The Favored Son

by Sarah Woodbury

  “Sir Aubrey, Earl Robert’s steward, was killed yesterday by a falling piece of masonry, and another body has been discovered in the tunnel underneath the castle, that of a man named Aelfric.”

  Edwin snorted. “I didn’t know the man. It has nothing to do with me.”

  Gwen made her voice even softer. “But you did know your own brother.”

  Edwin still didn’t relent, so Angharad added, “Anything you can tell us about him would be helpful. The reason he died is as important to us as for any of these other deaths.”

  “Bernard drowned. His death and these others are not related.”

  “Sir Aubrey’s death was meant to look like an accident, but the mason assures us that the stone had been deliberately loosened. Your brother is said to have drowned by accident, but what if it was murder too?” Gwen said.

  “Don’t you want to know what really happened?” Despite Angharad’s best efforts to control her voice, it rose in volume.

  “He’s dead. What does it matter?”

  “Because others have died now too,” Gwen said.

  “Please, just speak to us of him,” Angharad said. “Tell us who he was to you, and we’ll leave you in peace.”

  Gwen took one more step closer. “We are here asking questions at the request of Prince Henry himself, and your abbot hoped you’d be cooperative.”

  Edwin’s jaw was tight, he still looked mulish, and he appeared to be clenching his teeth around words he wasn’t saying. For once, however, he didn’t have a snide remark. It could even be that he’d goaded them not because he was angry at them specifically, but because it was his way of dealing with grief. Edwin wasn’t wrong that many men avoided grief, and it was common to take refuge in anger rather than allowing themselves tears.

  So Angharad tried one more time. “When did you last see your brother?”

  “The day he died.” Edwin’s shoulders remained stiff, and he didn’t look at her, but it seemed they’d finally worn him down. “He and I were not as close as some brothers, mind you, but we did make a point to see each other every Sunday, with my abbot’s permission, in memory of our mother, who loved us both. Earl Robert died on the last day of October, which was a Friday. Bernard’s wife died the next day, Saturday, and my brother died Sunday afternoon. He’d come for the funeral mass, and we’d breakfasted together afterwards.”

  “Did he seem different to you that day?”

  Edwin’s lip curled, and she blushed at such a foolish question. “Of course he seemed different! Though he’d served the earl for less than a year, in two days’ time he’d lost his livelihood and his wife!”

  Angharad wasn’t proud of the way she’d goaded Edwin into a passionate answer, but she pounced on what he’d revealed as a result. “Why would he lose his livelihood? Hadn’t he worked at the castle for some time before he became the earl’s valet?”

  Edwin snorted. It seemed to be his favorite thing to do. “He couldn’t go back to being just a servant. He’d had status as the earl’s valet, serving the most powerful man in England barring the king. But Earl William wasn’t going to keep him on.”

  “Do you know why not?”

  Edwin gave her a look that implied she was dim. “He had his own man.”

  Angharad canted her head. “Did Earl William not like Bernard?”

  “The new earl has his own ways.” Edwin pressed his lips together for a moment. “When the old valet died and Earl Robert promoted Bernard, William was not pleased. He’d had his own man in mind then too.”

  “Which would be whom?”

  “I wouldn’t know.”

  “Did your brother express anything else to you—any hint of uncertainty about the way either the earl or his wife died?” Gwen asked.

  Edwin shook his head but then actually offered new information. “Earl Robert was ill for a long time. The wasting disease, you know. This past year, I spent many hours at his bedside seeking a cure for what ailed him, but nothing I tried worked. It would have been better in the end if his disease had killed him more quickly. I hated to see him suffer so.” He turned away to pull down a jar from an upper shelf on the other side of the hut, and Angharad had the sense he was searching for control, rather than for a specific potion.

  “I watched my grandmother die that way,” Angharad said.

  Gwen moved around the table and indicated one of the jars. “Is that poppy serum?”

  “It is. I must replenish my stock. The earl needed a great deal of it by the end.”

  Angharad made sure not to look meaningfully at Gwen and made no mention of the fact that Prince Henry had called for Gareth and Gwen to come to Bristol precisely because he thought his uncle had been hurried to his death. It hadn’t occurred to any of them that the reason might have been to ease his pain.

  Edwin cleared his throat. “Some might find it odd that a healer would wish death to come sooner to those who suffer.”

  “No.” Gwen shook her head. “Not at all. I have some understanding of herbs and healing, and my father’s wife is well known for her knowledge. I’ve tended men after battle. It’s almost harder to watch another in pain than to experience it oneself.”

  They’d come far enough that Edwin managed a rueful smile. “Earl Robert wouldn’t take more than a few drops at any one time. He didn’t like what it did to his mind, and I can’t say I blame him, though I wished towards the end he would allow himself more relief than he did.” Edwin was concentrating again on the herbs before him. “But God chooses the time, and we must abide by His decisions.”

  That didn’t sound like Edwin had done anything more than help the earl with pain. They’d also strayed from a discussion of his brother, and Angharad thought she knew how to bring it back. “Did Bernard believe that?”

  Edwin’s head came up. “What did you say?”

  Gwen put out a hand to Angharad, telling her that she’d take over for a moment. “Could your brother swim?”

  Edwin’s hands shook slightly, and a few more seeds spilled from the clay dish. “Yes. He and I learned together in the Avon.”

  “You said earlier that he drowned,” Angharad said. “Do you really believe that?”

  They’d been getting along better, but now anger suffused Edwin’s face. “What are you implying?”

  Angharad swallowed hard at Edwin’s passion, but this time she’d made it rise on purpose, trying to get an unguarded answer from him. “Loved ones are often the last—”

  He cut her off with a sharp response, “Bernard didn’t kill himself.”

  Angharad put up both hands. “I didn’t suggest it.”

  Now it was Gwen’s turn again. “We have been thinking murder all along, Brother Edwin. Hadn’t we made that clear? Who suggested suicide?”

  Edwin glared from one woman to the other for another few heartbeats, and then pinned his gaze on Gwen. “It’s been said.” He tipped his chin, indicating the world beyond the door. “Up at the castle I know some considered it. The priest did as well, though Earl William persuaded him not to pursue the matter. However my brother died, he did not take his own life. He was grieving his wife and his lord, but still, he never would.” He looked at Angharad. “So yes, he did believe that God chooses each man’s time.”

  Gwen’s face was full of pity. “Will you still not consider the possibility someone wanted to harm him? Especially with more deaths before and since?”

  The pause was even longer this time as Edwin stared down at the jar in his hand, as if surprised that he still held it. He looked at it for so long, Angharad didn’t think he was going to answer at all, especially when he started to pick up the stray seeds one at a time to return them to the original dish. But she and Gwen stood there anyway, waiting, and finally he said, “I could believe it. But I have no reason to think anyone would want to harm my brother.”

  Then his head came up, and his face drained of all expression. “He was a good man.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Gareth

  Another day, an
other body. Gareth’s dismay at the sight of Aelfric’s body lying hidden behind the detritus in the cavern could not be overstated. “Who was he, exactly?” he asked Harold. “You were his captain and oversaw his work.”

  Harold spread his hands wide. He’d expressed nothing more than a grunt at the sight of the body, which four men were now loading onto a stretcher so they could carry him to lie where Sir Aubrey’s body had been until an hour ago. Aubrey’s grave had been dug yesterday, and he’d been put in the ground this morning, despite the snow.

  While the priest who administered to the castle community had, of course, prayed over him, Earl William also wanted a formal mass sung at St. Peter’s Church (another church Earl Robert had founded, this one in the town just beyond the main gate on the northwest side of the castle) at a time when everyone in the castle could attend. That had been set for tomorrow afternoon. Perhaps poor Aelfric could be buried then too.

  “He was a guard. Nobody of importance. Saxon, as I’m sure you can tell by the name. His sister lives in the town with her husband and children. That is all I knew of him.”

  “Would he have come down here as part of his duties?”

  “No more than any other soldier—which is to say no, or not often. He wasn’t posted here yesterday but on the outer curtain wall.” Harold looked down at his feet. “I must admit, had he not been garroted, I would have wanted to believe he could have drunk too much, stumbled, and died down here alone in the dark.” He lifted his head to look at Gareth. “I was not as helpful to your son as I could have been yesterday. I didn’t want to believe.”

  “Aelfric’s absence meant little at the time,” Gareth said. “We see the past with clearer eyes.”

  Llelo’s lips also twisted with regret. “I did mention the missing guard last night when we talked, but I didn’t name him, and it was in passing.”

  Gareth held his tongue. It wasn’t Llelo’s fault for not emphasizing what turned out to be a vital piece of information. They couldn’t have done anything about Aelfric’s disappearance at the time, nor known that it, among all the bits of information they’d learned yesterday, was more important than any other.

  “That his death is related to these others, however, cannot be denied.” Gareth said.

  “Can you tell how long Aelfric has been dead?” Harold asked.

  “He is cold and stiff,” Llelo said.

  “While it’s cold outside and cold down here,” Gareth said, “which would affect how quickly the body cooled, the stiffness of the body tells me he died before midnight last night, and perhaps quite some time before.”

  “We must discover when someone last saw him.” Llelo tipped his chin to indicate the path back to the castle. “Yesterday, I was told by one of your men, Thomas, that the men rotate around the castle over the course of their shift so nobody becomes bored or accustomed too long to the same duty. But do the same men serve the same locations every day at a specific time?”

  “It varies by the week and by the position. The shift in this guardhouse is four hours, after which a man moves elsewhere.” Harold looked grim.

  “We will need to speak to whomever was on duty yesterday from mid-morning on,” Gareth said.

  “Last night’s guards will be asleep,” Harold said, though he flushed after he spoke. “I realize that is not your concern. I will wake them and send to you all the men on duty around the time Aeflric left the castle.” He turned to go.

  “Wait—” Llelo pulled out one of Gareth’s sketches of the woman they now knew to be Rose. “We’re looking for her too.”

  Harold took the paper, glanced at it, and frowned.

  “You know her?” Gareth said.

  Harold snorted. “Of course I know her. What man at the castle does not?” It was a very similar response to what Hamelin’s had been. Then his eyes narrowed. “I haven’t seen her recently, however. She is missing?”

  Gareth wasn’t ready to betray all of Rose’s confidences just yet. “We need to speak to her.”

  “Of course. Where will you be?”

  “With the body,” Gareth said.

  * * * * *

  The laying-out room wasn’t where Gareth was supposed to be this morning, and while he couldn’t quite be grateful that someone else had died, he hadn’t been enjoying his time at the conference either. Talking over breakfast with great lords about their plan for the conquest of England was not his idea of a pleasurable way to spend his day. The conversation could easily have been about Wales—and probably had been at one time. Almost worse was the manner in which he was treated: with respect.

  If he’d thought any of them was a murderer, he would have been highly suspicious indeed. As it was, he felt like a fool to have Norman lords praising him. He was good at his job, and he had been among those who took Wiston Castle, but it all seemed a bit excessive and ultimately false—which made him wonder if there wasn’t something else someone wanted from him that he wasn’t going to want to do.

  He certainly didn’t want to be examining another dead body, but they definitely had a killer on the loose, since Aelfric hadn’t garroted himself. English or Welsh, murder was definitely Gareth’s business.

  “Do you know what was used to strangle him?” Llelo looked up from where he was examining Aelfric’s belongings, which were few enough. He possessed the clothes on his back, an all-but-empty purse, and a satchel. The man had not been moving up in the world.

  “A thin rope from behind.” Gareth was bent to Aelfric’s throat, which was bruised and broken, and he had a pair of metal tweezers in his hand. He turned to Llelo to show him the thin strand of rope he’d found in the wound.

  Llelo picked up one of the candles and brought it closer so he could see better. “Hemp. That type of rope can be found anywhere.”

  Gareth canted his head. “My guess, it’s from the laundry line next door.”

  Llelo’s eyes widened. “I’ve been in there! I think you’re right.”

  Gareth put the thin thread into a clay dish on a nearby table. “Not that it helps us identify the killer. Everyone in the castle had access to that rope.”

  “Can you tell anything about him from the way Aelfric was killed?”

  “Being left-hand leaning would have been thoughtful of him, but I’m not able to determine that from the garrote. Perhaps if his throat had been sliced, we might see a deeper cut on one side or the other as the killer pulled the blade back, but even that might not be definitive.”

  “Never assume, I know.” Llelo turned back to the satchel and began to lay out its contents. “Father—

  At the surprise in his son’s voice, Gareth looked over. It wasn’t every fifteen-year-old who could assist the way Llelo did, and not for the first time Gareth suppressed guilt that he was warping his son. “What is it?”

  Llelo held a small mason’s hammer in one hand and a chisel in the other. “These were in his satchel, at the very bottom wrapped in a pair of old socks. Could-could they have been planted on him to mislead us?” Llelo really was accustomed to deception for his mind to have gone immediately to that.

  “Or, with some credibility, since he’s dead, Aelfric really is the one who loosened the stone.”

  “He couldn’t have killed Sir Aubrey, though. The captain said he was at the meeting, with other people, when Sir Aubrey died, unless ... Harold is lying?”

  Gareth rubbed his chin. It was a quandary, but at the same time it was a thread, like the one he’d found in Aelfric’s neck, and if they pulled on it, he was going to find something at the other end.

  “Excuse me, my lord.”

  The voice wasn’t one Gareth recognized, and he looked to the door. A man blocked the doorway—and the light—so his face wasn’t immediately clear.

  Gareth waved a hand. “Come in.”

  “If-if you could come out, sir, I would be grateful.”

  With a sweep of his arm, Gareth threw a sheet over the body. On his way to the door, he said to his son, “Lay everything out on the table, Llelo, s
o I can examine it. I’ll take care of this.”

  “Yes, Father.”

  Gareth stepped outside the hut but halted immediately to stand under the eaves, not terribly surprised to find that the snow had turned to rain. In fact, he’d been hearing rain thudding on the roof for some time, but he’d been so focused on the dead man that the sound hadn’t risen to the forefront of his mind. Outside of the stone walkways, the bailey was already turning into a muddy puddle. Two men huddled with him.

  “The captain asked that we come,” one of the men said. He was of medium height, with dark hair and eyes and a close-cropped beard like Normans often wore. The second man was blond with an even shorter beard, which it appeared he was trying (and failing) to grow. That wasn’t uncommon in young men with his coloring. They were both younger than Gareth by at least a decade. “We saw Aelfric yesterday.”

  “When was this?”

  “Near midday.”

  “He was on duty then, supposedly on the outer wall,” Gareth said. “Did he say anything strange to you or mention what he was doing?”

  “He said the captain had sent him on an errand to town.” The dark-haired man was still speaking.

  His companion nodded vigorously. “He didn’t return.”

  The dark-haired man slapped his friend on the chest with the back of one hand. “Of course he didn’t return. He was dead!”

  “You didn’t think to wonder why he didn’t come back?” Gareth said.

  Both men shrugged in unison. “We sent him on his way through the tunnel to town, but we didn’t think anything of not seeing him again. Lots of times people walk the streets back, especially if it isn’t raining,” the blond man said.

  “Did you know him well?”