Peter Tremayne - The Spider's Web

Fidelma smiled thinly but made no other comment. Certainly the column of smoke would have been easily seen from Muadnat’s farmstead.

Dubán ordered the pace to increase to a canter.

The column of horses moved rapidly along the hillside track, which twisted down the slopes moving with the contours of the hill.

Fidelma realised that the part of the valley in which Archú dwelt almost constituted a separate valley to the area occupied by Muadnat. This area seemed to twist off from the main valley of the Black Marsh at a forty-five degree angle, hiding much of its lands from the track along which they had come. Soon the descent to the valley became so precipitous they had to slow down to a walk.

‘How well do you know this area, Dubán?’ called Fidelma.

‘Well enough,’ replied the warrior.

‘Is this the only track in or out of this valley?’

‘This is the only easy route but men, even with horses, might find a way over the peaks.’

Fidelma raised her eyes to the rounded hilltops.

‘Only in desperation,’ she observed.

Eadulf leaned forward.

‘What are you thinking?’ he asked.

‘Oh, just that a band of men on horseback riding to Archú’s farmstead must surely have ridden across or by the land of Muadnat and have been observed.’

They came as quickly as they could down to the valley floor. The main group of farm buildings were easily recognisable; a dwelling house, a kiln for drying corn standing just beyond it.There was a barn and a pigsty. A little way beyond these was the smoking ruin of another barn, charred and blackened, from which the spiral of smoke was still ascending.

There were a few cattle in a pen, one of which was giving vent to an irritated lowing.

Dubán made directly for the dwelling house.

‘Halt! If you value your lives!’

The voice was almost a high-pitched scream.

It caused them all to jerk upon their reins and come to an unceremonious halt before the main building.

‘We are armed,’ called the voice, ‘and many of us. Go back from whence you came or …’

Fidelma edged her way forward.

‘Archú!’ she shouted, having recognised the voice of the youth. ‘It is I, Fidelma. We have come to assist you.’

The door of the main building opened abruptly. Archú stood there staring at them. All he held in his hand was a rusty sword. Behind him the young girl, Scoth, peered fearfully over his shoulder.

‘Sister Fidelma!’ Archú gazed from her to Dubán and the rest of the company. ‘We thought the raiders had returned.’

Fidelma swung herself down, followed by Dubán and Eadulf. The other men remained mounted, staring suspiciously about the countryside.

‘We heard that bandits had raided your farmstead. A shepherd rode to the rath to bring word.’

Scoth pushed forward.

‘That was Librén. It is true, sister. We were not even awake when they attacked. Their shouts and the lowing of our cattle disturbed us. We managed to barricade ourselves in here. But they did not assault us; they rode off with some cattle and set fire to one of the barns. It was barely light and we could hardly see what was going on.’

‘Who were they?’ demanded Fidelma. ‘Did you recognise them?’

Archú shook his head.

‘It was too dark. There was a great deal of shouting.’

‘How many raiders were there?’

‘I had the impression it was less than a dozen.’

‘What made them break off their attack?’

Archú frowned at Dubán’s sudden question.

‘Break off?’

‘I see only one barn burnt down,’ the warrior observed. ‘You have several cattle still in the pen there and I hear sheep and pigs. You are unharmed and so is your house. Obviously the raiders decided to break off their attack.’

The young man looked wonderingly at the warrior.

Fidelma gave Dubán a glance of appreciation for making a logical observation.

Scoth’s mouth compressed for a moment.

‘I wondered why they made no attempt to break into the farmhouse or even burn it down. It was as if they merely wanted to frighten us.’

‘Perhaps it was the shepherd, Librén,’ Archú suggested. ‘When he saw the flames of the barn from the hillside, he sounded his shepherd’s horn and came running down to help us.’

‘A brave man,’ muttered Eadulf.

‘A foolish man,’ corrected Dubán.

‘Yet still brave,’ affirmed Eadulf stubbornly.

‘It is thanks to him they only made off with two of the cattle,’ Scoth pointed out.

‘Two cattle? And all because a shepherd comes running to your help?’ Dubán was cynical.

‘It is true,’ insisted Archú. ‘When Librén sounded his horn, they herded the cattle before them and rode off.’

‘That is all? Two milch cows?’

Archú nodded.

‘Which path did they take?’ Eadulf asked.

Scoth immediately pointed down the valley in the direction of Muadnat’s farmlands.

‘Librén said they disappeared in that direction.’

‘That is the path that leads through the bogland, the Black Marsh itself. It only goes to the lands of Muadnat,’ Dubán explained uneasily.

‘It certainly leads nowhere else,’ Archú grimly assured him.

‘Where is this Librén, the shepherd?’ Fidelma asked.

Scoth turned and pointed to the southern hillside.

‘Librén tends his flocks above there. He came and stayed with us until dawn, in case the raiders came back. Then he borrowed one of our horses, for Archú did not want to leave me, and rode to the rath to tell you of the raid. He returned just half an hour ago and told us that you were on the way.’

‘Why didn’t he wait?’

‘He had neglected his flocks since this morning,’ Archú pointed out. ‘There is no need for him to stay now.’

Fidelma was looking around as if searching for something.

‘This Librén said that someone was killed. Who was killed and where is the body?’

Dubán clapped a hand to his forehead and groaned.

‘Fool that I am. I had forgotten.’ He turned to Archú. ‘Who was killed?’

Archú looked uncomfortable.

‘The body is over there, by the burnt-out barn. I do not know who it is. No one saw it happen. It was only when we were trying to douse the flames later that we discovered it.’

‘A man is killed on your farm during a raid and you know nothing about it?’ Dubán was still cynical. ‘Come, lad, if it is one of the attackers then you have nothing to fear in punishment. You were only acting in self-defence.’

Archú shook his head.

‘But truly, we did not kill anyone. We did not have the weapons. We barricaded ourselves in during the attack and saw nothing.Librén, also, was surprised and did not recognise the man.’

‘Let us examine this body,’ Fidelma urged, realising that there was nothing to be gained from talk.

One of Dubán’s men had already discovered the corpse. He pointed wordlessly to the ground as they approached.

The body was that of someone in their thirties. An ugly looking man with a scarred face and a bulbous nose, flattened as if by a blow. The eyes were dark, wide and staring. The clothes were bloodstained and covered in a curious fine white dust. His throat had been cut, almost severing the head from the neck. It reminded Fidelma of the way a goat or some other farm animal might be butchered for its meat. One thing was for certain, he had been killed in no skirmish but had been deliberately murdered. She looked at the wrists and saw the burn mark of ropes there. The man’s hands had been tied together until recently. She glanced at Dubán with raised eyebrows.

‘I have never seen this man in Araglin before,’ he interpreted the implied question correctly. ‘He is a stranger to this valley so far as I am aware.’