The Monk Who Vanished (36 page)

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Authors: Peter Tremayne

Tags: #_NB_Fixed, #_rt_yes, #Church History, #Fiction, #tpl, #Mystery, #Historical, #Clerical Sleuth, #Medieval Ireland

BOOK: The Monk Who Vanished
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Many had risen in the Great Hall and began to crowd towards the spot where the drama was being played out. Eadulf felt himself pushed from his seat and urged forward in their forefront. He clung on desperately to his pilgrim’s staff as a means of keeping his balance in the throng.
He found himself near Donndubhain and Fidelma. He did not like the expression that was changing the
tanist’s
face from its handsome pleasant features to a mask of uncontrolled hatred. It was clear that Fidelma’s truth had struck home.
The
tanist
of Cashel was trying to assume a smug expression as he made another attempt to deny her accusation.
‘The Brehons want proof and not supposition, cousin,’ he said, clearly trying to sound amused but not succeeding. ‘Where is your proof for this outrageous nonsense?’
‘You do not think I have given you proof enough? There is Gionga. He will tell how you persuaded him to send his warriors …’
‘What if I did? You have no proof of anything else. Baoill and Fedach are dead and …’
Fidelma’s broad smile stopped him. ‘What name did you say?’ she asked softly.
‘Baoill and …’ He suddenly paused, realising the slip he had made.
‘I think the name that you gave to the archer was Fedach? Did I not say that no one knew his name? That the only person alive would be … ?’
‘That is not proof enough. I might have heard it from someone else and …’
‘When you decided to kill Samradan the other night you made your fatal mistake. Without that killing, the jigsaw puzzle, our game of
tomus,
with which we played as children, would not have come into place within its frame.’
‘But it was I who led you to the assassin’s horses which had been hidden at Samradán’s stables,’ protested Donndubhain. ‘Would a guilty man do that?’
‘Yes. You hid the horses there yourself. Samradán was in Imleach at that time. Those horses had been kept elsewhere. Perhaps in your own stables. Then you took them to Samradán’s the very evening you killed him in order to close the circle so that a dead man would take the blame. You made a mistake in showing me those horses in your eagerness to throw me off your track. They were still hot and sweaty from their run from the place where they had been these last days. We will probably find which of your servants hid the horses on your instructions. From your own lips we have learnt the name of the archer - Fedach.’
‘Nonsense! The name proves nothing.’
‘You removed all items of identity from those horses, except for the Uí Fidgente symbol on the saddle by which you hoped that I might still be persuaded to blame Prince Donennach. You had emptied the archer’s purse, which was a stupid thing to do for it showed most clearly that everything had been tampered with. But you overlooked a single coin, however. A
píss
, an Uí Néill coin of Ailech.’
She held it out.
‘It showed me that the archer had been in Ailech recently.’
‘But it does not show that I was in Ailech’s pay,’ Donndubháin said. ‘Nor does it prove my guilt.’
‘No. But the death of Samradan showed me that you killed him. Where is your silver brooch, the one you said that you had traded
from Samradan, the one that came out of your illegal mining activity with him? The one he asked Nion the smith to make especially for his patron with its five red garnets?’
Donndubháin’s hand went automatically to his shoulder. His face went ashen.
Fidelma was holding out the brooch that she had taken from Samradán’s dead grasp. She held it up for everyone to see.
‘I found it clutched in Samradán’s hand. He tore it from Donndubháin in his death struggle along with the cloth you see attached to it.’
‘You can’t prove it is mine. A silver brooch with a solar symbol and red garnets on the ends,’ sneered Donndubháin. ‘I have seen others like it. Look!’
He pointed to where Nion was standing. It was true that the smith wore a similar solar emblem with red garnets.
Donndubháin swung round angrily to Finguine.
‘And look! He wears one exactly like it.’
Fidelma shook her head. ‘Yes. Finguine’s solar emblem was also crafted by Nion. That is why they are so alike. Those brooches were made by the same craftsman who made your one. But whereas the emblems worn by Nion and Finguine carry three red garnets, this one was made especially for you. It has five red garnets. I saw you wearing it on the day of the attempted assassination. Maybe it is meant to represent the five kingdoms of Eireann. Is your ambition so high, Donndubhain?’
Donndubhain acted so quickly that it was over in a moment. He slid one hand into his shirt and drew forth a short dagger, hidden in his waistband. At the same time he reached out a hand and grabbed Fidelma. She had not been expecting such a move and the next moment she was pressed, back against his chest, with the knife at her throat.
‘Donndubháin!’ cried Colgú, springing forward from his place. ‘You fool! You cannot hope to escape!’
The Great Hall had burst into chaos and there were cries of alarm.
‘If I do not, then your precious sister dies with me,’ shouted the Prince across the heads of the crowd.
The knife was so close against Fidelma’s neck that there was a faint spot of blood oozing along the knife edge.
‘Tell Capa to saddle me a fast horse. No tricks for Fidelma is coming with me …’ ordered Donndubháin.
He began to edge backwards from the pale-faced judges, and the anxious eyes of those gathered in the Great Hall.
There was a dull thud. The knife hand of Donndubhain trembled and then the knife dropped from the senseless fingers to the floor. A
moment afterwards it was followed by the unconscious body of the
tanist
of Cashel.
Fidelma swung round, eyes wide, heaving for breath.
Eadulf was standing there looking concerned. He held his pilgrim’s staff in two hands. He suddenly smiled as his eyes found Fidelma’s.
‘What works for a
canis lupus
can work for a human wolf as well.’
Fidelma threw back her head and laughed with relief as she embraced her companion.
Fidelma and Eadulf had paused on the south-west corner of the battlements of the walls of Cashel. Their eyes were on the westward mountains. It would not be long before the bell tolled the hour for the evening meal. It seemed peaceful and quiet now that the palace grounds were almost deserted and the town below the great seat of the Kings of Muman was emptying of its visitors. They had come for a spectacle in the court of the Brehons and had not been disappointed. Conflict had been averted, the guilty found and punished. Tomorrow morning, the Brehons would be departing and within a few days the Prince of the Uí Fidgente would return to his own land, having sworn a treaty of peace with Cashel.
It seemed that the month was going to end, as it usually did, with another period of fine, warm weather. The sun was lowering rapidly, a bright golden ball heading towards the western mountains in a splash of soft, rose-redness. The clouds, what few there were, lay in thin, long strands of darkness, tinged along the top by the rays of the light from the setting sun.
‘It will be a fine day tomorrow,’ Fidelma observed almost sleepily.
Eadulf nodded morosely.
‘You seem despondent.’ Fidelma caught the mood of her Saxon companion.
‘There is one mystery in this matter that has not been resolved,’ he said. ‘At least, I cannot find the answer.’
‘What is that?’
‘Who killed the raider in Imleach? Was it Samradan? That does not make sense.’
‘No. The death of the raider was almost superfluous, if death can be so described. He was killed, as I first suspected, for the most common of motives. Vengeance.’
‘You mean that he was killed as we suspected by Brother Bardan?’ Eadulf asked. ‘Vengeance for Daig’s slaughter?’
‘No. He was killed by Brother Madagan whose eyes betray his unforgiving nature. Madagan simply wanted vengeance for being
struck down by the raider outside the gates of the abbey. The next day, Madagan took the purse of the raider, filled with coins from the King of Ailech, and donated them to the abbey as compensation. Ségdae showed me the coins before I left Imleach. They were the same type as the one I found in the assassin’s bag at Samradán’s stable.’
‘Does Abbot Ségdae know?’ gasped Eadulf.
‘Yes. It will be for him to pursue the matter if he wants to and for Madagan to come to terms with his own conscience. At least the raider’s coins as a gift to the abbey is some recompense, I suppose. But not for Madagan. He has to find his own salvation.’
They fell silent awhile.
‘I was also thinking how close you came to death and by the hand of your own cousin no less.’
‘A pilgrim’s staff is good to have to hand.’ She smiled softly. ‘At least your aim was true.’
‘What if it had not been?’ Eadulf grimaced and shivered.
‘But it was and here we are.’
‘Tomorrow the Brehons will have departed. But will Muman be safe again?’
‘The Uí Fidgente have come to a peace accord with my brother. The Brehons will make their findings known and Mael Duin, the Uí Néill King of Ailech, will be given warning to desist from plotting against Muman. So will Ultán, the Comarb of Patrick. I believe that there will be peace here for a while. I am also told that Colgú will be proposing my cousin, Finguine, as his new
tanist
when the
derbfhine
of our family next meet. I think the choice will be a wise one.’
‘And what now?’ asked Eadulf. ‘This matter has been an exhausting one. I have never been so confused in my life. I was wondering whether you could have proved Donndubháin’s guilt had he not condemned himself by his action.’
Fidelma gazed at Eadulf in mild rebuke.
‘Surely you know me better than that? I do not believe in chance. However-’ she smiled ruefully - ‘it would have taken some time to examine all the witnesses and the evidence. Some might have become confused with it. I don’t think so, though. In the end, the evidence would have been clear to anyone.’
‘So what are you planning now?’ pressed Eadulf. ‘I have seen that meditative look on your face once too often not to realise that you are working something out.’
Fidelma smiled sadly. She had, indeed. It was going to be difficult. ‘Do you know how our scribes mark the end of a manuscript as they finish work?’
Eadulf shook his head, wondering what she meant.
‘Nunc scripsi totum pro Christo, da mihi potum!’
Eadulf found himself smiling in response as he translated. ‘Now I have written so much for Christ, give me a drink!’
Fidelma nodded slowly. ‘Or as I would translate, now that I have worked so much for my brother, and the kingdom of Cashel, give me some rest,’ she averred.
Eadulf shook his head. ‘Rest? You?’ He sounded dubious.
‘Oh yes. Do you remember when we arrived at Imleach there was a band of pilgrims there?’
‘I remember; they were journeying to the coast to set out to sea on some pilgrimage.’
‘That’s right. To the tomb of St James of the Field of the Stars.’
‘Where is that?’
‘In one of the northern Iberian kingdoms. I would like to go on that pilgrimage. Many here in the five kingdoms do so. Such pilgrimages set off from the abbey of St Declan at Ard Mór, which is not far to the south of us. I have a mind to set out soon for Ard Mór.’
Eadulf was suddenly miserable at the thought of her leaving. It reminded him abruptly that he had delayed too long in Muman for he had been sent there only as a special envoy of Archbishop Theodore of Canterbury. What Fidelma was actually saying was that the time had come to say farewell.
‘Do you feel that it is right to leave Cashel at this moment in time?’ he asked hesitantly.
She had made up her mind. For some time now Fidelma had felt a dissatisfaction with her life. When she been away from Eadulf, when she had left him in Rome to return to Eireann, she had experienced feelings of loneliness and longing, as if of a home-sickness even though she was home among her own people. She had missed the arguments with Eadulf, the way she could tease him over their conflicting opinions and philosophies; the way he would always rise good-naturedly to her bait. The arguments would rage but there was no enmity between them.
Eadulf had been the only man of her own age in whose company she had felt really at ease and able to express herself without hiding behind her rank and role in life, without being forced to adopt a persona, like an actor playing a part.
She had missed his company with an acuteness she could not explain. It had now been ten months since Eadulf had come to her brother’s kingdom as an emissary of Theodore, the Archbishop of Canterbury. Ten months during which they had shared several dangers and had been close. Close like a brother and sister.
That was just it. Eadulf was always impeccably behaved towards
her. She found herself wondering whether she wanted him to behave in any other way. Religious did cohabit, did marry and most lived in the
conhospitae
or mixed houses. Did she want that? Her old mentor, the Brehon Morann, had once told his young pupils that marriage was a feast where the
gratias
was better than the food.
Unable to really come to a decision herself, she had almost been relying on Eadulf to make the decision himself. To suggest something to her. He did not. Yet if he wanted marriage, he would surely have spoken of it long since. What was it that was written in the
Book of Amos?
Can two walk together, except that they be agreed? It was obvious that Eadulf was not interested in such a partnership. He had never raised the prospect of such a relationship nor did she feel she should if he did not. The closest she had come to the subject was when she had asked him if he had heard the old proverb that a blanket was the warmer for being doubled. He had not understood.
‘Do you feel that it is right to leave Cashel at this time?’ he asked again.
She roused herself from her thoughts. ‘Yes; just for the rest, as I say. There is an old saying that to rest the eyes and the mind, it is sometimes best to change the silhouette of the distant mountains.’ She looked at him seriously. ‘You have been away a long time from your home in Seaxmund’s Ham, Eadulf. Don’t you ever feel the need to get back to your people and change the silhouette of these mountains? You have a duty to Archbishop Theodore.’
Eadulf immediately shook his head. ‘I can never be tired in this land and with …’ He flushed and did not finish what he was going to say. He was confused. There was a saying among his own people. Do not bring a reaping hook into someone else’s field. It was clear that Fidelma did not feel the same way as he did otherwise she would not have suggested his return to Canterbury. She had not apparently even noticed that he had left his sentence hanging in mid-air.
‘Your Archbishop must need you back. You cannot delay your return much longer. What better time for both of us to leave Cashel - you to your homeland and I to seek out those new mountains?’
‘Is it right, at this time?’ Eadulf pressed yet again.
‘Someone once said that there is always a time to depart from a place even if one is unsure where one is going.’
‘But there is a permanence here, Fidelma,’ protested Eadulf. ‘I have come to feel at home. I would find a means to stay in spite of the demands of Canterbury. These are the mountains I wish to continue to see. The river down there is the water I want to rest beside, to daily bathe my feet in.’
Fidelma waited, finding herself hoping to hear him say that which she wanted him to say. When he did not, she smiled sadly.
‘Heraclitus said that you cannot step twice into the same river for other waters are continually flowing into it. The only thing that is permanent, Eadulf, is change.’
She stretched her arms and yawned, her face turned towards the setting sun. It stood poised for a moment or two, an oval glow on the horizon before abruptly vanishing and sending a flood of dark shadows across the land. She shivered slightly at the sudden chill that swept over the great Rock of Cashel.
‘Incidis in Scyllam cupiens vitare Charybdim,’
muttered Eadulf. ‘You fall into the Scylla in trying to avoid Charybdis.’
Fidelma raised an eyebrow. ‘You think that I am trying to escape from something I consider bad and will fall into something that is worse? No. I just need a change, that is all, Eadulf. There is boredom in permanence.’
A bell began to toll solemnly in the background.
‘The evening meal, Eadulf. Let us go in and change this evening chill for the warmth of a good fire.’

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