Dragon's Lair (32 page)

Once Copper was shod, he would rejoin Llewelyn and his men. There was no need to hurry, though, for they were running out of places to look. Thomas de Caldecott had begun to haunt his dreams, a sprightly ghost mocking their futile efforts to find his cache. When Justin reminded him that there would be few occasions for such merriment in Hell, he merely laughed and faded away, only to return the next night, more faithful in death than ever he had been in life, Justin thought sourly.

The scene before him was so tranquil that it was easy to forget so much was at stake. Copper had never looked so sleek, his chestnut-red coat glowing in the mellow morning light. The farrier was going about his task with quiet competence, gentling the stallion with crooning Welsh endearments and calming pats. Each time he spoke, a rangy sheepdog sprawled in the sun would thump his tail in rhythm with his master's voice. Edern, the young Welshman who'd taken Justin to the smithy, was perched on a fence rail, bantering with the smith's son. Edern was a likable lad who'd spent his boyhood in these rolling hills. He'd boasted that he was better than any lymer hound at sniffing out hideaways, and he seemed to be taking their failure to find the woolsacks as a personal affront. Justin was losing hope that anyone was going to outwit Thomas de Caldecott, Only one person had gotten the best of him, his unknown killer.

A sudden flash of movement caught Justin's eye and he turned to see Edern hop off the fence and sprint toward him. He was not alarmed, though, for the youth was grinning from ear to ear. "I think I know where the wool is!" Edern came to a halt, panting. "I was talking with Gwion" - gesturing toward the farrier's son - "and I remembered where there is another abandoned mine."

Justin felt a sharp letdown, "What of it? Why bother searching another flooded shaft?"

"Because this mine must have collapsed long ago, for it is shallow, more like a cave." Edern's grin got even wider. "I know it is going to be there. My nose is itching, which always happens when I get one of my hunches!"

~*~

Edern's itchy nose notwithstanding, Justin did not have high hopes as the men headed back toward Halkyn Mountain. The name was a misnomer, for Halkyn Mountain was actually a hill, dwarfed by the peaks of Eryri, the cloud-crowned mountain range that had sheltered and sustained Llewelyn during the early years of his rebellion. "You English call it Snowdonia," he explained to Justin as they rode along, "but its true name is Eryri, the Haunt of Eagles." Justin merely nodded, for he was only half-listening to this Welsh geography lesson, already brooding about his return to the queen, envisioning the look upon her face when he had to confess he'd failed her.

At least the mercurial Welsh weather was not threatening to sabotage their hunt; the sky was blue and barren of clouds, and a brisk northerly wind brought them the scent of the sea but no hint of coming rain. Led by Edern and Gwion, the smith's son, they soon reached the site of the Roman mine, half-hidden by bracken on Halkyn's wooden slope.

~*~

Who wants to climb down and find out what is lurking at the bottom?" Ednyved squinted into the darkness below, without any obvious enthusiasm for the task at hand. "We could flip a coin, if I had one."

"I'll go," Edern offered quickly.

But Rhys was already unfastening his scabbard, reaching for their rope ladder. Anchoring the metal prongs in the earth, he dropped the ladder down into the mine and then swung his legs over the side. Llewelyn stopped him before he could begin his climb, holding out a second rope. Once he'd knotted it around his waist, Rhys tossed the free end to Ednyved. "Try not to drop it," he told his cousin, and Ednyved acknowledged the command with an amused "Aye, my lord."

"It does not look that deep, but Jesu, it is dark down there. We may need to get a lantern..." His voice was muffled now as he descended into the shaft. They could hear the clink of his spurs scraping against the rock as the ladder swayed under his weight. Staring down into the murky blackness, Justin inhaled a lungful of dank, fetid air and felt guiltily grateful that Rhys was the one descending into the pit.

"Christ Jesus!" The ladder swung wildly and then Rhys was scrambling upward, so hastily that his foot slipped from one of the rungs and his lifeline grew taut as he dangled there, fighting to re gain his balance. Llewelyn signaled and several of the men grabbed Ednyved's rope, ready to haul Rhys up if he lost his grip. He no longer seemed in danger of falling, but the ladder did not offer a fast enough ascent and he shouted, "Pull me up!"

Alarmed, they did, and as soon as his head and shoulders appeared, hands reached out for him. His face contorted, his skin almost as green as his eyes, Rhys lay prone on the ground for several moments, being pelted with questions as he fought the gorge rising in his throat.

"The stink ..." he gasped, "so foul... I feared I'd choke on it..." Rolling over onto his back, he found himself looking up into a circle of concerned faces. "I can still smell it," he said with a grimace, "worse than any pigsty or privy. Rotting flesh -"

"Did you see the body?" Llewelyn interrupted. "Was it an animal? Or..." He paused and showed no surprise when Rhys nodded grimly.

"Not an animal - men. More than one."

Justin glanced toward Llewelyn, the same thought in both their minds. "I think," Llewelyn said, after another pause, "that we've found your missing sailors."

~*~

One by one, men were lowered into the mine shaft to attach ropes to the decaying corpses and then pulled out to vomit into the grass. As no one could endure more than a few moments' exposure to that putrid stench, it took several hours before the last of the cadavers was brought to the surface. Even after the bodies had been covered with bedroll blankets, the men kept their eyes averted. Their Church warned them often of the frailties of human flesh, never letting them forget that their mortal remains would become fodder for worms, dust unto dust. But this had been a view of death that was too close and too personal, reminding each one that this, too, would be his fate and, if he died unshriven as these poor sailors had, he'd burn for aye in Hell.

Justin had forced himself to make a brief examination of the bodies, needing to be sure that their hair color and height matched the descriptions he'd gotten from Rutger. When he was done, his stomach would need days to recover from the ordeal, but there was no doubt in his mind about the identity of the murdered men. Standing with Llewelyn and the others upwind of those forlorn blanket-draped forms, he bowed his head and said a brief prayer for the souls of the greedy Joder, the foolish Geertje, and Rutger's cousin Karl, who left a young widow and baby back in Ypres.

"There is a church less than a league from here," Llewelyn said somberly. "I'll send a man to the priest, tell him to fetch shrouds and a cart. At least we can see that they get a Christian burial. Do you know how to reach their kindred?"

Justin shook his head. "Not unless their ship is still at Chester." He was stunned by the wanton violence of these killings. "How does a man murder with such ease? How could he hold life so cheaply?"

"Killing," Llewelyn said, "can become a habit. From what you've told me, this Thomas de Caldecott had plenty of practice at it."

"Six that we know of, and with a little luck, he'd have added two more to that count," Justin said, thinking of a drunken stroll through deserted streets, a blazing Chester warehouse.

"A man so quick to kill most likely left a trail of bodies behind him. Who knows how many he'd gotten away with. If not for you, Iestyn, none would have known of these murders, either." Llewelyn forced his gaze away from the remains of de Caldecott's last victims, sketching a quick cross on the autumn air. "So now what?"

"I would that I knew," Justin admitted, for the mine shaft had yielded only the bodies of the slain sailors; they'd found no evidence whatsoever of the missing woolsacks.

As disconsolate as if he'd deliberately led them astray, Edern scuffed his boot in the brown, trampled grass. "I do not understand," he muttered, "It has to be here, it just has to!"

The farrier's son had kept at a respectful distance, watching wide-eyed but saying little. Now he cleared his throat hesitantly. "Are you..." He swallowed, then mumbled shyly, "Are you not going to search the other shaft?"

The words had no sooner left his mouth than he found himself surrounded by men. Did Edern not remember, he asked timidly. There was a second shaft, sloping in at an angle. "We guessed that it once led to the other shaft. Of course it is all blocked up now, a tunnel leading nowhere..." He was talking too much, he knew, but he couldn't seem to rein in his runaway tongue, and he was thankful when Llewelyn cut into his nervous ramblings with a curt command to "Show us!"

The opening was overgrown with brambles and knee-high bracken, and Justin caught his breath at the sight of them, for branches were broken and the ferns flattened down in places, as if something heavy had been dragged through them. "It is here," Gwion said, sounding more confident now, and pulling aside some of the underbrush, he revealed a tunnel entrance.

It was just as the farrier's son had said. What had once been a connecting passage to the main mine shaft was little more than a cave, too low for a tall man to walk upright, the walls shrouded in moss, lichen, and cobwebs, the ground littered with the skeletal remains of prey devoured to the very bone, the air stale and musty. Where Roman slaves had once labored in the earth's bowels, foxes and weasels now made their dens. Justin's boot crunched upon the spine of a small animal, and he was grateful that at least the Flemish sailors had been spared this much; no beasts had been able to feast upon their flesh. Stooping, he moved farther into the tunnel and found his way blocked by an obstacle covered by a large canvas tarp. Llewelyn joined him and together they lifted the tarp, ex posing the most beautiful sight that had ever filled Justin's eyes, several padlocked coffers and sack after sack of the fine Cistercian wool meant to ransom a king.

The next discovery puzzled them all: three saddles, half-hidden by the tarp. Saddles were expensive and these seemed intact, in decent condition. Justin was the first to understand their significance. "We are looking at the last stitch in de Caldecott's shroud. These were the sailors' saddles, discarded after he'd let their horses go."

Llewelyn was quick to comprehend. "Of course! What other reason could there be for casting them aside like that?"

The loose cart horses had been Justin's first indication that he was dealing with more than an ordinary robbery. Once his suspicions settled upon de Caldecott, those pieces of the puzzle had come together. How could one man have handled seven animals? He'd had no choice but to set them free. Until this moment, though, that had been a theory. Now it was fact.

"What did he care about cart horses and hired nags? He had his eye upon a much grander prize." And as he gazed down at the saddles of the murdered sailors, Justin felt a hot surge of outrage that the knight had been spared so much in dying as he had, escaping exposure, disgrace, and the gallows.

~*~

Llewelyn's men were still celebrating the successful conclusion of their hunt, eager to shake off the pall cast by the discovery of the dead bodies. When Llewelyn glanced around, though, he no longer saw Justin. After several moments of searching, he found the young Englishman in the tunnel, kneeling down beside a flickering lantern. "Come see this," he said, glancing over his shoulder, "What does this look like to you?"

Llewelyn examined the object in Justin's hand, a rock splattered with a dark stain. "Blood?"

"I think so, too. There is more of it over there, and if you look closely, you can see dried smears on several of the woolsacks. I think this is where the killings began. My guess is that after the woolsacks were moved into the tunnel de Caldecott stabbed one of the men in here, then called out for the others. As the second one entered, he was slain at once. I think the third sailor tried to run and was chased down and caught. The bodies were too rotted to tell me much about wounds, but the back of one man's tunic was soaked with blood."

"May God assoil them," Llewelyn said softly, for he could not help pitying the dead sailors, who'd gotten so much more than they'd bargained for. "Let's talk outside," he said and backed to ward the entrance. Justin followed, and they stood in silence for several moments as they stretched their cramped muscles.

"So," Llewelyn said at last, "I suppose this is when you start wondering if it was wise to wager upon my honor,"

"I never wagered upon your honor, Llewelyn. I wagered upon your common sense."

The Welshman cocked a quizzical brow. "Would you care to elaborate upon that?"

"Simply put, it is in your best interests to cooperate with the English Crown. I'm not saying you'd not be tempted by those coffers and woolsacks. What man would not, myself included. But you are no outlaw. You are a prince, my lord Llewelyn, a prince in exile at the moment but a prince all the same. And when the day comes that you rule Gwynedd, you will need cordial relations with your liege lord, the English king. At the very least, you do not want to give the English any reason to intervene upon Davydd's behalf. And if they blamed you for the loss of King Richard's ransom, that would be one very persuasive reason." Justin paused, a smile hovering at the corners of his mouth. "Need I continue?"

"Well, you did leave out the most interesting part of the story... where you inform the English queen of Davydd's treachery and my invaluable help."

"Jesu forfend that I should forget that," Justin agreed, and Llewelyn began to laugh.

"I know you claim your parents were English born and bred, but you are too clever not to have some Welsh blood," he said lightly, but Justin got the sense that Llewelyn had been testing him again and that once again he had passed the test,

~*~

Just sent an urgent message to the Earl of Chester with one of Llewelyn's men, with a second message to his father in case the earl had not yet returned to Chester. He then set up camp by the old Roman mine, for he had no intention of letting the woolsacks out of his sight. It was not as uncomfortable as he'd feared, for autumn was still fighting a rear-guard action against winter at the lower elevations. Llewelyn provided men to safeguard the ransom, and stopped by himself on the second day to see how Justin was faring.