| |
Day Two
Dai
––––––––
Dai waved a hand at his mother and Cait, who were heading up the street as he, Cadoc, and Jon were heading down it. According to the blacksmith at the palace, the armorer’s shop was one street up and two over from the dock gate, putting it still a few blocks from where they were walking.
The sight of his mother coming towards him with Cait, however, had him wondering what other pieces of the puzzle they were missing. He’d been so focused on learning Danish and the task Jon had given him, he hadn’t given much thought to anything else. The two women could have gone to visit a seamstress, but given that Cait was a princess, and a seamstress would come to her, working on the investigation seemed more likely. Especially with his mother beside her.
Jon bent his head to Cait and chose to speak in French, for the benefit of everyone present. “Princess.”
“Hello, Jon. Where are you going?”
Even Dai’s French had improved so much, just today, that he didn’t have to think about what they said and translate into Welsh in his head.
“We are pursuing a line of inquiry, as I’ve heard Prince Hywel say,” Jon replied.
Dai looked at his mother. “Where have you been?”
“Doing the same.” She tipped her head. “Should we come along with you?”
Cadoc pursed his lips. “We are going to see a local armorer about Harald’s gear.”
Gwen made a rumbling sound in her throat that was incipient laughter. “Maybe Cait and I shouldn’t come then. I imagine having women along might make him less likely to talk to you three ruffians.” She grinned. “For our part, we just learned what door the coin opens.”
The five of them had formed a circle in the middle of the street. While Gwen explained what she and Cait had learned, Cait’s two guards loitered a few yards away, facing outward. Dai was impressed they knew their job well enough not to abandon their posts out of curiosity. If he had been the guard, he would have been aching to know what they were talking about.
“A fighting ring?” Jon’s tone was highly offended. “Why didn’t I know of it?”
“You’re too high ranking,” Gwen said. “This appears to be for younger, lower men.”
“I’d be interested to learn why Conall wasn’t aware of it when he was living at the docks,” Cait said.
“He’s Irish,” Dai suggested. “They might have worked hard to keep it from him.”
“The boy is right.” Cadoc put a hand briefly on top of Dai’s head, as was becoming a bit of a habit with everyone it seemed. Dai knew he meant to be avuncular and tried not to find it annoying.
Dai gestured to Cait’s guards. “What about Bern and Sitric?”
Everyone looked at the two guards. They were night and day different in coloring, with Bern blond and Sitric dark, but their build was almost identical: tall and burly. Dai felt like a little boy in comparison. But then, they were already grown men and warriors.
Jon gestured for the pair to come closer, though once there, Gwen urged everyone into the alley behind them. “We’re starting to be noticed.”
Once the others had followed, Jon, who was Bern and Sitric’s commander, put the question to them, in Danish, of course: “Tell me of this fighting ring that is accessed by this wooden coin.”
Bern’s reply was immediate, “What fighting ring?” but Sitric’s denial came just a little too late, and only after a blank look of surprise he couldn’t control crossed his face. He was a few years older than Dai and hadn’t mastered the impassive look most Danes affected when in public. Even Godfrid, who was so exuberant to his friends, had managed to keep his hatred of Ottar a secret for five years.
Dai wasn’t the only one who saw the hesitation in Sitric. Gwen moved closer, the wooden coin in the palm of her hand. “We have one, you see.”
She spoke in Danish too, and Dai found himself suddenly proud of his mother. Languages hadn’t always come easily to him either, and it had made him appreciate how they often didn’t for others. His mother already spoke Welsh, French, and English, as most of Hywel’s party did. Instead of being resentful that he wasn’t special, he found himself cheering her on.
Sitric stared at the coin for so long, Dai thought he wasn’t going to answer, but finally he cleared his throat. “I’ve been sworn to secrecy. We all take an oath.”
“You took an oath to Godfrid,” Jon said.
Sitric’s expression turned stricken, and now Cait put a hand on his arm. “We already know about the wooden coins and the fighting ring, so we don’t need you to break your word. We’ll leave it for now.”
“Thank you, my lady. I will—” he swallowed hard, “—I will speak to Prince Godfrid when he returns. I will understand if this means I can no longer be in your service.”
Jon made an ach sound at the back of his throat.
Cait glanced at him, and Jon knew what he’d done and bowed. “My pardon, my lady. I realize it isn’t up to me.”
She made a dismissive gesture. “None of that. You are a loyal companion and friend, Jon. As is Sitric. You have nothing to apologize for. We will all deal with this when Godfrid gets home. Gwen and I will wait for you at the house.” Cait tipped her head to Bern, who was glaring at his companion. Sitric, for his part, could only look at his feet. “Come.”
Gwen gave Dai a pat on the shoulder. “Hurry back!”
That left the three men alone again to walk the last hundred yards to the armorer’s workshop. As they approached, a Godfrid-sized man opened the door, ducked under the lintel, and departed, an axe resting on his shoulder.
Suddenly, Dai stopped and put the back of his hand to Cadoc’s chest. “Let me go in alone.”
Cadoc opened his mouth, probably to argue, but then a thoughtful look entered his eyes. Jon stopped too, his expression quizzical. “What are we doing?”
“You and I will loiter over here,” Cadoc said, “and then, after a bit, we’ll come in, arguing about axes or something equally Danish.”
“You don’t speak Danish,” Dai objected.
Cadoc laughed. “Then Jon can be haranguing me. Anything to disarm the proprietor and make him think you aren’t with us.”
Jon’s eyes turned thoughtful too, and while he considered the wisdom of Cadoc’s plan, Dai unbuckled his sword belt and handed it to Cadoc, along with its accompanying knife. “I can’t look like who I really am.” He also took off his cloak that marked him as a nobleman’s son and the jacket he wore underneath. That left him in shirtsleeves and breeches. The cloth used to make them was of good quality, but not the best, and both were hand-me-downs from Llelo, so they were a little too big.
Cadoc took the sword, holding it by the sheath as if he didn’t know what to do with it and then bent to the street to gather dust to smear across Dai’s cheek. “That’s a bit more like the vagabond I know you to be at heart.”
With a grin and a wave, Dai left them to enter the workshop.
As the previous customer had done, Dai ducked under the lintel (pleased he had to duck at all), and stepped into the shop—and in his surprise, came to an abrupt halt two feet into the room.
The proprietor, who was standing on the other side of a long counter that ran almost the width of the shop, grinned. “Not what you expected, eh?”
Dai walked forward. “It isn’t! From the outside it looks like nothing much of anything.” For starters, the shop was bigger inside than he expected, built square with a wooden floor, not rounded like many of the huts around it or oblong like Godfrid’s hall. It was warm and dry as well.
Bows, axes, and armor of every stripe hung from the beams that ran from wall to wall three feet above his head. A few smaller items worked in leather, including a fine set of bracers, lay loose on the counter. The swords were to be found on the wall behind the proprietor, too precious to allow just anyone who wandered by to touch.
In appearance, the proprietor was the direct opposite of Gren. He was the same height as Dai, who had just started to grow towards his man’s height, with a mostly bald head, a thick mustache but no beard, and a somewhat rotund belly. Dai didn’t want to make assumptions, but he didn’t think the man was a blacksmith at all.
However, it wouldn’t be a bad thing to ask. He reached up and touched a leather sheath hanging above his head. “Where did you get all this? Did you make these weapons yourself?”
The man laughed. “Not me.”
“You’re a trader?” Dai focused on him directly. “You’ve sailed far, then? To other lands?”
Dai intended his enthusiasm and questions to be encouraging. But they were also genuine in this instance, so he didn’t feel like he was mumming. The man put his forearms on the counter and leaned into them. “You’re not from Dublin, I can tell that from your accent, though your Danish is very good. You’re not Irish either, I don’t think.”
“Welsh,” Dai said.
“Ah.” He nodded knowingly, and Dai realized with shock that the merchant thought he was a newly freed slave. It made a certain kind of sense. “I am Vigo. What can I help you with?”
“I need a blade,” Dai said.
Vigo eyed him. “Why would that be?”
Dai made his expression truculent which, truthfully, wasn’t hard. He knew his mother had grown weary of seeing it, though things had been much better between them since Dai had apprenticed to the Dragons. He made himself a mental reminder to hug her the next time he saw her.
“So I can fight.”
Vigo continued to lean across the counter. The floor where the merchant stood was raised, like a dais, because he was still looking Dai in the eye. “Why would you want to do that?”
Dai straightened his spine and looked steadily back. “Why does it matter?”
Cadoc and Jon chose that moment to enter the store, arguing, as promised, about the merits of swords versus axes. They were speaking in French. Given Cadoc’s sword, the decision made sense, and since Jon already knew Vigo—or at least knew of him—there was no chance Vigo wouldn’t recognize him.
“Ho!” Vigo straightened instantly and glared at Jon, not a morsel of respect in his demeanor or tone. “What are you doing here?”
Dai backed away to the far right corner of the shop, as he would have done had he really been a former slave.
“We are interested in your weaponry and armor,” Jon said in Danish.
“I don’t believe you. You aren’t interested in my wares.” He pointed to Dai’s sword at Cadoc’s waist. “Not with that weapon.”
Cadoc put a hand proprietarily on the sword hilt. Neither man had even glanced at Dai, who was really glad he’d had the forethought to shed the clothes and gear that made him look noble. He’d worn a sword since he had apprenticed at twelve to Cynan, Prince Hywel’s brother, before the death of Rhun, and he missed its weight on his hip, even for so brief a time. In addition, when his father had given it to him, he’d looked him in the eye and said, “Do not lose this.”
Dai had no intention of losing it. He slept with it tucked alongside his pallet. He never went anywhere without it, not even the latrine, except perhaps in the middle of the night. And even then, sometimes he thought about it before he left it behind. No matter where he was he could be attacked under the cover of darkness, and if he was sitting on the latrine without his sword, he would regret it.
Jon capitulated, though his tone was sharp and his words clipped. “This is about the monk, Harald, who died.”
“Killed himself, I hear.” Vigo seemed unaffected by the observation.
“That is not certain.” Jon tipped his head—as did Dai—both wondering how it was the news had spread so quickly. “Where did you hear of it?”
“Here and there.”
Nobody liked to identify their sources of gossip. But while Vigo was as near to hostile as it made no difference, he couldn’t refuse to answer Jon’s questions. Jon’s master was a prince of Dublin. Dai didn’t yet have such status, but his father did, and Dai had always been treated well because of it. That was, of course, why he hadn’t told Vigo who he really was.
“Did you know him?”
“Did I know who?”
“Harald.”
Vigo laughed derisively. “I have never sold a sword to a monk.”
And suddenly, Dai found himself staring into the face of an outright lie, and he knew it. He knew it! He’d decided last year that he didn’t want to be an investigator like Llelo or his father. But today was suddenly fun. He’d been feeling just a little guilty at deceiving Vigo, and every man had a right to his secrets, but not when it came to murder. Murder was a violation of a man’s right to live. Even King Owain couldn’t hang someone without a trial. That was what Normans did. The Welsh were more civilized.
Vigo had looked hard at Jon when he denied knowing Harald, which meant to Dai that he was used to lying. Liars, according to Dai’s father, either looked away when they lied or looked right into your eyes and lied to your face. The best ones could do so without the little edge of defiance Vigo showed to Jon. Dai couldn’t wait to see how Vigo responded when he asked him the same questions once Jon and Cadoc left.
Jon wasn’t done with Vigo, however. He’d brought Harald’s sword, and now he laid it flat on the counter in front of Vigo. “I think this is one of yours.”
To Dai’s surprise, Vigo didn’t immediately deny it. He picked it up by the hilt and tipped it this way and that, studying the heft and the shine of the blade. “If I sold it, it wasn’t to a man who called himself Harald, and it wasn’t in this condition.”
The qualifications were interesting, but understandable, since the sword was nicked along the blade.
Now Cadoc stepped forward and said in French. “We are not accusing you of anything. We just want to know if you sold this sword and to whom you might have sold it.” Then he pulled a piece of paper from his pocket and showed him a sketch of Harald, which Dai’s father had drawn. Dai would have loved to have a similar gift, seeing how useful it was, but his people ended up looking like slugs with heads and his horses like dogs.
Vigo understood the French, clearly, which made sense if he traveled far and wide to trade. Now, he shook his head, and this time his denial appeared genuine. Either he was telling the truth, or he was finding it easier to lie. “I don’t know him.” He looked into Jon’s face. “Was there anything else?”
Jon picked up the sword. “No.”
Cadoc replied in French, “Thank you for your time.” The door closed behind them without either man ever looking at Dai.
Dai allowed their footfalls to dissipate and then sauntered up to the counter. “What do I have to do to get a sword like that?”
“Work hard.”
Dai fingered the bracers on the counter. “It’s too bad nobody fights anymore.”
Vigo scoffed. “Did you miss the battle against the men of Meath?”
“If it hadn’t been for Leinster, we would have lost.”
Vigo subsided. “You’re not wrong, boy.” He leaned against the counter. “So you want to learn to fight?”
“Yes!”
“If you stick around, I might be able to arrange for you to learn.”
“You could?” Dai’s eyes widened.
Vigo raised one shoulder. “Tomorrow night. Come to me here at low tide.”
Dai swallowed. “Would we be going somewhere?”
“We’ll see. You’re not afraid of getting wet, are you?”
“I do get seasick,” Dai lied.
Vigo laughed. “We’ll be crossing the Liffey on foot, not by boat.”
Dai tried to look unaffected by this news. “You lied to those men.”
Vigo’s eyes went wide—exaggeratedly so. “Did I?”
“Maybe you didn’t recognize the picture of that dead monk, but when you said you’d never sold a sword to a monk, you lied.”
Rather than being offended, Vigo laughed. “I didn’t lie. I didn’t sell the sword, I loaned it. And besides which, it was a priest who rented it, not a monk.” He gestured grandly to his shop. “Most men can’t afford to buy any of this, but they can borrow it for a time. For a fee.” His eyes glinted.
This double revelation shook Dai, but he endeavored not to show it. “Why didn’t you say so?”
“Best not to get involved.”
“How did you know the man was a priest? Did he come in his robe?”
“No.” Another laugh. “He wore workman’s clothing.”
“Then how did you know he was a priest?”
“You ask a great many questions, don’t you?” Vigo grabbed a broom that had been leaning against the wall and handed it over the counter to Dai. “Sweep away their footprints and there’s a bun in it for you.”
Dai took the broom and went to work, sending a few clods of dirt out the door, which he opened for that purpose. “So how did you know he was a priest?” It was a risk, asking a third time, but Dai thought it was in character.
“I didn’t at the time, though I thought I recognized his face when he pushed back his hood. Then I saw him during mass, so, of course, I knew.”
Dai didn’t know the right approach for his next question, whether to pretend he wasn’t interested or to show his enthusiasm. He opted for the latter. “During mass? Where? Who is he?”
Vigo waved his hand airily. “He’s one of dozens at Christ’s Church.” Then he slapped his chest. “But being a curious fellow, I asked around. He’s the secretary for the bishop himself.” He laughed. “Odd things are happening up at the cathedral, eh?”
