Delia began to look a little strained and pale again.
‘I see now why you have come to me with your questions,’ she said. ‘You think that I am that woman. However, other women could have cloaks of green silk with red embroidery.’
Fidelma indicated the chest of clothes.
‘The fact that you cannot produce your cloak seems to indicate that it was the cloak in question.’
‘It does not mean that I was wearing it.’
‘True. Can you add anything to your explanation of where you were that night?’
Delia hesitated.
‘Fidelma, you have befriended me when others shunned my company. You defended me when others would have condemned me. By that friendship I swear this, that I am not the woman whom you seek. I know nothing of the matter other than that I once possessed a green silk cloak and now it is gone.’
Fidelma looked intently at her for a moment or two.
‘Speaking as your friend, Delia, I believe you. But in this matter, I have to speak as a dálaigh. I have to try to find out when this cloak was stolen from you and have some corroboration of where you were on the night Sárait was killed.’
Delia raised her arms in a helpless gesture.
‘I know nothing of law, lady. You must do as you must. I will answer your questions so far as I am able but I can tell you nothing further that will help you in this matter.’
‘You cannot tell me where you were on that night or provide me with the name of anyone who would vouch for you?’ she pressed.
‘I can say nothing more on that subject,’ Delia replied firmly.
Fidelma sighed deeply.
‘Very well. I do believe you, Delia, but I must do what I must to find my child. You can appreciate that.’
Delia impulsively leant forward and touched Fidelma’s arm.
‘Believe me, I am a mother, too. I would do the same were I in your place. I have not had a happy life. When I was young, I had ambitions to marry and have children. That was denied me. My problem, if you like, was that I always fell in love with the wrong man. I gave love and trust, and those men took them from me and then left me with nothing but angry memories. That was how I was led into being a bé-táide, seeking to revenge myself on men.’
‘I cannot see,’ Fidelma replied with a frown, ‘how prostitution is a form of revenge on men?’
Delia chuckled, a sound without any humour.
‘It makes men come cap in hand, seeking women’s favours and having to pay for the privilege. That is revenge for all those women whom they force their attentions on, whom they claim mastery over, simply because they are their husbands.’
‘Women do not have to put up with men’s pretensions in that field,’ admonished Fidelma. ‘Under law, women have the right to separate and to divorce.’
Delia was still bitter.
‘Law is logical. Sometimes the law is only as good as human nature. What happens between a man and wife within the bedroom is often beyond the reach of the law.’
‘A woman does not have to be afraid. If a man threatens or inflicts physical violence on his partner it is grounds for an immediate divorce. Likewise, if the man circulates lies about his partner and holds her up to ridicule-’
Delia cut her short.
‘You do not understand, lady. I know you have a perfect marriage and I wish you well in it. But the minds of men and women are not always logical. Sometimes a woman will bear ills that logic might dictate are easily curable in law because of her feelings for her partner. Not everything can be cured by logic’
Fidelma felt a sudden overwhelming weariness. Then, she could not help it, tears sprang into her eyes. She tried to blink them away.
Delia gazed at her in surprise.
‘Why, lady, what is amiss?’ she asked, leaning forward, a hand on Fidelma’s arm.
Fidelma found that she could not speak.
‘Oh, forgive me, lady, I am too selfish.’ Delia seemed truly in distress. ‘I forgot this was about your missing child. How can I be so unthinking?’
Fidelma tried to recover her poise. Then she sighed.
‘Oh, Delia, it is not just Alchú’s loss that has cast me into an abyss I can see no way out of.’
The woman stared at her for a moment, lost in thought. Then she shook her head.
The Saxon brother? Your husband? Is he the cause of this grief, lady?’
‘It is more that I have been upsetting him by my vanity, Delia,’ she replied brokenly.
The woman regarded her with an appraising look.
‘Tell me about it,’ she instructed.
At first Fidelma hesitated and then, slowly at first, but with growing abandon, she began to tell Delia about the situation that had evolved between herself and Eadulf. It flooded out. As she spoke, she began to realise that it was a long time since she had talked to a woman, someone she could trust. In fact, Fidelma had not had an anam chara, a soul friend, since the disgrace of her friend Liadin, who had once been as a sister to her. They had grown up together and when they had reached the ‘age of choice’, when they had become women under the law, they had become soul friends, sworn to be spiritual guides to one another as was the custom of the Faith in Ireland. Liadin had married a foreign chieftain, Scoriath of the Fir More, who had been driven from his own lands to dwell among the Uí Dróna of Laigin. Liadin had acquired a lover and become involved in the murder of her husband and son and betrayed her oath to Fidelma. Since then, Fidelma had not accepted anyone as a soul friend.
Now all her fears, her hopes and her worries, came out in a rush like a dam breaking and the waters gushing forth.
For some time after she had finished speaking, Delia sat quietly.
‘The one thing that I have learnt, lady, is never to advise someone on a course of action when it comes to a relationship between a man and a woman,’ she said at last. ‘From what you say, the pursuit was all on the Saxon’s side. He must take the greater responsibility. Is there not an old saying among our people, lady, that a man who marries a woman from the glen marries the whole glen? Did your man not realise that when he married you he had to marry who you were, and that meant he had to accept you were of the Eóghanacht?’
‘Perhaps he did not understand exactly what it entailed.’
‘He cannot blame you for his lack of knowledge, lady.’
‘He is not happy here, Delia, nor could I be happy in his country.’
‘There is always a compromise to be found between two extremes.’
‘But what compromise?’
‘That is for discussion between yourself and your man.’
‘It is not that easy.’
‘Perhaps it is because you are trying to find a route by logic. The shortest cut through emotional problems is often to let your feelings show you the road. When you have seen the choice before you then it is time to make a decision.’
Fidelma shook her head. ‘Where the heart leads, logic must go also.’
‘You may see the problem through logic, lady, but you will understand truth through your emotion. It is emotion that has taught people how to reason.’
Fidelma suddenly rose with a brief smile. ‘You are a wise woman, Delia.’
Delia rose also. ‘Wisdom has not made me rich.’
‘Wisdom excels all riches, Delia.’
‘That is as may be, lady, but for now I am a former bé-táide under suspicion of encompassing the death of Sárait.’
Fidelma looked Delia straight in the eye.
‘My instinct tells me that you are not involved. Yet it also tells me something else. It tells me that you are holding something back.’
Delia flushed. ‘I can assure you that I am innocent of any involvement in the killing of Sárait or the disappearance of your baby. You are the last person I would inflict hurt upon.’
Fidelma inclined her head for a moment.