Peter Tremayne - Badger's Moon

‘I’ll also alert Bébháil’s sister and her family,’ he agreed. ‘When can the funeral go ahead, lady?’

‘As soon as custom allows,’ replied Fidelma. ‘There is nothing more to be learnt from the body. Eadulf and I will meet you at the rath on your return.’

Accobrán raised an eyebrow. ‘Your return? Return from where, lady?’

Fidelma was already moving back to her horse with Eadulf trailing in her wake. She mounted up quickly.

‘We will have a word with this youth Creoda and then I want to see Liag to find out how he just happened to be passing by here. Perhaps he noticed something.’

Accobrán looked uncomfortable. ‘I should go with you. I have told you that he-’

‘Don’t worry,’ Fidelma interrupted him. ‘Eadulf and I will find the way. You concentrate on finding the sister of Bébháil.’

She knew well enough that Accobrán had not meant that they needed to be guided to Liag’s hermitage but that he was worried for their safety. However, she had begun to feel that she had now had enough of being chaperoned. She needed freedom to continue her own investigations now she knew the lie of the land.

Side by side, she and Eadulf rode silently along the bank of the river, retracing their route of the previous day towards the place where Liag dwelt. Accobrán stood staring after them a few moments before he mounted his own horse and rode off in the opposite direction.

After a while, Eadulf said: ‘We should have asked Accobrán for his hunting horn. Didn’t he say that he had to use it to summon the hermit?’

Fidelma glanced at him with amusement. ‘If our upraised voices do not summon Liag then nothing will.’

Eadulf grimaced without humour. ‘What do you think the old apothecary was doing so close to the tannery?’

‘That is what I hope to find out.’

‘And destroying evidence?’ added Eadulf.

‘The question has occurred to me,’ she replied quietly.

Eadulf fell silent. It was obvious that Fidelma had considered all the matters he had wondered about.

It was not long before they spotted a log cabin through the trees.

‘This must be Creoda’s bothán ,’ Fidelma said as she turned her horse towards it.

They were some distance away when a youth emerged and called shrilly: ‘What do you want here?’ He was clearly nervous.

‘Are you Creoda?’

The youth was clad in a tanner’s traditional leather apron. He wore a sharp leather-worker’s knife in his belt and had one hand on the handle. His features displayed his anxiety. He regarded them with suspicion.

‘I am Creoda,’ he replied. Then he seemed to relax. ‘Ah, you are the dálaigh . I saw you at Lesren’s tannery yesterday.’

Fidelma and Eadulf dismounted.

‘We have come to ask you a few questions about Lesren,’ Fidelma told him.

The boy thrust out his lower lip in a grimace. ‘Lesren is dead.’ He jerked his head towards Eadulf. ‘He was there with the tanist. He saw the body.’

‘I know. We have come from the tannery.’

‘I can tell you little more.’

‘I just need to hear your version of the events.’

Creoda hesitated before commencing his story. ‘I had finished my noonday meal when Tómma called for me. We went to the tannery together. There was some work for us to do but everyone else had been sent home. We arrived at the tannery but there was no sign of Lesren. We asked at the bothán but he was not there and so we went looking for him. We found him by the edge of the woods. That is all.’

‘I gather that he was still alive,’ said Fidelma.

‘Alive? Aye, barely; alive but rambling.’

‘What did he say?’

‘Tómma was bending down by him. He will tell you.’

‘We would like to know what you heard — just to clarify things.’

Creoda pursed his lips. ‘Nothing that made sense. I heard some snatches of words and a name…it was indistinct. Tómma turned to me and asked me if I had heard the name before.’

‘What was the name? And had you heard it?’

Creoda shook his head once more. ‘Tómma clarified the name for me because, at first, I thought he was calling for his wife, Bébháil. But the name was apparently Biobhal. It is not a name that I know or have heard the like of here.’

‘Biobhal,’ repeated Fidelma. ‘Are you sure that was the name?’

‘I asked Tómma to repeat it. I have never heard of its like,’ affirmed the tannery worker.

‘Then we will trouble you no more,’ Fidelma said gravely, turning to remount her horse.

‘Will you find this killer who threatens our peace, Sister?’ demanded the boy. ‘Three of my friends have been slaughtered by this moonlight maniac and now comes the death of him who was training me in the art of tannery.’

Fidelma glanced back at the youth.

‘Lesren was killed in the sunlight,’ she said pointedly.

The youth blinked as if he had not considered this.

Fidelma waited for a while and then said: ‘Yet you have reminded me. You knew all the girls who have been killed. Did they know each other well?’

Creoda pursed his lips in a sullen expression. ‘They were great friends, the three of them. Thick as thieves and no secret safe with any of them but was shared between them. Or, at least, that is my opinion.’

‘And didn’t you also attend old Liag’s instruction on star lore?’

Creoda inclined his head. ‘I did.’

‘And who else attended?’

‘Gabrán came with Beccnat, of course. They were always together and, in spite of Lesren’s disapproval, I heard that they were going to marry.’

‘Who else?’

‘Escrach. I liked Escrach very much…I had hoped that…’ He shrugged. ‘Anyway, Escrach tried to comfort Gabrán after he returned from the coast when it was found that Beccnat had been killed. Escrach was a kindly girl. She and Gabrán had been friends from childhood. Then, of course, Ballgel attended and sometimes Accobrán the tanist.’

‘Accobrán?’ Eadulf was surprised. ‘He is several years older than all of you.’

Creoda grimaced.

‘I am not sure whether he was interested in star lore or in Beccnat,’ he said bitterly. ‘I know Gabrán did not like the way that the tanist sought her out at feastings to dance with him.’

‘Did she protest at his attentions?’ asked Fidelma.

Creoda sighed and shook his head. ‘The tanist had an eye for girls. I think he and Gabrán quarrelled over Beccnat because he danced with her at some festival. But Accobrán was not the oldest to attend Liag’s classes. That smith — Gobnuid — he came along a few times.’

‘I am interested in what Liag taught in these sessions,’ Eadulf said. ‘He taught about the moon and the stars? What in particular?’

‘The old lore, the old names of the stars and what their courses meant, the moon and its powers…you must know the sort of thing? Perhaps if Liag hadn’t taught so much about the moon then the girls might still be alive.’

Fidelma raised her eyebrows.

‘You ought to explain that,’ she suggested.

‘Liag was always going on about knowledge meaning power. There was no need to fear the darkness of the night for if you possessed the knowledge of the secret names of the moon then you could control her. The night held no secret for Liag and he taught that power came at night.’

Eadulf frowned. ‘Power came at night?’

‘Had he taught that there were things to fear at night, Beccnat, Escrach and Ballgel might never had ventured forth,’ Creoda said. ‘Had they feared, then they might still have been alive.’

‘Where fear is, knowledge and safety are not,’ Fidelma reproved him.

Creoda stared at her for a moment and then, almost pleading, asked: ‘Will you find out who has done this evil?’