A Spy for the Redeemer (20 page)

‘You watch me too closely. I did not invite you into my thoughts. Even the Lord God gives us the courtesy of pretending He needs to hear our confession through His priests.’

Martin stared straight ahead.

The track they followed was overgrown and rocky, seemingly chosen to follow the most difficult terrain. Not so bad that they had to dismount, but the horses moved as slowly as the men might have done on foot – had not Owen been injured. His wounds stung more and more as he jounced on the horse. His shoulder ached as he shifted his body to balance in the saddle. He prayed they did not have far to go, else he could not imagine being in any condition to ride again tomorrow.

Halfway up a track that climbed a barren, stony height they dipped into a small depression carved out by a stream, shaded by a few young trees. Two paths led off at different angles. Martin signalled a halt and dismounted.

Owen dismounted with care.

Martin crouched on the bank of the stream, where it bent towards him, round a stone outcropping topped with gorse. In the bend was a mound of smooth stones – after heavy rains the water must come down from the highlands with force and speed, depositing some of the stones caught up in the torrent. At present the slow-flowing water left them dry. Martin seemed to be handling the smooth rocks idly, turning them over, then setting them back down on the mound. All white rocks.

‘Do you read signs in the stones?’ Owen guessed.

Martin bent to the stream, picked up a stone and handed it to Owen. Someone had chiselled out lines and angles.

‘I have seen lettering like this – on wayside crosses. I cannot read it.’

‘You are not meant to. Even one skilled in such lettering would find these a riddle.’

‘Lawgoch has planted these?’

‘Cynog,’ said Martin. ‘He carved them and put them in place.’

If ever there was a man Owen had misjudged, it was Cynog. ‘What do they signify?’

‘Directions. Safe paths.’

‘For whom?’

‘We shall talk when we return to the farmhouse.’

Owen stared down at the other white rocks in the stream. Cynog had spoken of Lawgoch to Math and Enid. If Cynog had been working for Lawgoch’s cause, his murderer might well have been – as Rokelyn had surmised – a king’s man, someone who wanted to make of Cynog an example for other traitors to the king. Someone who had come upon him carving the stones? A fellow mason? But why would such a man care so much about whether Cynog betrayed the king? Would the guild have decreed such an act? To protect their freedoms? Certainly the guilds in York felt strongly about the behaviour of their members.

Had Piers the Mariner searched Cynog’s room for evidence of treason? Would a spy for the king have been so obvious? Even so, Edward was king here, no matter the feelings of the people. Someone would surely come forth to argue in Piers’s defence if he were the king’s man. But would anyone have understood what they saw, smooth rocks on which Cynog had carved some symbols? Was it not more likely someone had come upon him setting them out?

‘Several of them have symbols,’ Martin said as Owen continued to stare at the stones. ‘Not all.’

Owen only now focused completely. ‘How many learn these symbols?’

‘Enough for someone to think it worth the effort.’ Martin’s dark eyes studied Owen. ‘You see now the complications. Cynog was not the victim of a jealous lover.’

‘I never believed he was.’ But Owen had thought him an innocent.

‘This is Englishman against Welshman,’ said Martin. ‘You are vulnerable. Neither side knows whether to trust you.’

‘Do you think I do not realise that? I did not choose to become involved in this.’

‘I could get you away from here. Back to Lucie and your good life in York.’

‘You should want me to stay. Work for Lawgoch, as you do.’

Martin laughed. ‘I work for King Charles. If he told me tomorrow that I should slit Lawgoch’s throat – well, I should much regret it, but I doubt I would hesitate.’

‘You have met Owain?’

‘Several times.’

‘Tell me about him. Now, away from Enid and Math.’

Martin glanced at Owen, nodding. ‘So. It is not your men who keep you here, it is Lawgoch.’

‘Do you question my honour?’

‘Not at all.’ Martin looked around. ‘We cannot talk here. It is too open.’

‘Then elsewhere.’

Owen turned his back on Martin, led his horse to a rise in the ground, used it to help himself mount. When he was settled astride, he nodded to Martin, who still stood beside his horse, shaking his head.

Owen turned his horse down the trail towards the farmhouse. ‘Come, Martin,’ he called, ‘lead the way.’

He heard the man mount.

Owen’s side felt damp. The bandage meant to hold his arm and shoulder still had begun to unravel. But he had learned something at last.

Martin pressed ahead. In a while he turned off the trail, ducking beneath low branches. Owen thought he could hear rushing water. He followed, clutching his side as he leaned over his saddle. The trees thinned as the sound of the quick stream grew louder. Owen thought it a poor choice for their purpose – no one could hear them, true enough, but neither could they hear anyone approach. But Martin did not stop at the water; he crossed it, rode up a slope to a wooded hillock.

‘Here we can watch all sides,’ Martin said, dismounting.

Smoke rose from the farmhouse smoke hole. Geese squawked at the three who led their horses from the woods. A man peered out of the barn, withdrew.

‘Come with me,’ one of the guards ordered Tom. ‘Search the barn,’ he told his companion.

They were dismounting when a small dog came rushing from the barn, barking.

A woman emerged from the house, shouting something in Welsh. If it was an order for the dog to desist, it did not work. The man now strolled out of the barn. He was young, perhaps Tom’s age, but with a patch of white hair over his right ear. He called in Welsh to the woman, who nodded and went back inside.

One of the guards was trying to shake the dog off his boot. The other kept muttering, ‘What are they saying?’ But neither seemed skilled in Welsh. Neither was Tom. But he did know how to befriend a dog. He squatted, called the dog to him. He did not want her injured by the one guard’s increasingly angry kicks. As the dog trotted over to sniff Tom’s hand, the two guards moved away. Tom scratched behind the bitch’s ears, nodded to the man with the odd hair, who was approaching.

‘Do you want to tell me who you are and what you want?’ the man asked Tom. In English.

Tom introduced himself as Captain Archer’s man, the others as guards from St David’s.

The man nodded. ‘I am Deri. Cynog’s brother. Your captain was here yesterday. Was there something he forgot to ask?’

It seemed the captain and Iolo had left the farm early enough to have reached St David’s before the curfew. Tom did not like that news – where were they? The guards had come over to hear the conversation.

‘The woman speaks no English?’ one of them asked Deri.

‘My mam speaks only her own language,’ Deri said. ‘And my da. I was ruined when I went to sea.’

No wonder he had more confidence than Tom. He had already been to sea. And survived.

‘So the captain is gone?’

‘He is.’

‘We would like to see for ourselves. The barn. The house.’

‘Do as you will. I am sure my objection would make no difference to you,’ said Deri.

The guards found nothing. But Tom did. In a basket shoved beneath a bench was a muddy, blood-soaked shirt with a familiar bit of mending on the neck. Tom had stitched up that tear for the captain. Back in the woods they had passed over an area where the mud had been churned up and the brush trampled. Had the captain been involved?

‘The captain was injured?’ Tom asked the woman, forgetting she spoke no English. But surely she would recognise the captain’s name. ‘Captain Archer’s,’ he said, holding the shirt out to her. She nodded, pushing it back towards him. Tom thought it meant she wanted him to take it.

He ran with it out to the man, Deri. The guards were talking to him. Tom thrust the bloody shirt in front of Deri’s face. ‘What happened to the captain?’

Deri wagged his head from side to side, as if so much blood were nothing. ‘Ilar bit him,’ he said. He nodded towards the dog, who was sitting quietly by his side.

One of the guards laughed.

Deri glanced over at him with a disgusted look, then turned his attention back to Tom. ‘Mam cleaned up the captain, gave him one of my shirts.’

Tom did not believe it. The dog was friendly enough if approached in such wise. And the captain knew how to approach a guard dog. Deri grinned, shrugged. But the way he held Tom’s gaze made the young man hold his tongue.

Owen sat down beneath the trees. Martin brought a wineskin from his saddle. Enid had filled it with a mixture of herbs and cider, for pain. Owen drank, but very little. He wanted to keep his wits about him.

Martin lowered himself beside Owen, but facing out in the opposite direction. ‘What do you know of Yvain de Galles, the princeling who would redeem this country from the English?’ He used Owain Lawgoch’s French name.

‘I know little,’ said Owen.

‘Yvain is a man of honour. The first time I met him was here, in Wales. His father had died two years earlier, but Yvain had just heard of it and that his lands had been confiscated. He had come from France to petition King Edward to restore his property.’

‘Did he win it back?’

‘Much of it. He then sold off some woods and was preparing to return to France with his money.’

Owen grunted. ‘He wants the money. He is not the hero folk think him.’

‘You are wrong. Even a hero needs money to live. When he returned to France he was joined by Ieuan Wyn, another Welshman. Perhaps you have heard of him?’

‘You must be mistaken. Ieuan is Lancaster’s constable at Beaufort and Nogent.’

Martin laughed. ‘No more. Yvain and Ieuan joined Bertrand du Guesclin fighting in Castile – against your duke. Yvain is Llywelyn the Last’s grandson, Ieuan is of the family of Llywelyn’s seneschal. King Charles likes the echo of the past in their partnership – prince and seneschal once more. It is the sort of echo that the king puts much faith in. And Lancaster’s loss. That is also pleasing to him.’

‘How did Cynog know where to set the markers?’

‘Has anyone in St David’s mentioned Hywel?’

‘No,’ said Owen. ‘Why should they? Who is he?’

‘The stone markers, those are his doing,’ said Martin. ‘Your horses – he has them, I am certain.’

‘A horse thief?’

‘Not a common horse thief. He is what passes for a noble among your people,’ Martin said. ‘Wealthy, ambitious, generous to those who assist him, ruthless to those who oppose him. He claims to be Yvain’s man, recruiting an army to support him when he lands. But Hywel is stealing money for his preparations that should come to me – for the prince. In fact, he fashions himself a prince. Soon he will forget that he meant to support Yvain and claim to be the Redeemer of Wales himself.’

‘I should like to talk to Hywel.’

‘You do not want to meet him. It is Yvain de Galles you wish to meet. Hywel is not of the same stuff. You may find yourself with a liege lord you would dislike as much as the Duke of Lancaster.’

‘I should find it a pleasant change, to fight for my own people.’

‘Yvain has allied himself with the French. You lost your eye fighting against them. He may have been in the field against you. Have you thought of that?’

‘I asked to talk to Hywel, not to take up arms for Owain Lawgoch.’

Martin laughed. ‘Oh, my friend, if you could see your face. You are already imagining heroic deeds that would free your countrymen. Enough of this. You must rest if you are to ride back to St David’s in the morning.’

‘Ride? You will loan us horses?’

‘I would guess you could ride your own horses beyond the wood. I told you – Hywel will have them. My men Deri and Morgan will take you to him.’

‘You will not accompany us?’

‘I keep my distance from Hywel. We share no love for one another.’

‘Then Deri and Morgan shall take me to him.’

Ilar announced their arrival, barking and scampering as if she thought they carried a bowl of meat for her. Deri and Morgan followed, and quickly told them of the visitors.

‘Iolo heard their approach before we did. He hid himself well. There were three – two of the bishop’s retainers and Tom, your man.’ Deri nodded to Owen.

‘Young Tom was with the archdeacon’s guard?’ Owen asked.

‘Not willingly,’ said Deri. ‘He kept his mouth shut to help me in a lie.’ He explained what had happened. ‘They will ride back slowly, searching for you along the way. I think they expect to find you lying somewhere in the brush overcome by llar’s vicious attack.’

Enid apologised for not thinking of the shirt. Math fumed about the archdeacon’s sending out his men to search for Owen, but never a bother about his son.

‘This is all about Cynog,’ Owen said, trying to calm him.