The Leper's Bell

by Peter Tremayne

  ‘Get down there, Saxon,’ he said, indicating the aperture with his sword.

  A smell of sea and dankness rose up. It reminded Eadulf of the odour of sea caves.

  ‘You might as well kill me here,’ he told them defiantly. ‘I can see nothing below that ladder, so if you want me to go into some subterranean cave full of water I should tell you that I prefer the sword to drowning.’

  The guard laughed uproariously.

  ‘Didn’t Uaman tell you that you had until the high tide? He wants you to dwell on your fate for a while. So we must not kill you yet, my friend.’

  His companion grinned eagerly.

  ‘I’ll tell you what… we’ll give you this oil lamp. The light should last you until the high tide. Don’t worry. See how solicitous we are about your needs?’ He shoved a lighted oil lamp at Eadulf.

  ‘Now get down the ladder or we might reconsider,’ snapped the guard with the drawn sword.

  Eadulf hesitated only a moment. At least he had light and he had freedom of movement. While he had those, he had hope. The alternative was dying from a sword wound at once.

  He turned and began to climb down the ladder.

  As he descended he found that he was moving into a chamber whose sandy floor was four metres from the stone aperture in the ceiling above. It was square in shape, some two metres by two. It was chill and had an overpowering smell of sea about it. Yet he saw that the walls were not those of a cave but made of great blocks of stone even though the floor consisted of wet sand.

  He stepped off the bottom rung, holding his lamp high, and peered round.

  Almost at once, the ladder was pulled swiftly up.

  Laughter came from above him.

  ‘Until high tide, Saxon,’ called one of the men. ‘Pleasant dreams!’

  The stone thudded into place above him and he was alone.

  Fidelma later regarded it as the longest and worst day of her life. She lay on the bed in the upper room of the hunting lodge, securely bound. Now and again one of the Uí Fidgente would look in and check on her, ensuring that the bonds still held. During the day, Crond came in twice to give her food and drink, this time freeing her hands but standing over her in case she made any attempt to escape. The most embarrassing moment came when she was forced to answer nature’s demands. Crond rigged a blanket round a pail in a corner and actually stood in the room during the proceedings. For the most part, she was alone with her thoughts.

  She had tried once again to seek refuge in the dercad, the act of meditation, but a strange thing happened. She began to question even that as a means of escape from the present. She realised that she must start facing reality - perhaps for the first time. She was confronting a question that she had always tried to avoid. She could admit that now, as she lay alone and unable to act. She began to think about her relationship with Eadulf and her child - their child. Suddenly, tears were streaming from her eyes, although she did not yet understand why she had begun to feel this uncontrollable emotion. She had always been in control before. She had, perhaps, been too controlled.

  Once she had tried to take refugee in the idea that, after her youthful experience with the warrior Cian, it was a rational decision not to get too close to any man. It was a good excuse, an easy excuse. But it was merely an excuse. Had she been deceiving herself? What did she want? She had wanted independence, to rely on no one except herself. She wanted to be a good dálaigh. She had an exceptional ability for solving puzzles, and that was her motivation in life. If it was taken away from her she could not fulfil her ambition and live contentedly. She realised that she regretted that her cousin, Abbot Laisran of Durrow, had persuaded her to enter the religious. It was true that most people in the professions in the five kingdoms had done so, because it was the custom. But her time at Kildare had not been happy, for institutions implied restriction of freedom and what Fidelma desired most of all was personal freedom.

  That was it! Freedom. That was the heart of the problem between her and Eadulf. She was unwilling to be restricted. She did not want to be bound. Suddenly, she could hear the sage tones of her mentor, the Brehon Morann, asking: ‘What is it that binds you, Fidelma?’ Indeed, what bonds was she afraid of? She had left Kildare, and her ability and qualification as a lawyer had caused her to be sought after. If she admitted it, she was also lucky. She had been born a daughter of Failbe Flann, king of Muman, and her brother was now king. She did not want for security. So, once again, she found herself asking what bound her.

  Her mind returned to Eadulf and little Alchú.

  Was she living just for herself? Her favourite philosopher was Publilius Syrus. He had been brought to Rome as a slave from Antioch and finally given his freedom. He had written many moral maxims that Fidelma had learned by heart, for in Brehon Morann’s law school he had often been referred to. His maxim iudex damnatur ubi nocens absolvitur - when the guilty man is let off, the judge stands condemned - was almost a slogan. Fidelma had objected to the interpretation and as a youthful student argued that it was better a guilty man be let off than an innocent man be condemned. She claimed that the pressure placed on judges by this maxim would encourage them to condemn a man simply out of fear lest they themselves should be condemned.

  She was vehemently supportive of the Irish system in which the law wisely accepted each brithemoin a báegul - to every judge his error. But a judge had to give a pledge of five ounces of silver in support of his judgement, and pay a fine if they left a case undecided. All judgements could be appealed and judges had to pay compensation if they were found to be false.

  She had let her mind wander. She caught herself with a frown. What had she been thinking about? Publilius Syrus? Was she living just for herself? That was it. That was what she had been asking herself. Publilius Syrus had said that they who live only for themselves are truly dead to others. She shivered slightly.

  Why was she pushing Eadulf and little Alchú away? That was what she had been doing. She groaned inwardly. Eadulf was not creating the bonds which held her. She was. Her ideal of life was in her mind and the impediment to the ideal was there also. It was not external; it was within her.

  Eadulf! She suddenly realised that he had been so patient, accepting her faults and acknowledging her abilities. What had made her long for his company after she had left him in Rome? What had brought her in haste from the Shrine of St James, sailing back to the five kingdoms when she heard that he had been charged with murder? She was not in love with him but something infinitely more real - she loved him and needed his companionship, wisdom and support. She had been looking for an anam chara, a soul friend, and she suddenly realised that there had been no need to look. What a fool she had been.

  Where was Eadulf now? And little Alchú?

  She groaned again. Tears were still welling in her eyes when merciful sleep overcame her again.

  Holding the oil lamp high, Eadulf peered around his prison.

  The sand beneath his feet was wet and a few strands of seaweed lay discarded on it, along with some broken shells. A movement in a corner caught his eye. It was a crab cowering in the shadows. A cold chill caught Eadulf as he continued his examination. The stone walls were dark with water stains and a tiny green moss clung to the blocks. The waterline stretched almost up to the ceiling. He turned to examine the base of the walls. There were three apertures in one of them, but they were tiny - a man’s head might be placed in them but there was no way anyone could crawl through. As he peered into these holes, he became aware of a strange sighing sound. He bent to listen. It did not take him long to realise that he was listening to the sighing of the sea some way beyond the apertures. Peering along the tiny tunnels, he thought he could see some reflected light.

  He swallowed hard.

  Beyond the small tunnels was the restless, brooding sea. That’s what Uaman meant! High tide! At high tide the sea would come rushing in through these holes and into this prison chamber. There was no escape. He would be drowned, for there was no way out.


  Eadulf became aware of a new noise: a muffled sound. It seemed to come from high above him. It sounded like a knocking. Masonry began to fall into the confined space from a point high in one corner. Concerned, Eadulf moved to the opposite corner. Was there some new torture in store for him? A heavy block of stone suddenly plummeted down on to the sandy floor with a thud.

  A faint light showed above him, not the light of a lamp but a dull white glow. Something moved in the aperture. It was someone’s head and shoulders.

  ‘Kairongnothi!’ came a cry of triumph.

  Eadulf stood still, peering upwards. There was a scrabbling as the head and shoulders emerged a little further through the aperture.

  ‘Dos moi pou sto kai ten gen kineso!’ grunted a male voice in satisfaction.

  Eadulf recognised the phrase from Archimedes. Give me a place to stand and I will move the earth! The voice was speaking in Greek.

  ‘Stay there!’ he cried out. ‘Don’t come any further or you’ll fall!’

  He realised he was calling out in his own tongue. Then, trying to summon up his knowledge but realising it was confined to the Greek of the sacred texts, he tried again, but by this time the person above him had seen the danger as the oil lamp Eadulf held illuminated the four-metre drop into the cell below. There came a stream of Greek that Eadulf could only presume was the owner of the voice expressing his disappointment in voluble terms. Then there was a pause.

  ‘Do you speak this language?’ came the voice at length.

  ‘I have only few words. Do you speak the language of the Éireannach?’

  ‘No.’

  There was another pause. The man above must have been examining Eadulf in the gloomy light of the oil lamp.

  ‘I see that you wear a Roman tonsure. What of the Latin language?’ asked the voice in that language.

  ‘I speak it well enough,’ Eadulf replied, feeling relief.

  ‘Are you a prisoner too?’

  Eadulf caught the emphasis of the word ‘too’.

  ‘So you are a prisoner? Indeed, I am a prisoner of Uaman, and if I am not mistaken, I am a prisoner not long destined for this world. I have been put in this place to die.’

  ‘How so?’ demanded the voice.

  ‘I was told that I had until high tide. From the look of this cell, I believe that when high tide comes, it floods up to roof level. The walls are damp and thick with moss and seaweed.’

  The voice muttered something in Greek that he took to be an expression of surprise. Then the man spoke again.

  ‘I thought that by removing a few stone blocks in my cell, I would be tunnelling out to a place from where I might escape.’

  ‘You were escaping from your cell, then?’

  ‘I was.’

  ‘And where is your cell?’

  ‘Just behind me. The floor of my cell is just above what appears to be the level of this roof.’

  ‘Where is the light behind you coming from?’

  ‘Ah, I have a small barred window that looks out on the sea.’

  ‘Are you sure that you are above the sea level?’

  ‘I have watched the tides,’ came the response. ‘At high tide, I am just above sea level. Certainly the stone walls and floor of the cell that I am in keep out the waters.’

  Eadulf felt a sudden surge of hope.

  ‘Then if I could somehow climb up to you and into your cell, I would avoid being trapped and drowned down here.’

  ‘You would be merely exchanging one cell for another. I have been trying to escape these last few days. I thought I had when I forced a way through into your cell.’

  ‘Well, better your cell than mine.’ Eadulf smiled in the gloom. ‘At least, from what you say, I won’t drown there.’

  He peered up, trying to figure out distances by the light of his lamp. If the aperture was four metres from the floor, as he estimated, then it might as well be a million. The stone was too wet to climb and clammy with seaweed and lichen. There was no hope of even attempting to scale it. It would be far too slippery.

  ‘Perhaps when the water starts to flood in, I might be able to rise up with it,’ he suggested.

  ‘Dangerous, my friend,’ warned the voice above him. ‘Wait.’

  Eadulf was about to rejoin that he would not be going anywhere, but the head and shoulders had disappeared.

  An interminable time passed. He heard strange sounds, a tearing noise. Then the head and shoulders appeared again.

  ‘Stand by!’

  Something came snaking down. It was a series of strips of torn linen knotted together. It came to just above his head.

  ‘Can you reach the end, my friend?’

  ‘If I put down my lamp and jump.’

  ‘In that case, do so. I think it will be strong enough. I have tied the end to the wooden cot here so I think it should hold.’

  Eadulf put down the lamp. At his second jump his hands closed over the end of the strip and for a moment he swayed, crashing into the side of the cell and grazing himself on the stone blocks. He hung for a moment and then, slowly, he began to haul himself up hand over hand. The man above encouraged him and it did not seem very long until his head drew level with the aperture high in the wall. It was not large, but big enough to thrust his head and shoulders through.

  His companion had started to back through the space before him. Eadulf realised that the mouth of the aperture gave on to a small tunnel-like hole which stretched upwards at an angle for a little more than a metre. The man backed upwards and out of the hole while Eadulf managed the difficult task of heaving himself over the edge into the inclining tunnel. A few moments later he was through and lying on the stone-flagged floor of his new-found companion’s cell, recovering from his exertion.

  After a few moments he glanced round. His rescuer was hauling in the makeshift ‘rope’ which had been tied to a wooden imda, a bed frame. In fact, this was the only piece of furniture in a stone-walled, stone-floored cell. There was a thick wooden door at one end and in one wall a small barred window which, when he later examined the view, looked out on to the seaward side of the island.

  Eadulf turned to his companion and grinned.

  ‘At least I am given a respite from a watery grave.’

  The man facing him was older than he was. He was tall, and fairly muscular, with black hair that receded from his forehead and an abundant beard. He had a sallow, olive skin, and his brows and eyes were almost as black as his hair, which he wore without a tonsure. He met Eadulf’s grin with an equally humorous expression and shrugged.

  ‘A respite only, my friend. That is, unless we can make a new tunnel and find a means of escape.’

  Eadulf went to look at the hole his fellow prisoner had made. A large block had been lifted to one side immediately under the bed, which disguised it from anyone making a quick examination from the doorway. The man shrugged.

  ‘I saw the stone was loose and prised it away. Then I saw the tunnel beyond. Well, not tunnel exactly. You saw that it was scarcely a metre long. I think it must have been an air vent when they first constructed it. However, I had hoped it would lead into another room or give me some means of egress. I little dreamt that I would be entering a cell far worse than mine. Had you not been there, I might have attempted to climb down, broken my leg or worse and then wound up drowning myself.’

  Eadulf gave an affirmative nod. ‘You have my thanks for your intervention, for what my thanks are worth. It seems that they may not be worth much. Once our captors discover they have not drowned me, they will come here. But my thanks for this moment of respite.’ He reached out a hand. The dark man took it. His grip was warm and firm. ‘My name is Eadulf of Seaxmund’s Ham.’

  The man raised his eyebrows a fraction. ‘A Saxon?’

  ‘From the land of the South Folk?’ Eadulf nodded.

  ‘Truly, my friend, you are far from home.’ His companion smiled.

  ‘I would say that you must be even farther from home,’ Eadulf pointed out with an answering g
rin.

  The man responded with a chuckle.

  ‘Forgive me, my friend. I am called Basil Nestorios.’

  ‘A Greek?’

  ‘A healer, but from Jundi-Shapur.’

  Eadulf shook his head. ‘I do not know of that land.’

  ‘Ah, it is a city, my friend, in the kingdom of Persia. The hospital and college of Jundi-Shapur hold first place in the world of medicine and science. Do you not know that all the great courts of the kings of the world recruit their physicians from Jundi-Shapur? Pupils from all the nations of the world gather there.’

  Eadulf smiled softly at the pride in the other’s voice.

  ‘Persia is a long way from this land, Basil Nestorios.’

  ‘I do not doubt it, for have I not travelled every metre of the path here? A long journey only to end in this fashion…’ He gestured disdainfully to the stone walls. Then he looked at Eadulf. ‘What are you doing here, and why have you been imprisoned by the Evil One?’

  ‘The Evil One?’ Eadulf frowned.

  ‘The leper with the unpronounceable name.’

  ‘Uaman?’

  ‘That is he.’

  Briefly, Eadulf told him the story. The healer from Jundi-Shapur nodded sadly. ‘He is, indeed, the Evil One.’

  Eadulf saw beyond his immediate problems as a memory came back.

  ‘You were travelling with a brother from Ard Macha and you passed through Cashel a short time ago? A Brother Tanaide? I heard your names at the abbey of Imleach.’

  ‘That is so,’ agreed Basil Nestorios. ‘I came to this land to discover what cultures and beliefs lay on the western rim of the world. Through intercession from a bishop in the country of Gaul I was put in touch with a bishop in Fearna, the capital city of the land called Laigin.’

  Eadulf knew Fearna well and had nearly lost his life there. He sighed as he thought of how Fidelma had saved him.