The Renegade Merchant (23 page)

“Where could he have bought it?” Gareth
said.

Agatha reeled off a list of taverns and inns
with which her brothel had a relationship. Not for the first time,
Gareth was glad he’d decided to stay with Gwen and his family at
the monastery. Prostitution was a fact of life, but he would just
as soon keep them all well away from what they didn’t need to know
about. If Gwen had discovered that her innkeeper sold brothel
coins, she would have wanted to know all about it.

Gareth brought out the picture of the girl.
“Have you seen her?” He framed the question in such a way that
Agatha would have a harder time eliding the truth than she had with
Conall’s image. After her initial denial, she had asked them
questions instead of the other way around, which was a classic
diversionary tactic.

A ‘v’ formed between Agatha’s neatly
manicured brows. “I don’t believe so.”

“She isn’t one of yours?” John said.

“No. Definitely not,” Agatha said.

That answer was definitive, surely given,
and Gareth could hear truth in her voice when she spoke. But still,
something about her demeanor caused him to doubt her.

John noticed the hesitation
too. “A moment ago you said,
I don’t
believe so.
Do you think you might have
seen her somewhere?”

Agatha gave the paper back to Gareth. “I
thought I might have when you first showed me, but the light is dim
in here. Now I know that I have never met her before in my
life.”

That was definitive too, except that Gareth
had noticed the way she’d looked directly at him when she spoke, as
if daring her own eyes to skate away and betray her. He bowed.
Maybe she had never met the girl. Maybe she’d never seen her, but
that didn’t mean she knew nothing about her. “Thank you for your
time.”

Turning on his heel, he urged John out of
the room, back through the common room, and out of the brothel.
John didn’t protest, but once they were out of earshot, he turned
on Gareth. “What was that? I feel like we were getting
somewhere!”

“Oh, we definitely were, up until we showed
her the picture of the girl who died. Agatha definitely knows the
girl—or knows of her,” Gareth said.

“Do you think Agatha lied about the dead
girl being one of hers?” John said.

“No,” Gareth said. “That wasn’t the sense I
got. The girl wasn’t a whore, or at least not at that brothel.
Agatha’s reply was so firm because she was pleased to be able to
answer the direct question in the negative. It was her response
before and after the denial that concerns me.”

“So why did we leave?”

Gareth regarded the young deputy sheriff.
“Can you really not answer that?”

John stood chewing on his lower lip. “When
you first showed her the picture, she hesitated.”

“Yes, and then after she declared the girl
not one of hers, her resolve firmed and she was able to deny that
she knew her at all—but even she couldn’t think so quickly as to
deny all knowledge from the start,” Gareth said. “We surprised
her.”

“You surprised her,” John said. “Is that why
we left? You had unsettled her, and you wanted to give her time to
think about it?”

“Essentially. I think the next step is to
put a watch on her—maybe one of the young ones like Cedric or
Oswin. I want to know which of the owners, if any, she contacts or
comes to see her. I’m hoping that our questioning unsettled her
enough to make her worried—and that worry might well give her
away.” He paused. “You did very well in there.”

John looked disbelieving.

“I’m not just saying that. You were
confident and straightforward. You asked follow-up questions with
authority. I was impressed.”

John flushed slightly. “Thank you. I have
had good teachers.”

“Sometimes it takes a while to find your
feet.”

“That it does.” John turned back to look at
the brothel. “I just hope I’m not finding them too late.”

Gwen

G
wen bent to the wheel, which was no longer attached to the
cart, her fingers reaching for the dark stain that marred its
surface. The blood had dried. She glanced surreptitiously to her
left. Her father, proving himself to be an able investigator in his
own right, was speaking innocently to Flann about his business at
the cartwright’s yard.

“Too bad about the wheel,” Meilyr said.

Flann shrugged. “It happens now and again.
Wheels last only so long before they need repair, but I’m assured
that I brought my custom to the best cartwright in Shrewsbury.”

Martin’s apprentice looked pleased at the
compliment. Gwen stepped away from the wheel, moving towards the
cart itself. She was sure that the stains on the wheels were blood,
but she didn’t think she could prove it, and she would love to
return to Gareth with a bit of evidence that would link this cart
to the girl. Unfortunately, there wasn’t any obvious blood in the
cart bed itself.

She glanced over at Flann, who was still
speaking to her father. Meilyr distracted him with a question about
his travels throughout the March. “I’m interested professionally,
you see.”

Seeing as how her father was the bard for
King Owain of Gwynedd, he couldn’t possibly be interested in whom
he might sing for in the March, but he was trying to be polite, and
Flann responded in kind.

Gwen still had Tangwen on her hip, and she
sighed loudly, shifted the little girl in her arms, and then
plopped her onto the empty bed of the cart a moment later. In an
undertone, Gwen said, “Can you find something in the back to play
with?”

No stranger to carts, Tangwen pushed to her
feet and toddled away from Gwen, towards the driver’s seat.

Gwen let Tangwen nearly reach the back
before she said, “Come back here, Tangwen!”

Tangwen turned to look at her mother, a
distinct frown on her face and her chin wrinkled up, not
understanding what game Gwen was playing. With a muttered apology
to Tangwen for using her in this way, Gwen hitched up her skirt,
scrambled into the bed of the cart, and then crouched beside her
daughter, her arm around her waist.

“Sorry,
cariad
.” Gwen kissed Tangwen’s cheek.
“Let’s see what there is to find up here, eh?”

Behind her, Flann had finally noticed that
Gwen and Tangwen had climbed into the back of his cart, and he
started towards them. “Miss! What are you doing?”

Gwen turned to look at him, all innocence.
“Retrieving my daughter. I’m sorry if I inconvenienced anyone.”

She tightened her grip on Tangwen at the
same moment Tangwen bent to the side of the cart and plucked a
square of cloth off a slat that had splintered. Gwen could hardly
believe her luck, or that Tangwen had remembered what she’d been
sent to do. She didn’t dare look to see what her daughter had
clutched in her fist, but merely scooped her up and carried her
back to the end of the cart, where her father met her to help her
down.

His face was a thundercloud, but he didn’t
chastise her in front of Huw and Flann as he could have. Instead,
he spoke in a low voice, “What are you doing?”

“Investigating,” Gwen said. “This is the
cart we were looking for.”

Meilyr’s expression instantly cleared as he
turned to face Flann, his arm across Gwen’s shoulder. “We’ll get
out of your way now.” He gestured to Jenny who was hovering in the
doorway to the house, a flagon in her hand. “We’ve been invited
inside. It was nice to speak with you. Will we see you at
dinner?”

“I expect so. We have one more night here
before we’re off.” Flann’s Irish brogue was particularly noticeable
at the end of his sentence, making Gwen fear that he wasn’t as calm
about Gwen’s incursion as he implied. But as long as he let her go,
Gwen didn’t care. And as long as he had nothing to hide—if his cart
had indeed rolled through the puddle of blood in complete
innocence—then he should have nothing to worry about.

“Until we meet again.” Meilyr hustled Gwen
and Tangwen towards the doorway where Jenny and Martin waited.
Before they reached it, however, he whispered to Gwen, “What’s in
Tangwen’s hand?”

“I don’t know.”

Tangwen was looking stricken, dirty tear
tracks on her cheeks, though she hadn’t openly cried. Thankfully,
Flann appeared to have lost interest in what they were doing and
was now speaking to the cartwright’s apprentice.

“It’s all right, love.” Gwen rubbed her
daughter’s cheek with the back of one finger. “What did you
find?”

Tangwen looked down at her fist, and Gwen
gently pried her fingers open. A piece of pink cloth lay wrinkled
in her palm. Gwen plucked it up and showed her father.

“It’s a torn piece of fabric,” Meilyr said,
with something like astonishment. “Would it be too much to hope
that it matches the clothing of the dead girl?”

Gwen rubbed at the fabric with her thumb,
comparing it to her remembered feel of the girl’s skirt. “She was
wearing a dress that could have once been pink, but it’s hard to be
sure that it’s the same, since the girl’s dress was ruined by
blood, mud, and water from a day spent in the river.”

“I’ll keep it for you until we can see if
the cloth matches.” Meilyr pocketed the scrap. Then he added, “It
would be better if we could extricate ourselves from this
quickly.”

“We can be thankful Martin and Jenny aren’t
Welsh, or we might find ourselves encouraged to stay all day to
share their grief at the loss of Roger,” Gwen said.

Meilyr squeezed her arm, and then they
allowed Martin to usher them into the heart of his house,
consisting of a main room with a loft above, accessed by a narrow
stair along the far wall. The house was larger than Tom Weaver’s
however, in that it also had an adjacent room, visible through an
open doorway.

Jenny gestured Gwen to the table, which was
entirely covered with foodstuffs: bread, cheese, onions, carrots,
tarts, several pies, and two jugs of beer. “Please sit.”

Gwen wanted to be polite, but she hesitated.
“We really shouldn’t. You’ve suffered a loss—”

“It would be helpful to me if you stayed,”
Jenny said, with a glance at her husband, who nodded. “As you can
see, many of our neighbors have brought food that we can’t possibly
eat all of, and it would be nice to have something to think about
besides Roger’s death.”

Having spent the last four months mourning
Rhun, Gwen could understand how she felt, so she acquiesced.
Tangwen was hungry again, so she was given a sliver of meat pie.
Once again, Gwen and Meilyr accepted cups, though this time they
were filled with beer. Martin had his own cup, which he drained and
held out to Jenny, who filled it again. Gwen sipped hers
tentatively, not enjoying the earthy favor. She was used to mead,
which was lighter and sweeter.

Trying to find something nice to say, Gwen
put a hand out to Jenny. “When is your child due?”

Jenny gaped back at her. “How did you know I
was with child?”

“Those of us who’ve had children know the
look.” Gwen put a hand to her own belly.

Actual joy shone in Jenny’s face.
“September.”

“Mine as well.”

Jenny leapt to her feet, came around the
table, and hugged Gwen, tight enough to make Tangwen, who was
between them, squirm. “I am so happy to hear that. It will be as if
a little piece of Adeline is alive again in both of us.”

Gwen met her father’s eyes, which had
crinkled in the corners. She herself wasn’t sure that she liked
Jenny’s sentiment. Adeline may have been Jenny’s closest friend,
but Gwen hadn’t known the girl at all. Still, having lost loved
ones herself, Gwen could understand the desire for a connection
beyond the grave.

Jenny released Gwen, and returned to a seat
beside Martin, who leaned forward to speak. “Your husband came by
yesterday with Jenny’s brother. Has he shared what he knows with
you? Do you have any idea who might have murdered Roger?”

“No.” Gwen’s eyes skated to Jenny to see how
she felt about discussing the specifics of Roger’s death, but her
eyes were on the table in front of her.

“What about this Irishman?” Martin said.
“Have you found him?”

“No to that, also,” Gwen said. “Do you have
any idea why your brother might have been at Rob Horn’s inn?”

“Your husband asked me that,” Martin said.
“It feels terrible to know that I was asleep when he died.”

Gwen’s eyes tracked to Jenny. “Jenny? Did
Roger say anything to you?”

The girl shook her head. “I was awake for
much of the night, but I didn’t hear him leave. He was with us for
supper, but after that, I never saw him again.”

“Why were you awake?” It was Gwen’s
experience that, in the early stages of pregnancy, she couldn’t get
enough sleep.

“I had aches and pains,” Jenny said. “You
probably know all about that. I don’t know what hour it was when I
rose from my bed, but it was well before dawn. I didn’t want to
wake Martin with my tossing and turning.”

Martin grunted his thanks. “We have a
rooster who crows every morning before dawn. I need to sleep as
much as I can before then.”

Jenny managed a laugh. “Martin keeps
threatening to make him into rooster soup.”

Martin directed a gentle smile at his wife.
“I slept through his call yesterday morning and woke when she
returned to the room.” The amusement gone, Martin stared towards
the fire, which was burning low in the grate in the center of the
room. Smoke wended its way half-heartedly towards the hole in the
ceiling. The draft was good, with the open rear door, and the room
was all but clear of smoke. “We would have lived here all together,
had my brother married Adeline. Instead, he moved into a room off
the carriage house, saying he didn’t want to disturb us. It meant
we never heard his comings and goings.”