Peter Tremayne - Penance of the Damned

Eadulf exchanged a look with Enda and then bent to the ring, heaving it up. Enda sprang forward, sword poised ready. Below them was revealed a small underground chamber. It was easily recognisable as a fotholl – an underground cavity lined with wood, in which food was stored to keep it fresh as long as possible. In larger houses it was called a talam , or cellar.

As the dying rays of the sun struck the entrance and lit up the hole, they saw a figure lying at the bottom, staring up at them with terrified eyes. The features were bloodstained but easily recognisable.

‘Aibell!’ Fidelma gasped.

For a moment Fidelma had a sense that she had witnessed this scene before. Then she recollected that her first encounter with Aibell was when they had found her hiding in a woodsman’s hut. She had stared up at them, her tousled blue-black hair cut short and quite dirty, scattered with dead leaves and wisps of straw. Now, instead of patches of dried mud on her face, there were streaks of blood, yet her features were still as attractive, symmetrical with discernible freckles on her cheeks. Her dark eyes were wide and her lips parted in fear.

‘Aibell, it is I, Fidelma. Are you injured?’

The girl shivered and stirred herself. ‘Have they gone?’ she managed to get the words out.

‘They have – whoever “they” are,’ confirmed Fidelma. ‘Let us help you out of there.’

Eadulf reached down, caught the girl’s outstretched arms and drew her from the hole. As she emerged, he saw the abrasion on the side of her head and another on one bloodied arm. ‘You are hurt,’ he said. ‘Those wounds need attending to.’

The girl was looking round at the devastation with a horrified expression.

‘Where is Corradain?’ she asked hesitantly, gazing at the smoking remains of the cabin.

‘If he had red hair and looked like your uncle, Marban, I am afraid that he lies dead in front of the hut.’ Fidelma spoke the words gently but there seemed no other way of telling her the truth.

The girl gave a single sob and lowered her head, staggering a little as if she would fall. Eadulf steadied her and said to Enda, ‘Can you find something she can sit down on?’

Enda spotted a short log, obviously cut for the purpose of sitting. It had been placed so that anyone sitting on it could rest their back against a hazel tree that grew directly behind it. He helped Eadulf guide the girl to it. Then Eadulf darted back to his horse to fetch his les , the medical bag. He had noticed a spring nearby which rose from the hillside and bubbled down, passing the buildings. This must have supplied Corradain with his water source. Taking a clean cloth from his bag, he soaked it, and also filled a mug of the crystal clear water before returning to the girl.

No one had spoken to her or questioned her, waiting for Eadulf to tend to the girl’s injuries first. He gave her the water to drink and she swallowed it eagerly. Then he peered at the abrasions and started to wipe away the blood. She winced once or twice as he did so but did not cry out during his administrations.

‘You had a nasty blow to the side of the head and another you seem to have deflected with your arm,’ he observed. ‘The blood has ceased to flow from the wounds so they are not deep, but I expect that you will have bruising for some time.’

He put a salve on the wounds and used clean linen strips, also taken from his les , to bandage them. Then Eadulf returned to the spring, filled a second mug of water and took it back to the girl. This time she sipped it more slowly.

Fidelma, who had been standing watching, now seated herself on the log beside the girl.

‘Where is Gorman?’ Fidelma asked.

‘I pray that he has escaped,’ replied Aibell.

‘Escaped from whom? What happened here?’

Eadulf felt the question was too blunt and tried to preface it with more tact. ‘Marban told us why you and Gorman felt the need to escape from Prince Donennach’s fortress. We guessed that you would seek shelter with him but he explained that you both felt it best to … to vanish. He said you would stay awhile with his cousin Corradain while you were making up your mind where to go.’

Aibell’s expression was despondent but her voice held a note of bitter reproach aimed at her uncle. ‘How did you persuade him to tell you? He was meant to protect us.’

‘And he did so,’ Fidelma returned in a firm tone. ‘Once he heard that the story Ciarnat told you was not true, that we were not abandoning you and Gorman to the mercies of Abbot Nannid, he realised that you were in more danger than ever.’

The girl’s dark eyes flashed momentarily.

‘Are you asking me to believe that Ciarnat lied? She is a friend from my childhood.’

‘Ciarnat has been murdered,’ Fidelma told her brutally. This was no time to be delicate: the truth had to be revealed.

The girl sat back, shocked. Eadulf frowned at Fidelma in disapproval of her forthright approach.

‘She may have lied to you or, as we believe, she was told a lie herself,’ he explained kindly. ‘That is why she met her death – so that she would not reveal the identity of the person who told her that lie.’

Aibell was quiet for a moment. ‘Are you saying that you would not have abandoned us … abandoned Gorman? Abbot Nannid was so certain that Gorman would be executed under these new church laws. Every time it was argued that it was not our law, he replied something in Latin saying execution was demanded by the Holy Scripture.’

‘ Qui percussent et occiderit hominem, morte moriatur ,’ Eadulf muttered. ‘And he that kills any man shall surely be put to death.’

‘A line from Leviticus.’ Fidelma was dismissive. ‘Abbot Nannid is very fond of quoting that line. He should remember the words of the Christ Whose religion he claims to follow. “Do not judge, so that you may not be judged. For with the judgement you make you will be judged and the measure you give will be the measure you get.” Abbot Nannid will one day find himself judged accordingly.’

Eadulf smiled encouragingly at Aibell. ‘All we are saying is that we are here to help and to uphold the law so that the truth of what happened is known.’

‘Gorman did not kill Abbot Segdae,’ Aibell said quietly.

‘And that is why you must help us to prove it,’ affirmed Fidelma.

‘Now, if you are up to it, tell us what happened here,’ Eadulf coaxed.

The girl hesitated and then seemed to gather an inner strength. ‘As Marban has told you, we came here yesterday and Corradain gave us hospitality. He was so much like my uncle – full of the joy of life, in love with the forests that he tended. He was a fine carver of wood. He asked no questions and made no condemnation of us.’ A great sorrow was upon her, but she bravely continued to speak.

‘This morning, Corradain was up at first light because he wanted to mark some trees for felling. We had barely awoken and broken our fast, when he came back, out of breath and looking worried. In the valley below runs one of the main tracks along the south side of the hill; it then swings north through a valley.’

Enda spoke for the first time. ‘We crossed it. It seemed to be more of a ro-shet than just a track.’

A ro-shet was a class of road which, as defined by law, accommodated the passage of many horses and carriages and hence was called a ‘great-way’.

‘And so?’ prompted Fidelma.

‘Corradain had been near the track when he heard the sound of approaching horses. Thinking that they might be searching for us, he hid. He counted about forty horses passing by. The riders were fighting men but he said they did not have the look of professional warriors.