Peter Tremayne - The Leper's bell

‘Are you look for us, Gorman?’ asked Fidelma.

The warrior looked embarrassed.

‘No, lady. I was looking for Capa. He went to fetch the herald’s standard. I think the king is awaiting his return.’

Fidelma indicated further along the corridor.

‘The room of the techtaire , the herald’s room with the standards, is at the end of this corridor. The door to your left. That is where Capa should be.’

‘Thank you, lady,’ grunted the warrior, raising a hand in salute before moving off.

Eadulf paused to open the door to their chambers and stood aside while Fidelma entered. He was still truculent about his argument.

‘That hypocrite!’ he muttered, referring to Bishop Petrán. ‘If he has been behind the kidnapping of Alchú, I want him to know that I will not pander to his insincerity.’

‘And if he is behind it, you have certainly alerted him to your dislike,’ Fidelma admonished irritably.

A female servant, piling logs on the fire, rose in haste with a quick bob towards Fidelma.

‘I was just tidying your chambers. Is there anything you need, lady?’ she asked breathlessly.

‘A jug of wine,’ snapped Eadulf before Fidelma had a chance to respond.

The servant looked at Fidelma, who made a neutral gesture that the servant took as an affirmative. When she had disappeared, Eadulf flung himself into the seat before the fire and glared moodily at the flames.

‘I would, at times, give much to live the Faith as Bishop Petrán argues it,’ he muttered.

Fidelma stared at him in surprise.

‘What do you mean, Eadulf? I swear your reasoning is beyond me at times.’

Eadulf scowled back.

‘Bishop Petrán is known to believe in the literal word of scripture — would he not argue that we must obey the epistles of Paul? That to Ephesians, perhaps? “Wives, be subject to your husbands as to the Lord; for the man is the master of the woman, just as Christ is the head of the church. Christ is, indeed, the Saviour of the body; but just as the church is subject to Christ, so must women be subject to their husbands in everything.” Yet it seems your laws deny Holy Scripture. Here women are not subject to their husbands but husbands seem subject to their women.’

Fidelma’s brows came together in anger.

‘I swear that you can be boorish at times, Eadulf. Here, no woman is subject in her own home nor is any man her master. And no man is subject to his wife.’

Eadulf chuckled sardonically.

‘Except when a woman takes a foreigner as husband. Then he remains on sufferance of the woman and her family, without rights, without even respect. I cannot even ask wine from a servant without her looking at you for approval.’

Fidelma coloured a little. There was some truth in what Eadulf said. She knew it. Yet it was the way of her people. How was it growing into the problem that was causing Eadulf to behave so belligerently?

‘Eadulf, you have never talked this way before,’ she said defensively.

‘Perhaps I have been too compliant. It is, indeed, my great fault that I have not done so before now.’

‘You do not believe what you are saying, Eadulf. I know you too well to accept that you believe in the dictums of Paul of Tarsus on the obedience of women to men.’

Eadulf’s truculent features suddenly dissolved into an expression of sadness.

‘Fidelma, I am a Saxon, not an Éireannach. I was taught that my ancestors sprang from the loins of Woden, that no one was as great as we were and no other Saxon was as great as those of the South Folk. People trembled at our word. Were we not of the race of Wegdaeg, son of Woden, and of Uffa, who drove the Britons from the land we then took as our own?’

Fidelma gazed at him in astonishment.

She had heard such diatribes from Saxon princelings and warriors about the glories of their people but she had never heard it from the lips of Eadulf before. She did not know how to answer him.

Eadulf gazed at her with an agonised look.

‘What I am trying to say, Fidelma, is that imbued with such spirit I have tried to accept the mantle of charity and brotherhood that is the mark of the Faith. Fursa, a wandering monk of your own race, taught me, when I had scarcely reached manhood. I was not brought up in the Faith but I forsook and forswore the old gods of the South Folk on my twentieth birthday. I was hereditary gerefa , magistrate, of the thane of Seaxmund’s Ham. I have pride, Fidelma. I have self-esteem. I have the vanity of my race. It is sometimes hard for me to find myself here. I am a stranger in a strange land.’

Fidelma felt the bewildered misery in his voice.

‘I thought that you liked this country,’ she said, trying to formulate her thoughts.

‘I do, otherwise I would not have spent so much time here. I came here to learn the canons of the Faith long before I met you. But it is hard to completely turn one’s back on one’s homeland and one’s culture. During this last year, I have especially been reminded of what it is that I miss.’

‘This last year? Since we married? Since we had little Alchú?’

Eadulf gestured helplessly with his arms.

‘You want to return to your own land?’

‘I don’t know. I think so.’

‘I could never live in that country, Eadulf. That is why I tried to keep our relationship at a distance.’

‘I know.’

She hesitated and then took a step towards him.

‘Eadulf…’ she began.

There was a knock on the door and the servant came back with a jug of Gaulish wine and pottery mugs. The moment of intimacy had gone.

‘Do you want me to continue cleaning, lady?’ the woman asked. ‘I had only just come to the chamber when you entered.’

Fidelma shook her head. She was turning aside when her eye was caught by a garment hanging out of a small wooden chest, not properly folded away. The chest stood near Alchú’s cot. She shivered slightly, not wishing to go near it.

‘Just tuck that in before you go,’ she instructed the servant. ‘I do not like to see things left untidy. If you are to clean these chambers, make sure that such things are put away.’

The servant seemed about to speak but then she shrugged and went to carry out the instruction. There was silence until she left the room.

Eadulf was helping himself liberally to the wine. His movements still implied suppressed anger.

Fidelma spoke with a considered calm.

‘Eadulf, we are both in a state of emotional uncertainty. We have a crisis confronting us. There must be peace between us if we are to overcome this matter.’

Eadulf glanced at her. His expression did not change. He shrugged.

‘I cannot continue like this, Fidelma,’ he said simply. ‘When we did not have any formal marriage between us, I did not feel the antipathy that I am now subjected to by the people who surround you. What I cannot stand is the way that your actions and attitude to me now seem to condone the antagonism that is ranged against me.’

Fidelma considered for a while before responding.

‘I cannot change my character, Eadulf. For a long while, as you well know, I refused to make any decision about a resolution of the feelings we had for one another. I knew that, if you settled here in Cashel with me, you would be classed as a foreigner in our law, a landless foreigner with restricted rights. There are decisions that I have to make under our law which you cannot make.’

‘Your law is not my law, Fidelma. There is much we must consider about the future.’

‘Shall it be peace between us until we have regained our son?’ she asked quietly.

Eadulf pursed his lips and thought for a moment.

‘Let it be peace,’ he finally said. ‘As soon as Alchú is returned safely to us and those responsible are discovered, then we shall talk. Absit invidia,’ he added. Let ill will be absent.