Forindain sighed. ‘My brother was a good player but we must go on.
There is no other means for us to make a living. We have only the play and the fairs. We will follow our original plan.’
‘So we may expect you to return to Cashel?’ she pressed.
There is a fair at Cashel at the end of next week. We shall be there, lady, unless we are forbidden because of what has happened.’
‘You are not forbidden.’ Fidelma rose from her seat. ‘In fact, I would welcome you there. You may return to your comrades, Forindain, and please accept that I am sorry for your loss.’
Forindain rose uncertainly. ‘And my brother Iubdán? Will he have justice, lady?’
‘I would advise you to adopt another name, another character. Your brother was clearly mistaken for you. Keep the fact a secret. Though I believe you might be clear of danger now that you have spoken to me. I believe it was your information that the killer wanted to suppress. Still, take no chances. Be Iubdán from now until you come to see me at Cashel.’
The dwarf hesitated. Then he gave a little bow and left the tent.
Fiachrae was shaking his head.
‘I understand nothing of this, cousin.’
‘That is best, cousin,’ replied Fidelma solemnly. ‘Nothing of what has passed here must leave this tent. I will keep you informed as I find out more. Now, as it is approaching midday, perhaps we can trouble you for some refreshment…er, of the edible kind,’ she added as Fiachrae’s gaze went to the table on which the jug of corma sat. ‘After we have eaten, we will be on our way back to Cashel.’
Fiachrae looked puzzled.
‘But the killer of the dwarf…?’ he protested. ‘Won’t you want to stay in order to find him?’
‘The person behind the killing of Iubdán will not be in Cnoc Loinge but will be found in Cashel. Do not worry, cousin. I will inform you when I have caught him.’
After Fiachrae had left to organise a meal for them, Eadulf turned with a puzzled look to Fidelma.
‘What did you mean by that?’
Fidelma looked at him with a bland expression. ‘By what, exactly?’
‘That the killer of Iubdán will be found in Cashel.’
Her lips thinned a moment. ‘I said the person behind the killing would be found in Cashel.’
Eadulf exhaled sharply. ‘So far as I can see, we have come to a dead end. Someone went to great lengths to disguise themselves and send the innocent dwarf up to the palace to inveigle Sárait out into the night to meet her killer. But at least we now learn that it was not the intention to kidnap Alchú, otherwise the message he was sent to deliver would have requested her to bring the child. It was pure chance that she could not find anyone to look after our baby and had to take him with her.’
Fidelma looked thoughtfully at him.
‘It is a good point and one that could be overlooked,’ she observed.
‘But there is now no lead. No lead at all.’
‘On the contrary,’ Fidelma contradicted. ‘I believe the description of those clothes will lead me directly to the person who wears such distinctive garments.’
Chapter Eight
Fidelma and Eadulf rode the entire way back to Cashel without exchanging more than a few words. Although they had been more at ease at Cnoc Loinge, the underlying tension between them remained. In addition, Fidelma had not been open with Eadulf about who it was in Cashel who wore such distinctive clothing as had been described by Forindain the dwarf. The knowledge had made her reel inside for she had counted that person as a friend. She felt she could not reveal this knowledge to anyone as yet, least of all to Eadulf. That made her feel doubly guilty about the argument they had had at Imleach. She glanced at him once or twice in surreptitious fashion as they rode along. Eadulf, his brow drawn in a permanent frown, appeared to have sunk deep into his own thoughts. Apart from her astonishment at hearing Forindain’s description of the woman who had sent the dwarf to the palace to persuade Sárait to meet her killer, Fidelma was still feeling slightly shocked at Eadulf’s outburst. Perhaps she had taken his placidity too much for granted. She had long ago realised that she was too used to having her own way, exerting authority not simply thanks to her privileged background but more to her own hard-won status as a dálaigh. The very thing that she had liked most about Eadulf was that he had accepted her faults. He seemed to absorb snappishness and outbursts of temper. That he had suddenly turned in such a fashion had astonished her, almost driving her preoccupation with her lost child momentarily from her mind.
She realised, as if it were a sudden revelation, that she needed to question herself more rigorously.
She had never really looked on herself as a religieuse. Her passion was law. It was a distant cousin, Abbot Laisran of Durrow, who had persuaded her to join the double-house of St Brigid at Kildare, for practically everyone involved in the professions and arts was to be found among the religious as had, a few generations before, their predecessors been part of the druid orders. She had not been long in learning that life in an abbey was not for her, and when the abbess of Kildare placed herself above the law Fidelma had left and returned to her brother’s capital of Cashel.
She was a dálaigh first and foremost, a princess of the Eóghanacht, and then a religieuse. She suddenly compressed her lips, for she had left wife and mother out of that equation. Her knowledge of scripture, of theology and philosophy, could scarcely be attained by many who promoted the New Faith. She knew Latin and Greek almost as well as she knew her native tongue, and she had fluency in the language of the Britons as well as a working command of the tongue of the Saxons, thanks mainly to Eadulf. But it was law that always demanded her attention. She had no problems in her life in identifying what she should be doing in that respect.
But what of being a wife and mother?
Eadulf had not been her first love. That had been Cian and he had betrayed her trust. Well, she had sorted that out, although the final strands had not come together until her recent and curious voyage to Iberia where she had gone on a pilgrimage to the tomb of the Blessed James in order to sort out her feelings about Eadulf and her commitment to the religious life. She had not reached the object of the pilgrimage in physical terms but she had realised that her feelings about Eadulf could not be dismissed as easily as she had come to the decision that being a member of the religious was simply a means to an end for her to pursue her commitment to law.
Now she had to sort out her feelings as a wife, albeit a ben charrthach. And she was also a mother. Mother! A sudden pang went through her as she realised how selfish she was being. She knew now that she had not bonded with little Alchú. It had been a painful birth and she had begun to resent the child for keeping her confined in her brother’s palace, instead of pursuing her passion for law. She knew that Eadulf suspected that she resented the birth of their baby. That made her more angry with him.
Eadulf had tried to make her drink some noxious brew made from brachlais — St John’s Wort as he called it in his own tongue. Fidelma was not stupid. She knew that the apothecaries of Éireann applied it to women who became dispirited and despondent after giving birth.
Her child had been kidnapped or worse, his nurse had been killed, and now she was trying to form some logical analysis of her thoughts and fears. Whereas other women might be tearing their hair and prostrate in grief, Fidelma remained calm and logical. It was her gift, or was it a curse? What was it that her mentor, the Brehon Morann, once told her? ‘You have a gift for logic, Fidelma, especially when it comes to your personal affairs. Try to develop your intuitive qualities, for logic can sometimes be like a dagger without a handle. It may cut the person who tries to use it.’