A figure lay on a bed covered in a blanket. It was very still.
Eadulf ran forward and pulled back the cover. An elderly man lay beneath it, tied hand and foot. A piece of cloth was fastened across his mouth.
‘Brother Cronan!’ exclaimed Conrí.
The man was alive but tied in such a way, with hands behind him, the rope connecting his hands and feet, that he was bent almost backwards. Eadulf untied the gag then drew his knife and quickly severed the bonds. The man was very pale. He looked weak and anaemic. There was a jug of water nearby and Eadulf poured some of the contents into a beaker. Conrí was trying to question the bewildered figure on the bed.
‘Let him recover first,’ Fidelma instructed, holding the man’s head to allow him to sip the water. ‘Everything in good time.’
The man, identified as Brother Cronan, began to sit up, coughing a little and rubbing at his wrists where angry weal-marks showed how tightly he had been bound. He looked from one to another of his rescuers in bewilderment.
Fidelma sat down on the edge of the bed.
‘I am a dálaigh, Brother Cronan. My name is Fidelma of Cashel. We need to ask you questions. Are you up to answering?’
‘How long have I been here?’ he countered.
‘We have not seen you for five days,’ Conrí said. ‘Brother Adamrae said you were taken sick and confined to your room.’
Brother Cronan’s lips compressed for a moment. ‘Brother Adamrae!’ he echoed bitterly. Then: ‘Five days? Yes, he came and fed me five times and I was allowed to perform … certain natural functions. Other than that he kept me tied up as you have seen. I am weak from hunger and need a bath. Forgive me, for I must insult your sense of smell, lady.’
Fidelma smiled encouragingly. ‘Do not worry. These matters will be attended to shortly. But first you must tell us how you came to be in this predicament.’
‘The young man, Adamrae … where is he?’ He looked about nervously.
‘He is fled,’ Eadulf said.
‘I will send some warriors in pursuit of him,’ Conrí said quickly.
The religieux sighed and relaxed a little. ‘It was roughly five days ago that he came here and told me that he had been sent by the Abbot of Mungairit to help me administer to the people of the Ford of Oaks.’
‘Abbot Nannid?’ pressed Fidelma.
Brother Cronan nodded. ‘Yes. He said that he had come from the abbey. So I invited him in and he started asking questions about the lord Conrí and how many warriors he commanded here. I thought that strange. But then he said something that made me suspicious of him.’
‘Which was?’
‘He claimed to have studied at the Abbey of Machaoi. Yet he had no accent of the northern kingdoms in his voice.’
‘I noticed that also,’ Fidelma said. ‘When I remarked on it, he told me that he was fostered among the people close to these borders.’
‘Well, I once made a journey to I-Shona, where Colmcille built his abbey,’ Brother Cronan said. ‘On that journey I stayed in the Abbey of Machaoi before journeying across the narrow sea to I-Shona, so I knew something about it. It was clear that he did not even know that the abbey was on an island.’
‘He certainly knew it was on an island when we spoke with him,’ Fidelma pointed out.
‘Because I was foolish enough to show my astonishment at his ignorance and told him. Stupidly, I revealed that I had become suspicious. I turned my back on him and the next thing I knew, I was trussed up as you discovered me, lying on the bed.’
‘He came to see me soon after,’ admitted Conrí, ‘and said he had come to help you but found you ill and so you had to be confined to your chamber.’
‘Did he give you any idea of who he was and why he was here?’ Fidelma asked Brother Cronan.
‘He left me more or less alone, except that at some time he would loosen the bonds to feed me. Usually, it was just a bowl of oats and water and he would allow me to use the bucket for decency’s sake. But then he would stand in the room with a drawn sword so that I would not get any ideas. Most of the time I was bound and gagged to prevent my calling for help.’
‘And no one thought to come and check on you?’ Fidelma was frowning. ‘Was there no physician or apothecary here? Surely someone would have come to discover what this illness was that confined you here?’
It was Conrí who replied, with a shamed face. ‘I think Adamrae, whoever he was, has murdered our apothecary.’
‘You have made no mention of this before!’ Fidelma turned sharply.
‘It is only now, listening to Brother Cronan, that this conclusion has come into my mind.’
‘You had better explain,’ Fidelma sighed.
Conrí looked even more contrite. ‘When Adamrae introduced himself to me and pretended that he had found Brother Cronan ill, he told me that he had sent for our apothecary, Lachtine.’
‘So what did this apothecary say?’ asked Fidelma.
‘I have not seen him since. That is why I think he is dead.’
‘Did Adamrae comment on the disappearance of the apothecary?’
‘On the next day, when I saw Adamrae, I asked him how Brother Cronan fared and what Lachtine had diagnosed. He said that Lachtine had prescribed some herbs and a potion, and had recommended that Brother Cronan should be kept isolated for seven days. In the meantime, he would go into the forests in search of some herbal remedies that would further alleviate the symptoms. That was why we have not been worried by Lachtine’s absence. He often spends whole days at a time in the forests searching for plants and herbs with which to prepare his concoctions. But now, hearing what has happened, I do fear … truly I do now fear for the man’s life.’
‘Well, Lachtine never visited me, that is for sure,’ muttered Brother Cronan.
‘Why would Adamrae kill this apothecary?’ asked Eadulf. ‘And why keep Brother Cronan a prisoner?’
‘If we had an answer to that, then we would know what his purpose was in coming here,’ grunted Socht irritably.
‘Well, we know it wasn’t to preach the Faith,’ Eadulf replied dryly.
‘I am worried that he asked Brother Cronan here about the strength of my warriors,’ Conrí said. ‘Perhaps he is one of the brigands that have become active in recent times. The Ford of the Oaks is a strategic place right enough, but only for merchants. It is a good meeting place for them, being situated on the road from east to west, and a good navigable spot for small boats heading north along the River Mháigh to the great estuary of the Sionnan.’
‘But if Adamrae is a brigand, why put himself forward as a judge to condemn that other thief to death?’ Gormán said.
‘I suppose he could have been part of another band of thieves and took the opportunity to get rid of a rival?’ suggested Eadulf.
‘Adamrae was interested in the local inn that serves merchants,’ Socht said. ‘He would go there several times a day.’
Conrí was not convinced. ‘An attack on merchants here or an attack on my fortress would be futile unless he had a substantial gang. I have fifty men at my command here.’
‘Whatever Adamrae wanted, or was going to do, he has either achieved it or would have achieved it soon,’ Fidelma said thoughtfully.
‘How do you come to that conclusion?’ asked Eadulf.
‘He told Conrí that Lachtine said no one should go near Brother Cronan for seven days. Why mention a specific time unless it had meaning? I would think it would have occurred to someone that Lachtine should have returned from wandering the forest in search of herbs by then. So a search would have been started about now.’
Conrí was still clearly embarrassed. ‘That is true, lady. In fact, the matter did not even occur to me, but the time will soon be up. We are so used to Lachtine’s wanderings in the forest but I suppose we would have started asking questions within the next few days.’