Torcán was regarding her with mixed emotions, though it appeared that a reluctant admiration of her cool attitude was uppermost.
‘Do you accept the fine on behalf of your warriors?’ she demanded.
Torcán chuckled hollowly.
‘I will pay their fine, but I will ensure that they pay me.’
‘Good. The fine shall be a contribution to the funds of the abbey of The Salmon of the Three Wells to help them in their work.’
‘You have my word that it will be paid. I shall instruct one of my men to come to the abbey with the fine tomorrow morning.’
‘Your word is accepted. And now I shall be obliged if you will allow me to continue my way.’
‘In which direction is your objective, sister?’ asked Olcán.
‘My journey takes me to Adnár’s fortress.’
‘Then let me share my saddle with you,’ offered Torcán.
Fidelma declined the offer to ride behind the son of the prince of the Ui Fidgenti.
‘I prefer to continue on foot.’
Torcán’s mouth tightened and then he shrugged.
‘Very well, sister. Perhaps we will see you at the fortress in a while.’
He turned his horse, slapped its flank with the side of the bow which he still held and sent it cantering along the forest path. Olcán stood hesitating a moment, looking as if he wished to speak further with Fidelma. Then he remounted his horse and raised a hand in farewell before turning and riding swiftly after his guest. Fidelma stood still, staring after them for a while, her face frowning in concentration. She tried to fathom out what this encounter meant; indeed, if it meant anything at all. Yet it must have some meaning. She simply could not believe that Torcán was serious in suggesting that he had mistaken her for a deer in the forest, especially a winter forest with fair visibility among the mainly bare trees and sparse undergrowth. And if it was no more than an accident, why had he allowed his men to manhandle her? It seemed logical to conclude that he was not expecting her — for as soon as she gave her name and station, he had ordered her release. Then who was it that he had been expecting along that road? A woman? A religieuse? Surely that much was certain for none could mistake her gender or her calling by the distinctive robes she wore. Why would a visitor to this area, the son of the prince of the Ui Fidgenti, want to kill a religieuse?
She suddenly felt cold.
Someone had probably already killed a religieuse; decapitated her and hung her body down the well at the abbey. Fidelma was sure that the headless corpse was that of a sister of the Faith. Her instinct and what evidence she had seen told her so. She shivered. Had she come close to following the nameless corpse into Christ’s Otherworld?
She raised her head abruptly from her contemplation as her ears caught the sound of a horse cantering on the path ahead. Was Torcán returning? She stood still and peered along the path. A rider was coming rapidly towards her. Her body tensed. The rider soon emerged through the shadowy shrubbery of the forest. It was Adnár.
The handsome, black-haired chieftain swung easily downfrom his horse, almost before the beast had stopped. He greeted Fidelma with a worried glance.
‘Olcán told me that he and Torcán had met you on the forest road and that you were on your way to my fortress. Olcán told me that there had been an accident. Is it so?’ Adnár was examining her anxiously.
‘A near accident,’ Fidelma corrected pedantically.
‘Are you hurt?’
‘No. It is nothing. Nevertheless, I was on my way to see you. Your coming has saved me the trouble of completing the journey.’ She turned and pointed to a fallen tree trunk. ‘Let us sit for a while.’
Adnár hitched his horse’s reins to a twisted branch on the dead tree and joined Fidelma.
‘You have not been entirely honest with me, Adnár,’ Fidelma opened.
The chieftain’s head jerked slightly in surprise.
‘In what way?’ he demanded defensively.
‘You did not say that the Abbess Draigen was your sister by blood. Nor did Brother Febal explain that he was once married to Draigen.’
Fidelma was not prepared for the amused look which crossed the man’s pleasant features. It was as if he had been expecting some other accusation. His shoulders slumped a little in relaxation.
‘That!’ he said in a dismissive tone.
‘Is it not of importance to you?’
‘Little enough,’ admitted Adnár. ‘My relationship to Draigen is not something I wish to boast of. Luckily, she has my father’s red hair while I my mother’s black mane.’
‘Do you not think that mention of your relationship was of importance to me?’
‘Look, sister, it is my misfortune and perhaps Draigen’s misfortune, too, that we were born from the same womb. As for Febal, I will not answer for him.’
‘Then answer for yourself. Do you really hate your sister as much as you appear to?’
‘I am indifferent to her.’
‘Indifferent enough to claim that she has unnatural affairs with her acolytes.’
‘That much is true.’
Adnár spoke in earnest without anger. Fidelma had previously seen his irritable temper and was surprised how calm he now was, sitting there in the wood, hand clasped between his knees, gazing moodily at the ground.
‘Perhaps you should tell me the story?’
‘It is not relevant to your investigation.’
‘Yet you claim that Draigen’s sexual proclivities are relevant. How, then, am I to judge this if I am not possessed of the truth of these matters?’
Adnár made a slight movement of his shoulders as if to shrug but changed his mind.
‘Did she tell you that our father, whose name I take, was an óc-aire, a commoner who worked his own land but had not sufficient land or chattels to render him self-sufficient? He worked all his life on a small strip of inhospitable land on a rocky mountain slope. Our mother worked with him and at harvest time, it was she who gathered what small crop we had while my father went to hire himself to the local chieftain in order to make sufficient to keep our bodies and souls together.’
He paused for a moment and then went on: ‘Draigen was the youngest and I, I was two years her senior. We both had to help our parents on their small plot of land and there was no time or money to spare on educating us.’
There was a bitter tone to his voice but Fidelma made no comment.
‘As a boy, I did not want to follow in my father’s footsteps. I did not want to spend the rest of my life working unprofitable land simply in order to live. I had ambition. And so I would sneak along to the clan hostel every time Iheard that a warrior was passing through the territory. I would try to persuade the warrior to tell me about soldiering, about the warrior’s code and how one trained to be a warrior. I made my own weapons of wood and would go into the forests and practise fighting bushes with a wooden sword. I made a bow and arrows and became an expert shot in my own way. I knew that this was my only path to escape the poverty of my life.
‘As soon as I was at the age of choice, on my seventeenth birthday when no law could stop my going, I left home and sought out our chieftain Gulban of the Beara. He was engaged in wars against the Corco Duibhne over the boundaries of his territory. As a bowman, I distinguished myself, and was soon placed in command of a band of one hundred men. At the age of nineteen Gulban appointed me a cenn-feadhna, a captain. It was the proudest day of my life.
‘The wars made me rich in cattle and when they ended, I returned here to be appointed bó-aire, a cattle chieftain. Although the land was not mine, I had a sufficient cattle herd to be a person of influence and wealth. I am not ashamed of my escape from poverty.’