Peter Tremayne - Our Lady of Darkness

Fial looked at her questioningly. ‘How did you know?’

‘You managed to get a sharp piece of metal and you started digging out the fixture of the metal chain that bound your ankle.’

‘I don’t know how long it took me. Ages.’

‘And when you were free …?’

‘I could only free my leg iron. I still had manacles on my wrists.’

‘Just so. But you were able to climb up through the small hatch into Gabrán’s cabin? The hatchway into the main cabin was locked, of course.’

‘So she killed him!’ cried Abbess Fainder, realising where this was now leading. ‘She stabbed him at the time that I came aboard. Why,’ she paused, wondering, ‘she must have been in the very process of killing Gabrán. I knocked at the cabin door and the girl slid back through the hatch. Then, while I was bent over the body, she escaped through the cabin and went over the side of the ship. That was the splash I heard.’

‘You are nearly right, Mother Abbess,’ agreed Fidelma.

‘ Nearly right?’ The abbess was belligerent.

‘When Fial climbed into the cabin she found that Gabrán was dead already. He had been killed by a sword blow which had been delivered with a terrific force. Am I right, Fial? Shall I continue?’

The girl seemed stunned by her apparent omniscience. When she did not speak, Fidelma continued: ‘Fial knew where Gabrán kept his keys and released herself from the wrist manacles. She was about to leave when a desire came over her for revenge; revenge for the terrible injury that this brute had done her. It was, perhaps, an instinctive adolescent reaction. She grabbed a knife that lay nearby and pulling Gabrán up by his hair — she grasped the hair so tightly in her rage that some of it came out by the roots — she plunged the knife half-a-dozen times into his chest and arms. The wounds were superficial. Then the abbess knocked on the cabin door. Fial dropped the knife and let go her hold on the body. That, indeed, was the soft thud that Fainder heard.

‘Fial knew that she had to escape. The only way lay below but the door was locked. She grabbed at some keys in Gabrán’s cabin. There were four of them. She knew one of them had to fit the lock of her prison below. It was her only means to escape. She scuttled back into the cabin. The rest is obvious.’

Fidelma paused and placed her hands either side of the girl’s face and drew it up so that Fial was forced to look directly into her eyes.

‘Have I told it correctly, my dear? Is that how it happened?’

Fial let out a great sob.

‘I would have killed him if I could. I hated him so — what he did to me! What he did to me!’

Fidelma dropped her arms around the child to comfort her.

Coba leaned backwards in his chair, closed his eyes for a moment and let out a long sigh.

‘Do I understand this correctly? While the abbess was in Gabrán’s cabin, the girl made her way up on deck and jumped into the torrent? The current of the river is strong there. Why not simply go ashore?’

‘It was a point that confused me at the time,’ Fidelma confessed. ‘However, I did not take into account how strong fear is as a means of compulsion. Poor Fial was scared for her life. She did not know where she was. The last thing she wanted to do was draw attention to herself by walking off the ship onto a jetty. She did not know if her enemies were there. She obviously could swim well and took that route. Then shortly afterwards, on shore, when she encountered Fainder and Mel …’

‘ … She thought that we were part of this slave conspiracy,’ Mel supplied.

‘Conspiracy is a good word, Mel. For there are many mysteries here yet to be solved.’

Abbess Fainder sniffed disdainfully.

‘That is very true, Sister. For if Fial did not kill Gabrán, and you finally seem to accept that I did not — then who did kill him?’ Her eyes suddenly glistened. ‘Or are we to conclude that your Saxon came looking for revenge?’

Fidelma’s eyes flashed angrily.

‘I hope this poor child’s testimony has demonstrated that Brother Eadulf was not guilty of the rape and murder of Gormgilla, and that another hand guided that outrageous conspiracy!’

‘Even so, Sister,’ Coba interposed, ‘where are you leading us? You say Gabrán was murdered but not by Fial nor by the abbess. I cannot see who else could have killed him, nor even why he was killed.’

‘Gabrán was merely a tool. He was the means by which the trade in human beings was carried out, the means by which they were transported down to the sea port. Gabrán did not have the brains to plan and sustain this vile commerce. Have you forgotten Fial’s words already? She spoke of the cowled religious who ordered her to falsely identify Brother Eadulf.’

Mel rubbed the back of his neck. ‘She also mentioned another crewman who helped him when Gabrán was lying drunk. So who was the other crewman? Did he turn on Gabrán?’

Fidelma made a quick, impatient motion of her hand.

‘No. Gabrán turned on him. That crewman was the man who was killed the next day — the one that poor Brother Ibar was wrongly executed for murdering.’

Abbess Fainder blinked rapidly. ‘Are you saying that Ibar was innocent?’

‘That is exactly what I am saying. Ibar the blacksmith was a convenient scapegoat and perhaps a necessary one. The day before he was killed, he had been complaining that all he was being employed to do at the abbey was to make animal shackles. Perhaps he did not realise, or perhaps he realised too late, that the shackles for animals were being used on human beings?

‘Brother Eadulf told me that he heard Ibar crying, when he was being led to the gibbet, about manacles. “Ask about the manacles!” he called.’

‘I would like to know, as Coba has already asked you, where you are leading us, Sister,’ demanded the abbess. Her voice was suddenly tremulous and she seemed to have lost her strength.

Fidelma faced the abbess squarely.

‘I would have thought that it was obvious, Mother Abbess,’ she said quietly. ‘This trade in young girls, selling them off to foreign slave ships, is being run by someone in Fearna, someone in the abbey — and that someone is a religious who bears a high rank there.’

Abbess Fainder’s hand came up to clutch her throat, her face pale.

‘No! No! she cried and then, without warning, she collapsed to the floor in a swoon.

Fidelma moved swiftly to her side and bent down, feeling for the pulse in her neck.

At that moment, one of Coba’s warriors came bursting into the hall in a state of excitement.

‘Bishop Forbassach has returned. He is outside with a large band of the King’s warriors. He demands the release of the abbess and the warrior, Mel, and the surrender of the rest of us. What is the word, Chieftain? Do we surrender or do we fight?’

Eadulf awakened with a start as the door of his small chamber crashed open. He blinked in confusion at the figures crowding in the doorway. One of them was holding a lamp. His figure was very familiar. It was with a sickening sense of despair that Eadulf recognised Brother Cett. By his side stood the young, animated Fianamail. Eadulf was dimly aware of the anguished features of Brother Martan behind them.

Fianamail’s features twisted into a smile of satisfaction as he gazed down at Eadulf.

‘That is the man,’ he affirmed. ‘Well done, Brother Cett.’

Eadulf was dragged from the bed by Brother Cett and hauled upright. With expert ease, he found himself forced round; his hands were twisted behind him and he was bound. The hemp rope cut deeply into his wrists.

‘Well, Saxon,’ Brother Cett leered at him as he spun him back to face the young King. ‘You thought that you had made your escape. Not so.’