She sat down amidst an uncomfortable silence. Then Eadulf, not really understanding the nuances of the exchange, and carried away by his indulgence in alcohol, hearing only that Fidelma had sung as sweet a song as ever he had heard, began to clap loudly. His applause eventually caused Laisre to follow his example and soon a polite tribute rippled around the chamber. When it died away Laisre turned to his musicians and bid them play softly.
In her song, Fidelma had answered Murgal’s cynical sneer that the Cashel kings were mortal and their authority was only brief. She had pointed out how the Eóghanacht claimed to be descended from the Eber, son of Milesius, leader of the Milesians, the first Gaels to land in Ireland. From Eber had descended Eoghan Mór, the founder of the royal dynasty of the Eóghanacht. The subtlety of the song reminded her listeners of the status she held.
Laisre glanced at her contritely.
‘I apologise for Murgal’s lack of etiquette.’
He referred to the fact that it was a rigid rule that a guest was not to be insulted within a feasting hall.
Fidelma spoke without rancour.
‘As you rightly observed, Laisre, it was the wine that made him forget though, as Theoginis once said, wine is wont to show the mind of man.’
The sound of someone being smacked across the face was so abrupt that the soft music of the
cruit
player faltered and died away for there was a series of sounds which followed in quick succession. First a chair went over backwards, crockery plates crashed and splintered on the floor and there came an angry but almost suppressed exclamation. All eyes in the feasting hall were drawn to the table where Murgal was standing swaying on his feet once again; this time, however, one hand was nursing a reddening cheek, his eyes were glowering at the fair-haired woman who had been sitting next to him and who now was on her feet as well, standing facing the Druid.
It was the slim woman whom Fidelma had noticed. Her face was now contorted with anger.
‘Pig and son of a pig!’ she hissed and then turned abruptly and exited from the feasting hall without a backward glance. A plump woman rose from another table and went trotting out with an angry look in Murgal’s direction. Fidelma realised it was the hostel keeper, Cruinn.
Murgal seemed to quiver with anger and then he, too, left the feasting hall. A moment later one of the warriors, the fair-haired Rudgal, rose and hurriedly followed Murgal from the room.
Fidelma, watching, turned with a glance of inquiry towards Laisre.
‘Some domestic matter, I suppose?’ she asked innocently.
‘No, Marga is not wife to Murgal,’ Orla replied cattily before her brother could speak. ‘But Murgal has a wandering eye.’
Esnad, the young daughter of Orla, began to chuckle and then, catching sight of an angry glance from her father, Colla, pouted and made no further sound.
Laisre flushed slightly.
‘It is not a matter to be commented on before strangers at a feasting,’ he snapped at his sister. Orla grimaced at her brother to express her annoyance before sitting back. Laisre resumed a more considered expression towards Fidelma.
‘Suffice to say, wine can make a lout of the best of us,’ he observed, trying to make a joke out of the matter.
‘Wine is like rain. If it falls on a bog, it makes it the more foul. But on good soil, it wakens it to bloom and radiance,’ observed Colla, who had not spoken at the table for some time. It was clear that he had little respect for Murgal.
‘This Marga is an attractive woman,’ Fidelma observed. ‘Who is she?’
‘She is our apothecary,’ replied Laisre distantly. Fidelma observed a colour on his cheeks. Then, as if he felt he should reply to her comment, added: ‘Yes, an attractive woman.’
Fidelma was surprised.
‘So young and an apothecary!’
‘She is qualified under the law.’ It was said defensively by Laisre.
‘I would have expected no less.’ Fidelma’s soft reply had a note of rebuke in it. ‘Does she reside in the ráth?’
‘Yes. Why do you ask?’ Colla asked sharply.
‘Oh,’ Fidelma decided to turn the subject at the suspicion voiced in Colla’s reply, ‘it is always wise to know where an apothecary resides.’
One of the musicians had resumed his interrupted long, interminable song, singing in a form without instrumental accompaniment, his voice rising and falling. It was an old, old song, about a young girl who was being lured by unseen forces towards a mountain top where she would eventually meet the fate which the gods had set for her. Fidelma suddenly felt an empathy with the heroine of the song. Something had drawn her to this valley and it seemed there were unseen forces dictating her fate.
It was still early when Fidelma decided to leave the feasting hall. There was music being played and the wine and mead continued to circulate. She made her excuses to Laisre, telling him that she was tired after travelling the long journey from Cashel. He made no protest. As she passed through the hall, Fidelma quietly signalled to Eadulf to follow her. He rose unsteadily, and somewhat reluctantly, and did so. He was aware that he had imbibed a little more than was good for him and tried hard to compensate for it by moving slowly and deliberately.
Outside it was surprisingly light. The moon was full, hanging like a bright white orb in the cloudless sky. The sky itself was a glitter of light with numerous stars winking across the canopy. Fidelma was waiting for him by the door. She had not noticed his slow, uncertain gait.
‘Let us walk around the walls of the ráth,’ she instructed rather than suggested. She led the way up the steps to the battlements where a soft night breeze ruffled her hair. She could see some shadowy figures farther along the wall, young men and women who had absented themselves from the feast to pursue their own amorous interests, and so she stopped, gazing up at the night sky. In the distance they could hear the occasional sound of laughter and the faint sounds of music. From the courtyard below a woman laughed lasciviously and there was a deep chuckle from her male companion. Fidelma shut her mind to the extraneous sounds and inhaled softly as she gazed at the breath-taking magnificence of the spectacle of the night-sky.
‘
Caeli enarrant gloriam Dei,
’ she whispered.
Eadulf caught the words as he leant against the parapet of the wall by her side. He rubbed his forehead and tried to concentrate. He knew that they were from one of the Psalms.
‘The heavens bespeak the glory of God,’ he translated approvingly, trying not to slur his words.
‘Psalm nineteen,’ Fidelma confirmed, continuing to study the sky. Then, after a second or two, she turned abruptly. ‘Are you all right, Eadulf ? Your speech sounds unusual.’
‘I am afraid I have taken a little too much wine, Fidelma.’
She made a clicking sound of disapproval.
‘Well, I shall not let you go until you tell me what you have learnt from Brother Solin’s scribe, the young Dianach.’
Eadulf pursed his lips in disgust. Then he groaned as his world momentarily swam.
‘What is it?’ demanded Fidelma anxiously as he raised a hand to his forehead.
‘Bad wine and even worse mead.’
‘Do not expect sympathy for that,’ she admonished. ‘Let me hear about Brother Dianach.’
‘Only that he is either a most naive young man or a consummate actor. He ventured no explanation of what is behind Solin’s visit here. He claimed that Brother Solin does not confide in him.’
Fidelma pushed out her lower lip in an expression of annoyance.
‘Do you believe him?’
‘As I say, it is hard to tell whether he is guileless or well versed in the craft of deceit.’
‘According to Brother Solin, he is merely on a mission from Armagh to ascertain the strength of the Faith in the extremities of the five kingdoms,’ mused Fidelma.
‘Why can’t there be truth in that?’
‘Why not send to the ecclesiastic centres of the five kingdoms and ask the abbots and the bishops, who could tell Ultan what he wants to know, whereby the information could be relayed within a week compared to what Brother Solin would find out within a year? There is something illogical in that.’
Eadulf still felt too befuddled from the wine to work out any alternative possibilities and so did not comment further on the matter.
‘I hadn’t realised that you sung so well.’ He suddenly shifted the subject of the conversation.
‘It was not the quality of my song but its meaning that was important,’ Fidelma replied with grim satisfaction. ‘Did you notice the scene with Murgal? I mean the incident with the girl, not the one about the song?’
‘I doubt whether anyone in the feasting hall failed to notice it. She was rather attractive.’
‘Did you notice the reason for the exchange?’
‘As a matter of fact, I think Murgal was attempting to be too friendly with the girl and she became tired of his lewdness.’
This seemed to coincide with Orla’s spiteful remark about Murgal.
She stared out across the shadowy moonlit valley. It was an eerie yet beautiful sight.
‘So what do you make of this pagan world, Eadulf?’ Fidelma asked after a while.
Eadulf reflected for a moment before replying. He tried to make some sense from his befuddled thoughts.
‘No more or less than any other world. Here there be people, pagan or no, with the same ill-behaviour, jealousies and pretensions as any spot in Christendom. But the sooner you conclude your business, the sooner we can be removed from it. I prefer the easy gaiety of your brother’s palace at Cashel.’
‘Have you forgotten something?’ Fidelma was slightly amused.
‘Forgotten?’ Eadulf groaned, thinking more of finding his bed than anything else. ‘Forgotten what?’
‘Thirty-three young men slaughtered at the gate to this valley.’
‘Oh,
that
!’ Eadulf shook his head. ‘No, I have not forgotten that.’
‘
That!
’ mimicked Fidelma and then added, with seriousness: ‘There may be people here with the same emotions as any place in Christendom but there is also an evil that has struck this place and I shall not rest until I have discovered its meaning.’
‘I thought you were going to wait to see what Colla, the tanist, discovers,’ Eadulf returned, trying hard to suppress a yawn and not succeeding.
‘I do not trust Colla to bring me an accurate observation. Anyway,’ she brought her gaze back to the night canopy, ‘perhaps we should retire and prepare ourselves for tomorrow. It is no good leaping to conclusions before we have information.’
She turned and led the way back down the wooden stairway. As Eadulf moved forward after her, he found himself stifling another groan as his world began to sway again. He held on to the rail for dear life. Fidelma pretended that she had not heard his moan as he stumbled behind her. All the same, she kept a solicitous eye on her companion to ensure that be reached his bed in the guests’ hostel in safety. Once they had arrived back and Eadulf had stumbled into his bed chamber, Fidelma waited a while and then looked cautiously into his room.
Eadulf was sprawled face downward on the bed, still fully clothed, a soft snoring emanating from his prostrate figure. Normally, Fidelma was not a person to approve of anyone who could not hold their liquor but she had never known Eadulf to be indulgent
in spirits. She gave him the benefit of the doubt and stayed to take off his sandals and spread a blanket over his recumbent body.
Fidelma rose early as was her custom. She found that she was the first to bathe out of the four guests at the hostel. She completed her toiletry and dressed before going back down to the main room of the hostel where Cruinn, the rotund hostel-keeper, was preparing ‘the first meal of the day. By that time she found, to her utter surprise, Eadulf was up. He was sitting, unshaven and dishevelled, with his head in his hands obviously feeling the affects of the evening’s feasting. As she sat down opposite him, he raised his head with a groan and blinked sleepily.
‘God’s curse on all cocks!’ he muttered. ‘I had barely fallen asleep when that damned cock began to crow and dragged me from my rest. It sounded like the choir of devils from the infernal regions.’
Fidelma neglected to tell him that he had been dead to the world for most of the night in an alcohol-induced slumber. She frowned in mock admonition.
‘I am surprised that you ask God to curse the cock of all birds when it is sacred to the Faith.’
‘How so?’ demanded Eadulf, still drowsy and rubbing his forehead.
‘Don’t you recall the story of how, after the Roman soldiers crucified Jesus, they were cooking a cock? One of them reported to his fellows that there was a rumour among the followers of Christ that he would return to life on the third day. A second soldier mocked the idea and made a jest saying that it would no more come to pass than the dead cock would crow. Whereupon the dead bird arose from the cauldron and flapped its wings and cried out “the son of the virgin is safe”!’
Eadulf, in spite of his headache, had to admit that the Irish words
‘mac na hóighe slán’
fitted well into the pattern of the sound of a cock crow. Then a dim memory stirred.
‘I read a similar story in a Greek Gospel. The
Gospel of Nicodemus
. Except that it was Judas Iscariot’s wife who was cooking the cock and tried to reassure the betrayer of Christ. The bird flapped its wings and crowed three times but there was no meaning to the sound.’
Fidelma laughed good naturedly.
‘You must allow our bardic traditions to interpret tales so that they have substance for our people.’
Eadulf remembered his headache and groaned again.
‘I do not need a cock crowing to affirm me in my Faith. But I do need the cock to be silent when I am trying to seek rest or how can I have a clear mind to follow my Faith?’
‘Cock or not, I think the answer to your lack of rest may be found elsewhere. Truly, did you not hear the saying that wine is gold in the evening but lead in the morning?’
Eadulf was about to open his mouth to reply when Brother Dianach, the young scribe, joined them. Silently Eadulf cursed his fresh scrubbed and bright countenance and the ebullient greeting to Fidelma and his look of disapproval at the haggard Eadulf. His shyness seemed to have entirely vanished.
Having exchanged morning greetings, Fidelma asked where his master, Brother Solin of Armagh, was that morning.
‘He was not in his chamber,’ replied Brother Dianach, ‘so I expect that he has already risen and gone out.’
Fidelma glanced to Eadulf but the Saxon monk was too intent on dealing with his own crapulousness.
‘Then, indeed, he was abroad very early. Is that his custom?’
The young monk nodded an unconcerned affirmative as he sniffed the aromatic air.
The rotund Cruinn bustled over to them, bringing a tray with fresh baked bread, still fragrant from the oven, with clotted cream, fruit and cold meats, and a jug of mead. Having set down the tray, the corpulent hostel-keeper requested their leave to return to her own house for, she said, she had promised to go picking healing herbs with her daughter. Fidelma took it on herself to dismiss her with thanks, saying that they would be able to manage. As Cruinn left, Eadulf reached out a shaky hand immediately for the jug of mead. He grinned weakly at Fidelma’s disapproving stare.
‘Similia similibus curantur,’
he muttered, pouring the mead from the pitcher into the beaker.
‘Oh no, Brother.’ The young Brother Dianach turned on him in reproof. ‘Like things are not cured by like things. You are quite, quite wrong.’
The young man looked so totally serious that Eadulf paused with the beaker midway to his lips. Fidelma grinned mischievously.
‘And what would your advice be, Brother Dianach?’ she prompted.
The young man turned his gaze to Fidelma and reflected on the matter earnestly.
‘Contraria contrariis curantur …
opposites are cured by opposites. That is the principle that is taught at Armagh. Just consider the affect of giving things that produce the same illness to one who already has it. It merely increases the illness. Surely the root of all medicine is to
counter the illness by using that which gives the opposite affect not that which enhances the condition?’
‘What do you say, Eadulf ?’ chuckled Fidelma in amusement. ‘You have studied medicine in Tuam Brecain.’
In silent answer, Eadulf gulped at the contents of the beaker, shutting his eyes and shivering with a look halfway between agony and ecstasy. He gave a long, drawn out gasp of pleasure.
Brother Dianach gazed at him in astonishment.
‘I did not know that the Saxon brother had studied at one of our great schools of medicine,’ he remarked sharply. ‘You did not say this last night. However, you should know that you should not be taking alcohol to counter your intemperance. It is a shameful thing, Brother.’
Eadulf closed his eyes, groaned and poured a second beaker of the mead and made no reply at all. While Fidelma and Brother Dianach concluded eating their first meal of the day, Eadulf barely touched anything substantial. When the young monk had excused himself to return to his room, Fidelma leant across and touched Eadulf s arm.
‘Do not lecture me,’ groaned Eadulf before she could say anything. ‘Let me die in peace.’
‘All the same, the young boy is right, Eadulf,’ she said seriously. ‘You need your wits about you today. Too much mead will dull them.’
Eadulf forced his eyes open.
‘I swear that this is all I shall take. Just enough to get me started through the day. At least the mead has cured my pounding head … for the moment.’