The Leper's Bell

by Peter Tremayne

  ‘Can you recall our last meeting?’ Delia prompted suddenly.

  ‘I can,’ Fidelma confirmed.

  The older woman sighed. ‘You were kind in ensuring that I was compensated when my house was smashed by the warriors of Donennach while I was hiding Brother Mochta and the holy relics of Ailbe.’

  ‘But do you remember what you said as we parted?’

  ‘That I also remember well. I said that solitude was the best society and a short abstinence from solitude urges the sweet return to it.’

  Fidelma nodded, having remembered the words well. ‘And I replied that we are all of us condemned to solitude but some of our sheltering walls are merely our own skins and thus there is no door to exit from solitude into life.’

  Delia was regarding her with sympathy.

  ‘You have felt solitude since your baby was stolen?’

  Fidelma felt a sudden anguish, like a pain in her stomach. She did her best to disguise it; to ignore it.

  ‘I need to ask you a question, Delia.’

  ‘You do not need my permission to ask it.’

  ‘Then let me remind you of an unpleasant time, for it is necessary to my question. Do you recall when I represented you when you sought compensation—’

  ‘I remember how you defended me, yes,’ replied Delia shortly.

  ‘You came to the court wearing a green silk cloak with a hood. It was enriched with red embroidery and fastened by a clasp of bejewelled silver. It was quite beautiful.’

  Delia looked at her thoughtfully and nodded.

  ‘Do you still have that robe?’

  Delia hesitated a moment and then bowed her head in affirmation. ‘I have not worn it since I gave up being … gave up being a bé-táide”

  ‘But you still have it?’

  ‘I have.’

  ‘Will you show it to me?’

  Again Delia hesitated and then shrugged. She stood up and went to a wooden chest in the corner of the room and bent down to open it. It seemed to be full of clothes and she began to take them out and lay them on the ground. They were rich garments and Fidelma did not have to ask how Delia had accumulated them. They were the memories of her past life.

  Suddenly she heard Delia’s sharp intake of breath.

  ‘What is it?’ she demanded.

  ‘I don’t know. I think someone has been looking through this chest. One of the dresses is torn, the sewing ripped at the seam. It was not like that when I packed these clothes away.’

  ‘Which was when?’

  ‘Just after the case in which you defended me. I have not wanted these garments of my past life since then.’

  ‘Find the green silk cloak.’

  Fidelma’s voice was suddenly harsh. Delia glanced questioningly at her and then bent again to the trunk. When she had turned everything out she sat back on the floor with a puzzled expression.

  ‘It is not here.’

  Fidelma sighed deeply. ‘I rather suspected that it might not be.’

  Delia looked at her with a deepening frown.

  ‘What do you mean? I think you owe me some explanation,’ she demanded.

  ‘Delia, where were you on the night that Sárait was killed?’

  The woman’s lips trembled a little.

  ‘Am I being accused of something?’

  ‘Please, Delia.’ Fidelma’s voice was now soft and coaxing. In other circumstances she would have been harsh, demanding, but she knew Delia too well. ‘I will explain if you answer a couple of questions.’

  ‘So far as I recall, I was here. I am usually here.’

  ‘Can anyone vouch for that?’

  Delia seemed to hesitate a moment and then shook her head. ‘I was alone.’

  Something made Fidelma feel that her friend was not being truthful. She decided to let it pass for the moment.

  ‘When was the last time that you saw your green cloak?’

  ‘As I have said, I put it away in this chest when I ceased to be a bé-táide, which was, as you know, three years ago. I have not bothered to look at it since.’

  ‘Why keep it, then? You could have sold it. It is a very valuable cloak.’

  Delia shrugged. ‘We do many things in life that are not logical, lady. You have seen these clothes that I have kept. They are a reminder of times past… to remind myself of what I was.’

  ‘You are not aware of anyone breaking into your house? Perhaps the cloak could have been stolen?’

  Delia shook her head. ‘There is no reason why anyone should break in here. I never keep a locked door - it is open to anyone to come and go as they please.’

  ‘And you have left the house with the door unlocked?’

  Fidelma well knew that locking doors was not a custom among the local people. However, the doors of nobles and professionals were secured on either side by a bolt or more usually by an iron lock - a glais iarnaidhi. When the Blessed Colmcille went to preach to the pagan King Brude of the Picts, he found that the king had caused all the doors of his fortress to be locked against him. Colmcille uttered a prayer which caused the iron locks to be miraculously opened. Why she suddenly thought of the story, she did not know.

  ‘I always leave my door unlocked. Only at night, I draw the bolt shut.’

  ‘So anyone might have come in at any time and taken the cloak?’

  ‘I suppose so. Now, are you going to tell me what this is all about?’

  Fidelma compressed her lips for a moment.

  ‘On the night Sárait died and my baby was taken, she was lured from the palace by a false message. A dwarf went to her and told her that her sister wanted to see her urgently.’

  ‘Gobnat? She hardly spoke to her sister.’

  ‘You know her that well?’

  ‘Everyone in the township knows her. Gobnat is one of those righteous women who still refuse to acknowledge my existence. She is supposed to be very moral, a pillar of the Faith.’

  Fidelma stretched before the fire.

  ‘You sound as if you do not like her?’

  ‘I am merely irritated by her attitude. But then many people are.’

  Fidelma looked at Delia curiously. ‘What do you mean?’

  Delia shrugged quickly. ‘I mean her inflated self-esteem as if she is far better than other women here. Her conceit has grown immensely now that her husband, Capa, is captain of the élite warriors that guard your brother.’

  ‘My mentor, the Brehon Morann, used to say that pride is but a mask covering one’s own faults.’

  Delia smiled humorously. ‘If anyone has a true reason for pride, it is you, Fidelma. You are wise and learned and your deeds are known in all five kingdoms of Éireann.’

  Fidelma shook her head. ‘When I went to attend the law school of Brehon Morann, the first thing I had to do was part with self-conceit. Admitting one knew nothing and would never know more than a fraction even if one spent an entire life in contemplation and study, was the start of learning. Otherwise it would have been impossible to learn even what I thought I already knew.’

  Delia tried to bring Fidelma’s mind back to the matter in hand.

  ‘You mentioned that a dwarf went to the palace. Are you trying to track down this dwarf?’

  Fidelma smiled thinly. ‘I have already done so. He told me a story that I believe. I believe it because the poor creature’s brother paid for its veracity with his life.’

  ‘And that story is?’

  ‘That the dwarf was passing through Cashel on that night and was asked to deliver the message to Sárait by a woman - a woman dressed in a green silk cloak, enriched with red embroidery.’

  She was watching Delia’s face carefully. She was surprised to see a look of relief relax her features.

  ‘Then the dwarf will be able to identify the wearer of this garment and prove who it was.’

  ‘Not exactly,’ replied Fidelma. ‘You see, while the light of a lamp fell on the woman’s clothing, it did not reveal her features. All he could see was that she was not youthful but had a goo
d figure. The woman paid him to take the message to Sárait.’

  Delia began to look a little strained and pale again.

  ‘I see now why you have come to me with your questions,’ she said. ‘You think that I am that woman. However, other women could have cloaks of green silk with red embroidery.’

  Fidelma indicated the chest of clothes.

  ‘The fact that you cannot produce your cloak seems to indicate that it was the cloak in question.’

  ‘It does not mean that I was wearing it.’

  ‘True. Can you add anything to your explanation of where you were that night?’

  Delia hesitated.

  ‘Fidelma, you have befriended me when others shunned my company. You defended me when others would have condemned me. By that friendship I swear this, that I am not the woman whom you seek. I know nothing of the matter other than that I once possessed a green silk cloak and now it is gone.’

  Fidelma looked intently at her for a moment or two.

  ‘Speaking as your friend, Delia, I believe you. But in this matter, I have to speak as a dálaigh. I have to try to find out when this cloak was stolen from you and have some corroboration of where you were on the night Sárait was killed.’

  Delia raised her arms in a helpless gesture.

  ‘I know nothing of law, lady. You must do as you must. I will answer your questions so far as I am able but I can tell you nothing further that will help you in this matter.’

  ‘You cannot tell me where you were on that night or provide me with the name of anyone who would vouch for you?’ she pressed.

  ‘I can say nothing more on that subject,’ Delia replied firmly.

  Fidelma sighed deeply.

  ‘Very well. I do believe you, Delia, but I must do what I must to find my child. You can appreciate that.’

  Delia impulsively leant forward and touched Fidelma’s arm.

  ‘Believe me, I am a mother, too. I would do the same were I in your place. I have not had a happy life. When I was young, I had ambitions to marry and have children. That was denied me. My problem, if you like, was that I always fell in love with the wrong man. I gave love and trust, and those men took them from me and then left me with nothing but angry memories. That was how I was led into being a bé-táide, seeking to revenge myself on men.’

  ‘I cannot see,’ Fidelma replied with a frown, ‘how prostitution is a form of revenge on men?’

  Delia chuckled, a sound without any humour.

  ‘It makes men come cap in hand, seeking women’s favours and having to pay for the privilege. That is revenge for all those women whom they force their attentions on, whom they claim mastery over, simply because they are their husbands.’

  ‘Women do not have to put up with men’s pretensions in that field,’ admonished Fidelma. ‘Under law, women have the right to separate and to divorce.’

  Delia was still bitter.

  ‘Law is logical. Sometimes the law is only as good as human nature. What happens between a man and wife within the bedroom is often beyond the reach of the law.’

  ‘A woman does not have to be afraid. If a man threatens or inflicts physical violence on his partner it is grounds for an immediate divorce. Likewise, if the man circulates lies about his partner and holds her up to ridicule—’

  Delia cut her short.

  ‘You do not understand, lady. I know you have a perfect marriage and I wish you well in it. But the minds of men and women are not always logical. Sometimes a woman will bear ills that logic might dictate are easily curable in law because of her feelings for her partner. Not everything can be cured by logic’

  Fidelma felt a sudden overwhelming weariness. Then, she could not help it, tears sprang into her eyes. She tried to blink them away.

  Delia gazed at her in surprise.

  ‘Why, lady, what is amiss?’ she asked, leaning forward, a hand on Fidelma’s arm.

  Fidelma found that she could not speak.

  ‘Oh, forgive me, lady, I am too selfish.’ Delia seemed truly in distress. ‘I forgot this was about your missing child. How can I be so unthinking?’

  Fidelma tried to recover her poise. Then she sighed.

  ‘Oh, Delia, it is not just Alchú’s loss that has cast me into an abyss I can see no way out of.’

  The woman stared at her for a moment, lost in thought. Then she shook her head.

  The Saxon brother? Your husband? Is he the cause of this grief, lady?’

  ‘It is more that I have been upsetting him by my vanity, Delia,’ she replied brokenly.

  The woman regarded her with an appraising look.

  ‘Tell me about it,’ she instructed.

  At first Fidelma hesitated and then, slowly at first, but with growing abandon, she began to tell Delia about the situation that had evolved between herself and Eadulf. It flooded out. As she spoke, she began to realise that it was a long time since she had talked to a woman, someone she could trust. In fact, Fidelma had not had an anam chara, a soul friend, since the disgrace of her friend Liadin, who had once been as a sister to her. They had grown up together and when they had reached the ‘age of choice’, when they had become women under the law, they had become soul friends, sworn to be spiritual guides to one another as was the custom of the Faith in Ireland. Liadin had married a foreign chieftain, Scoriath of the Fir More, who had been driven from his own lands to dwell among the Uí Dróna of Laigin. Liadin had acquired a lover and become involved in the murder of her husband and son and betrayed her oath to Fidelma. Since then, Fidelma had not accepted anyone as a soul friend.

  Now all her fears, her hopes and her worries, came out in a rush like a dam breaking and the waters gushing forth.

  For some time after she had finished speaking, Delia sat quietly.

  ‘The one thing that I have learnt, lady, is never to advise someone on a course of action when it comes to a relationship between a man and a woman,’ she said at last. ‘From what you say, the pursuit was all on the Saxon’s side. He must take the greater responsibility. Is there not an old saying among our people, lady, that a man who marries a woman from the glen marries the whole glen? Did your man not realise that when he married you he had to marry who you were, and that meant he had to accept you were of the Eóghanacht?’

  ‘Perhaps he did not understand exactly what it entailed.’

  ‘He cannot blame you for his lack of knowledge, lady.’

  ‘He is not happy here, Delia, nor could I be happy in his country.’

  ‘There is always a compromise to be found between two extremes.’

  ‘But what compromise?’

  ‘That is for discussion between yourself and your man.’

  ‘It is not that easy.’

  ‘Perhaps it is because you are trying to find a route by logic. The shortest cut through emotional problems is often to let your feelings show you the road. When you have seen the choice before you then it is time to make a decision.’

  Fidelma shook her head. ‘Where the heart leads, logic must go also.’

  ‘You may see the problem through logic, lady, but you will understand truth through your emotion. It is emotion that has taught people how to reason.’

  Fidelma suddenly rose with a brief smile. ‘You are a wise woman, Delia.’

  Delia rose also. ‘Wisdom has not made me rich.’

  ‘Wisdom excels all riches, Delia.’

  ‘That is as may be, lady, but for now I am a former bé-táide under suspicion of encompassing the death of Sárait.’

  Fidelma looked Delia straight in the eye.

  ‘My instinct tells me that you are not involved. Yet it also tells me something else. It tells me that you are holding something back.’

  Delia flushed. ‘I can assure you that I am innocent of any involvement in the killing of Sárait or the disappearance of your baby. You are the last person I would inflict hurt upon.’

  Fidelma inclined her head for a moment.

  ‘I will accept that until it is proved otherwise,’
she said quietly, before turning towards the door. At the door she halted as a thought occurred to her. ‘Promise me this, Delia, that you will not mention anything to anyone about the garment that is missing or my interest in it.’

  Delia smiled wryly.

  ‘That I can easily do. I did not even know it was missing until you asked me to look for it. The garment that you are interested in, and the fact that it is missing, will remain a matter strictly between the two of us.’

  Fidelma smiled.

  ‘Let it be so,’ she said softly before she left.

  Chapter Ten

  Fidelma sat opposite Eadulf as they breakfasted together on goat’s milk, freshly baked bread, cheese and apples. Fidelma had been reticent about the details of her meeting with Delia on the previous evening. She had told him about the boy at the inn and went so far as to tell him that Delia had once possessed the green and red silk cloak. She had also mentioned seeing Gorman, but little else, and Eadulf had not bothered to press her further. In fact, he had come late to their chamber, when she was almost asleep, for he had discovered in the library of Cashel a copy of Historia Francorum, a history of the Franks, by Bishop Gregory of Tours. Eadulf was always interested in the history of various peoples. The scriptor in the library had told him that this had been one of the last books to be copied at the great book-copying centre in Alexandria. The story was told with much verve and enthusiasm and Eadulf soon discovered that Gregory was no Frank but a Gaul, a Romanised Gaul it was true, but not above pointing out the error of Frankish ways and praising his own people. The time had passed quickly and so, returning to their chamber, he had found Fidelma already in bed. He re-emerged into the real world with a feeling of guilt that a mere book could provide him with escape from his problems for a few hours.