The Renegade Merchant Read online

  “There’s more here than simply finding a dead man in your uncle’s inn. Do you notice anything strange about the way the body is lying?” Gwen gestured to the floor. She was speaking to Cedric as she might have to John Fletcher last year—trying to instruct him without seeming to.

  Cedric’s brow furrowed. “Is it … because the scene looks arranged? The man wouldn’t have fallen exactly like that.”

  “That’s right,” Gareth said. “From the wounds on the man’s face and hands, he had been fighting, but the man who killed him laid out the body carefully. Why do you think he did that?”

  Cedric’s brow remained furrowed. “Murder is a crime of passion. Of anger. Wouldn’t he leave the body and run?”

  “Sometimes men do panic and run for their lives,” Gareth said, “but in this case, I suspect we’re looking for a thinking man, one who, after the initial shock wore off, wanted to leave us a message about what he’d done.”

  “That he was sorry?” Cedric said.

  “Or that he wasn’t,” Gwen said.

  “I still don’t understand,” Cedric said.

  Gwen shared a glance with Gareth before speaking again. “We won’t know the truth until we find him. While the arrangement of the body indicates that the murderer has an organized mind, it looks to me from what else is here that his intent was to clear all traces of himself from the room.”

  “So not regret, but thought,” Gareth said.

  Gwen made a sweeping motion with one arm to indicate their surroundings. “The room shows no sign of a fight, which has to mean that the wounds on Roger’s face came from earlier in the day or—”

  Cedric nodded, seeing where Gwen was going with this, “—or that the murderer cleaned the room, just as he did the body. Which means we won’t find anything,” Cedric concluded glumly.

  “Though we must still look,” Gwen said.

  Cedric, rightfully, took that statement as his cue to circle the room.

  Gwen gestured to the entrance. “You’ll note that the door wasn’t forced.”

  Cedric glanced behind him, and when he turned back to Gareth, his eyes had lit again. “Conall invited Roger here!”

  “Or at the very least, opened the door to him and welcomed him inside,” Gwen said.

  That thought made Gareth frown slightly. The laws of hospitality were as important to the Irish as to the Welsh. It would take a truly compelling circumstance for an Irishman to invite a man into his home and then murder him in it, even if that home was temporary, as this one had been for Conall.

  “We need more information, clearly. Others might rush to condemn Conall or Rob, but we shouldn’t.” Gareth crouched again by the body and turned over Roger’s hands to look at his palms. The fingers of his left hand showed deep indentations, which experience told Gareth meant he’d managed at some point to slip his fingers between his throat and the garrote.

  Gwen bent forward as she had when they’d first arrived, her hands on her knees—not looking at Roger’s face, but at his clothing. She reached out a hand to feel the softness of the wool that made up his jacket, and then crouched beside Gareth to look closer. “This is finely done, Gareth. Feel it.”

  He swept his gaze down the length of Roger’s body. “Everything about him speaks of money. Given what Rob said and that he served on the town council, it should come as no surprise that he was a wealthy man.”

  Footfalls came on the cobbled walkway that led from the tavern to the room, and Gareth turned to see John Fletcher standing in the doorway.

  “One of the wealthiest, in fact,” John said.

  Chapter Seven

  Gwen

  Gwen could tell that John was shocked by Roger Carter’s death, but he was containing himself admirably. For such a young man, he’d lost more people he knew to foul play than most people four times his age. Though he’d made clear to Gareth when they’d met him last year in Wales that he was inexperienced in solving murder, he was certainly growing more experienced with every hour that passed.

  “I’m sorry, John.” And Gwen was—though, even as she said the words, she found herself puzzled by her detachment. Usually, when confronted with a murder, she became almost too emotionally involved. Not today. She’d followed along with Gareth, curious about what had happened—but she felt neither outrage nor horror at Roger’s death.

  Now, as she outwardly comforted John, she had to acknowledge that something really was wrong with her. In the last few hours, she’d stood first over the puddle of blood, and then Roger’s body, talking about who he was and how he’d died—and hadn’t taken a single moment to acknowledge the loss, which meant nothing more to her than a puzzle to be solved. When had she become so insensitive to murder? How could she find justice for a victim when she no longer cared about him or saw him as a person?

  John took a moment to regain his composure, during which time nobody but Gwen looked at him, and then he said, “How did Roger’s body get from that alley to here?”

  “It didn’t,” Gareth said, and then he explained that the blood couldn’t be Roger’s because that wasn’t how Roger had died.

  “So we have two incidents in Shrewsbury today.” John was aghast.

  “So it seems,” Gareth said. “What can you tell me about Roger Carter?”

  John spread his hands wide. “He was a worthy of the town, on the council, and influential. Rich.”

  “He was also Adeline’s former betrothed. Could her death have anything to do with his?” Gareth said.

  “Unless Prince Cadwaladr was somehow involved, I can’t see how.” Then John frowned as he looked between Gareth and Gwen. “There is another thing that ties the events of four months ago to today, you know.”

  “What is that?” Gareth said.

  “You.”

  Gwen put her hands on her hips, her unease put aside in the face of John’s assertion. “You can’t seriously think that Gareth had anything to do with Roger Carter’s death?”

  John held up both hands defensively as if staving off an attack. “I didn’t mean that Gareth murdered Roger. I only meant to suggest that if Roger knew more about Adeline’s death than he told me, someone might be worried to see you here, Sir Gareth. The murderer could have acted hastily—killing Roger—in hopes of preventing Roger from speaking to you.”

  Gareth straightened from where he’d been crouching beside the body. “You imply that my reputation as an investigator has preceded me.”

  “Yes.” John cleared his throat. “I might have spoken of you a time or two, and certainly the whole town would know of your arrival by now.”

  Gareth closed his eyes briefly as if gathering his strength, before opening them and speaking again to John. “With two investigations ongoing, your men are going to be spread thin, but I would say that Roger Carter’s death takes precedence over the possible death of someone we haven’t identified. We need to determine Roger’s whereabouts over the last day—and we need to break the news of his death to his family.”

  John heaved a sigh. “That falls to me.”

  “I will come with you, if I may,” Gareth said. At John’s relieved look, Gareth turned to Gwen. “I can’t send you out to question townspeople on your own, and I don’t think now is the time to introduce the woman who looks just like Adeline to Roger’s soon-to-be grieving family.”

  “I will return to the monastery,” Gwen said. “If you give me a sketch of Conall, I can start showing it around.”

  “And the rosary too.” Gareth handed the beads to Gwen. Then he pulled out the picture of Conall and sketched a copy for himself, from which he could make other copies later when he had time. When he was done, he looked up. “Cedric?”

  “I’ll escort her,” Cedric said, though his eyes flicked to John as he spoke.

  Gwen had the sense that Cedric was torn between chivalry and wanting to stay with Gareth and John. Gwen would have relieved him of the duty of escorting her if she could have, but she understood why Gareth didn’t want her wandering about Sh
rewsbury on her own, and that he wouldn’t have liked it even if her face wasn’t so like Adeline’s. “Come on.” She poked at Cedric’s arm.

  He sighed and assented, and they left the room.

  Gwen liked leaving Gareth even less than Cedric did, but Gareth was right, and she had the additional duty of checking up on Tangwen. Gwen would have brought Tangwen’s nanny, Abi, on this journey, which would have meant that Tangwen would have been safe to leave for days at a time. Unfortunately, only a few days before they were to set out for Shrewsbury, Abi had received word that her mother had fallen ill and needed tending. Gwen could hardly insist that Abi neglect her mother and, after further consideration, decided that it was for the best. Abi had never been outside Gwynedd in her life—and had hardly traveled more than ten miles from Aber itself. The trip then became an opportunity for Gareth and Gwen to be together with their immediate family, just the five of them.

  She and Gareth hadn’t yet told anybody at Aber what the future held for them, not with the risk of miscarriage so high and the mourning still ongoing. Even if Gwen would have loved to break the somber mood that filled the great hall like smoke from burned cooking, she didn’t feel it was her place to do so.

  Some—Queen Cristina among them—might also have thought that Gwen’s pregnancy should have precluded her coming on the journey—which was another reason Gwen hadn’t said anything about it to anyone earlier. She’d had no intention of being left behind. When Gareth had taken her and Tangwen to their small house on Anglesey in February, Hywel had recalled them to Aber after a few short weeks. But even that brief absence had made her see how important it was to get Tangwen away from the grief that hung over Aber.

  Once back at the monastery gate, Gwen let Cedric go, and with a grateful wave, he hastened back towards the east bridge and into Shrewsbury.

  Gwen then walked into the courtyard, expecting to find her daughter and Gwalchmai there, in the guesthouse, or at the very least in the adjacent garden. A quick search revealed no sign of them, however. Before she had to quarter the entire abbey to find them, however, a monk exited the church, and the sound of Gwalchmai’s tenor poured into the courtyard through the open door. Mocking herself, because she should have known he would find his way to the place with the best acoustics in Shrewsbury, she entered to see her brother standing before Abbot Radulfus himself.

  Gwen hoped that Gwalchmai had asked permission before he took up his position in the center of the nave, but perhaps it didn’t matter, given the abbot’s rapt attention. Her brother’s soprano voice had been known to make grown men cry, and even though his voice had deepened with manhood, it had lost none of its quality, timbre, or tone.

  As Gwen hovered in the doorway of the church, Gwalchmai stood in the middle of the transept and filled the space with song. The abbot, meanwhile, sat on the step below the altar, Tangwen beside him, and Gwen didn’t think she mistook the disguised movement that swept a tear from his cheek.

  Her brother was well on his way to becoming one of the greatest bards Gwynedd—or maybe all of Wales—had ever produced. But despite that fact, and his enormous natural talent, he never allowed the adulation to go to his head. He seemed to view the act of singing in front of an audience as a service to them and to God rather than behaving, like some bards did, as if he were a lord bestowing a gift on his people.

  Few professions were more celebrated in Wales than that of bard. The role cut across all classes, all types of people. This was one of the reasons that Gwen, a bard’s daughter and a musician in her own right, had been allowed more freedom during her childhood and early womanhood than almost any other woman she knew. A bard could go anywhere, be forgiven anything (except maybe murder), as long as he could sing.

  Gwalchmai knew all that. He’d been treated like the heir to the throne his whole life. He could have behaved like a spoiled child—or at the very least like an entitled princeling—but he did neither. He could sing for his audience of two with as much joy—more joy even—than when he’d performed the previous summer for half of Wales at Prince Hywel’s festival in Ceredigion.

  Gwen waited until Gwalchmai had finished his song before moving through the nave to the altar where her daughter sat. At the sight of Gwen, Tangwen toddled over to her, holding out her arms so Gwen could pick her up. Radulfus rose to his feet too, though not without a slight grunt of effort and the crack of aging knees.

  “Father.” Gwen bent to scoop up Tangwen.

  “I have been enjoying your brother’s music. It is an honor to hear such a voice raised in God’s praise in my church. And for him to sing as he does in Latin—” Radulfus broke off, shaking his head, though in awe not in dismay.

  “My father is the court bard for King Owain Gwynedd, and he instructed both of us,” Gwen said, deciding not to take offense that Radulfus might have believed them more ignorant than they were—because they were Welsh, or just because he didn’t encounter many lay people who knew Latin. “He was the first teacher to Prince Hywel of Gwynedd as well.”

  “I’m sorry to say that most of the brothers here do not know Latin beyond the recitations of the hours, and none of the laymen are lettered.” Abbot Radulfus bent slightly at the waist. “I had no idea until now who had favored my abbey with a visit. It is our charge as God’s servants to treat all who come through this abbey equally, as we are all God’s creatures. And yet, it would be a waste of talent and time not to use what He has given us. I apologize for mistaking any of you for less than you are.” He looked past Gwen to Gwalchmai. “It is my hope that you will sing during mass on Sunday.”

  “I would be honored to do so,” Gwalchmai said, though his brow furrowed. “Are you sure? Nobody has ever asked me to sing during mass before.”

  “I am sure.” Abbot Radulfus pressed his lips together in a thin line in displeasure—or maybe simple disbelief.

  It was true that while bards were renowned throughout Wales, they weren’t often called upon to sing in church, singing being viewed in this context as a more secular activity. Gwalchmai had become friends with Aber’s new priest, a jovial man who liked his mead, who had taught Gwalchmai several hymns of praise because singing was what Gwalchmai did for fun. But even Father Elis hadn’t asked Gwalchmai to sing at mass, believing it the purview of the ordained.

  “Please see me in the sacristy before mass, and we can discuss the order of the service.”

  Gwalchmai bowed. “As you wish.” He beckoned with one hand to Tangwen, who wriggled to get down from Gwen’s arms in the boneless way of a two-year-old.

  Gwen could hardly have continued to hold her if she’d tried, and she let Tangwen run across the floor to her uncle. They left together. Then Gwen turned back to Radulfus. “Thank you.”

  Radulfus didn’t pretend to misunderstand. “Oh no. It is I who should be thanking you. It has been many years since I heard a voice such as his. It is my understanding from a few words he let slip that Gwalchmai used to have a surpassingly beautiful soprano.”

  “It is true. I wish we could have preserved it somehow, just to hear it one more time” Gwen said.

  “Like a treasured vintage of wine. Yes,” Radulfus said. “Wouldn’t that be a feat? Alas, such is the condition of man that we cannot return to our younger selves. As it is, perhaps a child’s voice is more precious, like life itself, in that it is fleeting.”

  Gwen smiled. “Honestly, I’m surprised my father didn’t say anything to you about Gwalchmai when we arrived. He is so very proud of what Gwalchmai has become.”

  “As any father would be.” Radulfus gestured towards the rear door, indicating that they should walk towards it. “As our Father in heaven surely is as well. But I have a feeling you did not come here to discuss your brother and his music, no matter how beautiful.”

  Gwen took in a breath. “No, Father. There’s been a murder. Maybe even two. What’s more, one of the dead men is Roger Carter, a member of Shrewsbury’s town council.”

  “My dear, what are you saying?” Radulfus halted
before the door. “Roger Carter has been murdered?”

  “Strangled, I’m afraid.”

  “How is it you came to know of it?”

  Gwen took in a quick breath. “John Fletcher, the Deputy Sheriff, has asked my husband to consult on the matter.”

  Radulfus rubbed his chin. “Sadly, we are no stranger to murder here, as we’ve witnessed several over the years, but I’m afraid that with the sheriff absent, we may be much at a loss in solving it until he returns.”

  “That is why my husband has become involved,” Gwen said, trying not to take offense. “He has a regrettable amount of experience in that regard, and he is assisting John Fletcher with his inquiries even now.” She paused, looking searchingly into the abbot’s face, hoping for a sign that he understood her English, which she felt was failing her as she tried to explain. “Gareth was hoping you wouldn’t mind if he sent the body here to await burial and—” She hesitated again.

  “And what?” Radulfus’ face remained a mask Gwen was struggling to read. It was generally accepted that the Welsh were expressive and the English impassive. Radulfus was Norman and also had noble blood. He had probably learned in his cradle how to prevent his emotions from appearing on his face.

  “I am asking this of you with the idea that housing the body here would allow Gareth and John Fletcher to examine it without inconveniencing anyone or offending the family,” Gwen said. “The fact that Master Carter was an important man in the town complicates matters.”

  “Has the family been notified?”

  “Gareth and John Fletcher are doing it now,” Gwen said. “Gareth sent me to you instead.”

  Radulfus bowed his head, pursing his lips and staring at the ground.

  “I’m sorry,” Gwen said. “Did you know Roger well?”

  Radulfus looked up. “No. Not personally, but his family has had enough troubles this year, what with Adeline’s death—” He gestured to Gwen.