Valley of the Shadow

by Peter Tremayne

  ‘Let us walk around the walls of the ráth,’ she instructed rather than suggested. She led the way up the steps to the battlements where a soft night breeze ruffled her hair. She could see some shadowy figures farther along the wall, young men and women who had absented themselves from the feast to pursue their own amorous interests, and so she stopped, gazing up at the night sky. In the distance they could hear the occasional sound of laughter and the faint sounds of music. From the courtyard below a woman laughed lasciviously and there was a deep chuckle from her male companion. Fidelma shut her mind to the extraneous sounds and inhaled softly as she gazed at the breath-taking magnificence of the spectacle of the night-sky.

  ‘Caeli enarrant gloriam Dei,’ she whispered.

  Eadulf caught the words as he leant against the parapet of the wall by her side. He rubbed his forehead and tried to concentrate. He knew that they were from one of the Psalms.

  ‘The heavens bespeak the glory of God,’ he translated approvingly, trying not to slur his words.

  ‘Psalm nineteen,’ Fidelma confirmed, continuing to study the sky. Then, after a second or two, she turned abruptly. ‘Are you all right, Eadulf ? Your speech sounds unusual.’

  ‘I am afraid I have taken a little too much wine, Fidelma.’

  She made a clicking sound of disapproval.

  ‘Well, I shall not let you go until you tell me what you have learnt from Brother Solin’s scribe, the young Dianach.’

  Eadulf pursed his lips in disgust. Then he groaned as his world momentarily swam.

  ‘What is it?’ demanded Fidelma anxiously as he raised a hand to his forehead.

  ‘Bad wine and even worse mead.’

  ‘Do not expect sympathy for that,’ she admonished. ‘Let me hear about Brother Dianach.’

  ‘Only that he is either a most naive young man or a consummate actor. He ventured no explanation of what is behind Solin’s visit here. He claimed that Brother Solin does not confide in him.’

  Fidelma pushed out her lower lip in an expression of annoyance.

  ‘Do you believe him?’

  ‘As I say, it is hard to tell whether he is guileless or well versed in the craft of deceit.’

  ‘According to Brother Solin, he is merely on a mission from Armagh to ascertain the strength of the Faith in the extremities of the five kingdoms,’ mused Fidelma.

  ‘Why can’t there be truth in that?’

  ‘Why not send to the ecclesiastic centres of the five kingdoms and ask the abbots and the bishops, who could tell Ultan what he wants to know, whereby the information could be relayed within a week compared to what Brother Solin would find out within a year? There is something illogical in that.’

  Eadulf still felt too befuddled from the wine to work out any alternative possibilities and so did not comment further on the matter.

  ‘I hadn’t realised that you sung so well.’ He suddenly shifted the subject of the conversation.

  ‘It was not the quality of my song but its meaning that was important,’ Fidelma replied with grim satisfaction. ‘Did you notice the scene with Murgal? I mean the incident with the girl, not the one about the song?’

  ‘I doubt whether anyone in the feasting hall failed to notice it. She was rather attractive.’

  ‘Did you notice the reason for the exchange?’

  ‘As a matter of fact, I think Murgal was attempting to be too friendly with the girl and she became tired of his lewdness.’

  This seemed to coincide with Orla’s spiteful remark about Murgal.

  She stared out across the shadowy moonlit valley. It was an eerie yet beautiful sight.

  ‘So what do you make of this pagan world, Eadulf?’ Fidelma asked after a while.

  Eadulf reflected for a moment before replying. He tried to make some sense from his befuddled thoughts.

  ‘No more or less than any other world. Here there be people, pagan or no, with the same ill-behaviour, jealousies and pretensions as any spot in Christendom. But the sooner you conclude your business, the sooner we can be removed from it. I prefer the easy gaiety of your brother’s palace at Cashel.’

  ‘Have you forgotten something?’ Fidelma was slightly amused.

  ‘Forgotten?’ Eadulf groaned, thinking more of finding his bed than anything else. ‘Forgotten what?’

  ‘Thirty-three young men slaughtered at the gate to this valley.’

  ‘Oh, that!’ Eadulf shook his head. ‘No, I have not forgotten that.’

  ‘That!’ mimicked Fidelma and then added, with seriousness: ‘There may be people here with the same emotions as any place in Christendom but there is also an evil that has struck this place and I shall not rest until I have discovered its meaning.’

  ‘I thought you were going to wait to see what Colla, the tanist, discovers,’ Eadulf returned, trying hard to suppress a yawn and not succeeding.

  ‘I do not trust Colla to bring me an accurate observation. Anyway,’ she brought her gaze back to the night canopy, ‘perhaps we should retire and prepare ourselves for tomorrow. It is no good leaping to conclusions before we have information.’

  She turned and led the way back down the wooden stairway. As Eadulf moved forward after her, he found himself stifling another groan as his world began to sway again. He held on to the rail for dear life. Fidelma pretended that she had not heard his moan as he stumbled behind her. All the same, she kept a solicitous eye on her companion to ensure that be reached his bed in the guests’ hostel in safety. Once they had arrived back and Eadulf had stumbled into his bed chamber, Fidelma waited a while and then looked cautiously into his room.

  Eadulf was sprawled face downward on the bed, still fully clothed, a soft snoring emanating from his prostrate figure. Normally, Fidelma was not a person to approve of anyone who could not hold their liquor but she had never known Eadulf to be indulgent in spirits. She gave him the benefit of the doubt and stayed to take off his sandals and spread a blanket over his recumbent body.

  Fidelma rose early as was her custom. She found that she was the first to bathe out of the four guests at the hostel. She completed her toiletry and dressed before going back down to the main room of the hostel where Cruinn, the rotund hostel-keeper, was preparing ‘the first meal of the day. By that time she found, to her utter surprise, Eadulf was up. He was sitting, unshaven and dishevelled, with his head in his hands obviously feeling the affects of the evening’s feasting. As she sat down opposite him, he raised his head with a groan and blinked sleepily.

  ‘God’s curse on all cocks!’ he muttered. ‘I had barely fallen asleep when that damned cock began to crow and dragged me from my rest. It sounded like the choir of devils from the infernal regions.’

  Fidelma neglected to tell him that he had been dead to the world for most of the night in an alcohol-induced slumber. She frowned in mock admonition.

  ‘I am surprised that you ask God to curse the cock of all birds when it is sacred to the Faith.’

  ‘How so?’ demanded Eadulf, still drowsy and rubbing his forehead.

  ‘Don’t you recall the story of how, after the Roman soldiers crucified Jesus, they were cooking a cock? One of them reported to his fellows that there was a rumour among the followers of Christ that he would return to life on the third day. A second soldier mocked the idea and made a jest saying that it would no more come to pass than the dead cock would crow. Whereupon the dead bird arose from the cauldron and flapped its wings and cried out “the son of the virgin is safe”!’

  Eadulf, in spite of his headache, had to admit that the Irish words ‘mac na hóighe slán’ fitted well into the pattern of the sound of a cock crow. Then a dim memory stirred.

  ‘I read a similar story in a Greek Gospel. The Gospel of Nicodemus. Except that it was Judas Iscariot’s wife who was cooking the cock and tried to reassure the betrayer of Christ. The bird flapped its wings and crowed three times but there was no meaning to the sound.’

  Fidelma laughed good naturedly.

  ‘You must allow our bardic t
raditions to interpret tales so that they have substance for our people.’

  Eadulf remembered his headache and groaned again.

  ‘I do not need a cock crowing to affirm me in my Faith. But I do need the cock to be silent when I am trying to seek rest or how can I have a clear mind to follow my Faith?’

  ‘Cock or not, I think the answer to your lack of rest may be found elsewhere. Truly, did you not hear the saying that wine is gold in the evening but lead in the morning?’

  Eadulf was about to open his mouth to reply when Brother Dianach, the young scribe, joined them. Silently Eadulf cursed his fresh scrubbed and bright countenance and the ebullient greeting to Fidelma and his look of disapproval at the haggard Eadulf. His shyness seemed to have entirely vanished.

  Having exchanged morning greetings, Fidelma asked where his master, Brother Solin of Armagh, was that morning.

  ‘He was not in his chamber,’ replied Brother Dianach, ‘so I expect that he has already risen and gone out.’

  Fidelma glanced to Eadulf but the Saxon monk was too intent on dealing with his own crapulousness.

  ‘Then, indeed, he was abroad very early. Is that his custom?’

  The young monk nodded an unconcerned affirmative as he sniffed the aromatic air.

  The rotund Cruinn bustled over to them, bringing a tray with fresh baked bread, still fragrant from the oven, with clotted cream, fruit and cold meats, and a jug of mead. Having set down the tray, the corpulent hostel-keeper requested their leave to return to her own house for, she said, she had promised to go picking healing herbs with her daughter. Fidelma took it on herself to dismiss her with thanks, saying that they would be able to manage. As Cruinn left, Eadulf reached out a shaky hand immediately for the jug of mead. He grinned weakly at Fidelma’s disapproving stare.

  ‘Similia similibus curantur,’ he muttered, pouring the mead from the pitcher into the beaker.

  ‘Oh no, Brother.’ The young Brother Dianach turned on him in reproof. ‘Like things are not cured by like things. You are quite, quite wrong.’

  The young man looked so totally serious that Eadulf paused with the beaker midway to his lips. Fidelma grinned mischievously.

  ‘And what would your advice be, Brother Dianach?’ she prompted.

  The young man turned his gaze to Fidelma and reflected on the matter earnestly.

  ‘Contraria contrariis curantur … opposites are cured by opposites. That is the principle that is taught at Armagh. Just consider the affect of giving things that produce the same illness to one who already has it. It merely increases the illness. Surely the root of all medicine is to counter the illness by using that which gives the opposite affect not that which enhances the condition?’

  ‘What do you say, Eadulf ?’ chuckled Fidelma in amusement. ‘You have studied medicine in Tuam Brecain.’

  In silent answer, Eadulf gulped at the contents of the beaker, shutting his eyes and shivering with a look halfway between agony and ecstasy. He gave a long, drawn out gasp of pleasure.

  Brother Dianach gazed at him in astonishment.

  ‘I did not know that the Saxon brother had studied at one of our great schools of medicine,’ he remarked sharply. ‘You did not say this last night. However, you should know that you should not be taking alcohol to counter your intemperance. It is a shameful thing, Brother.’

  Eadulf closed his eyes, groaned and poured a second beaker of the mead and made no reply at all. While Fidelma and Brother Dianach concluded eating their first meal of the day, Eadulf barely touched anything substantial. When the young monk had excused himself to return to his room, Fidelma leant across and touched Eadulf s arm.

  ‘Do not lecture me,’ groaned Eadulf before she could say anything. ‘Let me die in peace.’

  ‘All the same, the young boy is right, Eadulf,’ she said seriously. ‘You need your wits about you today. Too much mead will dull them.’

  Eadulf forced his eyes open.

  ‘I swear that this is all I shall take. Just enough to get me started through the day. At least the mead has cured my pounding head … for the moment.’

  ‘Then let us go for a walk and prepare ourselves for the negotiations. Did you hear, by the way, what Brother Dianach said about Brother Solin?’

  Eadulf began to rise. He frowned.

  ‘Only that he had gone out early. Why? Is there something else to be learnt from that?’

  ‘Rather than having gone out early, he did not even come in at any time during the night.’

  Eadulf looked at her with interest.

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘I was up before your infamous cock crowed. Brother Solin’s door was open just as it had been when I retired to my room last night. The coverlet of the bed was undisturbed just as it had been last night. The logic is that he never came back to the hostel.’

  Eadulf ran a hand reflectively through his hair.

  ‘He was still in the feasting hall when we left, wasn’t he? No, wait a moment. Young Brother Dianach had retired early. A pious, sober body is that one. Now, I seem to recall that Brother Solin left not long afterwards. Before we did. In fact, shortly after Murgal made his dramatic exit.’

  ‘So where has he been all night?’

  ‘Are you saying that it may have some bearing on what he is doing here?’

  ‘I do not know. But we must watch out for Brother Solin. I do not like him.’

  They were about to leave the hostel when the door opened and the object of their conversation entered. He looked startled at seeing them standing as if waiting for him and then hurriedly composed his features into a bland smile, wishing them a good morning.

  ‘We have not been outside to see if it is good or not,’ Fidelma returned innocently. ‘Is it so?’

  ‘You should rise early, as I do,’ Brother Solin said unperturbed, moving to the table and seating himself. He began to help himself liberally to the food which remained on the tray. There was no doubting that he was in good appetite.

  ‘Have you always been an early riser?’ continued Fidelma, her tone guileless. ‘I have difficulties, don’t you, Eadulf?’

  ‘Oh, indeed, I do,’ agreed Eadulf, entering into the spirit of the banter. ‘Especially this morning, I was disturbed by that confounded cock crowing. Is that what plucked you from your slumber, Brother Solin?’

  ‘No, I was awake earlier. I have always been an early riser.’

  Eadulf exchanged a glance with Fidelma but she shook her head, not wishing Eadulf to accuse Brother Solin openly of telling an untruth.

  ‘I suppose it is good to begin the day with a strenuous walk before breakfast?’ she prompted, returning to the table and sliding back into her seat.

  ‘Nothing like it,’ agreed Brother Solin complacently, tearing a piece of bread and helping himself to another slice of cheese.

  Eadulf started to cough to smother his indignation. One thing he had noticed, and he was sure Fidelma had noticed the same, was that Brother Solin was wearing the same clothes that he had worn on the previous evening during the feast. A man of Brother Solin’s standing would always have extra clothing to change into for special occasions.

  Fidelma had also noticed that Solin had not changed his clothes since the previous evening and spoke hurriedly in case Eadulf was going to comment on the fact.

  ‘Perhaps you would go to my cell and collect the material I have brought for the meeting with Laisre and his council?’ she asked him pointedly.

  Eadulf took the hint and went up to the bed chambers, pausing at the top of the stair to listen to the rest of the conversation.

  ‘Are there good places to walk around here, Brother Solin?’ he heard Fidelma asking.

  ‘Indifferently good,’ replied the cleric.

  ‘Where did you go?’

  ‘Beyond the cluster of houses at the fork of the river, just a quarter of a mile from the gates of the ráth,’ came back the reply readily enough.

  The answers were given with such assurance that Eadulf knew
that Fidelma would not be able to shake Solin from his story that he had simply been walking early. What could the cleric from Armagh be up to? Indeed, were they being unjust in suspecting that he was involved in anything subversive at all?

  As if she had read his very thoughts, Eadulf heard Fidelma lower her voice confidentially.

  ‘Since we are alone, Brother Solin, let me ask you, between ourselves, why are you really here?’

  There was a pause and then Brother Solin chuckled deeply.

  ‘I have told you before, Sister Fidelma, and yet you do not believe me.’

  ‘I would like to hear the truth.’

  ‘Whose truth? You do not like my truth, so what must I say?’

  ‘Do you take an oath, by the body of Christ, that you are on a mission from Ultan of Armagh merely to assess the strength of the Faith in the five kingdoms? Why? Armagh has no jurisdiction here. This is where the bishop of Imleach rules.’

  Brother Solin chuckled wheezily.

  ‘You have studied in Tara, Fidelma of Cashel. I have even heard of you from Ultan. The Brehon Morann of Tara was your mentor. Your advisor in the Faith was Abbot Laisran of Durrow and you were a novice at Kildare. You joined Abbess Etain of Kildare as advisor at the council in Whitby. From there you were asked by Ultan of Armagh to go on a mission to Rome. Only since you have returned have you decided to stay under your brother’s protection at Cashel.’

  Fidelma was astounded at how much the man knew about her.

  ‘You seem to know much, Brother Solin,’ she admitted.

  ‘I am Ultan’s secretary, as I have already said. I need to know much.’

  ‘It does not answer my question. Armagh is not accepted as the mother-church of this kingdom.’

  ‘The point that I was making, Sister, is that you have travelled enough to know something of the rights of the Uí Néill kings. And just as the Uí Néill kings assert their rights to the High Kingship and dominion over the five kingdoms, so does Armagh assert its rights to the ecclesiastical kingdom of all Ireland.’

  Fidelma was unruffled.