The woman returned her smile sadly, ‘I am afraid my son has suffered much for my first mistake.’
‘Your first mistake?’ Fidelma frowned.
‘The mistake was that I ever married Lesren. My excuse was that I was young and innocent and did not realise that youthful handsomeness could disguise a personality that was selfish and brutal. I feel sorrow — not so much for myself, for I have discovered a loving husband now and have a loving son — but for Bébháil. She has to suffer marriage to Lesren and, as an additional curse, she now has to bear the loss of her only child, her daughter Beccnat.’
Fidelma laid a hand on the woman’s arm in a gesture of sympathy. ‘You have a great heart, Fínmed, that you are able to allow a corner of it to feel sympathy for the suffering of Bébháil. But remember that if life was unbearable for her, she could have done as you did. Divorce is within her power also. So perhaps she is content with her lot with Lesren, for they have been seventeen or eighteen years as man and wife. But, truly, the loss of a child is a great tragedy for any mother, and in feeling sorrow for her on that account I would join you.’
They were riding away, down the slopes of the Hill of Crows, when Eadulf, who had been silent with his thoughts awhile, finally spoke.
‘Whom did Goll mean, Fidelma, when you asked about the person he suspected?’
‘I have to respect his wishes, Eadulf. He did not wish to name names. But it is a name that has crossed my thoughts and one that I shall keep to myself. For in naming names, you have a power to destroy if it is done in injustice.’
She noticed that a sulky look of irritation crossed Accobrán’s features for a moment. Then he asked: ‘Where do we ride to now, lady?’
For the first time in the many investigations that she had undertaken, Fidelma realised, with some surprise, that she did not know what her next move was going to be. She had pursued all the obvious avenues and each had led to a dead end. Goll had prompted her about one person she had a passing suspicion of, but it would not do well to approach that person with as little knowledge as she currently possessed. She needed more information first. One thing Fidelma had learned was that alerting someone to your suspicions when suspicion was all you had to offer was to provide them with time and opportunity to lay in alibis and defence. No; she was not going to go down that path yet.
‘Lady?’ Accobrán was prompting, thinking that she had not heard his question. He was looking sharply at her and in that moment she suddenly realised that she was neglecting to clarify a point that had previously worried her.
‘You do not have a friend in young Gabrán,’ she observed to the tanist. ‘Why is that?’
Accobrán flushed at the unexpected question. ‘That is a personal matter.’
Fidelma pursed her lips in disapproval. ‘I must be the judge of that, Accobrán.’
‘I can assure you-’
‘As a tanist,’ Fidelma cut in, ‘you should know something of the law and the powers of a dálaigh.’
Accobrán exhaled swiftly. ‘Very well. Gabrán suspected that I was seeing Beccnat behind his back.’
Fidelma raised her brow in momentary surprise. ‘And were you?’ she said calmly.
The tanist flushed and shook his head. ‘Beccnat was an attractive young girl. I believe we danced once or twice at some féis, a feasting, but nothing more. I think young Gabrán was jealous, that is all. I have also danced with Escrach and even Ballgel, come to that.’
‘And that is all there is to it?’ asked Fidelma.
‘That is all,’
‘You should have told me of your relationship with Beccnat before,’ she rebuked him.
‘There was no relationship.’
‘Except that you knew and danced with her. And Gabrán believes that there was more to it.’
Accobrán gave a snort of indignation. ‘There was no more to it.’
‘We have already discovered, Accobrán, that more often than not suspicion is a stronger provocation to action than the truth.’
The tanist looked at her with surprise mingled with uncertainty. ‘Do you mean…?’
‘When I speak I try to make my meaning clear,’ she snapped.
There had been silence for a few moments when Fidelma decided that she wanted to speak with Brother Dangila again.
Chapter Nine
Fidelma left Eadulf and Accobrán on the road to Rath Raithlen and in spite of their strenuous protests she proceeded by herself the short distance to the abbey of the Blessed Finnbarr.
‘It is midday,’ she had pointed out to a perturbed Eadulf. ‘What harm can come to me at midday when we are looking for a killer who strikes at the full of the moon and the next such moon is not for some weeks yet?’
Accobrán had agreed with Eadulf’s protest.
‘I am responsible for your safety while you are in the territory of the Cineél na Áeda, lady,’ the young tanist had argued. ‘I should stay with you at least.’
‘There is nothing for either you or Eadulf to do,’ she replied. ‘I shall go to the abbey alone and shall return to the fortress thereafter. And, if it mattered, I shall be back well before sunset.’
It was only after some more cajoling of Eadulf and then using her authority over Accobrán that Fidelma found herself alone on the track to the abbey of Finnbarr again. In fact, as soon as Eadulf and Accobrán were out of sight, Fidelma gave her horse its head and nudged the animal into a canter, feeling the cool wind on her face. She smiled in genuine pleasure. She had learnt to ride almost as soon as she could walk and, unlike Eadulf who was still a nervous rider, enjoyed the synchronisation of rider with the muscular and powerful beast. For Fidelma, there was little to match the thrill of a gallop or a canter. She had been so long cooped up in Cashel, confined with her child, that she rejoiced to be out in the open again and feeling free. Fidelma had always been a lover of solitude. Not all the time, of course, but now and then she needed to be alone with her thoughts.
She felt a sudden sense of guilt.
During the last few days she had not thought once of little Alchú. Did that mean that she was a bad mother? She halted her horse and sat frowning as she considered the matter. She remembered something that her mentor, the Brehon Morann, had once said when judging the case of a neglectful father. ‘For a woman, giving birth to a child is the path to omniscience.’ Ever since the birth of Alchú she had been having disturbing thoughts, thoughts which troubled her because she found she did not agree with her teacher. Fidelma had not felt her wisdom increase nor felt any of the joys that she had been told by her female relatives and friends should have been forthcoming. She felt vexed. It was as if she saw Alchú almost as a bond that ensnared her — a curtailment of her freedom rather than something which enriched her. Did she really desire the sort of freedom that she was now experiencing?
What was it Euripides had said? Lucky the parents whose child makes their happiness in life and not their grief, as the anguished disappointment of their hopes. Why didn’t she feel those emotions for little Alchú that she had been told to expect? It was not that she did not care about the child, nor feel anything at all, but she had been told that the birth of her child would be an earth-shattering event, one which would change her. It had not. Maybe it was this lack of the fulfilment of the expectation that was the problem and not the relationship with her baby.
A sudden anger at her own complex feelings came over her and she kicked viciously at her mount’s belly and sent it speeding once more along the track. This time she let the horse have its head completely. The wind sent her red-gold hair streaming out behind her and she raised her face into the welcoming coolness with a sensual smile of pleasure. Was it not Brehon Morann who had declared that a gallop on a bright, fresh day was the cure for all the evils that assailed the mind?
It was some time before she eventually decided to halt the animal and turn it, blowing and snorting, to walk gently back along the track, for she had ridden well past her proclaimed destination in her sudden delight at the f
reedom of the gallop. She was, at least, feeling some sense of equilibrium as she rode towards the gates of the abbey. The subject of her motherhood and her emotions had been dispelled and her mind was now able to concentrate on the matter in hand.
As she approached the track to the abbey, under the shadow of the hill, she was suddenly aware of a lumbering great wagon being pulled by two horses making its slow progress down the track towards her. The nun hunched on the driver’s seat seemed very familiar. She frowned for a moment and then recognised him.
‘We meet again, Gobnuid,’ she called.
The smith scowled as he drew abreast of her. Fidelma glanced at the wagon. It seemed packed with hides.
‘Transporting hides does not seem a task for a smith,’ she said. ‘You appear to be doing several jobs that are unsuited to your profession — messenger and now wagon driver.’
Gobnuid shrugged his broad shoulders. He did not rise to her sarcastic bait.
‘I take on whatever tasks there may be when there is no work for the forge,’ he said sourly.
‘Where do you sell the hides?’ she asked.
‘They eventually go down to the coast, to the house of Molaga or to the abbey of Ard Mhór where they make leather goods.’
‘You are taking them all the way there?’
‘I am only taking them to the Bridge of Bandan. From there they will go by river boat to the house of Molaga on the coast.’
It struck her as odd that his usual reticence had given way to a desire to answer her questions.
‘Do they fetch a good price?’
Gobnuid pursed his lips sourly. ‘Whether they do or not, my fee for transporting them is the same.’
‘So they are not your hides?’
‘I am a smith, not a tanner.’
Fidelma was curious. ‘So you are transporting the hides for Lesren?’
Gobnuid gave a gruff laugh. ‘Not for Lesren. I would do little for that son of a…’ He paused. ‘No, these hides belong to my lord Accobrán. Now, I need to be on my way.’
He flicked the reins and the cart began to move off, leaving deep tracks in the mud of the road. Fidelma stared at the tracks for a moment or two and then turned her horse again towards the abbey. She wondered why Gobnuid had been forthcoming with information. It was unlike his previous attitude and she was certain that he had been responsible for the so-called accident on the ladder that morning. She had not told Eadulf but she had clearly seen the way a sharp knife had cut into the rung of the ladder. There was no rotten wood there. The rung had been almost severed so that it would break under any heavy weight.
Brother Solam came to the gate to meet her as she swung down from her horse. She noticed that he had been standing with another religieux who had the dust of travel on him and had the reins of his horse still looped over his arm. The youthful steward of the abbey greeted her respectfully.
‘If you seek Abbot Brogán, Sister, you will have to wait awhile. He has gone to his cell to meditate. At such times, we are not allowed to disturb him.’
‘Then do not do so, for it was not the abbot that I particularly wanted to see,’ she replied.
Brother Solam was frowning over this when the other religieux left his horse and came quickly forward. There was a smile of greeting on his owlish features. Fidelma could not place him. He was a dark, lean-featured man.
‘Sister Fidelma? Fidelma of Cashel?’ the man asked. Even before Fidelma affirmed the fact, the man continued: ‘I am Túan, the steward of the house of Molaga. I was at the abbey of Ardmore when you were staying there last year. I don’t suppose you remember me…?’
Fidelma rejected the polite impulse to say that she did. It interested her to hear that the man was from the house of Molaga.
‘Have you just arrived?’ It was asking the obvious but she wanted to deflect from talking about an unremembered previous meeting.
Brother Túan indicated that he had. ‘Brother Solam was just telling me of the problems here and that you had arrived to resolve them.’
Fidelma decided that her original purpose in coming to the abbey could be delayed a moment or two longer and she glanced about. In the courtyard was a bench under an apple tree, conveniently by the warmth of the abbey blacksmith’s forge. She indicated it.
‘Let us sit there awhile, for I would seek your opinion, Brother Túan.’ She turned to Brother Solam with a bright smile. ‘Will you forgive us, for a moment?’
Still frowning, Brother Solam was clearly unhappy. But he simply said: ‘I will attend to the needs of Brother Túan’s horse. Do you want me to stable your own mount?’
‘There is no need. I do not plan to stay long.’
Brother Túan and Fidelma seated themselves on the bench beneath the shade of the shrub-like tree with its spiny branches. There was still fruit on it.
‘I suppose you have heard some details about what has been happening here?’ Fidelma asked without further preamble.
The steward of the house of Molaga grimaced. ‘They say that there is a lunatic abroad, Sister. One who strikes at the full of the moon.’
‘And do you know that a young woodcutter named Gabrán has been accused by the father of one of the victims?’
‘That was found to be false,’ replied Brother Túan immediately. ‘You must have been told that on the night of that murder, at the full moon of that month, the Month of Greenflies, this youth Gabrán was staying at the house of Molaga?’
Fidelma smiled at the confirmation. ‘And you can personally confirm that?’
‘I can indeed.’
‘Can you be so sure?’
Brother Túan thrust out his chin, a little defensively. ‘I am the rechtaire, the steward of the abbey, and it is my duty to know and record what passes from day to day. Would I not know the month and the full moon? I remember well that moon and I remember well the young boy’s stay because, and I tell you this in confidence, Sister, two of our brothers had to carry Gabrán back to the abbey. He had been found drunk and senseless in a dockside tavern. It seemed that it was his first time away from his parents and he had fallen in with bad company. It had been fortunate that he had left the money the abbey owed his father in our keeping until he started for home. He was robbed but, thanks be to God, he did not lose much.’
Fidelma was thoughtful. ‘He did not tell me this story when I saw him this morning and questioned him with his parents.’
Brother Túan grinned broadly. ‘Are you surprised? I imagine that he would scarcely have told his father and mother. A young man’s foolishness. He will learn by it. I have told you this in confidence only to assure you that I can fix the date in my mind as to when young Gabrán was at the house of Molaga. He arrived in the daytime and that evening of the full moon he was drunk. I would not wish the young man to get into trouble with his parents but, as steward, I recorded the events for our records. However, you may be assured that there is no way that Gabrán could have been anywhere near where the girl was killed on that night.’
‘Thank you for this information, Brother. I will keep the young man’s secret. Has Brother Solam also told you about the suspicions held of the three strangers here?’
A dark frown crossed Brother Túan’s features.
‘Tales have reached us at the house of Molaga about this,’ he confirmed.
‘I am told that these strangers first sought refuge at the house of Molaga.’
‘Sought refuge? That is not entirely accurate. A slave ship foundered in a storm off our coast. Parts of the ship came ashore in the mud flats in the tidal estuary below the abbey. Some fishermen found the three strangers manacled to one another and attached to a spar. They were more dead than alive. They were fished out of the mud flats at low tide and brought ashore to our abbey.
‘As fate would have it, some of our community have a good knowledge of Greek and this was the only language we had in common with the three strangers. Communication was established and we found that they were religious followers of the Christ from some far
-off land — a place called Aksum.’
‘Were there any other survivors from the ship?’ Fidelma asked.
‘A few. They were mostly Franks and they immediately took service on a Frankish merchantman which was in the bay.’
‘You offered the strangers refuge?’
‘We did so. We released their manacles and nursed them back to health, for they had clearly been badly treated. They stayed awhile with us, learning something of our language and telling us about their country and how the Faith reached them. Our scriptor took down many of the things they told us and, in return, they questioned him about our land, our culture and our learning. We even had some artefacts from their country. Some silver crucifixes which our abbot gave them as gifts to commemorate their safe delivery from the sea.’
‘I understand that they have become very interested in the work of Aibhistín of Inis Carthaigh.’
Brother Túan smiled slightly. ‘When they heard about the work Brother Aibhistín had done on the moon and its effects on the tides, they became very excited. Indeed, they seemed to find it impossible to concentrate on any other subject. Brother Dangila, in particular, was fascinated by the work relating to the studies of the moon and the stars. He devoured a lot of the works we had, such as Abbot Sinlán’s chronology and the astronomical tracts of Mo Chuaróc of Loch Garman.’
‘I believe that Brother Dangila was told that it was here, at the abbey of Finnbarr, that Aibhistín’s work on the moon and tides was kept?’
Brother Túan surprised her by shaking his head. ‘No one at the house of Molaga told Brother Dangila that for the simple reason that no one there knew. We all knew of Aibhistin’s work but no one knew where the manuscript was kept.’
‘How did Brother Dangila learn of its whereabouts then?’ queried Fidelma.
Brother Túan rubbed his jaw thoughtfully. ‘I suppose it must have been from Accobrán.’
‘The tanist?’
‘The same. I did not realise that he was knowledgeable on such matters, though, of course, he had studied for a time at Molaga. He is a good man. A fine warrior. Without the likes of him the Uí Fidgente might have asserted their power over Cashel a long time ago and the Eóghanacht might have been destroyed.’ Brother Túan suddenly flushed. ‘I mean no disrespect to your brother, Sister.’
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