The Monk Who Vanished sf-7 Page 7

  Donndubhain held up his papers and smiled.

  ‘Your brother will be safeguarded until your return. I promise. Go safely, cousin, and come back swiftly.’

  The clouds that had so dominated the sky earlier that day had broken up. Now they drifted lazily and high like the fleece of grazing sheep, fluffy against the azure background with the afternoon sun occasionally breaking through to warm the pastures. There was still a faint breeze but the air was pleasant enough and not uncomfortable.

  Fidelma and Eadulf had reached a fork in the River Suir, about four miles west of Cashel, where a wooden bridge spanned the fast-flowing waters, crossing a small island in the middle on which stood a minute rath which served as a fortification to protect the approaches to Cashel in times of war. Now it was not used for no enemy host had come close enough to threaten the capital of the Eóghanacht for many years. On either side of the bridge, along the river bank, woodlands stretched for some way. The roadway across the bridge was, so far as Eadulf knew, the only main road westward out of Cashel, joining roads leading north and south on the far side of the river.

  Fidelma, riding her white mare from her brother’s stables, just in front of Eadulf, halted at the centre of the bridge. Eadulf drew rein on his sorrel colt, frowning.

  ‘What is it?’ he demanded.

  Fidelma had noticed that there was movement in the rath itself. Then from the shadows of the timbers at the end of the bridge, where it joined the island, two archers appeared with drawn bows. The arrows were strung and pointing in their direction. A third warrior, whose shield carried the insignia of a rampant boar, his sword casually held in his right hand, came forward a pace to halt between the archers. He was careful not to obstruct the bowmen’s aim.

  Fidelma’s eyes narrowed as she observed them.

  ‘Stay alert, Eadulf,’ she said quietly. ‘That warrior appears to be bearing the insignia of the Uí Fidgente.’

  She nudged her horse forward a few paces.

  ‘Halt!’ called the central warrior, raising his sword. ‘Come no further!’

  ‘Who gives orders on this bridge within sight of the King of Cashel’s s palace?’ she demanded in annoyance.

  The warrior laughed sourly. ‘One who wishes to stop people from crossing it, Sister,’ came the sarcastic riposte.

  ‘Know you that I am a dálaigh and you have no authority to refuse to let me pass,’ she called in annoyance.

  The man’s posture did not change. ‘I know well enough who you are, sister of Colgú. And I know your Saxon puppy of a companion there.’

  ‘Then, if you know that, you must also know that you have to clear the way, Uí Fidgente, for you have no right to block any public highway in this kingdom.’

  The warrior gestured to the archers behind him. ‘They give me the right.’

  ‘And who gives you your orders?’

  ‘My lord, Gionga, captain of the bodyguard of Prince Donennach. No one passes this bridge until the time of the hearing at Cashel. Those are the orders I have been given from my lord in order to prevent any further conspiracies against the Prince of the Uí Fidgente.’

  Fidelma’s eyes widened slightly. Her mind worked rapidly. So Gionga had posted a guard to stop her going to Imleach? The bridge guarded the only quick route across the river on the road to Imleach. How had Gionga known of her journey and why did he feel that he should prevent it? What did he fear that she could discover?

  ‘The bridge is closed to you,’ replied the warrior without volunteering further information. ‘Now be gone back to Cashel.’

  ‘My brother’s guard will soon unblock this barrier,’ she retorted.

  The warrior made a careful pantomime of looking in both directions. ‘I do not see your brother’s guard,’ he jeered.

  Fidelma had not only scrutinised the archers and their commander carefully but noted the fact that there seemed to be more than a dozen other Uí Fidgente warriors encamped within the rath. There was no point in arguing further with them.

  She turned her mare carefully on the bridge and walked it back to Eadulf, the shod hooves of the horse echoing like a drumbeat on the wooden planking.

  ‘Follow me,’ she instructed quietly. ‘Did you hear all that passed between me and the Uí Fidgente warrior?’

  Eadulf asserted that he had, obeying her instructions without question. He felt a tingling sensation in his back as he exposed it to the aim of the archers with their taut bows, ready to strike.

  ‘This seems to confirm that there is an Ui Fidgenteplot,’ he whispered, after they had moved out of range. ‘Gionga must have been desperate to attempt to prevent us going to Cnoc Aine to search for evidence. This is all the proof we need of his culpability.’

  ‘That is what makes me worried. Surely Gionga would realise that it would not take long for Cashel’s warriors to be alerted and ride here to disperse these men? The logical deduction would be that the Uí Fidgente have admitted their guilt by this action.’

  ‘Well, they have succeeded in one thing, that is that we cannot reach Imleach tonight. It is four miles back to Cashel.’

  ‘We will be there tonight.’ Fidelma’s voice was firm and confident. ‘When we pass the bend of the road ahead, out of sight of the men on the bridge, you will observe a track on the right-hand side leading south. Turn along it.’

  ‘South? I thought this was the only bridge spanning this river for miles?’

  Fidelma chuckled. ‘It is.’

  ‘Then what …?’

  ‘Quickly, here is the track.’

  To call it a track was to do it honour. It was no more than a small pathway along which a horse went with difficulty, brushing against bushes and trees on either side. It plunged blindly into a great strip of dark woodland that ran along the river bank.

  ‘What now?’ called Eadulf, as he urged his young horse forward through the dark verdure.

  ‘This leads south through the forests on the river banks. About half a mile further on the forest will give way to open marshy land. I’ll take over the lead then, for we will walk our horses through the reeds and marshland. From that point, in another half-mile, we should come to a ford across the river which not many people know of. It is called Atha Asail, the ford of the ass. It is a treacherous crossing but we will make it. We will not be delayed long on our journey.’

  ‘Are you sure this is the best plan?’ wailed Eadulf, thinking of the turbulent waters of the rushing river. Although he had found himself in countless dangerous situations, he was not one to go out in search of danger. He did not believe the Saxon proverb that danger and delight grew from the same stalk. Eadulf once found his philosophy in the writing of Lucretius: that it was pleasurable, when the winds disturbed the waves of some great sea, to gaze out from the security of the land upon the dangers of another.

  ‘I used to cross the Ass’s Ford when I was a child. There is no danger in it for one who is careful,’ Fidelma assured him. ‘If youneed to exercise your mind, why not consider how Gionga could have found out that we were going to Imleach?’

  Eadulf frowned. The point had not even occurred to him. ‘Maybe he overheard us discussing it with your brother? Or again, maybe he overheard our discussion with old Brother Conchobar when you asked him to draw a copy of the crucifix? Maybe he simply saw us saddling our horses and made a clever guess?’

  Fidelma made a disapproving sound with her tongue against her teeth. ‘You are of little help in this matter,’ she chided, ‘for all you do is give articulations to questions that I have already asked. I need answers. I have already answered your last question in the negative for how would he have had time to send his men to meet us at the bridge, or, if they were already there, to send someone to warn them of our coming. He knew where we were going some time before we set out.’

  ‘Then you need a prophet to answer you,’ mumbled Eadulf, irritated because of the discomfit of the road through the snatching briars and branches of the woodland and because of his anxiety of the crossing of the rapid
river ahead. ‘You should have consulted that old magician friend of yours, Brother Conchobar.’

  Fidelma pouted. ‘Why do you call him a magician?’

  Eadulf groaned as a briar scratched across his ankle. ‘Because he practices divination from the stars, doesn’t he? How can he claim to be a Christian and do that?’

  ‘Are the two things in conflict?’ mused Fidelma.

  Eadulf found his irritability increasing. ‘How can you say otherwise?’

  ‘Making maps of the stars and deciphering their meaning is an ancient tradition in this land.’

  ‘The New Faith should have replaced such pagan traditions. It is forbidden. Doesn’t the Book of Isaiah say:

  ’“Let your astrologers, your star-gazers who foretell

  your future month by month,

  persist, and save you!

  But look, they are gone like chaff;

  fire burns them up;

  they cannot snatch themselves from the flames;

  there is no glowing coal to warm them,

  no fire for them to sit by.

  So much for your magicians …” ’

  Fidelma smiled softly. She always had a tendency to smile whenEadulf began to argue theology for, by his adherence to the new teachings of Rome, he and she found many points of difference in their attitudes to the Faith. Fidelma was a woman of her own culture.

  ‘You quote from the ancient texts of the Judaic Faith,’ she pointed out.

  ‘Of which Our Lord came as a Messiah,’ snapped Eadulf waspishly.

  ‘Exactly so. He came as a Messiah, as a Saviour, to show them a new path to understanding God. Who, according to Matthew, were the first to arrive in Jerusalem after the birth of the Christ?’

  ‘Who?’ Eadulf shook his head, wondering what point she was making.

  ‘Astrologers from the east, seeking the Saviour for they had seen his coming in a map of the heavens. And didn’t King Herod try to persuade them to betray that knowledge? Astrologers were the first to arrive in Bethlehem and worship the Saviour and offer him gold, frankincense and myrrh. Had astrology been cursed by God, would astrologers have been the first allowed to greet Him on Earth?’

  Eadulf flushed irritably. Fidelma always had a good counterargument when he tried to assert anything that she disagreed with.

  ‘Well, Deuteronomy is clear,’ he went on stubbornly. ‘Nor must you raise your eyes to the heavens and look up to the sun, moon, and the stars, all the host of heaven, and be led on to bow down to them and worship them …’

  ‘ … the Lord your God created them for the guidance of the various peoples under the heavens,’ Fidelma added emphatically. ‘I trust, Eadulf, you were going to deliver the entire verse from Deuteronomy? Anyway, astrologers do not worship or bow down to the sun, moon and stars, but use them as guides. Our astrologers argue that we can no more alter the course of our stars than we can change our features and the colour of our hair and eyes. Yet we have free will to do as we please with the things that we are given.’

  Eadulf sighed deeply. He was already tiring of the argument. He wished that he had not raised it. Fidelma always thrived on disputations, even to the point of becoming the Devil’s Advocate.

  ‘It is against the teachings …’ he began.

  ‘Show me one clear reference in the holy texts forbidding Christians not to take notice of the ancient science, apart from some obscure references …’

  ‘Jeremiah,’ returned Eadulf, remembering suddenly.

  ‘“Listen, Israel, to this word that the Lord has

  spoken against you:

  ‘Do not fall into the ways of the nations;

  do not be awed by signs in the heavens;

  it is the nations who go in awe of these …” ’

  ‘What Israel did before the coming of the Messiah is a matter for Israel. But we are of the nations and Jeremiah admits, at least, there are signs in the heavens, although we are not awed by them but merely interpret them and attempt to understand them. And if there are signs in the heavens, who put them there? Wouldn’t it be blasphemy to claim that they were put there by another hand than God’s?’

  Eadulf face was red with mortification. He felt himself about to explode with anger. He didn’t. Instead, he suddenly started to chuckle. ‘Why do I think that I can win an argument with a lawyer?’ he remarked shaking his head ruefully.

  Fidelma hesitated a moment and then finally joined in his mirth. ‘Castigat ridendo mores,’ she said softly, resorting to one of her favourite quotations. It corrects customs by laughing at them.

  They broke out of the woods abruptly onto a broad field of reeds. As their horses emerged from the woodland a group of small birds rose in a body making a twanging ‘ping-ping’ call-note. They gathered in a flock and swept low over the reeds, searching out the danger, before they settled back among tall feathery-headed reed grass with its dark purple flowered heads and rough-edged leaves.

  ‘Reedlings,’ Fidelma explained unnecessarily. ‘Our horses disturbed them.’

  Eadulf could hear the rushing of the river a short distance away.

  ‘Can the warriors see us from the bridge?’ he asked for although some of the reeds stretched as tall as ten feet in height, there was a lot of low growth around the path, which he saw meandering through it to the open river. But along the banks was no more than reed canary-grass, of a shorter and smaller variety.

  ‘No. There is a slight bend in the river which hides us. Besides, the warriors will believe that we have gone back to Cashel to get my brother’s warriors.’

  She nudged her mare forward and around Eadulf to take the lead.

  ‘Keep close behind me and do not deviate from the track. The grassland may look firm but it is marsh and some people have been known to be sucked under into the muddy depths.’

  Eadulf found himself unable to suppress a shudder as he glanced around.

  Fidelma pulled a face at his pale features.

  ‘To be alive at all involves risks and dangers so cheer up,’ she advised brightly, before she set off confidently enough, her horse picking its way through the tall waving reeds which looked so wild and dramatic against the skyline. Eadulf realised that the marshland was a whole jumble of growths and what he had thought was an entire plain of reeds was in fact intermixed with fen sedge, spike-rush and wilting bulrushes which were long past their flowering period. The whole growth created a curious green, varying brown and yellow surrounding.

  The reedlings now and then took wing but only in small individual groups from the nests among the reeds. Their tiny tawny bodies, even the males with black markings, were hard to spot.

  Eadulf became increasingly aware of the rushing waters and realised that the river was crossing a series of shallows and the noise that he was hearing was the movement of the waters over the stony bottom, hitting rocks and objects in mid-stream.

  Fidelma guided her mare carefully along the pathway. Eadulf, even in his saddle, could feel the springy surface beneath the hooves of his colt and he prayed that the horse would not stumble from the path and precipitate him into the dark mire on either side. The young horse had been chosen for him by Fidelma, who was an excellent judge of horseflesh. She had chosen the colt not because of its youth but because it was one of the most docile beasts in her brother’s stable and she knew that Eadulf was not the most expert of horsemen.

  They emerged from the waving reeds onto a lush, green embankment, whose turf was still exceptionally springy. Before them was the broad stretch of the River Suir.

  Eadulf regarded the fast-flowing water, bubbling with yellow froth over and around the stony surface, with disquiet.

  ‘How deep is it?’

  Fidelma gave him a smile of encouragement. ‘It will come up to the chest of your horse. Give the animal a free rein and do not try to guide it. The colt has good sense. It will pick its own way through the shallows. I will go first.’

  Without another word, she nudged her mare into the waters. The animal was nerv
ous at first, shaking its head and rolling its eyes. Then it began to move forward, placing its feet carefully, stumbling once or twice but recovering. By the time it was in mid-stream, the frothing waters had reached its chest and were swirling over Fidelma’s s lower legs.

  She turned in the saddle and waved Eadulf to come forward.

  Eadulf looked at the wild, surging, white water and was almost paralysed with anxiety. He was aware of Fidelma waving urgentlyat him to start the crossing and he found his hands trembling. He did not want to cross that violent fluctuating deluge. He was aware of Fidelma’s eyes upon him and he did not have courage enough to admit his cowardice.

  Chapter Seven

  Uttering up a prayer, Eadulf urged his sorrel into the waters and in his nervousness he made the horse respond too quickly. The hind legs slipped in the mud and Eadulf thought he was going to be thrown. He clung on for dear life and the colt, snorting and panting, managed to recover and find the rocky shallow. Eadulf let his reins go limp and simply sat with closed eyes, trying to imagine himself safely across.

  Now and then the horse jolted him in the saddle as it struggled to find firm footing. Then the icy cold waters of the river were lapping at his feet and then his lower legs up to his knees. Suddenly, turbulent water swept over him at waist level, causing him to gasp with the shock of it. He clutched tightly at the saddle pommel. Then the horse rose above the water level again and he dared open his eyes to find himself only a few yards from the far bank. Fidelma was already there, sitting slightly forward in her saddle, awaiting him.

  With a surge of energy, the animal scrambled up the bank and came to a halt beside her.

  Eadulf was enough of a horseman to reach forward and pat the animal’s neck in gratitude.

  ‘Deo gratias,’ he intoned in relief.

  ‘We’d best put some distance between ourselves and this place,’ Fidelma advised. ‘The sooner we reach Imleach, the better.’