The Mammoth Book of Historical Crime Fiction (20 page)

“Ahead of us is Sliabh Coimeálta,” she announced, indicating the height. Then pointing, “Along the south bank of the river is a stone circle. If we turn directly south from there we will be able to climb into the high pass.”

Eadulf groaned. “So you want to go back to see if those hill-farming folk were rescued?”

“It should only be a few hours detour, for it’s a fair day. We can rejoin the main road south of Motharshliabh and there are several hostels along the route where we can stay if we are unduly delayed.”

Eadulf glanced at her speculatively. “You are really intrigued by what happened to you the other night.” He made it a statement, not a question.

She nodded slowly. “Let us say that I do not like mysteries that have no solution. There are certain things I want to rest my mind about.”

It was midday when Fidelma called a halt again. The twisting valley was still covered in snow and it was hard for her to locate their position. She knew from the outline of Sliabh Coimeálta, across the valley to her right that she was on the right track but she could not locate the spot where the hill-farm stood. That she found curious. The two dark buildings should have been obvious on the hillside. Eadulf looked on as she tried to take a bearing from the peaks around her. She was certain, snow or no snow, she would have been able to see the buildings on her left, a little way up the hill. She compressed her lips in vexation.

“You did come here in a snowstorm,” Eadulf pointed out, trying to reason with her. “Things might have seemed entirely different.”

She shook her head. “But I did not leave in a snowstorm. I took bearings from the peaks. The farmstead should be somewhere up the hill in front of us.”

Eadulf looked carefully over the slopes. Suddenly he uttered a sharp exclamation. “You are right. There
were
some buildings. There, look …”

Following his outstretched hand, Fidelma could see some dark patches a little way up the hill. Patches that were not part of the natural hillside. The snow had fallen and covered whatever it had been. Fidelma slid from her horse and looked about her, seeking to find a stone or object to secure the reins of her horse. Then she began to scramble up the hillside. After a moment’s hesitation, Eadulf followed her example.

For Fidelma, there was something very familiar about the flat space she paused on. She breathed out long and hard. Beside her, Eadulf was puzzled. “It looks like a demolished cabin,” he muttered, as his eyes drifted over the stones and pieces of wood that were strewn around.

“That was the cabin I spent the night in,” she replied softly.

Eadulf shivered slightly at the tone in her voice.

“But you said …” he began.

“I know what I said. I know what happened,” her voice was now confident.

Eadulf moved forward and began to brush the coating of snow from the stones and wood. Then he turned to her with a serious expression.

“Where did you say the barn was?”

Fidelma pointed without saying anything further. Eadulf went to explore, scraping the snow away here and there. Then he looked up with a shake of his head.

“One thing is for certain, a cabin and a barn stood here until a short while ago.”

Fidelma turned quickly. “You mean that it was knocked down recently?”

“That I do,” replied Eadulf. “And that must have taken several men, working hard, for some hours. Where they have left bits of wood, it has been smashed and obviously one can see that the breaks are not weathered. This was done very recently. But who did it and why? If there had been no snowfall during the last few days then we might have seen the remains of the buildings earlier.”

“Maybe we were meant to ride past without noticing them. But did they drive off the cow, the goats and the chickens?”

“That would be logical,” agreed Eadulf. “Also, you will have noticed that most of the timbers and a lot of the domestic materials are not here. Only the bits of rough-hewn stone that could not be removed have been left, knocked down and spread about. But why?”

“There must be some evidence of where the remains of this cabin and barn have been taken.”

“With the snows of the last two days and nights, I doubt we could find a trail,” murmured Eadulf, glancing around. He crossed back to the ruins of the cabin and stared at it thoughtfully. Then he suddenly bent down and rubbed snow away from some objects on the ground. He rose, holding them in his hand. “Maybe they were in a hurry, for these seem valuable, too valuable to leave behind.”

Fidelma moved forward and peered at them closely.

“Not the usual tools of a hill-farmer,” she muttered. “That is a
fonsura
, a chisel of the type used by miners, and that we call a lightning mallet, a
forcha-teinnighe
.” She suddenly smiled and nodded her head. “I think that I am beginning to understand.”

Eadulf gazed at her blankly. “Understand?”

“The voices I heard in the night. The thuds. What might have happened to the couple who lived here. Above all, why a man could leave no tracks in the snow. Why a so-called hill-farmer could have a colloquial knowledge of Latin. And why he would call himself Fáelur. It all begins to fit together.”

“I wish I could follow this,” sighed Eadulf. “Anyway, what do we do now?”

Fidelma was regarding the piles of stone which had marked the walls of the
bóthan
, and looked hard along the rocky slope that rose behind it and which bore towards the shoulder of the immediate hill.

“Come with me but watch where you are walking. It is very dangerous terrain here, I think. And, perhaps, we should be quiet.”

Eadulf regarded her in amazement but he shrugged and did as he was told.

Keeping her eyes close to the ground, Fidelma walked slowly up from what had been the back of the cabin towards the distant shoulder of the hill. The way led past large boulder-like rocks that were as tall as a man. She had not gone far when she paused by the side of one such boulder. She bent down. Peering over her shoulder, Eadulf could see a place where it seemed twigs and fronds had been laid, but which the fallen snow had almost covered. Fidelma removed one or two of these and revealed an opening into the ground.

Eadulf was about to say something when a sound caught his attention. A distant thudding and he was sure he heard a voice calling.

Fidelma turned quickly, a finger to her lips, and motioned him to back away, returning to the cabin.

“We must get away from here immediately,” she whispered.

Eadulf found the intensity in her voice frightening.

“Monsters? Dwellers underground? What is it?” he demanded.

She smiled thinly. “More dangerous than that. Come, let’s get our horses. We have a long ride ahead of us.”

“To Cashel?” Eadulf queried. “I thought we were going to stay at a
bruden
overnight?”

“We do not go to Cashel but to the fortress of Caol, the commander of my brother’s bodyguard. We should be able to reach it before nightfall. Caol will be able to raise warriors so that we can return and put an end to this evil business.”

***

It was two days later that a party of warriors, most of them wearing the golden torc collars of the élite warriors of the Nasc Niadh, bodyguards to the King of Muman, rode into the settlement of Béal Átha Gabhann. Fidelma and Eadulf were among them but it was Caol, their commander, who rode at their head. Swiftly he brushed aside the challenge of the guards, two warriors of Rechtabra, the tanist of the Airthir Chliach, by asserting the authority of the King. They stood uncertainly at the gates of the hunting lodge as Caol swept by them into the main hall. His men swiftly deployed to secure the place. Even as they did so, Rechtabra emerged from one of the rooms with Máen at his side. The tanist was red-faced in fury and demanded to know what was meant, while Scoth, with a female attendant, had emerged from another chamber. Scoth was looking frightened.

Caol had confronted them both. “We are on the business of your King.”

He then stood aside and signalled one of his men to allow Fidelma and Eadulf to make their entrance into the hall.

“Fidelma!” cried Scoth. “’What on earth does this mean?”

“I have come to talk about silver mines,” she said quietly.

Rechtabra’s brows drew together and made a dismissive gesture with one hand. “What nonsense is this?” he demanded. “Do you think I would break my word? I have told you, that I am prepared to answer Scoth’s allegations before my prince and his Brehon. What more do you want?”

“I want, cousin, to resolve a matter of illicit mining, of the kidnapping of workers to excavate the mine, and of the kidnapping of hill-farmers to prevent them revealing news of the whereabouts of the mine.”

“I have told you that there is nothing illegal about the mines I run,” snapped Rechtabra. “As for kidnapping …”

Scoth had turned to her cousin.

“Nothing illegal? You know full well that the mine is—”

“It is not of that particular matter I have come,” asserted Fidelma. “I speak of the silver mine in the high pass opposite Sliabh Coimeálta.”

Rechtabra stared at her for a moment and then laughed shortly. “There is no such mine there, let alone a silver mine.”

Fidelma regarded him for a moment as if trying to peer beyond his bland expression, and then she turned to examine Scoth in the same way. Then she shook her head sadly before she began to speak.

“The main entrance to the silver mine was hidden on the far side of the mountain. But the seams that the miners followed ran deep. One of the seams came through the hillside – underneath, or close enough, to the cabin of Cuilind and his wife, Ciarnat. Apparently, they heard the thudding and the voices of the miners at work under their cabin. Cuilind, roused from his sleep, went to investigate. He found one of the air tunnels and was trying to find where it led when the warriors, who were guarding the miners, caught him. Ciarnat heard his call but was caught also. Their guard-dog must have set up a barking and, the poor beast, for adhering to its duty, was bludgeoned to death.

“The warriors made Cuilind and Ciarnat prisoners but were unsure of what to do next. They left the hill-farm alone until they could send for orders. That was when I arrived and spent a curious night there. I tended to the animals and, in the cabin, during the night, I also heard the miners at work as Cuilind must have done. Thankfully, so it seems, I did not go to investigate as he had done. However, the next morning I was confronted by a man calling himself Fáelur, wolfman. A nice touch of the dramatic. He was the overseer of the mine, who had come through the air tunnel to check on the hill-farm.

“I was perturbed that there were no trace of his footprints on a path leading from the main track up to the cabin. How had he arrived there in the snow without leaving footprints? It almost gave confirmation to the story of mystic forces. But, of course, there were no footprints because Fáelur had not come to the cabin by that route, He had emerged from the air tunnel at the back of the cabin. He was as surprised to see me as I was to see him. Once he knew who I was, he did not want the problem of kidnapping the sister of the King of Muman and bringing down the wrath of Cashel on his head. So he tried to persuade me that the couple were lost on the mountain and that he was a relative and would organize a search. I have met with very few hill-farmers who spoke Latin to the extent of knowing some of its complicated axioms. That alerted me that he was not who he said he was.

“When I rode off, he believed I was satisfied that there was no mystery there. However, he sent someone to report the matter to the person who was in charge of the illicit mining. They ordered the destruction of the hill-farm so that any future travellers would not notice it. The miners were told to destroy the buildings and remove the livestock to the other side of the mountains on the east. A lot of the materials, the wood that constituted the barn and things from the cabin, were taken into the mine because it would be useful for shoring it up and helping the work. The kidnapped miners were forced to do this work. Thankfully, one of them purposely left his mining tools on the chance they might be spotted by someone who would ask questions.

“Indeed, there was one problem. My suspicion. When I mentioned that I was going back through the high pass to see how the search for Ciarnat and Cuilind progressed, a means had to be devised to ensure that I did not travel back that morning – so as to give the miners a chance to do their work of destruction. As it turned out, such subterfuge was superfluous. The snowstorm ensured that we were snowbound for several days before Eadulf and I could begin our journey to Cashel. We went with stories of the Fáelur ringing in our ears in an attempt to persuade us not to return through the high pass.”

She paused looking sadly from Scoth to Rechtabra.

“This is madness,” the tanist responded angrily. “There is no mine where you say it is. You will have to prove it.”

Fidelma sighed. “That I can do. Before we came here, Caol and his men raided the mine. We found Cuilind and Ciarnat and released them. The miners who had been kidnapped from local mines were also released. They were forced to work under armed guards, and the supervision of the person who called himself Fáelur. Fáelur was a professional miner and a specialist on silver mining. His motivation for the illicit mining was for a share of the profits. So there is proof enough for you, Rechtabra.”

The tanist was staring at her unable to speak. He stood, shaking his head.

Scoth glanced angrily at him. “I knew something strange was happening. I thought it was odd when those miners began to disappear. Was the mine very rich in silver, Fidelma?”

“I am told it is one of the richest mines that the men have ever worked in.”

“But how could Rechtabra hope to get away with the silver?”

“When I asked what motivation Rechtabra would have in trying to obtain the silver from a mine that you could prove belonged to you, you told me the motivation. With such riches, you said, one could go and live anywhere, for riches create power. Anywhere in the world, it is the same.” Fidelma paused and added quietly, “Where did you mean to go, Scoth?”