“Is your name Serc? I am told your husband disappeared a few weeks ago while working as a boatman for Olcán the merchant.”
“What’s it to do with you?” demanded the girl, still sulky.
“I am a dálaigh of the Brehon Court and my inquiry is official.”
Serc was still defiant.
“If you are who you say then you must know the answer to the question.”
Fidelma controlled her irritation.
“Since your husband disappeared, I presume that you are being cared for by the employer of your husband?”
The girl raised her chin a little.
“Abaoth has ensured that I do not want.”
“Abaoth? Not Olcán?”
“Olcán is a lecherous old bastard!” the girl replied without rancor.
“He came here and said he would take care of me if. .” Her mouth clamped shut.
Fidelma was not surprised.
“You do not know what happened to your husband?”
“Of course not. Why should I?”
“I am trying to find out what happened to him and to the others.”
“Let me know when you do. I’d be interested. Now I am cold, standing here. Have you finished?”
It was clear that even though her husband had vanished with his fellow boatmen, Serc would lack for nothing now or in the future so long as she retained her looks.
There were two other families on her list. One of them, like the first two Fidelma had inquired after, had left Eochaill and had, presumably, moved off to live with relatives, since their husbands had gone missing. The other was a large, broad-faced woman who had several children. She seemed anxious when confronted with Fidelma. She and her children seemed to lack for nothing and Fidelma confirmed that this was due to Abaoth rather than the miserly Olcán. Like the other wives, Fidelma was not able to pick up any useful information-neither about the missing boatmen nor their last trip for Olcán.
It was dawn the next day when Fidelma joined Ross in his curragh and they began to move upriver from Eochaill. The Abhainn Mór was well named. It was a “great river” whose black waters were deep and dark. Once out of the estuary waters and entering the river proper-around the place called the Point of the Sacred Tree from pagan times: this was a hill on which a small fortress stood to protect the river passage-progress was more interesting. They went through the wooded banks of the still-broad river, the trees rising on hills along either side as it kept a moderately straight course north.
Apart from small streams that fed the river Fidelma saw nothing that excited her suspicions. Isolated farmsteads could be seen now and again but there were no major settlements once they were beyond Dair Inis.
Ross eased on his oars for a moment.
“Have you seen anything of interest yet, lady?” he asked.
She shook her head negatively.
“Everything seems as it should be.”
“What did you expect to see?”
She shrugged.
“I don’t know. Something out of the ordinary perhaps.”
Ross sighed.
“We should break for a meal soon. The sun is already at the zenith.”
She nodded absently.
“The Abhainn Mór is a long river, lady.” Ross had a quiet sense of humor. “I trust that you don’t want to explore its whole length? It rises on the slopes of a mountain in the country of the Muscraige Luachra and that is a long, long journey from here.”
“Don’t worry, Ross. Whatever happened to the barges happened before Lios Mór and I think it happened to them before dawn. Whoever or whatever was responsible for their disappearance would not want any witnesses and with daylight would come such witnesses.”
“Well, the next settlement is Conn’s Plot, Ceapach Choinn. It is there that the river makes a forty-five-degree turn towards Lios Mór. I don’t know whether they could reach that settlement before dawn. Whatever happened to them must have happened long before the river turns.”
Fidelma was grateful for Ross’s knowledge.
They pulled into the bank to take a midday snack of bread and goat’s cheese and the flask of mead. It was a warm, pleasant day, and Fidelma felt herself sinking into a lazy drowsing state beneath the tall oaks soaring up from the bank above her, with the sound of songbirds in her ears.
“We should be on our way, lady,” Ross reminded her after a while.
She started nervously from her reverie.
“I was thinking,” she said defensively. Then smiled.
“No, I think I was dreaming. But you are right. We must press on. There must be somewhere that these barges were taken and hidden before the bend in the river.”
Ross rubbed his chin thoughtfully.
“The only place I can think of is where the River Bríd joins this river.”
Fidelma frowned.
“The River Bríd? Of course, I had forgotten that.”
“It joins the Abhainn Mór less than a kilometer from here.”
Fidelma leant forward excitedly.
“We will turn off into the River Bríd and see where it takes us.”
The Bríd was a powerful river, although not so wide as the Abhainn Mór, and it was difficult to negotiate against the surge where it flooded into the greater river, joining its slow progress to the sea. There were tiny whirlpools and currents that sent Ross’s curragh this way and that in a helter-skelter fashion. Finally, they broke through to calmer water and began to move slowly through a green plain with distant hills on either side. It was a fertile valley in which Fidelma had never been before.
“Do you know this area, Ross?”
“This is the territory of Cumscrad, Prince of the Fir Maige Féne.”
Fidelma suddenly shuddered.
“They are a non-Eóghanacht people whose prince claims that he descended from Mogh Ruith, a sinister Druid who was a disciple of Simon Magus, the magician who opposed the Blessed Peter, the disciple of Christ.”
Ross grimaced but without concern.
“If it is a villain that you are seeing, you may seek no further that Cumscrad,” he said.
“There is a local chieftain here who acts in his name, Conna.”
“I have not heard of him.”
“He has a small fortress on a rock above the river but it is some way further on. We have to come to the main settlement first.”
“That’s called Tealach an Iarainn, the hill of iron, isn’t it? I have heard of that because it is famous for its wealth.”
“That’s the place, lady. The people extract iron ore and smelt it and trade it. In fact, Olcán trades for iron cargoes here.”
“Does he now?” Fidelma asked reflectively.
They had come nearly three kilometers along the winding river when Ross, glancing over his shoulder, indicated the settlement on the south bank of the river. There were several barges and small boats moored along the riverbank where wooden quays showed that a trade was carried on here.
“We’ll stop here and make some inquiries,” Fidelma instructed, and Ross pulled in looking for a mooring.
On firm land, Fidelma took a moment or two to recover her balance, having been for some hours seated in the curragh. She looked about along the line of vessels. Tealach an Iarainn was certainly a busy little settlement. There were a lot of people about. By their appearance it seemed that they were mainly merchants or boatmen. There were a large number of blacksmith forges along the quays as well.
“What now, lady?” asked Ross. “Where do we make our inquiries?”
“Let’s take a stroll along the quay first.”
She was surprised at how busy the settlement was. In the hills behind she realized that people were mining and extracting iron ore. She could see wagons bringing it down to the forges where she presumed the iron was extracted and then sent in the barges to be sold at various destinations. It suddenly came to her memory that the plains beyond this settlement were called Magh Méine, the Plain of Minerals.