Peter Tremayne - The Spider's Web

Fidelma gave a brief sigh and turned back to the body hanging on the high cross.

‘I shall need your ladder for a moment,’ she told the remaining farm hand.

The man helped her place it against the high cross and she climbed up while Eadulf assisted him holding it in place.

She could see, in spite of the congealed blood and rope, that the throat of Muadnat had been cut with one quick professional cut, almost severing the head from the neck. It was not a pretty sight. It reminded her of the slaughtered carcass of some animal. The effusion of blood indicated that his throat had been cut before the rope had been fixed around his neck and then the body had been hauled up on the cross. Why had the dead man been hanged afterwards? It struck her that it was almost as if some dark ritual had been enacted. She looked carefully at the body but could see nothing that presented any other information. The rope itself was unremarkable, an ordinary strong fibre rope. One thing she did notice, there was no sign of the knife which had inflicted the first fatal wound. After some moments she climbed down.

‘You may take down the body,’ she told the farm hand.

Eadulf helped him lower the body of the thickset Muadnat to the ground.

While this was being done, Fidelma wandered around the cross in ever widening circles, her eyes fixed upon the ground as if searching for something. After a while she suddenly halted and drew a breath.

‘Eadulf!’

Eadulf went immediately across to where she stood.

She pointed downwards. Eadulf stared at the grass, unsure what he was meant to see. There were flecks upon the blades.

‘Blood splatters?’ he hazarded.

She nodded.

‘Observe them carefully.’

Eadulf knelt down and saw that the blood had dried on the leaves of the grass and on a broad leafed plant.

‘Do you think his throat was cut here?’

‘It seems a reasonable assumption,’ Fidelma replied. ‘Anything else?’

Eadulf had been about to rise to his feet when he paused and looked, then he uttered a short exclamation and reached forward.

‘What do you make of it?’ Fidelma prompted.

‘It is a tuft of hair.’ Eadulf rose holding it in the open palm of his hand.

‘Coarse red hair,’ Fidelma agreed. ‘Human hair.’

‘Do you think it has any connection with the murder.’

‘It looks as if it was dragged out by the roots. See the ends of the hair?’ she answered without replying to his question.

After he had examined it, she took the hair carefully and placed it in her marsupium, the leather pouch she always carried at her waist.

‘Now I think that we’d best get back to the rath, Eadulf. There is little to do here. I want to question Agdae.’ She suddenly pressed her lips together in irritation. ‘Agdae! Why isn’t he here?’

She turned to where the farm hand was securing the body of Muadnat across the back of the patiently waiting ass.

‘Did Agdae return here after he had sought help at the rath ?’

‘No, sister,’ the man replied immediately. ‘He left Crítán and my friend and me to take down the body and transport it back to Muadnat’s farm. But I think he rode off directly in search of Archú.’

Fidelma groaned a little.

‘Did you say that you were also a kinsman of Muadnat?’ she asked, recovering her poise.

The man nodded.

‘I am. But then so are most of the people in this valley, including the tanist.’

‘If Muadnat has so many cousins, why does he hold one cousin, young Archú, in such low esteem?’

The reply was without hesitation.

‘He hated Archú’s father, a foreigner. Muadnat felt thatArtgal, Archú’s father, had no right to steal the affections of his kinswoman, Suanach.’

‘Steal the affections?’ Fidelma pulled a face. ‘That is an interesting turn of phrase. From whom were Suanach’s affections supposed to have been stolen? It implies that the woman was an unwilling partner in the relationship. Was she so unwilling?’

The man looked uncomfortable.

‘Muadnat had arranged a marriage to Agdae. But Suanach did not want to marry him. No, in fact Suanach was very much in love with Archu’s father Artgal.’

‘So the fault of the dispute lay with Muadnat’s own distorted view of the relationship?’

‘I suppose so.’ The man was reluctant to go further. ‘It is best not to speak ill of the dead.’

‘Then let us speak of the living. Let us speak of Archú and Agdae. Let us help to prevent injustice to the living,’ replied Fidelma.

‘Has the dislike of the father been passed on to the son?’ Eadulf asked curiously. ‘Is that it? Is Archú suffering for Muadnat’s dislike of his father? If so, that is an unjust attitude.’

The farm hand looked uncomfortable.

‘There is probably a great injustice here but no reason for Archú to kill Muadnat,’ the man replied stubbornly.

‘Are you so sure that he did so?’

‘Agdae said as much.’

‘Does that make Agdae’s story true? Agdae, you have just told us, has as much cause to hate Archú, if not more cause, than Muadnat.’

‘Agdae is also the adopted son of Muadnat, not just his nephew. Should he not know the truth?’

‘The adopted son?’ Fidelma was intrigued. ‘So Muadnat has no wife or children of his own?’

‘None. None that I know of. Agdae was a nephew. But Muadnat raised him from childhood.’

‘Agdae stands to inherit Muadnat’s farmstead?’

‘I suppose so.’

Fidelma turned towards her horse, calling over her shoulder as she went.

‘You may take the body back to Muadnat’s farm. I have done now. If you see Agdae before I do, warn him against any action which will bring down the displeasure of the law upon him. You and he will know what I mean.’

Eadulf followed her into the saddle and did not speak until they began to move down the hill.

‘Where now?’

‘To Archú’s farmstead, of course.’

‘But do you think that this death is connected with those of Eber and Teafa?’

‘It seems extraordinary that this pleasant valley of Araglin, which appears not to have boasted a suspicious death within years, in just a matter of days witnesses several such violent deaths. We have raids on farmsteads that were previously safe and well protected. We have cattle run off, though, curiously, only a few cattle at a time. But, above all, the deaths of Eber, Teafa, Muadnat and a strange man whom we cannot identify, cannot all be merely coincidence. I confess, Eadulf, I am no great believer in coincidence. I prefer to examine the facts and only if it is proved to be coincidence beyond any shadow of doubt will I believe it as such.’

She paused and then kicked her horse into a canter.

‘We need to get to Archú’s quickly in case Agdae is really intent on seeking vengeance on the boy.’

Eadulf had difficulty keeping up with Fidelma for she was an excellent horsewoman. Fidelma had a good memory for places and there was no hesitation as she led the way along the river, passing the cabin of the prostitute, Clídna, and began to climb along the snaking track through the rounded hills towards the unusual L-shaped valley of the Black Marsh which Muadnat had dominated for so long.

Fidelma had been riding since she could remember. When she rode it was as if the horse became a mere appendage of her body and will, moving to her orders almost as the thought originated, responding to her slightest pressure. Fidelma loved the freedom that it brought her. Leaning slightly forward in the saddle, the breeze tugging at her hair, the road rising with her, the country unrolling with speed that sent a thrill through her. The sound of the horse’s pounding hooves echoed the rhythms in her body, lulling her into a gentle meditative state.