Atonement of Blood (14 page)

‘Indeed,’ nodded Aona. ‘That’s what I mean. The fat merchant often boasts of his personal friendship with the King of Cashel and how well-protected by the Nasc Niadh he is. Of course, it is all arrogance. Tall tales.’

Fidelma wore a thoughtful expression. ‘You say that he was heading with his wagon for the bridge across the River Suir?’

‘That was the peculiar thing,’ the innkeeper replied, scratching his head. ‘He said that he would go by a safer route, away from the bridge. He had decided to go south and cross by the Ford of the Ass.’

‘That is a longer route,’ Gormán pointed out. ‘And you say it was near midnight when he left?’

‘How far south of the bridge is it to the Ford of the Ass?’ asked Fidelma.

‘It is quite a distance from the main track, lady. It would add extra time on one’s journey and in a heavy wagon …’ The warrior shrugged.

‘But it would explain why Ordan was crossing the Ford of the Ass and picked up the girl, arriving in Cashel before dawn,’ observed Eadulf.

There was a silence and then Fidelma heaved a sigh. ‘You have told us a strange story, Aona. Can you give us nothing further about your unknown guest?’

The elderly tavern-keeper shook his head. ‘Alas, lady, if there was more to tell then I would tell it. I have searched my mind. As I said, he had a hood over his head, although I caught sight of a sharp chin and the fact that he was badly in need of a shave. I had the impression of gauntness. That is all I can say.’

Eadulf chuckled and laid a hand on the elderly inn-keeper’s arm.

‘Well, friend Aona, for a man who says he did not notice much, you seem to have noticed a great deal.’

For a moment or two Fidelma sat in silence and then she rose and stretched. ‘It is time to be off,’ she said decisively. ‘We need to reach Cnoc Ulla before the winter darkness is upon us and I don’t want to exhaust our horses by needless speed.’

After Aona had gone off to the stables, shouting for his grandson to get the mounts ready, Fidelma turned to her companions. ‘Well, we know that Ordan came here and that he met the assassin. We cannot be sure that they knew each other, but Aona suspects they exchanged words. But what were these words? Then the assassin left on his way to Cashel. Why did Ordan stay until midnight and then take the long way home? Did he stay because he knew what was going to take place at Cashel that evening? As Eadulf observed, at least Aibell’s story of being picked up by Ordan at the Ford of the Ass is confirmed.’

‘I think we should ride back to Cashel and have a word with that merchant,’ suggested Gormán.

Fidelma thought for a moment and then shook her head. ‘The merchant will keep until our return. We have other matters to pursue.’

As Eadulf knew, the road running directly to the west would bring them to the famous Abbey of Ailbe at Imleach, but they soon left this road and turned northwards, along a stream which fed the Ara. While riding at Fidelma’s side, with Gormán a little way ahead, Eadulf re-opened the subject that had been worrying him.

‘Have you considered that Ordan may have taken the detour towards the Ford of the Ass because the girl was also involved in the conspiracy?’

Fidelma smiled at him. ‘At the moment, we are not even sure it is a conspiracy. And if Ordan and Aibell were fellow conspirators, they are poor ones to concoct a story that paints Ordan in such a bad light.’

Eadulf relapsed into silence and in this fashion they continued onwards for a while.

The day was turning colder as the sun started its descent towards the rim of the western hills. Dark clouds began to race across the sky. A bitter wind was gusting across the narrow valley through which they were travelling along the bank of the stream. Had they been on higher ground, unsheltered by the surrounding hills, the cold would have been sharp. They drew their cloaks more tightly around them.

‘Let’s hope the wind remains strong,’ muttered Fidelma.

Eadulf glanced at her in surprise. ‘Why would you wish that?’

‘Because if the wind blows those clouds away, it will not rain. Those are heavy stormclouds and I would not like to be drenched before we find shelter.’

Eadulf saw the logic in the observation and glanced up at the clouds that were racing along, almost at hilltop-level.

‘How far is it to this place where we intend to stay tonight?’

‘Not far now, if we can keep up this pace,’ replied Fidelma.

As she spoke, they both became aware that Gormán had halted and was peering in the direction of a small copse of trees that grew to one side of the track.

‘What is it?’ called Fidelma as they came up to him.

Gormán merely pointed. Among the trees, a black shadow seemed to be moving in the wind. As they stared at it, the horrible realisation dawned that it was a human body hanging from a branch of one of the trees. The young warrior had already unsheathed his sword and his gaze scoured the surrounding woods.

‘Wait here,’ he ordered, and nudged his horse across the short distance to the edge of the little wood, his keen eyes alert for any danger.

They waited while he entered the wood, halted and looked about. Then he turned and waved them forward.

The body was hanging by the neck: it was clear that he had not come to that position through his own means. Eadulf noticed that the skin of the arms and hands was mottled, the features deathly white.

‘He has not hung here very long,’ Eadulf ventured. ‘No more than a day or two, perhaps less.’

The body was that of a young man. The face was cleanshaven. His hair was corn-coloured, long but dishevelled, with dirt and dead leaves mingled in it. The clothes, too, were torn and caked with dirt and dried blood. He wore a linen shirt covered by a short, tight-fitting jacket that had been ripped open so that the fixings had been torn away. He wore
triubhas
, trousers that fitted snug from hip to ankle with straps that passed underneath the feet to keep them in place. The man’s feet were bleeding and there was no sign of any footwear. It was hard to discern the quality of the clothes. They had once been bright and possibly of good craftsmanship. There was no jewellery on the corpse.

As they stared up at the dead man, Gormán appeared a little impatient.

‘Is it wise to tarry here, lady? After all, this is the border of the Uí Fidgente territory.’

Fidelma grimaced. ‘I doubt whether the Uí Fidgente do anything without a purpose, so I do not think they would attack us for merely looking at this unfortunate. If they did not want travellers to observe this body then they, whoever they might be, would have cut it down, not left it hanging in this place.’

Gormán did not appear reassured. He kept his sword ready in his hand while his eyes darted here and there in case of unexpected dangers.

‘I wonder who or what this young man was?’

Fidelma suddenly bent from her horse and reached out to take the left hand of the corpse, peering at the palm and fingers. She then stared awhile at the fingers of the right hand before letting it go with a sigh.

‘And what does that tell you?’ Eadulf asked with an expression of repugnance on his features.

‘It tells me that the young man wore a ring on the third finger of his left hand which, over the years, has left a mark. His palms and fingers are soft, so he did not do manual work – but the nails are torn and there is blood under them, so he must have either used his hands to fight his captors or tried to dig himself out of some prison.’

‘You think he was a noble?’

‘There are other people in society who do not do manual work,’ she replied.

‘Well, this is a frustrating trip,’ Eadulf complained. ‘We have moved from one mystery to another and there is no information to take us forward to a resolution of either of them.’

A small smile flickered on Fidelma’s lips. ‘If life’s mysteries were easy, Eadulf, then there would be little for me to do and I should doubtless pine away with boredom.’

They had reached the marshland country around Ulla with its small hill called Cnoc Ulla rising barely fifty metres above them but seemingly out of place on the flat plain. Below the hill was a collection of buildings, which was where Fidelma had proposed to spend the long winter night before moving on to Mungairit. It was twilight as they approached, that strange grey light that appears in the moments approaching sundown. And it was in this light that Gormán, once more riding a little way ahead, saw the condition of the buildings they were approaching. His hand again went to his sword-hilt.

‘The buildings are in ruins,’ he muttered as they came up alongside him. ‘We must be careful.’

Fidelma examined them for a moment. ‘Some time has passed since this was done. This probably occurred during the raids that Étain of An Dún and her followers made.’

Gormán relaxed a little. ‘I had forgotten they were active in this area. You are right. They wreaked much devastation here.’

Being mainly wooden constructions, the fires had consumed almost all the habitations. There was little left but the three travellers were thankful that there were no signs of human remains. From the look of things, either the attackers, survivors or those who had come later had cleared up the human debris. Étain of An Dún, in her attempt to create war in the kingdom, had exacted a high price for her madness. But now she was dead and the kingdom was supposedly at peace.

‘A pity,’ Fidelma said, regarding the ruins.

‘Where is the next settlement?’ asked Eadulf. ‘We can’t stay here.’

‘There is no other settlement close by that I know of,’ replied Gormán. ‘At least none that we can reach before darkness.’

‘Then there is nothing for it but to find the least damaged of the buildings and make ourselves as comfortable as possible for the night,’ decided Fidelma.

‘At least we have firewood enough,’ Eadulf observed with cynical humour.

At one end of what had been the settlement they found the remains of a substantial construction. It appeared to have been built mainly of stones, although the door and windows had been burned away.

‘A chapel, I think,’ Eadulf observed. ‘I wonder where everyone went?’

‘If any of them survived at all,’ Fidelma commented dourly as she dismounted. ‘Let’s look inside and see if we can make it habitable for the night.’

A corner of the drystone-built chapel seemed surprisingly undamaged. The roof of wooden planking had fallen, but against a beam which kept it secure from the ground so that one could still stand up with head clearance in the area. Apart from dust, the flagstones were relatively clean, enough to provide a comfortable sleeping area.

‘We can lay a fire here,’ Fidelma pointed to an area before this sheltered section, ‘and that should keep us warm.’

Eadulf set off to gather firewood, while Gormán saw to the horses in a small enclosed space behind the building. Perhaps it had once been the garden of the religious who had occupied the little chapel. The wooden fencing had only been damaged slightly and the warrior was able to rearrange the railings to make a secure paddock. The grasses had grown wild and were enough for the animals to graze upon.

Fidelma had asked Gormán to locate a spring or brook where they might find fresh water. No settlement was built without a supply of fresh water. Gormán, who had brought the goatskin water bags with him, set off to look amongst the burned ruins of the homesteads that had sprawled around the stone church. There was no immediate sign of a brook flowing through the centre of the settlement and so the young warrior realised it must run outside its blackened borders. Logic told him that if there was a spring it would rise on the hill behind. He began to move in that direction when a faint sound caught his ear. It came from the far side of the desolate remains of the buildings. Once more, he eased his sword in its scabbard and moved forward carefully and silently, making sure that he stayed close to the cover afforded by what remained of the buildings. As he grew nearer to the sounds, he recognised them as the high-pitched yelping and growling of puppies.

The end of the ruined village was marked by the very gushing burn he had been seeking. It came tumbling down the hillside of Cnoc Ulla, snaking its way onwards across the plain. In and across this small burn frolicked four clumsy grey puppies, snarling, biting and play-fighting with each other. Gormán smiled and was about to relax when his eyes caught sight of a majestic, immobile figure. Seated on a round rock by the burn was a magnificent slate-grey animal, the mother wolf watching her progeny at play through slanted green eyes, edged with red. There was white fur around her muzzle, her sharp yellowing fangs snapping now and then as one of the puppies came tumbling too close.

Gormán froze as he watched her, for he knew how dangerous it was to be close to a mother wolf protecting her young offspring at play. He knew of the ferocity and might of those sharp fangs, the power of those muscles in that heavy-set animal. He hardly dared breathe in case the intake of his breath came to the sharp ears of the wolf. His blood turned to ice as he saw the ears of the beast prick forward and the muzzle rise as her nostrils sniffed the air. A moment later came a sound high above on the hillside. The she-wolf rose and it seemed her mane stiffened and she bared her fangs. Now, clearly, above them, carried on the breeze, came a curious wailing sound. Gormán recognised it as the hunting call of the wolves. The beast turned and let out a series of short, sharp barks, before trotting off up the hillside. The four puppies ceased their play immediately and, in obedience to her call, went scampering after her.

It was some time before Gormán felt the tension in his body release. When he was sure that the vixen and her brood were gone he made his way slowly to the burn, following it up the hill a little before dipping his hand into the water to taste it to ensure it was clean and fresh. Keeping one eye on the slopes of the hill for any threatening movement, he filled his water bags. The sky was almost dark when he returned to the chapel where Eadulf had already lit a fire which provided both light and heat for the cold night that would soon be upon them. They could already feel a chilly breeze crossing the plains and whispering around the isolated hill under which they sheltered.