Fidelma heaved a long inward sigh as she dismissed the bee-keeper. She sat in thought for a while.
“I am going to adjourn this case for an hour or so,” she suddenly announced. “I want to see where this death occurred so that I might fully understand the situation.”
It took them just under an hour to reach Colla’s homestead. Fécho, Tassach, Niall and Colla, Dublemna and their children as well as Mel accompanied Sister Fidelma and Brother Corbb. The party, at Fidelma’s request, made straight for the pond where Enda had been found. A copse of alder trees obscured it from the homestead. They all halted at a respectable distance while Fidelma went forward to make her examination. It was as Colla had described it. Indeed, it did not take long to realize that with such gently sloping banks, it was beyond question that the boy could have fallen in by accident. She walked around the pond several times, scrutinizing the area in search of rocks, stones or anything else that could have made the wound described by Tassach and Niall.
She turned and waved Maine forward.
“I want you to show me where you were playing that morning,” she told him.
The boy pointed to a section of larger woodland just beyond the copse.
“Exactly where?” she pressed.
The boy led her across to the woodland. It was not spacious between the trees and within a few meters one could be hidden along its paths. Fidelma noticed the ground was fairly hard and stony. There was an outcrop of boulders in one clearing. It was useless looking for the precise stone that came into contact with Enda’s head. Fidelma turned to the boy.
“Just tell me again, Maine, because I would like to be absolutely sure ofthis. . when you were playing here and Enda became bored with the game. He left.”
The boy nodded.
“And you all continued to play until you became bored and went off after him?”
“We did so.”
“Any idea of how long this was?” She did not ask with any hope, knowing that children really had no conception of the same sense of time as adults.
“I think it was a long time. Long enough for Faife to insist we play another game of hide and go seek. And I know that she was a long time being found. That’s when I became fed up. Una thought that Faife had gone home for I was the seeker and I easily found Una. Then we both sought for Faife.”
“But you found her eventually, under a bush?”
“We did.”
“Near here?”
“She was under that big bush there,” he pointed.
Fidelma moved forward and glanced quickly at it.
Maine led the way back to where the others were still waiting by the pool. There was little else to be seen that would help her. Fidelma examined their expectant faces.
“I will reserve my judgment in this matter. You will have my judgment on the seventh day from now.”
She hurried away so as not to see the crestfallen, puzzled expressions.
Three days later she was sitting in front of a fire in Brehon Spélan’s chambers. The old judge was seated on the opposite side of the fire to her, sipping mulled wine. Fidelma had just finished recounting the extent of the case to him.
“I see your difficulty, Fidelma,” the old judged sighed. “It is not often that it seems obvious what happened but there is insufficient evidence to pronounce the guilt of the person.”
“This is, indeed, a sad case,” she agreed. “Poor little Enda was placed in an environment that was hostile to him and that very hostility led to his murder. Indeed, not death by neglect, but murder. Colla tolerated him simply as a business transaction so that he would get all his smithy work done by Fécho. Colla’s wife Dublemna hated the boy. I think she is a bad woman who is not averse to physically punishing her children. .”
“Even though corporal punishment is against the law?” interposed Spélan.
“Even so,” agreed Fidelma. “That much Faife made clear. And only Colla seems to have prevented harm coming to Enda because he had obviously been told the law of fosterage when he made the contract.”
“So, from what you say, only little Maine welcomed Enda and in him did the child find any sense of companionship?” queried Spélan.
“That is so. But Dublemna was a vindictive and cruel foster mother as well as mother.”
“So you think it was she who actually killed Enda in some rage against the boy?” the old judged was frowning.
Fidelma shook her head.
“Enda left his game of hide and go seek that morning and walked back to the homestead. At the pond he was hit over the head by someone wielding a stone and then pushed into the pond. Maine found him and then ran to fetch help. .”
“But who did it?”
“Dublemna’s influence was strongest on her daughters. Both of them took their cue of hatred for Enda from her. I suspect they were both hated by their mother and sought to please her. One of them, in fact, went out of her way to please the mother. That was Faife.”
“But why?” Spélan was astonished. “Why would this child resort to murder?”
“The logic of a child is not the same as that of an adult. I think that Faife, overhearing her mother’s anger at her husband for having brought the child into fosterage with them, and her dislike of the child, thought it would please her mother if the child was punished-especially when her father refused to punish the boy.”
“It is strange thinking but I have heard similar tales of children trying to appease parents by doing things they think will please them.”
“In fact, I believe that Faife even decided to provide some ammunition for her mother to justify her dislike. She was the one taking the honey. She stole the eggs and planted them under the bed and then came to accuse Enda.”
“But what happened at the pond?”
“I believe that when they were playing hide and go seek, Faife decided-having overheard the conversation between her mother and father-to physically hurt Enda as her mother wanted. Enda had left the game. The next game began-we heard from Maine that it took a long time to find Faife. In the time she was supposed to be hiding-when Maine and Una were trying to find her-she went after Enda, found a stone, and hit him on the back of the head. We may never know if her intention was to kill him. When she discovered he was dead she pushed his body in the pond. That’s how she muddied and soaked her dress. She tried to disguise it by pretending she was hiding under a bush. But the bush grew in stony, dry ground. It would not have been soaked or muddied, merely dirtied.”
Brehon Spélan whistled softly.
“But we cannot prove that Faife killed the boy. You are Brehon enough to know that your reconstruction would not stand up as proof in court.”
Fidelma sighed deeply.
“I know. That is the sad thing. There is no redress in law for Fécho unless he is persuaded to change his claim back to death by neglect. They have a good chance of being compensated by Colla paying half the dire, or honor price. Enda was over the age of seven, so after that age, the child’s honor price becomes half that of his father. Under law we can do no more. I can also fine Dublemna for hitting her own children as an infraction of the law but I don’t think I will make her see that her hatred of Enda, indeed, her dislike even of her own children, led to this tragedy. Colla and Dublemna will stop up their ears. The next recommendation is, that due to the fines, they be refused any position as fosterers in the future.”
Brehon Spélan shook his head sadly.
“This is one of those times when justice and law are not the same thing, Fidelma. I am sure that we will be able to get Fécho to accept that he press for the lesser charge. I agree about Colla and Dublemna. But what about Faife? What is to stop her the next time she feels like using violence as a solution? I know that you are fond of quoting Publilius Syrus, Fidelma. Didn’t he say that the judge is condemned when the guilty one goes free?”