He turned and began to lead the way again. Here the wooded area was not so oppressive and now and again they came to small patches of cleared land bordering the river which had been sown with crops of corn and wheat.
‘We will find the house of Lesren the tanner not far now,’ called the tanist.
Indeed, a curious smell had come to Eadulf’s nostrils. An acrid smell, as of bad cooking. He sniffed suspiciously until his senses told him what it was. They turned through a bordering treeline into a wide stretch of clearing that ran for some distance along the river. There was a small comfortable-looking bothán, a cabin built of logs with smoke curling from a chimney. There were several small outhouses, and all around the buildings were a score of wooden frames on which were stretched animal skins, Heavy iron cauldrons hung on chains over two large fires, their contents bubbling and smoking as a youth stirred them. It was the acrid smell from these that had assailed Eadulf’s nostrils. He saw a man using a stick to drop a section of skin into the cauldron and presumed that this was part of the tanning process.
At one of the great wooden frames on which a hide was stretched, a thin, wiry-looking man in a leather apron was standing poking in an examining fashion at the taut skin.
‘Lesren!’ called Accobrán.
The man turned with a frown of annoyance. He had small, quick dark eyes in a face whose expression reminded Fidelma of a pine martin. Suspicious and fearful. His rapid glance took them all in before he returned his gaze to the young tanist.
‘What do you want of me, Accobrán?’ he snapped. ‘Am I not busy enough?’
Eadulf exchanged a glance with Fidelma. The man was obviously not going to be helpful. No one of the Cinél na Áeda seemed kindly disposed towards strangers, so far as they were able to tell.
‘I have brought a dálaigh to ask questions of you, Lesren.’
The tanner’s dark eyes swivelled to Eadulf. ‘Dálaigh? That man is a foreigner.’
‘Do you have objections to foreigners, Lesren?’ demanded Fidelma sharply.
‘None, woman, if they do not interfere in my business.’
Accobrán swallowed and was about to explain who Fidelma was when she cut him short.
‘It is I who am the dálaigh, Lesren. I am come to ask some questions about your daughter.’
‘You?’ The tanner seemed amused. ‘A young woman?’
‘This is Fidelma of Cashel,’ put in Accobrán. ‘Sister to King Colgú,’ he added sotto voce.
The tanner blinked but his unfriendly expression did not change. ‘If you are here to ask me about Beccnat’s murder, I will tell you who killed her. It was Gabrán.’
Accobrán expressed his impatience. ‘We made inquiries, Lesren. You know that. Gabrán was nowhere near Rath Raithlen on the night your daughter died.’
‘So you say.’
‘I only say what the witnesses say. The fact is that he was staying twelve miles away.’ The tanist’s voice indicated that he had told the story a hundred times before. ‘Aolú, our late Brehon, agreed that he was innocent of your claim.’
‘If you claim that Gabrán slew your daughter,’ Fidelma added. ‘Are you also saying that he killed the other two girls as well?’
Lesren raised his chin stubbornly. ‘I say that he killed Beccnat. That is what I say. I told her to beware of him and his thieving family.’
‘Those words are harsh and have harshness in the saying of them,’ Fidelma reproved him. ‘I would caution you against calling people thieves. You know the law and the penalty that falls upon those who tell false tales about others. It could even lead to the loss of your honour price, súdaire.’ She laid a soft stress on his title as a means of reminding him of the standing in society he could lose.
Eadulf knew that everyone in the five kingdoms of Éireann, from the lowborn to the highest, was possessed of an honour price. The High King himself was rated at the value of sixty-three cows while a provincial king, such as Fidelma’s brother Colgú, held an honour price valued at forty-eight cows. In the time that he had been in this land Eadulf prided himself on having learned to judge the honour price of most people and concluded that a tanner would be valued at four cows. The cow was the basis of the currency, with a séd being the value of one cow while a cumal was that of three cows. Smaller coins like a silver screpall or a sicil were divisions of the value of a cow.
At first Eadulf had not been able to understand the honour price system and vainly tried to equate it with the caste system of his own people. He soon realised that there was a fairness in its structure that had much to do with the system of punishments for crimes. The whole basis of the law system was compensation and rehabilitation. To maintain a standard throughout the kingdoms, each person was ascribed an honour price that was based on the job they did, and not on who their parents were. Fines were assessed on the honour price of the one transgressed against. If a man killed a master builder then he would have to pay the master builder’s family compensation to the value of twenty cows, together with a fine to the court. If he could not afford it, and his own honour price was less than the value of twenty cows, then he would lose his honour price and all civil rights, and would have to work to compensate the family and the court. He became an ‘unfree’ man, a man without any rights — a fuidhir.
There were two types of ‘unfree’ person, depending on the seriousness of the crime. While a daer-fuidhir had no rights and could not bear arms, a saer-fuidhir was entitled to continue to work his own land or follow his own professional calling — within reason. He was expected to pay taxes. If, by the end of his life, he had not provided the required compensation and rehabilitated himself into society, then the punishment did not fall upon his wife or children. Every dead man kills his own liabilities, said the Brehons.
As a foreigner in Éireann, Eadulf was classed in law as a ‘grey dog’, cú glas, which actually meant one who was an exile from overseas. Thus Eadulf, no longer an emissary of the Archbishop of Canterbury, was without legal standing and had no honour price. Even married to Fidelma he would have remained without an honour price had not Colgú and Fidelma’s nearest relatives recognised the union and approved it. Being accepted by Fidelma’s family, Eadulf was also accepted as having an honour price that was half that of Fidelma’s. But there were restrictions that someone of his culture found onerous and almost offensive. He was not entitled to make legal contracts without Fidelma’s permission and she was responsible for any debts or fines that he might incur. Neither was he allowed to have any legal responsibility in the rearing of their son Alchú. That was Fidelma’s responsibility alone. For Eadulf, his position as a ‘grey dog’ was a bitter legal concept in spite of the fact that, in reality, Colgú treated Eadulf as both friend and equal.
What Eadulf found astonishing was that Fidelma’s people saw many matters that his culture would not even call transgressions worthy of severe punishment — if one could call fines and loss of rights a punishment. In Saxon society, death and mutilation and slavery were considered just punishment for the entire range of social and political transgressions, whereas in the Bretha Nemed the Brehons decreed that if a man kissed a woman against her will, he would have to pay her full honour price. If a man tried to indecently assault a woman, then the Cáin Adomnáin set the fine at the value of twenty-one cows.
Truth was taken seriously in law. The Bretha Nemed stated that if a person wrongfully accused another of theft, or publicised an untrue story that caused shame, it required the payment of the victim’s honour price. Hence he could understand why Fidelma was now giving the tanner a fair warning.
Lesren, however, would not be warned.
‘What I saw is the truth. Ask Goll, the woodcutter, if you do not believe me. Ask him why he had to pay me a fine of one screpall. I will say no more on the matter until you have done so.’
‘One screpall is no great sum to pay,’ muttered Eadulf.
‘A transgression of the law is great enough, no matter the outcome,’ snapped the tanner.
/> ‘And what Brehon imposed this fine?’ asked Fidelma.
‘Aolú.’
‘And Aolú is dead,’ muttered Accobrán.
Fidelma sighed impatiently. ‘Am I to believe that you disapproved of your daughter’s relationship with Gabrán because of his father, Goll, and this matter of the fine that you have mentioned?’
Again the chin came up aggressively. ‘It is reason enough.’
‘What did Beccnat have to say about your disapproval? She was seventeen and beyond the age of choice. She had the right to decide her own future.’
Lesren’s features wrinkled in a scowl. ‘She was my daughter. She refused to abide by my decision and look what happened to her. If only Escrach had not broken with Gabrán, he would not have pursued my daughter.’
‘Escrach?’ Fidelma glanced at him with quickened interest. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Gabrán was paying her attention until she made it clear that she was not interested in him. I warned my daughter not to encourage him.’
‘Daughters have rights once they reach the age of choice,’ Fidelma admonished him.
‘Daughters also have duties,’ replied the tanner angrily. ‘I had to chastise Beccnat when she spent nights away from home. Even to the end she refused to obey and those last three nights she spent away from home — well, I feared she would pay for it and she did. Gabrán was to blame.’
‘You are a stubborn man, Lesren,’ Accobrán broke in. ‘Gabrán was nowhere near here when your daughter died. No amount of accusations against Gabrán’s father will alter the fact that this can be proved by witnesses. And even with your prejudice, you cannot blame the deaths of Escrach and Ballgel on Gabrán. Why would he kill them and for what reason?’
‘To achieve what he has clearly done with you…to put you off his scent. To make it seem that there is a maniac at large here. I do not believe in maniacs. I will affirm it at every opportunity I am given. Gabrán killed my daughter.’
‘But why? For what reason would he have killed her? They were to marry.’ Fidelma’s voice was quiet but her question cut like a knife with its logic.
Lesren stared at her.
‘Why?’ he repeated slowly, as if the question were new to him.
Fidelma was firm. ‘He wanted to marry Beccnat. I have been told that your daughter was going to marry Gabrán in spite of your objections. What reason would he have to kill her?’
For a moment Lesren hesitated, seeming to gather his thoughts together.
‘Because,’ he said quietly, ‘some days before her body was found, she told me that she did not want to cause her mother and me any upset. She said that she was not going to many Gabrán. She said she had discovered that he was using her. She realised that he was not a suitable choice of husband. Then she went out and never came back. She went to tell Gabrán of her decision to break off her relationship. I know that he killed her because of it.’
Chapter Five
Fidelma had become aware of a woman who had approached them during this conversation and now stood quietly at Lesren’s side. It was evident that she had been attractive in her youth. Although grey now streaked the blackness of her hair, her light-coloured eyes, the fairness of the skin and the comeliness of her features were not diminished by age. However, she carried herself with a careworn air. Although Lesren made no attempt to introduce her, Fidelma knew instinctively who she was.
‘Are you the mother of Beccnat?’
‘I am Bébháil, Sister.’
Lesren turned with a sarcastic sneer towards his wife. ‘This is the king’s sister, woman. A dálaigh, come to snoop about Beccnat’s death.’
The woman blinked and hung her head. The thought crossed Fidelma’s mind that it was in shame at her husband’s boorishness.
‘You have heard your husband state that Beccnat had changed her mind about marrying Gabrán and went out a few nights before she was found dead with the intention of telling him so. Were you a witness to your daughter’s change of mind?’
The woman glanced nervously at her husband and then nodded hurriedly. Her eyes were suddenly tear-filled and she was clearly still distraught at the return of the memories.
‘So the girl told you both of her intention and then left?’
‘It is as my husband has said. I can say no more.’ The woman called Bébháil moved hurriedly to the bothán, closing the door behind her.
Lesren smiled bitterly.
‘Are you satisfied now, dálaigh?’ he sneered.
Fidelma returned his gaze with a stony expression. ‘Far from it. You are still forgetting one thing. Whether your daughter changed her mind or not, whether Gabrán had motive or not, Accobrán has stated that Gabrán was proved to have been twelve miles from here on the night of her death. But do not be concerned; I shall check that out. I shall satisfy myself of the facts.’
‘Do so, dálaigh. I am waiting for justice.’
‘Have no fear. Your wait for justice may not be long. I shall be returning here.’
Once they were out of earshot, Eadulf said quietly: ‘He was lying, I am sure of it. Lying ahout his daughter changing her mind. The wife was clearly frightened to say anything in front of him.’
‘I have no doubt that there was some tension between them,’ agreed Fidelma. She glanced at Accobrán in curiosity. ‘Does he really have such a hatred of Gabrán and his family? What about this fine imposed by Aolú on the boy’s father — Goll?’
The young tanist shrugged. It seemed a normal appendage to his speech.
‘There has been some enmity between Lesren and Goll for years. I would not have thought there was sufficient cause to bring it to this. Accusations of stealing are one thing, but of murder — triple murder — are something else.’
‘What do you know of this accusation that Gabrán’s father is a thief? Presumably this was the reason why a fine was imposed?’
Accobrán shrugged, ‘I know little about that. I have heard stories. For the truth you must consult Becc, for he was sitting in judgement with Brehon Aolú at the time.’
Fidelma paused thoughtfully. Then she said: ‘If we have time now, I would like a word with this Gabrán and his father.’
Accobrán glanced up at the sky. ‘It is past noon, Sister. I would advise that we return to the rath for refreshment. I understood that you also want to see Seachlann, the father of the victim Escrach, and go to the abbey too today. Becc told me that you wanted to meet the strangers there. Goll and Gabrán work the woods on the far side of the river. I doubt whether we will find them before nightfall if we are to fulfil all your wishes.’
Fidelma did not seem perturbed. ‘There is no immediate hurry. We will continue with the plan and if we cannot see Gabrán and Goll today, we will see them tomorrow. But since you remind me — what of Escrach? Was it true that Gabrán was having a relationship with her?’
Accobrán smiled easily. ‘She was an attractive girl. The Cinél na Áeda have a reputation for the attractiveness of their women. He was a healthy youth. It would not be surprising in this community. Marriage and children come along before youth is lost for ever.’
‘Yet you, I believe, are not married, tanist of the Cinél na Áeda,’ Fidelma pointed out.
Once again the young man’s features broke into a disarming smile. ‘Alas, I have spent many years away following the gods of war. A warrior would be wrong to take a wife, for many a widow is the outcome. I have only recently settled down to learn the duties that my cousin and our derbfhine have bestowed on me.’ The young tanist was suddenly thoughtful. ‘I suppose that you are not expecting anything serious to happen until the next full moon?’
Fidelma regarded him speculatively. ‘Do you believe that there will be another attack then?’
Accobrán’s handsome features twisted in a grimace. ‘What has happened three times can surely happen a fourth.’
‘So you share the belief of Liag that there is a lunatic abroad? That the killer is motivated to his deeds by the full of the moon?’
Accobrán pursed his lips in a cynical smile. ‘It is a more logical explanation than the story Lesren would have you believe. To be honest, I confess that I have little liking for Gabrán. He can be an arrogant youth at times. I do believe, however, that old Liag is right. What other explanation can there be?’
‘We have yet to hear Brocc’s reasons for accusing the strangers and have yet to hear what the strangers say in answer to them,’ pointed out Eadulf. ‘It is best not to draw a conclusion until we have gathered in all the evidence.’
He felt Fidelma’s eyes on him and coloured a little, knowing that he was paraphrasing the words with which she had often reproved him.
‘That is true,’ agreed the young tanist. ‘And the sooner we return to the rath to eat, the sooner we can start out again to get answers to those questions.’
He lost little time in leading the way back up the hill on a steep path to the towering walls of Rath Raithlen.
At the midday meal Becc joined them. The chieftain smiled wryly when the subject of Lesren and Goll was raised.
‘Maybe I should have warned you about Lesren and Goll.’
‘Is this feud so serious, then?’ Fidelma asked.
‘It depends how you define the term serious. If, as Accobrán tells me, that idiot Lesren is still accusing Goll’s son of the murder of his daughter and, thereby, of the other murders, then it may turn out to be serious for Lesren. I am aware of the law against spreading malicious falsehoods.’
‘Tell me, how did this quarrel start?’
Becc reflected for a moment or two. ‘I supposed it started many years ago. Lesren was married before he married Bébháil, you know.’
‘He had a wife before her?’ Eadulf asked unnecessarily.
‘Indeed he did. She divorced him. The woman was called Fínmed.’ He paused to make the next sentence significant. ‘Fínmed is now the wife of Goll, the mother of Gabrán.’
Eadulf sat back with a faint hissing sound as he tried to stifle the whistle of surprise, which would have been considered bad manners for a guest at table. Fidelma glanced at him in reproof.
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