The Renegade Merchant (4 page)

Gwen’s expression turned thoughtful. “I had
wondered why everyone has been so kind to me. Now I know why. It
would be nice to know if she really was my sister.”

Gwen hadn’t ever met Adeline herself—she’d
only seen her body—but the reminder of why they had come to
Shrewsbury in the first place had her wondering how her father was
getting on. He’d been cheerful last night, if a little tipsy from
the good wine the abbey stocked, but she’d hadn’t had a chance to
speak to him more than briefly this morning.

And now that she thought about it, one
benefit to whatever gossip was flying around Shrewsbury about Gwen
and Gareth was that Tom Weaver, Adeline’s father, and Roger Carter,
Adeline’s betrothed, would know in advance that Gwen’s father was
here too—and that sooner or later he would be coming to visit
them.

“It could simply be that your father and
hers are long-lost cousins,” Gareth said.

“True, but even if Father
clears the path, I don’t relish the idea of walking up to Adeline’s
father’s house with this face and reminding him of his dead
daughter.” Gwen’s laugh was mocking. “Imagine what my father is
saying right now:
I might have fathered
your daughter
can’t be the most welcome
opening.”

“Had Meilyr left before I sent word to you?”
Gareth said.

“Yes,” Gwen said. “I saw him off into
Shrewsbury shortly before you summoned me to the alley.”

Gareth checked the sky. “Then he would have
reached Tom Weaver’s shop long since. Whatever Meilyr ended up
saying to Adeline’s father, it has been said.” Gareth took Gwen’s
elbow again, to begin walking down the street as it sloped towards
the river.

Gwen had taken only one step, however, when
the sound of running feet echoed from the alley. She exchanged a
glance with Gareth, who shrugged, and together they headed back to
the entrance. They reached it in time to watch the messenger—a
tall, thin, young man with a shock of short blond hair—leap what
remained of the pool of blood in an easy stride and then come to a
halt in front of Luke.

The young man spoke urgently to the
watchman, words Gwen couldn’t catch because they went by too
quickly, but Gareth must have understood something of them because
he hastened forward.

Although the elderly man and the young woman
had moved on, the two boys stopped their game of throwing stones
against a wall to listen. Gareth stepped between them and the
messenger, who turned to him with a relieved expression on his
face. Luke wore a cynical frown, as if whatever the messenger had
just told him couldn’t possibly be true, but he didn’t openly
discredit it.

“Start again, Cedric.” It seemed Gareth had
met the young man already, although he wasn’t among those to whom
Gwen had been introduced.

“My lord.” Cedric took in a huge breath to
steady himself after the running he’d done. “I’m glad to see you
here, but I was looking for John Fletcher.”

“I don’t know where he is at the moment,”
Gareth said. “He went to find a witness who could tell him what
might have transpired here.”

At a movement from Gwen, Cedric’s eyes
tracked to her, and he did a double-take. Gwen gave him a gentle
smile, acknowledging the widening of his eyes without mentioning
it. In a way, it was gratifying to see, now that she was paying
attention, that they hadn’t been mad to think Adeline and she
looked alike.

Cedric put one hand to his chest and bowed
at the waist. “My lady.” He straightened and looked again to
Gareth. “Then perhaps you can help me, my lord. We’ve found another
body.”

Gareth

“
T
he error would be in the use of the
word ‘another’,” Gareth said as he and Gwen hustled after Cedric,
who, while slightly shorter than Gareth, had even longer legs.
Cedric’s rapid pace had Gareth regretting his winter cloak, which
he’d put on before leaving the monastery, but now at nearly noon
was causing him to sweat. They were past St. Dafydd’s Day, and the
sun gave more warmth and rose higher into the sky with every day
that passed. After an unusually cold winter, Gareth had feared that
spring would come late. But during the journey here from Aber,
spring had moved into full bloom, with green fields, flowers, and
rich pastures for the sheep. “We haven’t found the first body
yet—if there even is one.”

“This man was strangled, if that helps.”
Cedric spoke from just ahead of Gareth, having apparently overheard
his comment since Gareth had been speaking English to Gwen out of
politeness. Speaking Welsh would have been easier, but he’d
traveled enough and had been on the receiving end of others
resorting to their native language in his presence as a way to
exclude him, that he wasn’t going to do the same to Cedric without
real cause. “There is no blood on him.”

They’d left the alley and followed the
street that ran all around the town along the inside of the
palisade. Shrewsbury was canted at a northeasterly angle and
surrounded on three sides by the Severn River, which made it
resemble the shape of a flagon with a wide base and a narrow top.
The castle was located in the neck and guarded the entire city
behind it as it sat to the southwest in the protective curve of the
river. While the city was well over a half-mile wide from bank to
bank at its widest point, the land between the bends in the Severn
at its narrowest, where the castle sat, was only three hundred
yards wide.

Stone gatehouses, made of the same red
sandstone used to build Shrewsbury Castle and Abbey, guarded
bridges across the Severn in case an enemy tried to cross the river
in force. Gareth could count on one hand the number of stone
fortresses that had been built by Welsh kings, but the English were
replacing more and more of their formerly wooden forts with stone
ones. From what he understood, however, Shrewsbury Castle had been
built in stone from the start—and had been one of the first stone
castles in England.

For visitors, the city could be entered and
exited by three gates: the Welsh gate, which faced northwest across
the Severn and connected with a road that led west into Wales; the
English gate, which lay on the opposite side of the town and also
guarded a bridge across the Severn; and the northeastern gate by
the castle, which was the only access to the town by land.

Residents of Shrewsbury could also enter and
leave the town by a southern gate, which opened onto the fields
that lay between the town and the curve of the river. Additionally,
many homes and establishments that abutted the city’s protective
palisade had private gates in them, which gave their owners
immediate access to the river. Although these created giant holes
in the town’s defenses, none of these exits allowed access to any
land beyond the river, unless someone chose to boat or swim across
it.

“You have seen the body yourself, Cedric?”
Gareth said.

Cedric nodded, even as he loped along at an
even faster pace. “His neck is purpled, but it doesn’t look to me
as if a man’s hands did it. I couldn’t see any bruising from
fingerprints. If I had to guess, I’d say the killer used rope or a
fishing line to do his work.”

Gareth pressed his lips together, hiding a
smile. Cedric was very earnest in his manner, and the words had
spilled out of him in a rush, as if he’d been waiting for Gareth to
ask him about the condition of the body. If John Fletcher wasn’t
careful, he would find himself usurped by the younger man. Unlike
Luke, however, who was struggling with John’s authority, resulting
in an overbearing attitude, Cedric appeared to want to please and
to be helpful. Gareth could use the help, especially in a strange
city where he wasn’t quite welcome.

The pool of blood had been found in an alley
off the river street, in the northwestern quadrant of the town.
Following Cedric, they crossed the town to the south of the castle
and ended up in the southeast quadrant, in the exact opposite
quarter of Shrewsbury from where they’d started. As they approached
this area of the town, however, Gwen’s steps slowed. The wind had
shifted slightly and the vile smell of tanning leather, which was
emanating from some of the buildings ahead of them, wafted strongly
in their direction.

In England and Wales, the wind tended to
come from the west or southwest, so the collection of skinners,
tanners, glovers, and leather goods makers whose workshops and
stalls made up the southeast quadrant of the city didn’t usually
pollute the whole of the city. If they had, when Gareth had arrived
at the west gate yesterday, he might have turned his family around
right then and there.

Gwen was having a more difficult pregnancy
this time than with Tangwen, and Gareth knew she struggled to keep
down her breakfast most mornings. Fortunately, she was hanging onto
it at the moment, even if it meant clenching her fists so tightly
her knuckles had turned white.

Gareth put his head close to Gwen’s.
“Breathe slowly and deeply through your mouth.”

She put the back of her hand to her nose.
“They say that after a while a person can get used to any smell,
but I’m not so sure about this one.”

Cedric halted in front of an inn. Like most
buildings in Shrewsbury, it was made of wood, not stone, with a
thatch roof that had a hole in the center to let out the smoke. It
was bigger than most of the surrounding houses and workshops, and a
sign out front was adorned with a drawing of what might have been
the head of a horse.

“The Boar’s Head Inn,” Cedric said.

Gwen raised her eyebrows. “They should get
you to do the drawing for them, Gareth. Then we’d at least know
what its name is supposed to be.”

She’d spoken in Welsh and in an undertone,
so Cedric, who was purely Saxon for thirteen generations, couldn’t
understand her. He didn’t turn around.

“I’m sure the last thing they need is
criticism of their sign,” Gareth said, though he touched her hand
as he spoke so she would know he understood that she was trying to
lighten the mood.

The rush mats on the floor were stained and
looked as if they hadn’t been changed since before old King Henry
died. The tables, benches, and stools were scarred and unpolished,
and a young woman was wiping them down with a wet cloth that looked
to be smearing the dirt around on the surface of the tables rather
than cleaning them. This tavern’s trade was definitely of the
rougher sort.

At first blush, the inn was less a place to
sleep than a drinking establishment. The common room reeked of
beer, the national drink of England. Fermented from grains instead
of honey, which was the main ingredient in Welsh mead, the scent
was unmistakably yeasty. This early in the morning, the smell—mixed
as it was with the slightly muted scent of tanning leather—made
Gareth gag, and he glanced concernedly to Gwen, whose face had
taken on a pinched look, and who was breathing exclusively through
her mouth, as he’d suggested.

Gareth sent up a prayer of thanks that he
possessed enough status and relative wealth that he hadn’t had to
stoop to housing his family here. Even if the abbey had been full,
he could have stayed at the castle—and would have anyway had he
come to England on official business for Gwynedd. If that too had
been full, they would have been welcomed by a Welsh family who
lived in Shrewsbury. And if all else failed, he would have chosen
to stay outside the city and sleep in their tent or under the
stars, as they’d done for the past week when no more hospitable
circumstance presented itself, rather than stay here.

Cedric appeared not to notice the smell—but
then, he’d grown up in Shrewsbury and to him the smell of tanning
leather would seem normal. Fortunately the young watchman hurried
them through the central room, out the back entrance, and into the
courtyard behind the main building. “This way.”

Cedric fetched up at the entrance to a long
low building that at first Gareth had mistaken for a stable. Upon
closer inspection, it bore no real resemblance to one, other than
its three separate doors, which faced into the courtyard and which
Gareth had confused for horse stalls. They were revealed instead to
lead to small but serviceable rooms. Each was furnished with a
narrow bed and a washstand—and was far cleaner than the common room
they’d just left.

Perhaps the paying guests demanded somewhat
more from the proprietor in the way of amenities than the usual
tavern clientele. Gareth might have been willing to house his
family here after all, if not for the smell and the dead body,
which was located in the last room on the right.

Gareth and Gwen gazed at the dead man for a
count of five, and then Gwen said into the silence, “Cedric is
right. This isn’t the body we’re looking for.”

The man had been well-built, of medium
height with reddish-brown hair and beard, approximately in his late
thirties. He lay before them on the floor with his hands folded on
his chest and his eyes closed as if he’d already been washed and
clothed for burial. His face was bloodless, but not because he’d
bled out. He was merely dead. From the wound on his neck, it was
instantly clear as well, as Cedric had asserted, that he had been
strangled. And given the obvious bruises and cuts on his face and
hands, he’d put up a good fight for his life.

“Who found him?” Gareth said.

“I did.” A man in his late forties moved out
of the far corner of the room. Of average height but stocky, he
looked like he could hold his own in a fight, and his square jaw
bulged as he spoke.

Gareth hadn’t noticed him earlier because
the only light available came from the open doorway. Perhaps Gareth
couldn’t be blamed, given that there was a dead body on the floor,
but he nonetheless kicked himself for being so unobservant. That
was a good way to get himself—or worse, Gwen—killed.