The Subtle Serpent

by Peter Tremayne

  ‘Was it Syrus who said vincit qui se vincit — they conquer who conquer themselves?’

  Brother Cillín chuckled.

  ‘Who knows themselves and overcomes their problems can go on to achieve many things in life. It is a fine thought. I hope that it is not too late and that Draigen is not as arrogant as to misunderstand the sentiment.’

  ‘Will you be able to insist that she obeys? She is not someone who meekly accepts instruction?’

  ‘There is the matter of her incitement of Sister Lerben to commit murder which you have told me of. Murder might well have resulted if you had not interceded to protect Sister Berrach. I will make it plain that Draigen has a choice, to obey in humility or answer for her behaviour before a council of her ecclesiastical peers at Ros Ailithir.’

  ‘In that case, I am sure that she will go. Draigen is conceited but her arrogance hides a life that was destroyed before it began. Conceit is only the armour she has put on to protect her against life.’

  Brother Cillín looked at her wryly.

  ‘Am I to have pity for her? Surely her conceit is comfort enough for her?’

  ‘It would be sad if we did not feel pity for the wreckage of life.’

  ‘Rather would I feel pity for her daughter, Sister Lerben. She had been doomed by her mother and has suffered from the actions of her father. What hope for her?’

  ‘That will be up to you, Cillín,’ replied Fidelma. ‘Your hand must now guide the paths of these people.’

  ‘It is a heavy responsibility,’ agreed the monk. ‘I would rather pilgrimage among the barbarians who have not heard the word of Christ than tried to solve the conflicts of these minds and souls. I will be sending Sister Lerben to Ard Fhearta where she must spend the time learning from her elders.’

  ‘Poor Lerben. She was proud of being rechtaire here.’

  ‘She has much to learn before she can guide or have authority over others.’ Brother Cillín held out his hand. ‘Vade in pace, Fidelma of Kildare.’

  ‘Vale, Cillín of Mullach.’

  Fidelma rejoined Eadulf in the courtyard of the abbey.

  ‘What now?’ asked the Saxon monk anxiously.

  ‘Now? I have no wish to stay in this sad place. I am returning to Cashel.’

  ‘Then we will journey together,’ Eadulf said brightly. ‘Am I not the emissary of Theodore of Canterbury to your brother at Cashel?’

  On the quay, they found Ross was waiting for them. Fidelma saw Sister Brónach standing to one side with Sister Berrach, supporting herself on her heavy staff. It was clear that Brónach and Berrach were both waiting to speak with her. Fidelma, with a muttered excuse to Eadulf and Ross, went across and greeted them.

  ‘I did not want you to go before I could speak to you,’ Sister Brónach began hesitantly. ‘I wanted to thank you …’

  ‘There is nothing to thank me for,’ Fidelma protested.

  ‘I also wanted to apologise,’ the solemn-faced religieuse went on. ‘I thought that somehow you had suspected me …’

  ‘It is my profession to suspect everyone, sister, but is it not said vincit omnia veritas — truth eventually conquers?’ she replied whimsically.

  Sister Berrach snorted loudly and pointed towards the abbey buildings.

  ‘Should your Latin tag not be that from Terence — veritas odium parit?’

  Fidelma’s eyes widened slightly in amusement.

  ‘Truth breeds hatred?’ She glanced towards the abbey buildings. The abbess was engaged in heated argument with Brother Cillín. ‘Ah yes. I am afraid that is the nature of truth because so many people seek to hide the truth from one another. But the greater hatred arises when the person has hidden the truth from themselves.’

  Sister Berrach bowed her head in acceptance of the wisdom.

  ‘I would like to thank you, Fidelma. Had it not been for you, I would also have stood falsely accused. Prejudice would have convicted me.’

  ‘Heraclitus says that dogs bark at people they do not know. Indeed, prejudice is but a child of ignorance. People often hate others because they do not know them. I cannot blame you, but you yourself did contribute something to that ignorance by playing the role others gave you instead of standing firm for yourself. You pretended that you were something of a simpleton, pretended to stutter, pretended to be uneducated and confined your reading to the hours when no one could observe you.’

  ‘We cannot eliminate prejudice,’ replied Sister Berrach, defensively.

  ‘Knowledge is the one thing that makes us human and not simply animal. Sister Comnat will be looking for a new assistant librarian. If she had knowledge of your ability among books, Sister Berrach, I am sure that she would offer you that role.’

  Sister Berrach responded with a wide smile.

  ‘Then I will ensure that she has that knowledge.’

  Fidelma nodded and then, glancing at Brónach, said softly: ‘Your mother should be proud that you are her child, Sister Berrach.’

  Sister Brónach’s solemn face dissolved into awe.

  ‘You know even that?’ she gasped.

  ‘If you had not demonstrated your maternity by the way you keep close to Berrach and help her, the stories that you both told me were enough. You told me that your mother was Suanach. You told me that you were a member of this community, disagreeing with your mother’s adherence to the old ways. You came to this community, met someone and had a child. You felt you could not look after your daughter here and so you took her to your mother to be raised. Why did you find it so difficult to look after a child in this community? Because the child had physical problems which needed constant attention.’

  Sister Brónach was pale but she held up her head defiantly.

  ‘It is so,’ she conceded. ‘Tell me no more truth.’

  Berrach was clinging on to her mother’s arm.

  ‘I have known for some time. You are right, sister. My father would not help Brónach look after me. Only my grandmother helped until I was three years old. She was fostering another child then, a child who was older than I was. That child was full of malice and jealousy and in a fit of rage slew my grandmother, leaving me almost helpless. Then Brónach defied my father’s wishes and brought me back to the community and raised me — deformity and all.’

  Sister Brónach grimaced.

  ‘The condition was that I would never identify her father. I have kept to that condition. The knowledge would not add pleasure for Berrach.’

  ‘I am happy in that ignorance,’ Berrach assured her. ‘It is no great loss.’

  ‘What is ironic is that the child who killed my mother would be allowed to enter the community also and eventually became our abbess.’

  ‘She will not be here for long. Neither will Sister Lerben,’ Fidelma assured them.

  Sister Berrach reached forward and clasped Fidelma’s hand.

  ‘But you will tell no one of our story?’

  ‘No one,’ Fidelma reassured the girl. ‘Your secret is buried and forgotten, so far as I am concerned.’

  Sister Brónach paused to wipe a tear from her eye.

  ‘Thank you, sister.’

  Fidelma held out her hands, taking Brónach’s and Berrach’s hands in each of her own.

  ‘Care for one another, sisters, in the future as you have in the past.’

  The canvas sail came cracking down the mast to fall into place. Ross watched his sailors with critical eyes as they swarmed up to secure it in place. A stiff winter wind was blustering across the inlet and bearing within its bosom snow squalls. The sky was almost black and the air was damp and chill, yet Ross was in no way perturbed at putting out to sea, in spite of the fact that even in this inlet the waters were choppy and the barc was bobbing to and fro alarmingly. Now the sails were finally in place, with Odar at the helm, the ship began to move forward at a cracking rate.

  Sister Fidelma and Brother Eadulf stood on the stern deck with Ross. The two religious gripped the side rails to steady themselves, both jealous of the easy manner
with which Ross stood by the helm, feet apart, balancing against the pitch of the deck. The burly seaman turned half apologetically to them.

  ‘It will be rough for a while,’ he called above the blustering wind, ‘but it will ease when we have stood out to sea.’

  Fidelma grinned at Eadulf’s anxious face.

  ‘I’d rather be at sea than confined further in the grim atmosphere of that abbey,’ she replied as Ross turned to his other tasks

  ‘I shall not be sorry to leave here either,’ Eadulf confessed. ‘It has not been the best of times.’

  Fidelma glanced sympathetically up at him. Then her eye caught the sight of the tall Gaulish merchant ship, still bobbing at anchor, vanishing behind them in the inlet.

  ‘I thought it was a mark of a fine man that Ross forwent his salvage on that ship and returned it to its Gaulish crew for their safe return home.’

  ‘A pity Waroc was not with them. As I said, he was a brave man.’

  ‘How long do you think that you will remain at Cashel?’ Fidelma changed the subject abruptly.

  ‘I am not sure. Until I hear from Theodore of Canterbury, I suppose.’

  ‘I plan to spend some time at Cashel myself,’ Fidelma remarked lightly. ‘It is so long since my brother and I have had any time together.’

  ‘You will want some rest after this,’ agreed Eadulf. ‘Plots and insurrections apart, the abbey of The Salmon of the Three Wells seemed filled with vain, greedy and twisted people. It will be pleasant to be among friends.’

  ‘You are too hard on them. Sister Comnat was an upright and sensible lady. And as for Brónach and Berrach … they, at least, knew love and caring.’

  ‘Yes. I felt sorry for them, especially.’

  ‘Sorrow? No, I would have said envy was what one should feel for them. It is not given to many to give and receive an unselfish mother’s love.’

  Fidelma suddenly frowned and turned looking seaward, leaning on the ship’s rail.

  ‘I wonder if Brónach will ever tell her daughter the name of her father?’ She had seen the pleading eyes of Brónach and obeyed that silent prayer not to utter the name of Febal. Perhaps it was as well.

  Eadulf had not caught her words.

  ‘What was that?’

  Fidelma looked up at the tall Saxon monk and her face relaxed into a look of contentment.

  ‘I am glad that you are coming to Cashel, Eadulf,’ she said.

  PRINCIPAL CHARACTERS

  Sister Fidelma of Kildare, a dálaigh or advocate of the law courts of seventh-century Ireland

  Brother Eadulf, a Saxon monk from Seaxmund’s Ham, in the land of the South Folk

  Ross, captain of a coastal barc or sailing vessel

  Odar, his helmsman

  At the Abbey of The Salmon of the Three Wells

  Abbess Draigen

  Sister Síomha, the rechtaire or steward of the abbey

  Sister Brónach, the doirseór or doorkeeper of the abbey

  Sister Lerben, a member of the community

  Sister Berrach, a handicapped member of the community

  Sister Comnat, the librarian

  Sister Almu, assistant to the librarian

  At the fortress of Dún Boí

  Adnár, bó-aire, or local chieftain

  Brother Febal, anam-chara or soul-friend to Adnár

  Olcán, the son of Gulban the Hawk-Eyed, chieftain of the Beara

  Torcán, son of Eoganán, prince of the Uí Fidgenti and guest of Adnár

  Beccan, chief Brehon, or judge, of the Corco Loígde

  Brother Cillín of Mullach

  Máil, warrior of the Loígde

  Barr, a farmer

  HISTORICAL NOTE

  The Annála Ulaidh, the Annals of Ulster, is one of the great chronicles of Ireland, compiled in 1498, from earlier sources, by Cathal Mac Magnusa, the archdeacon of Clogher. Other scribes continued the annals down to the seventeenth century when the chronicle was used as one of the prime sources for the compilation of the Annála Ríoghachta Éireann, now better known as the ‘Annals of the Four Masters,’ compiled between 1632—1636 by a number of historians led by Micheál Ó Cléirigh.

  Against the year A.D. 666, for the month of January, there is an entry which starts: ‘A mortality in Ireland. The battle of Áine between the Arada and the Ui Fidgenti …’

  This is the story of the events leading up to that conflict at Cnoc Áine, now called Knockainey, two miles west of Hospital, Co. Limerick, and of Fidelma’s role in them.

  Sister Fidelma is not simply a religieuse, a member of the community of St. Brigid of Kildare. She is also a qualified dálaigh, or advocate of the ancient law courts of Ireland. As this background will not be familiar to many readers, this foreword provides a few essential points of reference designed to make the stories more readily appreciated.

  Ireland, in the seventh century A.D., consisted of five main provincial kingdoms: Indeed, the modern Irish word for a province is still cúige, literally ‘a fifth.’ Four provincial kings—of Ulaidh (Ulster), of Connacht, of Muman (Munster) and of Laigin (Leinster) —gave their allegiance to the Ard Rí or High King, who ruled from Tara, in the ‘royal’ fifth province of Midhe (Meath), which means the ‘middle province.’ Even among these provincial kingdoms, there was a decentralization of power to petty-kingdoms and clan territories.

  The law of primogeniture, the inheritance by the eldest son or daughter, was an alien concept in Ireland. Kingship, from the lowliest clan chieftain to the High King, was only partially hereditary and mainly electoral. Each ruler had to prove himself or herself worthy of office and was elected by the derbfhine of their family—three generations gathered in conclave. If a ruler did not pursue the commonwealth of the people, they were impeached and removed from office. Therefore the monarchial system of ancient Ireland had more in common with a modern-day republic than with the feudal monarchies of medieval Europe.

  Ireland, in the seventh century A.D., was governed by a system of sophisticated laws called the Laws of the Fénechas, or land-tillers, which became more popularly known as the Brehon Laws, deriving from the word breitheamh—a judge. Tradition has it that these laws were first gathered in 714 B.C. by the order of the High King, Ollamh Fódhla. But it was in A.D. 438 that the High King, Laoghaire, appointed a commission of nine learned people to study, revise, and commit the laws to the new writing in Latin characters. One of those serving on the commission was Patrick, eventually to become patron saint of Ireland. After three years, the commission produced a written text of the laws, the first known codification.

  The first complete surviving texts of the ancient laws of Ireland are preserved in an eleventh century manuscript book. It was not until the seventeenth century that the English colonial administration in Ireland finally suppressed the use of the Brehon Law system. To even possess a copy of the law books was punishable, often by death or transportation.

  The law system was not static and every three years at the Féis Temhrach (Festival of Tara) the lawyers and administrators gathered to consider and revise the laws in the light of changing society and its needs.

  Under these laws, women occupied a unique place. The Irish laws gave more rights and protection to women than any other western law code at that time or since. Woman could, and did, aspire to all offices and professions as the coequal with men. They could be political leaders, command their people in battle as warriors, be physicians, local magistrates, poets, artisans, lawyers, and judges. We know the name of many female judges of Fidelma’s period—Bríg Briugaid, Áine Ingine Iugaire, and Darí among many others. Darí, for example, was not only a judge but the author of a noted law text written in the sixth century A.D. Women were protected by the laws against sexual harassment, against discrimination, from rape; they had the right of divorce on equal terms from their husbands with equitable separation laws and could demand part of their husband’s property as a divorce settlement; they had the right of inheritance of personal property and the right of sickness be
nefits. Seen from today’s perspective, the Brehon Laws provided for an almost feminist paradise.

  This background, and its strong contrast with Ireland’s neighbors, should be understood to appreciate Fidelma’s role in these stories.

  Fidelma was born at Cashel, capital of the kingdom of Muman (Munster) in southwest Ireland, in A.D. 636. She was the youngest daughter of Failbe Fland, the king, who died the year after her birth and was raised under the guidance of a distant cousin, Abbot Laisran of Durrow. When she reached the ‘Age of Choice’ (fourteen years), she went to study at the bardic school of the Brehon Morann of Tara, as many other young Irish girls did. Eight years of study resulted in Fidelma obtaining the degree of Anruth, only one degree below the highest offered at either bardic or ecclesiastical universities in ancient Ireland. The highest degree was ollamh, still the modern Irish word for a professor. Fidelma’s studies were in law, both in the criminal code of the Senchus Mór and the civil code of the Leabhar Acaill. She therefore became a dálaigh or advocate of the courts.

  Her role could be likened to a modern Scottish sheriff-substitute, whose job it is to gather and assess the evidence, independent of the police, to see if there is a case to be answered. The modern French juge d’instruction holds a similar role.

  In those days, most of the professional or intellectual classes were members of the new Christian religious houses, just as, in previous centuries, all members of professions and intellectuals were Druids. Fidelma became a member of the religious community of Kildare founded in the late fifth century A.D. by St. Brigid.

  While the seventh century A.D. was considered part of the European ‘Dark Ages,’ for Ireland it was a period of ‘Golden Enlightenment.’ Students from every corner of Europe flocked to Irish universities to receive their education including the sons of the Anglo-Saxon kings. For example, Aldfrith, who became king of Northumbria from A.D. 685—705, was educated at Bangor and achieved a reputation in Ireland as a poet in the Irish language. Three of his poems still survive in ancient texts. At the great ecclesiastical university of Durrow, at this time, it is recorded that no less than eighteen different nations were represented among the students. At the same time, Irish male and female missionaries were setting out to reconvert a pagan Europe to Christianity, establishing churches, monasteries, and centers of learning throughout Europe as far east as Kiev, in the Ukraine, as far north as the Faroes, and as far south as Taranto in southern Italy. Ireland was a byword for literacy and learning.