‘Why wish your sons to be warriors? Is it not better to serve God and help people live than to take up the sword and meet an early death?’
‘Help people live? Had even one of them been a warrior, my wife might yet have lived, instead of dying in this strange land. May Hel be waiting at the gates of Nifheim, the place of mist, to receive him that caused her death.’
Eadulf shuddered a little as the old man called upon Hel, the ancient goddess of death. Eadulf had been raised with the old gods and goddesses of his people and even now he sometimes felt the power of the old deities — of Woden, Thunor, Tyr and Freya — and realised that he still feared them. But above all he feared Hel who ruled the land of the dead.
‘Do you reject the New Faith?’ he rebuked the old man.
Ordwulf gave a wheezy laugh. ‘The old faith was good enough for my forefathers and me. When my time comes, let me have my battleaxe in my right hand and Woden’s name on my lips so that I may enter Wael Halla and feast with the gods and heroes of my people.’
‘Yet your sons. .’ Eadulf began to protest.
‘My sons!’ sneered the old man. ‘They could not protect their own mother from the members of the very Faith they espoused. I curse them! I curse them as I rejoice that he who took my lady Aelgifu from me is now sped to suffer the tortures of the damned. May Hel eat his living flesh!’
The old man spat over the wall and then turned and hurried away, leaving Eadulf staring after him in horror.
Fidelma was regarding Muirchertach Nár in astonishment.
‘Are you admitting that you went to Abbot Ultán’s chamber to murder him?’ she asked incredulously.
Muirchertach lowered his head with a deep sigh. ‘I went with that intention but I did not do so. I did not do so for the simple reason that someone else had already killed him.’
Fidelma sat back in her chair and folded her hands in her lap, trying to re-form her features to keep the surprise out of her face. She stared long and hard at him.
‘Can you tell me why you went with this intention?’
Muirchertach glanced at his wife. She appeared to shrug indifferently as if she had washed her hands of the matter.
‘My wife has told you that she was of the Uí Briúin Aí. Have you heard of the poetess Searc of that clan?’
Fidelma was unfamiliar with the name and shook her head.
‘Searc was the younger Sister of my wife. She was a gentle, affectionate girl, as befitted her name,’ Muirchertach explained. Fidelma was reminded that the name Searc actually meant ‘love’ or ‘affection’.
‘I presume that she is dead since you speak in the past tense,’ Fidelma commented.
‘She is. Had she lived, she would have become one of the greatest of our poets.’
‘Go on,’ Fidelma prompted, after he had paused again.
‘Searc had the ability to become as great a poetess as Liadan or Ita. Five years and more have passed since Connacht acknowledged her as among the foremost of its banfilidh, or female poets. So she went on her first circuit to the centres of the five kingdoms to recite her poetry at the great festivals. She attended a gathering at Ard Macha and it was there that she met a young poet called Senach.’
He paused and Fidelma waited patiently for him to gather his thoughts. She glanced at Aíbnat, who sat staring into the fire. The woman had a controlled expression on her features and it was as if she was not really hearing what was being said.
‘They fell in love with each other,’ he continued. ‘Senach was a member of the abbey of Cill Ria and when he returned there after the poetry festival in Ard Macha, Searc followed him.’
This time when he paused, Fidelma said: ‘I presume that Ultán was abbot of Cill Ria by this time?’
‘Ultán was abbot at the time,’ Muirchertach confirmed.
‘So, tell me what happened.’
‘I think that you know by now of Abbot Ultán’s attitudes. He is one of those reformers who now advocates celibacy among the religious. He made all the members of his abbey swear an oath that they would shun the company of the opposite sex. Cill Ria was once a mixed house, a conhospitae. He divided it into two separate communities. Apparently Senach approached Abbot Ultán wishing to be absolved from his oath to the abbey so that he might transfer to a conhospitae which did not adhere to the rules of celibacy. Ultán refused outright. He went further and had Senach locked in his cell, and when Searc came looking for the boy he had her driven from the locality by monks wielding birch sticks.’
‘Such an act is unlawful,’ protested Fidelma, in horror. ‘No one can physically attack a woman with impunity.’
‘Abbot Ultán claimed refuge in the Penitentials,’ Muirchertach explained. ‘It was not the first time that he ordered his followers to beat a woman whom he claimed had transgressed against the rules of the Faith. . or his version of them, anyway. I have heard that there were even some who did not recover from the beatings that he had ordered.’
Fidelma grimaced in disapproval. ‘If this is true, then how could this man survive among his fellow religious? Indeed, how could he become an emissary of the Comarb of Patrick?’
‘He had friends in high places. A friend can be more powerful than an army in some respects. He has been protected.’
‘Are we to yield our law to these foreign ideas from Rome without protest?’ muttered Aíbnat.
‘We do not know exactly what happened,’ went on Muirchertach, not answering her protest. ‘According to one story, Abbot Ultán had Senach escorted against his will to a pilgrim ship which set out for Abbot Ronan’s monastery at Mazerolles in Gaul. The ship never reached Gaul and there was talk of its having been attacked by Frankish pirates and those on board killed. Such stories reached Searc, who believed them and. . He glanced at Aíbnat.
‘My sister killed herself,’ Aíbnat’s voice was harsh.
Muirchertach compressed his lips for a moment.
‘In her desperation, she threw herself from a cliff,’ he added.
‘If this action was caused by Abbot Ultán, did you not take action through the law?’ asked Fidelma, trying to examine the matter logically. ‘Your brehon would surely have advised you on that account.’
Aíbnat laughed harshly. ‘How can one bring another before the law when only one of them recognises it? Ultán prated about the laws of God and quoted strange texts that we had no knowledge of.’
‘But you did try to claim compensation from Abbot Ultán?’
‘As we have said,’ Muirchertach answered, ‘my emissary and my brehon made the proper applications but Abbot Ultán took refuge in the Penitentials. We protested to the Comarb of Patrick, the abbot and bishop of Armagh. But he would do nothing for he, too, supports the ideas that Abbot Ultán propagates.’
Fidelma remained silent for a while, then finally said: ‘So last night you went to see Abbot Ultán with the intention of killing him?’
Muirchertach shrugged eloquently.
‘I suppose that was my intention,’ he admitted. ‘Having discovered that Abbot Ultán was here, I went in anger to his chamber, determined to make him pay for what he had done. He had destroyed the lives of two young people.’
Fidelma looked thoughtfully at Aíbnat. ‘Did you know what your husband intended when he left this chamber last night?’
‘My actions have nothing to do with Aíbnat,’ Muirchertach said hurriedly.
Fidelma ignored him.
‘Did you know that your husband was going to see Ultán and that he went in anger to seek recompense for the death of your sister?’ she insisted again.
The wife of Muirchertach returned her scrutiny with the old belligerent fire in her eyes. ‘My husband is king of Connacht. He should have led a raid against the Uí Thuirtrí and burnt down Abbot Ultán’s abbey many months ago.’