Night of the Lightbringer Read online

  Contents

  Cover

  A Selection of Recent Titles by Peter Tremayne

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Principal Characters

  Map

  Author’s Note

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  L’envoi

  A Selection of Recent Titles by Peter Tremayne

  The Sister Fidelma Mysteries

  WHISPERS OF THE DEAD

  THE LEPER’S BELL

  MASTER OF SOULS

  A PRAYER FOR THE DAMNED

  DANCING WITH DEMONS

  THE COUNCIL OF THE CURSED

  THE DOVE OF DEATH

  THE CHALICE OF BLOOD

  BEHOLD A PALE HORSE

  THE SEVENTH TRUMPET

  ATONEMENT OF BLOOD

  THE DEVIL’S SEAL

  THE SECOND DEATH

  PENANCE OF THE DAMNED

  NIGHT OF THE LIGHTBRINGER *

  * available from Severn House

  NIGHT OF THE LIGHTBRINGER

  Peter Tremayne

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  First published in the USA 2018 by

  SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD of

  Eardley House, 4 Uxbridge Street, London W8 7SY

  This eBook edition first published in 2018 by Severn House Digital

  an imprint of Severn House Publishers Limited

  Trade paperback edition first published

  in the USA 2018 by

  SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD

  Copyright © 2018 by Peter Tremayne.

  The right of Peter Tremayne to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988.

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

  ISBN-13: 978-0-7278-8817-4 (cased)

  ISBN-13: 978-1-84751-928-3 (trade paper)

  ISBN-13: 978-1-78010-973-2 (e-book)

  Except where actual historical events and characters are being described for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to living persons is purely coincidental.

  This ebook produced by

  Palimpsest Book Production Limited,

  Falkirk, Stirlingshire, Scotland

  In memory of my ‘anam cara’

  DOROTHEA CHEESMUR ELLIS

  (11 September 1940–30 March 2016)

  There was a Door to which I found no Key:

  There was a Veil through which I could not see

  Some little talk awhile of Me and Thee

  There was – and then no more of Thee and Me.

  Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám

  transl. Edward FitzGerald

  Quomodo cecidisti de caelo lucifer qui mane oriebaris corruisti in terram qui vulnerabas gentes.

  How art thou fallen from heaven O Lucifer, son of the morning! How art thou cut down to the ground, which did weaken the nations!

  Isaiah 14-12

  Vulgate Latin translation of Jerome 4th century

  PRINCIPAL CHARACTERS

  Sister Fidelma of Cashel, a dálaigh or advocate of the law courts of 7th-century Ireland

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

  At the Lateran Palace, Rome

  The Venerable Gelasius, Nomenclator of the Lateran Palace

  Brother Pothinus Maturis, Praecipuus of the Secret Archive

  Brother Lucidus, agent of the Nomenclator

  At Cashel

  Colgú, King of Muman and brother to Fidelma

  Dar Luga, ainbertach or housekeeper of the royal palace

  Fíthel, Chief Brehon of Muman

  Alchú, son of Fidelma and Eadulf

  Muirgen, nurse to Alchú

  Nessan, a shepherd, Muirgen’s husband

  Spélan, a shepherd

  Brother Conchobhar, an apothecary

  Rumann, the tavern-keeper

  Curnan, a woodsman in charge of the Samhain bonfire

  Febal, of the Uí Briúin Seóla of Connacht

  Warriors of the Nasc Niadh, or Golden Collar, the King’s Bodyguard

  Gormán, commander

  Aidan, second-in-command

  Dego

  Enda

  Luan

  Religious council of Cashel

  Brother Mac Raith, steward of the Abbey of Imleach

  Brother Sionnach of the Abbey of Corcach Mór

  Brother Duibhinn of the Abbey of Ard Mór

  Brother Giolla Rua of the Abbey of Ros Ailithir

  At the Hill of the Bullock

  Brancheó, the raven-caller

  Torcán, a woodsman

  Éimhin, his wife

  At Ráth Cuáin Abbey

  Abbot Síoda

  Brother Tadhg, aistreóir or gatekeeper

  Brother Gébennach, leabhar coimedach or keeper of books

  Sister Fioniúr, the herbalist

  At Cnocgorm

  Erca, the Druid and hermit

  Secondary Named Characters

  Della, Gormán’s mother

  Aibell, Gorman’s wife

  Abbot Cuán of the Abbey of Imleach

  Gelgéis, Princess of Éile

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  The events in this story follow in chronological sequence from Penance of the Damned. The year is AD 671 and it is the end of the month known in Old Irish as Mí Forba, the month of completion. This equates with modern October. This was considered the last month of the old Celtic year.

  The following month was Cet Gaimrid, the ‘first of winter’, which is, of course, November. The ancient Irish, like their Indo-European cousins, the Hindus, believed that the year started in a period of darkness and eventually wakened into light. So the end of summer was marked by the pagan feast of Samhain (sam = summer and fuin = end of). It was one of the four great festivals of the Celtic year. The Irish, like all the Celtic peoples, marked the passage of time by nights followed by days – and so their celebrations began during the night.

  Samhain was a time when the start of the dark period was marked by the building of bonfires; a festival of light, with attendant rituals, to ward off the dangers that darkness brought. Samhain was also a time of spiritual danger, for it was then that the borders between the natural and supernatural worlds ceased to exist; a time when those who had been wronged could return from the Otherworld to wreak vengeance on the living; a time of primeval chaos.

  The early Christians found such pre-Christian beliefs hard to suppress until Pope Gregory I (AD 590–604) instructed that pre-Christian beliefs and sacred sit
es should be Christianised simply by re-dedicating them to the New Faith instead of attempting to destroy them. The Roman Christians had already begun to hold a special festival for their martyred dead and Pope Boniface IV (AD 608–615), who had consecrated the Pantheon as a new Christian church in honour of these martyrs, had set aside 1 May as All Saints’ Day.

  However, in AD 834 Pope Sergius II found that most people in Western Europe were not observing this feast day, preferring to observe the more ancient pre-Christian festival of Samhain at the start of winter, in memory of the dead. He therefore transferred the feast day to 1 November, naming it All Souls’ Day. As the Anglo-Saxon word for ‘saint’ was halig it also became known as All Hallows’ Day in the English-speaking world, and the evening before thereby has become Hallowe’en.

  As diluted as the rituals of the modern Hallowe’en have become, it is still remembered as the one night of the year that great spiritual danger threatens the living by the Shades from the Otherworld.

  It should be noted that, in spite of Fidelma’s earnest hope expressed towards the end of this story that Christian abbots and bishops would not always enjoy secular power as princes, at least three of her own Eóghanacht descendants were King-Bishops of Muman (Munster). These were Fedelmid, son of Crimthainn (d. AD 846), Ólchobar, son of Cináeda (d. AD 851) and, most famous of all, Cormac, son of Cuilennáin (d. AD 908).

  ONE

  There were some who said that old Pothinus Maturis had been one of the officials of the Lateran Palace since the Emperor Constantine had given it in perpetuity to the Bishop of Rome. That was obviously not so, because the Emperor’s allegiance to the New Faith and his declaration that it become the Faith of the empire was three centuries earlier to the very day that Pothinus Maturis entered service in the Lateran Palace. It had taken him twenty-five years to attain the position of Praecipuus of the Archivum Secretum of the Sacrosancta Laternensis ecclesia omnium urbis et orbis ecclesiarum mater et caput … the palace of the Holy Father of the Universal Church of Christ.

  Praecipuus Pothinus was now an elderly man. He was almost a recluse in the palace for he spoke to none and had made no friends in all the years that he had worked among the archives. He was a sober, reflective man, keeping his own counsel and guarding the archives as if they were the very Gates of Heaven.

  Only the most senior officials of the papal palace were allowed into the archive, which had been constructed behind the old Basilica. Constantine himself had ordered its construction when he had the stables of the imperial horse-guard barracks demolished after the guards had not shown sufficient loyalty to their Emperor. The archives remained secure, set apart from the rest of the ecclesiastical buildings. The documents contained in the Archivum Secretum justified their place there by virtue of their controversial nature. Most had been declared heretical to the accepted theology after such ideas were overturned by one council or another. Many were gospels that were at odds with those texts chosen to constitute the main fabric of the Faith. Damasus I, as Holy Father, had ordered Eusebius Hieronymus Sophronius to translate and compile the chosen texts into a Latin standard which would be the Biblos, the sacred foundation for the faithful.

  Praecipuus Pothinus was proud of his unique position of trust as keeper of the abandoned contentious works which had been rejected as divisive tools which might further split the factions of Christendom. It was because of this, on one particular day, that an astounding thing happened in the Lateran Palace. Those who knew Praecipuus Pothinus by sight could not believe the evidence of their own eyes. The elderly man was witnessed almost running through the corridors of the palace towards the office of the Nomenclator, the chief secretary to His Holiness. The awkward slap of his sandals on the shiny marble floortiles resounded along the corridors and made people stop to stare in awe and concern.

  He finally reached his destination – a forbidding oak door. Apparently forgetting all sense of protocol, he did not pause to knock but grasped the brass handle and burst into the room beyond. Only then did he halt before the man seated at the desk in front of him. Praecipuus Pothinus’ shoulders were heaving at the exertion of running; his breath coming in short staccato rasps.

  The man at the desk glanced up, startled at the arrival. Even seated, it was obvious that he was tall, with tufts of black hair emerging from under his skullcap. His swarthy skin spoke of one who spent time in the sun of Rome and not just in the darkened interiors of the ecclesiastic buildings. His prominent, aquiline nose would have graced any Roman patrician, especially with the addition of a mouth twisted into a permanent sneer, the thin lips darkened as if artificially coloured. The hooded eyes seemed to carry no place for compassion. Even if the features did not declare his position of authority, the jewels set into the ornate silver cross that hung round his neck, the scarlet tunica of office, the udones, white stockings, and campagi, black slippers, protruding from under the desk, all proclaimed it.

  It took a few seconds for him to recover from his surprise and for Praecipuus Pothinus to regain sufficient breath.

  ‘Gone, Venerable Gelasius!’ Pothinus gasped. ‘It’s gone!’

  The Nomenclator sat back and regarded the other man coldly.

  ‘Gather yourself, Pothinus. Gather yourself and then tell me carefully and explicitly … what has gone that you bring yourself unannounced before me in such an unseemly fashion?’

  Praecipuus Pothinus sucked in a few more breaths until he was confident that he could express himself clearly.

  ‘The Sefer Ya’akov,’ he finally managed. ‘It has gone from the archive.’

  The Venerable Gelasius frowned. ‘I am no scholar of the Hebrews, Pothinus. What has gone missing?’

  ‘The Biblos Iakobos.’ The man translated to the Greek before adding, ‘It has gone and—’

  The Venerable Gelasius held up a thin, almost delicate hand and glanced around him as if seeking any potential eavesdroppers. ‘We would not want any heretical expression to be overheard by the wrong ears.’

  Pothinus waved a hand as if it was of no consequence.

  ‘The point is that during the night, someone forced an entrance to the archive, got in and stole it. When I came to the archive this morning, I could see an open window and knew that it had been closed when I left. So I began to check the manuscripts and the archives. It did not take me long to see that the section of works in Hebrew and Aramaic had been tampered with. I immediately checked each one against my index and found that the Biblos Iakobos was missing. Of all the books in the archive, that one is the most dangerous to the Faith. What shall we do?’ He began to wring his hands.

  ‘What shall we do, Praecipuus Pothinus?’ the Venerable Gelasius asked icily. ‘For the factions of heretics who deny the divine birth, that book would be of tremendous support in advancing their cause. It is already hard to suppress all the works that refer to Iakobos as the brother of …’ He halted and shrugged. ‘If I recall correctly, this work was purportedly written by Iakobos, or Iacomus as we call him, before he met his death at the hands of the Sanhedrin. The Nazarenes, whom Iacomus led, are still in existence, claiming they are merely part of the Jewish Faith and that Jesus was just a Rabbi.’

  ‘But what are we to do?’ Praecipuus Pothinus’ voice was almost a wail.

  ‘You have not spoken of this to anyone?’ the Nomenclator demanded.

  ‘Not to report the loss of the book. I did question one of the custodes, Licinius.’ The custodes were the military guards of the Lateran Palace. ‘He was on duty last night outside the archives. I simply asked him if he knew whether there had been any suspicious or untoward activity around the building during the night.’

  ‘Are you sure you did not tell him about the loss of the book?’ Venerable Gelasius insisted.

  ‘I did not. However, the custodes told me that he had encountered two pilgrims, the worse for our good Italian wine, outside the building. He remonstrated with them on their indecorous behaviour and they eventually left for their hostel.’

  ‘You
speak as though they were foreigners.’

  ‘They were. Licinius said they were barbarians. He identified them as coming from that western island that gives the Holy Father such problems with the date of the Paschal ceremony, with rites and ritual and even the way religious should dress. They refuse to accept the changes to these matters that the councils of Rome have declared as the more accurate and appropriate. You know – those strange, wild people who prefer their own interpretations of the Faith to the wisdom that Rome can offer them.’

  ‘You mean the Five Kingdoms of Éire?’ The Venerable Gelasius almost smiled in recollection. ‘I learned much about that country from a woman who was a lawyer of that peculiar race.’

  Praecipuus Pothinus looked shocked. ‘A woman? A lawyer?’

  ‘She had a good deductive mind,’ admitted the Nomenclator thoughtfully.

  ‘Well, if those barbarians were involved in the theft then they have already fled Rome,’ declared the Praecipuus.

  ‘How do you know that?’ the Venerable Gelasius asked sharply.

  ‘Custodes Licinius told me that he had asked these barbarians where they were staying. Their leader told Licinius that they had been celebrating their last night in Rome before beginning the journey back to their godforsaken island.’

  Venerable Gelasius shook his head reprovingly at him. ‘No island on this earth is godforsaken, Pothinus. Did this custodes obtain the names of these barbarians?’

  ‘He tried, but they had strange, foreign names which he did not understand so took no note of. They merely admitted that they were from this western island and the custodes observed that they were not as abstemious as are most pilgrims to our city.’

  ‘So you believe that they have probably already left Rome?’

  ‘I would say so. What makes me suspicious is that the custodes observed that the leader carried a book satchel. It is an odd thing to carry when one is out celebrating.’

  Venerable Gelasius frowned thoughtfully for a few moments, drumming his fingers on his desk top.

  ‘Tell no one of this loss until I give you leave. We must not admit it publicly, especially not about so dangerous a document. The contents and the name of its author could destroy all that we have built over the years and call Christendom.’