The Leper's bell sf-14

by Peter Tremayne

  Now he would wait until the tide was on the ebb and then walk to the island as there seemed no other way to cross. He would simply tell this Uaman the reason for his visit. Logic would prevail. The chieftain was surely not as evil as people made out. No one was that evil. He felt satisfied at this reasoning and felt a sudden surge of excitement. He would bring Alchú home to Cashel. Perhaps, then, he would be able to reason with Fidelma about how to tackle the problems of their life together. He felt a peace spreading within himself at the thought. There would be an answer; a resolution to the problems that had beset them during this last year.

  It was an hour or so later when he noticed that the tide had begun to turn. He presumed that it would not be at its flood again until early evening. He stood up and walked down to the shore to examine the sandy link that was being uncovered with a critical eye. The dunes that stood revealed by the receding sea looked firm enough. He saw crabs scuttling over them, following the waters, and here and there a sea bass or pollock caught unawares in a pool, splashing in search of its vanishing environment. He looked from the shore across to the dark island. The sandy way seemed quite wide, but if there were soft patches of quicksand, as the steward had warned him, then it would be best to keep to the highest point of the dunes.

  Eadulf hesitated a moment, then left the shore and started to hunt through the trees and bushes until he found what he was looking for. A low branch of a yew tree had been snapped off. He took out his knife and began to strip the bough of its excess growth and twigs until he had a passable staff of six feet in length. Then he returned to the sandy crossing and stepped gingerly forward. The sand sank a little under his feet and water ran from where it was compacted but his foot only went in to a depth of the first joint of his little finger. The sand seemed firm enough. Ever cautious, however, Eadulf thrust the staff in front of him before each forward step.

  It was some time before he had traversed the sand link to the island, and when he looked back he was somewhat reassured by the line of his footsteps stretching away behind him. It would be easier on the return trip, he told himself.

  He made his way up some stone-flagged steps to the grassy knoll of the island and across to the forbidding grey stone wall surrounding the round tower. It was deceptively large, as big as many abbeys he had seen. There was no sign of life. Great wooden double doors rose to a height of ten feet but stood shut, the thick oak reinforced by iron. A series of windows was placed round the stone walls at a height just above that of the gates. They appeared to ring the structure.

  Eadulf stood for a moment examining the building. There seemed to be no bell for visitors to ring such as usually hung outside an abbey. He walked across to the doors and was about to raise his makeshift staff to bang on them to announce his presence when they suddenly swung inwards. Just inside stood a man draped from poll to toe in grey robes, a cowl hiding his head and features.

  ‘Welcome, Brother. Welcome to the Tower of Uaman.’ He spoke in a high-pitched, almost sing-song voice.

  Eadulf started at the unexpected apparition. The movement was not lost on the grey-robed figure. A thin chuckle issued from behind the robes.

  ‘Do not be surprised, Brother. I have watched your approach from the shore yonder. I have noticed that you have been cautious in your progress across the dunes.’

  ‘I was told that the crossing was treacherous.’

  ‘Yet you have chanced the perils of the sea and sands. There must be some great purpose in your coming here.’

  ‘I have come to see Uaman … Uaman who is chieftain of this place.’

  The figure raised an unusually white hand, almost claw-like in its skeletal structure, and beckoned him to enter.

  ‘I am Uaman, lord of the passes of Sliabh Mis,’ came the voice. ‘Welcome to my fortress. Come freely in, and may your stay be as pleasing to you as it will doubtless be to me.’

  Eadulf hesitated but a moment, trying to rid himself of the fears that rose again in his mind. Then he entered between the heavy oak gates. He was aware of the great wooden structures swinging shut behind him and he glanced round. They seemed to be closing of themselves and then he realised that the mechanism must be in the thick walls. Iron bolts had appeared from apertures in the stone and snaked directly across to secure the doors in place.

  Uaman gave his thin mirthless chuckle as he saw Eadulf start nervously.

  There are many beyond my walls who wish me harm, my friend.’ He paused. ‘You bear the tonsure of Rome, not of the brethren of the Church of the Five Kingdoms. What name is given to you?’

  ‘I am Eadulf of Seaxmund’s Ham.’

  There was a silence. Eadulf knew the name meant something to the bent figure. A long, low hiss of breath came from the folds of the cowl and Eadulf had a feeling that cold eyes were staring at him.

  ‘Eadulf!’ The voice was suddenly soft and almost threatening in its sibilance. ‘Of course. Eadulf of Seaxmund’s Ham. You are husband to an Eóghanacht of Cashel.’

  ‘I come here with peaceful intent,’ Eadulf explained hurriedly. ‘I am not interested in your quarrels with Colgú of Cashel.’

  ‘If you come with peaceful intent, Brother Eadulf, then you are received with peaceful intent. Yet you seem, by implication, to know that I am of the Uí Fidgente. What do you seek from me?’

  ‘I have come west on a quest in which I think you are unwittingly involved.’

  The figure chuckled again. ‘Unwittingly involved?’ he said, as if this was some matter of amusement. ‘Now that is an interesting phrase. Then, Brother Eadulf of Seaxmund’s Ham, come to my chamber where we will talk of this quest and its purpose.’

  Eadulf made to move forward towards the figure but the white skeleton hand suddenly drew a small bell out of the folds of the robe and shook it with a warning note.

  ‘Salach! Salach! Unclean!’ came the high-pitched voice. Eadulf halted abruptly. ‘A little distance, if you please, Brother Saxon.’ Uaman’s voice was more controlled now. ‘I suffer the affliction which decays and putrefies the flesh.’

  ‘A leper?’ gasped Eadulf. Until this moment he had not fully appreciated the enormity of the curse under which Uaman suffered.

  The bent figure gave his spine-tingling laugh. Then the leper hobbled forward and Eadulf noticed that he was dragging one foot as if it were useless. Uaman entered a tiny doorway in the wall and climbed a stone-flagged stairway which rose to another level which, Eadulf judged, was at the height of the windows he had seen. The stairway gave on to a walkway that was, indeed, on a level with the windows. Eadulf suddenly realised that there were several dark-clad warriors lurking in the shadows by the windows, obviously keeping a watch. He glimpsed ugly and scarred faces, one man lacking an eye.

  The leper began to lead him confidently round the walkway, following the great walls.

  ‘Do not bother to count the windows, Brother Saxon. There are twenty-seven, that I might look out on the star clusters from which knowledge and power are gained.’

  Eadulf frowned. He recalled that this was some pagan doctrine and wasn’t sure what it implied.

  ‘Are you not of the Faith?’ he queried.

  The leper chuckled. ‘Is there only one Faith then, my friend? Faith in the singular means that we must disbelieve all other faiths.’

  ‘Faith is Truth,’ countered Eadulf.

  ‘Ah, when reality and hope are dead, then Faith is born. Believe in all things, Brother Saxon, and you will not be disappointed.’

  Uaman halted before a door and opened it, beckoning Eadulf to follow him through a corridor into an inner chamber. It was a well-appointed apartment, the walls lined with polished red yew and hung with tapestries of sumptuous colours. The leper pointed to a couch.

  ‘Be seated, Brother Saxon, and tell me the purpose of your coming hither. What is this quest of which you speak?’

  Uaman seated himself across the room by the open hearth in which logs glowed hotly. He kept his cowl on and Eadulf could not discern his features. All he was
aware of was the dead white flesh of the single claw-like hand that remained uncovered.

  ‘I have come in search of my child, Uaman. I am here in search of Alchú.’

  ‘Why do you think I can help in that matter?’

  Eadulf leant forward. ‘The baby was left at Cashel in the charge of a nurse named Sárait. She was murdered. She, or some other, had left the baby by itself and a wandering herbalist and his wife found the child and thought it was abandoned. They took it and brought it with them to this country where you fell in with them. And you paid them money for it. I accept that you could not know the identity of the child and your desire was simply to help it. Where is Alchú? I will recompense you for what you paid the herbalist but I must take the infant back to Cashel.’

  The leper’s shoulders moved. At first Eadulf thought the man was having a fit, but then a high-pitched sound came from beneath the cowl. He realised that Uaman was laughing again.

  ‘So far as you are concerned, Eadulf of Seaxmund’s Ham, the baby is dead,’ Uaman finally said in a flat tone. ‘Dead to you and your Eóghanacht whore.’

  Eadulf made to rise from his seat but became aware of sharp, cold steel at his neck. One of Uaman’s guards must have entered unseen behind him and now stood with knife or sword at his throat.

  ‘What does this mean?’ he asked through clenched teeth. He realised that the question was a silly one for now his suspicions were tumbling into certainties. Deep within him he knew that he had been taking a naive approach to Uaman the Leper.

  ‘It means that the fates have been kind to me, Eadulf of Seaxmund’s Ham. In the last two years you and your Eóghanacht whore have gained quite a reputation in the five kingdoms. It was a bad day when you were taken from that Gaulish ship and made to work in the mines of Beara as our prisoner, before our intended rising against Colgú.’

  Eadulf cursed himself for a fool. So Uaman had known about even that.

  ‘Have we met before?’ he asked.

  ‘You knew Torean of the Uí Fidgente.’

  ‘He tried to kill me but he was slain by Adnár, the local chieftain, who was loyal to Cashel.’

  ‘Torean was my brother,’ Uaman replied icily.

  Eadulf blinked rapidly. He should have worked that out before. Torean was also a son of Eoganán.

  ‘Exactly,’ Uaman said as he watched the realisation dawn in the other’s eyes. ‘A son of Eoganán who was slaughtered at Cnoc Áine by Colgú.’

  Eadulf grimaced. ‘If truth is to be served, it was Eoganán, your father, who raised his clan in rebellion against Colgú and met the fate of one who unlawfully rebels. He who draws his sword against a prince might as well throw away the scabbard.’

  ‘A Saxon axiom?’ sneered Uaman.

  ‘How could you have known the baby with the herbalist and his wife was the child of Fidelma and me? Even I was not entirely sure they had taken him until I followed them to the abbey of Coimán.’

  ‘News travels swiftly in this land. The Uí Fidgente still have loyal followers. Minds that are obviously quicker than that of the great dálaigh, your wife. Someone close to Cashel told one of my messengers that the child was missing and likely to be in the possession of the itinerant herbalist and his wife.’

  Eadulf look amazed. ‘A traitor? In Cashel?’

  ‘No, my Saxon friend, not a traitor but an Uí Fidgente patriot,’ Uaman said in satisfaction.

  ‘Where is my son?’ Eadulf demanded harshly.

  ‘You mean the son of the Eóghanacht whore who thwarted our plan to take power? Well, he will never grow up to become an Eóghanacht prince.’

  Eadulf started forward but the sharp steel at his throat kept him in the chair.

  ‘You swine! You have killed him!’ he cried helplessly.

  Again Uaman chuckled in his high-pitched tone.

  ‘Oh no, my poor friend. He is not killed. Far worse.’

  Eadulf looked at him in bewilderment and the leper chuckled again.

  ‘He will live, be sure. But he will grow up never knowing his father and mother, or the bloodline to which he is heir. He will, if he lives so long, become a simple shepherd, herding his sheep on the mountains haunted by the daughter of Dáire Donn. And your son will bear a name that will symbolise my revenge against his people. That is his fate. Already he is being nursed by peasant folk who do not know his origin but think of him as my gift to fill the void in their pointless, childless lives.’

  ‘You decaying son of a…’ Eadulf snarled and this time the blade drew blood from his neck.

  Uaman seemed even more amused.

  ‘Indeed, I am iobaid, one who decays and rots because of this evil sickness that has been laid on me. It was not always so. I was my father’s right hand, his adviser, while my brother Torean was his tanist, his heir apparent. Many blows were struck at Cnoc Aine. I fled the field after my father’s death and soon the sores began to show on my body. I realised then that the ancients had cursed me for my failure and that only cold vengeance would remove the curse.’

  Eadulf gasped. ‘That’s nonsense!’

  ‘First, Cashel will suffer. I will make it suffer. The suffering has already begun.’

  ‘So you arranged the murder of Sárait?’

  To Eadulf’s surprise Uaman shook his head.

  ‘That was purely fortuitous. I heard the news of her death and the disappearance of Fidelma’s child. But it was purely by chance that one who was sympathetic worked out that the herbalist and his wife had found the child. He sent me a message to that effect and I could not believe my luck. Nor could I believe their greed. They did not even question me when I offered money for the baby. Ah, human frailty. That is my faith, my Saxon friend. I believe in the frailty of human beings.’

  Eadulf sat glowering at him.

  ‘You are telling me that you had no hand in Sárait’s murder? That you did not intend this…’ he made an encompassing gesture with his hand, ‘from the start?’

  The leper’s shoulders were moving again in the indication of his mirth.

  ‘You may dwell on all these things in the time that is left to you, Brother Eadulf of Seaxmund’s Ham,’ he said. ‘And that, alas, is not very long. You have until high tide and then your earthly span is ended.’

  The white claw-like hand gestured in dismissal and Eadulf found powerful fingers gripping his arms. He was dragged from his seat and realised that there were two men behind him. It was useless to struggle. He was dragged through a side door and along the dark grey corridors, his mind whirling as he tried to understand what he had been told. Once more he found himself being half pushed, half dragged round the circular walkway in the outer wall of the rounded fortress. Then he was propelled through another straight corridor that seemed to jut out at an angle from the rest into a square structure that stood apart from the tower. He was being pushed down a circular flight of stone steps to where a flagstone was raised. A wooden ladder led into the dark aperture. One of the warriors pushed him towards it.

  ‘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 m
ovement. 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.