The Favored Son

by Sarah Woodbury

  The guard shrugged. “If you look closely, you’ll see that those are broken. The cellarer thought the wood and iron fittings might be useful later.”

  Dai had looked inside several in a desultory fashion. Llelo suspected he was looking for treasure, still disappointed that he had failed to participate in the events of last summer. But then he said, “Uh, Llelo? You’d better come over here.”

  He’s spoken in Welsh, so only Llelo understood. Thinking that his brother was feeling ill again, Llelo hastened to him to find him looking into a large barrel—nearly chest high on Dai—the lid he’d removed still in his hand. Along with Dai, who was definitely looking green again, Llelo found himself staring into the face of a dead man who’d been stuffed into the barrel. His head was, gruesomely, tipped back slightly, as if he’d arched his back in death.

  His stomach dropping into his boots and swallowing down bile again, he waved Bob and Hamelin over. The newly lit torch illumined the man’s face more clearly.

  “Sweet Mary, no!” Bob’s jaw was almost all on the floor, and he stared, aghast.

  “Do you know him?” Llelo asked.

  “I’ve known him my whole life. He’s one of the castle guards. His name is Aelfric.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Angharad

  Being the only woman in a room full of men was rarely comfortable for Angharad, but it was also a position with which she was familiar. Castles always contained a disproportionate number of men. While menfolk went to war (or prepared for it), the countryside was full of women raising children much on their own. That Angharad herself was allowed to live with her husband was the consequence of being of a noble class, with Evan having been raised up from man-at-arms to knight. As a member of the Dragons, he had land and standing, which meant Angharad did too.

  Still, sometimes she thought being married to a cattle or sheep herder would have been the best life: following the herds to the mountains in summer and the valleys in winter, with no possessions except what they could carry but always together. Her people had lived that way for centuries, though she’d left that life behind many years ago upon her father’s death and might therefore be looking at it with the eyes of a child.

  Regarding this latest mission, Angharad’s choice was between staying behind in Aberystwyth, either with Mari at the castle or on Evan’s new lands in Ceredigion, and coming to England with the Dragons.

  She hadn’t had to think about it for longer than a heartbeat.

  But now, here she was in yet another abode filled entirely with men, though since it was a monastery the only swords belonged to her own company. From the relative warmth of the porch of the priory guesthouse, she waved to her husband where he stood under the eaves of the stable, Dai beside him. They were intent in conversation and neither saw her.

  So she lifted her skirts and swished through the six inches of snow to Evan’s side, though she instantly regretted leaving the warmth of the guesthouse common room where the monks had built a fire in the hearth, necessary today to keep the children warm. Angharad had breakfasted, somewhat chaotically, with Gwen and the children. The rest of the Dragons were long since away.

  “I can see something has happened.”

  Yesterday had been taken up with settling in, while Evan had conferred with the abbot and seen to the security of the priory—made all the more urgent once Dai had brought the news of Sir Aubrey’s death. While the priory did have a wall around it, it was too low to stop anyone who had serious intent to enter illicitly. It was to the castle that everyone looked for true safety.

  And here Dai was, back again, his face drawn and white. Angharad might have waited for them to come to her, but she feared the news was worse than before—or about one of their own.

  “Someone else has died.” Evan took her arm and walked her deeper into the stables, out of the weather. Even so, a small cyclone of snow swirled around their feet. Yesterday had been a mostly sunny day, but almost always a northeast wind meant foul weather. Or fair, if you were a child and loved snow. The horses were giving off a degree of warmth that cut through some of the cold that was seeping into everything.

  Then Dai related, as he must have just done to Evan, what he, Hamelin, and Llelo had discovered in the tunnel beneath the castle. Dai had trouble sitting still at the best of times, and finally Evan had to put a heavy hand on his shoulder to stop him from jiggling constantly up and down as he talked.

  “The abbot was disturbed by Sir Aubrey’s death, but when I tell him of the murder of this man, Aelfric—” Evan shook his head.

  “It’s definitely murder?” Angharad asked.

  “He was garroted,” Dai said shortly.

  “There’s no denying now that we have a villain among us,” Evan said.

  “Does Gareth know?” Angharad glanced back to the guesthouse, thinking of Gwen. With this new development, she would want to go to the castle.

  “Llelo tasked himself with finding him,” Dai said.

  “What can I do?”

  “Nothing right now, not about this,” Evan said. “The man is dead, and Gareth will deal with the body. I will confer again with the abbot, but he agreed yesterday to allow us to speak to the brothers here at the priory about the events that have transpired.”

  Dai appeared to be recovering from the shock of finding another dead man, and instead of jittering around, he’d started bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet. “It turns out the valet who died has a brother here.”

  Evan canted his head to the boy. “Off you go. If we’re both in here, nobody is keeping an eye on the gate.”

  “Yes, sir!” And Dai was off like an arrow from a bow or a sheepdog corralling a loose lamb. In fact, the more she thought about it, the more she decided Dai resembled a half-grown puppy, with eager eyes and a grin that asked continually, Can we go now? Can we go?

  Evan grinned down at Angharad. “He’s thirteen but thinks he’s twenty. It’s best to give him real tasks because he can tell the difference.”

  “Have you spoken to this brother?”

  “Not yet.”

  Angharad and Evan had been married for only a few months, and although Evan was no better than most men at expressing what he was feeling, she’d learned to read his face. At the moment, he looked sheepish himself, which was unusual for him to say the least. She’d found, in regards to what he was thinking and feeling, that if she went at him directly, she usually could get a truthful answer from him. While she didn’t regret being married so soon after they’d met, Evan had been a bachelor a long time, and she had been past the age many noblewomen married. Both of them had been used to doing certain things in certain ways, and married life was a learning experience for both of them.

  But they’d loved each other when they married, and they tried to be honest with each other at all times since then. So while she felt a little wary about what might be coming, she asked straightforwardly, “Why not?”

  “Cariad, we’re somewhat short-staffed. With Gareth at the beck and call of Prince Henry, and the rest of the Dragons at the castle, my task is to ensure the security of the priory and our family within it.”

  Angharad perked up. “So you should send me.”

  Evan wrinkled his nose. “I was hoping to keep you out of this. I’ll do it myself when I have a moment.”

  Angharad put a hand on his arm. “You are one man, Evan. Let me help.”

  Evan still looked reluctant, but rather than becoming angry, Angharad studied him. And in the course of a few heartbeats, she realized that his hesitation was based on fear rather than the belief that she wasn’t up to the task.

  “You can’t protect me or anyone else from all danger, not even were you to stand watch every moment of every day.”

  Evan narrowed his eyes at her. “I know that.”

  Angharad made her voice particularly gentle. “Do you?”

  Evan kept his eyes on her face, and she looked back as openly as she could. Then he sighed. “I have never cared about anyone t
he way I care about you. I don’t know how Gareth does it, bringing Gwen and his family on every investigation. I thought having you with me would be better than leaving you at our cottage, but with this new murder—” he ground his teeth, “—my distemper is worse than ever.”

  That was a new word for Angharad, but it accurately described what he’d been like these last few days. She rubbed his arm. “It is my understanding that if Gareth wants peace in his household, he is wise not to leave Gwen behind very often—like he did today, in fact—and to tell her everything.”

  Evan barked a laugh. “You are cut from the same cloth, is that it? I knew that, of course, when I married you.” Ignoring the fact that they were currently in the stables of a priory with several stable boys mucking out the stalls at the far end of the building, he drew her into his arms and kissed her. No actual monk entered to interrupt them, but Angharad wasn’t sure she would have cared if he had.

  When Evan released her, he said, “Without a doubt, having you with me is better than not. And while my initial thought was that this brother—” he flashed a grin at the double meaning, “—isn’t going anywhere, if you would like to be of service, I would be grateful if you’d question him. You obviously know what to do, and I trust you to do it.”

  Angharad’s heart warmed at the compliment, but she pulled away slightly so she could look up into his face. “I will ask Gwen to come along as well. The two of us might do better than one. Do we have permission from the abbot?”

  “Yes, of course. Didn’t I just say so?”

  “I meant do I have permission since I’m a woman,” Angharad said. “Monks admit they were born of women, but look askance at us otherwise.”

  “I told him something of our methods, and while I think he was taken aback by how thorough we needed to be, he knows that Gareth has been charged with the investigation by Prince Henry himself. He wasn’t going to say no. He was very clear that he and his brothers will do whatever they can to help us find the killer. It was Earl Robert who founded this priory, you know, and as such, the monks here support Empress Maud’s claim to the throne.”

  “So who’s the brother?”

  “The herbalist, one Brother Edwin.”

  Angharad brightened. “I very much liked the herbalist in the monastery near Dinefwr. He was very knowledgeable. I don’t know a great deal about herbs, but Gwen has been teaching me, and I’ve helped her write down some of what she knows in her book.” She paused. “Gwen also mentioned that this herbalist was among those who were called to Earl Robert’s bedside.”

  “All the more reason for the two of you to speak to him,” Evan said, and then raised his voice further, “Dai, you can come in now.”

  Dai reappeared in the doorway, looking more like a sheepdog than ever. “I have been watching the gate, truly! But I can see it from over there.” He pointed to a spot a few feet away to indicate where he’d been standing, out of sight but not out of earshot.

  “Angharad and Gwen need an escort,” Evan said. “The healer is the dead valet’s brother.”

  “Yes, sir! I will keep them safe.” Dai hesitated. “While they are speaking to the brother, I should inspect the area around the garden. I haven’t been down there yet.”

  “Excellent idea.” Evan grinned at Angharad behind Dai’s back, since the young man had already set off. Angharad gave her husband a quick peck on the cheek before following Dai into the guesthouse to collect Gwen.

  Before marrying Evan, Angharad had never traveled outside of Deheubarth, so she hadn’t spent any time except in passing in religious houses other than St. Dyfi’s, the monastery near Dinefwr Castle. She’d grown up in her father’s house, and he’d been chief of their clan—first among equals, as the Normans might say. The family held the land jointly, and everyone worked it, farming small plots, fishing, and running sheep and cattle from sea to mountain and back again.

  In southern Wales, her people had learned to coexist with Normans in a way the men of Gwynedd never had, and she’d grown somewhat used to their ways. If the Normans hadn’t believed themselves to be superior to all others, they wouldn’t have come to England eighty years ago to conquer it. But oddly, uniting Norman traits with Saxon ones had only made their arrogance more pronounced. Everybody knew there was nobody more stubborn, set in his ways, and sure of himself than a Saxon.

  Rather than adapting to the land they’d conquered, the Saxons, and then the Normans in turn, had adapted the landscape to their own needs. Every plot of land from Pembroke to Hastings was now a plowed field. Because they valued bread above meat and milk, they rated farmers as better than herders, though why a man herding sheep and cattle could possibly be of less value than one growing grain and vegetables, Angharad couldn’t say. No meal was complete without milk or meat, but a Saxon peasant could live for years entirely on porridge and thin gruel. Even their drink was made of grain instead of honey.

  Here in the town of Bristol, the gardens couldn’t be extensive, though the priory did own many acres of land outside the town. Most were planted in crops that fed the monks, and Angharad hadn’t seen a single sheep since she’d arrived in Bristol. The herbalist, however, wouldn’t be growing grain. He oversaw the cultivation of herbs and medicinals for the monastery table and infirmary, so his garden was conveniently located to the northeast of the main church buildings.

  Having left Tangwen playing in the snow in her nanny’s care, Gwen and Angharad followed their instincts and eventually fetched up in front of the herbalist’s hut. Angharad loosened her cloak at the neck, looking forward to once again being inside. Even in the short walk from the guesthouse, the snow had accumulated on her shoulders and head, and she brushed at Gwen’s cloak to rid her of her own layer of white. Taran was bundled warmly, and only once they were under the eaves did Gwen loosen the toggle at her chest too and let him peek out his head.

  “Do you need me to stay with you while you talk to him?” Dai said. “I can quarter the area later.”

  “If we do, we’ll call you,” Gwen said.

  “Then I’ll just knock on the door for you.” Dai was taking his duties very seriously. He knocked, but there was no immediate answer.

  “Perhaps he’s in the warming room,” Angharad said. “You could hardly blame him for not staying out here on a day like this.”

  Gwen pointed to the thatched roof overhanging her head. “I smell smoke.”

  Once she started paying attention herself, Angharad could see as well as smell the wisps of smoke curling between the thatch and the thick beams that supported the roof. It would be warm in the hut, if a little smoky. It shouldn’t be choking, however, since the smoke would eventually filter through the thatch, keeping at bay whatever bugs had survived the autumn and damping down sparks from the brazier before they could set the thatch alight. Smoke also helped to waterproof the roof, necessary on a day like today.

  Dai, being Dai, did not give up but put his ear to the door. “I hear someone moving around in there.”

  At the risk of being inelegant and possibly rude, Angharad put her own ear to the door. She frowned as she heard a pot rattle and what could have been a muffled curse. “You’re right, Dai. Someone is definitely in there.” She rapped more sharply on the door than Dai had done.

  Finally, footfalls sounded on the other side of the door, heavy thuds, in fact, as if someone was out of temper and expressing anger by stomping on the floor. Angharad had time to take a single step back before the door was pulled sharply open, revealing a squat, balding man in a patched brown robe. “What is it?” he said in English.

  There was no denying that Angharad felt taken aback. She’d expected in this heavily-Norman stronghold for the monk to be Norman and speak French, but then she reminded herself that the Norman conquerors made up a tiny fraction of the total population of England. All the monasteries in the country couldn’t be populated only by younger Norman sons. If they were present, they were probably in the scriptorium, occupied with more lofty tasks rather than getting the
ir hands dirty in the garden.

  That might also be the reason for the monk’s combative attitude. Rather than responding to it, she accorded him a curtsey. “I am Lady Angharad and this is Lady Gwen. We were hoping we could speak to you about your brother.”

  Edwin glared at her. “My brother? I have many brothers, and it isn’t my place to discuss any of them.” He turned his back and returned to his table, where he’d been measuring seeds and apportioning them into dishes.

  Angharad felt lucky he hadn’t actually slammed the door in her face. She also hadn’t considered the confusing use of the word brother before she’d spoken, despite the fact that Evan had noted it earlier, and she glanced questioningly at Gwen, who smiled and tipped her head as if to say, Go on, now that you’ve started. Angharad hastily stepped inside the hut and attempted to engage the healer again. “I apologize for not speaking more exactly. I’m not here for gossip. I meant that I have been tasked with questions about your late brother, Bernard.”

  The monk froze in the act of pouring seeds into a dish, such that a few spilled from the clay bottle and fell onto the table. He didn’t reply, however, and after the moment of hesitation, he continued about his work as if Angharad hadn’t spoken.

  So she tried again, “I’m sorry if you think I misled you initially. My husband is among those investigating the deaths at the castle—”

  “And he sent you here to talk to a grieving brother instead of facing that task himself?” Edwin sneered and turned away. “Typical Welshman.”

  Angharad found her temper rising, not only for her husband’s sake, but for her people. “He is tasked not only with questioning the monks about these deaths at the castle, but with the safety of the priory, seeing as how yet another man has died, and his murderer remains free!”

  Finally Edwin was interested enough to look at her. “Another murder?” He snorted. “I didn’t know there’d been any.”

  Angharad ground her teeth at his obstreperousness. She knew her color was high, and she took in a breath to calm herself, glad only Gwen was here to witness her difficulties. And because they were friends, Gwen gave a little cough and moved inside the hut too. She’d undone her cloak, so Taran’s little head poked out, and he turned his face towards the brightness of the monk’s lantern. Even a grumpy monk couldn’t sneer at the boy’s wondering eyes, and his expression softened, giving Gwen the opening she needed.