‘Who did this?’ called Aldhere softly, bending down to the man. ‘Did you see who it was?’
The dying man looked up, eyes vacant, not really seeing those bending over him. His lips were dried and bloodied. They quivered a little. No sound came.
‘Who was responsible?’ cried Aldhere, bending down close to the man’s ear. ‘Speak. Try to speak.’
The lips trembled again.
‘The … the abbot …’
There was a sigh and the man fell back.
Aldhere stood up and his face was full of anger.
‘Cild!’ he muttered.
‘Lord!’ cried one of his men, who had been examining the other bodies. He came forward and held something out.
Adhere took the object and turned it over in his hands, and then he showed Fidelma and Eadulf.
‘There is no doubt about it,’ he said softly.
The object that he held was a crucifix on a leather thong which had been snapped off.
‘Cild is responsible for this atrocity.’
Fidelma was surprised at the bitterness in his voice.
“This hatred between you and your brother seems to run deep. More deeply than I think you are telling me.’
Aldhere’s eyes narrowed. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I speak of the fact that the abbot, Abbot Cild, leads his religious brethren out, armed, in order to attack you and your followers. He slays your men without compunction. You ask me to believe that it is an enmity born of the fact that your father disinherited him in favour of you. I find it hard to understand the depth of hatred that he must feel to do this simply because of a disinheritance.’
Aldhere’s face was grim.
‘You do not know the depth of my brother’s soul, Sister. A soul filled with black hatred against everyone.’ He pointed around at the bodies that lay in the woods. ‘Do you need further evidence of his evil?’
He turned and began to issue instructions to his men to gather the bodies ready for transportation back to the encampment.
‘What will you do now?’ he demanded, turning back to Fidelma and Eadulf. ‘Do you want to stay within the protection of my camp?’
‘There is little to be done,’ muttered Fidelma with a shake of her head. ‘Wiglaf was the last person to speak with Botulf and Botulf was probably the only lead we had to discover what is really going in Aldred’s Abbey. We will press on. There is little point in remaining here with you.’
‘Do you mean that you will return to Canterbury?’ demanded Aldhere in surprise.
‘Perhaps,’ replied Fidelma shortly.
They mounted their ponies and left Aldhere and his men to their gruesome task.
They were some distance away when Eadulf said: ‘I know you, Fidelma. I am sure that you do not mean to go back to Canterbury yet.’
Fidelma grimaced.
‘Of course not,’ she pouted.
‘Then you still mean to go back to the abbey? Even after this example of Cild’s brutality?’
‘Had you any doubt of that?’
Eadulf was silent for a moment and then he shrugged. ‘I suppose not.’ He hesitated and then added: ‘You really mean to appeal for assistance to Lord Sigeric?’
‘It seems as if that is our only hope of preventing the troscud. If we cannot discover what happened to Gelgéis and Botulf then we must find another way of preventing Gadra’s ritual fast.’
‘Would the consequences really be as serious as you say they would?’
Fidelma looked at him and he read the answer in her face.
‘If they were not,’ she said, ‘then I would be on the road to a port looking for a ship bound for home and not spending one hour more in this wilderness of hate and war.’
Eadulf blinked at the brutality of her words. She saw his reaction and immediately felt contrite.
‘It is no good my pretending that I like this country with its customs, Eadulf. I find it a place of violent and intemperate nature. A place of extremes, aggressive, presumptuous and inconsiderate of others.’
Eadulf looked shocked. ‘You have hardly seen enough to come to that decision.’
‘Have I not?’
‘These are my people, Fidelma. Yes, they are sprung from a tradition more used to handling a sword than a plough but I know my people to be straightforward, ingenious and disposed to leadership in enterprises of danger. We are a combative people, that is true, but we are enthusiastic in our religion and our politics and at all times we are determined.’
Fidelma looked at him in amusement.
‘You are fiercely defendant of your people, Eadulf.’ She smiled.
‘I fear that you do them an injustice.’
‘I have to comment as I find.’
‘Comment on the likes of Cild and Aldhere? They are not typical of my people.’
‘They are not the shapers of my thoughts here. I observe your customs and your laws. Withal your people seem brash and inexperienced in civilised ways of living. Perhaps the disposition to leadership you mention ought to be balanced by the desire among individuals to grow more.’
Eadulf flushed in annoyance.
‘I do not find this worthy of you, Fidelma,’ he said sulkily. ‘There is war, murder, hate and jealousy in your own land, yet you do not condemn it as barbaric.’
‘Because we have evolved a law system, a social system, in which such things are not the normal way of life. I fear that in your land, Eadulf, even the law seems entrenched in the brutality of life.’
Eadulf did not respond. It was clear that he was deeply annoyed. Fidelma suppressed a sigh of irritation as she saw the anger which she had provoked in Eadulf. But she knew that his temper, though quick and fretful, was all flame, burning with a sudden brightness, and dying out just as quickly, capricious and soon pacified. Eadulf was not one to bear resentment for long.
They had ridden in silence for a while when her estimation of his character was proved.
It was growing dark, even though the hour was not far advanced, for the day always darkened early in winter. So far as Eadulf could estimate they were approaching the area known as Hob’s Mire and he was feeling some trepidation. He attuned his eyes to watching for the wisp of blue flame. While the logical part of his mind knew the explanation behind firedrake, the ignis fatuus, he also recalled the legends of the ‘corpse fire’ as his people called it.
‘Beyond those trees ahead,’ he warned softly, ‘is the abbey. We must go carefully from here.’
She nodded. ‘I think that the best way in will be to enter as we came out.’
‘I wish we had some daylight to see by,’ he muttered. ‘It will be difficult finding the entrance passage without a light.’
He paused, concentrating his gaze into the gloom ahead andthen suddenly he reached forward and touched her arm. She turned to question him but saw that he had placed a finger against his lips. She waited and then he indicated ahead.
‘I think I saw movement there,’ he whispered. ‘There are some horsemen by the trees.’
‘Horsemen?’ she replied softly. ‘Can you see what manner of men they are?’
‘Not from here.’
‘A strange place for a gathering.’ Suddenly she was dismounting. ‘Let’s leave our ponies here, behind those trees, well out of sight of the track. Then we can move up towards them in order to find out more.’
‘Is that wise?’ Eadulf questioned. ‘There are several men who may be armed.’
Fidelma grinned in the gloom. ‘I deem it wise and, as Phaedrus says, “wisdom is ever stronger than mere force”. Come.’
Eadulf climbed down reluctantly, led the ponies to the shelter of the trees and secured the reins to some strong bushes. He rejoined her and together they crept cautiously forward along the track.
‘We should move more into the wood,’ he suggested nervously after they had progressed several yards. ‘Even though it is dusk, the snow gives us no cover.’
She nodded quickly, appreciating the logic, and moved off the track to the right where the trees rose on the incline of a small knoll that would bring them in a position overlooking the gathering. They found shelter behind some rocks no more than five paces away from the group, from where it was easy to make out the half-dozen riders muffled against the coldness of the weather.