‘One thing I have learned, Enda,’ she admonished. ‘Never trust the obvious.’
As they approached the gate they noticed there was some excitement there. Two men, looking like boatmen by their clothing, were engaged in an agitated conversation with one of the guards. Fidelma recognised Ceit, the guard fortress commander. He glanced round as she came up.
‘Have you seen Brehon Faolchair?’ he asked.
‘He is probably in the great hall with Conri. Why, what’s wrong?’
‘There’s been another death, lady.’
‘You mean that of the girl, Ciarnat.’
‘No, someone down at the riverbank.’
‘Not the guard who escaped last night?’ asked Eadulf.
‘Not him,’ Ceit replied scathingly. ‘He’s the sort that is deserving of death but is so sly and quick, I doubt death will ever find him.’
‘Then who is it?’ Fidelma tried to keep the exasperation from her voice.
Ceit gestured to the boatmen. ‘These folk say that a body has been found in the river, a little downstream.’
‘He wore a tonsure, lady,’ muttered one of the boatmen, bobbing his head in respect. ‘And the poor fellow was naked, save for the remnant of his robe.’
‘A tonsure and a robe?’ Fidelma said. ‘It sounds as if the dead man was a religieux. Why didn’t you go to see Brother Eladach at the Abbey of Nechta?’
The boatman shrugged. ‘The religieux was a stranger to all of us, but one of my men said he thought he had seen him before, at the fortress. We knew there was a religious deputation staying there. Anyway, it is here that we knew we would find the Brehon.’
‘These boatmen have seen this man walking along the river quays from time to time during the last week,’ added Ceit.
A feeling of inevitability overcame Fidelma. ‘Ceit, if you can’t find Brehon Faolchair, tell Conri of this matter. Say that we have gone with these men to see if we can identify this body.’
She instructed the boatmen to lead the way.
‘Are you sure the body is not that of a local religieux, one from the Abbey of Nechta?’ she asked as she fell in step with them.
‘I would swear that he is a stranger here,’ one of the boatman replied. ‘But apart from that I cannot give much information. The only thing we can tell you for sure is that the man did not enter the water and drown by accident.’
Fidelma did not break her stride although it took a slight effort. Somehow she had already realised that it would have been no drowning accident that brought the boatmen hurrying up to the fortress. ‘What makes you say that?’
‘Because there was an injury to his head. He was struck before he entered the water.’
They greeted the statement in momentary silence. Then Eadulf moved closer to Fidelma, saying, ‘Are you thinking what I am thinking?’
‘Indeed,’ she sighed. ‘I think we have found the missing Brother Mael Anfaid.’
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Fidelma, Eadulf and Enda accompanied the two boatmen to the wooden quays along the river. The area was still crowded with merchants, boatmen and buyers. No one took any notice of them, or seemed aware of their mission, as they pushed through the throngs. It appeared that the body had been found beyond the precincts of the trading quays or any habitation, for they walked until the track narrowed into a muddy footpath that was hard to follow through gorse, brambles and bushes.
‘How was the body spotted so far along here?’ Fidelma asked the leading boatman.
The man spoke over his shoulder: ‘We had been bringing a cargo from the Ford of the Oaks – it’s downriver from here. As we rowed towards the township quays, one of the crew noticed the body. It was face downwards, caught among some rocks. We edged in, and discovered that the man was dead. I left one of my men with the body and I came on to report the find to the fortress.’
He paused in mid-stride and raised his voice: ‘Hoi! Linneain! Are you there?’
From behind some boulders and bushes a voice answered.
The boatmen led the way round the boulders and they came across another man sitting morosely on a rock. Nearby, stretched on its back, was a body. The water-soaked robe had been arranged to make a decent covering. There was no sign of a belt or cord to fasten the robe. The seated boatman stood up hurriedly and nodded nervously to the newcomers.
‘Has anything been disturbed?’ Fidelma asked immediately, glancing at the scene.
‘Not since we dragged him from the river here,’ the man, Linneain, replied, nodding to the rocks that bordered the nearby waters. ‘I merely arranged the robe for dignity’s sake.’
‘Any sign of a belt or cord to fasten the robe?’
‘He was in the river so perhaps it has been loosened and is somewhere in the water,’ the man suggested. ‘I didn’t see anything like that.’
Fidelma was pretty sure that she knew the real reason why the belt was missing. She knelt down by the corpse. He was a young man, pleasant-featured in spite of the puffiness of the drowned features. He wore the tonsure of St John, his dark hair cut back from the forehead to a line from ear to ear and long at the back. With help from Enda, Eadulf turned the body over. It was obvious how he had come by his violent death as there were signs of abrasions and blood clotted at the back of the skull. The man had certainly taken a number of blows; he had been struck with great ferocity. Gently they returned the corpse to its former position and stood back.
There was a sudden movement along the bank and they could hear Conri’s voice calling them.
‘This way!’ Eadulf gave an answering cry. ‘Keep coming along the path and you’ll find us.’
A few moments later Conri, followed by Brehon Faolchair, appeared around the rocks. The group moved back to let the newcomers view the body.
Brehon Faolchair took only one glance and sighed: ‘That is Brother Mael Anfaid from Imleach. Any sign of the cord belt, the loman?’
‘None,’ she confirmed.
‘So it seems that the cord that Ciarnat was hanged with was his.’ Conri’s voice was almost relieved.
‘Having killed Ciarnat and strung her up with his own loman, it seems that he came here and drowned himself in remorse,’ Brehon Faolchair concluded.
‘I think not,’ Fidelma said with a touch of quiet sarcasm. ‘Unless, in his fit of remorse, he was able to beat himself to death on the back of the head before jumping into the river.’
Brehon Faolchair was in no mood for irony. He immediately knelt to check the body, Eadulf helping him to lift the head. When he stood up, his face was a mask of dismay. ‘Another murder? Ciarnat – and now the person that you think was set up to pay for her death. It is hard to comprehend.’
‘This young man was killed in the same manner as Ciarnat – slain by violent blows to the back of the head. That reminds me – Gorman also said he was rendered senseless by a blow to the back of the head, just before Abbot Segdae was murdered.’
Brehon Faolchair’s eyes widened. ‘You don’t mean to say that the same person was responsible in all three instances?’
Fidelma did not answer.
‘Let us go through it,’ Eadulf offered. ‘Ciarnat was murdered but her death was arranged to look like suicide – in such a way that it quickly became obvious that it was not. The clue was Brother Mael Anfaid’s loman, or cord belt, a new fashion worn only by him and his companion Brother Mac Raith. It was placed there as a clue to mislead us. It was easily traced to Mael Anfaid.’
Fidelma was nodding in agreement. ‘Mael Anfaid was dead even before Ciarnat. He was killed, the cord belt was taken, and then the body was dumped in the river. Then the murderer went to kill Ciarnat.’
Brehon Faolchair was still puzzled. ‘There is a complicated mind at work here.’
‘Complicated, indeed,’ Conri agreed. ‘At the moment, these killings appear random; unrelated.’