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Day Two
Gwen
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Gwen left Taran and Tangwen in the kitchen with their nanny and Godfrid’s cook, who was determined to teach Tangwen a few words of Danish in between popping pieces of honeyed roll into her mouth. At least the cook wasn’t feeding her daughter salted herring, which the Danes ate in quantity and served at every meal. Gwen hoped she could manage the rest of the visit without eating any more.
Gareth had returned to the monastery to question the clerics about when they’d last seen Harald and what they knew about him, and Llelo had joined him once he got over his outrage at being left behind in the first place. While Gareth had, in fact, woken him, Gwen decided she’d let Gareth tell Llelo that rather than getting involved. Llelo was a man now, and she was learning (slowly) to keep her parenting and interference to a minimum.
For her part, knowing that churchmen were often reluctant to be interviewed by a woman, Gwen had resolved to leave the monks’ and priests’ activities to the men to sort out and herself take a different tack. Though Gwen hadn’t yet asked Cait about her experience as a slave, she knew the outline of it from Abbot Rhys. Cait hadn’t known the origin of the wooden coin or the door it unlocked, but she had lived amongst the lowest levels of Dublin society. If Cait was willing to talk to the people she knew, they might be able to tell Gwen about the wooden coin.
Once at Conall’s house, Gwen found Cait standing on a stool with a seamstress crouched at her feet, hemming a shimmering rose silk dress. At the sight of Gwen coming up the stairs to the loft, Cait looked woeful. “You would think getting the dress exactly right wouldn’t have come down to the last moment, but inevitably it has.”
The woman at her feet said something in Gaelic, and then another woman, whom Gwen hadn’t noticed, as she was sitting somewhat in the shadows, spoke from behind Cait. “Introduce me to your friend, Caitriona.”
Gwen knew what she’d said because the words were in polished French.
Caitriona gestured in typically graceful fashion herself and said, “This is my mother, Dorte. She arrived in Dublin only this morning. Mother, this is Gwen, the Welsh friend I told you about.”
The seamstress stood up, having finished her hemming, at which point Cait shed her dress before stepping off the stool. Meanwhile, Dorte herself rose gracefully to her feet and came forward into the light. She and her daughter looked so much alike, Gwen would have known Dorte was Cait’s mother without the introduction, and she understood where Cait had acquired her gift for languages as well as her beauty. Cait’s mother was as slender as her daughter, making Gwen feel even dowdier and more awkward than she already did in Cait’s presence. Dorte’s hair was dark like Cait’s, except for two pure white streaks arising from her temples, and her dress was on a par in style and quality with Cait’s wedding dress too, though it looked so perfect on her that Gwen supposed she wore such finery every day.
Gwen curtseyed. “It is wonderful to meet you.”
“And I you, since I have heard so much about you, not just from Cait but from Conall too. You saved his life.” Initially, Dorte had been putting out a hand to Gwen, but then she changed her mind and wrapped her arms around Gwen in a tight hug. Given that Cait was marrying Godfrid, a fierce hugger, Dorte appeared to fit right in. “Thank you. Thank you for allowing my son to come home to me.”
Over Dorte’s shoulder, Cait smiled, and for a moment Gwen thought she saw moisture in her eyes. “I haven’t thanked you properly for that either.”
Gwen’s upper arms were trapped at her sides, but she bent her elbow and managed to pat Dorte on the back. “Conall is a great friend. Gareth and I think often of that investigation, grateful ourselves we reached him in time.”
Dorte stepped back. “It was a close thing, I understand.” Then she dropped her arms, and her expression changed to one of embarrassment. “I apologize for being so forward.”
“No apology is necessary!” Gwen put out a reassuring hand. “We Welsh are known for wearing our hearts on our sleeves. I am very pleased to meet you and, as I said, Conall is a true friend. We are blessed to know him.”
By now, and with the help of a maid, Cait had clothed herself in her day-to-day attire, and she stepped closer to her mother to kiss her on the cheek. “Thank you for your help with the dress.”
“It is my pleasure, as you well know. And I did nothing but provide you with my seamstress.”
“You chose the color.”
Dorte spread her hands wide. “I knew whatever looked good on me would look even better on you.” She touched Cait’s cheek with the back of her forefinger and followed the seamstress down the stairs.
Cait frowned. “Are you going somewhere, Mother?”
Dorte looked back, her expression suddenly coquettish. Few women nearing sixty could have pulled off such a look, but Cait’s mother was one of them. “Your uncle asked me to visit with him at the palace. One of his advisers is a wealthy widower, and he thought I might enjoy meeting him.”
“Mother!” Cait was genuinely shocked.
“I mourned your father, Cait, you know that. I observed the rites. But he’s been dead a long time. I’m tired of being a widow.”
And to her credit, Cait subsided. “I’m sorry I reacted badly. This time I would want the decision of whom and when to marry to be all yours.”
Dorte’s expression hardened slightly. In a flash of insight, Gwen knew where Cait had inherited her iron will too. “Believe me, it will be. If this one won’t do, I will refuse him and my brother until he finds me a man who does suit. No more sister wives for me, for starters.”
Among the Irish, instead of mistresses, which was the Welsh and Norman way, lords were allowed multiple wives. Conall and Cait were half-siblings, sharing a mother but not a father. Dorte had married Cait’s father after the death of Conall’s father, but she’d shared him with two other women—not, it seemed, entirely happily. What Gwen didn’t know, not having spent any time in Ireland outside of Dublin, was if the practice was also usual among the common people. It seemed like a practice destined to create jealousy and a situation where there were too few women to go around. But she could see that if the death toll among men in war was very great, the custom could have been created instead because there were too few men.
Personally, Gwen found the policy of allowing Irishmen to have more than one wife at any given time troubling. In her world, interacting with a man who was married was safer for a woman, married or unmarried, than to converse or associate with one who was not. If the fact that a man was already married was no barrier to pursuing another bride, it threw all social compacts into disarray.
Of course, other peoples, the Normans in particular, thought the Welsh law allowing illegitimate children to inherit was an equally disturbing cause of turmoil. But to Gwen’s mind, it was one thing to punish a couple for adultery. It was quite another to condemn the resulting child, who’d done nothing wrong.
But that was why allowances had to be made for differences when visiting another place. Northern Welsh felt out of place when traveling south and vice versa. Though Gwen shared more blood with the Irish than the Danes, at times she felt the latter were just a bit more familiar in their policies and customs (other than their love of salted herring), though she would never say so to Cait.
After watching Dorte glide out the door, Cait turned to Gwen. “I hope you are here because you need something from me other than to discuss my mother or wedding dresses.”
It was the opening Gwen had been looking for, but now that it came to it, she wasn’t sure how to begin. “I am.”
“Does it involve going somewhere outside this house?”
“Yes.”
Cait grinned. “You can tell me on the way. I need to walk in the sunshine.”
Gwen caught up by the time Cait reached the door, but put a hand on the latch before Cait could open it. “You don’t even know what I came here for, and now that I can ask you, I’m having second thoughts.”
Cait nudged at Gwen’s elbow, getting her to pull on the latch and open the door. Warm summer air flooded the room. “Does it have something to do with the investigation?”
“Well ... yes.”
“Then what more do I need to know?”
“Are you that anxious to escape your wedding preparations?” Gwen still didn’t follow her out the door.
“My mother has them well in hand. As you can see, she is gracious and perfect, and I am not.”
Gwen laughed. “I think many would argue with that assessment, including me—and Godfrid, I’m sure—but all right. If you insist: we are in pursuit of the meaning of the wooden coin.” She took it from her purse and held it out. “I came here to ask you if you have a thought as to where we might go or to whom we might speak about what it unlocks?”
Cait took the coin. “You are so polite! Let me tell you what you are really asking: I lived as a slave, and I know slaves and members of the lowest social order in Dublin.” She looked down at the coin, turning it over in her fingers like everyone who’d held it so far had done. “The last wooden coin like this you saw gained entrance to the brothel where my brother was being held prisoner.”
Gwen bent her head. “I apologize for not trusting you enough to speak frankly. You are right, of course. Gareth and Conall spoke to the bishop yesterday and are even now interviewing the monks and priests. Hopefully they will discover something of use today. A churchman might know about the coin, but I find it much more likely that one of your acquaintances will—and it’s likely enough that I think we really ought to ask.”
“I can see that if a churchman knows what it’s for, and it gains entrance to a brothel, they would not be willing to admit it.”
“Exactly.”
Cait turned the coin around again. “I’m wondering that Conall doesn’t know about it either.”
“Maybe it’s new?”
Cait pressed her lips together, for the first time showing real concern. “That would not be a good thing, because it would be new since Brodar’s ascension to the throne—and that means he doesn’t know about it because we don’t know about it.”
“Let’s not borrow trouble,” Gwen said. “Best simply to ask and await answers.”
Cait bobbed a nod. “Thus, you came to me.”
“I would ask your brother, but he can’t ask questions in his current form, as ambassador to Dublin, and Gareth assures me he shouldn’t be asked to become Fergus the Sailor except as a last resort.”
“True!” Suddenly Cait’s eyes brightened, and she smiled again. “Better not leave this to him. We will do what we can by ourselves.” She hooked her arm through Gwen’s. “I will take you to speak to my friends.”
