The Favored Son

by Sarah Woodbury

  Cadwaladr gaped at him for a moment, and then he straightened, almost preening. “You don’t say?”

  Dai had assumed that whatever he said to Cadwaladr would be wrong, but he had tried to be conciliatory—it cost him nothing personally—and he had said the right thing after all. At the same time, he was disconcerted to feel camaraderie emanating from the prince.

  Cadwaladr looked towards the main gate of the castle, before which a small crowd was gathering. “Hopefully you will find Bernard soon.” He sniffed. “Be sure to tell your father that if I can be of any assistance to him, to not hesitate to ask.”

  Dai bowed. “Of course, my lord.” He managed the honorific at the end.

  With a satisfied smirk, Cadwaladr strode off, and as Dai watched him go, he had a sinking feeling that, whatever the exchange had really been about, Cadwaladr had definitely gotten the better of him.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Gareth

  Gareth couldn’t be sorry he was missing yet another funeral, especially since it was a known fact that much of the time Gwen was more observant than he was. After examining Rose’s body, what he needed more than anything was to move. To breathe. To think about something else.

  “William seems like a capable fellow, but Bristol Castle could be better organized,” Gruffydd muttered as they picked up the pace, heading towards the inner gatehouse that led to the keep.

  Aron shook his head. “You’re looking at this from the perspective of a people constantly at war. This castle has never been attacked, much less taken. War is out there—” he gestured to the east, “—not something to worry about here. Or so everyone thinks.”

  “Stephen hasn’t always been the most circumspect of generals,” Gareth said, “but with the number of lords and men here today, he would be mad to attack it. Still, I agree with Gruffydd. Despite these deaths and the danger, the response is less measured than frantic. And I don’t like all these wards.” They’d reached the entrance to the stairwell in the gatehouse that would take them to the battlements, and Gareth touched the limp piece of holly above the doorway.

  “Perhaps that’s the intent,” Iago said, stomping up the steps behind them. “They want us to think they have a weakness when they do not. We would then go back to Ceredigion and tell Prince Hywel that Bristol is within the realm of possibility to take, and find ourselves lured into an ambush.”

  Gareth didn’t actually laugh, despite the absurdity of Prince Hywel having designs on Bristol. Rarely did any Welsh lord think of expanding his territory into England itself, despite the fact that all of it had once been theirs. They were too busy trying to hold onto what they had or pick away at the lands the English had already taken away in Wales. That had been the purpose of the campaign against Wiston. It had been a long time since the Welsh were the aggressor as opposed to constantly being put in the position of defending.

  They came out on the wall-walk of the inner curtain wall. Gareth first looked northwest, towards the town and the church with its crowd of people around it. Farther on, he could see two separate small groups of men going door to door in the town looking for Bernard.

  He looked down at Llelo, who had come up behind him. “Three days into an investigation, and the only suspect anyone can identify related to the deaths of five people is a supposedly-drowned valet with no motive.”

  “If he really is alive,” Cadoc said. “I’m disconcerted that the idea of him as the killer has been latched upon with such enthusiasm. What happens if we don’t find him? Will we be asked to give up the investigation?”

  Llelo cleared his throat. “We came here to see if anyone was up to something, but maybe we could get up to something ourselves?”

  Gareth stared at his son, who reddened slightly under his scrutiny.

  “These lists.” Llelo pulled a wad of paper from his pocket and brandished them. “I can’t help but think we’re missing something about them. I’d like to see the rest.”

  Gruffydd frowned. “What rest?”

  “The ones from before Sir Aubrey died.”

  Gareth turned to the Dragons. “Feel free to poke your nose into anything that looks strange. Llelo and I will have a look at the steward’s chamber. I’ve been meaning to do it since his death. I never should have put it off this long.”

  The steward’s rooms were located on the floor above the gatehouse tunnel. The door had a knocker in the shape of a lion’s head, and Gareth rapped the door with it twice.

  “It’s always odd entering the home of a dead person,” Llelo whispered.

  “We’ve come a long way from old Wena’s hut, haven’t we, son?”

  “A long way,” Llelo echoed under his breath. “He would have kept those lists easily accessible, yes?”

  “I would think so.”

  No footfalls sounded on the other side, so Gareth lifted the latch, and the door swung open on greased hinges. He and Llelo found themselves in a large rectangular room, with a long table near the windows for private meals. By the far wall stood a smaller table, behind which were shelves holding rolls of paper.

  Or should have been holding them. A number of scrolls had fallen to the floor, and while no cushions were torn and no cupboards were open, Gareth’s practiced eye told him that someone had gone through the room in a hurry very recently. Most tellingly, whoever that was hadn’t secured the trap door in the floor, and a piece of paper had been caught in the join and now stuck up into the air.

  Gareth stepped hesitantly inside. “Someone was looking for something.”

  “Could it have been Bernard?”

  “I’m not resting my hopes on him. Let’s see what we can see.” He bent to lift the trap door by the ring, releasing the paper, which turned out to be a different kind of list, this one of cryptic tasks:

  Ewerer hot water

  Earl William chamber

  Menu for tomorrow

  The castle construction was such that there were two layers of flooring here: the stone blocks that comprised the ceiling of the archway below had been topped by wooden flooring in this room above it, leaving a space between the stonework and the wood floor. It was a reasonable hiding place, if a mat had been thrown over the trap door and the ring was flush with the floor, but if Sir Aubrey had used it to hide something, that something was missing since the space was empty.

  Llelo set to work picking up the pieces of paper one by one and setting them on the long table. Gareth, meanwhile, began an inspection of the cupboards. A bottle of wine was still upright and intact, but one of the associated metal goblets had fallen over. Also in the cupboard were three knives in sheaths; two wooden boxes, one large and one small, both containing coins; and a bound manuscript. The purpose of the invasion hadn’t been theft.

  Curious about the manuscript, since he saw them so rarely, Gareth opened it.

  De gestis Britonum, it read in Latin. On the Deeds of the Britons by Galfridus Monemutensis, or Geoffrey of Monmouth. That was a topic of interest to Gareth, and would be of even more interest to his friend Abbot Rhys of St. Kentigern’s Monastery in St. Asaph.

  He opened the first page to read the inscription, finding that it was dedicated to Earl Robert of Gloucester. There was irony there: the throne of Britain, which Robert’s sister was trying to claim, rightfully belonged to the Welsh. No Norman wanted to hear that, of course.

  The book began with the Trojans and Romans and included many chapters about King Arthur. It was a startling creation. And right in the center of the book, hidden between the end of one chapter and the beginning of another, were two folded papers. Gareth pulled them out and was just opening them to read them when—

  “What are you doing in here?” Harold, the garrison captain, leapt through the doorway, sword in hand.

  Gareth had no patience for being wrongly accused. “Our job, Sir Harold. We had questions about Sir Aubrey’s lists, among other things, and came to look for them.”

  “Oh.” Harold lowered his sword and swept his eyes around the room. “I was ho
ping you were Bernard.”

  “He isn’t here, as you can see. Why aren’t you at the funeral?”

  “Things go missing when everyone’s away, and I was mindful of what your boy said to me about having everyone on duty in the same place at the same time.”

  “We’re here for the same reason,” Gareth said. “I suppose you didn’t see anything suspicious?”

  “One of the guards below heard banging about up here, but we are so short-staffed he didn’t investigate.”

  “Was this just now?”

  “Within the hour.”

  “We arrived moments ago, and saw nobody, though I’m sure that someone else has searched the room.”

  “Father?” Llelo held a neat stack of paper in his hands. He lifted the top page and held it out, showing Gareth a list of names from the day they’d arrived. His own name was near the top, followed by Gwen’s and Llelo’s.

  “I think this is a list of every person to go in and out of the two main gates every day for the last month.” While Llelo had collected the lists from the guardhouses yesterday, they’d been for that day or a few days before. Now, combined with Sir Aubrey’s, they told a story of the castle unlike Gareth had ever seen recorded before.

  Bernard’s name appeared a hundred times, coming and going daily in the days leading up to Earl Robert’s death, from every entrance and exit to the castle, including the tunnel. The presence of his name stopped abruptly two days after the earl died. He’d gone to the earl’s funeral, also at St. Peter’s Church, through the town gate. He had not returned.

  “What are you looking at?” Harold leaned across the table, turning one of the papers towards him and then quickly turning it back. “These lists of names again. What of it?”

  Gareth was watching Harold rather than the lists and saw the way his eyes had remained unfocused. He knew that look because he’d worn it himself until he was past twenty. “My son is showing you Bernard’s name.”

  Harold understood that Gareth knew he couldn’t read and said somewhat defensively, “I can write my name, but a scribe keeps track of the duty rolls for me. Ach—” he threw up his hands, “—why am I apologizing to you? Most men cannot read.”

  “We are not judging you,” Gareth said, “but somewhere in here is something that was important to Sir Aubrey. I was convinced of it before, and now I’m sure of it.”

  Harold scoffed and headed for the door. “The funeral should be over. I must speak to Earl William. We can’t catch Bernard quickly enough. He was here an hour ago. He could even be dressed as a guard—” He quickened his pace and left the room.

  “What? Wait ... Sir Harold!” Gareth hustled after him, but by the time he arrived at ground level underneath the inner gatehouse, Harold was loping through the outer gatehouse barbican.

  From beside him, Llelo muttered, “Why would Bernard turn over Sir Aubrey’s rooms? It makes no sense.”

  “It doesn’t.” But he had no time to puzzle it out because he saw what Harold was heading for: a disturbance just beyond the main gate to the town, in the clearing between it and St. Peter’s Church. A crowd had gathered, forming a circle and pressing on one another to better see what was happening in the middle. That was something Gareth couldn’t make out from where he stood, and he started forward after Harold.

  He concluded over his shoulder to Llelo, “I’m beginning to agree with your brother that perhaps it isn’t Bernard we should be looking for.”

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Llelo

  Evan skidded to a halt in front of Gareth and Llelo, more agitated than Llelo had ever seen him. “Something’s happening outside the castle. We could see it from the top of the wall.”

  At a fast walk, they hurried through the gatehouse and out of the castle into the street. The crowd between them and the church was growing by the heartbeat.

  Following his father, who edged through the rows of onlookers, Llelo finally reached the center of the mass of people. Most of the great lords were present, lining the inner rim of the circle, along with those in authority at the castle like Fitzharding, Harold, and Charles. These three were huddled on the town side, their heads together. Roger left his mother’s side and went to join their conference.

  Gwen, Angharad, and Dai were on the eastern side of the ring, by coincidence only a few yards away from the path Llelo had forged through the crowd. He and Gareth made their way towards them, all the while keeping their eyes on Prince Henry and Earl William, who stood a pace apart from each other in the center of the circle. The two lords were focused entirely on each other, apparently oblivious to the hundred onlookers. And both were apoplectic.

  “From the start, you have looked for ways to undermine me,” William shouted, the first of any emotion Llelo had seen in him. “My father is dead, and I am earl, confirmed by your mother. Why do you take against me so?”

  “You are treating with King Stephen! My spies intercepted a message from William of Ypres confirming it!” Prince Henry brandished a piece of paper in the air.

  “That you would accuse me of such a thing!” William’s outrage matched Henry’s. But then, all of a sudden, he deflated. He bowed his head for a moment, and then looked up to pin Henry with his gaze. “My lord, don’t you see that our enemies revel in our disunity? That they seek to divide us in order to conquer us? I swear to you on my father’s grave that I have no love for Stephen. I have never made any forays in that direction. Never.” The last word was emphatic. “This accusation is no more correct than that my father was murdered.”

  It was the last thing he should have said, because it was the last thing Henry could let go. “I heard it from your father’s own mouth. He said he was betrayed! Je suis fini!”

  “Why does he emphasize that phrase?” Llelo leaned in to his mother, who was looking on with as much interest as he. “Je suis fini just means ‘I am finished’, doesn’t it?”

  Gwen shook her head. “That would be “J’ai fini—I have finished. Je suis fini is much more ominous.”

  “Those are the last words of the Roman general Julius Caesar before he was killed by his friends,” Gareth said from Gwen’s other side.

  Llelo gaped at his father.

  Gareth spread his hands wide. “So says Abbot Rhys. I’m just the messenger, but if the abbot knew it, Earl Robert may have as well.”

  “You’ve had many conversations with the abbot you have not discussed with me, it seems!” Gwen said, though she was shaking her head when she said it, as if amused.

  Meanwhile, there was nothing amusing about the argument. William had been staring open-mouthed at his cousin without replying. Now, he said, “Why did you not speak of this sooner? I tell you, you misheard.”

  “How do you know? You weren’t there!”

  The accusation echoed around Henry, full of pain and suppressed grief. There were layers beneath the surface of this relationship too. Henry had loved his uncle, and it stood to reason that he’d loved William too—even worshipped him as he would an older brother. Llelo was an older brother, so he understood that this love made William’s betrayal all the more painful.

  “You’re wrong there too. I was listening in the shadows in the corridor. You really did mishear. My father said, Je suis beni.”

  Henry stared at William. “That’s not true.”

  “It is.”

  “You’re lying.”

  An audible gasp went up from every mouth at such an accusation. Henry seemed to realize for the first time that he was surrounded. But despite that fact, and even though his face was red right up to his hairline, he didn’t back down. “Why did you not come forward sooner?”

  There was a moment’s pause, and then William said, softly now, but the silence among the onlookers was such that Llelo had no trouble hearing him, “My father was dying, and I was grieving. I couldn’t bear to see his end. I had no idea you would take such a simple thing and turn it into murder.”

  “What about this note?” Henry brandished it again, though his hea
rt wasn’t in his accusation nearly as much as before. Gareth had moved a few paces closer to him by now, perhaps in sympathy or because nobody else was doing it. The prince was to the point of embarrassing himself and his House, but he mustered enough anger to shove the paper into Gareth’s hand. “The evidence is clear!”

  “By my guess, you were meant to intercept it.” William’s tone was actually wry, as if he was finding humor in the situation.

  Llelo had been watching with rapt attention, so he immediately noticed the change in his father. Gareth was standing frozen, staring down at the paper in his hand. Then he pulled out a folded paper from his pocket and compared the two.

  Llelo took a step towards him. “Father?”

  “William understands,” Gwen said.

  Llelo looked back at her. “What does he understand?”

  “I have thought all along, throughout this investigation, that what people weren’t talking about was as important as what they were.” Gwen was speaking in an undertone. “We need to examine what the people around us haven’t said, rather than what they have. And even more who has not said anything at all.”

  Gareth lifted his head to stare at her instead of at the paper. “We’ve been so busy trying to put together the pieces of the puzzle that we have gathered, that we haven’t noticed the pieces that we haven’t.”

  His parents had lost him, and Llelo was about to open his mouth to say so when yet another shout went up, but this time from outside the circle. The crowd hadn’t diminished in the slightest since Llelo’s family had arrived, but it parted as the Dragons, led by Cadoc and Steffan, passed through them, holding a struggling man between them.

  “Let me go. I’ve done nothing that you accuse me of!” This had to be Bernard.