There was no one there. The figure had gone. Holding on with one hand, she closed the door and looked around, wondering what had happened.
The cat had stopped its fearful cry. It was too dark to see anything, although she had a feeling that dawn was not far away. The ship was still pitching and bucking. She staggered back to the bunk and sat down.
‘Mouse Lord?’ she called coaxingly. ‘What is it?’
There was no response from the cat. She knew he was there because she heard his movements and his breath coming in a strange rasping sound. She realised that she would have to wait for daylight to find out what was wrong with him. She sat on the bunk, unable to sleep, watching the skies lighten but without the wind abating. When she finally judged it light enough, she went down on her knees and peered under the bunk.
Mouse Lord spat at her and struck out with a paw, talons extended. He had never behaved in such a manner to her before.
She heard a movement at the door and swung round. Wenbrit entered carrying something covered in a small leather bucket.
‘I’ve brought some corma and some biscuit, lady,’ he said, not sure what she was doing on her knees. ‘There’ll be no meal today. It’s the best I can do. This storm will not blow itself out before this evening.’
‘Something is wrong with Mouse Lord,’ Fidelma explained. ‘He won’t let me near him.’
Wenbrit put his bucket down and knelt alongside her. Then, glancing at her robe, he frowned and pointed to it.
‘You seem to have some blood on your robe, lady.’
Fidelma raised a hand and felt the sticky substance on her chest.
‘I can’t see any scratches,’ Wenbrit observed. ‘If Mouse Lord has scratched you …’
‘Can you get the cat out from under the bunk? I think he must be hurt,’ she interrupted as she realised that the blood could not have come from the puncture marks the cat had made when he had been frightened during the night.
Wenbrit went down on his knees. It took him some time before the cat allowed himself to be taken hold of. Wenbrit was finally able to get near the animal, having made sure that he held the front paws togetherto stop Mouse Lord scratching. Making soft reassuring sounds, the boy gently extracted Mouse Lord from underneath the bunk and laid him on the bedding. Something was obviously hurting the animal.
‘He’s been cut.’ The boy frowned as he examined the animal. ‘Deeply cut, too. There’s still blood on his hind flank. What happened?’
Mouse Lord had calmed down as the animal realised that they meant him no harm.
‘I don’t know … oh!’
Even as she spoke, Fidelma understood the meaning of her painful awakening during the night. She leant over the straw mattress of the bunk and saw what she was looking for immediately. It was the same knife which Sister Crella had given her; the one Crella claimed that Brother Guss had planted under her bunk. It was smeared with blood: Mouse Lord’s blood. Fidelma cursed herself for a fool. She had brought the knife from Crella’s cabin and put it in her baggage and it had disappeared before Toca Nia’s death.
Wenbrit had finished his examination of the cat.
‘I need to take Mouse Lord down below where I can bathe and stitch this cut. I think the creature has been stabbed in the hind flank. Poor cat. He’s tried to lick it better.’
Fidelma glanced at Mouse Lord in sympathy. Wenbrit was fussing over the cat, who was allowing the boy to stroke him under the chin. He began to purr softly.
‘How did this happen, lady?’ asked Wenbrit again.
‘I think Mouse Lord saved my life,’ she told him. ‘I was asleep with him curled up on my chest. Someone came to the cabin door. Perhaps Mouse Lord sprang up when the killer entered. They obviously didn’t see the cat. I must have been lucky for they threw the knife instead of moving to stab me as I lay. Whether the cat’s move deflected it, I am not sure, but poor Puss caught the blade in his flank. The cat’s reaction woke me and scared the attacker.’
‘Did you recognise the person?’ demanded the boy.
‘I am afraid not. It was too dark.’ Fidelma gave a shudder as she realised how close she had come to death for a second time. Then she pulled herself together.
‘Look after Mouse Lord, Wenbrit. Do your best. He saved my life. We’ll have some answers before long. Deo favente, this storm must moderate soon. I can’t concentrate with it.’
But they were without God’s favour, for the storm did not moderate for another full day. The constant noise and heaving had dulled Fidelma’s senses; she became almost indifferent to her fate. She justwanted to sleep, to find some relief from the merciless battering of the weather. Now and then the ship would heel over to such an angle that Fidelma would ask herself whether it would right itself again. Then, after what seemed an age, The Barnade Goose would slowly swing back until another great wave came roaring out of the darkness.
At times Fidelma believed the ship to be sinking, so completely immersed in seawater did it seem to be; she even had to fight for breath against the lung-bursting bitter saltwater that drenched her. Her body was bruised and assaulted by the constant tossing of the ship.
It was dawn the next day when she drearily noticed that the wind was less keen than before and the rocking of the ship less violent. She made her way out of her cabin and looked around. The grey morning sky held a few tattered storm clouds, low and isolated, sweeping by amidst a layer of thin white cloud. She even saw the pale, white orb of the sun on the eastern horizon. Not a full-blooded dawn but with just a hint that the day might improve.
To her surprise, she saw Murchad coming along the main deck towards her. He looked utterly exhausted after the two days of severe storm in which he had been mainly at the steering oar.
‘Are you all right, lady?’ he asked. ‘Wenbrit told me what happened and I asked Gurvan to keep a watch on you just in case you were attacked again.’
‘I have felt better,’ confessed Fidelma. She saw Wenbrit occupied further along the deck. ‘How is Mouse Lord?’
Murchad smiled.
‘He might limp a little but he will continue to hunt mice for a while yet. Young Wenbrit managed to stitch the wound together and he seems none the worse for the cut. I don’t suppose you saw who threw the knife at you?’
‘It was too dark.’ Then she changed the subject. ‘Are we through the storm?’
‘Through the worst of it, I think,’ he replied. ‘The wind has moved southerly and it will be easier for us to hoist the mainsail once again and keep to our original course. I think this is one voyage that I shall not be sorry to end. I’ll be glad to find myself in the arms of Aoife again.’
‘Aoife?’
‘My wife is called Aoife,’ Murchad smiled. ‘Even sailors have wives.’
A thought nagged at Fidelma’s memory. Suddenly the words of an old song came into her mind.
‘You who loved us in the days now fled
Down the whirlpool of hate, spite fed,
You cast aside the love you bore,
To make vengeance your only law!’
Murchad frowned.
‘I was thinking of the jealous lust of Aoife, the wife of Lir, the god of the oceans, and how she destroyed those who loved him.’
The captain sniffed disparagingly.
‘My wife Aoife is a wonderful woman,’ he said in a tone of protest.
Fidelma smiled quickly.
‘I am sorry. It was merely the name which prompted the thought. I did not mean anything against your wife — but it has brought a useful memory back to me.’