Peter Tremayne - Hemlock at Vespers

“He went to Illan’s tent. There was Dagháin’s knife buried in Illan’s chest. His suspicion was right. He took out the knife with the idea growing in his mind. Here was his chance to get even with Bressal and to secure a future lucrative role for himself in the service of Dagháin. He hurried to her tent, showed her the knife, which he kept as a hold over her. He told her to wait a while before she should find her husband and tell him the story which she has subsequently told us. The reason for her to be in Illan’s tent was that she had noticed that Aonbharr was ill. This was Angaire’s addition providing a perfect excuse and an essential part of his intrigue.

“Then he hurried to Bressal’s tent, furtively took an arrow from Sílán’s quiver, broke it in two, and left one half in the quiver. The other he took, together with his cena full of poisonous herbs, and hurried to his task. He fed Aonbharr the poison. Then went into Illan’s tent and thrust the forward section of the broken arrow into the wound. He left the cena in plain sight. The false trail was laid.

“Thus two separate villainies were at work, coming together over the one great crime. And who is the greater villain-Dagháin, a pitiful, rejected woman, or Angaire, petty and vengeful, whose spite might have led to an even greater crime? I tell you this, Fáe-lán, when the time comes for Dagháin to be tried before the courts, I would like to be retained as her advocate.”

“But what made you connect Dagháin with Illan?” demanded Fáelán.

“Énna himself indicated that his wife had had an affair with Illan by a chance remark. You knew of the affair, didn’t you, Énna?”

Énna glanced up from his chair, red-eyed with emotional exhaustion. He nodded slowly.

“I knew. I did not know that she was so besotted with Illan that she would resort to such means to keep him when he finally rejected her,” he whispered. “Fáelán, I will stand down as your Tan-ist. I am not worthy now.”

The King of the Laighin grimaced.

“We will talk of this, Énna,” he said, with considerable discomfit, studiously ignoring his wife, Muadnat. “I am not without sympathy for your situation. There are doubtless several victims in this terrible drama. Yet I still do not understand why Dagháin would do this thing. She was the wife of a Tanist, heir presumptive to the throne of the Laighin, while Illan was merely a jockey. How could she behave thus simply because Illan rejected her for a new lover?”

The question was aimed at Fidelma.

“There is no simplicity about the complexity of human emotions, Fáelán,” replied Fidelma. “But if we are to seek the real victim then it is the poor beast Aonbharr. Truly, Aonbharr was a horse that died in an attempt to conceal the shame of others.”

A trumpet was sounding outside.

Fáelán bit his lip and sighed.

“That is the signal for me to open the afternoon’s race … my heart is not in it.”

He rose and automatically held out his arm to Muadnat, his wife. She hesitated before taking it, not looking at her husband. There would be much to mend in that relationship, thought Fidelma. Then Fáelán turned and called to his bishop:

“Bressal, will you come with us? Stand alongside me while I open the proceedings so that the people will clearly see that we are together and are not enemies? As neither of our horses can now enter this race let us show unity to our people for this day at least.”

Bressal hesitated before nodding his reluctant agreement.

“I’ll send your fee to Kildare, Fidelma,” Fáelán called over his shoulder. “I thank God we have Brehons as wise as you.”

After they had left the tent, Énna slowly rose. He stared at Fidelma and Laisran with sad eyes for a moment.

“I knew she was having an affair. I would have stood by her, even resign my office for her as I will now. I would not have divorced nor rejected her had she come to me with the truth. I will continue to stand by her now.”

Fidelma and Laisran silently watched him leave the tent.

“Sad,” remarked Fidelma. “It is, indeed, a sad world.”

They left the tent and began walking through the shouting, carefree masses, milling toward the race course. Fidelma smiled thinly at Laisran.

“As you were saying, Laisran, horse racing is a cure for all the ills of humankind. It is a surrogate for people’s aggression and for their greed.”

Laisran grimaced wryly but was wisely silent before the cynical gaze of his protegee.

The meal had been eaten in an atmosphere of forced politeness. There was a strained, chilly mood among the diners. There were seven guests at the table of Nechtan, chieftain of the Múscraige. Sister Fidelma had noticed the unlucky number immediately when she had been ushered into the feasting hall for she had been the last to arrive and take her seat, having been delayed by the lure of a hot bath before the meal. She had inwardly groaned as she registered that seven guests plus Nechtan himself made the unfavorable number of eight seated at the circular table. Almost at once she had silently chided herself for clinging to old superstitions. Nevertheless she conceded that an oppressive atmosphere permeated the hall.

Everyone at the table that evening had cause to hate Nechtan.

Sister Fidelma was not one to use words lightly for, as an advocate of the law courts of the five kingdoms as well as a reli-gieuse, she used language carefully, sparingly and with as much precision in meaning as she could. But she could think of no other description for the emotion which Nechtan aroused other than an intense dislike.

Like the others seated around the table, Fidelma had good cause to feel great animosity toward the chieftain of the Mús-craige.

Why, then, had she accepted the invitation to this bizarre feast with Nechtan? Why had her fellow guests also agreed to attend this gathering?

Fidelma could only account for her own acceptance. In truth, she would have refused the invitation had Nechtan’s plea for her attendance not found her passing, albeit unwillingly, through his territory on a mission to Sliabh Luachra, whose chieftain had sent for her to come and judge a case of theft. As one qualified in the laws of the Brehons to the level of Anruth, only one degree below the highest grade obtainable, Fidelma was well able to act as judge when the occasion necessitated it.

As it turned out, Daolgar of Sliabh Luachra, who also had cause to dislike Nechtan, had similarly received an invitation to the meal and so they had both decided to accompany one another to the fortress of Nechtan.

Yet perhaps there was another reason behind Fidelma’s halfhearted acceptance of the invitation, a more pertinent reason; it was that Nechtan’s invitation had been couched in very persuasive language. He begged her forgiveness for the harm that he had done her in the past. Nechtan claimed that he sought absolution for his misdeeds and, hearing that she was passing through his territory, he had chosen this opportune moment to invite her, as well as several of those whom he had injured, to make reparation to them by asking them to feast with him so that, before all, he could make public and contrite apology. The handsomeness of the language was such that Fidelma had felt unable to refuse. Indeed, to refuse an enemy who makes such an apology would have been against the very teachings of the Christ. Had not the Apostle Luke reported that the Christ had instructed: “Love your enemies, do good to them which hate you, bless them that curse you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and unto him that smiteth thee on the one cheek offer also the other…?”

Where would Fidelma stand with the Faith if she refused to obey its cardinal rule; that of forgiveness of those who had wronged her?