Peter Tremayne - The Devil's seal

Gormán cleared his throat uneasily. ‘Lady?’ he prompted, wondering why she still stood in the stairway. She gave him a quick smile and continued down the stairs. The guest chambers seemed to be deserted. An attendant was cleaning the rooms and so they passed on by. At the bottom of the stairway they met a troubled-looking Dar Luga, the housekeeper.

‘Good morning, lady,’ she greeted nervously. ‘Is everything all right? Is there anything I can do?’

Fidelma reached forward and patted the woman’s arm.

‘Do not worry yourself, Dar Luga. There was nothing you could have done about last night. I presume all the guests have risen?’

‘They have, lady.’

‘Where are they now?’

‘Brehon Aillín is still in the rooms above. .’

‘We saw him,’ Fidelma acknowledged.

‘The abbess and her steward have gone to the library. So has Brother Madagan. The abbot is in the council chamber with your brother.’

Fidelma turned and pointed to the iron lever that Gormán held. ‘Have you ever seen this before?’

The woman took a step forward to peer at it. Then she stood back with a shake of her head, saying, ‘It looks like a tool of some description.’

‘We think that it might be a builder’s tool of some sort,’ Fidelma agreed.

‘Perhaps you could ask the rathbuigé , the builder in charge of the repair work on the wall,’ Dar Luga suggested. ‘He might be able to tell you what it is.’

‘Just to clarify: have you ever seen such an instrument in this building before?’

‘Never.’

Fidelma allowed the housekeeper to continue on to the kitchens while she and Gormán went out of the main doors and into the courtyard.

‘If it is a tool from the site, the would-be assassin must have carried it into the guest quarters,’ mused Fidelma as she crossed the courtyard with the warrior. ‘He waited until he knew we were leaving the feasting hall, then went up to the roof, knowing that Eadulf and I would take the narrow passage to our own quarters, and worked swiftly to push the statue down on us.’ She frowned, halting suddenly in the middle of the courtyard. ‘That requires an awful lot of effort and luck.’

Gormán regarded her for a moment. ‘You don’t think it worked like that?’

‘It throws up too many questions.’

‘I don’t follow, lady.’

‘To carry the iron bar, which is difficult — even impossible — to conceal, the would-be assassin could not have done so on the spur of the moment. It was carefully planned beforehand. They would have had to take it to their room or the roof when there was no one who might encounter them. Do the guards come on duty just before the guests retire, or afterwards?’

‘Just afterwards, lady. As soon as it is known the guests have retired for the night.’

‘There would not have been time for any guest to leave the feasting hall, find the metal bar and take it up to their rooms. No, this bar was carried up there before the meal started.’

‘Unless they had not attended the meal, such as Deogaire.’

‘Or Brehon Aillín,’ countered Fidelma. ‘Even so, I don’t like it. Even if the iron bar was carried up earlier, the right statue still had to be selected — one overlooking the narrow passage. The would-be assassin had to know the precise time Eadulf and I left the feasting hall; had to know which of the two ways back to our chambers we might choose. And finally, they must have known exactly how long it would take to dislodge the statue and judge the time from the moment it was known we entered the passage to where we would be when the statue fell. In short, the would-be assassin, acting alone, must have been a miracle worker.’

Gormán gave an involuntary shiver. ‘You mean that there are evil spirits at work here?’ His voice dropped to an awed whisper.

‘Shame on you, Gormán!’ Fidelma stamped her foot. ‘No, I do not mean that at all! There is an answer to this and I will find it. Logic, in the very act of finding solutions, always throws up more questions.’

The young warrior was not really persuaded but he asked: ‘So, what next, lady?’

Fidelma glanced up at the sky to judge the time. Although she was pretending that the late night had not affected her, she felt drowsy and realised that she had to give into it.

‘I think I shall retire to my chambers for a while and wait until Eadulf returns with our son. That should be about midday. Then we shall question Deogaire. He will have had enough time to think about his position to realise he must give us honest answers.’

Gormán gestured to the iron bar in his hand. ‘What shall I do with this?’

‘Put it somewhere safe in the Laochtech for the time being. We’ll see what Deogaire has to say about it later.’

Fidelma had barely entered her chamber, sat down on the bed and closed her eyes when the next thing she was aware of was Eadulf coming into the room. Guiltily, she sat up, rubbing her eyes.

‘You’ve been a very short time,’ she said accusingly.

Eadulf regarded her with a tired smile. ‘We’ve been quite a long while. It’s well after midday and we went as far as Rath na Drinne, where we stopped a while at Ferloga’s inn. I swear, our young son has more energy than any of your brother’s warriors; certainly, he has more than I have. I am exhausted.’

‘It’s after midday?’ Fidelma was aghast, and felt twice as guilty for being asleep so long. ‘Where is Alchú?’

‘I gave him back to the care of Muirgen.’ Eadulf looked longingly at the bed. ‘I am going to miss the midday meal and have a nap,’ he decided. ‘I’ll get something to eat later.’

Fidelma rose. ‘I was going to question Deogaire.’

Eadulf was stretching out on the bed. ‘Can’t it be done later?’

‘I promised Gormán that I would meet him at midday. I’ll tell you all I have discovered later.’

But Eadulf was already asleep and, with a shrug, Fidelma left him and went first to check all was well with Alchú, who was being washed by Muirgen the nurse. Having satisfied herself, she hurried on to the Heroes’ Hall to find Gormán. The warrior was just eating a hurried midday meal. Strangely, Fidelma did not feel hungry at all. While he was finishing, she asked if he had any word of Beccan’s return to the palace. Gormán assured her that he had not; nor had he been able to learn anything about the steward having a sick relative in the township. Finally, bringing the iron bar on her instructions, he led her to the room at the back of the warriors’ quarters where Deogaire had been placed. This had been deemed safer than putting him in the outside storeroom where Rudgal had been murdered.

There was eagerness on the prisoner’s face as Fidelma entered the tiny chamber in which he had been held since the previous night. He rose from the makeshift cot, asking, ‘Has Beccan returned yet? Has he confirmed what I have said?’

Fidelma regarded him in silence for a moment and then sat on the single stool in the room. Gormán followed her inside; taking a stance in the doorway, still holding the iron bar. Deogaire suddenly saw it in his hands and took a step backward.

‘You don’t mean to use that?’ There was a tremulous note in his voice.

Fidelma looked at him crossly. ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ she snapped. ‘What backwoods do you think we live in?’

Deogaire spread his arms expressively. ‘All I know is that I am being accused of something I did not do, and in a place where there have been two deaths already. What am I to believe? You imprison me and now you come in here with an iron bar. For what purpose?’

‘To ask you if you recognise it, of course,’ Fidelma replied grimly. ‘Now, take a look at it — carefully. Have you seen it before?’