Peter Tremayne - Penance of the Damned

The area was strangely quiet to Eadulf’s ears. He glanced up several times at the blue canopy above, shielding his eyes against the lowering but unprotected sun. There was not a cloud in the sky. Neither was there any sign of birds – and that seemed unusual to him. The only bird he had seen was a stately grey heron, standing on its long legs in some shallow water and, with its long sinuous neck, poised ready to stab its prey and swallow it whole. Once he spotted an otter marking its territory, appearing incongruous in the climate with its thick fur and webbed feet.

He was not sure how long they had been moving through this wilderness when Enda called, pointing before them.

‘We are coming to the treeline. The land is beginning to rise. The forest is just ahead.’

‘We’ll pause a moment to rest the horses as soon as we reach the shade of the trees,’ replied Fidelma.

It was not long before they could feel the ground hardening beneath their mounts and rising away from the low-lying marshland. A short while later, they entered the shelter of the forest and paused by a freshwater stream. It gushed down the hill and emptied into the marshland. They dismounted and allowed their horses to drink while Eadulf took the opportunity to wash the taste of the marshland and its sticky odours from his mouth. Then he gazed around. They were surrounded by hazel trees but here and there, mainly along the borders of the marshes, were a variety of yew trees.

‘There seems a good track this way.’ Enda pointed to a narrow path that certainly wound its way through the trees in the direction they intended to go.

Without further conversation, they remounted and moved off in single file with Enda leading the way. It was pleasant to ride under the shade of the trees, and now their ears became attuned to more sounds – bird calls and the grunt of wild boar snuffling through the undergrowth – a contrast with the quietness of the marshland.

Enda turned in his saddle and informed them, ‘There is an open stretch ahead and a hillock. We can probably see the hill where this man, Corradain, has his hut.’

‘So long as it’s not the hill of corrmil ,’ Eadulf tried to joke, giving the word for the tiny biting midges, as he was still suffering from their attentions during the trek through the marshes. No one laughed, nor had he expected them to.

They came to the area, a rocky rise where, it seemed, no trees could put down roots. The area was clear of tall growth and verdure. They halted and Enda immediately scrambled up on to a tall rock.

‘I think I can see the hill that the miller means,’ he announced excitedly. ‘It shouldn’t take us long to reach there.’ Then he frowned.

‘What is it?’ Fidelma asked, looking up at him.

‘I can see smoke. Smoke on the hill.’

‘Just someone’s cooking fire?’ hazarded Eadulf. ‘You don’t need fires for warmth in this heat.’

‘It just seems too large a pall of smoke for a cooking fire.’

‘Let us move on directly,’ urged Fidelma. ‘I don’t want us to be journeying through the forest at twilight.’

Enda gave a final glance in the direction of the hill before scrambling down and mounting his horse. ‘It is not that far,’ he said. ‘We should have plenty of time to reach it before dark.’

‘Reaching it is one thing,’ Fidelma said, ‘but then, somewhere on it, we have to find Marban’s cousin Corradain, and, hopefully, Gorman and Aibell.’

They were on a broader track now which meandered through the forest.

‘I hope our reception by Gorman and Aibell will be a friendly one,’ Eadulf fretted. ‘Aibell believed Ciarnat’s story and convinced Gorman – so they might not welcome our appearance.’

‘We have to convince them otherwise,’ Fidelma replied. ‘They will see that Marban trusted us.’

It wasn’t long before they arrived under the dark shadows of the long hill. It certainly looked like the one which Marban had described. From east to west, Fidelma’s acute eye judged it was many kilometres in length. The western end was more densely covered by a forest of hazel.

‘Which way now?’ Eadulf asked.

Enda was looking towards an area at the western end of the hill. ‘There is still that pall of smoke up on that ridge, lady,’ he said, pointing, ‘although it’s not as heavy as it was when I first saw it. The fire seems to be dying out, whatever caused it in the first place.’

‘Fire might be a sign of human habitation,’ Fidelma responded. ‘Let’s explore that source first. We might even find someone to inform us where Corradain has his dwelling.’

There was a straightforward track leading up to the ridge which Enda had indicated. It was simple to follow the treeline up the hill to where it opened on a large level area. They could smell charred wood as they came up to it. Thankfully the winds were blowing across the mountain, taking the noxious fumes away from them.

There was no mistaking the remains of a human habitation which had been the source of the fire. The wooden building and surrounding sheds had been almost totally reduced to charcoal. Stretched in front of the burnt-out buildings were two male bodies. They had been untouched by fire. One of them had a woodsman’s axe still buried in a smashed skull. The cause of the death of the second man was also clear. Two arrows were embedded in his chest.

Eadulf glanced round nervously for a potential threat but Enda was already dismounting.

‘Whoever did this must have set fire to the buildings and are long gone,’ he reassured them quickly. ‘There are signs of several horses having been here.’ He gazed about, a grim expression on his features. ‘From the remains of the tools, lady, this looks like a woodman’s workplace and there are some newly carved pieces over there.’

Fidelma’s mouth was dry. ‘You think that this might be Corradain’s place?’

Enda went over to the bodies and stared down at the man with the axe still buried in his head. Then he did the same to the body with the arrows.

‘I am afraid that this one seems familiar, lady.’

Fidelma and Eadulf dismounted and joined Enda. In life the man had been tall and muscular, with a mass of dark red hair and a bristling beard.

‘He and Marban could have been brothers,’ Eadulf commented.

‘But they were cousins.’ Fidelma’s voice was tight. She stood back and peered around the clearing.

‘I wonder who attacked him and why?’ Enda asked.

Fidelma suddenly raised a finger to her lips. Her head was to one side as if listening. They did not hear anything beyond the trilling of birds in the surrounding trees. She leaned closer to them. ‘I thought I heard a sound like something falling, coming from behind that burnt-out cabin.’

‘Woods are full of sounds,’ Enda whispered back.

‘This was like pottery falling and breaking. Did you not hear it?’

They shook their heads in unison.

Fidelma gestured for them to follow her. Such was the intensity of her demeanour that Enda unsheathed his sword. He knew that she was not given to imagining things. She led them to an area at the rear of what had been the wooden cabin, where she halted. The land hereabouts had clearly been planted, mainly with herbs. Gorse bushes which were just ceasing to flower formed a border against the tall hazel trees.

Yet there was one gorse bush that caught Fidelma’s eye. It stood incongruously apart from the others; not in the borderline at all. In fact, she could even see a gap where it had been cut and moved; the glint of white cut roots showed clearly. She moved quietly towards it and glanced down. Then she waved her companions forward and pointed. There were dried blood splatters on the soil around it.

Finger to her lips, she gestured to the gorse bush with a motion as if pushing it aside. Enda nodded, and pointed to Eadulf in an elaborate pantomime to show that he should shove the gorse aside. Then he motioned to his sword. It was over in a matter of movements. With the bush dragged aside, a wooden trap door was revealed, its boards level with the surrounding earth. An iron ring formed a handle on it in the middle.