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Gwen
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“I’m Adela. We spoke earlier.” The woman appeared to be about Gwen’s height and near to her age, with dark hair pulled back so tightly it had Gwen wincing.
Gwen had found a bench in the back of the great hall out of everyone’s way to nurse her son. She would have chosen a spot closer to the fire, but she didn’t want to call attention to herself. Sitting in the corner, she could watch and wait. Or so she’d thought.
“I remember.” And Gwen did, though the specifics of the conversation they’d had were somewhat fuzzy.
It might be wrong to claim that all English people looked the same, but Gwen felt that way much of the time, in large part because their expressionless faces, all grim and dour, made them similar in appearance and so very difficult to read. The Welsh spoke with their hands, their faces, and their eyes as well as their mouths.
Though, as she’d discovered during the course of this investigation, the English—whether Saxon or Norman—were no less full of emotion on the inside, if one could get them to show it. Gwen was willing to bet this woman felt something too. “I’m sorry for your loss.”
She’d said it to every person she’d interviewed, but she thought it bore repeating. Adela bent her head in acknowledgement, as had every woman today. But then she went on to add, “Sir Aubrey was my grandfather.”
“I-I didn’t know.” Gwen found herself stuttering her surprise, and it was on the tip of her tongue to ask why didn’t you say so before?
But she didn’t have to because Adela said, “It didn’t seem right to claim it in front of Mabs.”
“I’m sorry. I still don’t understand.”
Adela sighed. “Mabs’s mother was my aunt, Sir Aubrey’s daughter. Mabs is illegitimate, however, whereas my father married my mother.” Then she laughed lightly. “You don’t need to say it: yes, you are not the only one who finds it odd that Earl Robert named his illegitimate daughter after his wife.”
“Did it help?”
Again the low laugh. “As you could probably tell yourself, there’s both love and hate there. Mabs’s life would have been very different if my aunt had survived her birth, but she did not.”
“What was your grandfather’s relationship with Mabs?”
Adela hemmed and hawed for a moment. “He tried. He blamed himself for his daughter’s death, feeling that he didn’t sufficiently discourage her relationship with the earl.”
“What could he have done? Earl Robert was your grandfather’s employer and possibly the most powerful man in England, next to King Stephen.”
“Don’t let anyone else hear you say that!” She dropped her chin. “He was the most powerful man in England. But if Sir Aubrey had come to him and asked that he put aside his daughter, the earl would have done so. My grandfather feels he should have sent Isabeau away. Or, better yet, married her to someone else. Many men would have accepted her.”
Gwen looked Adela up and down. “If you and Mabs are cousins, what is your role in the household?”
“I kept house for my grandfather. Our quarters are above the inner gatehouse.” That was typically the location of the steward’s apartments. In some castles, they were as well appointed as the king’s. Gareth had mentioned a desire to inspect them but, with one thing and another, had not yet gained permission.
“Do you and Mabs get along? She doesn’t seem very happy with her lot.” Taran had fallen asleep nursing, and Gwen adjusted him and her clothes so they were both more comfortable. Gwen didn’t remember Tangwen being so accommodating at this age, but she was grateful that he had so far been a help to the investigation.
Adela sighed. “Mabs is illegitimate, but she is King Henry’s granddaughter by blood. She allows herself to be stuck in the middle—too lofty for the likes of me, even if we are cousins, but not high enough to be an equal in the earl’s household. She is Earl William’s half-sister! But if they have spoken more than a few words to each other in ten years, you wouldn’t know it.”
“It must be hard for all of you.” Not for the first time, Gwen was thankful to have been born Welsh where these distinctions were either less evident or nonexistent.
“It is much easier being me.” Adela paused. “I loved my grandfather.” Her voice was choked off by rising tears, and she looked down at her lap.
Gwen reached out and took her hand. “Why are you here instead of with your family in their time of grief?”
“I didn’t want to be at home anymore. I don’t want to cry anymore, and I knew that if I went the tears would fall again.” There was as much pain in her voice as Gwen had heard in Lady Mabel’s, and she herself unstiffened further, scooting closer and putting her arm around her. It seemed her lot to comfort the mourning women of Bristol Castle.
Eventually Adela calmed and regained control of herself, her face settling back into repose. Gwen had questioned many suspects and witnesses over the years, and while she didn’t feel comfortable milking a grieving woman for information, she would listen as long as Adela was willing to stay with her.
“You are very kind to sit with me. With all these other deaths, I think nobody wants to talk to anyone else. We are all tired of tears.”
“Since you worked in the castle, you must have known Jenet and Bernard,” Gwen said.
“And Rose.”
The news that Rose’s body had been discovered in the river had spread through the castle like a fire through a stable. People had been openly weeping, so William had left the conference to speak calmingly to everyone, and a priest had come as well to bless and sanctify the hall and pray for a quick discovery of the murderer.
“Bernard was often in our chambers,” Adela continued. “He and my grandfather were friends, you know.”
“I didn’t know,” Gwen said. “Weren’t they very different in age?”
“Yes. My grandfather was much older, but Bernard amused him. And, of course, they were both companions to Earl Robert. Along with Fitzharding, and occasionally Charles, late in the evening they would sit together and drink good wine.” Then Adela frowned. “They had a falling out a few days before he died, however. I heard them arguing.”
“Before who died?”
“Bernard. I’d woken in the night and saw a light. I didn’t go out into the sitting room, but my grandfather was speaking in a harsh whisper to someone at the door. I realized it was Bernard, and then my grandfather said something like you made your bed. Now you must lie in it.”
“Do you know what he was talking about?”
Adela shook her head. “I drew back before he knew I was listening.” She paused. “Perhaps you’ve been told that my grandfather was struggling with his memory? That’s why he kept lists of everyone who came and went in the castle. If he didn’t, he wouldn’t remember.”
“We have noticed the lists,” Gwen said encouragingly.
“After Bernard went away, my grandfather got very drunk. I helped him to bed, and the whole time he was muttering about his lists. He kept saying there was something he should be remembering about them but couldn’t. He even took the name of the Lord in vain.”
Gwen allowed a suitably shocked expression to cross her face, though traveling with knights and men-at-arms as she often did, few curses could shock her anymore.
Adela shrugged. “In the morning, as was often the case, my grandfather had forgotten all about it.”
“Do you have any idea what he’d been talking about?”
Adela shook her head again, the tears returning, and her words echoed what Gareth and Llelo had concluded. “I’ve gone over those lists of his many times. There’s nothing out of the ordinary in them at all.”
