She saw Wenbrit, the cabin boy, poking his head above the hatch.
‘Wenbrit,’ she called, ‘make Brother Eadulf aware of what is happening and get him on deck. Don’t take no for an answer!’
The boy raised a hand to his forehead and disappeared below.
Almost at once, her Cousin Bressal reappeared. He had strapped on his war helmet and his sword and fighting knife, but she noticed that he held in his right hand the white hazel wand of office that denoted his status as a techtaire, an envoy of his King. He took his place by Murchad.
‘Are your crew armed, Captain?’ he asked.
Murchad pulled a face. ‘We are a merchant vessel; certainly we are not armed to fight that sort of warship,’ he answered, jerking his head towards the still-closing vessel.
‘But if they try to board us, we must put up a resistance,’ insisted Bressal.
‘What if they mean us no harm?’ Fidelma wanted to know. ‘We are only assuming the ship has hostile intentions. It might be a war vessel of the King of the Bretons. Anyway, you are a techtaire, an ambassador of our King, and this ship is under your protection.’
This time it was Murchad who shook his head.
‘Let us hope that whoever is the captain of that ship has respect for that protection. There is no flag at her mast, no symbol or insignia on her sails. And now I can see bowmen lined up along her side with their weapons ready. She’ll be level with us in a moment.’
‘Do you mean that it is a pirate ship?’ Bressal enquired grimly. The term he used was spúinneadair-mara — sea plunderer.
‘Pirates?’
The sharp question had come from Eadulf who, looking a ghastly pale colour, had scrambled on deck and stood swaying, clutching a rail to retain his balance.
In answer to the question, Fidelma simply gestured towards the pursuing vessel.
‘If we can’t fight her, Captain, what is your intention?’ demanded Bressal, ignoring him.
‘We can’t fight her,’ Murchad said. ‘We can’t even outrun her now. With those sails, she has the advantage of speed on us.’
‘Then what?’
‘I’ll try to get into the harbour of Argol that’s abeam of us on Hoedig. Perhaps if we are sheltered there, they will think twice about trying to board us. The people there might help.’
But Murchad had barely issued the order to Gurvan, at the helm, when there was a sudden whistling sound, and Gurvan gave a cry. They turned, staring with shock as they realised an arrow had struck the mate, piercing his neck. Blood was pouring from the wound and from his open mouth. He sank to the deck, letting the tiller swing idle.
One of the crewmen, Hoel was the first to recover — perhaps an automatic gesture from his training as a seaman. He leaped to the tiller and steadied it.
A voice called across the water in the language of the Bretons: ‘Heave to, or more of you will die!’
Murchad was well acquainted with the language and hesitated a moment before he gave the orders to start hauling down the sails. He looked apologetically at Bressal.
‘We won’t make it. Their bowmen can easily pick us off before we reach the safety of the island.’
Fidelma had hurried to the side of the fallen mate but she did not even have to feel for his pulse to see that Gurvan was beyond help. By the time she returned to Eadulf’s side, the attacking ship had closed, grappling irons were being thrown across, and men armed with swords were hauling themselves on board the Barnacle Goose.
The scene seemed unreal as the men swarmed through the ship, rounding up the crew. The only person armed had been Bressal, and now his weapons were taken from him. The young warrior stood, looking forlorn, his shoulders hunched, for he would have preferred to put up some resistance.
With the vessels tied to one another by the grapples, a lithe boyish figure suddenly swung on board. The figure presented a strange sight to Fidelma, for it was clad from head to toe in white, from leather boots and trousers to a billowing shirt and small cape. But what was curious was the white headdress that hid every feature in the manner of a mask. A workmanlike short sword and dagger were slung from the belt of the newcomer.
The figure came forward to where Murchad and Bressal stood. Fidelma and Eadulf were standing a little apart.
The attackers, while watchful of Murchad’s crew, seemed to stiffen respectfully in the presence of the newcomer, who was clearly in command.
The figure had halted before Murchad with hands on hips. Even though Murchad was burly and towered over this slight figure in white, yet it was the latter that seemed more threatening.
‘What is the name of your ship?’ snapped the white-clothed figure. The voice was barely broken and the language again was the local one.
‘Gé Ghúirainn — the Barnacle Goose,’ replied Murchad sullenly.
‘Ah, Iwerzhoniz!’
Fidelma recognised this Breton word for ‘Irish’.
‘What cargo?’ came the second sharp question.
‘Salt from Gwenrann.’
‘Holen? Mat!’ The figure grunted in satisfaction. ‘You have a choice, Iwerzhonad. You and your crew can sail this ship to where I and my men direct, or you can die now.’
The voice sounded so matter-of-fact that they had to think of the meaning of the words for a moment or two before they understood them.
Bressal flushed and stepped forward before Murchad.
‘I am Bressal of Cashel, envoy from King Colgú to Alain, King of the Bretons. See — this is my wand of office. This ship and its cargo are under the protection of the treaty agreed between them. I demand-’
Bressal broke off in mid-sentence.
Fidelma saw him bend forward as if he had received a punch in the solar plexus. Then her cousin seemed to slip to the deck on his knees and topple sideways. It was then she realised, with horror, that the figure was holding a bloodstained knife in its hand.
‘You are wrong,’ came the mocking voice. ‘The ship and its cargo are under my protection.’
For a moment there was silence. The disbelief, the shock, was on the face of every member of the crew. The person of a techtaire, an envoy, was sacred and inviolable throughout the lands, and treated with respect even by the bitterest of enemies. The white wand of office had fallen from Bressal’s lifeless hand, the very hazel wand Fidelma’s brother would have presented him with at the start of his journey from Cashel. Now it rolled across the deck to rest at her feet. For a moment, she stared down at it as if she scarcely believed what she had seen. Then she bent down and picked it up.
‘This is murder,’ she said simply.
The white-clothed figure turned its head towards her but Murchad now stepped forward a pace. His voice was raised in anger.
‘This is an outrage. It is murder! It is-’
The knife swung again, thrusting up under the burly seaman’s ribs, and Murchad, the captain, began to slowly sink to his knees before her.
‘Kill those religious and any members of the crew who do not want to sail under me,’ called the figure in white, swinging on its heel and walking back across the deck even before Murchad had measured his length beside Bressal. ‘Quickly now, or the tide will be against us.’
Chapter Two
It was Eadulf who moved next. Even as Fidelma stood looking on aghast at the carnage that had taken place before her eyes, unable to fully comprehend it, Eadulf seized her arm and was hauling her to the rail of the ship. All feelings of nausea had left his body through the shock of what had happened. An arrow splintered the wood of the rail by the side of them.