The Favored Son

by Sarah Woodbury

  “I know we can.” His mother put a hand on his arm. “You grow more assured by the day, and I am confident in your maturity and discretion, if either had ever been in doubt. Come see us afterwards, and we’ll go over everything you learned. You never know what later could prove important, and we don’t want to wait too long because it’s easy to forget the little things.”

  Gwen departed with a nod at Hamelin, who pulled out of the crenel and looked at Llelo. “It is agreed?”

  Llelo nodded. “We would be grateful for your assistance.”

  “I’ve had my first thought, if I may be so bold as to say.”

  Llelo made a gesture. “Please.”

  Hamelin put up one finger. “Listen.”

  Llelo’s eyes narrowed, but he stood silent as Hamelin had asked, looking east across the battlement. He could hear the flag flapping on the top of the tower, a few late-season crows were cawing, and he could just make out the sound of people talking below him. Somewhere a bell tolled, and over it all came the near constant chink, chink, chink of the castle blacksmith at work.

  Hamelin was looking pleased with himself. “If the man timed it right, perhaps nobody would have thought anything of the sound of hammer and chisel.”

  “Well done,” Llelo said, though he didn’t know that it was his place to praise Hamelin, as if he were in charge.

  But Hamelin grinned and asked, “Where do we start?”

  Llelo tipped back his head to look up at the crenels of the nearest tower. “At the top, wouldn’t you say?”

  Chapter Five

  Gwen

  By the time Gwen reached ground level again, everyone else had left the inner ward for the far outer ward, having moved the body to the laying-out room adjacent to the laundry. Not every castle was large enough to have a room dedicated to washing and preparing bodies for burial, but Gwen was always glad when one did, for it made the process of inspection and discovery easier.

  But today, as she and Taran darkened the doorway, Gareth threw a sheet over the dead man.

  “I saw him earlier,” she said. “You don’t have to hide him.”

  “No need for you or Taran to see him again,” Gareth said. “For once, I can’t say there’s much to learn here. We know how this one died!”

  “When I came down from the keep, the stone that killed him was still lying on the ground, so I had one of the guards put it in a box and bring it.” She gestured to the guard to indicate he should enter the room. He, at least, appeared relieved that Sir Aubrey’s body wasn’t visible, and he set the wooden box inside the door, after which he departed with a nod.

  “I’m being treated quite civilly,” Gareth said, watching the guard go. “It seems you are too.”

  “I may have to reexamine my animosity to Saxons,” Gwen said.

  Gareth laughed. “Never that!” He paused. “Is the area still fenced off?”

  “People are giving it a wide berth, as they should.” And she told him what the mason had concluded and that she’d sent Llelo off with Prince Henry’s brother to question the castle’s guards.

  “Llelo will be a difficult act to follow.” Gareth rubbed Taran’s cheek.

  “Don’t say that, Gareth. Each child is different, and none have to be like any other.”

  “Llelo feels it,” Gareth said flatly. “He fears being usurped.”

  “He is our son,” Gwen said in an equally flat tone.

  “Hopefully someday he will truly believe it.” Gareth’s eyes turned to the door, tracking the progress of someone Gwen couldn’t see from where she stood. He gestured with his chin towards the doorway. “Let’s talk outside.”

  “Every time we give him a task you would have given Evan, it helps,” she said, following him through the doorway.

  “I hope he discovers something from the guards.” Gareth scowled. “The more I think about Sir Aubrey’s death, the more it occurs to me that the man responsible had incredible aim. You could push that stone a hundred times at the same moment someone was walking underneath it and not hit the man even once.”

  “The priest would say it was Sir Aubrey’s time, that God was calling him home.”

  “It could be he was unlucky.” Gareth was still frowning. “What if ... the intent wasn’t to kill him?”

  Gwen narrowed her eyes at her husband. “Then why?”

  “To distract him or us? A stone falls off a battlement, and people are bound to come running. We did.”

  “We came because Sir Aubrey died.”

  “Then the question becomes, who would have come if it was only a stone? Sir Aubrey for certain—”

  “If he hadn’t already been walking underneath it.”

  Gareth bent his head in acknowledgement. “Many would have come running. Watchers who should be on the walls would be looking at the stone instead of attending to their assigned duties.”

  “I can testify to that,” Gwen said. “We were alone on the wall-walk above the body.”

  Gareth’s eyes widened in surprise. “Nobody came to observe or to question your presence?” He laughed under his breath. “The residents of Bristol are remarkably obedient.”

  “Or they don’t want to know or think about these deaths,” Gwen said. “I assume you noticed the signs against evil spirits? Llelo did.”

  “They’re hard to miss, especially now that we know what to look for.”

  “You can’t blame people for being fearful,” Gwen said, “especially now with Sir Aubrey’s death.”

  “Clearly the wards are not working.” Gareth had always despised superstition.

  By now, the two men Gareth had spied from inside the laying-out room were close enough to overhear, and Gareth and Gwen turned to them. The first man was tall, somewhat burly and middle-aged, with a neatly trimmed beard and piercing blue eyes. His garments were very fine—fit for a king, even—blue and brown with what could have been real gold trim at the edge of his tunic. He was accompanied by a smaller, sparer man, somewhat owl-eyed and round-shouldered, whom Gwen recognized as the understeward who’d written down their names.

  Gareth made a welcoming gesture with one hand. “Gwen, this is Robert Fitzharding, a most trusted companion of both Earl Robert and William; and Charles de Cheyne, who was Sir Aubrey’s second. He will be acting as the new steward of Bristol. He tells me his ancestors came with the Conqueror.”

  Charles bowed slightly at the waist. “It is my pleasure to serve you, Madam.”

  Gwen blinked. She really was starting to get annoyed by how nicely these English folk were treating her, with a respect she had not expected at all. As she’d said earlier, if this continued she’d have to put aside long-standing grievances.

  “I’d like to thank you for your quick action earlier,” Fitzharding said to Gareth, continuing to be polite. “The wall has been weakened and could release more stones at any time. It was good that you called for the mason.”

  “I appreciate your acceptance of our presence,” Gareth replied, being polite in return. “We have some experience with this sort of thing.”

  “Which is why Prince Henry sent for you.” Fitzharding nodded. “Again, you have my thanks. It is my intention to maintain a well-ordered castle.”

  Gwen frowned. Gareth had just told her that Charles was the acting steward, but Fitzharding’s words implied that he, not Charles, was going to be the new castellan. And yet, Charles just stood silently by without protesting. The charge of Bristol Castle was a huge responsibility and honor, and not one that Gwen would have thought any man would assume to have, even after a sudden death.

  “How long had Sir Aubrey been the steward?” Gareth said.

  “Many years,” Fitzharding said.

  Gwen hesitated, feeling the pause in the conversation. The conclusion to Fitzharding’s sentence should have been along the lines of I hope to do as good a job as he did. But Fitzharding didn’t say it.

  She took in a breath, bracing herself for the first of many uncomfortable questions she would be asking over the n
ext few days. She wasn’t going to let Fitzharding off from their inquiries just because he was pompous and sure of himself. “You didn’t approve of the job Sir Aubrey was doing?”

  Fitzharding glanced at her. “Sir Aubrey was a good man and a fine manager for what he did and the time in which he lived, but there are new methods, new ways of doing things, that he was slow to accept.” He gestured to the structure behind them. “Building a laying-out room was my idea, along with the laundry, which used to be in the basement of the keep!”

  He made it sound as if the idea was horrifying, which, as someone who was intimately acquainted with her family’s laundry, Gwen understood it could be. Basements had no air flow, so the clothes had to be lugged down the steps to be cleaned and then up again to be dried on the line outside. Because Bristol Castle was located next to a river, likely the laundry had been put in the basement because they’d dug a well underneath the keep, to allow its defenders to hold out virtually indefinitely. Because of it, nobody had to carry water for washing—but the location wasn’t exactly convenient.

  This new washroom, by contrast, was positioned against the curtain wall in one corner of the outer ward. The River Frome flowed past the castle, coming from the northeast. As the river had been diverted to form the moat, it had also been channelized to come into the castle here through a large clay pipe like the Romans used in their baths. Thus, the servants doing the washing never had to haul water, and there was always a fresh supply in the trough that ran right through the center of the room. The laundry drying lines were located just outside, and when the weather was unfavorable, as it often was, the laundry could be hung in the enormous thatched-roof shed, which was open to the air on all four sides and had been built for that purpose.

  In turn, the waste water from the washhouse was diverted underneath the adjacent latrine block and then sent straight back into the moat, ultimately ending up in the River Avon. The arrangement was not unlike the bath at Aber, which diverted water from an adjacent river too, though this system was far more extensive because of the size of Bristol Castle. She would be sure to speak of it to Hywel, because the drainage systems at Gwynedd’s palaces could always be improved.

  “How old was Sir Aubrey?” Gareth said.

  “Past sixty.” Fitzharding was ten years younger. Gwen perceived him to have been chafing at the bit, seeing this role as the next step forward for him, and of the opinion that Sir Aubrey had been hanging on far too long.

  “Did you have something specific you wanted from us?” Gareth said.

  “I merely came to see that you had everything you needed.” Fitzharding eyed the sheet-covered body through the open door behind them.

  “So far, we do.” Gareth gestured to Gwen. “My wife has just come from the keep where the mason examined the breach in the battlement.”

  Charles spoke for the first time since his introduction. “I conferred with him too. He claims that the stone was deliberately separated from the wall with hammer and chisel.”

  “I’m sorry if that’s not what you wanted to hear,” Gwen said.

  Charles shook his head. “You misunderstand. What I want is of no importance. I’d much rather know the truth.”

  “So would I,” Fitzharding said. “Since we are certain Sir Aubrey’s death was no accident, we can pursue his killer with single-minded determination.”

  “Unlike the deaths of these others, perhaps?” Gwen asked, as innocently as she could.

  Fitzharding looked at her—just a glance, but his gaze was piercing—and then away again. “It is not my place to accept or deny any assessment of how they died. I admit, however, with the sudden death of Sir Aubrey, their deaths look far more suspicious than they did an hour ago. It seems Prince Henry was right to send for you.” He spoke the last words somewhat musingly. Then he lifted his chin to point to Dai, who was heading purposefully towards them, having entered the castle through the main gate closest to the priory. “It seems you are wanted.” He bowed briefly. “We will take our leave. We have a castle full of people who must be seen to.”

  Charles set off immediately, but before Fitzharding could take more than two steps away from them, Gwen put out a hand to him. It was an opening she hadn’t known she needed but wasn’t going to pass up. “The wreaths and the holly—”

  Fitzharding turned back, a grim set to his jaw. “I do not approve of the people’s superstitions, but even the priest felt it wrong to deny them the comfort these tokens could bring them.” He snorted. “Small comfort now, with this other death.” He set off after Charles, nodding at Dai as they passed each other.

  “It seems you and Fitzharding are of the same mind,” she said to her husband.

  “Father! I was merely coming to see how things were going, and the gatekeeper told me what happened!” Dai came to a breathless halt in front of them, having slowed in his crossing of the outer ward only to be polite to Fitzharding. “I can’t believe I missed everything again!”

  “The man’s death was gruesome,” Gwen said. “Believe me, you haven’t missed a thing.”

  Dai looked past them into the darkness of the room. “Is that he?”

  Gareth tipped his head. “I will show you if you want to see.”

  To Gwen’s surprise, Dai shook his head. “No. Not unless there’s something to learn.” At one time, Dai might have been ghoulishly curious, but he’d seen enough death by now—and almost died himself last summer—that it held less interest for him than it once had—and far less than the idea of adventure. Instead, he said, “Where’s Llelo?”

  “He’s starting on the interviews.” Gareth pulled at the door to the laying-out room to close it. All together, they set off across the outer ward. The sun had come out and was shining weakly down. “Your mother sent him to question the soldiers on the battlement.”

  “By himself?” That his brother was already involved in the investigation excited Dai’s blood more than the possibility of seeing the body.

  “He is with Hamelin, Prince Henry’s half-brother.” Gareth put a hand on Dai’s shoulder, directing him towards the gatehouse between the two outer wards.

  “Really?” Dai faltered, his expression disconcerted. “It’s just as well, then, that I wasn’t there, since my French isn’t good enough for me to be of similar use.”

  “It will come,” Gwen said bracingly.

  Dai was incredibly bright, and he had made great strides in his education since Gareth and Gwen had adopted him. Unlike Llelo, however, who’d taken to his lessons with a will, Dai found it harder to focus on anything that didn’t involve being outside, moving his whole body, or interacting with people. Studying French and Latin with a tutor was far too quiet.

  “How’s Tangwen?” Gwen said.

  “Settling in. She was being fed when I left.”

  “And the Dragons?” Gareth asked.

  “They’re still here. Somewhere. Evan stayed behind to keep an eye on things at the priory.” Dai smirked. “And Angharad.” Dai had a thirteen-year-old’s distaste for romance.

  As if on command, as Dai finished speaking, the five Dragons each appeared separately from different directions. They’d been doing their job: keeping watch or inspecting the perimeter of the castle. None had raced to the scene of Sir Aubrey’s death, and Gwen felt a moment of pride that they could be so well disciplined. They gathered near the gatehouse between the two outer wards, conferred briefly with Gruffydd, their captain, and then headed off again, though Gruffydd strode purposefully to intercept Gareth and Gwen.

  When he reached them he was frowning. “We’re in the thick of it again, I hear.” He ruffled Dai’s hair. “I hope you’re not tired.”

  “I’m not. Why?”

  “I need you to run back to the priory and tell Evan what has transpired.”

  Dai’s face took on an expression that indicated he was about to protest, but Gruffydd looked at him sternly. “We have a killer on the loose. He could have taken refuge in the town, but just think if he came to the priory an
d Evan didn’t know that another man was dead?”

  The idea that the errand was necessary, rather than an excuse to send him away while the adults talked, had clearly not occurred to Dai, and his attitude immediately transformed into one of attention and obedience.

  With a boy this age, Gwen was happy to leave his discipline to others. It hadn’t been that long ago that Gwalchmai had thought and behaved similarly to Dai, and Gwen well remembered the way he’d alternately contradicted and ignored everything she said, even at those times when he wasn’t intending to be rude. Fortunately, now sixteen, Gwalchmai had come out of his malaise, having far more important things to worry about—like singing for King Owain Gwynedd—than doing the exact opposite of what his sister told him to do simply because it was she who said it.

  In Llelo, that same insecurity inherent in the transition from boy to man was manifested in a desire to be perfect. Dai’s response wasn’t entirely opposite, but he had a willfully disobedient streak that nobody had quite managed to restrain yet. The key was to encourage in him the ability to manage it himself, and Gwen had hope that, given enough leeway and understanding, Dai would eventually find it.

  So Dai went off too, leaving Gruffydd alone with Gareth and Gwen (and Taran, of course). “I ran into the steward just now. He mentioned that the prince would like to speak with you again as soon as possible.”

  Gwen glanced at her husband. “We just spoke to a man named Charles, the understeward, and Robert Fitzharding, who seems to be taking charge of the castle. Which steward is this?”

  “I don’t know anything about those men,” Gruffydd said. “This was Roger, one of Earl Robert’s sons.”

  “I met him earlier over Sir Aubrey’s body,” Gareth said. “Roger serves Henry specifically, as his personal seneschal.”

  “Like you will do for Prince Hywel,” Gruffydd nodded his understanding, “as opposed to the steward of Aberystwyth, who stays where he is regardless of where Hywel goes.”