The Unlikely Spy by Sarah Woodbury Read Free Book Online Page A

small fair and
market had grown up beside it. Gareth had counted no fewer than
four dressmakers present, one of whom he hoped he could arrange for
Gwen to visit. He’d like to commission a new dress as a gift to
her.
    Various contests were also occurring on the
many stages set up around the field. In addition to musicians of
every type (among them genuine bards like Meilyr, Gwen’s father),
dancers, jugglers, and actors had come to perform.
    “Is that-is that him?” The hosteler gaped at
the shrouded body in the back of the cart.
    Gareth took the hosteler’s words to mean
that their arrival wasn’t as unexpected as he’d originally thought.
Sion bent to whisper in the man’s ear, and he ran off.
    “What did you say to him?” Prince Rhun
said.
    “I told him to stop gawking and fetch the
prior,” Sion said.
    The two monks had disappeared into the
stable immediately upon putting down the arms of the cart. They
came back with a board on which to carry the dead man, which would
provide a more dignified means to bring him into the chapel than to
carry him sagging between them. Gareth and Prior Rhys helped them
load the body onto it, with Sion carefully replacing the burlap
sacks over his body. Then he went back to his watch while Rhun,
Gareth, and the two monks each took a corner in order to move the
body into the chapel. Prior Rhys walked at the front to lead the
way.
    The doors to the stone chapel had remained
closed all day, keeping the natural coolness of the stones inside.
The contrast between the heat outside and the darkened interior was
so great Gareth shivered, feeling the sweat cool instantly on his
skin. Prior Rhys directed them across the nave towards one of the
side wings, through a small doorway, and into a vestibule that
contained a small altar, two upright chairs, and a six-foot-long
table. This was clearly where the dead usually resided until the
burial ceremony. With a heave, they settled the dead man on the
table, leaving him on the long board rather than shifting him off
it.
    “Thank you,” Prior Rhys said to the monks.
Gareth had figured out by now that silence was considered a virtue
in this monastery. The two monks hadn’t wasted a single word. Or
spoken one, for that matter.
    But still, he put out an arm to block their
immediate departure. “I know that you heard and saw much today. If
you have a need to speak of it, please talk to me, Prior Rhys, or
your own prior. I would prefer that nothing of what we know or have
surmised leaves this room to reach the murderer’s ears.”
    “Do you hear that both of you?” Prior Rhys’s
warning tone was like a father might use with a son.
    The monks nodded.
    “If you think of anything else that you
haven’t told us, even a detail so small you think it couldn’t be
important, I want to hear it,” Gareth said. “We don’t know this
man’s name, and yet, we have to catch his killer.”
    Both monks nodded again and left. Gareth
turned back to Prior Rhys. “It only occurs to me now that I didn’t
actually ask them if they knew the dead man.”
    “I asked before I sent them to hunt through
the underbrush. They claimed not to,” Prior Rhys said.
    “Did they actually say that, or did they
merely shake their heads?” Prince Rhun said.
    Prior Rhys gave a short burst of laughter,
which he stifled instantly. “The latter.”
    Footfalls came from the nave of the church,
and a moment later, the hosteler appeared with the prior of the
monastery, Pedr. In looks, the prior was the complete opposite of
Prior Rhys, who even in middle age was tall and well built, still
with the bearing of the soldier he’d been. Pedr had a stooped,
slightly rounded figure and had red hair going both gray and bald.
From Gareth’s few interactions with him so far, however, his
intellect was on a level with Rhys’s.
    Pedr dismissed the hosteler immediately upon
seeing the body, and bent his head in a bow to Prince Rhun. “My
lord.”
    Rhun nodded. “Prior.”
    This little