He then ordered his servant to take Ranulf’s cloak and invited the castellan to sit by the fire.
“Put your feet up on that stool,” Hedyn suggested. “That should help them dry. I thought the rain might let up this morning, but it looks like it’ll last awhile yet. One good thing, though—ships are more likely to stay close to shore or take refuge in a cove, so they’ll be easier to spot.”
When Ranulf was settled, with his feet raised near the crackling flames and a goblet of mulled wine in his hand, Hedyn regarded him questioningly. “Well, my lord, what brings you here? Have your men found something?”
Ranulf was not about to admit that he had come seeking refuge from overzealous young ladies with cleaning on their minds. “I was hoping you’d learned something more about those two missing men.”
“Ah.” Hedyn leaned back in his chair and shook his head. “Not a word. Which means, I think, that they’re likely dead, or we’d be able to get news of them along the coast. Their vessel wasn’t big enough to risk a longer voyage.”
“So that would be three men dead, and probably murdered, in the past month, not to mention Sir Frioc’s unexpected demise.”
“Aye, my lord,” Hedyn grimly confirmed.
Ranulf pushed away the memory of Gawan’s body lying on the beach, gray and soaked and terrible. “And none of the villagers have given you any hint as to who might be responsible for any of these deaths or disappearances?”
Hedyn shook his head. “I think they’re coming ’round, now that they’ve had time to get used to you, but they’re not willing to say much. They’re Cornish, when all’s said and done, and they don’t trust outsiders.”
“They should trustyou. You’re Cornish.”
That brought a wry grin to Hedyn’s weathered face. “Aye, sir, I am, but from a village some miles away. That makes me from outside, too—just not so much.”
Ranulf sighed and sank deeper into his chair. “I hope they don’t wait too much longer before coming forward with information, if they have it. I don’t want any more murders.”
“No, my lord, and believe me, they want to know who’s responsible and the louts punished. A few more days, and we might hear something.”
A few more days, Ranulf thought dismally. He prayed to God nobody else ended up in a watery grave in a few more days. “What of Gwenbritha?”
“Still at her mother’s, my lord. I’m sure she had naught to do with Sir Frioc’s death. She was very upset when I told her about it. She wasn’t sorry she’d left him, but she was sorry he was dead.”
“Women can be deceiving.”
“Aye, so they can. But I don’t think she’s guilty of anything with regards to his death. To be blunt, my lord, I don’t think anybody is. We saw no signs of anyone else near his body—no footprints, no grass or ground disturbed. I’d be willing to wager Sir Frioc’s death was an accident.”
Ranulf hoped Hedyn was right.
“I hear you’ve got a visitor at the castle,” Hedyn noted.
The arrival of a noble lady and her escort would hardly have passed unremarked in a small village. “Lady Beatrice is the cousin of the lord of Tregellas’s wife.”
“Pretty girl, so they tell me.”
“Yes, she is.”
Hedyn’s eyes sparkled in the firelight. “Set down the cook right handily, so I’ve heard.”
This was news to Ranulf, but he tried not to betray any surprise, although he found it hard to imagine Bea intimidating anyone, until he recalled her irate majesty. Still, it could be that Hedyn had it wrong, his grasp of events based on gossip and supposition. “She came to help me bring some order to my household.” He gave Hedyn a man-to-man, I-don’t-really-care smile. “That sort of thing is beyond my experience.”
Hedyn chuckled and moved his feet closer to the fire. “Well, it’ll do that fellow some good to have his nose out of joint. Neither Sir Frioc nor Gwenbritha could manage him.”
Ranulf felt it necessary that Hedyn understand exactly how things were with Bea. “She’ll be going back to Tregellas as soon as the weather clears.”
“Oh, aye?” Hedyn replied. “I thought maybe she’d be staying.”
“No, she will not.”
“Seems a pity to me, my lord,” Hedyn said evenly, “her being so pretty and a dab hand with the servants, too. I’ve heard nothing but good things about her, and that’s saying something.”
“Even from the servants she’s making work so hard?” Ranulf asked, not hiding his skepticism. He was aware of the way soldiers grumbled when they were forced to do much more than polish their armor, and there were always those who’d complain about that.
