The Monk Who Vanished

Epilogue

Fidelma and Eadulf had paused on the south-west corner of the battlements of the walls of Cashel. Their eyes were on the westward mountains. It would not be long before the bell tolled the hour for the evening meal. It seemed peaceful and quiet now that the palace grounds were almost deserted and the town below the great seat of the Kings of Muman was emptying of its visitors. They had come for a spectacle in the court of the Brehons and had not been disappointed. Conflict had been averted, the guilty found and punished. Tomorrow morning, the Brehons would be departing and within a few days the Prince of the Uí Fidgente would return to his own land, having sworn a treaty of peace with Cashel.

It seemed that the month was going to end, as it usually did, with another period of fine, warm weather. The sun was lowering rapidly, a bright golden ball heading towards the western mountains in a splash of soft, rose-redness. The clouds, what few there were, lay in thin, long strands of darkness, tinged along the top by the rays of the light from the setting sun.

‘It will be a fine day tomorrow,’ Fidelma observed almost sleepily.

Eadulf nodded morosely.

‘You seem despondent.’ Fidelma caught the mood of her Saxon companion.

‘There is one mystery in this matter that has not been resolved,’ he said. ‘At least, I cannot find the answer.’

‘What is that?’

‘Who killed the raider in Imleach? Was it Samradan? That does not make sense.’

‘No. The death of the raider was almost superfluous, if death can be so described. He was killed, as I first suspected, for the most common of motives. Vengeance.’

‘You mean that he was killed as we suspected by Brother Bardan?’ Eadulf asked. ‘Vengeance for Daig’s slaughter?’

‘No. He was killed by Brother Madagan whose eyes betray his unforgiving nature. Madagan simply wanted vengeance for beingstruck down by the raider outside the gates of the abbey. The next day, Madagan took the purse of the raider, filled with coins from the King of Ailech, and donated them to the abbey as compensation. Ségdae showed me the coins before I left Imleach. They were the same type as the one I found in the assassin’s bag at Samradán’s stable.’

‘Does Abbot Ségdae know?’ gasped Eadulf.

‘Yes. It will be for him to pursue the matter if he wants to and for Madagan to come to terms with his own conscience. At least the raider’s coins as a gift to the abbey is some recompense, I suppose. But not for Madagan. He has to find his own salvation.’

They fell silent awhile.

‘I was also thinking how close you came to death and by the hand of your own cousin no less.’

‘A pilgrim’s staff is good to have to hand.’ She smiled softly. ‘At least your aim was true.’

‘What if it had not been?’ Eadulf grimaced and shivered.

‘But it was and here we are.’

‘Tomorrow the Brehons will have departed. But will Muman be safe again?’

‘The Uí Fidgente have come to a peace accord with my brother. The Brehons will make their findings known and Mael Duin, the Uí Néill King of Ailech, will be given warning to desist from plotting against Muman. So will Ultán, the Comarb of Patrick. I believe that there will be peace here for a while. I am also told that Colgú will be proposing my cousin, Finguine, as his new tanist when the derbfhine of our family next meet. I think the choice will be a wise one.’

‘And what now?’ asked Eadulf. ‘This matter has been an exhausting one. I have never been so confused in my life. I was wondering whether you could have proved Donndubháin’s guilt had he not condemned himself by his action.’

Fidelma gazed at Eadulf in mild rebuke.

‘Surely you know me better than that? I do not believe in chance. However-’ she smiled ruefully — ‘it would have taken some time to examine all the witnesses and the evidence. Some might have become confused with it. I don’t think so, though. In the end, the evidence would have been clear to anyone.’

‘So what are you planning now?’ pressed Eadulf. ‘I have seen that meditative look on your face once too often not to realise that you are working something out.’

Fidelma smiled sadly. She had, indeed. It was going to be difficult. ‘Do you know how our scribes mark the end of a manuscript as they finish work?’

Eadulf shook his head, wondering what she meant.

‘Nunc scripsi totum pro Christo, da mihi potum!’

Eadulf found himself smiling in response as he translated. ‘Now I have written so much for Christ, give me a drink!’

Fidelma nodded slowly. ‘Or as I would translate, now that I have worked so much for my brother, and the kingdom of Cashel, give me some rest,’ she averred.

Eadulf shook his head. ‘Rest? You?’ He sounded dubious.

‘Oh yes. Do you remember when we arrived at Imleach there was a band of pilgrims there?’

‘I remember; they were journeying to the coast to set out to sea on some pilgrimage.’

‘That’s right. To the tomb of St James of the Field of the Stars.’

‘Where is that?’

‘In one of the northern Iberian kingdoms. I would like to go on that pilgrimage. Many here in the five kingdoms do so. Such pilgrimages set off from the abbey of St Declan at Ard Mór, which is not far to the south of us. I have a mind to set out soon for Ard Mór.’

Eadulf was suddenly miserable at the thought of her leaving. It reminded him abruptly that he had delayed too long in Muman for he had been sent there only as a special envoy of Archbishop Theodore of Canterbury. What Fidelma was actually saying was that the time had come to say farewell.

‘Do you feel that it is right to leave Cashel at this moment in time?’ he asked hesitantly.

She had made up her mind. For some time now Fidelma had felt a dissatisfaction with her life. When she been away from Eadulf, when she had left him in Rome to return to Eireann, she had experienced feelings of loneliness and longing, as if of a home-sickness even though she was home among her own people. She had missed the arguments with Eadulf, the way she could tease him over their conflicting opinions and philosophies; the way he would always rise good-naturedly to her bait. The arguments would rage but there was no enmity between them.

Eadulf had been the only man of her own age in whose company she had felt really at ease and able to express herself without hiding behind her rank and role in life, without being forced to adopt a persona, like an actor playing a part.

She had missed his company with an acuteness she could not explain. It had now been ten months since Eadulf had come to her brother’s kingdom as an emissary of Theodore, the Archbishop of Canterbury. Ten months during which they had shared several dangers and had been close. Close like a brother and sister.

That was just it. Eadulf was always impeccably behaved towardsher. She found herself wondering whether she wanted him to behave in any other way. Religious did cohabit, did marry and most lived in the conhospitae or mixed houses. Did she want that? Her old mentor, the Brehon Morann, had once told his young pupils that marriage was a feast where the gratias was better than the food.

Unable to really come to a decision herself, she had almost been relying on Eadulf to make the decision himself. To suggest something to her. He did not. Yet if he wanted marriage, he would surely have spoken of it long since. What was it that was written in the Book of Amos? Can two walk together, except that they be agreed? It was obvious that Eadulf was not interested in such a partnership. He had never raised the prospect of such a relationship nor did she feel she should if he did not. The closest she had come to the subject was when she had asked him if he had heard the old proverb that a blanket was the warmer for being doubled. He had not understood.

‘Do you feel that it is right to leave Cashel at this time?’ he asked again.

She roused herself from her thoughts. ‘Yes; just for the rest, as I say. There is an old saying that to rest the eyes and the mind, it is sometimes best to change the silhouette of the distant mountains.’ She looked at him seriously. ‘You have been away a long time from your home in Seaxmund’s Ham, Eadulf. Don’t you ever feel the need to get back to your people and change the silhouette of these mountains? You have a duty to Archbishop Theodore.’

Eadulf immediately shook his head. ‘I can never be tired in this land and with …’ He flushed and did not finish what he was going to say. He was confused. There was a saying among his own people. Do not bring a reaping hook into someone else’s field. It was clear that Fidelma did not feel the same way as he did otherwise she would not have suggested his return to Canterbury. She had not apparently even noticed that he had left his sentence hanging in mid-air.

‘Your Archbishop must need you back. You cannot delay your return much longer. What better time for both of us to leave Cashel — you to your homeland and I to seek out those new mountains?’

‘Is it right, at this time?’ Eadulf pressed yet again.

‘Someone once said that there is always a time to depart from a place even if one is unsure where one is going.’

‘But there is a permanence here, Fidelma,’ protested Eadulf. ‘I have come to feel at home. I would find a means to stay in spite of the demands of Canterbury. These are the mountains I wish to continue to see. The river down there is the water I want to rest beside, to daily bathe my feet in.’

Fidelma waited, finding herself hoping to hear him say that which she wanted him to say. When he did not, she smiled sadly.

‘Heraclitus said that you cannot step twice into the same river for other waters are continually flowing into it. The only thing that is permanent, Eadulf, is change.’

She stretched her arms and yawned, her face turned towards the setting sun. It stood poised for a moment or two, an oval glow on the horizon before abruptly vanishing and sending a flood of dark shadows across the land. She shivered slightly at the sudden chill that swept over the great Rock of Cashel.

‘Incidis in Scyllam cupiens vitare Charybdim,’ muttered Eadulf. ‘You fall into the Scylla in trying to avoid Charybdis.’

Fidelma raised an eyebrow. ‘You think that I am trying to escape from something I consider bad and will fall into something that is worse? No. I just need a change, that is all, Eadulf. There is boredom in permanence.’

A bell began to toll solemnly in the background.

‘The evening meal, Eadulf. Let us go in and change this evening chill for the warmth of a good fire.’