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As far as Ranulf could tell, nothing in the bedchamber had been disturbed, except for the occupants, either before they’d been killed, or after.

Hedyn had met his end from a single thrust of a thin dagger through his heart and lay as if still asleep, on his back.

The woman had not died so quickly or easily.

Her nude body lay half off the bed, her left arm dangling toward the floor.

He guessed she’d given her attacker at least a moment’s struggle.

A trail of blood had dripped down that limp arm from the slash in her throat to puddle on the wooden boards.

Ranulf forced himself to sound—and to be—calm and dispassionate as he addressed Myghal and the servant. “Who is the woman?”

“Gwenbritha,” Myghal whispered.

God’s blood . “Sir Frioc’s leman?”

“Aye, sir.”

“How long has she been Hedyn’s lover?”

“I never knew she was till now.” Myghal glanced at the servant, who shook his head. “Nobody did.”

Ranulf certainly had not. He wondered if she was the woman Hedyn had spoken of that day, the one he had lost? If so, the sheriff might have wished Sir Frioc dead, as he had once wished Lord Fontenbleu to hell.

Yet he couldn’t imagine Hedyn a murderer, although he knew that anger and rejection could make a man do things he wouldn’t consider otherwise.

But who then had killed Hedyn and the woman, and why? “Even you were not aware your master had a lover?” he asked Daveth.

“I knew there was someone ,” the servant answered promptly, his voice quavering, yet determined, too. “But my master didn’t tell me who, or anything except he’d be gone for the night when he went to see her. This was the first time she’d been to this house.”

Ranulf saw nothing in Daveth’s demeanor to suggest he was lying, although that didn’t mean he wasn’t. “I see. And what happened last night?”

“The master told me he wouldn’t need me again, so I was in the kitchen, my lord, with the other servants, until it was time for me to go to bed.”

They’d probably been talking about their master and Gwenbritha, no doubt at some length, if they’d been as surprised as he was by the identity of Hedyn’s lover.

“The kitchen’s attached by a corridor, my lord, separate from the house,” Myghal clarified.

“That’s right,” Daveth agreed. “We was all in there, sir, having a bit of ale and a chat, until I went to bed.”

Ranulf had already taken note of the general layout of the house, and the means by which someone could enter. “You don’t sleep in the kitchen, do you?”

Daveth shook his head. “No, sir. I make my bed by the hearth in the main room below.”

“And you heard nothing last night? No sound of an intruder or a struggle?”

The servant bit his lip and shifted his weight from one leg to the other. “I did hear some noises in the night, my lord, coming from this room. Woke me up, in fact, but I thought…well, I thought it was just my master and his woman.”

If the servant had been somehow involved, directly or indirectly, it was unlikely he’d volunteer such information.

It could be that the attacker had entered and crept upstairs while the servants were in the kitchen. A fast and cunning thief or assassin could slip into a house and up the stairs in what seemed no more than a blink of the eye. “When did you realize something was amiss?”

Daveth glanced at the bodies, then quickly away.

“Not till the noon, my lord. It wasn’t like my master to spend the morning in bed unless he was ill—but it wasn’t like him to bring a woman back here, neither.

So I thought I’d best not disturb him, and waited for him to call me.

Leastways, I waited till the noon, and then I wondered if they might be hungry, so I brung some bread and honey and wine. I never expected…”

He fell silent, having no need to explain what he hadn’t expected to find.

Ranulf had seen the spilled wine and a broken carafe on the steps. A tray lay at the bottom of the stairs, a loaf of bread close to it, as if the fellow had been so shocked by his discovery, he’d dropped the tray.

“Go to the kitchen and wait,” he ordered Daveth, “and have the other servants wait with you. I’ll speak to them later. Close the door behind you.”

As Daveth obeyed, Myghal suddenly bolted for the window, threw open the shutters, leaned over the sill and threw up.

Ranulf had wanted to react in much the same way to the sight of Gawan’s corpse, so he couldn’t fault the man’s squeamishness. Once Myghal was out in the fresh air, he’d feel better, although the scene he’d encountered today would probably haunt his dreams for months and possibly years to come.

Making no comment, Ranulf went closer to the bed, and the bodies. He felt Hedyn’s hand. It was cold and stiff, so he’d been dead for some time.

Myghal sat on the floor, his knees drawn up and his head in his hands. “Forgive me, my lord,” he muttered miserably. “I’m not… I’ve never seen anything like this.”

“Murder sickens me, too,” Ranulf said. He went to help the younger man to his feet. “Have you any idea who could have done this?”

Myghal shook his head. “No, sir, no. Everybody liked Hedyn.”

Whether the man was liked or not was not the issue, but Ranulf took pity on the distraught fellow. “It wasn’t his friends I was thinking of,” he said. “Was it possible somebody knew of his liaison with Gwenbritha?”

Myghal’s eyes widened. “When his own servants didn’t? Nor anybody else? Because if anybody in the village had known, you can be sure the man’s servants would have heard about it.”

It did seem highly unlikely that such a secret could be kept if anyone other than the lovers themselves knew.

“He was also the sheriff, and as such, a representative of the king. Perhaps this crime has something to do with Gawan’s death.

Maybe Hedyn had discovered something about the other deaths, something that made someone think it was necessary to silence him,” Ranulf proposed.

“Wouldn’t he have told you, my lord?”

Ranulf scratched his beard. “If Hedyn had realized the import of what he’d learned. It might have been something that wasn’t obvious, and Hedyn hadn’t yet realized its significance. What did Hedyn do yesterday?”

“Nothing out of the usual, my lord,” Myghal answered.

“He talked to some of the fishermen in the morning after they got back with their catch, and a couple of the merchants. He ate his noon meal in the tavern, then sent me to the castle to see if your patrols had found anything. After that, well, I guess he went to fetch Gwenbritha.”

“When was the last time you saw him?”

“When he sent me off to the castle. He was standin’ in the main street, waving a farewell,” Myghal finished with a tremor in his voice.

Ranulf sympathized with the man’s sorrow, but he had one more question before he could let him go. “I want the names of the men he talked to.”

Myghal listed eight men—five fishermen and three merchants, including the one from whom Ranulf had purchased the silk fabric for Bea.

Maybe if he’d been thinking less about Bea and more about catching the man or men responsible for Gawan’s death, Hedyn would still be alive. Or maybe this murder had nothing to do with Gawan, and everything to do with Gwenbritha—except why then would she be dead?

Whatever the cause of these murders, there were things that needed to be done. “Why don’t you go and fetch the priest?” Ranulf suggested to Myghal. “You could ask some of the women to help prepare the bodies when I’m finished here.”

“Aye, my lord,” a relieved Myghal said before he immediately hurried from the chamber.

When he was alone, Ranulf concentrated on examining the room, trying to discover if there was a place where an assassin could hide, undetected, and perhaps for hours.

There was no arras, no tapestry or any large cupboard.

There was a chest, but a quick look revealed that it was full of clothing and linen.

Not even a child could fit inside with the lid closed.

He supposed it was possible that someone could have removed the contents first, but where would he have put them in the meantime?

Ranulf went to the window, checking the frame for any evidence of a rope being attached, or a grappling hook thrown.

There was nothing, and it was likely somebody in the village would have heard or seen that sort of activity.

Surely they would have reported that to the watch.

Otherwise he’d have to believe some of the villagers were culpable in these crimes.

He walked slowly toward the bed, looking closely at the floor. Unfortunately, Myghal’s visit to the window and then his own had erased any signs of other boots that might have been there.

He should have been more careful.

Next Ranulf went to Hedyn’s side of the bed and got down on his hands and knees to peer beneath.

It was remarkably free of dust, and there were a few marks that could be from a man sliding out from underneath, or a damp rag swished about to clean.

He couldn’t imagine lying under a bed while a man and woman sported, waiting for them to fall asleep, and then killing them in cold blood—but then, he was no assassin.

He examined Hedyn’s wound. The weapon that had killed him had been very thin and very sharp, and probably foreign. The fatal blow was nearly in the center of his chest, made by someone who knew exactly where to strike.

Ranulf walked to the other side of the bed. Slowly, carefully, he moved Gwenbritha so that she was lying on the bed, then brushed the hair away from her face.

Although she was pretty, she was no great beauty. She wasn’t as young as Bea, but likely closer in age to Celeste. In the stillness of death, he could tell nothing of her personality, yet she must have had some qualities men found attractive.

Too many, perhaps, and it had led to her doom.