Peter Tremayne - The Dove of Death

Bleidbara was making for the stern cabin and Eadulf, seeing the expression on his face, went quickly after him.

The door of the cabin that had once been used by Murchad, the captain of the Barnacle Goose , was not secured. Bleidbara thrust it open unceremoniously. As he did so, a dagger embedded itself in the jamb of the door.

Bleidbara started back with a curse. Then, recovering himself, he pushed inside with Eadulf at his shoulder. Trifina was pressed back in a corner with an expression of fear on her face. This dissolved into one of incredulity and then of joy, and she came rushing across the cabin and threw herself into Bleidbara’s arms.

‘At last! At last! I thought rescue would never come.’

Bleidbara remained stiff and unresponsive. After a few moments, Trifina felt his coldness and drew back with a puzzled frown.

‘What…what is it?’ she asked uncertainly.

‘Why aren’t you a prisoner on this ship like the others?’

She did not understand the implication. ‘But I am. I was .’

‘The cabin door was unlocked.’

She smiled uncertainly, still not understanding his point.

‘What matters? I could not leave the cabin and there were always guards outside to watch me.’

‘Yet all the other prisoners were confined in the hold.’

‘I could not help them. I was well treated, provided I kept to the cabin.’

‘Lady Trifina.’ It was Eadulf who spoke. ‘The circumstances look suspicious, especially when these cut-throats fight under the flag of your family.’

‘But I explained that to Fidelma. These people are out to destroy my family,’ protested the girl.

‘They will destroy nothing now,’ Bleidbara told her icily. ‘The Koulm ar Maro lies at the bottom of the sea and we have slain most and captured the rest of their crew. Now all that remains for us to do is to identify their leader.’

When Trifina turned her gaze to Bleidbara, Eadulf thought he saw in it an expression of sadness, before her features hardened.

‘Where is Fidelma?’ she demanded. ‘Am I now to be accused of being the leader of these raiders?’

It was Eadulf who answered.

‘Fidelma is at Brilhag, so far as I know. That is where we are heading now, before…’He hesitated and then turned to the stone-faced Bleidbara.

‘Then I demand to see her,’ Trifina said. ‘I was abducted and have been held a prisoner here.’

‘And Iuna?’ Bleidbara asked, his voice steady.

‘Iuna?

‘It was she who woke me and, with one of these ruffians, bound and gagged me and took me down to a boat. They killed one of the guards who saw us before he could raise the alarm. Iuna was in league with them all along.’ Trifina sounded bitter.

‘You ask us to believe that?’ replied Bleidbara. ‘How do you explain that Iuna was left poisoned in her chamber when you disappeared, while Ceingar was murdered? Yet you were abducted and put on this ship in comparative freedom.’

‘Iuna poisoned? Dead?’ Trifina cried, aghast.

‘Pray God that she is not.’

‘I do not know why you disbelieve me. I have spoken the truth. I was abducted by Iuna. I was placed on the boat and brought here, while she went back to the fortress.’

‘Who do you claim is this Koulm ar Maro then?’ demanded Bleidbara.

‘I met only with a thuggish man called Taran. He was the captain of the ship, the Koulm ar Maro . I saw no one else.’

Eadulf turned to Bleidbara. He realised it was no use pressuring the girl any further. Fidelma would surely know what to do.

‘We will leave things to Fidelma,’ he told Bleidbara. ‘Meanwhile, we’d best put one of your seamen on The Barnacle Goose to help the crew guide her through these unknown waters. I suggest we sail both ships back to Brilhag before we proceed further.’

Bleidbara turned without making any further acknowledgement of Trifina.

‘I’ll give the orders,’ he said shortly, over his shoulder.

Alone for a moment, Trifina regarded Eadulf angrily, and then her expression softened.

‘I am not the Koulm ar Maro ,’ she said, and she sighed deeply. ‘I have told the truth.’

Eadulf had an instinct to believe, but then his instincts were sometimes wrong.

‘I saw this person once, this Dove of Death,’ he told her, ‘dressed all in white and masked. He or she was of a slight build and had a high-pitched voice — a man trying to sound like a woman…or a woman trying to sound like a man. I do not know.’

‘So you think it was me?’ Her voice was resigned. ‘Then the sooner we can get to Brilhag the better. Is it permitted that I go up on deck?’

Eadulf stood aside. ‘Of course.’

On deck he met with Wenbrit again. The boy was physically none the worse for his experience, but he was clearly unhappy.

‘What’s the matter?’ asked Eadulf, as he found the boy sitting disconsolately on a step by the stern deck.

‘They killed Luchtigern.’

‘Luchtigern? The cat?’ Eadulf’s memory stirred. ‘No, they didn’t. We saw him at the Abbey of Gildas. Or rather, Fidelma did. He obviously came ashore. Did the boat put in near there?’

‘You saw him alive?’ The boy looked incredulous.

‘A lady called Aourken has been looking after him in the village near the Abbey of Gildas. The Barnacle Goose must have put in there.’

‘I do not know the abbey,’ the boy said. ‘One of the men who held us captive threw him overboard. He must have swum to shore.’

‘How was this? I thought cats didn’t swim.’

‘Luchtigern can. He’s a ship’s cat. But I didn’t think he made it to the shore.’

‘What happened exactly? Tell me from the moment the ship was captured.’

‘After you and the lady Fidelma jumped in the sea?’

‘Exactly so.’

‘They sent a skiff out after you but we saw you picked up by a sailing boat, which took you quickly out of reach. The wind turned and that man in the white clothing recalled the skiff. He told us to work the ship, with his men watching us to make sure we obeyed. We were ordered to dump the bodies overboard…Murchad, Gurvan, Menma, Lord Bressal. The one in white remained on board with his men, while his own ship followed us closely.’

‘Go on,’ encouraged Eadulf, when the boy hesitated.

‘The helmsman who took over headed for the coast. At least I thought so, but there was a wide gap between two headlands and suddenly we were in a strong current that propelled us at a fast speed between these two points of land. We were all surprised to find ourselves in a large inland sea dotted with islands. The Barnacle Goose was sailed round the eastern headland while the other ship held off. We were steered fairly close to shore and then the man in white and another man left our ship and rowed to the shore. That’s when Luchtigern was thrown overboard. He scratched this man and the man simply picked up Luchtigern and threw him over the side. I was held back so I could not see what happened.’

‘Well,’ Eadulf reassured him, ‘at least he managed to get ashore. That must have been on this peninsula they call Rhuis. What happened then?’

The boy shrugged. ‘The man in white disappeared, while the other, who had rowed him ashore, returned to the ship and we sailed on again until we came to this creek — and then we were all forced into the hold. We must have been held there for many days before you came. How did you find us? How were you saved? What…?’

Eadulf held up his hand to stem the flow of questions.

‘All in good time. Did you see or hear anyone since you have been here? Did the man in white return?’

Wenbrit shook his head. ‘No. They fed us once a day. Some of us could understand their speech for we have traded along these shores before, though no one knew of this inner sea — they call it the Little Sea, I am told. But even the knowledge of their speech did not help us because they refused to talk to us except to give us the food.’