The Leper's Bell

Also by Peter Tremayne

Absolution by Murder

Shroud for the Archbishop

Suffer Little Children

The Subtle Serpent

The Spider’s Web

Hemlock at Vespers

Valley of the Shadow

The Monk Who Vanished

Act of Mercy

Our Lady of Darkness

Smoke in the Wind

The Haunted Abbot

Badger’s Moon

Whispers of the Dead

The Leper’s Bell

An Ensuing Evil and Others

Master of Souls
*

*
forthcoming

THE LEPER’S

BELL

Peter Tremayne

  New York

THE LEPER’S BELL
. Copyright © 2004 by Peter Tremayne. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

www.minotaurbooks.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

ISBN 0-312-32343-3
EAN 978-0-312-32343-1

First published in Great Britain by Headline Book Publishing
A division of Hodder Headline

First St. Martin’s Minotaur Edition: January 2006

10    9    8    7    6    5    4    3    2    1

For Pat and Andrew Broadbent:
the memories of lona will not fade
nor the special festive hospitality
of 2003

…
habebit vestimenta dissuta caput nudumos vesta contectum contaminatum ac sordidum se clamabit
,

omnu tempore quo leprosus est et immundus solus extra castra.

And the leper in whom the plague is, his clothes shall be rent, and his head bare, and he shall put a covering upon his upper lip, and shall cry, Unclean, unclean.

As long as he has the infection he remains unclean. He must live alone: he must live outside the city.

Leviticus 13: 45-6

Principal Characters

Sister Fidelma
of Cashel, a
dálaigh
or advocate of the law courts of seventh-century Ireland

Brother Eadulf
of Seaxmund’s Ham in the land of the South Folk, her companion

At Cashel

Colgú
, king of Muman, Fidelma’s brother

Finguine
, his tanist or heir apparent, cousin to Colgú and Fidelma

Ségdae
, bishop of Imleach

Brehon Dathal
, chief judge of Muman

Cerball
, bard to Colgú

Capa
, commander of the king’s bodyguard, Gobnat’s husband

Gobnat
, sister to the murdered nurse Sárait

Caol
, a warrior of Cashel

Gormán
, a warrior of Cashel

Conchoille
, a woodsman

Delia
, a former prostitute or
bé táide

Bishop Petrán
of Cashel

Brother Conchobar
, an apothecary

Cuirgí

Cuan
three hostage chieftains of the Uí Fidgente

Crond

At Ara’s Well

Aona
, the innkeeper

Adag
, his grandson

Cathalán
, a former warrior

At the abbey of Imleach

Brother Madagan
, the steward

Brother Buite
of Magh Ghlas, leader of the pilgrims

At Cnoc Loinge

Fiachrae
, the chieftain

Forindain
, a dwarf and leader of the
crossan
or travelling players

At Rath na Drínne

Ferloga
, the innkeeper

At the Well of the Oak Grove

Conrí
, warlord of the Uí Fidgente

At Sliabh Mis

Corb
, an itinerant herbalist

Corbnait
, his wife

Uaman
, lord of the passes of Sliabh Mis

Basil Nestorios
, a Persian healer

Ganicca
, an old man

Nessán
, a shepherd of Gabhlán

Muirgen
, his wife

Chapter One

A
mist was rolling down from the upper reaches of the mountains, cascading like a silent smoky-white tide towards the lower slopes, silently shrouding everything in its swift forward motion. Strangely, there appeared to be no wind disturbing the noiseless air, but the mist must have been activated by some cold, soft breath to start its avalanche-like movement.

The hungry vapour reached and enshrouded Nessán the shepherd as he moved swiftly down the rocky incline, following alongside the path of the frothy river, which rose in the now invisible high peaks above him. As the chilly fingers of the mist swept over him, he halted for a moment to adjust to the sudden change in visibility. Although he was no stranger to these mountains, he was thankful for the guidance of the river at his right hand side, for he knew that it flowed down to the lowlands, north into the sea, and he would not get lost. It had been a foolish thing to do: to venture into these mountains when the changeable weather could not be taken for granted. Many people had paid with their lives for such folly.

Yet had he really been foolish to ascend the mountains in the first place? He shivered again, though this time not with cold. He had dared the climb, in spite of the condemnation of the New Faith, in order to make supplication to the old gods. He had told no one about his intention, not even his wife Muirgen, even though it was for her that he had taken such a dangerous step as to ignore the priests of Christ.

He had started his ascent of the mountains at dawn, climbing up by the foaming river and passing the lake, deep, black and still, in the speckled hollow. He had gone on up to the high ridges until he came to the spot where the river rose and then cascaded in a spectacular long
waterfall as it began its descent through the lake and down the mountainside. This was the Top of the Three Hollows,
Barr Tri gCom
, where the ancients claimed that this world and the Otherworld met, where the fate of the five kingdoms had been decided by the gods.

Nessán the shepherd knew the stories well enough, for the old storytellers had passed them down to his people as they huddled round the flickering fires of their hearths. It was here that the sons of Milidh had fought with the ancient gods and goddesses of the Children of Danu and broken their power, driving them into the hills and relegating them from powerful deities to small, mischievous sprites. But before that had happened, on these same slopes, three goddesses of Danu - Banba, Fódhla and Eire - came to the sons of Milidh and each had made a plea, acknowledging the victory of the sons of Milidh, that their names be given to the land. So it came to pass. While poets often hailed the land of Banba and Fódhla, the ordinary people accepted that they lived in the land of Eire.

The slopes of these same mountains, according to the ancient storytellers, had been drenched with blood, for the victory of the sons of Milidh was not easily come by. Indeed, on these very slopes fell Scota, daughter of the pharaoh Nectanebus, wife to Milidh, and her druid Uar; Fas, wife to the great hero Uige, who became ruler of Connacht, also perished with her druid Eithiar, and there fell three hundred of the greatest warriors who had followed the sons of Milidh. But in contrast, or so the stories went, there perished ten thousand followers of the Children of Danu, before the battle was conceded to Milidh’s sons.

Indeed, these misty slopes had been fertilised by the ancient blood of the combatants. However, even that history was not the reason why these mountains were considered forbidding and often avoided by those who dwelt in their shadows.

It was said that in the time of Cormac the son of Art the Solitary, who was hailed as the 126th High King to rule at Tara, there was an attempt to invade the five kingdoms of Éireann by the army of Dáire Donn, who called himself King of the World. That formidable force landed on the very shores of the peninsula on which these same mountains rose. Cormac son of Art sent his great general, Fionn Mac Cumhail, and his élite warriors, the Fianna, to meet Dáire Donn. At a place called Fionntragha, the fair strand, by the shores of the sea, Fionn met the invaders and slaughtered every warrior of them.