Mike Ashley - The Mammoth Book of Historical Crime Fiction

The Patriarch looked away and scanned the panorama around us. “I’ve often wondered what you holy men could see from here. It’s magnificent.”

“But I’m not a holy man!”

“I disagree. I believe you are. Look, your hands are blue with cold. Suffering sharpens faith. The more tenuous our connection to our pitiful fleshly husks, the closer we are to heaven. You are blessed, my friend. It is difficult to feel the holy presence while wrapped in fine robes and surrounded by luxury.” He gave a sorrowful shake of his head and smiled faintly. “Yet can those of us who choose to serve him refuse the harsh sacrifices as we are asked to make?”

He fixed me in his demon’s gaze. “You know too much to ever descend from this pillar. I shall allow you to stay here and glory in the presence of the Lord. I will arrange to have acolytes, armed for your protection, stationed below day and night.”

It took an instant for me to understand the horror of my situation. “No, excellency,” I cried. “Why not kill me? Why leave me here?”

“Because,” the patriarch said as he turned to go down the stairs, “it pleases me.”

“Did you truly believe you would never see me again?”

Arabia smiled sweetly up at me. As usual, my armed guards retired out of earshot when she waved them away.

A warm dawn breeze ruffled her brightly coloured silks. All around, the ruins and vacant spaces of Constantinople were coming alive with the myriad greens of spring. I could almost smell her perfume.

“After the Patriarch left, I wondered,” I said. “I considered throwing myself to the ground, but a colleague of mine died in a fall, and, well …”

“A nasty death,” she agreed.

“Yes. I could never bring myself to do it though I would at least be lying down. Sometimes I long for a doorway to lie in and be out of the rain.”

Her lips formed a red pout. “Then you did doubt me.”

“Oh, yes, I did at times. The morning I woke up with ice in my hair, and the night the angels descended from the clouds and set the sea on fire. Those were the worst.”

“It’s a fine house, isn’t it?” she said. “Even if it isn’t a farmhouse.”

“Yes, though I can only see the corner of it, just past the Great Church and the Patriarch’s residence.”

“It’s very convenient to the Patriarch’s house, that’s true.”

I yanked on the rope and hauled the basket up. Arabia waved to me before pulling the curtain of her litter shut. Her attendants picked the chair up and trotted away across the square. But she would be back. She visits often.

She always brings me a big basket full of boiled eggs.

I wished I’d had a boiled egg that long ago morning. Maybe if I hadn’t eaten the eyes of the Lord, things would have turned out differently.

We move back a century from the previous story and the Byzantine world, to the Celtic world of seventh century Ireland and the time of Sister Fidelma. She is a dalaigh , or advocate of the law courts of Ireland, and was the daughter of the King of Muman, ancient Munster. As Tremayne reveals at the website of the International Sister Fidelma Society (http://www.sisterfidelma.com/), “Her main role could be compared to a modern Scottish sheriff substitute whose job is to gather and assess the evidence, independent of the police, to see if there is a case to be answered.” Fidelma has been conducting her investigations through nineteen novels, so far, and two collections of stories. The series began with Absolution by Murder (1994) set in the year 664. The nineteenth novel, Chalice of Blood (2010) has reached the year 670, and Fidelma is still only 34 years old, so there’s scope for many more stories. The following, which takes place in the winter of 670, is set in the Silvermines Mountains of north-west Tipperary.

Sister Fidelma realized that she had taken the wrong turning the moment the track began to ascend at an unusually steep angle. By this time she knew that she should be on level ground, as her intended route passed along the valley floor between the mountains instead of ascending towards the higher reaches. But the snow was still falling, cold, thick and blinding, so that she saw only whiteness shrouding everything around her. She realized, too, that nightfall was not far off.

She adjusted her woollen cloak closer around her neck in a vain effort to keep out the cold, before halting her horse for a moment to consider the situation. Night and the snow were falling too fast for her to have any hope in finding the right track, even if she turned back. The route that she was taking seemed to lead in the same general direction, perhaps parallel to the track along the valley floor along which she had intended to follow. There was always the expectation that the path she was on might descend and rejoin her original route; although that was a slim expectation, indeed.

Whichever path she took, she would have to find shelter very soon for there was no chance of her reaching her destination before dark. She wondered if Brother Eadulf was already at the settlement of Béal Átha Gabhann, “the mouth of the ford of the smith”, for it was there that she had arranged to meet him in order that they might travel back to Cashel together. She shivered again. The oncoming night was bringing a cold wind with it. There was no doubt that she could not ride much further without seeking shelter. Even if she could find her way down to lower ground, she had to cross a valley and a broad river before negotiating another pass through Sliabh an Airgid, the Silver Mountains, before arriving at her intended objective.

The mournful cry of a wolf came faintly, muffled by the barrier of falling snow. It was taken up by an answering cry but, in these conditions, it was difficult to judge the direction and distance of the sound.

Fidelma’s horse started nervously, tossing its head with its thick mane.

“Steady, steady there, Aonbharr,” Fidelma called, leaning forward and patting its short neck encouragingly. The horse calmed immediately. Aonbharr was of an ancient breed, a gift from her brother, bought from a Gaulish trader. It was usually of a calm temperament, intelligent and agile. She had named him ‘the supreme one” after the horse of Manannán mac Lir, the god of the oceans, who had been worshipped before the coming of the New Faith. According to legend, the horse could run across land or sea, fly across mountains, and could not be killed by man or god. Fidelma smiled softly. At this moment she wished that Aonbharr had the same abilities as his mythical namesake so that she could reach her destination before nightfall.

There came another plaintive cry, both beautiful and chilling. The mournful wolf-call that, although she had heard it often enough, sent a shiver down her spine. This time it seemed closer and slightly above her, somewhere up on the higher reaches of the mountain.

She urged her horse forward gently along the snowy track, blinking against the icy pellicles that blew against her face in the gusting wind. They hit her face like hurtful darts.

She was conscious now of the darkening sky, even through the falling snow, which made the oncoming night more of a curious twilight.

Then there came a new sound, a new cry, from somewhere above her. It was not the cry of a wolf, but something like a woeful bellow. Frowning, she tugged slightly on the rein and obediently her horse came to a halt. She listened carefully, head to one side, trying to analyse the sounds that mingled with the gusting wind. The bellow came again. She was right. It was the distressed cry of a cow. She glanced up the hill, screwing up her eyes to penetrate the driving snow, trying to locate the beast, and wondering what kind of a farmer would leave his animal outside on such a night as this.