The Seventh Trumpet (4 page)

‘Come in, Tóla. Come closer, and be at your ease.’

The farmer took a few hesitant steps, bobbing his head shyly as if in greeting to everyone.

‘We are told that you have found a body,’ Fidelma prompted, after the man had stood silently for a while with downcast eyes.

‘I have, lady.’

‘Tell us the circumstances of how you did so.’

Tóla, after a few false starts and the clearing of his throat, told them what had happened to him that morning. They listened attentively until he had finished speaking.

‘What made you think that he was a noble?’ Colgú asked.

‘His clothes, weapons and jewels proclaimed him so.’

‘You brought us this brooch,’ Fidelma said, indicating the item still held in her hand. ‘Do you know its significance?’

‘I do not. However, I have seen such emblems used to mark the identity of noble families and their clans. I imagined from that, and the dress and appearance of the body, it was someone of not inconsiderable position.’

‘You considered him a stranger to this territory?’

‘I knew only that he was not from one of the clans of this area because I see most of the chieftains at the great fairs and markets and would have recognised him.’

It was obvious that Tóla was no fool.

‘And you are certain that it was no accident which caused his death at the ford?’ interposed the abbot, speaking for the first time since the farmer had entered.

Tóla actually managed to summon a nervous smile as he shook his head. ‘I fought in my clan’s muster at Cnoc Áine, lord. I know enough of wounds to understand when they are inflicted by accident or design. But it is not for me to venture my opinion when a physician’s word would be better informed. My son has been left to guard the body until someone qualified should examine it.’

‘You have acted in a correct manner, Tóla,’ Colgú said with a smile. ‘Caol, take our friend and provide him with some refreshment while we discuss this matter. Leave that emblem with us, Tóla. We shall send someone back with you to view this body and arrange for its removal.’

When the door had closed behind them, Colgú sat back and sighed. He retrieved the brooch from Fidelma and was turning it over in his hands.

‘This is the second piece of worrying news this morning. If this person was a member of the Royal Family of the Uí Máil, what was he doing here and why would he have been killed?’

Fidelma grimaced. ‘No speculation …’

Her brother interrupted her with a groan: ‘… without information.’ He completed her favourite saying. ‘Nevertheless, an Uí Máil killed in the shadow of the fortress of the Eóghanacht is a matter of great concern for us. Our relations with the Kingdom of Laigin have never been of the best, in any case. Unless we can find out who was killed, why the killing took place and who is responsible, reparation might be demanded by King Fianamail. Unlike his predecessor, he is a hard man to deal with.’

‘First we must learn the identity of the body,’ Fidelma declared. ‘Simply because someone wears the emblem of the Uí Máil does not make them one.’

‘That is agreed,’ her brother said. ‘So what do you recommend?’

‘It is obvious what we must do,’ she replied.

Colgú made a wry grimace. ‘You are going to suggest that you accompany the farmer back to the body to investigate the death?’

Fidelma’s jaw came up a little. ‘Unless you think that there is someone better qualified to do so? You have already ruled that it is too dangerous for me to accompany Dego to the lands of the Uí Fidgente, so surely it will be less dangerous for me to look at this matter?’

Abbot Ségdae stirred. ‘What if this new matter has something to do with the unrest among the Uí Fidgente? What if some war band is roaming the country?’

‘It is something to be considered,’ acknowledged Fidelma. ‘But we have little evidence to make such assumptions at this point.’ She turned to her brother. ‘Am I allowed to undertake this investigation? I can surely meet with few problems within sight of Cashel.’

Colgú saw the glint in his sister’s eyes and simply said: ‘Who will you take with you?’

‘Eadulf, of course,’ she replied at once. ‘But I was also thinking of Gormán, if he can be spared from his guard duties. It is always good to have a warrior of the guard along with us.’

‘A good choice,’ agreed Colgú. ‘But take another man as well, in case you need someone to send messages back.’

‘Very well. Then I am fully empowered to conduct this matter in my official capacity as a
dálaigh
at your command?’

‘The council may have given the office of Chief Brehon to Áedo, but you are still my personal adviser and sister,’ her brother replied gravely.

‘I’ll ask Gormán to choose a good companion. I’ll send Caol back to you so that you can instruct him about despatching Dego to investigate these reports that Abbot Ségdae has brought.’

‘Thank you. As I have said, Dego will command a company to escort the abbot back to Imleach and then they can proceed onwards into Uí Fidgente country.’

Fidelma was rising to her feet. ‘I shall start out immediately. I was all ready to go riding this morning, but now this matter gives purpose to the journey,’ she said.

Her brother shifted uncomfortably in his seat and glanced at her with an almost embarrassed look.

‘If you see the Lady Dúnliath, it would be best if you do not alarm her with these matters connected with the Uí Fidgente.’

‘Of course,’ Fidelma replied shortly. Then she added more softly, ‘Anyway, I doubt whether she will be abroad yet. I understand there was a feasting last night that kept people up late.’

If she were honest, she was concerned for her brother. He had long passed the usual marriageable age and, as yet, no suitable match had been presented. Then the unexpected had happened. Colgú had been out hunting in the eastern part of the kingdom, a territory known as Osraige, when, seeking the hospitality of Drón, Lord of Gabrán, he had met the man’s daughter, Dúnliath. She was not the kind of woman Fidelma had expected her brother to find attractive.

Dúnliath was young enough, true. She had corn-coloured hair and dark blue eyes, and a heart-shaped face – which would have been attractive had it not been for the curious combination of a slightly pudgy nose and thin, almost mean lips. She had a sturdy figure, and Fidelma would have said, overall, that her features were plain. She found the girl’s almost permanent apologetic smile extremely irritating. However, looks did not matter. It was the intellect that went with them. Dúnliath’s interests, however, were few. She seemed to indulge herself only in entertainment, in the songs of the bards, in dancing and the tales of storytellers. She seemed to have no leanings towards more intellectual pursuits or statecraft. And she was hopeless at board games like
brandubh
or
fidchell
. Fidelma felt guilty for even thinking these thoughts. After all, it was what her brother, Colgú, saw in the girl that mattered and not what she felt. Colgú had helped her when she had decided that she wanted to marry Eadulf, a stranger not only to her clan and her kingdom, but to her entire culture. There were many among her people, the Eóghanacht, who had disapproved of the ‘Saxon’ as they called Eadulf. Her brother had stood up for her. Now it was her turn to stand up for her brother.

She tried to hide her thoughts from Colgú as she bade farewell to him and Abbot Ségdae; however, she realised he was sensitive enough to know that she had reservations.

A short while later, she stood impatiently watching Eadulf choose items to pack in his saddle-bag. Even though he had now fully accepted that Fidelma was no longer of the religious, Eadulf himself continued to maintain the robes of a religieux. He still felt a commitment to the organisations of the Faith.

‘Have you given instruction to Muirgen about little Alchú?’ he asked, not for the first time.

Alchú was their three-year-old son who, during the times they had to be away from Cashel, was looked after by their faithful nurse, Muirgen, whose husband, Nessán of Gabhlach, herded sheep for Colgú.

‘Of course,’ Fidelma replied, suppressing the urge to tell Eadulf to stop fussing.

When Fidelma had entered their chambers and asked him if he would come with her to Cluain Mór, explaining the purpose of the trip, Eadulf had actually felt a sense of relief. He had seen the sparkle of exhilaration in her eyes; a change from the dark and unyielding expression that she had worn during these last few weeks since the meeting of the Council of Brehons. He had come to realise, more than anyone, how important her ambition was to become Chief Brehon of Muman. Right from the start, during the six years of their often tempestuous relationship, Fidelma had always insisted that her first duty was to the law, and that she had only joined a religious community for the sake of security, on the advice of her cousin, Abbot Laisran. Her father and mother had died when she was a baby and, at the time, her brother had not even been heir-apparent to the Kingdom of Muman.

When Eadulf and Fidelma had first met at the great Council of Streoneshalh, he discovered that Fidelma had already left the community of Cill Dara and was employed by individual prelates to give them legal advice or counsel. For many years she had lived separate from religious communities and their Rule. Indeed, Eadulf could hardly consider himself as involved in any one community. He, too, had acted for some years as an emissary between kings and prelates.

While the Faith did not forbid marriage among the religious, in spite of a growing number of ascetics who advocated celibacy, their relationship had often been a cause of some friction. Fidelma had always placed the law first. He had often thought that life in a religious community was the answer to the problems that beset them. He had even tried to live for a short time in such a community, before King Colgú had ordered Fidelma and himself to go south to the Abbey of Lios Mór to investigate the death of its famous scholar, Brother Donnachad. That had been when Fidelma had announced her firm intention to leave the religious in name as well as practice. The rest was left to him to make his choice.

Eadulf had considered carefully and made his choice. What did he want in life? He wanted to nurture and support the woman he had fallen in love with. He wanted to protect and raise the son they had given birth to. He wanted to use what talents he had for the good of the people around him, those people who had taken him in, a stranger in a strange land, and been kind to him. When reason combined with emotion, there had been no choice for him to make. He supported Fidelma, but not by always giving in to her. He knew that she had a strong will, but he was sensitive enough to realise that it was borne of her insecurity, having lost both her parents when she was a baby.

The case in point was the recent meeting of the Council of Brehons, the judges of the kingdom. Their decision to elect Brehon Áedo as the Chief Brehon instead of her had hit Fidelma hard, although she did not show it in public. Not that she ever said anything, even to Eadulf. When he ventured on to the subject, she would merely say that the council had made the logical choice. Áedo was older and wiser than she was, she would say. But he saw the bleak expression; indeed, the disappointment and hurt in her eyes. It had cast a deepening gloom over their lives for the last week or so. Eadulf realised that his wife needed his steadfastness, his quiet support and his optimism. She needed the emotional stability that only he could give her.

Seeing her entering the chamber with an animated expression, for the first time in weeks, was a relief to Eadulf. Here was the distraction that she most needed; a distraction which would call on the use of her talent and capabilities so that she did not have time to be bored, nor to brood.

‘You say that this ford, where the farmer found the body, is at Cluain Mór?’ he asked as he made a final check through the contents of his saddle-bag.

‘It is only a short distance from here,’ confirmed Fidelma, giving the specific measurement in her own language. He spent a moment trying to work out a translation of 1,000
forrach
and realised it was just a few kilometres. Fidelma had already packed her bag and was now waiting for him.

‘Then at least it is not a long ride,’ he said thankfully. Eadulf was not a brilliant horseman and disliked long journeys, although, during his lifetime, he had probably travelled further than most of his contemporaries would ever imagine might be accomplished. He had twice travelled to Rome itself and once to the Council of Autun in Burgundia.

The second bag that he was taking was called a
lés
, a bag filled with some physician’s instruments and apothecary’s potions. Eadulf had first come to the land of the Five Kingdoms of Éireann many years ago to study at Tuaim Brecain, the premier school of medicine in the land of Ulaidh, the Northern Kingdom. There he had learned enough of the medical skills to assist in many of Fidelma’s investigations. That was after he had been converted to the New Faith. He had grown to manhood in his native Seaxmund’s Ham, in the Land of the South Folk, part of the Kingdom of the East Angles, where he had been an hereditary
gerefa
or magistrate. An Irish missionary named Fursa had turned him away from the worship of Woden and the other gods and goddesses of his people.

‘I am just going to give some final instruction to Muirgen,’ Fidelma said, jumping to her feet. She always found it difficult to sit still, doing nothing, while waiting for him. If necessary, she could induce the meditation exercise called the
dercad
, but now was not the time. So she left Eadulf to finish packing his bag and went in search of the nurse.

She was hurrying across an interior courtyard when she became aware of two figures blocking her path.

‘You look absorbed with some weighty matter, lady.’ The speaker was the smaller of the two, a man who spoke in a thin, hesitant voice as though he had some speech impediment.

She noted his pale skin and close-cropped, untidy grey hair. He gave the impression of being emaciated; his eyes were so deeply set under bushy brows that, at first glance, they appeared as black hollows. The red lips were thin and cruel, drawn into a permanent sneer. It was Drón of Gabrán.