Peter Tremayne - Hemlock at Vespers

She had fallen asleep. It could not have been for long. It was still dark when she started awake.

It took a moment or two for her to realize what it was that had aroused her for the second time that night.

Far off she could hear pipes playing. It was a sweet, gentle sound. The sound of the sleep producing súan-traige, the beautiful, sorrowing lullaby.

“ Codail re suanán saine…” — Sleep with pleasant slumber…

Fidelma knew the tune well for many a time had she been lulled into drowsiness as a child by its sweet melody.

She sat up abruptly and swung out of bed. The music was real. It was outside the inn. She went to the shuttered window and cautiously eased it open a crack.

Outside the snow lay like a crisp white carpet across the surrounding hills and mountains. The sky was still shrouded with heavy grey-white snow clouds. Even so, the nightscape was light, in spite of the fact that the moon was only a soft glow hung with ice crystals that produced a halo around its orb. One could see for miles. The atmosphere was icy chill and still. Vapor from her breath made bursts of short-lived clouds in the air before her.

It was then that her heart began to hammer as if a mad drummer were beating a warning to wake the dead.

She stood stock still.

About a hundred yards from the inn was a small round knoll. On the knoll stood the figure of a lonely piper and he was playing the sweet lullaby that woke her. But the thing that caused her to feel dizzy with awe and apprehension was that the figure shimmered as if a curious light emanated from him, sparkling like little stars against the brightness of the reflecting snow.

She stood still watching. Then the melody trailed off and the figure turned its head in the direction of the inn. It gave vent to an awesome, pitiful cry.

“I am alone! I am alone! Monchae! Why did you desert me? I am alone! I will come for you soon!”

Perhaps it was the cry that stirred Fidelma into action.

She turned, grabbed her leather shoes and seized her cloak, and hurried down the stairs into the gloomy interior of the main room of the inn. She heard Belach’s cry on the stair behind her.

“Don’t go out, Sister! It is evil! It is the shade of Murgán!”

She paid no heed. She threw open the bolts of the door and went plunging into the icy stillness of the night. She ran through the deep snows, feeling its coldness against her bare legs, up toward the knoll. But long before she reached it, she realized that the figure had disappeared.

She reached the knoll and paused. There was no one in sight. The nocturnal piper had vanished. She drew her cloak closer around her shoulders and shivered. But it was the night chill rather than the idea of the specter that caused her to tremble.

Catching her breath against the icy air, she looked down. There were no footprints. But the snow, on careful inspection, did not lie in pristine condition across the knoll. Its surface was rough, ruffled as if a wind had blown across it. It was then she noticed the curious reflective quality of it, here and there. She bent forward and scooped a handful of snow in her palm and examined it. It seemed to twinkle and reflect as she held it.

Fidelma gave a long, deep sigh. She turned and retraced her steps back to the inn.

Belach was waiting anxiously by the door. She noticed that he now held the sword in his hand.

She grinned mischievously.

“If it were a spirit, that would be of little assistance,” she observed dryly.

Belach said nothing, but he looked and bolted the door behind Fidelma as she came into the room. He replaced the sword without comment as she went to the fire the warm herself after her exertion into the night.

Monchae was standing on the bottom step, her arms folded across her breast, moaning a little.

Fidelma went in search of the jug of corma and poured out some of the spirit. She swallowed some and then took a wooden cup to Monchae and told her to drink it.

“You heard it? You saw it?” the wife of the innkeeper wailed.

Fidelma nodded.

Belach bit his lip. “It is the ghost of Murgán. We are doomed.”

“Nonsense!” snapped Fidelma.

“Then explain that!” replied Belach, pointing to the table.

There was nothing on the table. It was then Fidelma realized what was missing. She had left the pipes on the table when she had returned to bed.

“It is two hours or so until sunrise,” Fidelma said slowly. “I want you two to return to bed. There is something here which I must deal with. Whatever occurs, I do not wish either of you to stir from your room unless I specifically call you.”

Belach stared at her with white, taut features.

“You mean that you will do battle with this evil force?”

Fidelma smiled thinly.

“That is what I mean,” she said emphatically.

Reluctantly, Belach helped Monchae back up the stairs, leaving Fidelma standing in the darkness. She stood still, thinking, for a while. She had an instinct that whatever was happening in this troubled isolated inn, it was building toward its climax. Perhaps that climax would come before sunrise. There was no logic to the idea but Fidelma had long come to the belief that one should not ignore one’s instincts.

She turned and made her way toward a darkened alcove at the far end of the room in which only a deep wooden bench was situated. She tightened her cloak against the chill, seated herself and prepared to wait. Wait for what, she did not know. But she believed that she would not have to wait for long before some other manifestation occurred.

It was a short time before she heard the sounds of the pipe once more.

The sweet, melodious lullaby was gone. The pipes were now wild keening. It was the hair-raising lament of the gol-traige, full of pain, sorrow and longing.

Fidelma held her head to one side.

The music was no longer outside the old inn but seeming to echo from within, seeping up under the floorboards, through the walls and down from the rafters.

She shivered but made no move to go in search of the sound, praying all the while that neither Monchae nor Belach would disobey her instructions and leave their room.

She waited until the tune came to an end.

There was a silence in the old building.

Then she heard the sound, the sound she had heard on her first waking. It was a soft, dragging sound. Her body tensed as she bent forward in the alcove; her eyes narrowed as she tried to focus into the darkness.

A figure seemed to be rising from the floor, upward, slowly upward on the far side of the room.

Fidelma held her breath.

The figure, reaching its full height, appeared to be clutching a set of pipes beneath its arms. It moved toward the table in a curious limping gait.

Fidelma noticed that now and again, as the light of the glowing embers in the hearth caught it, the figure’s cloak sparkled and danced with a myriad pinpricks of fire.

Fidelma rose to her feet.

“The charade is over!” she cried harshly.

The figure dropped the pipes and wheeled around, seeking to identify the speaker. Then it seemed to catch its breath.

“Is that you, Monchae?” came a sibilant, mocking whisper.

Then, before Fidelma could prepare herself, the figure seemed the fly across the room at her. She caught sight of light flashing on an upraised blade and instinct made her react by grasping at the descending arm with both hands, twisting her body to take the weight of the impact.

The figure grunted angrily as the surprise of the attack failed.

The collision of their bodies threw Fidelma back into the alcove, slamming her against the wooden seat. She grunted in pain. The figure had shaken her grip loose and once more the knife hand was descending.