Our Lady of Darkness

Chapter Sixteen

‘Come on. I’ve been waiting for you!’ the man repeated as he leapt down from the rock to approach Eadulf.

Startled, Eadulf stood rooted to the spot and examined the man who had been standing on a jutting rock just above the path in front of him. He was dressed in rough country clothes. A brown, weatherbeaten skin denoted he was used to the outdoors. He was clad in a heavy leather jerkin over a thick woollen jacket and on his feet the tough boots that farmers usually wore.

Eadulf was not sure whether he should flee or stay and prepare to defend himself. Further along the track, he saw there was a cart already harnessed with a horse and realised that flight was pointless. He tensed his muscles for a fight.

The man halted and stared at him in disgust.

‘Where’s Gabrán? I thought he was coming in person this time?’

‘Gabrán?’ Eadulf glanced nervously behind him, uncertain what he should do. ‘He’s gone back to his boat,’ he said, deciding to tell the truth. After all, that was what he had heard the river-boat captain tell Dalbach.

‘Back to the river?’ The man before him spat at the side of the path. ‘Leaving you to come up here and make the collection, I suppose?’

‘Leaving me to come up here,’ repeated Eadulf, still truthfully.

‘I’ve been hanging around here for two hours. It’s cold and I wasn’t sure whether he had said to meet him here at Darach Carraig or at Dalbach’s cabin. Still, you are here now.’

‘Gabrán did not tell me that I should have been here earlier,’ Eadulf suddenly grew confident, realising that this must be the man with the merchandise whom Gabrán had been seeking when he came to Dalbach’s cabin earlier. Obviously this fellow had been confused by the similarity of the names Darach and Dalbach.

‘Just like him to get other people to do the work,’ sighed the man. Then he frowned. ‘You’re a foreigner, aren’t you?’

Eadulf stiffened slightly.

‘A Saxon, I can tell by your accent,’ went on the man suspiciously. Then he shrugged. ‘No skin off my nose. I suppose you accompany the merchandise all the way from here to the lands of the Saxons, eh?’

Eadulf decided to make a non-committal sound.

‘Well,’ the man went on, ‘it’s cold and it’s late and I don’t want to hang about here any longer than I have to. There are only two this time. I think, in future, I must go further afield. I suppose you’ve left your cart at the bottom of the hill? Didn’t Gabrán tell you that the track was traversable all the way up here? Well, you’ll have no trouble with only two of them. I’ll see Gabrán at Cam Eolaing when he returns from the coast but tell him, when you see him, that things are getting difficult. He can pay me when he returns. The price is going to increase though.’

Eadulf nodded as if in agreement. It seemed the only thing to do in this bizarre, confusing conversation.

‘Good man. They are in the cave as usual. Gabrán has told you where it is located?’

Eadulf hesitated and shook his head. ‘Not exactly,’ he said.

The man sighed impatiently, turned and pointed. ‘Two hundred metres along this path, my friend. Up the hill to your right you will see the short rock face, a small granite cliff. You can’t miss the opening to the cave. That’s where the merchandise is.’

The man glanced up at the sky and drew his collar up around his neck.

‘It’ll be raining soon. Maybe sleet will come with this cold. I’m off. Don’t forget to tell Gabrán what I say. It’s getting difficult.’

He went back to his cart, climbing quickly up onto the seat. He flicked the reins and turned the vehicle along a narrow, almost invisible track which branched off eastwards over the rolling hills.

Eadulf, shaken and confused, stood watching him go.

He had obviously been mistaken for one of Gabrán’s men. What merchandise was the boatman collecting in this godforsaken spot, he wondered. Darach Carraig — the oak rock. A curious name. He glanced behind him in the direction from which he had come. Gabrán had mentioned sending another to look for the merchandise. Perhaps that man was close behind him? He’d better move on quickly in case he was overtaken.

He set off hurriedly along the path. He supposed that he had been mentally counting the two hundred metres for he paused after a fewmoments and glanced up the hill to his right. Not far above him he saw the cluster of large boulders and rocks strewn across the hill and the natural hill scooped out at that point forming a short granite cliff. He hesitated and felt an overwhelming sense of curiosity. He could at least see what Gabrán’s peculiar merchandise was and why it had to be left in an isolated cave in an even more isolated part of the countryside. He glanced around. There was no sign of anyone in the bleak, darkening landscape.

Eadulf began to climb up towards the rocks and, as he did so, he saw that behind the larger of the granite boulders the almost cliff-like stretch of black rock appeared as if some hand had quarried it thus, it seemed so unnatural. As he drew closer, he was able to spot the dark entrance of a cave with a flat shelf of rock before it.

Reaching this, Eadulf paused for a moment to recover his breath from the short but steep ascent before taking a step forward. The cave was in semigloom. He peered into its dark recesses, standing waiting for his eyes to grow used to the shadows.

There was a sudden and unusual scrabbling sound which caused him to flinch, thinking some animal was within. Then he saw the source and his mouth dropped open in astonishment.

There were two human shapes on the ground at the far end of the cave, seated with their backs against the rocks. From the manner of their posture he saw they were bound hand and foot and, on closer inspection, he realised that they were also gagged. They were of slight build; that he could make out in the darkness, but beyond that he could see no other features.

‘Whoever you are,’ he declaimed loudly, ‘I mean you no harm.’

He moved towards them.

Instantly there arose muffled, piteous moaning and the figure nearest him seemed to cringe away, although it could not move far because of its bonds.

‘I mean you no harm,’ repeated Eadulf. ‘I must bring you to the light so that I may see you.’

Ignoring the animal-like sounds his movements provoked, he bent down and lifted the nearest squirming bound form and half-pulled, half-carried it to the cave entrance.

Two wide, frightened eyes stared at him from over the dirty rag that formed a gag.

Eadulf stepped away from the form in amazement.

It was the face of a young girl, no more than twelve or thirteen years of age, that stared back at him in utter fear.

‘Well, Abbess Fainder,’ Fidelma said slowly, as she examined the scene of carnage before her, ‘I think that you have some explaining to do.’

Abbess Fainder returned her gaze almost uncomprehendingly. Then she looked down at the body of Gabrán beside her and at the knife in her hand. With a strange animal-like groan she dropped the knife and sprang to her feet. Her eyes were wild.

‘He is dead,’ she said hoarsely.

‘That I can see,’ agreed Fidelma grimly. ‘Why?’

‘Why?’ the abbess echoed in a daze.

‘Why is he dead?’ pressed Fidelma.

The abbess blinked, staring at her as if she did not understand. It took a moment for her to gather her wits.

‘How should I know?’ she began and then stopped abruptly. ‘You don’t think that I …? I did not kill him!’

‘With due respect, Abbess Fainder,’ intervened Dego, peering over Fidelma’s shoulder, ‘we have just come aboard and, opening the cabin door, we find Gabrán dead. From the amount of blood it is clear that he has been knifed to death. You are kneeling at his head. Your clothes are smeared in blood and you have a knife in your hand. How are we to interpret this scene?’

The abbess seemed to be recovering herself. She glared angrily at Dego.

‘How dare you! Who are you to accuse the Abbess of Fearna of common murder?’

Fidelma’s mouth twitched in black humour as she considered the situation.

‘No murder is common, abbess. Least of all this murder. It would take a fool not to point out the obvious. Are you trying to tell us that you had no hand in this murder?’

Abbess Fainder’s face was white.

‘I did not do it.’ Her voice cracked with emotion.

‘So you say. Come out on deck and explain it to me.’

Fidelma stood aside from the door and gestured for the abbess to leave the cabin. Fainder stepped out onto the deck and blinked in the daylight.

‘There is no one else on board,’ Enda reported with a note ofmalicious glee. He had made a cursory examination of the boat. ‘You appear to be alone here, Mother Abbess.’

Abbess Fainder sat down abruptly on a hatch cover and, placing her arms around her waist, she bent over and seemed to hug herself, rocking a little to and fro. Fidelma sat down beside her.

‘This is a bad business,’ Fidelma said gently, after a few moments. ‘The sooner we have an explanation the better.’

Abbess Fainder raised her anguished features to face her.

‘Explanation? I have told you that I did not do it! What other explanation do you need?’

There was enough of her old spirit left in the voice for Fidelma’s mouth to tighten impatiently.

‘Believe me, Mother Abbess, an explanation is needed and it had better be one that I am satisfied with,’ she snapped. ‘Perhaps you had best begin by explaining how you came to be here.’

The abbess’s features changed abruptly. The spark of her old arrogance burst out.

‘I don’t like your tone, Sister. Are you trying to accuse me?’

Fidelma was unconcerned. ‘I don’t have to accuse you. The circumstances speak for themselves. But if there is something that you wish to tell me, now is the time to do so. As a dálaigh I must report the evidence of my eyes.’

Abbess Fainder gazed at her as the shock of what she was saying registered. She opened her mouth, speechless for a moment or two.

‘But I did not do it,’ she said finally. ‘You can’t accuse me. You can’t!’

‘As I recall, Brother Eadulf said pretty much the same thing,’ Fidelma told her, ‘yet he was accused and found guilty of murder on much slimmer evidence. And here you are, actually found bending over the body, holding a knife, drenched in blood.’

‘But I am …’ The abbess’s mouth snapped shut as if she realised the conceit of what she had been about to say.

‘But you are the abbess whereas Brother Eadulf was merely a wandering foreigner?’ concluded Fidelma. ‘Well, Abbess Fainder? We are waiting for your story.’

A shudder went through the woman. Her haughty demeanour vanished and her shoulders slumped.

‘Bishop Forbassach told me that you had accused Gabrán of attacking you last night.’

Fidelma waited patiently.

‘Bishop Forbassach claimed that you would not lie over such a matter. So I came here to demand an explanation from Gabrán,’ went on Abbess Fainder. ‘I could not believe your story even if Forbassach did. Gabrán had …’ She hesitated.

‘Gabrán had … what?’ prompted Fidelma.

‘Gabrán is a well-known merchant on the river. He has traded with the abbey for many years, long before I became Abbess. Such an accusation brings an insult to our abbey and has to be challenged. I came here to see what Gabrán had to say.’

‘So you came here hoping to prove my accusation against Gabrán false? Continue.’

‘I finally found the Cág moored here. There was no one about. I came on board and called for Gabrán. There was no answer. I thought I heard a movement in the cabin so I went to the door and knocked. There was the sound of something heavy falling … I realise now that it was the body of Gabrán. Anyway, I called out again and went in. I saw the scene exactly as you saw it. Gabrán was dead and lying on his back in the cabin. There was blood everywhere. My first thought was for the man and I entered and knelt down. He was beyond help.’

‘Presumably this is how you explain the fact that your clothes are stained with blood?’

‘It is why my habit is bloody, yes.’

‘Then what?’

‘I was shocked by the knife-wounds that had been inflicted. I saw the knife …’

‘Where was this knife?’

‘Lying by the side of the body. I saw it and picked it up. I don’t know what made me do that. Some unthinking reaction, I suppose. I just knelt there.’

‘And then we arrived.’

To Fidelma’s surprise, Abbess Fainder shook her head.

‘There was something else before you came.’

‘What was that?’

‘It didn’t mean much to me then but now it does.’

‘Go on.’

‘I heard a soft splash.’

Fidelma arched an eyebrow. ‘A soft splash? What did you think it was?’

‘I think it was the murderer leaving the boat.’ The abbess shivered sightly.

Fidelma looked cynical. ‘The boat was moored alongside a jetty. What would be the need for anyone to leave the boat via the river, especially in this icy weather. And if it was the murderer leaving the scene of this crime, then your horse was tethered nearby and presented a very effective means of escape. Isn’t that so?’

Abbess Fainder stared blankly at Fidelma’s remorseless logic.

‘I am sure that someone was on this boat and left it by lowering themselves into the water,’ she repeated stubbornly.

‘It would certainly help your claim that you were innocent of this crime,’ agreed Fidelma, ‘but I have to say that it is unlikely in the extreme that someone, flying from this scene, would take that option. Look!’

She indicated the river side of the boat. The waters were flowing strongly at this point and the river was now more than five metres wide increasing the ferocity of the flow.

‘Anyone attempting to swim in that river would have to be a strong swimmer. No one in their right mind would choose that route when all they had to do was step onto the riverbank on the other side of the boat.’

Fidelma suddenly frowned as a thought struck her.

‘How could Gabrán navigate this boat up here against such a strong current?’

‘Easy enough,’ explained Enda. ‘While I was looking around this boat I saw the harness attachments. It is common, lady, for a couple of asses to be used to pull river boats against the flow of the river where the current is strong. Otherwise, poles are used to propel the vessel. It is done all the time.’

Fidelma stood up and looked around. While Enda was obviously correct, there was still something wrong.

‘So where are these beasts now? Who brought them here and who took them away? Indeed, where are Gabrán’s crew, come to that?’

She returned to her seat on the hatch cover and closed her eyes for a moment in thought. She felt that she was overlooking something important. She wondered why the crew had left Gabrán on his own and taken the animals needed to bring the boat upriver to this spot? Abbess Fainder’s story about merely happening on the boat and then finding Gabrán just at the moment of his slaughter seemed so far-fetched; asfar-fetched as the idea of the killer escaping by jumping over the side of the boat into the swiftly flowing river. It was nonsense. But then, perhaps, Eadulf’s story appeared equally nonsensical in face of the evidence of the girl Fial who claimed to have been an eye-witness to her friend’s death. Fidelma expelled her breath in a deep sigh.

‘Well, there is little we can do here for the time being,’ she said, standing up. ‘Dego, I want you to ride back to Cam Eolaing and find Coba, if he is there. He said that he was returning to his fortress and he is the bó-aire of this area. This matter needs to be reported to him. If you fail to find him at Cam Eolaing, ride back to Fearna and bring Bishop Forbassach here.’

Abbess Fainder was anxious.

‘What do you mean to do?’ She tried to sound commanding, but her voice trembled.

‘I mean to follow the law,’ Fidelma replied with grim humour. ‘It will be up to the Brehon of this kingdom, I presume, as to whether that law will follow the punitive Penitentials, of which you are so fond, or whether you will be found guilty and punished by our own native system.’

Abbess Fainder’s eyes widened with horror. ‘But I did not do it.’

‘So you have said, Mother Abbess,’ Fidelma rejoined with a touch of well-deserved malice. ‘Just as Brother Eadulf said that he did not do what he was accused of!’

Eadulf untied the gag on the young girl whom he had carried to the entrance of the cave. She continued to stare at him with eyes wide, round and dark, mirroring her fear. In spite of the tightness of her bonds she was trembling visibly.

‘Who are you?’ demanded Eadulf.

‘Don’t hurt me!’ came the whimpering response. ‘Please, don’t hurt me.’

Eadulf tried a reassuring smile. ‘I do not propose to hurt you. Who left you in this condition?’

The girl took some time to overcome her fear.

‘Are you one of them?’ she whispered.

‘I do not know who “they” are,’ Eadulf replied, and then, remembering the second bound form in the cave, he turn back and brought her out. She, too, was barely thirteen, a half-starved dishevelled little girl. He removed her gag and she sobbed in great breaths of air.

‘You are a Saxon, so you must be one of them,’ the first girl cried fearfully. ‘Please do not hurt us.’

Eadulf sat down before them, shaking his head. He, too, was cautious, for he made it a rule never to loose the bonds of any person until he found out why they had been bound in the first place. He had once seen a young Brother killed by an insane woman when he had removed her bonds, thinking he was releasing her from a tormentor.

‘I have no intention of hurting you, whoever you are. Tell me first, who are you, why are you bound and who bound you?’

The two girls exchanged a nervous glance between them.

‘You must know, if you are one of them,’ replied the first of the girls with some defiance.

Eadulf was patient. ‘I am a stranger here. I do not know who you are nor who “they” are.’

‘But you knew enough to come into the cave to find us,’ pointed out the second girl, who seemed to have a quicker wit than her companion. ‘No one would stumble on that cave by chance. You must be one of them.’

‘If I am someone who means you harm, then you have nothing to lose in answering my questions,’ Eadulf pointed out. The younger girl started to sob. ‘However,’ he added sharply, ‘if I am simply a stranger passing by, then I might be able to help you in your plight if you tell me the reason why you have been bound and left in this cave.’

It was some time before the elder of the two came to a decision.

‘We do not know,’ she said after some thought.

Eadulf raised his eyebrows in disbelief.

‘It is the truth that I tell you,’ the girl insisted. ‘Yesterday, we were taken from our homes by a man. He brought us to this place, bound us and left us. He said that someone would come to take us on a long journey and that we would never see our homes again.’

Eadulf stared hard at the girl trying to assess the truth of what she was saying. Her voice was dull, flat now, as if divorced from the reality of what she was saying.

‘Who was this man?’ he pressed.

‘A stranger like yourself.’

‘But not a foreigner,’ added the second girl.

‘I think that you had better explain further. Who are you and where do you come from?’

The girls seemed less nervous now as he drew them out of their first fear of immediate harm.

‘My name is Muirecht,’ said the elder. ‘I come from the mountains to the north of here. Well over a day’s riding.’

Eadulf turned to the younger of the two. ‘And you?’

‘I am called Conna.’

‘And do you come from the same place as Muirecht?’

The girl shook her head.

‘Not the same place,’ Muirecht intervened, responding for her. ‘I never saw her before we found ourselves together as prisoners. We did not know each other’s names until this moment.’

‘So what happened? Why were you made prisoners?’

The girls exchanged another glance and it seemed to have been silently agreed that Muirecht would speak for the two of them.

‘It was yesterday morning, well before dawn, that I was awakened by my father …’

‘And who is your father?’ intervened Eadulf.

‘A poor man. He is a fudir, although he is a saer-fudir,’ she added this fact quickly and proudly.

Eadulf knew that the fudir was the lowest class of Irish society; a class scarcely little removed from the slaves of Saxon society. They were comprised not of members of the clan but were commonly fugitives, prisoners of war, hostages or criminals who had their civil rights removed as a form of punishment. The fudirs were divided into two sub-classes, the daer-fudir or unfree and the saer-fudir, who were not exactly free men but did not suffer the bondage placed on the lower rank. The saer-fudir were usually those who were not criminals and therefore could regain certain rights and privileges in society. They could work land that was allotted to them by their lord or king and on very rare occasions rise from the ‘unfree’ class to become a céile, a free clansman, and they might even reach to the rank of a bó-aire, a landless chieftain and magistrate.

Eadulf indicated that he understood.

‘My father’s plot of land is small,’ went on Muirecht, ‘but, in spite of that, the chief of the territory demands the biatad, the food rent. Twice a year my father had to repay the loans from the common stock.’

Eadulf knew the custom. Both free and unfree fudir could borrow cows, pigs, corn, bacon, butter and honey, from the common stock of the clan, provided that one third of the value of that which they tookwas paid back annually for seven years. At the end of that time the stock became their property without further payment. The free fudir was also obliged to give the Chief either service in time of war or service in an agreed number of days working the land of the Chief. Eadulf, coming from a society in which outright slavery was normal, always considered the idea of the non-free class of society being able to obtain such loans and work their way to freedom as a curious concept. He could see that, for a man with poor land and little ability to manage, the loan might, in certain circumstances, induce further poverty instead of raising him out of it.

‘Go on,’ he said. ‘Yesterday morning your father awakened you before first light. Then what?’

Muirecht sniffed painfully at the memory.

‘He was red-eyed. He had been crying. He told me to dress and be ready for a long journey. I asked him what journey. He would not answer. I trusted my father. He brought me out of the cabin. There was no sign of my mother nor of my young brother to bid me goodbye. But outside was a man with a cart.’

She hesitated, contemplating the scene in her memory.

Eadulf waited patiently.

‘The same happened to me,’ muttered the second girl, Conna. ‘My father is a daer-fudir. I have no mother for she died three months ago. I was made to cook and clean for my father.’

Muirecht grimaced and the younger girl fell silent.

‘Once out of the cabin, my father …’ began Muirecht again and then she paused, tears in her eyes. ‘He held me by the arms. The other man bound and gagged me and threw me in his cart. I saw, through a chink in the wood of the cart, my father receive a small bag with chinking metal in it. He grabbed it to his chest and hurried inside the cabin. Then the man climbed on his cart, threw brushwood over me and drove off.’

She suddenly began to sob long and loudly. Eadulf did not know how to comfort the girl.

‘It was the same with me,’ affirmed the younger girl. ‘I was thrown into the cart and found this girl already there. We could not speak as we were both bound and gagged. And we have neither eaten nor had a drink since yesterday morning.’

Eadulf stared at them blankly, hardly able to take in the enormity of their story.

‘What you are telling me is that both your fathers have actually sold you to the man with the cart?’

Muirecht had managed to control her sobbing and she nodded dismally.

‘What else is there to believe? I have heard tell of poor families who sell their children to be taken to other lands to …’ she fought for the words.

‘To be a slave,’ muttered Eadulf sadly. He knew the practice existed in many countries. Now he realised the sort of trade Gabrán must have been running along the river. He bought young girls from their families and transported them down to Loch Garman on the coast where they were sold as slaves to the Saxon kingdoms or to the land of the Franks. Poor people, to alleviate their impoverished circumstances, often resorted to selling one of their female children. He, personally, had never encountered such a trade among the people of the five kingdoms of Éireann because the law system seemed designed to keep anyone from utter destitution and the concept of one man holding another in complete servile bondage was alien. The revelation of the two girls came as a shock to Eadulf.

The sudden screech of a rook, taking off from a nearby high tree, caused Eadulf to start and glance up nervously, remembering that one of Gabrán’s men was supposed to be coming into the hills to collect these girls.

‘We must leave this place before these bad men come for you,’ he said, bending forward and taking out his knife. He cut at the bindings that held the girls’ ankles together and then released their hands. ‘We ought to move on now.’

Muirecht was rubbing her wrists and ankles.

‘We need a moment or two,’ she protested. ‘My hands and feet are numb from lack of blood.’

Conna was following her example in an attempt to restore the circulation.

‘But we must hurry,’ Eadulf urged, now that he had realised what dangers were involved.

‘But to go where?’ protested Muirecht. ‘We can’t go back to our fathers … not after what has happened.’

‘No,’ agreed Eadulf, helping them both to their feet. They stood and stamped their feet awhile to restore their circulation. Eadulf’s brows were drawn together in perplexity. He could hardly take the two girlsback with him to Fearna. Then he suddenly remembered that Dalbach had told him of the community on the Yellow Mountain. ‘Do either of you know this area?’ he asked the girls.

They shook their heads negatively.

‘I have not been so far south ever,’ Muirecht told him.

‘There is a mountain called the Yellow Mountain,’ Eadulf said. ‘It lies to the west of here, overlooking Fearna. I am told that there is a church there dedicated to the Blessed Brigid. You will be given sanctuary there until it is decided what is for the best. Do you agree to accompany me there?’

The two exchanged another glance. Muirecht shrugged almost indifferently.

‘There is nothing else that we can do. We will go with you. What is your name, stranger?’

‘My name is Eadulf. Brother Eadulf.’

‘Then I was right. You are a foreigner,’ Muirecht sounded triumphant.

Eadulf smiled wryly. ‘A traveller passing through this kingdom,’ he added with dry humour.

As a flock of rooks began their cacophony in the valley below, Eadulf glanced down anxiously. Something was disturbing the birds; something or someone. It would not do to delay any longer.

‘I think the man whom your captor was waiting for might be approaching. Let us move on as quickly as we can.’