The Unlikely Spy

by Sarah Woodbury

  Rhun released a surprised laugh. “You distrust everyone’s motives, don’t you?”

  “In a murder investigation, I have learned to,” Gareth said without apology.

  “Do you think it is human nature to trust or distrust?” Rhun said.

  Gareth’s brow furrowed in thought. Rhun’s mind worked differently from that of his brother. Hywel viewed the world through cynical eyes. Rhun was more open and unjudgementally curious, which was what Gareth was feeling from him now.

  “Think of a child like Tangwen,” Gareth said.

  They left the monastery and were riding through the village of Llanbadarn Fawr, which had grown up around St. Padarn’s. Aberystwyth, a slightly larger village, was located one mile to the west on the seaside. Hywel’s castle, their destination, was a mile and a half to the south of both villages, sited on a hill overlooking the sea. The festival pavilions and tents were set up on the flood plain below the castle in the curve of the river Ystwyth.

  “She neither trusts all nor distrusts all, but she trusts and distrusts based on instinct. A child’s instincts are often better than those of an adult, who trusts or mistrusts based upon experience.”

  “And sometimes those experiences play a man false.” Rhun nodded. “I see what you’re saying.”

  “Now, sometimes a child’s instinct can play her false too,” Gareth said. “Tangwen has been known to favor people who speak to her in a soft voice, and a man who understands how a child’s mind works can manipulate her into trusting where she shouldn’t.”

  “A frightening idea,” Rhun said.

  This conversation had carried them down the road from St. Padarn’s and across the Rheidol River to the ford of the Ystwyth River below Hywel’s castle. In the last few days, the number of tents and flags had grown from a mere handful to more than fifty. The market fair was in full swing.

  Welsh society as a whole was based upon kinship and land ownership. Hywel, as lord of the land, ruled Ceredigion, and each of his lesser lords tithed to him. In turn, the people of Wales, whether they farmed, fished, or herded, owed tithes to their lord. At one time the majority of the Welsh people had been, while not slaves, not exactly free either. But over time that had changed such that each man had been given responsibility for himself. He controlled his own flocks and the product of his labors, even if he continued to tithe to lord and Church. At one time, true slavery had been common too, though that practice was disappearing. More often than not, it was the Welsh who’d been enslaved by invading hordes.

  Since the Normans had come, small villages had sprung up across the land, and with them came established merchants, traders, and craftsmen. They traveled all around Wales and into the March, just as bard’s had always done. As the child of a bard, Gwen had sung up and down the length of Wales before her father, Meilyr, returned to Gwynedd to sing for King Owain as his court bard. Gwen’s father had served two kings of Gwynedd in his time—King Owain and his father, Gruffydd, before him—and Gwen’s brother, Gwalchmai, looked to do the same.

  Gareth hadn’t realized until this moment what an accomplishment this festival was for Hywel. That so many people had come—high and low alike—showed the respect they had for him and for music—and possibly for his music. As the son of the King of Gwynedd, Hywel wasn’t a bard the way Gwen’s father and brother were. But he’d been trained by Meilyr, and his voice possessed a clarity that Gareth had never heard in another singer.

  Hywel’s stature—both as a prince and as a musician—meant that when he personally invited the premier bards of Wales to come to Ceredigion, they had accepted. The King of Gwynedd was entertained by his bard at Aber—and occasionally by Hywel—on an almost daily basis. But music of the quality they could produce was far less commonplace in the little villages, hamlets, and homesteads spread across the rest of Wales.

  In fact, for some, hearing music like that found at this festival was the chance of a lifetime.

  Rhun and Gareth dismounted at the entrance to the tent fair. To cut down on thievery, Gareth—who’d been in charge of such details—had fenced the market to allow only two entrances to the grounds, both guarded by Hywel’s men. The two on guard at the moment, Goch and Rhodri, happened to be two of the more sensible soldiers in the garrison.

  They saluted Gareth and bowed to Rhun at their approach. Goch and Rhodri were accompanied by Hywel’s scribe, Barri. The name derived from the Welsh word for mountain, but the man was a hillock compared to the much larger soldiers beside him. Goch, with his flaming red hair, was dwarfed only by Rhodri with his enormous feet.

  “How goes it, Rhodri?” Gareth said.

  “Well enough, my lord,” Rhodri said.

  “I was hoping that you would have a list of all the craftsmen and traders who have set up their tents here,” Gareth said. “In particular, we are looking for one Iolo, a cloth merchant.”

  Rhodri turned to Barri, who consulted a paper with a long list of text down one side. “Iolo ap Llywelyn that would be?”

  “That’s the one,” Gareth said.

  “Third row, ninth stall down. One of three cloth merchants we have here today,” Barri said, proving that size had nothing to do with intelligence. Hywel had chosen well when he asked the scribe to take time from his regular duties to help maintain order at the fair.

  “Excellent,” Gareth said. “Thank you.”

  Prince Rhun took a step into the fairgrounds, but Goch stopped Gareth before he could follow. Rhun returned to the entrance, having realized that Gareth wasn’t with him.

  “Is there something amiss, my lord?” Goch said. “Something we should know about? I hear there’s been a death.”

  Gareth scratched his cheek. “Yes. A man was found dead in the millpond. You already heard this?”

  Both guards nodded.

  Gareth wasn’t surprised. The rumor mill was working better than the watermill today—perhaps more quickly than usual because there were so many more people available to spread the news. Their walk from the mill to the monastery with the body in the cart would have been easily enough to start tongues wagging. Gareth hadn’t even tried to restrain Teilo from talking. At least Gareth could count on the monks for discretion with outsiders, though by now the entire monastery had to be aware of what had happened.

  “We have learned little more than that, my lord,” Rhodri said. “I am sure that most of the details are likely to be wrong. You know how it goes.”

  “I do.” Gareth jerked his head, indicating that Rhodri should step to one side. Barri and Goch were attending to a man with gear over his shoulder who was asking for tent space.

  “I will tell you as soon as we have information I need you to know,” Gareth said. “For now, the name of the dead man appears to be Gryff. And yes, he was found dead in the millpond.”

  Rhodri opened his mouth to speak but then closed it.

  “What is it?” Gareth said sharply.

  Rhodri cleared his throat. “One of the rumors we heard was that Prince Rhun saw the man drowning in the millpond and swam out to save him.”

  Rhun let out a whoosh of surprised laughter. “I suppose that’s better than if the word had been that I’d killed him. But no, I was one of the first on the scene. That is all.” He eyed the soldier. “You should know that we are here asking questions because the man didn’t drown.”

  “Murder?” Rhodri’s eyes widened.

  “That is for the ears of you and Goch only,” Gareth said. “I mean it. Everyone is assuming he drowned, and we want to keep it that way until we know more.”

  Rhodri nodded fervently. “We will tell no one.”

  Gareth supposed that if he was going to enlist members of the guard to help in the investigation, they had to know they were dealing with murder, but he wished Prince Rhun had asked him first before announcing it to Rhodri. Then again, Rhun was a prince. He wasn’t accustomed to asking permission to do anything.

  “Beyond this, we know little else and are in the first hours of our investigation,” Gar
eth said. “It’s probably fruitless to try to stem the tide of rumors, but at least you know the truth.”

  Rhodri pressed his lips together in a look of satisfaction, and Gareth felt better about sharing this bit of information. He might need quick action from both guards if all didn’t go as he expected in the next hour. At the very least, as soldiers, it was their job to keep an eye on the comings and goings of everyone in the fairgrounds. With a murderer on the loose, they needed to stay alert.

  While he’d been talking to Rhodri, the number of festival-goers had continued to swell. Afternoon had given way to evening, and people were shopping before returning to the music program in the next field over. Leaving the two guards to their duties, Gareth and Rhun moved quickly through the crowds. They turned down the aisle Barri had mentioned and started counting stalls.

  “There he is.” Rhun put a hand on Gareth’s arm.

  “Which booth?” Gareth said.

  Rhun pointed with his chin to a stall twenty feet away. A man with close-cropped dark hair and a bushy mustache was adjusting his wares on a table, while speaking to a large man wearing a too-warm coat and a hat pulled low over his eyes. He looked like he ought to be a patron, since he had a hole in the knee of his breeches. Where the hat didn’t cover him, his blond hair and bushy beard stuck out all around.

  Then Madlen set a stack of many-colored fabrics on the table beside her uncle and ducked back into the tent behind the stall, one wall of which was completely open. A canopy extended from the tent to cover the wares, protecting them and the customers from the elements, which today consisted only of bright sunlight.

  Gareth felt like saying, “Ah ha!” but restrained himself. He was glad to be able to talk to both uncle and niece without having to track Madlen down somewhere else.

  “She seems remarkably composed for a woman who just lost her husband,” Rhun said.

  “You read my thoughts, my lord,” Gareth said.

  But then, as they made their way forward, a cry followed by a wrenching sob came from the recesses of the tent. Rhun shot Gareth an apologetic look. The blond patron glanced around. Noticing Gareth and Rhun, he bent his head briefly in acknowledgement of their evident station, which was far above his, and disappeared into the crowd. Together, Gareth and Rhun approached the cloth merchant.

  Iolo looked up, his expression questioning. He thought they were customers.

  “I am sorry for your loss,” Gareth said.

  Iolo’s mouth turned down. “And you are?”

  Prince Rhun eyed Iolo, not taking offense, but he didn’t answer him either. Gareth suspected that Rhun would happily claim to be someone else entirely if Gareth let him, just for fun. So Gareth spoke for both of them, “I am Sir Gareth, the captain of Prince Hywel’s teulu, and this is Prince Rhun of Gwynedd.”

  The man’s face paled, as it should have, and he bent fully at the waist in a bow. “My apologies, my lord. I am not from around these parts. I did not know.”

  Rhun dipped his chin slightly in acknowledgement and moved a hand to indicate that the man could straighten. “We are here about the death of your niece’s husband, Gryff.”

  Iolo stared at them for a count of five, to the point that Gareth was wondering if Rhun should repeat what he’d said. Then Iolo said, “I see.” He turned to look into the recesses of the tent behind him. “As you can see, Madlen is distraught.”

  “I can only imagine what she must be feeling,” Rhun said.

  Gareth took the picture he’d sketched of Gryff and handed it to Iolo. “Just to be clear, this is Gryff?”

  Iolo took the paper. “That is well done! Yes, that is Gryff.”

  “What was Gryff’s relationship to you?” Rhun said.

  Gareth was happy to let the prince keep speaking. He was good with people and had made Iolo feel at ease with grace, especially given that they’d gotten off on the wrong foot at the start.

  Iolo’s brows drew together. “Is there some purpose to these questions, my lord? Gryff is dead. What more is there to say?”

  “We’re just following up. A man died,” Prince Rhun said. “We want to be thorough.”

  Iolo continued to look puzzled. “I thought Gryff drowned in the millpond?”

  Gareth grunted. He didn’t like to lie outright to anyone, even suspects in a murder investigation. Lying was for criminals, and if Gareth lied to them, pretty soon it might be hard to tell who was who. “Any time a man dies prematurely, questions must be asked. The monks, for example, are concerned about the nature of his death.”

  Iolo had a naturally ruddy complexion, and with this comment, some of the color left his face. “Are they wondering how Gryff got there? Do you think he might have—” Iolo swallowed hard, “—done himself in?”

  That wasn’t what Gareth had been thinking at all. He’d just been trying to deflect Iolo’s queries, but his question gave Gareth a moment’s pause. Since he had known it was murder from the start, he hadn’t considered the various reasons a man might die if it wasn’t, and the specifics of what people might think. “We are pursuing every line of inquiry.”

  “How else does a man end up dead in a millpond in the middle of the night?” Rhun said, taking up the questioning again.

  “Slipped, perhaps,” Iolo said. “Gryff often drank more than was good for him.”

  “While the idea that Gryff took his own life surprises you, the idea Gryff might have died because he was too drunk to save himself would not?” Rhun said.

  Iolo shrugged and began rearranging the piles of cloth in front of him. It was as if he’d lost interest in the conversation, but his hands shook before he clenched them into fists and stilled them. “It isn’t as if he could swim, and a drunk man, as we all know, has little control over his limbs.”

  “Do you have any idea what he might have been doing at the millpond in the early hours of the morning?” Rhun said.

  “The pond is on the road between here and Aberystwyth village, is it not?” Iolo said. “Maybe he got lost on the way to our lodgings from the fair.”

  “Maybe,” Rhun said.

  “I’m sure you know your business, my lord,” Iolo said, suddenly turning affable. It was the third persona he’d put on in what was still a relatively short conversation. “Gryff was a dreamer. Why he did or did not do anything has never been clear to me.”

  “Yet you kept him on,” Rhun said. “He married your niece. So we ask again, what was his relationship to you?”

  “He was my apprentice—” Iolo waggled his head, his eyes turned upward for a moment, “—well, my journeyman. I had hope that he would take on more and more of the duties of a master draper, but—”

  Rhun tipped his head. “He was not doing so?”

  “He never proved as capable as I would have liked,” Iolo said.

  Silence fell for a moment, punctuated by Madlen’s sobs, still ongoing in the background. Gareth could see her, hunched over on a stool with her face in her hands. Prince Rhun had done an excellent job questioning Iolo so far, but when after another pause he didn’t have another question on the tip of his tongue, Gareth said, “You had hopes of something different from Gryff at one time?”

  “I brought him into my business after a chance meeting on the road. He was looking for a trade, and I had need of an apprentice. One thing led to another. I took him on permanently.”

  “When did he and Madlen marry?” Gareth said.

  At first Gareth wasn’t sure Iolo had heard the question, since he didn’t respond right away, but then he said, “They weren’t together long, a few months only.”

  “Please describe exactly how you and Gryff met,” Gareth said.

  “My cart was stuck in the mud,” Iolo said. “Gryff helped me to become unstuck, stayed around to help that day and the next, and then stayed permanently. His circumstances had taken a turn for the worse after he’d had a falling out in his previous situation.”

  It was a common story, even up to the part where Iolo and Gryff had met by chance. Two stranger
s could strike up a friendship or form a business relationship if they journeyed together. A trader such as Iolo, who might return to his home village once every few months, would have long experience turning strangers into friends, and for Madlen to marry Gryff made sense, since they were together all day every day.

  “I see,” Gareth said. “When did you last see Gryff?”

  “Last night before I retired,” Iolo said promptly. “We had a great deal to do and a short amount of time to do it in. As you can see, Madlen and I are run off our feet. Gryff was supposed to have arranged the fabrics last night, not to mention that he should have slept in the stall to guard it.” Iolo put out a hand to Gareth. “Not that I am in any way criticizing the watchfulness of your men, my lord. But a man has to protect what little he owns.”

  “We understand,” Rhun said. “What happened next?”

  “I went to the latrine and returned to find him gone. I didn’t see Gryff again.”

  “When did you arrive in Aberystwyth?” Rhun said.

  “We’ve been in the area for two weeks. We arrived in Aberystwyth three days ago to set up the stall.” Iolo leaned forward, looking at Rhun. “My lord—all these questions—what is this really about?”

  “As I said,” Prince Rhun said, “we have questions about how Gryff came to be in the millpond. That is all.”

  Iolo glanced at Gareth before looking back to the prince. It occurred to Gareth all of a sudden that Iolo had been speaking so openly to Rhun not out of respect but because he thought him a soft touch. Iolo seemed more wary of Gareth, never mind that so far they had no indication he’d done anything wrong.

  “We are simply making inquiries. Thank you for your time,” Gareth said.

  “Please let me know when the body is set to be buried and where.” Iolo gestured to where Madlen sat sobbing. “Madlen is suffering in this matter.”

  “That reminds me—” Gareth had been saving the questioning of Madlen until the end, “—we need Madlen to return Gryff’s purse to us, or at least allow us to view its contents.”

  Madlen’s sobs ceased in mid-breath, proving that she’d been listening to every word that had passed between her uncle and Gareth and Rhun.