Was it possible? Was Tangwystl there at the farm, even now? Had she gone there not to be with an ailing mother, but with her son? Was that why Awena and Gruffydd watched Eleri so closely? Fearful she might reveal the secret?
But then what had become of the vicar? It seemed unlikely the man would just depart, not without the bishop’s retainers. For surely Edern would go nowhere but back to St David’s — he had undertaken this mission to please the bishop. Yet he was gone, and the two retainers remained.
Owen wished Lucie were here. He needed someone to talk to, someone who would listen and ask the right questions to help him see what he knew, what he needed to know, and to whom he ought to talk. Geoffrey seemed unable to perform the role for him; he saw everything that was happening in terms of how it affected him and their mission. There was no sense returning to confront Gruffydd. Owen had no way to motivate the man to confide in him.
Where had it all begun? With the accusation against Gruffydd? With Lascelles’s first sight of Tangwystl? With Tangwystl and the father of her son?
Or were those events merely ripples that had led up to the death of John de Reine? Why had Burley’s men gone to St David’s? Who knew the truth about the theft of the exchequer?
His heart pounding, his mind racing, Owen urged his horse to a gallop. He had much to do, and, God help him, that filled him with joy.
Fifteen
A fresh wind cooled Owen as he rode towards Cydweli. Below him on his left the marshes shimmered in the afternoon sun, the winter-browned grasses shivering in the wind. In a few months it would be a green sea of grasses loud with birdsong.
Near the mill outside the town, Owen dismounted, ran his fingers through his tangled hair, and tucked his weapons into the pack on his saddle, remembering the gatekeeper’s concern about armed strangers in the town. He felt guilty to have ridden his horse so hard and then to have left him standing in the cold shadow by the south gate, but Owen wished to stop in the tavern before he returned to the castle. And if fortune smiled on him and he won the taverner’s confidence, he would tarry even longer in the town. He hoped to be directed to the house of Roger Aylward, the Duke’s receiver who had been injured defending the exchequer. He wished to hear the man’s own account of the incident that had sent four armed men off to St David’s, John de Reine’s destination. Though it was possible that Aylward, too, would tell a tale to hide the truth, Owen hoped that would not be so.
But first he wished to learn all he could about the receiver. At home, when Owen needed information about townspeople, he slipped next door to the York Tavern. Bess and Tom Merchet heard much while pouring ales and feeding wayfarers. The midwife Magda Digby was also a dependable source of information, as, too, was Owen’s wife Lucie, who heard much — and intuited more — in her apothecary shop. He sorely felt the lack of the four of them at present.
The inn looked much like any other, far less imposing than the York Tavern, but the stone threshold had been polished by the feet of many patrons. Owen ducked through the open doorway, and then beneath beams blackened by years of smoky fires, one of which now burned dully under a rancid-smelling stew. The fare in this tavern was not up to Bess Merchet’s standards, that was certain.
Barefoot, skirt tucked up into her girdle, a young woman knelt on the floor scrubbing a long board that likely served as the top of a trestle table. She glanced up at Owen’s greeting, then scurried up and disappeared into another doorway.
A thin, sour-faced man appeared soon enough, eyeing Owen with cautious curiosity as he set down a tray full of drinking bowls. His sleeves were stained with food and drink.
‘Would you be the taverner?’ Owen asked in Welsh.
‘From the castle, are you?’ the man said in English.
Owen was disappointed. He thought a Welsh taverner might be more co-operative. But perhaps this one would be more impressed by his being one of the Duke’s emissaries. ‘Aye. I am recruiting archers for the Duke.’
The man screwed up his face, nodded. ‘I remember now. Captain of the old Duke’s archers, they say, and from these parts.’ He tilted his head, looked Owen up and down. ‘I should think they have made you welcome at the castle. What would you be wanting in my humble tavern?’
‘I want some of your best ale, and a bit of conversation that has nothing to do with archers or France.’
‘Or the disappearance of the steward’s lady?’
So the news had spread to the town. ‘None of that, either.’
‘Good. He is better off without her, her father a traitor and her mother witless.’
The taverner did indeed seem knowledgeable. ‘Will you drink with me?’
The man turned round, shouted for a pitcher of ale and two bowls, then led Owen to a small table in the thick of the smoke, scratching himself as he walked.
Owen did not like a smoky place — he did not like losing the sharp sight in his good eye when it watered, but this was not the time to argue. He did wonder whether the taverner had chosen the table to put him at a disadvantage.
‘Beeker’s the name,’ the taverner said as he settled himself. He grunted at the young woman who set a pitcher and two bowls before him and hurried away. ‘They tell me you are Black Rhodri’s son.’
‘I am Owain ap Rhodri ap Maredudd.’
‘Aye, Rhodri ap Maredudd — that was Black Rhodri.’
‘I never heard him called that.’
‘Well, you were gone when the lightning struck, eh?’ Beeker’s nasty grin revealed teeth blackened by rot.
Owen poured himself a bowl of the ale and swallowed it down. It was thick and surprisingly tasty, though way below Tom Merchet’s standards. ‘Is it your custom to insult the man who buys you ale?’ He held the taverner’s unwilling gaze.
‘I meant no offence,’ Beeker muttered, ‘thought you would know.’
In the end Owen bullied the man into telling him what he wanted, and threatened that part of his anatomy he was so fond of scratching if he informed Burley of his visit.
The receiver’s town house stood two storeys and boasted glazing in the window of the jettied second storey, a fine oak door, a stone path leading down the side to a walled garden and a stone stairway leading up to the side door opening on to the second storey. According to Beeker, Roger Aylward had another, larger house in the country. Made his money importing wine. A prosperous merchant. He would think twice before accepting the ‘honour’ of the receivership again no doubt. What need had he of such trouble?
A barefoot serving girl opened the street-level door to Owen, then made him wait without while she hurried up the stairway to ‘ask whether her master was at home’. Amusingly clumsy — for surely Roger Aylward must be at home, bedridden as he was said to be since the incident. Owen had a long wait — long enough to become well acquainted with a ginger cat who thought him likely to be hiding milk or meat on his person. His thoughts went once again to York: Jasper had a cat much like this; Crowder would sit on a sill watching the lad work in the apothecary, drowsing in the sun. At night he was one of the best mousers in York — he had the belly to prove it.
‘Master Aylward will see you now,’ the young woman called from halfway up the stairs, waking Owen from his homely reverie. As he reached her level she bowed her head and said softly, ‘I am sorry you had to wait without.’
‘It is no fors. I had a quiet moment with the cat.’
The master lay in state in a great oak bed, wearing a linen shift with voluminous pleated sleeves and a tidy linen cap tied beneath his chin. Lamplight revealed a fleshy man of sanguine complexion looking delighted to have a visitor.