Peter Tremayne - Act of Mercy

‘So Canair, Muirgel and Toca Nia have all fallen to this madness,’ muttered Sister Ainder. ‘The girls because they had the misfortune to be seduced by this,’ she jerked her head at Cian, ‘this degenerate wretch, and the Laigin warrior because he accused Cian of high crimes and misdemeanours, and this insane creature saw that as a further danger. What madness and evil is here, brethren?’

Cian stood up angrily.

‘It seems that you are putting the blame on me rather than on this stupid bitch!’ he snarled.

Once again, Gorman’s head jerked back as if he had physically assaulted her.

‘Deserting me, you have stripped and lain down

On the wide bed which you have made,

And you drove bargains …

For the pleasure of sleeping together

And you have committed countless acts of fornication

In the heat of your lust …’

Then her hand reached inside her habit and something flew from it. Murchad, standing near to Cian, reacted quickly and shoved the former warrior to one side. A knife embedded itself a wooden beam just behind Cian.

With a cry of rage at having missed him, Gorman seized the opportunity offered by their confusion and indecision, to turn out of the cabin and scamper up the companionway to the deck above.

Fidelma was the first to recover her senses and start to rush after her, but Murchad held her back.

‘Don’t worry, lady,’ he said. ‘Where is she going to flee to? We are in the middle of the ocean.’

‘It is not fear of escape that concerns me,’ she told him. ‘It is fear of what she might do to herself. Madness acknowledges no logic.’

As they tumbled onto the deck, Drogon, who stood at the steering oar, cried out to them; he was pointing upwards.

They looked up.

Gorman was swaying dangerously from the rigging at least twenty feet or more above them.

‘Stop!’ cried Fidelma. ‘Gorman, stop! There is nowhere to run to.’

The girl kept climbing up the swaying ropes.

‘Gorman, come down. We can find a resolution to the problem. Come down. No one will harm you.’ As Fidelma called, she realised how hollow her assurances sounded, even to someone whose mind was so damaged.

Murchad, standing at Fidelma’s side, touched her arm and shook his head.

‘She can’t hear you for the wind up there.’

Fidelma continued to stare up. The wind was whipping at the girl’s hair and clothing as she clung to the rigging. Murchad was right. There was no way sound could carry up.

‘I’ll go up,’ Fidelma volunteered. ‘Someone needs to bring her down.’

Murchad laid a hand on her arm.

‘You are not acquainted with the dangers of being aloft in a strong wind on shipboard. I’ll go up.’

Fidelma hesitated and then stood back. She realised that it would need someone more sure-footed than she was to bring the insane young woman down.

‘Don’t scare her,’ she instructed. ‘She is completely mad and there is no telling what she is liable to do.’

Murchad’s face was grim.

‘She is only a slight young girl.’

‘There is an old saying, Murchad. If a sane dog fights a mad dog then it is the sane dog’s ear that is likely to be bitten off.’

‘I’ll be careful,’ he assured her and started up the rigging.

He had hardly reached it when Sister Ainder gave an inarticulate cry of warning which made Fidelma look up.

Gorman had missed her footing and was hanging desperately onto the ropes with one hand, reaching out, trying to grasp hold of the rigging with the other.

‘Hold on!’ yelled Fidelma, her cry disappearing into the wind.

Murchad, too, had seen the slip and launched himself into the rigging. He had hardly risen a few feet when Gorman’s grip relaxed and she fell, crashing down onto the deck with a sickening thud.

Fidelma was the first to reach her-side.

There was no need to check for a pulse. It was obvious that the young girl had broken her neck in the fall. Fidelma leaned forward and closed Gorman’s staring eyes while Sister Ainder began to intone a prayer for the dead.

Murchad dropped back to the deck and joined them.

‘I’m sorry,’ he panted. ‘Is she …?’

‘Yes, she’s dead. It’s not your fault,’ Fidelma said, rising from the deck.

Cian was peering over the shoulder of Brother Dathal, gazing down at the body of the girl.

‘Well,’ he said with relief in his voice. ‘That’s that.’

Fidelma stood on the quay in the warm autumnal sunshine, inhaling the exotic scents of the picturesque little port which stood under the shelter of an ancient Roman lighthouse known as the Tower of Hercules. The Barnacle Goose was tied up in the harbour against the quay. Her remaining passengers had dispersed inland on their pilgrimage towards the Holy Shrine of St James. Fidelma had refused to continue in their company, using the excuse of writing a report of the voyage for the Chief Brehon of Cashel so that Murchad could take it back on his return voyage.

Within an hour of The Barnacle Goose easing into the port on the north-west coast of Iberia, perhaps one of the very ports from which Golamh and the Children of the Gael had sailed to Eireann over a millennium ago, the final drama of the voyage had been played out.

Cian had disappeared from the ship once more, but this time along with Sister Crella. Fidelma was not unduly surprised.

‘Don’t you remember when Cian fled from the ship at the island of Ushant?’ she asked Murchad. ‘It was obvious that he had help.’

The captain was puzzled and said so.

‘It was evident that a man who did not have the use of his right arm could not row a skiff to the island, let alone bring the skiff back to the ship.’

Murchad seemed chagrined that he had not considered the fact.

‘I had not thought of that.’

‘He had to have an accomplice. He persuaded Crella to help him, as he has persuaded her now. Perhaps I should have tried to warn her about further involvement with Cian, but I doubt if she would have taken any notice of me. He always had a way with women. He can charm the birds from the trees when he needs to.’

‘Where will they go now? They surely can’t go back to Eireann.’

‘Who knows? Perhaps he will continue his journey to Mormohec the physician to see if his arm can be healed. Perhaps not. I feel sorry for poor Crella. She will be in for a rude awakening one day.’

‘What made her return to him if he had rejected her as a lover once before?’ demanded Murchad.

‘Maybe she has never learnt that if one is bitten once, one should be careful about being bitten twice. He will discard her when he feels that he has no more need of her. We will probably never see him back in Eireann but not from any feeling of guilt of what has happened on this voyage. His arrogance would not allow him to accept any culpability there. He will avoid the land of his birth to avoid any further witnesses who might charge him with being the “Butcher of Rath Bile”.’

‘So he will go free and unpunished?’

‘In these things, it is often the person who holds the real guilt who goes free while those they use as mere tools or dupes are punished.’

Not long after, the surviving band of pilgrims had set off from the port under the charge of Brother Tola. She had watched Brother Tola and Sister Ainder leaving with the less willing company of Brother Dathal and Brother Adamrae. Brother Bairne accompanied them, but he seemed as reluctant to go with them as they were to have him. Forgiveness did not seem to be a feature of the Faith shared by their little band.

Fidelma stayed in the port while The Barnacle Goose had its storm damage repaired. She took a room in a small tavern overlooking the harbour, resting and readjusting to the feeling of land under her feet and writing her report. When she heard that The Barnacle Goose was preparing to sail, she went down to the quay.