Hywel
“What do you mean they aren’t here?” Hywel swept a hand across his brow, pushing the wet hair from his face and glaring at Meilyr.
Meilyr tried to defend his son-in-law. “My lord, the Deputy Sheriff asked for Gareth’s help with a murder—”
Hywel made a slashing motion with one hand, cutting him off, “You don’t say.”
To suggest that it had been a long day would be an understatement. Hywel had been looking forward to a warm fire and a meal at the behest of the monks, but instead he’d been met in the stable by Meilyr with his bad news. It wasn’t Meilyr’s fault, of course. If Gareth thought he had difficulty controlling Hywel at times, Hywel had nothing on Gareth himself. The man could find himself in trouble just by pulling on his boots in the morning.
Or Gwen could.
Neither would have turned their back on John Fletcher if he’d asked for their help.
“Have you told John Fletcher that they’re missing?” Hywel said, his eyes going to the rain pounding on the cobbles of the monastery’s courtyard.
“I was about to go myself, since Gwalchmai and Tangwen are finally asleep,” Meilyr said. “Gareth said not to worry about them until at least an hour after compline.”
“We’re there now,” Hywel said.
“Where are your men, my lord?” Meilyr said, looking past Hywel for his teulu, which, of course, wasn’t with him.
“It’s a long story.” Hywel growled under his breath. “Never you mind John Fletcher. I will send Evan to find him.”
“John is here, my lord,” Evan said from behind Hywel.
Hywel turned to see Evan and John Fletcher entering through the wide stable doorway, both shaking rain off their cloaks as they did so.
John bowed. “My lord, it is a pleasure to see you again. Why did you need me?”
“Gareth and Gwen have gone missing,” Hywel said. “What brings you to the abbey if not that?”
“I detained a merchant, Flann MacNeill, as he was leaving the town,” John said. “I came here to ask Gareth if he’d like to be present when I questioned him.”
“I thought you didn’t have enough information to hold Flann?” Meilyr glared at the young sheriff, as if it was his fault that Gareth and Gwen were missing.
“I didn’t, but at Gareth’s suggestion, I put the manager of a local brothel under watch, and she met with Flann not an hour ago. Young Oswin reported the meeting to me, and I decided that Flann had become enough of a person of interest in regards to these murders to justify questioning him.”
“I’m sure Gareth would want to be part of that, were he here.” Hywel shook his head, trying to dismiss the buzzing in his ears that came from knowing nothing about anything that was going on. He wasn’t even going to ask who Flann MacNeill was, how a brothel came into it, or how either were connected to murder. It was bound to be a long story, which he didn’t have time for. Hywel turned back to Meilyr. “Where did Gareth and Gwen go?”
“They wanted to spy out another brothel beyond St. Giles,” Meilyr said, and then at Hywel’s derisive laugh, put up both hands, “though there was something about leaving Gwen at the abandoned abbey mill.”
“Why a brothel?” Hywel said.
“It is owned by the same group of men as the one in town that Gareth suspected of being linked to the murders he’s investigating.”
“And what is that link?” But before anyone could answer, Hywel waved his hands in frustration, feeling like he was going in circles. “Never mind. Fletcher, lead the way to the brothel.” Then Hywel pointed at Meilyr. “You stay here in case Gareth and Gwen return.”
“Yes, my lord.”
Hywel found that he was no longer interested in a warm fire, and though his horse had been ridden far today, another mile wasn’t going to harm him. In short order, John roused a dozen watchmen from the Abbey Foregate and the Eastgate region of Shrewsbury, to give him a good complement of men, and with Hywel, Cadifor, and Evan, rode onto the main road.
Never talkative to begin with, Evan’s face had settled into grim lines of determination—as well as exhaustion, Hywel surmised—a match to Hywel’s own expression. Cadifor looked impassive, as always, and he rode close to Hywel’s side as if the Englishmen with whom they rode might turn on him at any moment. Cadifor didn’t speak English, and that had to be making him uncomfortable. Hywel’s English was only passable, but since John himself spoke both Welsh and French, they found themselves getting by.
Fortunately, the ride to the brothel, which they took at a gallop, took no time at all, though John pulled up when they still had a hundred yards to go. Hywel and the others stopped too, in response to John’s raised fist giving a silent command.
Four months ago, John had attacked Gareth in the courtyard of the abandoned monastery in Clwyd, but that overt confidence had been sheer bravado, overlaying an insecurity that had colored his actions.
This John was a different man, one who’d grown accustomed to giving orders and having them obeyed. Hywel didn’t begrudge him his authority. He didn’t know the area at all and still didn’t understand what they were doing here or why Gareth and Gwen had thought to investigate the brothel on their own. He did understand that they could be in trouble—and that was all the information Hywel needed to act.
A door banged somewhere up ahead, and a man shouted in English. With the rain and the distance, Hywel couldn’t make out the words, but John nodded. “My lord, perhaps the two of us could move closer to the brothel itself to spy out the situation, while the others fan out into the woods around it. If Gareth and Gwen have been captured, I don’t want their throats slit because we’re seen coming.”
Hywel nodded, signaling that Evan and Cadifor should go with the others. He and John rode openly into the clearing in front of the brothel. The main building had a sign out front with a picture of a dancing girl, which was certainly appropriate. Other buildings lay behind the main one in the yard, which had a fence around it, more to delineate that property, Hywel thought, than to keep anyone out. Or in.
The brothel was a large building, two stories high, nearly forty feet wide at the front, and seemed to extend at least that far at the back. Torches shone brightly from stands on either side of the doorway. They had to have been fueled by oil since the rain was pelting freely down.
As they approached the front door, it opened, and laughter echoed through the night towards them. A man came out and circled around to the back of the property. This whole scene would have been inviting if Hywel wasn’t fearing for the lives of his friends.
“It sounds like they’re doing a brisk trade tonight despite the rain,” John said. “Do we go straight in the front?”
“No—let’s follow where that man went first and see what’s there,” Hywel said. “The complex appears to include more than just the inn and extends far back from the road.”
In addition to the main building, three other structures were associated with the brothel: a kitchen; a two-story, house-like structure; and a long low building, from which the man who’d left the brothel led his horse, indicating it was the stable. He mounted and rode away without ever looking in Hywel and John’s direction.
John headed towards the stable, lifting a hand as he approached the boy, who stood in the entrance to take his bridle.
Hywel dismounted and led Glew under the eaves himself, shaking out his cloak before entering because the rain had become torrential. Once inside, without waiting for permission, Hywel strode down the center aisle, past a dozen occupied stalls, looking from one side to the other until he reached the second to the last stall on the left. It was without shock or even surprise that he recognized Gareth’s horse, Braith. Gwen’s horse was housed in a nearby stall.
Braith whickered gently, recognizing him, and even as Hywel’s mind galloped down pathways he would rather not think about, he patted the horse’s neck reassuringly. Hywel himself was far from reassured. Gareth and Gwen had to be here, but from what Meilyr had said, Gareth had not planned to take Gwen inside the brothel.
Then John approached, having given up his horse to the stable boy. “Are we really staying? Gareth and Gwen must have entered the brothel, else why leave their horses?”
“No, we’re not staying.” Hywel pointed with his chin to his friends’ horses. “Braith still wears her saddle, which means Gareth didn’t care for her before he left her here. That is unlike him and would have aroused my suspicions if they weren’t already as high as they could go.”
“Where could he have gone?”
Hywel pictured the yard outside the stable. “We’ll search every corner of this property. Get your men. Gareth and Gwen have to be here somewhere.” He shivered, less from the rain dripping from his hair onto his neck than at the thought of his friends in trouble. Then his brow furrowed. “Meilyr mentioned an old mill where Gwen was supposed to wait for Gareth. Do you know it?”
“I-I don’t know exactly—”
Hywel didn’t wait for John to finish stuttering his uncertainty but strode back towards the stable boy. “Did you see the owners of those horses come in?” He indicated Gareth’s and Gwen’s horses.
“No, sir. They were here when I arrived.”
“And when was that?”
“Less than an hour ago.”
Hywel stepped closer. “Someone mentioned an old mill nearby. Where is it?”
“I don’t know of any mill—” he broke off, his expression belying his words.
“Where?”
“Out the back is a track that goes west to the old mill race—”
But Hywel was already heading for the door.