A Spark is Struck in Cruachan (The Chronicles of Pádraig Book 1)

by Bill Stackhouse

  Alderday - Wolf 52nd

  Callainn Shire

  At the T where the Dúnfort Road intersected the west-east road in Gabhrán Shire, Pádraig had met Lorcan, Reeve of Gabhrán Shire, shortly after first light. Initially, Lorcan had been surprised that Pádraig had come alone, but the young farrier had explained that the prince had another matter to attend to that morning and would join them later at Colm’s cottage.

  “The way he pushes that horse of his,” Pádraig had told the reeve, “we’ll be lucky if he doesn’t catch up with us before we get there.”

  With an overcast sky and the winter winds whipping about out of Saltwater Bay, they had galloped across Gabhrán Shire and then Callainn Shire hunkered down against the cold, Pádraig, more than once, giving a mental thanks to Neave for Tadhg’s tan cloak. It turned out to be much warmer than the horse blanket.

  * * *

  The new cottage wasn’t difficult to find. It was as Cearul, the farrier from the Eastern Shires, had described—small, walls of wattle and daub, with a recently thatched roof, about halfway up toward Ráth Callainn just across Crooked Brook.

  As they walked their horses across the small bridge and up toward the front yard of the cottage, Lorcan asked, “How do you want to handle the search, Paddy? Do we wait for Prince Liam?”

  Dismounting, Pádraig crossed to the cottage’s front door. “Let’s see, first, if Beibhinn is here,” he replied. “It would be far better if we had her permission to search the place.”

  After two series of three raps each went unanswered, the young farrier turned to the reeve and said, “If the murder weapon is, indeed, here, we need to make sure our search not only is fair, but appears to be fair to everyone else. You stay here and wait for the prince while I ride to Ráth Callainn and get Parnell. If we have to enter the house uninvited, we want to make sure that there’s no reason for anyone to even hint that we planted evidence.”

  “What would you like me to do if Colm’s wife returns?”

  “Once she sees you, she’ll know what you’re here for. Treat her with the utmost respect, but don’t let her enter the house until I get back with Parnell.”

  “Will do, Paddy.” With that, while Pádraig was remounting Suibhne, Lorcan dismounted his own horse and sat down on a flat rock that served as the front stoop of the cottage.

  * * *

  Less than an hour later, Pádraig returned along with Parnell, Reeve of Callainn Shire, and two of his deputies. Standing in the yard were not only Liam and Lorcan, but also Odhran, Guardian of the Red Stone.

  “Venerable Sir,” Pádraig said as he bowed, respectfully, still in his saddle. “I didn’t realize that you would be here.”

  Parnell and his deputies bowed as well, all three wordless at being in the presence of the master wizard.

  “Master Odhran happened to be at Dúnfort Cruachan,” Liam explained. “Since he is Court Wizard of the Kingdom of the Northern Shires, I persuaded him to join our endeavor so we could put this Colm business behind us one way or the other. Did you bring the remnant of Tadhg’s bloody shirt?”

  In response, Pádraig lifted the saddlebag that hung across his mount.

  “Another bite of the apple, Lorcan?” Parnell asked, sarcastically. “When will you give up on this witch-hunt of yours?” The little stoat-faced man’s dark eyes darted back and forth from Lorcan to Liam to Odhran.

  “Perhaps we wouldn’t have had to drag everyone over here if you had told us about Colm’s new house the last time,” the reeve of Gabhrán Shire shot back.

  Parnell shrugged. “You never asked. You said you wanted to search the forge. I figured a crack investigator like yourself knew exactly what he was doing. Guess I was wrong.”

  “Enough, you two,” Liam interjected. “Let’s not waste any more of Master Odhran’s valuable time with your petty bickering. Here are the rules we’ll use for the search. The two deputies will remain outside, one covering the back of the cottage and the other the front. Lorcan, you and Parnell will conduct a joint search. If either spots a farrier’s driving hammer, he will alert the rest of us, but will only point to it, not touch it. Paddy will use a cloth to pick up the hammer and place it on a table inside the cottage. Master Odhran and I will observe the search. He has brought his potions with him. If a hammer is found, he will test it for blood residue. If he detects any, he will compare that residue to the blood on Tadhg’s clothing. Is everyone clear?”

  Getting nods from each one of the participants, Liam said, “Well, let’s get on with it, then.”

  * * *

  The cottage was small—one large room that served as a combination kitchen, dining, and living area—two bedrooms—one for the adults and one for what appeared to be two children—and a small workroom off the greatroom at the back of the cottage.

  Lorcan and Parnell first took cursory looks around the greatroom, as the others stood to the side and watched. Glancing into both bedrooms, they gave them a quick once-over as well.

  “After you,” Lorcan said, gesturing to the workroom.

  Since there were no windows in the small room, Parnell stopped at the dining table, struck a spark from the tinder box sitting there, and lit a candle. Crossing to the workroom, he led with the candle. Inside, there was a variety of gardening paraphernalia standing on one side of the room. On the other side, a series of three shelves held smaller gardening implements, as well as an assortment of farrier’s tools—a couple rasps, hoof-picks, pritchels, a set of hoof nippers, two clinching blocks, a cross-pein hammer, a rounding hammer, and three driving hammers.

  “Well, well, well, what have we here?” Lorcan said, rubbing his hands together, then pointing to the driving hammers.

  “What you would expect to find in a farrier’s workroom,” Parnell replied. “The tools of his trade.”

  Lorcan smiled. “Yes, so it would seem. Paddy,” he called out. “If you would be so kind?”

  Liam, Odhran, and Pádraig peered over the two reeves’ shoulders.

  “Okay, step back,” Liam ordered.

  When Parnell and Lorcan had complied, Pádraig took a cloth and, one by one, removed the driving hammers, setting them side by side on the dining table.

  “Anything else?” Liam asked, once Pádraig had finished.

  Both reeves again entered the workroom, examined all the other tools, then returned to the greatroom, shaking their heads.

  “That’s it, Paddy,” Parnell said.

  Liam glanced at Lorcan and received a nod of agreement.

  “Master Odhran?” he said. “Anything you need from us?”

  “Just room to work,” the old wizard replied.

  Sitting on a stool, facing the three driving hammers, he waved at both reeves who had crowded around him to watch the test. “And just what part of ‘room to work’ did you two not understand. Over there. With the others.”

  Parnell and Lorcan joined Liam and Pádraig on the side of the table opposite the wizard.

  Taking a crystal from his brown-and-black leather belt-bag, so highly polished that it magnified any image, Odhran picked up the first hammer and closely examined its head. Grunting, he set the hammer back down as near as possible to its original placement, then picked up the second hammer.

  After careful examination, he set that hammer down as well, however, closer to him than it had originally been set.

  As with the first hammer, when Odhran had finished with the third one, he set it down in close proximity to where he had gotten it.

  Looking up at the foursome across the table from him, he pointed at the second hammer. “This one has what appears to be a small amount of dried blood on it. Someone get me two bowls and a plate. Not wood, mind you.”

  All four men turned and looked around the room. Parnell quickly crossed to the kitchen area, found two small tin bowls and a tin plate and brought them to the table. When he had set them down, the wizard lined the items up in front of him, the bowls on either side of the plate.

  Taking a small vial of c
lear liquid from his belt-bag, he unstoppered it. Picking up the second hammer, he positioned it above the left-hand bowl and placed two drops of the liquid onto the hammer’s head. The drops ran off the hammer and into the bowl, turning a bright crimson as they did so.

  A chorus of “Oh” went up, as if he had just succeeded in blotting out the sun.

  The old wizard chuckled. “You impress easily, my friends. This is but the simple part of the experiment. Save your amazement for the real magic.” Looking over at Pádraig, he asked, “May I have Tadhg’s shirt with the blood on it?”

  The young farrier withdrew the bloody cloth from the saddlebag and set it on the table.

  “Your Highness,” Odhran said, “If you would please cut about a one-inch square from the bloodiest part of the shirt.”

  Removing his ebony-handled dirk, the prince did as he was asked.

  “Please place it in the second bowl,” the wizard told him.

  When Liam had complied, Odhran placed four drops of the clear liquid on top of the piece of cloth, then stoppered the bottle and returned it to his belt-bag.

  “Now you can prepare yourself to be amazed,” he told the others as he poured the blood from the hammer onto the left-hand side of the plate and the now-liquefied blood from Tadhg’s shirt onto the right-hand side. “When I swirl this plate, if the two samples of blood mix and become one, it means that both are from Tadhg. If they remain separate, then the blood on the hammer is not Tadhg’s.”

  The master wizard spread his hands over the plate, one covering each sample of blood, and directed his gaze at the center of the plate. Softly he uttered a spell in the language of the ancients, then picked up the plate in both hands and tipped it, swirling both blood samples toward each other. As soon as the two samples met, they formed a single pool of blood.

  Again, the foursome let out a chorus of “Oh.”

  Odhran set the plate down, spread his arms, and said, “That’s it? ‘Oh’ is all you can say? Not ‘Ooo,’ or ‘Ahh’?”

  “The blood matches?” Lorcan asked. “This hammer is the weapon that killed Tadhg?”

  “So it would seem,” Odhran replied. “Now, Reeve, you are free to make an official charge.”

  Lorcan smirked as he turned to Parnell, only to see the reeve of Callainn Shire, Liam, and Pádraig with smirks of their own.

  “Thank you Venerable Sir,” Parnell said to Odhran, with a slight bow. Then, to the reeve of Gabhrán Shire, he said, “Lorcan, I’m placing you under arrest for the murder of Tadhg the farrier. You will come with me and my deputies and be jailed at Ráth Callainn until we sort out where your trial will be held.”

  “You must be out of your—” Lorcan started, reaching for his short-sword.

  But Liam grabbed him by the collar and relieved him of the weapon before he had a chance to draw it, saying, “Save it for your trial—a trial not only for the murder of Tadhg but for high treason, as well.”

  “Your Highness!” Odhran spoke up. “What’s going on here? I thought Colm killed Tadhg.”

  “No, Venerable Sir, the evidence you have just given us proves that it was, in fact, Lorcan.”

  The master wizard stood, letting his indignation show. “When you asked me to participate in this experiment you said it was one last chance to prove whether Colm had killed Tadhg.”

  The prince lifted both arms in an apologetic gesture. “I’m sorry, Master Odhran, for any misunderstanding, but what I actually said was that this exercise was one last chance to prove who killed Tadhg. And, as it turns out, it was Lorcan.”

  “How can you say that, Your Highness?” Lorcan protested. Pointing at the second hammer on the table, he continued. “Master Odhran proved conclusively that this farrier’s driving hammer had Tadhg’s blood on it, and we all saw that it was found in Colm’s cottage. What more proof do we need that Colm killed Tadhg?”

  “Actually, Lorcan,” Parnell interjected. “We didn’t find that hammer in Colm’s cottage. We found it in mine.”

  “What!?”

  “This is my cottage, Lorcan. The other two driving hammers and the rest of the farrier’s tools in that workroom, Paddy and I brought down from the forge at Ráth Callainn yesterday afternoon. The third hammer—the one with Tadhg’s blood—that we found just a while ago, you planted when Paddy left you alone and he came to fetch me. I have two eyewitnesses outside who had this cottage under surveillance the entire time. They saw you enter just after Paddy rode off.”

  “But that’s—”

  “Eye witnesses, Lorcan,” Liam interrupted. “And as for the charge of high treason, only three people knew that Paddy and I were going from Ráth Callainn to the garrison at Ráth Cairbrigh. Parnell knew because we told him just before we left. And you were standing there when Feidhelm, the head groom at Ráth Gabhrán, warned Paddy not to go north to Ráth Árainn but to head over to Ráth Cairbrigh, instead.”

  “Ah ha!” Lorcan said, pointing at Parnell. “Then it could have been him! And, since the hammer was found in his cottage, he could have killed Tadhg as well.”

  “No, afraid not. You see, Donnan the tanner and his wife had been waiting for us for some time because they didn’t know exactly when we’d be going to Ráth Cairbrigh. Parnell didn’t know until the day we left Ráth Callainn. And Feidhelm would have had no reason to assist in my kidnapping.”

  “Your Highness,” Odhran spoke up, “what motive would Lorcan have to kill Tadhg, or, for that matter, kidnap you?”

  “I believe it to be simple greed. That the bandits who imprisoned Paddy and me, intending to collect the ransom then kill us both, were also rustling horses.”

  The old wizard frowned. “Horses?”

  “They were accumulating horses in their compound,” the prince replied. “We know that for certain. Plus they were aided by a rogue journeyman wizard.”

  “You’re certain of that?”

  “I am sir. I witnessed his spell-casting myself.”

  “Then I will route him out, be assured of that, Your Highness. But back to the business at hand. You believe that Lorcan, here, is involved with these bandits?”

  “We do, Venerable Sir,” Pádraig said. “Tadhg made an innocent remark at the tavern the night he was murdered. He happened to mention that he was shoeing half again as many horses as he did last year. No one thought anymore about it; but, obviously, the bandits have been selling those stolen horses to a few unscrupulous soldiers at various garrisons in the north. A messenger who arrived at their compound while we were imprisoned wore the dark-red livery of the Security Forces of the Northern Shires. One of the bandits must have overheard the conversation in the tavern and knew Tadhg had to be silenced before he repeated that claim too often and ruined their operation. Tadhg’s altercation with Colm was just the coincidence that they needed to throw suspicion off themselves.”

  “I wasn’t anywhere near the tavern that night,” Lorcan said. “So how could I have overheard anything that was said? I had no reason to murder Tadhg.”

  Again the prince took charge of the conversation. “You’re obviously in league with the bandits, turning a blind eye to their activities in Gabhrán Shire. And you set Colm up to take the fall for killing Tadhg. It had to have been you. How else could you have acquired the murder weapon that you were so anxious to plant in Colm’s forge and again here. Plus you set me up to be killed. And before you hang, believe me, you’ll tell us who the rest of those bandits are.”

  Although protesting his innocence, Lorcan had been so docile, he caught everyone off their guard as he suddenly bolted for the door, pushing Parnell up against Liam and Pádraig. By the time the three men reached the yard, Lorcan had jumped onto his horse and was heading south toward Crooked Brook. Even the deputy who had been stationed out front was taken by surprise and just sat there on his horse, not sure of what to do.

  As all three mounted up to give chase, a bolt of energy shot out of the cottage doorway, striking Lorcan in the back as he crossed the bridge. Knocked off his horse by the
blast, he fell into the brook.

  Pádraig, the first one to the bridge, hopped off his horse and rushed down the bank. Lorcan floated there face down, unmoving. The young farrier waded into the frigid water and dragged him to shore just as Parnell and Liam joined him. Rolling the body on its back, all three grimaced.

  For Pádraig, he knew it would be a long time before he would ever feel comfortable again at an ox roast.

  “An unfortunate accident,” Master Wizard Odhran said from atop the stream bank, looking down at the three men with Lorcan’s charred body. “My outrage at the thought of someone in the Northern Shires attempting to kill the son of the High King, got the better of me, I’m ashamed to say. But, no matter. We’ve saved a length of rope. Consider justice as having been meted out, and meted out swiftly.” He turned around and stomped off back toward the cottage.

  “Help me carry him up,” Parnell said. “We’ll sling him across his horse and I’ll take him to Ráth Callainn. If anyone wants to claim the body, they can come there and get it.”

  Alderday - Wolf 52nd

  Luíne Shire

  It was during the first watch when Finbar and Pádraig had set out from the Citadel of Cruachan, the boy on Suibhne the middle-aged, sandy-yellow dun stallion, and his father on a bay mare, borrowed from the stables. Two sets of two bells each had sounded as they cleared the gatehouse, and a few flakes of snow had begun to fall from the storm clouds that had rolled in late that evening from the Sea of the Dawn.

  At the marketplace they had been joined by Brynmor, astride Cadwgawn’s blond stallion, Taran.

  From there, the threesome had galloped south across the northwest corner of Seanaid Shire in the Eastern Shires.

  * * *

  Just as they crossed the border into Luíne Shire, the snow began to worsen. Now big, puffy flakes fell continuously, covering the ground. The riders continued on, hugging the cliffs above Saltwater Bay.

  “There!” Brynmor called out, reining in his horse and pointing toward a grove of pines.