The Medieval Murderers - The False Virgin

‘Please,’ said Odo quietly, while Hilde nodded at his side. ‘I know Avenel saved your life today, but it was an instinctive reaction, and I am sure he is cursing himself now. He has changed since you came home. While you were away, he was loud and brash; now he is quiet, watchful and brooding.’

‘As if he is planning something,’ elaborated Hilde. ‘And Fitzmartin is a beast. He punched his squire this morning for no reason. Odo and I are sure something evil is afoot.’

‘I agree,’ said Kediour uneasily. ‘Do not forget what they are accused of – desecrating churches and holding parishioners to ransom. These are not gentle crimes.’

But Cole remained resolute, and Gwenllian could do nothing but watch as he rode away, Avenel and Fitzmartin far too close behind him for her liking. Cousin Philip stood next to her, and she happened to glance at him as he was exchanging a meaningful nod with someone. When she saw it was Odo she was bemused, but then news came that there was bloody flux in the nearby village of Abergwili, and her attention was taken in sending aid.

For the next three days, she had little time for worrying, as she struggled to run the castle, quell trouble at the shrine and be a mother to her children. Whenever she could, she continued her enquiries into Miles’s murder, but despite questioning as many people as would talk to her, she came no closer to learning the identity of the killer. Rupe persisted in his claim that Cole was responsible, although few believed him, most preferring to blame the two ‘monks’.

Stunned by the violence that his well-intentioned entreaties had caused, Kediour kept to his priory. Gwenllian visited him on the evening of the fourth day after the trouble, to beg more medicine for Abergwili. While she was in the priory, he voiced his continuing fear that Carmarthen was being led down a spiritually dangerous path.

‘Rupe has turned Beornwyn into a very profitable business,’ he said unhappily. ‘He has sold countless flasks of “holy” water, and now he claims she appears to him regularly in dreams, along with “poor murdered” Gunbald.’

‘I know,’ said Gwenllian. ‘But he is too greedy, and people resent the money he is making from them. Most have abandoned him already, and he has only a few devoted followers left. The cult will soon fizzle out completely.’

‘I hope you are right,’ said Kediour worriedly. ‘I hate to see people misled where matters of faith are concerned. It pains me to hear him slandering Symon, too.’

It pained Gwenllian as well, but there was nothing she could do about it, especially while Cole was away. She longed for him to return, and hoped he would not be gone three weeks, like the last time. To take her mind off her worries, she reviewed what she had learned about Miles’s murder.

The deputy had gone to Rupe’s wood to investigate the underground stream he believed he had discovered, hoping the late hour would see the place deserted. Cole thought Miles had been dead for several hours before he was found, which meant he had been killed not long after the two of them had argued. Frossard had witnessed their quarrel, and she supposed she should be grateful that Rupe and his henchmen had not.

From ten possible culprits when she had started her enquiries, she now had six. She had never seriously considered Odo and Hilde; they were friends, and she could not believe they would garrotte anyone. Reinfrid and Frossard could also be eliminated, because they had been close on Symon’s heels as he had returned to the castle, close enough that they had seen him stop to speak to the other suspects. That left Avenel, Fitzmartin, Philip, Rupe and his two henchmen, one of whom was now dead.

Her favoured suspect was Rupe, who wanted everyone to believe that Beornwyn had blessed him with a spring, and who would certainly not want Miles to claim that water had been there all along. Moreover, Rupe’s alibi had been provided by his henchmen, a brutal pair who would certainly kill on his orders – and who would lie for him, too.

Avenel and Fitzmartin had no reliable alibi either. They had left the Eagle to walk back to the castle, but no one had accompanied them, and there was nothing to say they had not killed Miles en route. They were, as Kediour had reminded her, alleged to have committed other nasty crimes, so why not murder? And they certainly had a motive: the King would be delighted to hear that there was trouble in Carmarthen. Hilde and Odo were wary of them, too, and believed they were plotting something untoward.

And finally, Philip had also been near the scene of the murder with no good explanation, and he had been caught out in lies. He might be her kinsman, but she neither liked nor trusted him, and she was uncomfortable with the secret glances he kept exchanging with Avenel – and with Odo, for that matter.

She was torn from her ponderings by a rattle of hoofs in the bailey. She ran to the window, and sighed her relief when she saw Cole. Avenel and Fitzmartin were there too, and she could tell by the general air of dejection that the cattle rustlers had not been caught.

That evening, after Cole had washed away the filth of travel and had drunk more watered ale than Gwenllian had thought was possible without exploding, she told him all that she had learned during his absence. He listened without interruption.

‘I think we can cross Avenel off your list,’ he said when she had finished. ‘He saved my life. Gunbald would certainly have killed me if he had not acted.’

‘Odo says it was base instinct that drove him,’ argued Gwenllian. ‘I imagine he is dearly hoping that no one tells the King what he did. And do not say he went with you to catch the thieves out of goodness – he went to witness your failure for himself.’

Cole did not agree, and they debated the matter until they fell asleep, both worn out by the stresses and strains of the last four days. At dawn, the door opened and Iefan crept in.

‘You can cross Rupe off your list of suspects, Gwen,’ said Cole, after hearing his sergeant’s whispered report. ‘He is dead – garrotted, like Miles.’

Word of the murder had spread through the town long before the castle was informed, and Rupe’s house was ringed by spectators when Gwenllian and Cole arrived. The more important ones were inside, where they stood in the bedchamber, staring at the body. The only sound was Kediour’s voice as he murmured prayers for the dead man’s soul. Gwenllian looked around the room in distaste: it was mean and poor, suggesting that Rupe was a miser, hoarding his money and refusing to pay for clean bedclothes and decent furniture.

When Kediour had finished his petitions, Cole stepped forward to examine the body. There was not much to see: the mayor wore a thin nightshift, and had probably been asleep when his attacker had come. The bedclothes were rumpled where he had kicked with his feet, and his nails were broken, but there was nothing in the way of clues. Gwenllian’s eyes were drawn to the conical hat Rupe had always worn, and she could not prevent a superstitious shudder when she saw a dead butterfly adhering to it.

‘Who found him?’ Cole asked.

‘Me.’ Ernebald’s voice was hoarse with shock. ‘When I brought him his morning ale.’

‘When did you last see him alive?’

‘Midnight. We were making plans for the chapel. His wife is away, so he slept alone.’

‘She had gone to stay with her sister, because she dislikes pilgrims tramping through her vegetables,’ explained Avenel. His face was impossible to read in the dim light, and his voice was flat. ‘Or so Fitzmartin and I were told in the Eagle last night.’

‘If he and Fitzmartin were in the Eagle, they would have had to pass this house to return to their beds in the castle,’ Gwenllian whispered to Cole. ‘It would have been simple to climb through an open window and dispatch him.’