‘Then you will go?’ she pleaded.

  ‘But I need some information first,’ Eadulf said. ‘Your husband Rechtabra … tell me something about him. And why are you fearful of this emblem?’ He held up the brass disc and hemp bracelet on his wrist.

  The girl had cut bread, produced some cold meat and poured a mug of cider for him from a jug. ‘There is nothing to tell,’ she said. ‘Rechtabra wears it and so do his friends. Rechtabra has this small farm and that is who he is and what he does. My father used to farm further south beyond the High Hills.’

  ‘Used to?’ Eadulf caught the inflection.

  ‘He was killed in a border raid; a cattle raid from Laigin. That was two years ago.’

  ‘And your mother?’

  Ríonach shook her head. ‘She is long dead.’

  ‘So you have no one you could go to for help?’

  ‘No. Unless it was to old Brother Finnsnechta. He was once a friend of my mother’s, but he took to a hermit’s life in the hills and I have not seen him since my wedding.’

  ‘Could he give you refuge?’

  The girl sighed. ‘What would an advocate of the New Faith do but tell me to return to my husband and accept God’s will?’

  Eadulf paused to finish the last morsel of the bread and cold meat. ‘I doubt that he would say that especially if he were told the circumstances.’

  ‘I did once attempt to escape,’ the young woman confessed. ‘I made it as far as the edge of the forest that borders the Slíge Dála before Rechtabra caught up with me and forced me to tell him where I was going. When I told him, he just laughed. He said that any member of the New Faith would just send me back to him. It was their…’ she paused, trying to remember the word. ‘It was their creed, he said, and that I was his property, nothing more, nothing less. To prove it, he beat me.’

  ‘He told you a lie,’ Eadulf protested. ‘There are laws in this land to protect you.’ He was feeling stronger and more able to confront the burly farmer.

  ‘Now will you go?’ demanded the girl.

  ‘A few more questions. Does this farm keep horses?’

  ‘Alas, you will not be able to escape that way. We have some cows, two pigs and an ox for the ploughing. That’s all.’

  ‘He didn’t come back with any horses the other day?’ Eadulf was surprised. He knew his captors had horses, so he assumed they had been kept on the farm.

  ‘Why would he?’

  Eadulf had heard his captors ride away; they had taken his little white cob with them. He could also do with his lés, his medical bag, which had been in his saddlebags. His skin, now cleansed, was a mass of midge bites that itched and were being rubbed raw by the coarse cloth of the farmer’s clothes.

  ‘Did this friend he was talking with yesterday have horses?’

  ‘Not his friend, but…’

  ‘But what?’ asked Eadulf when she paused with a frown.

  ‘Rechtabra was out all last night. I was awoken just before first light and thought I could hear horses near the wood. That was when I overheard him talking to someone about leaving a religieux on the marshland. The person Rechtabra was speaking to said something about disobedience and punishment, and then I did hear several horses leaving. A little while later, Rechtabra came back to the farmhouse. He took his bow and went out again shortly afterwards.’

  ‘He took his bow?’

  ‘He said that he would try to get a rabbit for our evening meal. Most people in these parts are good bowmen. It is often hard to subsist on the marshlands without hunting.’

  Eadulf was beginning to form a picture. The two men had left him to his fate in the shepherd’s hut and had ridden back here to the farmstead. Then they had met up again with the leader, their ‘lord’, who, learning that Eadulf was still alive, had galloped back to finish the task. The man who had disobeyed had been murdered by Rechtabra on the orders of this mysterious lord and dumped in the marsh. That was easy to deduce. But now there were other questions to which he must find the answers.

  ‘Why are you wasting time like this?’ the girl wanted to know. She was half-mad with anxiety, aware that Rechtabra could return at any moment.

  Eadulf smiled gently at her. ‘It is one thing to seize a man when he is unprepared and defenceless, quite another when he is prepared,’ he assured her. ‘And these questions are of great importance. Who is the lord of this area?’

  ‘Coileach of the Red Hill is lord of the marshland,’ she sighed, reluctant to prolong the conversation.

  ‘Coileach, eh? The name seems appropriate.’ He knew that coileach was the word for a cockerel. ‘And the hill where he dwells – the Red Hill – is in which direction?’

  ‘On the way towards the great river; along the road to Cill Cainnech.’

  ‘One more thing. Did you ever see a strange-looking wagon pulled by a team of oxen and driven by a young girl – or she might have been dressed as a boy?’

  She stared at him in puzzlement. ‘A strange wagon…’

  ‘Yes. It might have passed through here in the last week.’

  ‘Passed through the marshland? That is silly. No wagons attempt to travel through the marshland because it leads nowhere.’

  ‘It might be that those in the wagon wanted to hide.’

  ‘There are easier places to hide with a wagon,’ the girl asserted. ‘Now in the name of all you hold dear, please go.’

  Eadulf rose reluctantly to his feet. ‘I have no wish to leave you here to be beaten by this vile brute you call a husband. You must come with me. I’ll make sure I take you somewhere safe out of his reach.’

  This time the girl did stamp her foot. ‘It is no use, I tell you. No use! Go!’

  The terrier was whining and crouching in his corner. Eadulf thought the little animal was merely being sensitive to his mistress’s anguished tones. But a moment later, however, he realised just how wrong he was.

  The door burst open and Rechtabra stood framed in the doorway, a wicked-looking knife glinting in his hands, his face distorted in an evil smile.

  ‘Well, well, so the foreigner has been released, has he? I should have known you would betray me, girl.’

  His wife gave a scream and, hand covering her mouth, she cowered. The terrier trotted over to her side as if to comfort her. It was obvious that he knew his master of old.

  The farmer was grinning, his expression malignant.

  ‘I said we should have killed you when we had the opportunity,’ he told Eadulf, then he reared up over his wife, trembling in the corner. ‘As for you, woman, if you think you have been punished for your disloyalty to me in the past, then you will think again, for you have much to look forward to, once I have dealt with this pathetic creature.’ He raised his knife.

  Eadulf retreated behind the table that separated them. ‘I suppose your master was angry when he discovered that you and your friend had merely left me to the Fates?’ he said with a forced smile. ‘Angry enough for him to order you to kill your friend?’

  ‘He betrayed us. I killed him. That is simple enough.’

  ‘Very well. Yet why did you obey your friend when he said that he did not want to anger the gods of the Eóganacht? You could have killed him, then me – without all these subsequent problems.’

  Rechtabra seemed to take the question seriously. ‘I could not do it then. He had been appointed my superior in the Fellowship. I had to wait until my master told me to punish him. Then he had to die. He was stupid anyway. He was the one who mistook you for one of the people that we were told to find.’

  Eadulf gave a mirthless chuckle. ‘I meant to ask you about that. Who were you looking for, and how could I have been mistaken for whoever it was? After all, I was clearly a religieux.’

  ‘Fool!’ snorted the farmer. ‘The person we were looking for was also dressed as a religieux – but you were not him.’

  For a moment Eadulf had a vision of the dead body in the wagon. So he had been right – the man was a religieux. He then registered the fact that Rechtabra was edging closer.

  ‘Now, my foreign friend,’ the man sneered, ‘you have to die as it is ordained by the gods.’

  ‘If I have to die for this lord, for this Fellowship as you call it, and for the gods that have ordained it, then perhaps you’ll allow me to die knowing who has ordered my death?’

  Rechtabra smirked confidently. ‘All you need to know, foreigner, is that the old powers have returned to reclaim what is rightfully their own.’

  ‘Does Coileach, Lord of the Marshland, believe in the old powers, then?’ Eadulf said quickly, hoping for a reaction to put the man offguard.

  Rechtabra blinked for a moment, as if in surprise, and then burst out laughing.

  ‘Coileach? May the cat eat his heart and may the wolves from your Christian hell eat the cat! Coileach has departed to the Otherworld by now.’

  ‘That seems a conclusive denial.’ Eadulf tried to introduce amusement into his tone. All the while his eyes circled, searching for some weapon with which to defend himself. ‘Come now, Rechtabra, you can’t let me journey to the Otherworld without knowing who has sent me on the journey.’

  ‘Enough, religieux! Prepare to meet this new God of yours.’

  Eadulf was so focused on Rechtabra as the man advanced on him, his glinting knife at the ready, that he had not noticed the movement of the girl until there was a shriek and something hit the side of the farmer’s head with a resounding force.

  The man seemed to stand stock still for a moment, staring at Eadulf. Then the knife dropped from his nerveless fingers and fell with a clatter onto the floor. It was as if everything was happening silently and in slow motion. Rechtabra began sinking slowly to the floor. Sound came back suddenly to Eadulf and he was aware that the girl was still screaming and raining blow after blow at the farmer’s head with a heavy iron object. The man lay motionless on the ground – and still she kept beating hysterically at his bloodied head.

  Eadulf moved swiftly to her side and gently removed the heavy iron object from her hand. It was a long-handled cooking pan, a scillead. He put it, bloody as it was, on the table before making her sit on a chair. She was still sobbing and screaming. He turned back to the senseless body of the farmer and went down on one knee. In fact, there was no need to examine the man further. He looked up towards the girl.

  ‘You have saved my life, but your husband is dead,’ he said quietly. ‘I’m afraid that you have killed him.’

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Fidelma halted her horse at the top of the rise and looked down across the broad valley of An Fheoir, the great river which rose in the north to flow south through Osraige, almost dividing it in half. Whoever had named it the ‘cold river’ had done so because of its cool, pure waters. From her position on top of the cliff-like hillocks, looking south-east towards the river-port, the scene looked quite sparkling and beautiful in the afternoon sunshine. The settlement was on the west bank and clustered around the Abbey of Cainnech which was situated on a hill dominating the township.

  The abbey buildings stood imposing, and consisting of a large complex facing towards the river. The western side of the hill was clearly the back of the abbey for there were very few buildings there or on the plain extending from the bottom of the hill. In fact, there was only one group of buildings behind the abbey, which appeared to be a smith’s forge. While the forge could be reached by a side track off the main highway, it seemed a curious, isolated place to build a smithy. All the other buildings of the township were placed in front of the abbey, stretching down to the river.

  It was some time since Fidelma had been though this settlement and she was surprised at the amount of new building since her last visit, especially within the abbey complex. Her memories of the river-port were of modest wooden buildings set around a rough-hewn local red sandstone church. Now the buildings atop the hill were more extensive, and an impressive mixture of sandstone, with light-coloured dolomite rocks set into the outer walls. They were almost like the walls of a fortress. Some of the buildings along the banks of the river were also solid constructions of locally quarried stones, giving the impression of a place that had developed of substantial a wealth.

  Indeed, as confirmation of this, Fidelma could see wooden quays alongside which several barges were loading and unloading amid placidly swimming ducks and even stately gliding swans. It was clear the river was teaming with human activity as well as wildlife.

  ‘It’s quite a township now,’ said Aidan, articulating her thoughts.

  ‘It could well be that the strange wagon arrived here from upriver or … look!’ Fidelma pointed to where a ferry was crossing from the far bank with a wagon on it. ‘She could have come across that way through Laigin, just as Baodain said his wagons had done so.’

  ‘We can make some enquiries along the quays,’ Enda suggested. ‘Someone might recall having seen the wagon. It is so distinctive.’

  ‘But we should also find somewhere to eat and arrange accommodation, for there is not much daylight left,’ Fidelma cautioned.

  ‘There should be a place near the quays,’ Enda said. ‘They would provide for passing merchants there.’

  Fidelma continued to examine the new buildings with interest. ‘It’s almost as if this is being built to become the premier seat of the Prince of Osraige,’ she commented.

  ‘Except I have heard that Tuaim Snámh has now set his capital in the Sliadh Bladhma, the Northern Mountains, where Ciaran founded his hermitage,’ Aidan pointed out.

  ‘Perhaps he has changed his mind?’

  ‘I don’t think so, lady,’ replied the warrior. ‘Tuaim Snámh is a very superstitious man.’

  Fidelma frowned. ‘I fail to see the connection.’

  ‘The stories go that the hill on which the abbey now stands was a great centre of the Old Faith; it is where the last Druidic priests of the Five Kingdoms retreated when the New Faith gained ascendancy over them. It became the dwelling place of the last Chief Druid of the Five Kingdoms.’

  ‘I didn’t know that.’ Fidelma was intrigued.

  ‘I heard the stories from my uncle’s wife. She came from the vicinity of this settlement many years ago and was of the clan of Máil.’

  ‘What reason would the Prince of Osraige have to avoid this place as a capital?’ asked Fidelma. ‘The Old Religion was once found everywhere in these kingdoms. It is scarcely more than two centuries since the High King Laoghaire accepted the New Faith, and other kings and princes followed his example. It has taken time to replace the Old Faith, but there are no ancient sites that people shun because of it. There are even some places in the west where you will find people who have still not accepted the New Faith, and other places where the two faiths exist side by side.’

  ‘You are right, lady. But as I said, it was that hill that the Chief Druid of the Five Kingdoms made his last bastion, surrounded by his followers. That was when Cainnech came here to convert the people to the New Faith. Cainnech’s method was to arrive with an army and slaughter all the Druids and their followers. He then declared the place Christian and built a church on the very hill where the last Chief Druid and his followers were murdered in their sanctuary.’

  Fidelma was surprised by the story for she had always been taught that the change to the New Faith had been a relatively peaceful transition.

  ‘This Cainnech sounds more like an intolerant warrior than a saintly man,’ she remarked.

  ‘He was of the Corco Dálainn, raised on a little island off Port Lairge,’ Enda replied. ‘I know he studied at Cluain Ard, went to one of the kingdoms of the Britons and then to Rome, and even to Iona before returning here. So if travelling is learning, then he was a man of much learning.’

  ‘When did all this happen?’ Fidelma was appalled. ‘When was this slaughter of the people of the Old Faith?’

  ‘Little more than seventy years ago,’ Enda replied after a moment of thought. ‘The picturesque settlement you see before you was once awash with blood and consumed by fire.’

  ‘Only seventy years ago? I thought we prided ourselves that our kingdoms had accepted the New Faith without forcing it on the people by fire and sword,’ Fidelma muttered. ‘This is a very sad history.’

  ‘Well, it is the only instance that I know of such a slaughter,’ Enda replied. ‘Now it seems almost forgotten and Cainnech’s reputation appears to have been restored. His main foundation is in the north of Osraige, at the Field of the Ox. I don’t think you’ll find many people around here who have cause to remember him fondly nor the slaughter that he brought here.’

  ‘That is not our concern anyway,’ Fidelma said firmly. ‘We are investigating a more modern slaughter. We must see if we can find some trace of the movement through here of the strange wagon.’

  She nudged the flanks of Aonbharr and the stallion ambled carefully down the hill towards the settlement by the river bank, closely followed by Aidan and Enda.

  The late-afternoon sunshine dappled the hills which soon gave way to fenland to the north and to cultivated fields to the south. They moved through pink meadowland, the colour made by the finger-long, delicate pink petals of flowers which had just started to blossom in abundance. Fidelma had always thought they were very pretty, but local tradition said that it was bad luck to pick them and especially to take them into the house. They were called lus sioda and she found herself wondering what Eadulf would call them. He had taught her much of his language and the names of many plants and animals.

  In spite of her outward control, Fidelma was desperate about him. Where was he? Had he been badly injured at the deserted farm? Was he still a prisoner? Why had he been made captive – and by whom? Had he escaped? Was he wandering the marshlands? Above all, was he safe?

  At that moment, Aidan went to say something to her and then turned away in embarrassment.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ she snapped.

  He coughed awkwardly. ‘Lady, your eyes are watering.’

  She put a hand to her eyes. Tears were running down her cheeks.

  ‘Something must have flown into my eye,’ she explained tersely.

  Aidan was too wise to make a further comment. She had been crying silently without even knowing it.