him on and let him through the gate. The line of people had bunched up behind Gareth as he’d talked with the guard, and he could hear the sighs of relief from those waiting.
“Come with me,” the man said.
Gareth obeyed, leading his horse. Perhaps he could have fled into the city and hidden instantly in the crush of people, which showed no signs of thinning even a dozen yards from the gate. But he was on official business. Best to keep it cordial.
Once they had moved into a side passage, however, the man stuck out his hand and said in perfect Welsh, “I am Dafydd from Powys.”
Gareth grasped his forearm. “Gareth. How is it that you are part of the garrison here?”
“My father was Saxon but my mother was Welsh and I was raised just on the other side of the border. She died when I was fourteen and I came east with my father.”
“I’m a captain in the teulu of Prince Hywel of Gwynedd.”
Dafydd raised his eyebrows. “A knight, then.”
“Yes.”
Dafydd looked Gareth up and down openly. “I should have known this by your sword and armor, but not by your cloth. The exchequer at Aber is not what it should be?”
Gareth laughed, relieved to have found someone he could talk to. He’d spent all morning with his stomach in a tight knot, wondering if he’d end the day in a cell beneath Chester Castle without any chance to find his quarry. “That’s not it at all. It was better not to call attention to myself with finery. I’m tracking an assassin and it’s been a long road.”
“Then perhaps I can shorten it.” Dafydd turned Gareth to the west and indicated that he should come with him. “Did you say an assassin? Whom did he murder?”
“He didn’t murder anyone,” Gareth said. “But he tried.”
“I will take you to the sheriff.” Dafydd eyed Gareth warily. “You realize that King Owain has no jurisdiction here?”
“I know it,” Gareth said. “Although I wouldn’t object to bringing the boy back to Gwynedd, my greater objective is to find him and speak to him. There is more here to talk about than just his crime.”
All the while they’d been speaking, Gareth had been taking in the sights and sounds of Chester. The city streets were cramped and stinking. Gareth and Dafydd had to make sure to keep to the center of the lane to avoid the waste in the gutters. Women leaned out upper windows to call to passers-by or their neighbors. The street was loud and raucous. Gareth didn’t know if he loved it or hated it, but he couldn’t deny the energy coursing through him from all the activity.
After a few dozen yards, Dafydd turned onto a less busy street which ended at Chester Castle’s front gate. Although up close it showed an imposing façade, compared to other castles Gareth had seen, it didn’t amount to much. A single stone tower, surrounded by outbuildings and a wooden palisade, perched on a mound in the most southwestern corner of the city and overlooked the River Dee. The City of Chester’s stone walls encircled the castle, eliminating the need for additional fortification on the castle’s inner side.
“The Earl Ranulf is not in residence,” Dafydd said. “That is just as well for you since he’s been out of temper of late, what with all the fighting to the east and south. I will take you directly to the sheriff: Sir Amaury de Granville.”
“Is he … well-disposed to speaking to a Welshman?” Gareth said.
Dafydd laughed and clapped Gareth on the shoulder. “If he weren’t, half his garrison would be gone by morning. You’ll find that the lines between English and Welsh are not so finely drawn in Chester as at Aber.”
“You speak the truth?” Gareth said. “I did not realize …”
Dafydd leaned in closer. “Don’t you know what the English say about us Welshmen?”
“What do they say?” Gareth said.
“That our archers are the finest in Christendom. That we fight from behind trees and hillocks and then melt into our mountains, so high and forbidding that no sane man would attempt to cross them. And yet we do. We move across our landscape without leaving footprints. We are legend to them.”
That sounded good to Gareth, and he could see how the people of Chester would view the men of Wales as secretive and strange, unreachable in their difference. In turn, he had to ask himself how these English lived so packed together. And with such noise! A man had no space to think.
Compared to the city, the bailey of the castle was quiet. A few men stood on the battlements above the Dee and others stood sentry at the gatehouse. The castle had its own small population, but unlike most Welsh castles, it needed to supply little for itself, since whatever the residents needed could be found in the city.
After seeing to Gareth’s horse, Dafydd brought Gareth to an expansive guardroom—an empty one—in the barracks that had been built into the wooden palisade that surrounded the castle. “Wait here.”
Gareth thanked the saints that he’d fallen in with a trusted lieutenant. For a few moments as he’d approached the gates to the City, he’d considered turning tail and running back to Wales. Now, he was glad he hadn’t given in to instinct.
With Dafydd gone, Gareth didn’t sit at any of the long tables that filled the space. Instead, he made a circuit of the room. Prince Hywel would want a full report when Gareth returned, along with a sketch of the castle, its strengths and weaknesses, and a catalog of men and weapons. The sheriff of Chester had lined the walls of the barracks with swords, armor, and bows, some ancient, some new.
Then Dafydd returned. “Here he is, my lord.”
Gareth swung around to see a short, slender, clean-shaven man with close-cropped dark hair enter the room. This was a Norman. Gareth didn’t know that he’d met any true Normans in his life, just a few Marcher lords with Norman blood. None had been such as this man, with no Saxon or Welsh in him at all.
Gareth put his heels together and bowed. “My lord Sheriff.”
“Dafydd tells me that you come from Gwynedd, hunting a man,” the sheriff said in English. “What makes you think he’s here, in Chester?”
“He spent last night at St. Asaph, in the Abbey there, and the prior directed me here,” Gareth said.
“You have reason to trust his word?”
“Yes.”
Sir Amaury nodded. “This man’s name?”
“Pedr ap Marc,” Gareth said.
“And his crime?”
Now they had come to it. “He tried to murder King Owain Gwynedd three days ago.”
Sir Amaury had such control over his expression that he kept his face impassive. “And this man, Pedr, has come to Chester?”
“So I believe,” Gareth said.
The sheriff pursed his lips and gazed at Gareth, or rather, through him. Gareth could practically see his mind churning. “Can you describe him?”
“Better. I can show you.” Gareth reached into his pocket and brought out the now worn image of Pedr.”
“By the Saints!” Dafydd said. “Did you draw that?”
“I did,” Gareth said.
“You have a fine hand.” But Dafydd shook his head regretfully. “I have not seen him.”
Gareth had watched Dafydd’s face as he looked at the paper. His nostrils hadn’t flared and his eyes had shown no flash of recognition.
“I can make more drawings if you are willing to give me some of your men to help me look for Pedr, my lord,” Gareth said to the sheriff.
“I will not give you any men.” The sheriff met Gareth’s eyes. “I’m sure you serve your king well, but I cannot have a soldier of Owain Gwynedd combing my city for a fugitive from Wales. You understand this?”
“Even if he is Welsh?”
“Even if,” Sir Amaury said.
Gareth nodded. “I had hoped for more, but I accept your decision. My king would have been equally reluctant to extend the same courtesy to Earl Ranulf, if a fugitive from England found his way into his domains.”
“Ah. But then you do not understand.” The sheriff looked at Dafydd. “Find him some paper to make more pictures.”
Gareth stared at the sheriff. “What do you want them for?”
Sir Amaury turned back to Gareth. “I said I would not give you men, but I didn’t say that my men wouldn’t hunt for your assassin.” Amaury spoke this last word in French, a language in which Gareth was far more comfortable than English. He would have used it from the start, if it hadn’t meant shutting out Dafydd.
All of a sudden, the day was looking brighter. “I am grateful, my lord.” Gareth bowed again.
“Dafydd will take you around, after you’ve eaten,” Sir Amaury said. “We will find this lad, if he’s here to be found.”
“Thank you, my lord.” Gareth hadn’t been surprised, even as he’d been disappointed, when he thought the sheriff would send him home empty-handed. This was an excellent turn of events.
Dafydd left the room, leaving Gareth alone with the sheriff. Both remained standing, eyeing each other, though not in an unfriendly way. “You are not what I expected,” Sir Amaury said.
“My lord?”
“When Dafydd told me that a Welsh knight was waiting to speak to me, I expected to find one of the men who fought beside me two years ago at Lincoln and then at Winchester.”
“I have never fought in England,” Gareth said.
Sir Amaury coughed. “Better for you. Better for everyone if none of us had been at Winchester. We barely escaped with our lives.”
“So I understood,” Gareth said. The sheriff was going somewhere with this, but for the life of him, Gareth didn’t know where.
“I’ve never met one of King Owain’s men,” Sir Amaury said, “only those who serve his brother, Cadwaladr.”
After a brief respite, Gareth’s sinking feeling was back.
“You would balk, I think,” Sir Amaury said, “at some of the things we’ve had to do in this war between Stephen and Maud.”
“I have done much that I regret, too.” Gareth felt a pinching around his mouth and eyes at the memories.
“Ah. But you don’t cover fear with bluster,” Sir Amaury said. “I don’t see any fear in you at all.”
Gareth’s hand moved to rest on the hilt of his sword. “Should I be afraid?”
“I could lock you up just for setting foot in Chester.” Sir Amaury waved a hand at Gareth, taking in his whole being. “You are a Welsh knight, riding armed into my city.”
“I came with courtesy,” Gareth said, “under the assumption that we are men of honor.”
Sir Amaury nodded. “As I said—not what I expected. Different from Cadwaladr.”
Gareth’s tension began to ease. Here was another man whom he could respect. He’d found two in as many days, first in the prior of St. Asaph and now in the sheriff. “Besides, how would imprisoning me serve your Earl?” Gareth said. “I would just be another mouth to feed, another man to guard to no purpose. Better to boot me out the gate and let me go home.”
The sheriff barked a laugh. “An honorable man, yet a practical one.”
“I’ve learned something in the last few years.” It was on the tip of Gareth’s tongue to tell Sir Amaury that he had served Prince Cadwaladr for a time. But he feared it would expose too much.
Another laugh. “When Dafydd takes you through the taverns, let him do the talking. Your English is terrible.” The sheriff gave Gareth a quick nod of his head and departed, still laughing. Dafydd came through the door just as Sir Amaury pushed through it going the other way. “Take care of him.”
“Yes, my lord.” Dafydd brought paper and charcoal to one of the tables. “You put the sheriff in a good humor. What did you say to him?”
“No more than necessary and that appears to have been enough.”
Dafydd gave Gareth a quizzical look, but didn’t ask more. Gareth sketched a dozen copies of Pedr’s face. Dafydd took the papers to pass among his men and then came back for Gareth. “We’ll start at the gatehouse and work north. I’ve sent men to the other gates. At the very least, we’ll catch him as he’s leaving the city.”
But as the day wore on, it seemed to Gareth that they wouldn’t catch him at all. He and Dafydd made a full circuit of the streets. The sun had long since set by the time they returned to the castle. Gareth felt as if he’d met every single one of Chester’s three thousand residents. Although Gareth didn’t want to give up, he was just opening his mouth to tell Dafydd that he was sorry for wasting everyone’s time when one of Dafydd’s underlings ran up to him.
“I’ve been looking for you everywhere. We’ve found him!”