Peter Tremayne - Hemlock at Vespers

She drew the youth outside. He was scarcely the age of credulous and unworldly Sister Sárnat. Fidelma sighed deeply. If she could one day present a law to the council of judges of Ireland she would make it a law that no one under the age of twenty-five could be thrust into the life of the religieux. Youth needed to grow to adulthood and savor life and understand something of the world before they isolated themselves on islands or in cloisters away from it. Only in such sequestered states of innocence and fear of authority could evil men like Spelán thrive. She placed a comforting arm around the youth’s shoulder as he fell to heart-wrenching sobbing.

“Come, Lorcán,” Fidelma called across her shoulder. “Let’s get down to the currach and reach Inis Chléire before your storm arrives.”

Sister Sárnat emerged from the cell, holding the letter which Fidelma had laid on the table.

“Sister…” She seemed to find difficulty in speaking. “This letter from Ultan to Selbach… it does not refer to Spelán. Selbach didn’t suspect Spelán at all. He thought that mortification was just a fashion among the youthful Brothers.”

Fidelma’s face remained unchanged.

“Selbach could not bring himself to suspect his companion. It was a lucky thing that Spelán didn’t realize that, wasn’t it?”

The awesome moaning of the wind blended chillingly with the howling of wolves. They were nearby, these fearsome night hunters. Sister Fidelma knew it but could not see them because of the cold, driving snow against her face. It came at her in clouds of whirling, ice-cold, tiny pellicles. It obliterated the landscape and she could scarcely see beyond her arm’s length in front of her.

Had it not been for the urgency of reaching Cashel, the seat of the kings of Mumha, she would not have been attempting the journey northward through these great, forbidding peaks of Sléibhte an Comeraigh. She bent forward in the saddle of her horse, which only her rank as a dálaigh of the law courts of the five kings of Ireland entitled her to have. A simple religieuse would not be able to lay claim to such a means of transportation. But then Fidelma was no ordinary religieuse. She was a daughter of a former king of Cashel, an advocate of the law of the Fénechus and qualified to the level of Anruth, one degree below the highest qualification in Ireland. The wind drove the snow continuously against her. It plastered the rebellious strands of red hair that spilled from her cub-hal, or head-dress, against her pale forehead. She wished the wind’s direction would change, even for a moment or two, for it would have been more comfortable to have the wind at her back. But the wind was constantly raging from the north.

The threatening howl of the wolves seemed close. Was it her imagination or had it been gradually getting closer as she rode the isolated mountain track? She shivered and once more wished that she had stopped for the night at the last bruidhen or hostel in order to await more clement weather. But the snowstorm had set in and it would be several days before conditions improved. Sooner or later she would have to tackle the journey. The message from her brother Colgú had said her presence was needed urgently for their mother lay dying. Only that fact brought Fidelma traversing the forbidding tracks through the snowbound mountains in such intemperate conditions.

Her face was frozen and so were her hands as she confronted the fierce wind-driven snow. In spite of her heavy woollen cloak, she found her teeth chattering. A dark shape loomed abruptly out of the snow nearby. Her heart caught in her mouth as her horse shied and skittered on the trail for a moment. Then she was able to relax and steady the beast with a sigh of relief as the regal shape of a great stag stared momentarily at her from a distance of a few yards before recklessly turning and bounding away into the cover of the white curtain that blocked out the landscape.

Continuing on, she had reached what she felt must be the crest of a rise and found the wind so fierce here that it threatened to sweep her from her horse. Even the beast put its head down to the ground and seemed to stagger at the icy onslaught. Masses of loose powdery snow drifted this way and that in the howling and shrieking of the tempest.

Fidelma blinked at the indistinct blur of the landscape beyond.

She felt sure she had seen a light. Or was it her imagination? She blinked again and urged her horse onward, straining to keep her eyes focused on the point where she thought she had seen it. She automatically pulled her woollen cloak higher up around her neck.

Yes! She had seen it. A light, surely!

She halted her horse and slipped off, making sure she had the reins looped securely around her arm. The snow came up to her knees, making walking almost impossible but she could not urge her mount through the drifting snow without making sure it was safe enough first. After a moment or two she had come to a wooden pole. She peered upward. Barely discernible in the flurries above her head hung a dancing storm lantern.

She stared around in surprise. The swirling snow revealed nothing. But she was sure that the lantern was the traditional sign of a bruidhen, an inn, for it was the law that all inns had to keep a lantern burning to indicate their presence at night or in severe weather conditions.

She gazed back at the pole with its lantern, and chose a direction, moving awkwardly forward in the deep, clinging snow. Suddenly the wind momentarily dropped and she caught sight of the large dark shadow of a building. Then the blizzard resumed its course and she staggered head down in its direction. More by good luck than any other form of guidance, she came to a horse’s hitching rail and tethered her beast there, before feeling her way along the cold stone walls toward the door.

There was a sign fixed on the door but she could not decipher it. She saw, to her curiosity, a ring of herbs hanging from the door almost obliterated in their coating of snow.

She found the iron handle, twisted it and pushed. The door remained shut. She frowned in annoyance. It was the law that a brugh-fer, an innkeeper, had to keep the door of his inn open at all times, day and night and in all weathers. She tried again.

The wind was easing a little now and its petulant crying had died away to a soft whispering moan.

Irritated, Fidelma raised a clenched fist and hammered at the door.

Did she hear a cry of alarm or was it simply the wailing wind?

There was no other answer.

She hammered more angrily this time.

Then she did hear a noise. A footstep and then a harsh male cry.

“God and his saints stand between us and all that is evil! Begone foul spirit!”

Fidelma was thunderstruck for a moment. Then she thrust out her jaw.

“Open, innkeeper; open to a dálaigh of the courts; open to a Sister of the Abbey of Kildare! In the name of charity, open to a refugee from the storm!”

There was a moment of silence. Then she thought she heard voices raised in argument. She hammered again.

There came the sound of bolts being drawn and the door swung inward. A blast of warm air enveloped Fidelma and she pushed hurriedly into the room beyond, shaking the snow from her woollen cloak.

“What manner of hostel is this that ignores the laws of the Bre-hons?” she demanded, turning to the figure that was now closing the wooden door behind her.

The man was tall and thin. A gaunt, pallid figure of middle age, his temples greying. He was poorly attired and his height was offset by a permanent stoop. But it was not that which caused Fidelma’s eyes to widen a fraction. It was the horror on the man’s face; not a momentary expression of horror but a graven expression that was set deep and permanently into his cadaverous features. Tragedy and grief stalked across the lines of his face.