At the bottom of the table to her left, she was aware of Argantken tucking into the food with gusto and hardly speaking to anyone. When she did, Fidelma tried to understand what she was saying but could barely make out one word in twenty. She felt sorry that the girl had no knowledge of Latin, which seemed to be the common language of the others at the table.
Then Fidelma realised someone was speaking to her. It was Iarnbud.
‘I beg your pardon?’ she said hastily.
‘I was merely asking your frank opinion of Rome. Unlike Macliau, I have no wish to go there. Rome has caused many problems to my people.’
Brother Metellus grimaced wanly as Fidelma glanced at him.
‘Don’t worry,’ he sighed. ‘Iarnbud and I are old antagonists but our battles are merely verbal.’
Fidelma turned back to Iarnbud.
‘I can understand your viewpoint, for I know some history of your people. But through Rome, the new Faith has been spread.’
Iarnbud sniffed to indicate he thought little of the idea.
‘A good thing or a bad thing?’ he asked, making clear that he thought the latter. ‘Ask a lot of fishing folk hereabouts and they’ll tell you they prefer to put their trust in the old gods of the sea when they set sail.’
Fidelma nodded politely, but did not reply; instead, she addressed Macliau.
‘Speaking of fishing folk, this evening there seemed to be a lot of activity along the shore, below the fortress. Why is that?’
Macliau gazed at her in bewilderment. ‘Activity?’
‘People were gathering on the foreshore here with lighted torches, and there was a large ship being towed to anchor in the bay below.’
Eadulf tried to disguise his surprise that she had mentioned the matter so blatantly, having previously warned him to be careful. Her words seemed to create uneasiness at the table. Bleidbara glanced at Trifina, and this time she returned his look with a frown.
Macliau was hesitating. ‘Activity? I did not…’
‘I think you refer to my men, lady.’ It was Bleidbara who spoke. ‘They are taking supplies to my ship which has been guided here to a safe anchorage for the night. That is all.’
‘Your ship?’ queried Fidelma.
‘As I have said, we are a seafaring people,’ broke in Macliau. ‘The ship is that of my father, Lord Canao. Bleidbara is her captain.’
‘You will often see lights along the foreshore in this area. Fishing is often done at night.’ It was Trifina who spoke. She had remained remarkably silent throughout the meal, sitting with her slightly bored expression, which Fidelma now realised was her standard facial cast ‘Don’t the people go fishing for carp at night?’
Fidelma smiled quickly. ‘Forgive me, lady, but carp is usually found in fresh water. I presume your Morbihan is seawater?’
Trifina waved her hand as if to indicate the matter irrelevant. ‘There are plenty of other fish to be found at night.’
Iarnbud’s expression had become more serious, if such a feat were possible on his impenetrable features.
‘Many things are found at night when fishermen leave their homes,’ he stated.
‘That sounds mysterious, my friend.’ Fidelma turned to examine him.
‘It is not meant to be so. It is just a statement of fact.’
‘What sort of things?’ Eadulf demanded.
Macliau joined in with a chuckle. ‘Iarnbud is just jesting with you.’
‘Indeed, I have spoken in jest.’ The thin-faced man gave a parody of a smile. But there was no conviction in his voice and he looked away.
‘Yet there is a meaning behind your jest, Iarnbud,’ Fidelma challenged him. ‘Perhaps you will share it with us?’
Iarnbud turned his sallow face to them with his thin red lips drawn back in a mirthless smile. For someone whose features were usually without emotion, it was like watching a mask being bent and altered into unusual shapes.
‘All I mean is beware of this shore, lady. It is not a place to venture after nightfall.’
Fidelma regarded him with interest.
‘This shore?’ she asked, using his emphasis. ‘Why would that be?’
‘The fisherfolk around here will tell you,’ the man replied, as if wanting to increase the air of mystery.
‘I regret that I cannot wait to go out and find a fisherman,’ Fidelma said coolly, ‘so perhaps you will enlighten me — since I presume that you know the story?’
Iarnbud blinked at the forthrightness of her manner. He seemed to receive no help from Macliau or his sister Trifina.
‘This is the haunted coast. Along these savage shores the souls of the dead wait for their transportation to the Otherworld,’ he intoned solemnly.
While Eadulf shivered a little, Fidelma was doing her best to suppress a smile that played at the corner of her mouth.
‘And if we venture out at night we might encounter ghosts?’ she added innocently.
‘Since time began, the sea folk that dwell along this coast have known the route to the Otherworld,’ Iarnbud replied. ‘Fishermen recognise the day when they are marked to perform a sacred duty. At midnight, they will hear a knocking at their door and they must then go to the shore, where they will see strange boats awaiting them — and these boats are not their own but strange empty vessels. They must go aboard and loose the sails and, even if there is no wind, an inexplicable breath of air will come and they will be taken out to sea and along the coast to the west to the place we call Bae an Anaon…’
‘The Bay of Souls,’ interpreted Brother Metellus. ‘I have heard it lies at the western end of Bro-Gernev, the kingdom that borders us to the west.’
‘Indeed,’ Iarnbud said. ‘It is a desolate place where the lost city of Ker Ys sank beneath the waves when its King was cursed by the Abbot Winwaloe because of his allegiance to the Old Faith.’
Once again, Fidelma tried to hide her amusement at their solemn faces, saying simply, ‘It seems that this Abbot was a powerful man if he was able to drown a city with a curse.’
Iarnbud sniffed in disapproval at her levity.
‘He was the son of Fracan, a prince of Dumnonia in the Old Country who had to flee here to escape the Saxons. He founded a great abbey in Bro-Gernev called Landevenneg.’
‘So what has this to do with the Bay of Souls?’ Eadulf was touchy at yet another reference to his people.
Iarnbud smiled, almost maliciously this time.
‘I say it to point out that it is a mysterious place, where there are mysterious currents beneath the waves and dark forces above them. The swell enters the bay with such mystical force that many avoid those brooding waters.’
‘I don’t understand the connection with warning us to avoid the shores here after nightfall.’ Fidelma was growing tired of Iarnbud’s tendency to the dramatic.
The sallow-faced man suddenly looked pained. ‘I am coming to that,’ he said.
‘You were talking about the fishermen being drawn by some strange wind to this Bay of Souls,’ prompted Brother Metellus with a grin at Fidelma.
Iarnbud compressed his lips for a moment in frustration at the loss of atmosphere the interruption in his story had made.
‘As the fishermen approach the Bay of Souls, they hear muffled voices around them and their boats grow heavy; so heavy that a boat’s gunwales sink to barely a finger’s breadth above the waterline. Yet they see no one on their boats and their crafts are drawn westward at amazing speeds — so that within a short time they come to land. They come to a place where there should be no land, but they arrive at an island, and here their ships are halted, and soon the weight in the boats lightens as if they were empty, and as they lighten the boatmen say they hear a voice asking invisible people for their names, and the names are given — men, women and children, all who are dead souls, who have waited for the time when the gods of the dead will transport them to the Otherworld, to the Island of the Blessed. And then the wind comes up again and the boats go back, the fishermen disembark and return to their homes and the strange vessels vanish until the next time the fisherfolk of these shores are asked to transport the souls of the dead again.’