A Prayer for the Damned (13 page)

Lady Aíbnat’s expression was one of malignant dislike but Fidelma simply ignored her.

‘I do not understand?’ Muirchertach frowned.

‘No matter. What happened next?’

‘Brehon Baithen and the commander of Colgú’s guard came here soon after. Baithen told me that I had been seen fleeing from Abbot Ultán’s chamber moments before they had discovered his body. He accused me of the murder and of fleeing from the scene.’

Fidelma’s expression did not change. ‘Did Baithen claim that he had witnessed the murder?’

Muirchertach gave her a hard look. ‘How could he?’ he demanded. ‘I did not do it.’

‘So you would argue that all he saw was you leaving the chamber?’

‘I do not dispute that he saw me leave the abbot’s chamber. What I do dispute is the claim that I killed Ultán.’

‘And all you know of the circumstances of the death of Abbot Ultán is that you went to his chamber and found him dead and left?’

‘That is all I know,’ agreed Muirchertach.

Fidelma eyed him thoughtfully. ‘There is surely something more to tell me?’

Muirchertach looked uncertain.

‘The most important thing,’ prompted Fidelma. ‘Why did you go to see Abbot Ultán in his chamber at that time? It was close to midnight.’

‘Why?’ Muirchertach blinked as if he had not expected the question.

‘You must have had a reason,’ she pointed out.

Once again Fidelma saw the king glance helplessly towards his wife. It was as if he was seeking her permission to speak. Fidelma swung round to the woman, meeting her hostile gaze levelly.

‘Was it a matter that concerned you, lady Aíbnat?’ Her tone was abrupt.

Aíbnat’s expression told her that her guess had hit home. Muirchertach’s wife made no reply. The corners of her mouth tightened in defiance.

Fidelma heaved a sigh. ‘This matter can be dealt between us in a sympathetic way now or it can be extracted in the legal proceedings before the Chief Brehon of the Five Kingdoms …’

Muirchertach frowned and broke in: ‘What has Brehon Barrán to do with this matter?’

‘Have you not been told?’ Fidelma asked softly. ‘When it comes to a hearing, then it is Brehon Barrán who will sit in judgement and the High King himself will sit with him.’

‘When
it comes to a hearing?’ snapped Aíbnat. ‘You mean
if
!’

Fidelma shook her head. ‘Unless you can provide me with evidence of facts to counter the accusation, it is definitely
when.’

Muirchertach looked confused for a moment or two before his shoulders slumped and he nodded.

‘I suppose that is logical,’ he commented in a low voice. Once more he gave his wife an almost pleading look.

Aíbnat suddenly said, ‘Does that mean that there is a chance that it will not come to a public hearing?’

Fidelma glanced at her. ‘There is always a chance in these matters. If I am told the truth and can persuade both the prosecutor and the Chief Brehon that this truth is such that the guilt must lie elsewhere, then there is no need for a hearing before the courts. It depends on your husband and yourself, as a witness to his defence, as to how I am to proceed.’

Aíbnat’s thin lips compressed into a line for a moment before she turned to glance at Muirchertach and nodded slightly.

Her husband cleared his throat softly. ‘I fear the truth will do me no good, Fidelma of Cashel.’

‘Why is that?’

‘Because I went to Ultán’s chamber to kill him.’

Eadulf was too restless to go back to his chamber and rest and he was not hungry enough to enjoy the first meal of the day. Instead, he put on his cloak of beaver skins and went out on the walkway round the great walls of the fortress. Below he could see the town stirring, thin wisps of smoke from many fires rising into the turbulent air. He could hear the distant noise of people unaware of the drama of the night, making their preparations for the great fair and entertainment that was due to be held later that day. Surrounding the wood and stone structures of the town were many pavilions and tents that were housing the visitors who had come to witness and join the celebrations.

Eadulf walked slowly round the walls. The cloudy sky was lowering again and there was the promise of more rain in the air. The wind was cold but not as chilly as it had been in previous days. It seemed to be blowing from the south. There was a shimmer of white across the plain that showed a frost was still lying on the ground. He could see sheep flocks moving across the plain with their shepherds, dark shapes against the flat whiteness.

Along the walkway a sentinel raised a hand in greeting with a smile. Eadulf acknowledged the salutation and walked on, breathing
deeply in the cold morning air. He found it helped to clear the fuzziness of his mind. Lack of sleep was debilitating, and when it reached the state when the mind was too tired to rest it caused an additional sense of frustration.

He suddenly became aware of another figure at the corner of the walkway: an elderly man in a short woollen cloak with rabbit fur trimming. The long hair was white and tied back with a leather thong. The figure seemed familiar, but it took a moment for Eadulf to recognise him.

‘Give you a good day, Ordwulf,’ he called, reverting to his Saxon speech.

The old man turned, startled, the eyes wide like those of someone caught at some illegal enterprise. Then he frowned as if trying to recall who Eadulf was. Eadulf realised that at their previous encounter Ordwulf had seemed to live in his own world, and he wondered whether the father of Berrihert was senile.

‘I am Eadulf of Seaxmund’s Ham, in the land of the South Folk,’ he said gently. ‘We met two days ago when …’

Ordwulf made a thrusting gesture with his hand. ‘I know, I know. Do you take me for an imbecile?’

Eadulf was a little puzzled at the angry retort. ‘Of course not.’ Then a thought came to him. ‘I understood that you and your sons had accommodation in the town? I did not realise that you were staying in the fortress.’

‘We are in some place set aside for religious in the town,’ muttered the old man. ‘But I came here at first light, when they opened the gates. There was someone I wanted to see.’ He turned back to gaze across the battlement towards the distant mountains in the north. ‘It is a pleasant enough land, but it is not Deira,’ he said.

Eadulf knew that Berrihert and his brothers had come from the southern area of Northumbria, the old independent kingdom of Deira which Athelfrith of Bernicia had conquered, uniting the two kingdoms as the land north of the River Humber – Northumbria. That had been within the living memory of some.

Ordwulf grimaced at the distant mountains. ‘There is no sea coast here. My
tun
, my fortress, stood on the coast. I was once lord as far as I could see along the sea’s low dim level. From north to south
along the shoreline, I was lord. Now I am an exile in this strange land.’

‘Are you homesick for Deira?’ Eadulf enquired politely.

‘Homesick?’ The old man seemed to contemplate the question for a while. ‘I do not long for places. I long for my dead wife and for comrades who once peopled those places.’

Eadulf stood feeling uncomfortable for a moment.

‘Tempori parendum,’
he muttered.

The old man cast a disapproving look at him. ‘You have the gift to speak good Saxon. Speak it, for I am sick of foreign gibberish!’

‘I said that one must yield to time,’ explained Eadulf. ‘As time changes so must we change with it.’

‘Unctuous rubbish!’ snapped Ordwulf. Eadulf blinked at the vehemence in his voice. ‘Time is a thief. It took Aelgifu, my wife, from me and what did it leave me?’

‘With three fine sons, at least,’ Eadulf pointed out. ‘Sons to be proud of.’

‘Fine sons, you say?’ The old Saxon warrior turned to him and seemed to take in his manner of dress as if for the first time, examining him from poll to feet. He scowled. ‘I suppose your kind would say that?’

‘What do you mean?’ Eadulf was beginning to be irritated. He felt the insult in the man’s words but did not understand the meaning of it.

‘Three sons all entered into this New Faith of yours. All pious and holy and not one of them a warrior.’

‘Why wish your sons to be warriors? Is it not better to serve God and help people live than to take up the sword and meet an early death?’

‘Help people live? Had even one of them been a warrior, my wife might yet have lived, instead of dying in this strange land. May Hel be waiting at the gates of Nifheim, the place of mist, to receive him that caused her death.’

Eadulf shuddered a little as the old man called upon Hel, the ancient goddess of death. Eadulf had been raised with the old gods and goddesses of his people and even now he sometimes felt the power of the old deities – of Woden, Thunor, Tyr and Freya – and realised
that he still feared them. But above all he feared Hel who ruled the land of the dead.

‘Do you reject the New Faith?’ he rebuked the old man.

Ordwulf gave a wheezy laugh. ‘The old faith was good enough for my forefathers and me. When my time comes, let me have my battleaxe in my right hand and Woden’s name on my lips so that I may enter Wael Halla and feast with the gods and heroes of my people.’

‘Yet your sons …’ Eadulf began to protest.

‘My sons!’ sneered the old man. ‘They could not protect their own mother from the members of the very Faith they espoused. I curse them! I curse them as I rejoice that he who took my lady Aelgifu from me is now sped to suffer the tortures of the damned. May Hel eat his living flesh!’

The old man spat over the wall and then turned and hurried away, leaving Eadulf staring after him in horror.

Fidelma was regarding Muirchertach Nár in astonishment.

‘Are you admitting that you went to Abbot Ultán’s chamber to murder him?’ she asked incredulously.

Muirchertach lowered his head with a deep sigh. ‘I went with that intention but I did not do so. I did not do so for the simple reason that someone else had already killed him.’

Fidelma sat back in her chair and folded her hands in her lap, trying to re-form her features to keep the surprise out of her face. She stared long and hard at him.

‘Can you tell me why you went with this intention?’

Muirchertach glanced at his wife. She appeared to shrug indifferently as if she had washed her hands of the matter.

‘My wife has told you that she was of the Uí Briúin Aí. Have you heard of the poetess Searc of that clan?’

Fidelma was unfamiliar with the name and shook her head.

‘Searc was the younger Sister of my wife. She was a gentle, affectionate girl, as befitted her name,’ Muirchertach explained. Fidelma was reminded that the name Searc actually meant ‘love’ or ‘affection’.

‘I presume that she is dead since you speak in the past tense,’ Fidelma commented.

‘She is. Had she lived, she would have become one of the greatest of our poets.’

‘Go on,’ Fidelma prompted, after he had paused again.

‘Searc had the ability to become as great a poetess as Liadan or Ita. Five years and more have passed since Connacht acknowledged her as among the foremost of its
banfilidh
, or female poets. So she went on her first circuit to the centres of the five kingdoms to recite her poetry at the great festivals. She attended a gathering at Ard Macha and it was there that she met a young poet called Senach.’

He paused and Fidelma waited patiently for him to gather his thoughts. She glanced at Aíbnat, who sat staring into the fire. The woman had a controlled expression on her features and it was as if she was not really hearing what was being said.

‘They fell in love with each other,’ he continued. ‘Senach was a member of the abbey of Cill Ria and when he returned there after the poetry festival in Ard Macha, Searc followed him.’

This time when he paused, Fidelma said: ‘I presume that Ultán was abbot of Cill Ria by this time?’

‘Ultán was abbot at the time,’ Muirchertach confirmed.

‘So, tell me what happened.’

‘I think that you know by now of Abbot Ultán’s attitudes. He is one of those reformers who now advocates celibacy among the religious. He made all the members of his abbey swear an oath that they would shun the company of the opposite sex. Cill Ria was once a mixed house, a
conhospitae
. He divided it into two separate communities. Apparently Senach approached Abbot Ultán wishing to be absolved from his oath to the abbey so that he might transfer to a
conhospitae
which did not adhere to the rules of celibacy. Ultán refused outright. He went further and had Senach locked in his cell, and when Searc came looking for the boy he had her driven from the locality by monks wielding birch sticks.’

‘Such an act is unlawful,’ protested Fidelma, in horror. ‘No one can physically attack a woman with impunity.’

‘Abbot Ultán claimed refuge in the
Penitentials,’
Muirchertach explained. ‘It was not the first time that he ordered his followers to beat a woman whom he claimed had transgressed against the rules of the Faith … or his version of them, anyway. I have heard that there
were even some who did not recover from the beatings that he had ordered.’

Fidelma grimaced in disapproval. ‘If this is true, then how could this man survive among his fellow religious? Indeed, how could he become an emissary of the Comarb of Patrick?’

‘He had friends in high places. A friend can be more powerful than an army in some respects. He has been protected.’

‘Are we to yield our law to these foreign ideas from Rome without protest?’ muttered Aíbnat.

‘We do not know exactly what happened,’ went on Muirchertach, not answering her protest. ‘According to one story, Abbot Ultán had Senach escorted against his will to a pilgrim ship which set out for Abbot Ronan’s monastery at Mazerolles in Gaul. The ship never reached Gaul and there was talk of its having been attacked by Frankish pirates and those on board killed. Such stories reached Searc, who believed them and … He glanced at Aíbnat.

‘My sister killed herself,’ Aíbnat’s voice was harsh.

Muirchertach compressed his lips for a moment.

‘In her desperation, she threw herself from a cliff,’ he added.