He inclined his head in a gesture of farewell and turned to make his careful way from the battlements, his back bent, leaning on a thick blackthorn staff for his support. Fidelma stood staring after him with her sudden feeling of unease not dispelled. She had known old Brother Conchobar since her birth thirty years ago. In fact, he had assisted at her birth. He appeared to have dwelt at the ancient palace of Cashel for ever. He had served her father, King Failbe Fland mac Aedo, whom Fidelma could not really remember for he had died in the very year of her birth. He had also served her three cousins who had succeeded to the kingship in their turn. Now he served her own brother, Colgú, who had been proclaimed as King of Muman hardly a year previously. Brother Conchobar was considered one of the most learned of those who studied the heavens and made maps of the stars and their courses.
Fidelma knew enough of Conchobar to realise that one didn’t take the old man’s prognostications lightly.
She gazed up at the melancholy sky and shivered before turning down from the battlements into one of the many courtyards of the large palace complex which rose on the rock of limestone peak. Interspersed here and there were tiny courtyards and even smaller gardens. The entire network of buildings was surrounded by the high defensive walls.
Fidelma began to walk across the paved courtyard towards the large entrance of the royal chapel. The sound of children’s playing caused her to glance up as she walked. She smiled as she saw some young boys using the chapel wall to play a game called roth-chless, the ‘wheel-feat’. It had been a favourite game of her brother’s when they were young because it was the one game that Colgú knew he could beat her at. It was a game that relied on the strength of the arm because it consisted of throwing a heavy, circular disc up a tall wall. Whoever managed to cast the disc up farthest was the winner. According to ancient legend, the great warrior Cúchullain hurled a disc up so high that it went up beyond the wall and roof of the building.
There was a scream of delight from the children as one of their number made a particularly good cast with the disc. A grizzled hostler passing near the children stopped to reprimand them.
‘A silent mouth sounds sweetly,’ he admonished, wagging his finger and using almost the same proverb that Brother Conchobar had just quoted to her. The servant turned and, observing Fidelma, saluted. Behind him, Fidelma saw a couple of the young boyspulling faces at his back but pretended that she had not observed them.
‘Ah, my lady Fidelma, these young ones,’ sighed the elderly servant, deferring to her royal status, as did everyone in Cashel. ‘Truly, my lady, their noise pierces the tranquillity of the hour.’
‘Yet they are merely children at play, Oslóir,’ she returned gravely. Fidelma liked to know the names of all the servants at her brother’s palace. ‘A great Greek philosopher once said, “Play so that you may become serious”. So let them play while they are young. There are plenty of years ahead of them in which to be serious.’
‘Surely silence is the ideal state?’ protested the hostler.
‘That depends. Too much silence can be painful. There can be a surfeit in all things, even honey.’
Smiling at the children, she turned towards the doors of the royal chapel and was about to ascend the steps when one of the doors swung open and a young religieux in a brown woollen homespun habit emerged. He was a thickset young man whose abundance of curly brown hair was cut into the corona spina, the circular tonsure of St Peter of Rome. His dark brown eyes carried a humorous twinkle and were set in pleasant and almost handsome features.
‘Eadulf!’ Fidelma greeted him, ‘I was just coming to find you.’ Brother Eadulf of Seaxmund’s Ham, in the kingdom of the South Folk, had been sent as an emissary to the King of Cashel by no less a dignitary than Theodore, Archbishop of Canterbury. He grimaced pleasantly in salutation.
‘I was expecting to find you at the services this morning, Fidelma.’ Fidelma grinned, one of her rare mischievous grins. ‘Do I hear a criticism in your voice?’
‘Surely one of the first duties of a religieuse is to attend the Sabbath morning service.’ The Irish Church held to Saturday as the Sabbath day.
‘Indeed, I attended lauds first thing this morning,’ rejoined Fidelma waspishly. ‘That was before first light when, so I was told, you were still sleeping.’
Eadulf flushed slightly.
Fidelma immediately felt contrite and reached out a hand to touch his sleeve.
‘I should have warned you that on the feastday of Saint Ailbe, it is the custom of our house to attend lauds in order to give special thanks for his life. Besides that, my brother had to leave Cashel before first light to ride to the Well of Ara. We were early abroad.’
Eadulf was not mollified but he fell in step with Fidelma as theyturned to walk back across the courtyard towards the entrance to the Great Hall of Cashel.
‘Why is this feastday so special?’ he asked, somewhat peeved. ‘Everyone is giving praise for St Ailbe, though, I freely confess, I know nothing of his life nor work.’
‘No reason why a stranger to this land would know about him,’ observed Fidelma. ‘He is our patron saint, the holy protector of the kingdom of Muman. This is the day when the Law of Ailbe is proclaimed to our people.’
‘I see,’ acknowledged Eadulf. ‘I understand why this day is made special. Tell me, why he is regarded as the protector of Muman and what is this Law of Ailbe?’
They walked together through the palatial reception room, across the Great Hall of the palace building which, at this hour of the morning, was almost deserted. Only a few servants moved discreetly about, laying fires in the great hearth or cleaning the chamber, sweeping the paved stone floors with brushes of twigs.
‘Ailbe was a man of Muman, born in the north-west of the kingdom in the household of Crónán, a chief of the people of Cliach.’
‘Was he the son of this chief?’
‘No. He was the son of a servant to the chief who had become pregnant and died giving birth. There is argument over who his father was. The chief was so enraged that his birth had killed a favourite servant that he would have smothered the child. The story goes that the baby was taken from Cliach and left to die in the wild but was found by an old female wolf who raised him.’
‘Ah, I have heard many such stories,’ observed Eadulf cynically.
‘Indeed, you are right. We only know that when Ailbe grew to manhood he went abroad and converted to the New Faith in Rome and was baptised there. The Bishop of Rome gave him a present of a beautiful silver crucifix as a symbol of his office and sent him back to Ireland to become bishop to the Christians. This was even before the Blessed Patrick set his feet on our shores. My ancestor, the first Christian King of Muman, Oenghus mac Nad Froích, was converted to the Faith by Ailbe. And Ailbe and Patrick both took part in the baptismal ceremony of the King here on this very Rock of Cashel. King Oenghus then decreed that Cashel would henceforth be the primacy of Muman as well as continuing to be the royal capital and Ailbe would be first shepherd of the flock in the kingdom.’
They took a seat by a window in the Great Hall which overlooked the western end of the township below, giving an outlook across the plains to the distant south-western mountains. Eadulf stretched himself and found he had to quickly smother a yawn in case Fidelma might feelinsulted. She did not notice for she was gazing towards the shimmering forests in the distant valley. Part of her mind was still thinking about old Brother Conchobar and his gloomy prediction. She wondered if it did relate to the safety of her brother, Colgu. It was no secret that he had gone to the Well of Ara, a ford on the River Ara, to meet the arch-enemy of the Kings of Cashel. The princes of the Uí Fidgente had been enemies to her family for as long as she could remember. True, Colgú had taken his personal bodyguard, but could harm really threaten him? She became aware that Eadulf was asking something.