Act of Mercy

Chapter Two

Fidelma of Cashel balanced against the taffrail of the ship, watching the coastline bobbing away behind it with surprising speed. She had been the last to board the vessel that morning and had barely stepped aboard when the captain had shouted for the single great square sail to be lifted on its hoistable yard up the central mainmast. At the same time, other sailors were hauling up the heavy anchor. She had not even had time to go below to inspect her cabin before the great vessel strained forward, its thin leather sail cracking and filling with the wind, like a lung filling with breath.

‘Set the steering sail!’ came the captain’s stentorian tone. The crew ran towards a long-angled mast, pointing forward of the main mast. A small sail was pulled into place on a cross yard. Beside the captain, on the raised stern deck, stood two muscular, thickset men. Here, on the larboard side of vessel, a large steering oar was fixed. It was so large that it took the combined efforts of both sailors to control it. At the captain’s shouted command, the sailors heaved on the oar. The ship caught the tide and fairly sliced through the wavelets like a scythe through corn.

So fast was the departure of The Barnacle Goose from the Bay of Ardmore that Fidelma decided not to go below for the moment but to stay on deck and watch the activity. The only sign of any of her fellow travellers were two youthful religieux standing arm in arm, at the port rail amidships. They were deep in conversation. There were no other passengers in sight, and Fidelma presumed that the rest of the pilgrims were below decks. Half-a-dozen sailors, whose job it was to sail the ship across the stormy seas to Iberia, were going about their various tasks under the watchful eye of the captain. Fidelma wondered why her fellow passengers had chosen to miss one of the most exciting parts of the commencement of a sea voyage, the leaving of harbour. She had made several voyages in her life, but never ceased to be enthralled by the sights and sounds as a vessel left its harbour, feeling the first bounce of the hull against the waves, seeing the rise and dip of the vanishing coastline. She could spendhours simply watching until the distant line of land dipped below the horizon.

Fidelma was a natural-born sailor. She had often been out in a tiny curragh on the wild, windswept west coast, journeying to remote islands, and had not felt any qualms. A few years ago she had journeyed to Iona, the Isle of Saints, off the coast of high-hilled Alba, on her way to the Synod of Whitby in Northumbria, and then she had travelled to Gaul on her way to Rome and back again, and, in all those long voyages, she had never felt the slightest seasickness in spite of the most severe motion of the ship in which she travelled.

Motion. The idea caught at her mind. Perhaps that was the answer? From a child she had been on horseback. Maybe she had become used to the motion of riding horses and therefore did not react to the motion of a ship as someone who had always kept their feet on dry land might do. She promised herself that on this voyage she would try to learn something more about sea lore, navigation and the distances to be run. What was the point of enjoying a voyage if she did not know the practical side of it?

She smiled to herself at the useless wandering of her thoughts and raised herself up against the wooden ship’s rail to focus on the vanishing height of Ardmore with its tall, grey-stone Abbey buildings. She had spent the previous night there as guest of the Abbot.

Unexpectedly, as she thought of the Abbey of St Declan, she felt a curious sensation of loneliness.

Eadulf! She identified the cause at once.

Brother Eadulf, the Saxon monk, had been emissary from Theodore, Archbishop of Canterbury, to the court of her brother, Colgu, King of Muman at Cashel. Until a week or so ago, Eadulf had been her constant companion for almost a year, a supportive comrade in several dangerous situations when she was called upon to exercise her skills as a dalaigh, an advocate of the law courts of the Five Kingdoms of Eireann. Why was she troubled suddenly by his memory?

It had been her own decision. A few weeks previously, Fidelma had decided to part company with Eadulf to commence this pilgrimage. She had felt that she needed a change of place and space in which to meditate, for she had begun to view her life with dissatisfaction. Afraid of the emotional routine in which she had found herself, Fidelma no longer trusted her own feelings about her purpose in life.

Yet Brother Eadulf of Seaxmund’s Ham was the only man of her own age in whose company she felt really at ease and able to express herself. Eadulf had taken a long time to accept her decision to leave Cashel and set out on this pilgrimage. He had raised objections andprotested for some time. Finally he had decided to return to Canterbury to rejoin Archbishop Theodore, the newly appointed Greek Bishop whom he had accompanied from Rome and for whom he acted as special envoy. Fidelma was annoyed with herself for missing Eadulf already with the coastline still in sight. The coming months loomed lonely. She would miss their debates; miss the way she could tease Eadulf over their conflicting opinions and philosophies; the way he would always rise good-naturedly to her bait. Their arguments would rage but there was no enmity between them. They had learnt together as they examined their interpretations and debated their ideas.

Eadulf had been like a brother to her. Perhaps that was the trouble. She compressed her lips at the thought. He had always behaved impeccably towards her. She found herself wondering, and not for the first time, whether she wanted him to behave in any other way. Members of the religieux did cohabit, did marry, and most lived in the conhospitae, or mixed houses, raising their children to the service of God. Did she want that? She was still a young woman and with a young woman’s desires. Eadulf had never given any indication that he felt attracted to her as a man should feel towards a woman. The closest she had come to the subject, to prompt his thoughts upon it, was during a journey when they had spent a cold night on a mountain. She had asked Eadulf if he had heard the old proverb that a blanket was the warmer for being doubled. He had not understood.

There again, she reflected, Eadulf was a firm adherent to the Church of Rome which, while it still allowed its clergy to marry and cohabit, was clearly moving towards the doctrine of celibacy. Fidelma, on the other hand, was an adherent of the Irish Church which disagreed with so many of the rites and rituals of Rome, even to the dating of Easter. She had been raised without any prohibition on her natural feelings. Those differences between her culture and that now espoused by Rome were a major source of the arguments between her and Eadulf. The thought had barely entered her mind when she remembered the Book of Amos. ‘Can two walk together, except that they be agreed?’ Perhaps the philosophy was right and she should dismiss the subject of Eadulf altogether.

She wished her old mentor, the Brehon Morann, were here to consult. Or, indeed, her cousin — the chubby-faced, happy-go-lucky Abbot Laisran of Durrow who had persuaded her, as a young girl, to enter the religious life in the first place. What was she doing here anyway? Running away because she could not find a solution to her problems? If so, she would merely carry those problems into whatevercorner of the earth she journeyed. There would be no solution awaiting her at her destination.

She had argued herself into this pilgrimage for the purpose of sorting out her life without any pressure from Eadulf, from her brother, Colgu, or her friends at Cashel, her brother’s capital. She wanted to be somewhere that had no connection with her previous life, somewhere she could meditate and attempt to resolve matters. But she was confused. She was not even sure that she wanted to be a religieuse any longer! That thought brought her up with a shock as she realised that she could now ask that very question which she had been suppressing or hiding for this last year or so.

She had entered the life simply because the majority of the intellectual class of her people, all those who wished to pursue the professions, did so, just as their forebears had been members of the Druidic class. Her one abiding interest and passion had been law, not religion in the sense of sublimating herself to a life of devotion within some abbey away from the rest of her fellow beings. She now fell to thinking about the times when the Superior of her abbey had chided her for spending too much time with her law books and not enough time in religious contemplation. Maybe the religious life was no longer for her.

Perhaps this was the real reason for her pilgrimage — to sort out her commitment to God rather than ponder her relationship with Brother Eadulf? Fidelma suddenly felt angry with herself and turned abruptly away from the rail of the ship.

The great leather sail was towering high above her, against the azure sky. The crew were still bent to various tasks, but their movements were less frenetic than they had been when the vessel had initially left the protection of the bay. There was still no sign of the rest of Fidelma’s fellow pilgrims. The two young monks were still having their animated dialogue. She wondered who they were and why they were making this voyage. Did they harbour the same conflict of thoughts that she did? She smiled ruefully.

‘A fine day, Sister,’ called the captain of the ship, moving from his position by the steersmen and coming forward to greet her. He had barely acknowledged her presence when she came aboard, too busy concentrating on the task of getting the ship underway.

She leant with her back against the rail and nodded pleasantly.

‘A fine day, indeed.’

‘My name is Murchad, Sister,’ the man introduced himself. ‘I am sorry I did not have time for a proper greeting when you came aboard.’

The captain of The Barnacle Goose could not be mistaken foranything other than the sailor he was. A sturdy, thickset man, Murchad had greying hair and weatherbeaten features. Fidelma estimated he was in his late forties; she noted that he had a prominent nose which accentuated the close set of his sea-grey eyes. Their forbidding aspect was offset by a twinkling hidden humour. His mouth was a firm line. When he walked towards her, he moved with the rolling gait she associated with seafarers.

‘Have you acquired your sea legs yet?’ he asked in his dry, rasping voice; the voice of someone used to shouting commands rather than indulging in social conversation.

Fidelma smiled confidently.

‘I think you will find me a pretty good sailor, Captain.’

Murchad chuckled sceptically.

‘I’ll let you have an opinion when we are out of sight of land in a deep, restless ocean,’ he replied.

‘I’ve been on shipboard before,’ Fidelma assured him.

‘Is that a fact?’ His tone was jovial.

‘That it is,’ she answered gravely. ‘I’ve crossed to the coast of Alba and from the coast of Northumbria to Gaul.’

‘Pah!’ Murchad screwed up his face in distaste although his eyes did not lose their good humour. ‘That is a mere paddle across a pond. We are going on a real sea voyage.’

‘Is it longer than from Northumbria to Gaul?’ Fidelma knew many things but the distances by sea was a knowledge that she had never had to acquire.

‘If we are lucky … if,’ emphasised Murchad, ‘then we will be ashore within the week. It depends on the weather and the tides.’

Fidelma was surprised.

‘Isn’t that a long time to be out of sight of land?’ she ventured.

Murchad shook his head with a grin.

‘Bless you, no. We will sight land a few times on this voyage. We have to keep close to the coast in order to maintain our bearings. Our first landfall should be tomorrow morning; that is, if we find a favourable wind all the way to the south-east.’

‘Where does that take us? To the kingdom of the Britons of Cornwall?’

Murchad regarded her with a new appreciation.

‘You know your geography, Sister. However, we don’t touch the coast of Cornwall. We sail to the west of a group of islands which lie several miles from it — the islands called Sylinancim. We do not stop there but sail on with, I hope, a fair wind and calm seas. If so, we make landfall on another island, called Ushant, that lies off thecoast of Gaul. We should be there on the following morning or soon afterwards. That will be our last look at land for several days. Then we sail due south and should touch the coast of Iberia before the week’s out, God willing.’

‘Iberia, and within the week?’

Murchad verified her question with a nod.

‘God willing,’ he repeated. ‘And we have a good ship to take us.’ He slapped at the timber of the rail as he spoke.

Fidelma glanced round. She had taken a special interest in examining the ship when she came aboard.

‘She’s a Gaulish ship, isn’t she?’

Murchad was a little surprised at her knowledge.

‘You have a keen eye, Sister.’

‘I have seen a ship like her before. I know that the heavy timbers and rigging are peculiar to the ports of Morbihan.’

Murchad looked even more surprised.

‘You’ll be telling me next that you know who built her,’ he said dryly.

‘No, that I can’t,’ she replied seriously. ‘But, as I say, I have seen her like before.’

‘Well, you are right,’ confessed Murchad. ‘I bought her in Kerhostin two years ago. My mate …’ he indicated one of the two men at the steering oar, a man with saturnine features, ‘that’s my mate, Gurvan, the second-in-command on this vessel. He is a Breton and helped build The Barnacle Goose. We also have Cornishmen and Galicians in our crew. They know all the waters between here and Iberia.’

‘It is good that you have so knowledgeable a crew,’ Fidelma observed with solemn humour.

‘Well, as I say, if we have a fair wind and the blessing of our patron, St Brendan the Navigator, this will prove an agreeable voyage.’

Mention of St Brendan turned Fidelma’s thoughts to her fellow pilgrims.

‘I was wondering why most of my fellow passengers are missing the best part of the voyage?’ she queried. ‘I always think the most exciting part of a voyage is when one leaves land behind, and heads out on the vast sea.’

‘From a traveller’s viewpoint, I would have thought that it is more exciting coming into a strange port than leaving a familiar one,’ returned Murchad. Then he shrugged. ‘Perhaps your travelling companions are not such good sailors as you and those two young Brothers yonder.’ He nodded to where the two religieux were still engaged in discussion. ‘Though I think those young men arescarcely noticing that they are on shipboard — unlike some of their fellows.’

It took Fidelma a moment before she realised what he was implying.

‘Some are seasick already?’

‘My cabin boy tells me we have at least a couple suffering. I have had pilgrims actually praying for death to take them even on a calm sea because they were so sick they could not bear it.’ He chuckled at the memory. ‘I knew one pilgrim who became sick the moment he set foot on shipboard and continued his sickness even while he rode at anchor in the sheltered harbour. Some people can take to the sea while others should remain on land.’

‘What are my fellow passengers like?’ asked Fidelma.

Murchad pursed his lips and regarded her with some astonishment.

‘You do not know them?’

‘No. I am not part of their company. I am travelling alone.’

‘I thought you were from the Abbey.’ Murchad waved his hand in the direction of the distant shoreline behind them as if to indicate St Declan’s.

‘I am from Cashel — Fidelma of Cashel. I arrived at the Abbey late last night.’

‘Well.’ Murchad reflected for a moment on her question. ‘Your fellow travellers, I suppose, can be described as the usual crowd of religieux. I am sorry, Sister, but it is hard to see beyond the habit to the individual.’

Fidelma was sympathetic to his viewpoint.

‘Are they a mixed group, both male and female?’

‘Ah, that I can tell you. Including yourself, there are four females and six males.’

‘Ten in all?’ Fidelma was surprised. ‘That is a curious total, for surely pilgrims like to travel in bands of twelve or thirteen?’

‘So it is in my experience. There were supposed to be six females and six males on this trip. However, I was told that one female did not complete the trip to Ardmore while another of them simply did not turn up on the quay this morning. We waited until the last minute, but a ship cannot dictate wind and tide. We had to sail. Perhaps the missing religieuse had thought better of undertaking this voyage. It is certainly curious, though, to find a woman undertaking a pilgrimage alone,’ he added inquisitively.

Fidelma made an imperceptible gesture with her shoulder.

‘I arrived at St Declan’s Abbey only last evening with the purpose of seeking a ship for Iberia. The Abbot told me that your ship waspreparing to sail this morning and he believed that you had room for another passenger. So he entertained me while a messenger came to book my passage. I did not meet my fellow travellers at the Abbey and have no knowledge of any of them.’

Murchad was looking at her speculatively, rubbing a forefinger along the side of his large nose.

‘It is true that the Abbot’s messenger found me in Colla’s tavern last night and booked your passage.’ He frowned. ‘It strikes me that you are an odd sort of religieuse, Sister. The Abbot entertains you while he sends a messenger to book your passage? Yet you don’t appear to be a Superior of your Order.’

There was an implied question in his observation.

‘I am not,’ she answered, wishing the subject had not been raised.

He was scrutinising her carefully.

‘It is unusual to warrant such a privilege.’ He paused and his sharp, bright eyes widened in recognition. ‘Fidelma of Cashel? Of course!’

Fidelma sighed in resignation as she realised that he had heard of her. However, her identity would have probably been revealed sooner or later in the close confines of this vessel.

‘I trust you will keep my identity confidential, Murchad,’ she requested. ‘Who I am should surely be of no concern to my fellow travellers.’

Murchad let out a long, soft breath.

‘The King of Cashel’s sister travelling on my ship? It is an honour, lady, and my curiosity is appeased.’

Fidelma shook her head reproachfully.

‘Sister,’ she corrected sharply. ‘I am no more than an ordinary religieuse on a pilgrimage.’

‘Very well, I will keep your confidence. Yet a princess and a lawyer rolled into the person of a religieuse is an extraordinary combination to encounter. I have heard stories of how you saved the kingdom …’

Fidelma drew up her chin a fraction. There was a dangerous sparkle in her eyes as she retorted: ‘Wasn’t Brendan himself a prince and wasn’t Colmcille of the royal dynasty of Ui Neill? Surely it is not so unusual to find people of royal rank serving the Faith? Anyway, this matter remains one that is between us and not to be discussed with my fellow pilgrims.’

‘I must surely tell the boy who will serve your needs on the voyage.’

‘I would rather you did not. And now, Captain, you were about to tell me about my fellow travellers,’ she prompted, interrupting further talk on what she felt was an embarrassing subject.

‘I know nothing much about them,’ Murchad confessed. ‘Although they stayed at the Abbey last night, I do not think they are of its community. Judging by their accents, or those which I have heard, most of them are northerners — from the Kingdom of Ulaidh.’

Fidelma felt a sense of wonder.

‘It is surely a long route for pilgrims from Ulaidh to journey to Ardmore to find a ship, rather than sail directly from a northern port?’

‘Maybe.’ Murchad seemed indifferent. ‘As master of this ship, I am pleased to pick up paying passengers whatever their motives. You will have plenty of time to get acquainted with them, lady, and their reasons for coming on this journey.’

He suddenly glanced up at the pennants flying from the central mast, shading his eyes against the sun for a moment.

‘Forgive me, lady. I must go to wear the ship — I mean, to change her heading — for the wind is altering course now.’ She was about to rebuke him for calling her ‘lady’ instead of ‘Sister’ when he continued: ‘If you remain on deck, I suggest that you move to leeward out of the wind.’ Noticing her perplexity, he indicated the side that would be opposite to the wind direction once he had brought the ship’s head around: the wind had changed direction in a surprising fashion as they had cleared the headlands into the open sea.

‘I will go below now to find my cabin, if that is all the same to you, Captain,’ she replied.

He turned and bellowed so unexpectedly that she was startled for the moment.

‘Wenbrit! Pass the word for Wenbrit!’ He glanced back to her. ‘I must leave you for the time being. The boy will take your dunnage below and show you to your cabin, lady …’

He turned away before she could ask him what ‘dunnage’ meant. She watched him hurry across to the men by the steering oar and then begin to roar: ‘Hands to halyards, stand by to wear ship.’

The vessel was bucking and rolling with such a motion that Fidelma was forced to keep changing her balance to remain upright on the deck.

‘Bit rough for you, eh, Sister?’

She found herself gazing into the urchin-like features of a young boy of about thirteen or fourteen. He stood legs wide apart, hands on hips, balancing effortlessly as the vessel skewed and rolled while the crew manoeuvred it into its new heading. He had bright, copper-coloured hair and a mass of freckles on his fair skin, and curious elfin eyes of sea green. His face was split by a broad grin and he carried himselfwith a self-conscious attitude of pride. Though he spoke the language of Eireann effortlessly, she could hear the strange accent which belied the country of his birth. He was a Briton.

‘Not so rough,’ she assured him, although having to clutch for the nearby rail to steady herself.

The boy screwed up his face in disbelief at her reply.

‘Well,’ he admitted, ‘at least you are standing up to it better than some of your friends below. Sick as dogs, they are.’ He wrinkled his nose in disgust. ‘And who is it who has to clean out below decks?’

‘I presume that you are called Wenbrit?’ smiled Fidelma. In spite of the lurching of the vessel, she felt no queasiness. It was a matter of balance only.

‘I am,’ agreed the boy. ‘I suppose you want to go below now?’

‘Yes, I should like to see my cabin.’

‘Follow me, then, Sister, and hang on tight,’ he said as he picked up her bag. ‘It is sometimes more dangerous below deck than above it during turbulent water. If I were Captain I would not allow my passengers below until they had a good taste of what it is to be like, at least. Once they found their sea legs, then they could go and hide in the darkness ’tween decks.’

The boy spoke scornfully as he led the way. He moved with sure-footed pride from the stern deck down the steep wooden steps to the main deck. It was as he turned to glance back at her that Fidelma caught a glimpse of a band of white around the boy’s neck — the scar of something which had chafed against the flesh. She was momentarily intrigued at its cause. However, it was neither the time nor place to ask such a question. At the foot of the steps, he turned to watch her descent with a critical eye. Fidelma swung herself down and paused to meet the lad’s reluctant nod of approval.

‘One of your friends slipped and fell on those steps, and that was while we were riding at anchor,’ he volunteered airily. ‘Landlubbers ^!’

‘Was he or she hurt?’ demanded Fidelma, aghast at the youth’s callousness.

‘Only their dignity was bruised, if you know what I mean,’ he replied lightly. ‘This way, Sister.’

He entered a doorway — Fidelma wished she could remember the correct nautical terms — and started down a narrow, dingy set of stairs into the cabin space below. Fidelma came to know that it was called a companionway. A single storm lantern swung and bounced on a chain in the passageway, giving a dim illumination to the darkness.

‘You’ve been placed in a cabin with one of the other Sisters atthe far end here.’ The boy pointed. ‘The other travellers occupy the cabins along here. When I am not on deck then I sleep in the big cabin through there.’ He waved his hand for’ard. ‘That’s where we prepare food and eat. It’s called the mess deck. I am always around, if anything is needed.’ He threw out his chest in an attitude of pride. ‘The captain … well, he likes the passengers to deal with me and, if there is anything of an urgent nature, I can pass it on to him. He doesn’t like to have much to do with those who take passage on the ship …’ The boy paused as if waiting for some response.

‘Very well, Wenbrit,’ Fidelma acknowledged solemnly. ‘If there are any problems, I will consult you first.’

‘There will be a meal at midday and the captain will attend in order to explain the running of the ship to you all. But he doesn’t usually eat with the passengers. He makes an exception on the first day out to ensure everyone knows what’s what. And, of course, don’t expect hot meals on the voyage. Which reminds me, if you light candles below decks, make sure they are not left unattended. I’ve heard of ships flaring up like a tinder box.’

Fidelma did her best to hide her humour at the boy’s studied self-confident air of a veteran sailor.

‘There is a meal at midday, you say?’

‘I will ring a bell which will summon the passengers to the meal.’

‘Very well.’ Fidelma made to turn to the cabin door indicated by the boy.

‘Oh, one more thing …’

She turned back enquiringly towards him.

‘I am required to tell you that these cabins are aft in the vessel. That’s the stern. On the deck above is the captain’s cabin and other quarters. For’ard lies in that direction. It is also called the bow of the ship. There is a privy at the stern here, through that door there. And there is one up in the bow. Anyone will tell you where it is, should the need arise. If there are any problems, if we need to abandon ship, there are two small boats lashed to the deck athwart ships — that is in the middle of the ship. That is where you should make for if we get in trouble. Don’t worry, one of the crew will inform you of what you should do.’

The boy turned abruptly and hurried back on deck.

Fidelma stood, letting a smile spread across her features. It was clear that young Wenbrit did not have a high regard for ‘landlubbers’ as he called the passengers. She turned back towards the cabin door which he had indicated. As she did so, a door opened on the other side of the passage just behind her. She heard a sharp intake of breath andthen a soft masculine voice said: ‘Fidelma! What in God’s name are you doing here?’

She swung round, trying to identify the voice from some long-past memory, a memory that she had almost managed to expunge.

A tall man stood there, irregularly illuminated by the light of the swinging lantern.

Fidelma took an involuntary step backward, reaching out a hand to grasp the wooden wall as if for balance. This was her first bout of dizziness since coming aboard The Barnacle Goose, and it had less to do with the sea’s swell than with the welling of her emotions.