For Fidelma it was hard to admit to an emotional attachment. She had fallen in love with a young warrior named Cian when she had been seventeen. He had been in the elite bodyguard of the High King at Tara. At the time she had been studying law under the great Brehon Morann. She was young and carefree andvery much in love. But Cian had eventually deserted her for another. His rejection of her had left her disillusioned with life. She felt bitter, although the years had tempered her attitude. But she had never forgotten her experience nor really recovered from it. Perhaps she had never allowed herself to do so.
Eadulf of Seaxmund’s Ham had been the only man of her own age in whose company she had felt really at ease and able to express herself. She had challenged him at first and those intellectual challenges became the basis of their good-natured, easy relationship for their debates over theology and cultural attitudes, contrasting their conflicting opinions and philosophies, would be a way of teasing each other. And while their arguments would rage, there was no enmity between them.
Fidelma had felt loneliness for a year and had scarcely been able to conceal her exhilaration when she had discovered that Brother Eadulf had been sent as an emissary from the newly appointed archbishop of Canterbury, Theodore, who was now the Holy Father’s representative to the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. That Eadulf was now at the court of her brother, Colgú of Cashel, was as if Fate had ordained a path in her life.
Could Fate be so cruel as to take Eadulf away; away so finally and irrevocably?
‘There is nothing that you can do here, Fidelma,’ Gadra was repeating. ‘Let me look after the poor brother while you do your best to find who is responsible for this outrage. I will send word to you as soon as there is any change.’
Reluctantly, Fidelma looked down at the ailing features of her friend and nodded slowly. She tried to control the slight twitching at the corners of her mouth. Her face had hardened unnaturally.
‘Thank you, Gadra,’ she said. ‘Grella here will help you, won’t you, Grella?’
Grella was standing wringing her hands. ‘Oh, sister, shall I be punished for this?’
‘Why should you be punished?’ she asked absently.
‘It was I who brought the food to you and the brother,’ the girl reminded her.
Fidelma realised the anguish the young girl was going through and shook her head with a sad smile.
‘You will not be punished. But I must go to find Dignait and discover who is responsible for placing the poisonous fungi on the plates. Gadra here will require your help. Will you help him?’
‘I will,’ agreed the young girl, mournfully.
Fidelma cast one final glance at Eadulf’s shivering, unconscious form, and turned to leave the hostel. It was only when she had gone several yards that she realised, for the first time in her life, she was walking without a purpose. She paused, undecided what to do.
Chapter Seventeen
Fidelma dismounted outside the single-storey cabin which was built entirely of wood. She had left the rath with only a vague idea in her mind. Her mind was turning over the idea which had occurred to her with the mention of Crítán. It was a line from Virgil; from the Aeneid. Dux femina facti! She was not sure why she kept thinking of this line until she passed along the road to the valley of the Black Marsh and saw the small cabin in the bend of the river.
A woman stood outside the door, where she had apparently been tending plants in a small patch of garden. She watched Fidelma’s arrival with curiosity. She was a well-proportioned woman; a woman past her youthful years. She was a short, fleshy, blonde with pronounced cheekbones. Her taste in clothes was garish, their clash of colours denied their suitability.
Fidelma tied the reins of her horse to a hitching pole.
‘Good day to you, sister,’ greeted the woman. ‘You are welcome here but I should warn you — do you know what place this is?’
Fidelma smiled briefly.
‘I am told that it is the house of Clídna. Have I been misinformed?’
The fair-haired woman shook her head.
‘I am Clídna but this place is a meirdrech loc.’
‘A brothel? Yes, so I have been told.’
‘Those of your calling do not usually come to visit a woman of secrets, such as myself, unless they wish to attempt to convert us to a new path in life.’
Fidelma grinned at the euphemism ‘woman of secrets’ as aterm for a prostitute, though it was widely used within the five kingdoms. It suddenly seemed appropriate for her.
‘Dux femina facti,’ she said the phrase aloud. ‘A woman was the leader in the deed. It is because you hold so many secrets that I have come to you, Clídna.’
The prostitute looked puzzled a moment but gestured towards the cabin.
‘Will it offend you if I ask you to come inside and partake of some hospitality?’
‘It will not.’
‘Then enter my house, sister, and let me offer you something to drink. Alas, my means are modest so I do not have grand wines or sweet meads to offer.’
She turned and led the way into the cabin and, once inside, indicated a seat for Fidelma while she turned to where a pot was simmering over a wood fire.
‘I have just prepared this woodsman’s tea,’ Clídna told her. ‘I think you might like it. It is plain and simple.’
‘How do you prepare it?’ asked Fidelma, sniffing the aroma. It had an odour of the forests about it.
‘Easy to say,’ smiled the woman. ‘I tap a birch and drain off a quantity of the sap. Then I heat the sap infusing it with pine needles. When it is heated, I strain the mixture through sedge leaves.’
She handed Fidelma an earthenware mug.
Fidelma sipped cautiously. There was an unusual tang to the taste but it was not unpleasant.
‘It is very good,’ she pronounced after she had taken another sip.
‘Not compared with the beverages you drink in the palace of Cashel, I’ll be bound?’
Fidelma raised an eyebrow.
‘So you know who I am?’
‘I am a woman of secrets.’ There was humour in Clídna’s eyes.‘Where else do whispers and rumours come to rest but in the ears of such as I?’
‘Will you tell me of yourself? How did you come to follow this calling?’
‘I was the daughter of hostages. My parents were of the Ui Fidgente, taken prisoner after the battle of the Ford of Apples where Dicuil son of Fergus was slain by the men of Cashel.’
Fidelma knew that hostages had no rights in society and were made to work until ransom was paid or the next generation were freed automatically.
Clídna seemed to read her mind.
‘I was born before my parents were captured. Therefore I was not a free woman. I had no rights within the clan and this is why I am as you see me now. A woman of secrets. Without honour-price, without status, without bride-price. Without property.’
‘Who owns your cabin then?’
‘It is on the land of Agdae.’
‘Ah. Agdae of the Black Marsh?’
Clídna smiled briefly.
‘I pay him rent, of course.’
‘Of course.’
‘I am not ashamed of my life.’
‘Did I imply that you should be?’
‘Usually those of your calling, Father Gormán for example, would have me scourged and driven out of this land.’
‘Father Gormán is extreme in his views.’
Clídna looked at Fidelma with some surprise.
‘You cannot tell me that you approve of me?’
‘Approve of you, or approve of the profession you have undertaken?’
‘Are they separate?’
‘It depends on the individual. My mentor, Morann of Tara, told me never to measure another person’s coat on my own body.’ Fidelma paused. ‘However, I have not come to discuss the mannerof your life, Clídna. I came because I would be glad if you could assist me with information.’