Suddenly Gorman had become alive, alive with an expression of malicious elation as she told the story.
‘I waited a while and then, when the inn was quiet, I entered. It was quite easy.’
‘A curse on the law which forbids innkeepers to bar their doors to prevent travellers seeking rest,’ muttered Sister Ainder. ‘The same law leaves us unprotected.’
The girl continued without paying attention to her.
‘I went up to Canair’s room. The whore was asleep and I killed her. Then I left as silently as I had arrived.’
‘What made you take her crucifix?’ demanded Fidelma, holding out the cross that had fallen from the hand of the dying Muirgel.
Gorman giggled again.
‘It was … so pretty. So pretty.’
‘Then you went back to the Abbey?’
‘The next morning Muirgel and Guss were at the Abbey, breakfasting as if they had not left it. Well, I could punish Muirgel later. And so I did.’
‘And so you did,’ repeated Fidelma. ‘So Canair’s body remained in the tavern, presumably undiscovered, until after we had set sail?’
Her remark was not expressly addressed to Gorman and it was Murchad who answered.
‘It would seem so,’ he said, rubbing the back of his neck with hishand. ‘I know Colla, the owner of the inn. He would have raised the alarm immediately he discovered the body.’
‘Muirgel and Guss were in the next room and heard the dying moans of Canair. So Guss told me,’ Fidelma explained. ‘They saw her body and stupidly decided to return to the Abbey and say nothing. Only when she came aboard did Muirgel see Gorman wearing Canair’s crucifix. It was Muirgel who worked out why Gorman had killed Canair, and she realised that she was going to be next. That’s why she pretended first to be seasick and then to be washed overboard. But Gorman stumbled on her as she left Guss’s cabin and killed her. Muirgel seized the crucifix that Gorman had taken. Muirgel was still alive when I saw her and tried to warn me … but all she could do was attempt to press Canair’s crucifix into my hand.’
‘So Canair, Muirgel and Toca Nia have all fallen to this madness,’ muttered Sister Ainder. ‘The girls because they had the misfortune to be seduced by this,’ she jerked her head at Cian, ‘this degenerate wretch, and the Laigin warrior because he accused Cian of high crimes and misdemeanours, and this insane creature saw that as a further danger. What madness and evil is here, brethren?’
Cian stood up angrily.
‘It seems that you are putting the blame on me rather than on this stupid bitch!’ he snarled.
Once again, Gorman’s head jerked back as if he had physically assaulted her.
‘Deserting me, you have stripped and lain down
On the wide bed which you have made,
And you drove bargains …
For the pleasure of sleeping together
And you have committed countless acts of fornication
In the heat of your lust …’
Then her hand reached inside her habit and something flew from it. Murchad, standing near to Cian, reacted quickly and shoved the former warrior to one side. A knife embedded itself a wooden beam just behind Cian.
With a cry of rage at having missed him, Gorman seized the opportunity offered by their confusion and indecision, to turn out of the cabin and scamper up the companionway to the deck above.
Fidelma was the first to recover her senses and start to rush after her, but Murchad held her back.
‘Don’t worry, lady,’ he said. ‘Where is she going to flee to? We are in the middle of the ocean.’
‘It is not fear of escape that concerns me,’ she told him. ‘It is fear of what she might do to herself. Madness acknowledges no logic.’
As they tumbled onto the deck, Drogon, who stood at the steering oar, cried out to them; he was pointing upwards.
They looked up.
Gorman was swaying dangerously from the rigging at least twenty feet or more above them.
‘Stop!’ cried Fidelma. ‘Gorman, stop! There is nowhere to run to.’
The girl kept climbing up the swaying ropes.
‘Gorman, come down. We can find a resolution to the problem. Come down. No one will harm you.’ As Fidelma called, she realised how hollow her assurances sounded, even to someone whose mind was so damaged.
Murchad, standing at Fidelma’s side, touched her arm and shook his head.
‘She can’t hear you for the wind up there.’
Fidelma continued to stare up. The wind was whipping at the girl’s hair and clothing as she clung to the rigging. Murchad was right. There was no way sound could carry up.
‘I’ll go up,’ Fidelma volunteered. ‘Someone needs to bring her down.’
Murchad laid a hand on her arm.
‘You are not acquainted with the dangers of being aloft in a strong wind on shipboard. I’ll go up.’
Fidelma hesitated and then stood back. She realised that it would need someone more sure-footed than she was to bring the insane young woman down.
‘Don’t scare her,’ she instructed. ‘She is completely mad and there is no telling what she is liable to do.’
Murchad’s face was grim.
‘She is only a slight young girl.’
‘There is an old saying, Murchad. If a sane dog fights a mad dog then it is the sane dog’s ear that is likely to be bitten off.’
‘I’ll be careful,’ he assured her and started up the rigging.
He had hardly reached it when Sister Ainder gave an inarticulate cry of warning which made Fidelma look up.
Gorman had missed her footing and was hanging desperately onto the ropes with one hand, reaching out, trying to grasp hold of the rigging with the other.
‘Hold on!’ yelled Fidelma, her cry disappearing into the wind.
Murchad, too, had seen the slip and launched himself into the rigging. He had hardly risen a few feet when Gorman’s grip relaxed and she fell, crashing down onto the deck with a sickening thud.
Fidelma was the first to reach her-side.
There was no need to check for a pulse. It was obvious that the young girl had broken her neck in the fall. Fidelma leaned forward and closed Gorman’s staring eyes while Sister Ainder began to intone a prayer for the dead.
Murchad dropped back to the deck and joined them.
‘I’m sorry,’ he panted. ‘Is she …?’
‘Yes, she’s dead. It’s not your fault,’ Fidelma said, rising from the deck.
Cian was peering over the shoulder of Brother Dathal, gazing down at the body of the girl.
‘Well,’ he said with relief in his voice. ‘That’s that.’
Chapter Twenty-two
Fidelma stood on the quay in the warm autumnal sunshine, inhaling the exotic scents of the picturesque little port which stood under the shelter of an ancient Roman lighthouse known as the Tower of Hercules. The Barnacle Goose was tied up in the harbour against the quay. Her remaining passengers had dispersed inland on their pilgrimage towards the Holy Shrine of St James. Fidelma had refused to continue in their company, using the excuse of writing a report of the voyage for the Chief Brehon of Cashel so that Murchad could take it back on his return voyage.
Within an hour of The Barnacle Goose easing into the port on the north-west coast of Iberia, perhaps one of the very ports from which Golamh and the Children of the Gael had sailed to Eireann over a millennium ago, the final drama of the voyage had been played out.
Cian had disappeared from the ship once more, but this time along with Sister Crella. Fidelma was not unduly surprised.
‘Don’t you remember when Cian fled from the ship at the island of Ushant?’ she asked Murchad. ‘It was obvious that he had help.’
The captain was puzzled and said so.