‘Dea and his band of warriors, without the knowledge or permission of Conrí, raided Menma’s cabin in search of him. You already know what transpired. They took Suanach as a hostage to force Menma to follow them.
‘They did not realise that they would be pursued by Cinél na Áeda warriors led by the very man who was the source of the gold. Accobrán realised that the merchant had betrayed his gold find to the Uí Fidgente. He did not know details, of course. When he chased them, he had one thing on his mind. He resolved that no one among the raiders should live to breathe a word of their purpose. That is why he killed them all.’
There was a gasp from those assembled.
‘Menma and Suanach will testify that the Uí Fidgente were not given a chance to surrender.’
Becc was sitting back with a combination of sadness and anger on his features. ‘A tanist takes oath to pursue the commonwealth of his people. I have become increasingly aware that Accobrán’s actions are questionable. I have made the excuse that he is young and untutored in the code of chieftainship. But this…? This is against law and morality. This is an evil betrayal of the trust of the Cinél na Áeda.’
‘There is more,’ went on Fidelma. ‘I happened to question Gobnuid the smith about the gold nugget that Síoda had found. He panicked and thought I was on to the secret of the mine in the cave. He tried to arrange an accident without consulting Accobrán. The next morning, Eadulf and I had climbed onto the watchtower at the gates of the rath. Gobnuid joined us, saying that he had a message from Accobrán. He had loosened a rung of the ladder. When we started to go down it was sheer luck that Eadulf, who went first, did not fall to his death when the rung gave way.
‘Subsequently, Accobán must have assured Gobnuid that we were too concerned with the deaths of the three girls to bother about the gold mine. It was a stupid mistake, for Gobnuid had now alerted me to the connection.’
The tanist was standing silently, still covered by Eadulf’s sword. Fidelma had already motioned a warrior to take charge of Gobnuid.
‘Cousin Becc, your tanist has betrayed you and the office of trust that he held among you. Avarice! When all the sins are old, avarice will remain young. It is the oldest and the strongest of motives for evildoers.’
Becc leaned forward with an angry frown. ‘Are we to take it that Accobrán and his conspirators were responsible for the killings of the three young girls? Had they discovered his secret and were their deaths a means to still their tongues?’
Fidelma answered in the negative. ‘In that matter, Lesren was actually correct in his charge.’
The youth, Gabrán, leapt from his seat and struggled to reach the door through the crowd. It took a moment for the people to recover from their shock. Two men caught and held him while Fínmed, the boy’s mother, started to scream and wail in hysterical desperation.
‘How can that be?’ gasped Becc. ‘He was cleared by my Brehon Aolú, and even you said…’
‘You were all wrong about Gabrán,’ replied Fidelma firmly.
Fínmed fell to silently sobbing, while Goll had risen and moved forward to the dais. His face was filled with shock and growing anger.
‘You are wrong, Sister Fidelma. You are wrong. We protest against this prejudice…you…’
‘If you are silent awhile, Goll, I will explain.’
Her voice was quiet but commanding. When the murmuring of the crowd in the hall died away, Fidelma began.
‘It is true that Gabrán and Beccnat were going to get married. But it is also true, exactly as Lesren claimed, that Beccnat had changed her mind.’ Fidelma turned to where Lesren’s widow Bébháil was sitting next to Tómma, her head hung low. ‘Now that Lesren is no longer a threat to you, Bébháil, perhaps you will tell us the truth of what happened?’
The woman raised her head slowly. ‘You already know what sort of character Lesren was and why he did not want our daughter to associate with Gabrán. That much is certainly true.’ She paused and licked her lips. ‘It is also true that Gabrán wooed our daughter and they did, indeed, plan to get married. They used to meet regularly and they went to Liag’s place for his instruction, more from the opportunity to use it as a meeting place than a real interest in star lore.’
Liag, the apothecary snorted in disgust but Bébháil went on.
‘Lesren also spoke the truth when he said that Beccnat had decided not to marry Gabrán…’
‘Lies!’ shouted the boy, struggling between the two men who held him. ‘Becc, you have dealt with this before and dismissed the case against me. It is lies.’
‘It is the truth as Beccnat told me,’ insisted Bébháil quietly.
‘What caused her decision?’ asked Fidelma.
‘She heard that Gabrán had been seeing Escrach in secret. He had told Escrach that he was only pursuing Beccnat because he wanted to avenge himself on Lesren for what Lesren had done to his mother.’
‘Who told Beccnat this?’
‘It was Escrach herself, who was horrified at the idea, and as Beccnat was a friend had decided to warn her quietly. But Escrach was, at the same time, in love with Gabrán and could not denounce him openly nor desert him. She merely thought to warn Beccnat about him. Beccnat decided to break with the boy and, in truth, she was already finding consolation with the tanist there.’
Eyes once more turned on Accobrán, still held covered by Eadulf’s short sword.
‘We have already heard from a witness that Accobrán and Beccnat were meeting and behaving as lovers. Gabrán also displayed a hate of the tanist because he suspected him of having some affair with Beccnat,’ said Fidelma.
Goll stared at her in anguish. ‘But this does not mean to say that Gabrán killed Beccnat. The Brehon Aolú showed that he could not.’
Fidelma smiled quickly.
‘I will come to that. So now,’ she said, turning to the people in the hall who remained as if mesmerised by her, ‘we have the seeds of a first motive. The terrible feud between Lesren and Fínmed, which grew into the hatred of Fínmed’s son for Lesren and his desire for vengeance. If not directly on Lesren then on his daughter, Beccnat. From then on, there came cause and effect.’
She turned and sought the tanner’s assistant. ‘Creoda, stand forth for a moment.’
The youth came reluctantly to his feet.
‘You were attending sessions with Liag when he taught you about star lore.’
‘I have told you so,’ the young man said nervously.
‘Now tell me again, who were in these sessions with you?’
‘Beccnat and Gabrán, Escrach and Ballgel, and sometimes Accobrán came along.’
‘These sessions, did they usually take place at night?’
‘Of course. When else can you see the stars?’
‘Just so. Cast your mind back to the night of the full moon two months ago.’
‘You mean the time when Beccnat’s body was found?’
‘I mean just that. Did you have a session then?’
‘We did.’
‘Who was there?’
‘Only Escrach, Ballgel and myself.’
‘Were there any nightly sessions after that?’
‘A few.’
‘And can you confirm that at these sessions, after Beccnat’s death, you saw Escrach and Gabrán quite friendly towards each other and so confirm what Bébháil has reported to us?’ When the youth confirmed it, Fidelma went on: ‘Indeed, I think we can accept that there was close friendship between Escrach and Gabrán. Until Gabrán found out that he — according to his warped reasoning — had been betrayed to Beccnat by Escrach. Whether it took him some time to find out or whether Beccnat had told him before he killed her, we will have to leave it to him to tell us or not. I think he deliberately chose the night of the next full moon to arrange to meet Escrach at the Ring of Pigs, near where he had killed Beccnat, and there he slaughtered her in the same way.’
She glanced at the angry and pale-faced youth. If looks could kill, she would have long been dead.
‘Gabr
án had nursed his hate for some time and I think by this time his reasoning had deserted him. He became filled with Liag’s stories of the power of the moon and the knowledge that is power. Maybe the terrible thing he had done to Beccnat had unbalanced his mind and that was what made him wait until the full of the moon for his second killing.’
‘And the third killing?’ questioned Becc, rousing himself like some somnambulant. ‘Why would he kill Ballgel? You are not saying that he also had some affair with Ballgel?’
‘That is not so!’ shouted Sirin the cook in protest from the side of the hall. ‘I would have known it.’
‘The death of poor Ballgel. Even that killing, at the next full of the moon, had a motive. Ballgel was the third of the three girls, three friends, who had been close to one another and studied star lore. Maybe Gabrán suspected that what Escrach had told Beccnat she might also have mentioned to Ballgel. Perhaps Beccnat herself might have said something to her. He knew that the three of them, as young girls do, shared secrets. Creoda told us that the girls were, in his words, “thick as thieves and no secret safe with any of them but was shared between them”. Gabrán had to be sure that no secret knowledge remained outside his own. He decided to kill her as well.’
A deep, collective sigh seem to resonate throughout the hall.
‘If you asked my opinion, I would be hard pressed to judge such a person as Gabrán in terms of his responsibility in law,’ Fidelma added. ‘Is he truly a dásachtach, a person of unsound mind, who is unable to plead in law? Do not forget our law is concerned not only to protect society from the insane but also to protect the insane from society. I suspect I would consider that he started out as a fer lethchuinn, a person who under our law is only half sane.’
‘You have been very clever, Sister Fidelma,’ sneered Goll. ‘You have almost made the people here believe your story.’
‘Everything I have said is based on the evidence as it has been told me,’ Fidelma assured him. ‘Surely you wanted the truth? You yourself were not sure about your son. That’s why you were following him when you encountered Brother Dangila and Gabrán on the Thicket of Pigs the other day.’
The shot went home. Pale-faced, Goll sat back. Then Fínmed rose, having calmed herself. She spoke steadily.
‘Yet there is one thing that you have forgotten in spite of your cleverness, Sister Fidelma. That is the very thing that has shown my son to be innocent of Beccnat’s murder, and so every other accusation that you have made against him falls. It is the very point by which the Brehon Aolú judged Gabrán innocent, and under that judgement he cannot be tried again.’
‘Before you go further,’ Fidelma replied gently, ‘Aolú did not find Gabrán innocent. He looked at the evidence and said that there was none to charge Gabrán with the crime. Under law, he has not been tried. So my arguments may still stand in court.’
‘Clever, dálaigh!’ the woman replied triumphantly. ‘But too clever. You have forgotten the crucial point of the evidence. Gabrán was not in this territory on the night of the full moon. He was at the house of Molaga. We have the evidence of Accobrán the tanist who was at the same place and I am sure you have already checked with Brother Túan, steward of Molaga, when he was visiting our abbey. This evidence proves my son was not in the territory when Beccnat died.’
Fínmed sat down, staring at Fidelma with a look of victory. There was a momentary quiet in the hall. Then Accobrán slapped his thigh with a laugh.
‘You are checkmated there, dálaigh! Too clever by half! I can vouch for what Fínmed has said in spite of my dislike for Gabrán. He was in Molaga on the night of that full moon.’
Eyes turned expectantly on Fidelma, but she did not seem to be perturbed.
‘Along with everyone else, I am guilty of overlooking a crucial point here,’ Fidelma confessed quietly. ‘It is good that it falls to Fínmed, Gabrán’s mother, to bring it forward.’
Accobrán was still chuckling and even Goll was smiling in relief and turning to his son as if to congratulate him.
‘The crucial point is that Beccnat was not murdered on the night of the full moon.’ Fidelma’s sharp voice caused everyone to be still. ‘That fact has made me reason that Gabrán was not initially a moon maniac when he started these killings, even if he developed the tendency afterwards.’ She turned to Liag the apothecary. ‘You examined the bodies, Liag. Do you remember our very first conversation when I asked you about that?’
The old apothecary stood up and nodded suspiciously. ‘I do.’
‘You told me that Beccnat’s body had been found on the morning after that night of the full moon.’
‘I did.’
‘So?’ interrupted Accobrán. ‘That would mean she was killed during that night — the night of the full moon.’
‘I asked you why it was that you had guided people away from the initial idea that the savage onslaught on her had been made by some wild animal,’ went on Fidelma, ignoring him. ‘What did you tell me? Can you remember your words?’
Liag thought for a moment. ‘I said that once I examined the body, it was clear that a jagged knife had been used. It had been difficult to examine the wounds at first.’
‘Exactly, and why?’
‘I told you that it was difficult to see beyond the dried blood, and there was some decomposing for the body must have lain out in the woods for two or three days.’ His eyes widened as he realised what he was saying.
Fidelma turned to the hall. ‘Two or three days! That is what everyone was overlooking. The body had been found on the morning after the full moon but Beccnat had been killed two or three days beforehand.’ She swung round to Bébháil. ‘Lesren told me, and you confirmed it, that Beccnat had gone out one night to tell Gabrán that she was ending the betrothal and that was the last you saw of her until her body was found three days later.’
Bébháil looked shocked. ‘It is true. I had not thought…’
‘So where did you think that she had been for that time?’
‘She often went to stay with friends after rows with her father. We thought she might have gone somewhere with one of her girl friends. I don’t know. Everyone said she was killed on the night of the full moon and we did not question it. The question of where she had been before that did not occur to us once she was dead.’
Fidelma had turned back to Fínmed with a sad expression. Then she looked directly at Goll.
‘When I first spoke to you and your son, I asked Gabrán in your hearing when he had last seen Beccant and he gave one of his few honest answers — he said it was about two days before the full of the moon.’
Goll was standing with his shoulders hunched, tired and defeated as the truth dawned on him. Fínmed was sobbing silently again.
‘Just confirm for me one other thing that you told me, Goll,’ Fidelma said gently. ‘Was it your idea or Gabrán’s that he go to the house of Molaga a day before the full moon following the feast of Lughnasa?’
Goll raised haggard features to face her. ‘You know the answer well enough, Sister. It was he who suggested that he take the goods that day.’
Fidelma turned back to where Gabrán was still being held under restraint.
‘A killer influenced by the moon?’ she mused sadly. ‘Not in the case of Beccnat. The murder was coldly and cunningly planned. Having killed Beccnat, he made for Molaga to establish an alibi. He even started the story of the moon killer, for Adag told us that he had pointed out this fact to Aolú, the Brehon, when being questioned following Lesren’s accusation. It was only later, with the second murder, that Liag pointed out it had been committed on the night of the next full moon.’
The youth regarded her calmly. He even smiled.
‘I am avenged and have come to power. Knowledge is power and I have the knowledge.’ He intoned the words like a priest giving a blessing before beginning to giggle hysterically. At a gesture from Becc, he was led away.
Epilogue
A small flock of choughs, flying with their wild excited ca
ll — ‘keeaar…keeaar…keeaar!’ — rose in the air above the mountain crags. Masters of the air, they soared high before, as if in unison, they rolled and dived towards the ground, performing aerobatics that entranced Fidelma and Eadulf as they crossed the shoulder of Cnoc Mhaoldhomhnigh and began their descent towards the plain below.
‘They are a little far inland,’ Fidelma observed, indicating the birds that were easily identified by their glossy purple-black plumage and long, red curved bills and red legs.
Eadulf knew that the chough — the cosdhearg, or red shanks as the Irish called it — was usually a coastal bird, nesting on sea cliffs, but sometimes they were found in mountains not far from the sea. However, he was not concerned with the birds. His gaze was focusing across the long, lower slopes of the mountains through which they had passed. From there, the plains below spread to where he could, in the bright late October sunlight, see the broad glinting strip of the River Siúr, the ‘Sister River’ as it was named. He could see where it joined the Tar to curve eastwards on its journey to the sea. It was not far to Cashel now.
‘Do you think that Gabrán is truly sane?’ he asked.
‘Thankfully, that is not my task to ascertain,’ Fidelma replied. ‘He is being sent to the house of Molaga where there are trained men of medicine who will see whether he can be adjudged fit to answer for his crimes.’
Eadulf was silent for a few moments.
‘Well, at least you have averted another conflict with the Uí Fidgente. And Accobrán will be a long time working to repay compensation to all he has wronged.’
‘At least he will never hold any other position of trust again,’ agreed Fidelma. ‘I feel sorry for the three Aksumites, though. Brother Dangila and his companions probably did not know about the law of hospitality and the extent to which they transgressed it.’
‘At least they have their freedom and have been sent to the seaports to look for a ship back to their own country. I hope they make it. What happened to Gobnuid, the smith? I am not clear.’
‘He was forced to sell his forge and implements to pay his compensation and has already entered the abbey of Finnbarr. They needed a good smith.’
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