Our Lady of Darkness

by Peter Tremayne

  Abbess Fainder stared blankly at Fidelma’s remorseless logic.

  ‘I am sure that someone was on this boat and left it by lowering themselves into the water,’ she repeated stubbornly.

  ‘It would certainly help your claim that you were innocent of this crime,’ agreed Fidelma, ‘but I have to say that it is unlikely in the extreme that someone, flying from this scene, would take that option. Look!’

  She indicated the river side of the boat. The waters were flowing strongly at this point and the river was now more than five metres wide increasing the ferocity of the flow.

  ‘Anyone attempting to swim in that river would have to be a strong swimmer. No one in their right mind would choose that route when all they had to do was step onto the riverbank on the other side of the boat.’

  Fidelma suddenly frowned as a thought struck her.

  ‘How could Gabrán navigate this boat up here against such a strong current?’

  ‘Easy enough,’ explained Enda. ‘While I was looking around this boat I saw the harness attachments. It is common, lady, for a couple of asses to be used to pull river boats against the flow of the river where the current is strong. Otherwise, poles are used to propel the vessel. It is done all the time.’

  Fidelma stood up and looked around. While Enda was obviously correct, there was still something wrong.

  ‘So where are these beasts now? Who brought them here and who took them away? Indeed, where are Gabrán’s crew, come to that?’

  She returned to her seat on the hatch cover and closed her eyes for a moment in thought. She felt that she was overlooking something important. She wondered why the crew had left Gabrán on his own and taken the animals needed to bring the boat upriver to this spot? Abbess Fainder’s story about merely happening on the boat and then finding Gabrán just at the moment of his slaughter seemed so far-fetched; as far-fetched as the idea of the killer escaping by jumping over the side of the boat into the swiftly flowing river. It was nonsense. But then, perhaps, Eadulf’s story appeared equally nonsensical in face of the evidence of the girl Fial who claimed to have been an eye-witness to her friend’s death. Fidelma expelled her breath in a deep sigh.

  ‘Well, there is little we can do here for the time being,’ she said, standing up. ‘Dego, I want you to ride back to Cam Eolaing and find Coba, if he is there. He said that he was returning to his fortress and he is the bó-aire of this area. This matter needs to be reported to him. If you fail to find him at Cam Eolaing, ride back to Fearna and bring Bishop Forbassach here.’

  Abbess Fainder was anxious.

  ‘What do you mean to do?’ She tried to sound commanding, but her voice trembled.

  ‘I mean to follow the law,’ Fidelma replied with grim humour. ‘It will be up to the Brehon of this kingdom, I presume, as to whether that law will follow the punitive Penitentials, of which you are so fond, or whether you will be found guilty and punished by our own native system.’

  Abbess Fainder’s eyes widened with horror. ‘But I did not do it.’

  ‘So you have said, Mother Abbess,’ Fidelma rejoined with a touch of well-deserved malice. ‘Just as Brother Eadulf said that he did not do what he was accused of!’

  Eadulf untied the gag on the young girl whom he had carried to the entrance of the cave. She continued to stare at him with eyes wide, round and dark, mirroring her fear. In spite of the tightness of her bonds she was trembling visibly.

  ‘Who are you?’ demanded Eadulf.

  ‘Don’t hurt me!’ came the whimpering response. ‘Please, don’t hurt me.’

  Eadulf tried a reassuring smile. ‘I do not propose to hurt you. Who left you in this condition?’

  The girl took some time to overcome her fear.

  ‘Are you one of them?’ she whispered.

  ‘I do not know who “they” are,’ Eadulf replied, and then, remembering the second bound form in the cave, he turn back and brought her out. She, too, was barely thirteen, a half-starved dishevelled little girl. He removed her gag and she sobbed in great breaths of air.

  ‘You are a Saxon, so you must be one of them,’ the first girl cried fearfully. ‘Please do not hurt us.’

  Eadulf sat down before them, shaking his head. He, too, was cautious, for he made it a rule never to loose the bonds of any person until he found out why they had been bound in the first place. He had once seen a young Brother killed by an insane woman when he had removed her bonds, thinking he was releasing her from a tormentor.

  ‘I have no intention of hurting you, whoever you are. Tell me first, who are you, why are you bound and who bound you?’

  The two girls exchanged a nervous glance between them.

  ‘You must know, if you are one of them,’ replied the first of the girls with some defiance.

  Eadulf was patient. ‘I am a stranger here. I do not know who you are nor who “they” are.’

  ‘But you knew enough to come into the cave to find us,’ pointed out the second girl, who seemed to have a quicker wit than her companion. ‘No one would stumble on that cave by chance. You must be one of them.’

  ‘If I am someone who means you harm, then you have nothing to lose in answering my questions,’ Eadulf pointed out. The younger girl started to sob. ‘However,’ he added sharply, ‘if I am simply a stranger passing by, then I might be able to help you in your plight if you tell me the reason why you have been bound and left in this cave.’

  It was some time before the elder of the two came to a decision.

  ‘We do not know,’ she said after some thought.

  Eadulf raised his eyebrows in disbelief.

  ‘It is the truth that I tell you,’ the girl insisted. ‘Yesterday, we were taken from our homes by a man. He brought us to this place, bound us and left us. He said that someone would come to take us on a long journey and that we would never see our homes again.’

  Eadulf stared hard at the girl trying to assess the truth of what she was saying. Her voice was dull, flat now, as if divorced from the reality of what she was saying.

  ‘Who was this man?’ he pressed.

  ‘A stranger like yourself.’

  ‘But not a foreigner,’ added the second girl.

  ‘I think that you had better explain further. Who are you and where do you come from?’

  The girls seemed less nervous now as he drew them out of their first fear of immediate harm.

  ‘My name is Muirecht,’ said the elder. ‘I come from the mountains to the north of here. Well over a day’s riding.’

  Eadulf turned to the younger of the two. ‘And you?’

  ‘I am called Conna.’

  ‘And do you come from the same place as Muirecht?’

  The girl shook her head.

  ‘Not the same place,’ Muirecht intervened, responding for her. ‘I never saw her before we found ourselves together as prisoners. We did not know each other’s names until this moment.’

  ‘So what happened? Why were you made prisoners?’

  The girls exchanged another glance and it seemed to have been silently agreed that Muirecht would speak for the two of them.

  ‘It was yesterday morning, well before dawn, that I was awakened by my father …’

  ‘And who is your father?’ intervened Eadulf.

  ‘A poor man. He is a fudir, although he is a saer-fudir,’ she added this fact quickly and proudly.

  Eadulf knew that the fudir was the lowest class of Irish society; a class scarcely little removed from the slaves of Saxon society. They were comprised not of members of the clan but were commonly fugitives, prisoners of war, hostages or criminals who had their civil rights removed as a form of punishment. The fudirs were divided into two sub-classes, the daer-fudir or unfree and the saer-fudir, who were not exactly free men but did not suffer the bondage placed on the lower rank. The saer-fudir were usually those who were not criminals and therefore could regain certain rights and privileges in society. They could work land that was allotted to them by their lord or king and on very ra
re occasions rise from the ‘unfree’ class to become a céile, a free clansman, and they might even reach to the rank of a bó-aire, a landless chieftain and magistrate.

  Eadulf indicated that he understood.

  ‘My father’s plot of land is small,’ went on Muirecht, ‘but, in spite of that, the chief of the territory demands the biatad, the food rent. Twice a year my father had to repay the loans from the common stock.’

  Eadulf knew the custom. Both free and unfree fudir could borrow cows, pigs, corn, bacon, butter and honey, from the common stock of the clan, provided that one third of the value of that which they took was paid back annually for seven years. At the end of that time the stock became their property without further payment. The free fudir was also obliged to give the Chief either service in time of war or service in an agreed number of days working the land of the Chief. Eadulf, coming from a society in which outright slavery was normal, always considered the idea of the non-free class of society being able to obtain such loans and work their way to freedom as a curious concept. He could see that, for a man with poor land and little ability to manage, the loan might, in certain circumstances, induce further poverty instead of raising him out of it.

  ‘Go on,’ he said. ‘Yesterday morning your father awakened you before first light. Then what?’

  Muirecht sniffed painfully at the memory.

  ‘He was red-eyed. He had been crying. He told me to dress and be ready for a long journey. I asked him what journey. He would not answer. I trusted my father. He brought me out of the cabin. There was no sign of my mother nor of my young brother to bid me goodbye. But outside was a man with a cart.’

  She hesitated, contemplating the scene in her memory.

  Eadulf waited patiently.

  ‘The same happened to me,’ muttered the second girl, Conna. ‘My father is a daer-fudir. I have no mother for she died three months ago. I was made to cook and clean for my father.’

  Muirecht grimaced and the younger girl fell silent.

  ‘Once out of the cabin, my father …’ began Muirecht again and then she paused, tears in her eyes. ‘He held me by the arms. The other man bound and gagged me and threw me in his cart. I saw, through a chink in the wood of the cart, my father receive a small bag with chinking metal in it. He grabbed it to his chest and hurried inside the cabin. Then the man climbed on his cart, threw brushwood over me and drove off.’

  She suddenly began to sob long and loudly. Eadulf did not know how to comfort the girl.

  ‘It was the same with me,’ affirmed the younger girl. ‘I was thrown into the cart and found this girl already there. We could not speak as we were both bound and gagged. And we have neither eaten nor had a drink since yesterday morning.’

  Eadulf stared at them blankly, hardly able to take in the enormity of their story.

  ‘What you are telling me is that both your fathers have actually sold you to the man with the cart?’

  Muirecht had managed to control her sobbing and she nodded dismally.

  ‘What else is there to believe? I have heard tell of poor families who sell their children to be taken to other lands to …’ she fought for the words.

  ‘To be a slave,’ muttered Eadulf sadly. He knew the practice existed in many countries. Now he realised the sort of trade Gabrán must have been running along the river. He bought young girls from their families and transported them down to Loch Garman on the coast where they were sold as slaves to the Saxon kingdoms or to the land of the Franks. Poor people, to alleviate their impoverished circumstances, often resorted to selling one of their female children. He, personally, had never encountered such a trade among the people of the five kingdoms of Éireann because the law system seemed designed to keep anyone from utter destitution and the concept of one man holding another in complete servile bondage was alien. The revelation of the two girls came as a shock to Eadulf.

  The sudden screech of a rook, taking off from a nearby high tree, caused Eadulf to start and glance up nervously, remembering that one of Gabrán’s men was supposed to be coming into the hills to collect these girls.

  ‘We must leave this place before these bad men come for you,’ he said, bending forward and taking out his knife. He cut at the bindings that held the girls’ ankles together and then released their hands. ‘We ought to move on now.’

  Muirecht was rubbing her wrists and ankles.

  ‘We need a moment or two,’ she protested. ‘My hands and feet are numb from lack of blood.’

  Conna was following her example in an attempt to restore the circulation.

  ‘But we must hurry,’ Eadulf urged, now that he had realised what dangers were involved.

  ‘But to go where?’ protested Muirecht. ‘We can’t go back to our fathers … not after what has happened.’

  ‘No,’ agreed Eadulf, helping them both to their feet. They stood and stamped their feet awhile to restore their circulation. Eadulf’s brows were drawn together in perplexity. He could hardly take the two girls back with him to Fearna. Then he suddenly remembered that Dalbach had told him of the community on the Yellow Mountain. ‘Do either of you know this area?’ he asked the girls.

  They shook their heads negatively.

  ‘I have not been so far south ever,’ Muirecht told him.

  ‘There is a mountain called the Yellow Mountain,’ Eadulf said. ‘It lies to the west of here, overlooking Fearna. I am told that there is a church there dedicated to the Blessed Brigid. You will be given sanctuary there until it is decided what is for the best. Do you agree to accompany me there?’

  The two exchanged another glance. Muirecht shrugged almost indifferently.

  ‘There is nothing else that we can do. We will go with you. What is your name, stranger?’

  ‘My name is Eadulf. Brother Eadulf.’

  ‘Then I was right. You are a foreigner,’ Muirecht sounded triumphant.

  Eadulf smiled wryly. ‘A traveller passing through this kingdom,’ he added with dry humour.

  As a flock of rooks began their cacophony in the valley below, Eadulf glanced down anxiously. Something was disturbing the birds; something or someone. It would not do to delay any longer.

  ‘I think the man whom your captor was waiting for might be approaching. Let us move on as quickly as we can.’

  Chapter Seventeen

  Fidelma had left Abbess Fainder, with Enda in attendance, sitting on the hatch cover of the boat while she returned to Gabrán’s cabin. She took a stand just inside the door, forcing her gaze on the scene of carnage within. The river-boat captain had been stabbed at least half a dozen times in the chest and arms. There was little doubt that it had been a wildly ferocious attack. Trying to avoid getting any blood on her clothing, she picked her way gingerly to the side of the body and began a careful examination.

  The worst wound was a tear across the man’s throat, as if his assailant had thrust the knife upwards, ripping it across the throat, using the entire length of the blade. The other wounds over the chest and arms seemed randomly thrust with the point of the knife. There was no pattern to them; they did not seem to have been aimed at any vital spot. The slashing of the throat had, however, been enough to bring about death for the rip was across the jugular vein. Every other blow seemed an expression of angry violence.

  Could Abbess Fainder be capable of such an act? Well, everyone was capable of violence given the right circumstances, Fidelma knew that much. But what fury had driven Fainder? It was while she was contemplating this point that she realised she was staring at something without really seeing it. She concentrated. The slash across the throat had not been made by a knife. Certainly not with the same small blade that the abbess had dropped to the floor.

  Fidelma forced herself closer. The slash had been made by a sword. She had no doubt of it, for the upward slash had not only ripped the flesh but shattered the jawbone and dislodged some teeth in the lower jaw by the power of its impact. To create such a wound would need a vigorous stroke.

  Mentally rep
roving herself for initially missing the obvious, Fidelma glanced round but could see no weapon that might have made that terrible and mortal wound. She picked up the small knife which the abbess had held and compared its blade to the half dozen puncture marks over the man’s chest and arms. It needed but a moment to confirm that the weapon could have made the more insignificant wounds but not the fatal one.

  While she was bending down, another item caught her attention which, had she not bent close, she might have missed. It was a small clump of hairs. She realised that they were hairs from the head of Gabrán, for she compared them. It seemed that someone had grabbed a tuft of his hair and pulled it out by the roots, before dropping it to the floor. There were particles of blood still on the roots.

  She replaced the knife and stood up but as she stepped back, her foot knocked against a jangling piece of metal causing it to scrape on the boards. She looked down and her eyes widened. The metal consisted of a pair of manacles. They were small and looked like wrist restraints. They had been lying discarded on the floor. The manacles were open and there was a key still in the lock which secured them.

  She was about to turn away when something else caught her eye. There were some strands of material which had been caught on a protruding nail from a leg of a table which was one of the items of cabin furniture. Someone had swept by and the garment had caught against the nail. The strands were of brown dyed woollen homespun of the sort worn by most religious. Thoughtfully, she unhooked the fibres and placed them in her marsupium.

  Fidelma then rose and considered the situation. These were several pieces in a puzzle. Each fitted to form a picture of Gabrán’s last moments. If Abbess Fainder’s denial of the killing was to be believed, especially the claim that she was outside the door when she heard Gabrán’s body fall, it would mean the killer had still been in the cabin. That was patently impossible, otherwise Fainder would have seen the killer and been attacked in turn. Fidelma peered carefully around to see if there was anything else which would account for the sound of something as heavy as a body falling to the deck of the ship. There was nothing else apart from the body of Gabrán.