Fidelma waited a moment or two and then asked Liag: ‘While examining the bodies, did you see anything other than the jagged wounds that you felt was unusual, something that might lead you to speculate on who the author of the attacks might be?’
The apothecary shook his head. ‘Only that which I have told you.’
‘Accobrán has shown us where Ballgel was found. Where, in relation to that site, were the other bodies discovered?’
‘Beccnat’s body was at a spot called the Ring of Pigs. It is a small stone group further up the hill.’ He indicated the tall wooded slopes behind them. ‘It overlooked the abbey. Escrach was discovered almost at the same place.’ The old man suddenly rose. ‘And if this is all the question you have to put to me…?’
Fidelma rose awkwardly in surprise at the sudden termination of the conversation, as did her companions.
‘I may need to speak to you again,’ she called after him as he turned abruptly away.
Liag glanced back at her in disapproval. ‘You have found me once, sister of the king. Doubtless, you may find me again, but there is nothing in your questions that could not have been answered by the words of others. If you wish to waste your time, that is your affair. I have better things to do with mine. Therefore, if you come again have more pertinent questions or you may not find me willing to play the host and squander precious time.’
The old man strode away, leaving Fidelma gazing at his vanishing figure in amazement.
‘A man who has no manners,’ muttered Eadulf sourly.
Accobrán grimaced wryly. ‘I did warn you that Liag was a person who prefers his own company. He does not obey the accepted rules of behaviour in the society of others.’
‘You did forewarn us,’ agreed Fidelma. ‘But in one thing Liag did speak the truth. Every question I put, I could have heard the answer from others. The one thing that was necessary, however, was to hear them given in the mouth and manner of Liag. Eadulf knows my methods. It is always important to hear the individual witness rather than rely on hearsay.’
Eadulf glanced at her in surprise. ‘And did you learn anything?’
Fidelma smiled softly. ‘Oh yes. Yes, indeed. And perhaps, Accobrán, you could now lead us to the father of the first of these sad victims, Lesren the tanner.’
Accobrán was looking more perplexed at her words than Eadulf but he shrugged. ‘Lesren’s place is but a short distance along the river, lady. It is upstream under the hill on which Rath Raithlen stands.’
As Accobrán started to walk ahead Fidelma reached forward and placed her mouth close to Eadulf’s ear.
‘Mark this spot well, Eadulf,’ she whispered. ‘We may have to return here alone.’
Once again the path Accobrán took was narrow and difficult even though it ran as near the river as was possible. For most of its length trees and underbrush grew all the way down to the banks, which were crumbling and unsafe. They were reduced to moving in single file once again. Eadulf had come to realise that Becc’s country was very hilly indeed.
‘That hill Escrach and Beccnat were found on,’ Fidelma suddenly asked, ‘I seem to recall that it had a name?’
Accobrán nodded. ‘It is a wooded and hilly area which is called the Thicket of Pigs. The same name applies to the hill.’
Fidelma remembered that Becc had mentioned the name.
‘The killer seems to strike in the same place,’ she reflected.
Eadulf, behind Fidelma, said: ‘Is that significant? After all, it seems that we are dealing with a madman whose killing would be random.’
‘Perhaps you are right. But, perhaps, the choice of place has not been entirely random.’
Eadulf was about to question her further but she turned to him with an impassive expression that he knew well. She wanted to say no more on the subject for the moment.
They had walked for some distance when the narrow path suddenly joined a broader stretch of track along which the banks of the river became shallow and sloped into a shingle-like beach which ran into the river bed itself. Fidelma had heard them before she saw them. The sound of children is always shrill enough to be heard even above the rushing waters. Two boys were crouching in the shallows, apparently intent on examining something in the river.
‘Local lads, fishing,’ Accobrán explained brusquely to Fidelma and Eadulf and would have walked on.
‘Not fishing,’ Fidelma corrected. She turned aside and moved towards the riverbank. ‘What luck, lads?’ she called.
They turned. Two tousled-haired youngsters of about eleven or twelve. One of them, who held a metal pan in his hand, shrugged and gestured towards it.
‘No luck at all, Sister. But Síoda claimed that he had found a genuine nugget the other day.’
‘Oh? Who is Síoda?’
‘A lad we know. That’s why we came down here. Although he won’t tell us exactly where he found it. So far, we haven’t seen anything, just mud and stones.’
‘Well, good luck, lads.’
Fidelma rejoined Eadulf and Accobrán on the main path. Eadulf was frowning.
‘What are they doing?’
‘It is what we call washing the ore,’ Fidelma explained. ‘Sometimes metals like gold are washed along the river bed. You place the sediment in a pan, as those boys are doing, and wash it with the hope of finding a gold nugget in the bottom of your pan.’
Accobrán laughed loudly and somewhat bitterly. ‘It has been a hundred years, back in the time of the Blessed Finnbarr, since gold was last discovered in these hills, lady. Those boys will be there until the crack of doom if they are intent on finding gold nuggets.’
‘You do not think that they spoke the truth when they said a boy called Síoda had made such a find?’ Fidelma asked with interest.
‘If a child found a nugget in that river, it will be sulfar iarainn.’
Eadulf frowned, for while he recognised the word ‘iron’ he did not understand the exact meaning of the Irish term.
‘Iron pyrites,’ explained Fidelma. ‘Fool’s gold, for it looks like gold but is not and many a fool has thought that he had struck lucky by picking it up.’ She turned to Accobrán. ‘Are you knowledgeable about such matters?’
The young tanist shrugged and shook his head. ‘This was once mining country and the Cinél na Áeda grew rich and powerful through it. Now the gold and the silver are all worked out and we have only copper left, and some lead to the north of here.’
He turned and began to lead the way again. Here the wooded area was not so oppressive and now and again they came to small patches of cleared land bordering the river which had been sown with crops of corn and wheat.
‘We will find the house of Lesren the tanner not far now,’ called the tanist.
Indeed, a curious smell had come to Eadulf’s nostrils. An acrid smell, as of bad cooking. He sniffed suspiciously until his senses told him what it was. They turned through a bordering treeline into a wide stretch of clearing that ran for some distance along the river. There was a small comfortable-looking bothán, a cabin built of logs with smoke curling from a chimney. There were several small outhouses, and all around the buildings were a score of wooden frames on which were stretched animal skins, Heavy iron cauldrons hung on chains over two large fires, their contents bubbling and smoking as a youth stirred them. It was the acrid smell from these that had assailed Eadulf’s nostrils. He saw a man using a stick to drop a section of skin into the cauldron and presumed that this was part of the tanning process.
At one of the great wooden frames on which a hide was stretched, a thin, wiry-looking man in a leather apron was standing poking in an examining fashion at the taut skin.
‘Lesren!’ called Accobrán.
The man turned with a frown of annoyance. He had small, quick dark eyes in a face whose expression reminded Fidelma of a pine martin. Suspicious and fearful. His rapid glance took them all in before he returned his gaze to the young tanist.