The Medieval Murderers - The False Virgin

Cole sighed wearily. ‘Perhaps I should resign and retire to my estates in Normandy. John will win in the end and I am tired of trying to outwit him.’

‘No,’ said Gwenllian firmly. ‘I will not allow him to oust us from our home. You have been constable here for years, and-’

‘Quite. Perhaps it is time for a change. It was never intended to be a permanent post – not by King Henry, who put me here, or by King Richard, who confirmed the appointment.’

‘If we go,’ said Gwenllian, drawing herself up to her full height with all the dignity of a princess of Wales, ‘it will be because we decide to leave. It will not be on the whim of a spiteful monarch who does not know how to rule what he has inherited.’

Cole did not have the energy to argue. Instead, he suggested they go to the castle and inspect progress on the new tower. As they aimed for the door, Hilde and Odo approached.

‘What shall we do about these monks and their saint, Cole?’ asked Odo. He had one hand to his back as usual; a lifetime of lifting heavy bales had taken its toll. ‘Shall we pay them to pray for a miracle? Bad luck has dogged us all summer, so we could certainly do with one.’

‘He will decide tomorrow,’ said Gwenllian, to spare Symon the need to make a decision there and then. She smiled at her friends. ‘The monks told me that they plan to stay for a few days, so there is no immediate hurry.’

She led Cole back into the blasting heat of the Market Square, where the Benedictines had finished their performance and were packing the reliquary away. Two men watched: Sheriff Avenel was a tall, bald man with the haughty bearing of the professional warrior; Fitzmartin was younger and smaller, but cast in the same mould.

‘Constable Cole?’ asked Avenel, coming to intercept them. ‘You have been gone a long time. Can a few miserable thieves really take so long to track down?’

‘He has not tracked them down,’ said Fitzmartin slyly. ‘They remain at large – I heard his sergeant make the announcement just now. Perhaps he would like us to help. I am sure the King will not mind us abandoning our more important duties to oblige.’

‘Thank you,’ said Cole amiably. He was not very good at recognising sarcasm and often wrong-footed people by taking acerbic comments at face value. ‘Shall we try tomorrow?’

‘No,’ said Avenel, once he realised that Cole was not being impertinent. ‘We have more pressing matters to concern us. And now you are home, I want to discuss them with you. Not with your wife.’

Cole bridled at his tone, and Gwenllian rested a calming hand on his arm. She had not endured the sheriff and his creature for three trying weeks just to have Cole destroy the fragile bridges she had built with an imprudent remark.

‘You must excuse us, Sheriff,’ she said politely. ‘We have castle business to attend.’

Avenel bowed in a manner that was more insult than compliment, and stepped away, although neither he nor Fitzmartin went far.

Cole leaned down to whisper in Gwenllian’s ear, ‘Kediour tells me they are accused of despoiling churches. Is it true?’

‘They are John’s men, so it is possible.’ Her attention was caught by the monks. ‘Odo had a good question: what will you do about them? We do need a miracle, but I am not sure they are the ones to bring it about. Oh, no! Here comes Mayor Rupe!’

Rupe was an overweight, slovenly man who hailed from nearby Dinefwr, a fact of which he was so proud that he always wore the curious conical hat for which its residents were famous. He had been greasily obsequious before Cole had caught him misusing public monies, but was now a bitter and intractable opponent. He had insisted on holding meetings to discuss how best to catch the thieves, which he had used as opportunities to make Cole look inept and foolish in front of the town’s other worthies. He was flanked by his two henchmen, an unsavoury father and son named Ernebald and Gunbald.

‘It is your fault we are short of water, Cole,’ he snarled without preamble. ‘You should have built cisterns, not squandered our taxes on beautifying your castle. And you accuse me of dealing corruptly!’

‘The King told him to do it,’ came a voice from behind. It was Deputy Miles, a gloriously handsome man with golden hair. ‘Would you have him flout a royal order?’

‘The town should come first,’ said Rupe stubbornly. ‘And if Cole does not think so, he should resign and let a better man take the post. Such as you, perhaps, Miles.’

The deputy bowed. ‘You are kind, but I should need a Lady Gwenllian at my side, and there is only one of her. Thus the post of Constable of Carmarthen is not for me. But do not despair for water, Rupe. I have a plan – if the fair lady will permit me to explain.’

Cole was not a perceptive man, but even he could not fail to notice the look of passionate longing that Miles directed at Gwenllian. He scowled, an expression that did not suit his naturally amiable face.

‘What plan?’ he demanded, before she could answer for herself. Avenel and Fitzmartin, aware that a possible altercation was in the offing, eased forward to listen.

‘I believe I have located a hidden stream,’ replied Miles, his eyes still fixed on Gwenllian. ‘I did it by holding hazel twigs in a certain way and-’

‘Witchery?’ interrupted Avenel in rank disdain, not caring that he was interrupting a discussion in which he had not been invited to take part.

Miles continued to address Gwenllian, much to her increasing mortification. ‘No, of course not. It is a skill my mother taught me. She saved our village from drought many times. I have been surveying Carmarthen, and there is an underground stream between the town and the priory – it lies beneath the woods on Mayor Rupe’s land.’

‘An underground stream?’ scoffed Avenel. ‘What nonsense is this?’

‘Not nonsense, Sheriff,’ said Miles earnestly. ‘It is there, I assure you.’

‘You are mad,’ sneered Fitzmartin. ‘There is no such thing as an underground stream.’

‘Bring your report to Symon tomorrow,’ said Gwenllian briskly to Miles, ending the conversation before there was trouble. ‘He will discuss it with you then.’

Miles was visibly crestfallen, and she was aware of Avenel and Fitzmartin chortling as they and the mayor walked away together, amused by the deputy’s unseemly infatuation. Cole turned angrily to Miles, and Gwenllian was relieved when he was prevented from rebuking him by the arrival of Philip de Barri, the castle chaplain.

Philip was Gwenllian’s cousin, although she could not bring herself to like him. He was an unprepossessing soul, with a wealth of irritating habits. She had not wanted him as chaplain, but there had been a vacancy when he had arrived begging for employment, and it would have been churlish to refuse. She tried not to let her antipathy show as he approached, bringing the two visiting monks with him.

She regarded them with interest. They were both young, and had clearly not enjoyed an easy journey – their habits were threadbare and dirty, and their sandals badly in need of repair. If they were charlatans, she thought, then they were not very good at plying their trade, or they would have been better attired. The larger of the pair, who introduced himself as Frossard, had a black eye.

‘A misunderstanding with a smith in Llandeilo,’ he explained, raising a tentative hand to touch it. ‘He thought I was going to steal a dagger.’

‘Why would you want a dagger?’ asked Cole, puzzled. ‘You are a monk.’

‘I did not want it,’ objected Frossard stiffly. ‘I was just looking. But since you ask, your domain is dangerous. Only yesterday we were obliged to watch a very desperate band of villains making off with sheep.’