"Grella must be much besotted by you, Salbach, not to see beyond the mask which you wear for her," she finally said.
Salbach's expression changed momentarily to one of confusion only to be replaced as quickly by anger and dislike as he returned her scrutiny.
"Are you sure that I wear a mask for her? Are you sure that she is merely intoxicated with the idea of love or can you allow, in your heart, that she can be in love with me and I with her?"
Fidelma grimaced in distaste.
"Love? The emotion is hard to see in your heart. No, I see before me the suffering of little children. There is no room for an emotion such as love in the heart of the person who could order such suffering."
Nevertheless, Fidelma could see some perversity in the situation. Perhaps Salbach did, after all, feel an infatuation akin to love for the attractive librarian of Ros Ailithir.
"Would you hold me responsible for the deeds of Intat?" Salbach demanded sourly.
"Yes. You might as well know that if you hire men then their loyalty is not to a chieftain but to his money. Intat's own men bear witness to your leadership."
Salbach was stony-faced.
"And if I say they lie?"
"Then you must prove it before the assembly. That may be difficult. As for myself, I know that these men do not lie just as you know they tell the truth."
Salbach grinned bitterly.
"Then we will leave it to the decision of the High King's assembly. It will be my word as chieftain of the Corco Loigde. My word and my honor. And now I must keep silent. We will talk no more."
Fidelma stood up and glanced quickly at her brother. She could see that there was disappointment in his eyes.
"I expected no less, Salbach. We will meet in the court when it assembles tomorrow. But before we do, think well on the matter, for you stand condemned by the men you hired. Let me leave you to meditate the words of Socrates: 'False words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil.' How infected is your soul, Salbach?"
Outside, Colgu gave vent to his disappointment.
"He does not admit anything. If he does not, what then? Even if you prove his culpability, Laigin may still hold Cashel as responsible?"
"I hope I shall have the final piece of the puzzle fitted into place by the time of the assembly," replied Fidelma. "In the meantime, I must get some rest. It will be a long day tomorrow and I have much to consider."
It was well after the completa when Fidelma started awake, still fully dressed and lying on her cot in her darkened chamber where she had fallen asleep. She came awake with one thought clear in her mind; it concerned the uncompleted task that had been nagging at her mind for some days now. She rose and quietly left the hostel.
Fidelma entered the abbey church, which was in total darkness. All the lights had been doused after the last service of the day. She chose not to light a lamp but moved cautiously through the shadows, using the soft light of the moon, casting its pallid light through the tall windows, to illuminate her way. She moved warily towards the High Altar. Making her way around it, she stared down at the shadowy slab of the tomb of the Blessed Fachtna.
She was sure that this was the key to the last piece of the mystery which had been nagging at her mind.
She had been staring at it for several minutes before she realized that something was not quite right. The slab was slightly crooked, at an angle to the back of the altar. She remembered clearly that the slab had originally been at a perfect parallel to the back of the altar.
She dropped to her knees and pushed a little.
To her surprise, the slab moved easily as if on a slide. She stopped when it started to squeak in the darkness and cautiously looked around. She could see nothing in the long shadowy interior of the church.
She moved to the altar and took one of the tall tallow candles, uttering a swift prayer for forgiveness for her presumption in removing it from God's holy table. Then she moved back to the slab, lit the candle, and placed it on the floor. On her knees again, she began to push at the slab. It moved again and then halted as if meeting an obstruction.
She paused frustrated for a moment but then realized that there must be some hidden mechanism.
She moved to the other side of the slab and began to push it back as though to close it.
That was when the mechanism was revealed to her, for she saw, out of the corner of her eye, the small statue of the cherub, which stood at the head of the slab, moving on its plinth.
With a suppressed exclamation, Fidelma moved quickly across to the figurine, seizing it and starting to twist it in the reverse direction.
It was a lever, a clever means of locomotion, for the more she twisted it the more she felt it pulling some mechanism which in turn propelled the slab sideways away from the entrance to the tomb below. A pair of steps stood revealed by the flickering light of her candle.
Taking up the light, she began carefully to descend the steps into the tomb.
They led into a crypt, dank and musty-smelling.
In all it was no more than twenty feet below the floor of the church. It was a single plain chamber, so far as the light from the candle showed her. It was about thirty feet long and fifteen feet wide. It was built almost as a small scale replica of the large church above, with a raised stone platform at one end which parodied the High Altar. Except, as Fidelma noticed, it was not an altar at all but a stone sarcophagus with a stone slab for a lid. On it were engraved words in Ogham and in the Latin script both in Irish and Latin. It told the reader that Fachtna, son of Mongaig, rested there.
She saw that there were candle-holders in the sepulchre and in curiosity she went to examine them. The grease was not cold although it was not pliable. The candles had certainly been in use and quite recently.
In one corner she suddenly realized that there was a pile of clothes. She went to examine them and also found a bundle of blankets, as if someone was sleeping in the vault. There was also a pitcher of water and a bowl of fruit. On one of the beds her eye caught a piece of vellum.
It took a moment for her to find the missing items from her marsupium: Dacán's draft letter to his brother; the burnt Ogham stick and some other items from the library which related to the family of Ulan. They were just lying as if discarded.
She smiled grimly.
At last everything was coming together; all the little items of information were beginning to fit and form a pattern. It was a pity that Cass was not here to appreciate the fulfillment of her exhortation to make sure all the fragments were gathered and stored until such time as a pattern emerged.
A noise above her made her start.
Someone was at the High Altar in the church above. They were standing by the open tomb.
She realized that her way back up into the church was now blocked off if she wished to avoid discovery. Whoever it was, they were beginning to descend the stairs into the tomb. She moved quickly towards the sarcophagus, thinking to conceal herself.
Now she could hear voices above her.
"Look at this," she heard a familiar voice say. "I thought that I had told you to close the slab when we left?"
A younger voice, she recognized it as Cetach's, answered: "I thought I had, brother. I was sure I had not left it as wide open as this."
"No matter. Go down. I shall come and let you out at the usual time. But be absolutely quiet tomorrow for the court will be meeting above you. Not a sound. Remember, you nearly gave the game away during the service last week. One cry and they will find the way down to you. If they do then we shall all rue the day."