Peter Tremayne - Valley of the Shadow

Frowning, Eadulf edged forward and looked towards the object of her horror-filled eyes.

His face also went ashen.

‘ Deus miseratur … ’ He began the first line of Psalm 67 and then halted. It seemed inappropriate. There had been no mercy shown to those who comprised the curious altar of death before them. Around the rough ground there lay over a score of bodies; naked bodies of young men, arranged in a grotesque circle. That they had met their deaths violently was obvious.

Fidelma and Eadulf sat still on their horses, looking down at a ring of naked bodies, unable to comprehend what their eyes accepted.

Still without speaking, Fidelma finally slid from her saddle and moved forward a pace or two. Eadulf swallowed hard, dismounted and, taking the reins of both horses, loosely tethered them to a nearby bush. Then he moved forward to join Fidelma.

She stood, hands folded in front of her, her lips compressed in a thin line. There was a slight twitching of a nerve in her jaw which betrayed the emotion her features did their best to conceal.

She took another step forward and let her eyes travel intently around the circle of death. That the naked, male bodies had been carefully laid out after they had met their deaths, there was no question.

Fidelma’s shoulders braced and her jaw thrust out a little as if she were preparing herself for a difficult task.

‘Should we not remove ourselves lest those responsible return?’ Eadulf urged nervously, glancing about him. But the valley seemed devoid of life save the flock of night-black ravens still gathering in the sky above, flying in a chaotic croaking cloud. Some were moving hesitantly down again as if unsure of what their senses told them — that here was rich pickings, carrion for the eating. But some sense told them there was movement among the corpses, living humans who could do them harm. A few, braver than the rest, actually landed a short distance from the circle. Eadulf, in disgust, as they hopped cautiously to the nearest corpses to inspect them more closely, reached down and picked up a stone. He did not hit the ugly black bird at which he aimed but the action itself was enough to cause it to take flight again with an angry squawk which warned its fellows that there was danger below. Some of them stillalighted on the ground nearby but out of range and watched with glinting hungry eyes.

‘Come away, Fidelma,’ urged Eadulf. ‘This is not a sight for your eyes.’

Fidelma’s green eyes flashed dangerously.

‘Then whose eyes is it a sight for?’ Her voice was sharp. ‘Whose sight, if not that of an advocate sworn to uphold the laws of the five kingdoms?’

Eadulf hesitated awkwardly.

‘I meant …’ he began to protest but Fidelma cut him short with a sharp gesture of her hand.

She had turned and dropped to one knee by the nearest body and began to inspect it. Then, slowly, one by one, she began to move around the circle of bodies repeating her examination, pausing by one body for a longer period than the others. Eadulf gave an inward shrug and, although his eyes kept flickering across the surrounding countryside, he passed the time trying to make some sense from the grim pile of cadavers.

That they were all young males, perhaps the youngest was no more than sixteen or seventeen, the eldest no more than twenty-five, was the first and immediate thing that struck him. They were all naked; their pale skins, parchment white, showed that they were unused to any stage of nudity in life. He also noted the bodies were arranged in a circle with each body placed with the feet towards the centre of the circle. Each body also lay on its left side. He also noted that there were no signs of blood or disturbance of the ground around the circle. To Eadulf this meant that the young men had not been slaughtered at this spot. He was pleased by his deduction.

Fidelma had finished her examination and rose to her feet. There was a small stream about ten yards away and, without a word, she turned and walked with a studied determination towards it. Bending before it, she washed her hands and arms and then splashed the cold water on her face.

Eadulf waited patiently. He had been long enough in the five kingdoms of Éireann to know how fastidious the Irish were about cleanliness. He waited patiently until she had finished. When she returned, her face was still sombre and she halted again before the circle of bodies.

‘Well, Eadulf, what have you observed?’ she asked, after a pause of a moment or so.

Eadulf started in surprise. He had not realised that she had noticed his inspection. He thought rapidly.

‘They are all young men,’ he offered.

‘That is true.’

‘They have been lain out in some sort of order, in a circle, and they were not killed here.’

Fidelma raised an eyebrow in query.

‘Why do you think that?’

‘Because if they had been killed here then there would have been a struggle. The ground around is not disturbed nor is it bloody. They were killed elsewhere and placed here.’

She nodded appreciatively at his observation.

‘What about their feet?’

Eadulf looked at her curiously.

‘Their feet?’ he faltered.

She pointed downwards.

‘If you examine their feet, you will see that each young man has callouses, sores and blisters, as if they have been forced to walk over rough ground or for many miles. The abrasions are recent. Doesn’t that contradict your argument that they were carried here?’

Eadulf thought furiously.

‘Not necessarily,’ he said after a moment. ‘They may well have been marched a distance to the place where they were killed and then brought here after death to be laid out in this curious fashion.’

Fidelma was approving. ‘Well done, Eadulf. We’ll make a dálaigh of you yet. Anything else? You have not mentioned the marks of a leg-iron around their left ankles.’

In truth, Eadulf had not spotted these abrasions which, since Fidelma pointed them out, were now clear. However, Fidelma went on: ‘Did you count the number of bodies?’

‘About thirty, I think.’

There was a momentary expression of annoyance on her features.

‘One should be more accurate. There are precisely thirty-three bodies.’

‘Well, I was near enough,’ he replied defensively.

‘No, you were not,’ she countered sharply. ‘But we will return to that in a moment. You mentioned that they were laid out in some sort of order. Do you have any other observations?’

Eadulf regarded the circle and grimaced.

‘No.’

‘You have no comment to make on the fact that they were laid on their left side, every one of them with their feet placed towards the centre of the circle? Does that not mean anything to you?’

‘Only that it must be some form of a ritual.’

‘Ah, a ritual. Look again. The bodies are placed on their left side. Start at the top of the circle and follow round … they are placed facing right-hand-wise. In other words — sunwise, what we call deisiol .’

‘I am not sure that I follow your meaning.’

‘In pagan times we performed certain rites by turning deisiol or sunwise. Even now, at a burial, there are many among us who insist on walking round the graveyard three times sunwise with the coffin.’

‘You mean this might be a pagan symbol?’ Eadulf shuddered and raised a hand to cross himself, a gesture he thought better of.

‘Not necessarily,’ Fidelma reassured him. ‘When the Blessed Patrick was given land at Armagh, on which he eventually raised his church, it was said that he had to walk deisiol around it holding a crozier and, in that fashion, solemnly consecrated the land to the service of the Christ by using our ancient customs and rites.’