Divine Sacrifice, The (26 page)

I could be nothing else than honest with Arthur. He had saved me twice, from the battlefield and from my own selfpity. “Gwilym may be the killer, but I see no immediate reason. Pelagianism
is not a killing matter. For debate? Yes. For murder? No. That his murder is connected with that of Elafius I see no other alternative. But there is something different, almost passionless, in
Patrick’s demise. And when I discover the reason behind that element, I will understand it all.”

Arthur ran his stubby fingers through his beard. “I agree, but what shall I do with this Francesco, this envoy from Rome?”

And that gave me pause, until I remembered a certain female of my acquaintance. “Fetch Guinevere.”

The Rigotamos looked at me as if I were crazy. His eyes flashed at me, and I thought for a second he would draw his sword.

“Fetch Guinevere,” I repeated, unmoved by his anger.

Those thick eyebrows of his knitted closely together and his frown was one of epic proportions. He jerked his head at one of his troopers, standing just beyond the door. The soldier nodded and
disappeared. Torches had already been lit around the chamber. Though our days were growing longer, the prospect of dusk was yet upon us. I could see little that I had accomplished on this
day—indeed, my tasks had multiplied—but that would not keep it from coming to an end.

I thought for a moment. “Patrick’s death may be traced to his youth, when he killed a girl. A horrible event that has given him great trouble in years past.”

“How could that be part of this affair?” Bedevere asked. ’Twas a logical question. A murder years and miles away seemed a poor candidate to hold the key to our current
maze.

“Patrick’s enemies were becoming concerned at his growing prestige and were dredging up the old tales to discredit him and strip him of his bishopric. Two men who played critical
roles in those long-ago events died but hours apart. I need little more than that to suggest that there are things from many years ago that someone wishes hidden. The deaths of Elafius and Patrick
lie not in the here and now, not in the aspirations and ambition of a young lord, but in the long-past days of their youths. Quite frankly, my lord, I have no other path to follow. It seems the
only place to find a connection.”

I paused. “The Rigotamos can handle Lauhiir and this new
episcopus
. I must travel farther afield.” With that I began to strip off my crimson tunic.

“What’s this?” Arthur asked.

“Divesting myself of this tunic,” I said. “Returning to the garb of Mad Malgwyn for a time. I have places to go and people to question who would be too cautious if confronted
by a king’s counselor. Mad Malgwyn is more likely to attract their confidence.”

“And you hope to find what?”

I shook my head. “Allow me a few secrets, my lord. Should my excursion prove successful, I will have at least some of my questions answered.”

“The coast?”

“Bannaventa.”

“Patrick’s home?”

“Patrick’s home.” I nodded. “It may be that Patrick’s death was determined long ago in his old home. Francesco could not know that he is dead. The old man’s
murder has another cause.”

“And of Elafius?” Ider asked.

“I cannot fathom that. It seems unrelated, but it must be connected. Perhaps when I resolve Patrick’s death, I will understand why Elafius was killed.”

Arthur rose to his full height, his broad shoulders strong and thick. “Do not be gone long, my friend. I shall need you, I fear.”

“I’ll return as quickly as I can. But Bedevere will serve you much better than I. Now, bring me Guinevere.”

An hour later, as I prepared for my journey, a knock came to the door. My cousin, dressed in a plain gown, her hair held back with beautiful bone pins, slipped inside and kissed
my cheek. “You sent for me, Malgwyn?”

“Cousin! I need your help. Do you still keep company with the women in the community?”

She cocked an eye and looked at me suspiciously. “What evil are you intending?”

“Guinevere!” I said with mock surprise. “I need a woman.”

“Malgwyn!”

“Not for me. I need an attractive woman who has a way with men, one who is not afraid of her own shadow and can wrap a man around her finger.”

She pursed her lips and looked at me intently. “Who must she seduce?”

“A newly named bishop of Rome, one Francesco . . .”

Dressed as “Mad Malgwyn,” I attracted little notice as I slipped quietly from the abbey on foot and headed down the trail to Bannaventa, a journey of twenty miles
toward the coast. It was there that Patrick had been taken as a
servi
by Scotti raiders. And if, as I believed, the answer to his and Elafius’s deaths was tied to their long-past
youth, that is where that answer would be.

The rotten grass and muddy earth left a fetid smell in the air along the path. In my short time among the Rigotamos’s counselors, I had forgotten the smell of the paupers’ sweat and
soil. My nose revealed my distaste. An ancient beggar laughed at me. “Best get used to it, friend. You’ll smell just like it soon enough.”

The journey to Bannaventa took some six hours. In dry weather, on good roads, a man fresh and strong could cover four or five miles in an hour. But the roads were muddy and crowded; I often felt
as if I were swimming against the current in a mighty river. Hundreds of people had flooded the roads leading to Ynys-witrin.

“Why come to Ynys-witrin, old man?”

One traveler responded to my query. “Are you daft? The great
episcopus
Patrick is there, and he is granting blessings and healing the lame.”

This man was dressed well, with a linen
camisia
showing beneath his tunic. “Good sir,” I began. “Please do not take my words as insult, but you are not lame, and you
seem to already be blessed with the finer things of life. What need have you of Patrick’s blessings?”

The fellow smiled at me, encouraged by my tone. “We come to seek his blessings for our welfare. Armed soldiers have begun raiding villages to the west and north of here.”

“Soldiers of Lord Liguessac? Scotti? Pirates?”

He looked around suspiciously and then shoved me to the side of the road. Leaning in, he sniffed of me and eyed me in disbelief. “Who are you? You look like a beggar, but you smell of rose
water. And you seem uncommonly familiar with the human hazards of these lands.”

This was a clever man. “Be at thy ease, master. I serve the Rigotamos, though my garb would say otherwise. Speak to me.”

His plump, ruddy face relaxed. “We do not know whose soldiers they are, but they are not common pirates or even the Scotti. They are disciplined. Please take this word to the
Rigotamos.”

I patted his arm. “I will. For now,” I said, “there is a greater hazard to the west. But I will not forget this.”

He quickly rejoined the river of humanity pushing the road to the flooding stage. I frowned. More complications, I did not need. But I stowed the complaint into a pouch in the corner of my mind
and plunged back into my journey as dark, gray clouds seemed to boil up from the horizon. Great winds were pushing them, I knew, and such boded ill for the day ahead.

All along the western road to Bannaventa, I encountered groups of travelers, some alone, some in families with ox-drawn carts. Such a flood of people I had only seen in advance
of the Saxon armies pushing into our lands. They were fleeing as if they were a retreating army, dragging the possessions they could carry in bundles and bags, or strapped onto carts with leather
ties.

A shift came in the flow after I passed a certain point in my journey. Rather than heading east, toward Ynys-witrin, the current began heading west, toward Bannaventa. The danger, I perceived,
lay to the north. I had no time to scout that region, but perhaps on my return I would. Arthur’s patrols would certainly become aware of this soon.

The gray clouds turned to deep purple, and thunder rumbled from them as the sky lit up. As I rounded a turn in the lane, drops of rain fell from the sky, but I realized that I had finally
reached the edge of Bannaventa. An old round stone house sat wedged into a bend of the road. The first two or three courses were stone, surmounted by wattle and daub. A child, a little boy, peered
from the door. As I made to approach him, he disappeared inside and a great, burly man replaced him. “Your business here?”

“I seek the family of Patrick, the
episcopus
in the land of the Scotti. Can you direct me to them?”

His eyes narrowed a bit. “Who seeks them?”

“I am called Malgwyn, a friend of the bishop. I promised him I would call on his people if I chanced in this direction.”

He relaxed then, and I noticed his hand slip away from the dagger at his belt. “You came for naught then. They are all gone. Only the old villa is left, but it stands in ruins now. Strange
that he would not know this.”

“He has long been abroad. None of his people are left?”

“Dead mostly. Or moved on.”

I thought for a moment. “I need an old man with a long memory then. Someone who has spent his life in these lands.”

“You have great needs for a man paying a friendly visit,” he pointed out, and rightly so.

I reached into my pouch and pulled a silver
denarius
out. Tossing it to him, I drew my own dagger as he moved to catch the coin. “That’s yours to pocket if you’ll help
me.”

His eyes grew wide at the sight of the dagger and wider still at the
denarius
. He pursed his lips. “I know of no man, but of a woman. Aye, she had some connection to old
Calpornius, a
servi,
perhaps.”

“Perhaps?” The way he so quickly avoided my glance told me he knew more than he revealed.

“Some call her a witch, but . . .” His voice trailed off.

“You believe it or not?”

“She is but an odd old woman,” he said, looking at me finally.

“Just tell me where to find her and I’ll be on my way.” Quickly, as the thunder ushered in the rain in sheets, he directed me to the old woman’s house.

Half an hour later, I stood before a creaky, wind-snatched wattle-and-daub house built against the wall of an old Roman villa. An old ragged cloth covered the doorway, fluttering now in the
wind. I did not bother to announce myself, because of the rain, and I ducked my head to enter the house. ’Twas good that I did, for the song of a dagger split the air where my head had been
and drove its point into the wooden beam framing the doorway.

Crouching, I ducked left and then right in the darkened room.

“Who are you? What do you want here?” The voice was aged beyond any I had heard, crackling and hissing like a fire doused with water.

The room was as black as night, and I marveled that she had come so close to pinning my throat to her door with the dagger.

“I am a friend. I mean you no harm.”

“Since when did any friend enter an old woman’s house without permission? What’s your name?”

“I am Malgwyn of the River Cam.”

She sniffed from the darkness of her corner. “You are Malgwyn ap Cuneglas, the one-armed scribe of Arthur, the Rigotamos.”

Searching the blackened corner, I could just dimly make out her figure, seated with her legs crossed beneath her and a fur piled about her.