Peter Tremayne - Dancing With Demons

Gormflaith raised an eyebrow slightly. ‘Ah, is it so? I must have forgotten, if I was ever told.’

‘No matter. So, you and Sechnussach stood on equal terms?’

‘Even as I have said.’

‘I am told that you and he were estranged?’ The question came quickly and without preamble.

Gormflaith coloured a little and blinked, but that was all the emotion she showed.

‘It seems that your enquiries are indeed making progress.’

‘Do you confirm it?’ Fidelma asked.

‘Does it need confirmation?’

‘It needs explanation.’

‘Then it is easy to explain. Soon after Bé Bhail was born, perhaps there was a change in me or perhaps there was a change in Sechnussach. I cannot apportion blame as to who changed first. All I know is that we began to grow apart. He became arrogant towards me. Once he told me that he preferred a woman who made no demands on him and came and went like a maid when bidden to his bed. Our arguments grew strident and he struck me on three occasions. I demanded my own apartments and we no longer were man and wife. For the sake of the five kingdoms, we appeared together at feasting and other occasions when it was required.’

‘Do I understand,’ Fidelma asked softly, ‘that there was no relationship between you other than your duty as wife of the High King?’

Gormflaith bowed her head. ‘None.’

‘And what was your relationship to Dubh Duin?’

The question was asked in the same soft voice so that for a moment it seemed that it had not registered with Gormflaith. Then her head came up sharply.

‘What did you say?’ she almost whispered.

‘Dubh Duin,’ repeated Fidelma. ‘Your husband’s assassin. What was the nature of your relationship with him?’

Several expressions crossed Gormflaith’s features as she tried to form an answer.

‘Perhaps,’ Fidelma continued in her soft tone, ‘it would save time if I tell you that we have questioned the guard who let him into the royal enclosure several times after midnight. He did so on the authority of your daughter, Muirgel. We have already spoken to her.’

Gormflaith’s shoulders slumped noticeably. ‘Then you must know that he was my lover,’ she said simply.

Fidelma was nodding gently. ‘You realise that there are implications to what you say, lady?’

‘Implications?’ Gormflaith was puzzled.

‘It provides a motive as to why Dubh Duin killed your husband, and furthermore, it also casts suspicion on you as having some role in a conspiracy to kill him.’

Gormflaith stared at her for a moment and then, to Fidelma’s surprise, she gave a wistful smile.

‘I regret that Sechnussach’s murder is not so easily solved, lady,’ she replied.

‘How so?’

‘I believe you are suggesting that Dubh Duin killed my husband to release me from wedlock, so that he and I could go away and get married. Is that so?’

‘It seems a logical thought,’ agreed Fidelma.

‘Logical for one not fully acquainted with the facts,’ rebuked Gormflaith.

Fidelma looked carefully at her. ‘It is my task to try to gather the facts.’

‘The facts are that Dubh Duin was, indeed, my lover and that we planned to marry. That is why I do not believe that he assassinated Sechnussach.’

Fidelma started in surprise. ‘But the evidence, the eyewitnesses to the killing …?’ she began.

‘He had no reason to kill Sechnussach,’ insisted Gormflaith.

‘You have given me one, lady,’ replied Fidelma. ‘So explain why it is not valid.’

‘Because there are the laws of imscarad — of divorce.’

Fidelma smiled tightly. She had already pointed this aspect out to Eadulf.

‘Indeed there are,’ she said. ‘And, from what you say, being married ina union of equals and with claims that Sechnussach struck you and repudiated you for another, if you could convince a Brehon of this, then you could simply have divorced him without loss of your wealth or honour. But, lady, you did not and there is the reason why we come back to Dubh Duin’s motive.’

Gormflaith was already disagreeing. ‘But I did begin the process of imscarad, two weeks before Sechnussach was killed. I would have started the proceedings earlier but my mother was ill, was dying, and she had a naive faith and pride in the fact that her daughter was wife of the High King. I did not want her to feel shame that I had been treated so ill.’

There was a silence while Fidelma considered the implications of this.

‘You can, of course, prove this? That you began the act of imscarad? ’ she asked slowly.

‘I would not say it otherwise.’

‘And Duin Dubh was fully acquainted with this?’

‘He was.’

Fidelma sat back, gazing thoughtfully at the woman and realising that, if nothing else, Gormflaith believed the truth of what she was saying.

‘So two weeks before Sechnussach was slain, you went to him and proposed a divorce, as is custom.’

‘I did. He agreed that it would be a divorce without contest, with no fault on either side. I would therefore remain the owner of all I had brought into the marriage and take away half of all the wealth that had accrued during the period of the marriage which is right and proper according to the laws of equal marriage.’

‘And Sechnussach agreed to this?’ pressed Fidelma.

‘Not only agreed,’ said Gormflaith, ‘but I think he was pleased by it.’

‘But was this merely a verbal agreement between you?’

‘Not at all. As custom has it, we first discussed it and agreed. Then we called the Brehon to transcribe it. While he was doing so, I went to the abbey of Cluain Ioraird where my mother — indeed, all the chieftains of Clann Cholmáin — are interred. I went there with my young daughters to pray for her soul and to ask her forgiveness as she waited for me in the Otherworld. The idea was, that by the time I returned, the Brehon would have the document ready and could pronounce the divorce. Then Dubh Duin and I would return to my father’s lands in Clann Cholmáin.’

‘If this were so,’ Fidelma said quickly, ‘why did Dubh Duin come to Tara, knowing you were at Cluain Ioraird?’

Gormflaith blinked. ‘That is the one thing I do not understand,’ she acknowledged. ‘There was no reason for him to be here at all until my return.’

‘And you still claim that he did not kill your husband?’

‘He had no reason to. The divorce was ready.’

‘Why was this story not told to us immediately? In fact, we were informed that you had dutifully remained at Tara as the grieving widow with your children. That does not fit with the image of someone who was about to divorce,’ Fidelma observed.

Gormflaith shrugged. ‘You must think what you like, lady. I have told you the truth. And the fact is that when I returned and found Sechnussach dead, and my poor lover dead too, I did not think it politic to admit to what had happened.’

‘But surely the Brehon who drew up the divorce settlement for you would know the real story?’

‘He knew of my estrangement with Sechnussach and, of course, he knew that we had agreed a divorce as he had drawn up the agreement. In fact, he knew well my situation because it was he who had introduced me to Dubh Duin. He advised me that I should forget the matter for, as widow of the High King, I would inherit more than just the divorce settlement. Also, Sechnussach’s name and reputation would then be untarnished in death. There was no need to besmirch his name as a cruel husband now that he was dead. So he was buried and I played the grieving widow, as you put it.’

‘You surely realised that the truth must come out eventually?’

‘The truth? I do not know the truth and I think that you are only guessing so that Dubh Duin becomes a scapegoat.’