Badger's Moon sf-13

by Peter Tremayne

Fidelma glanced back at the youth.

  ‘Lesren was killed in the sunlight,’ she said pointedly.

  The youth blinked as if he had not considered this.

  Fidelma waited for a while and then said: ‘Yet you have reminded me. You knew all the girls who have been killed. Did they know each other well?’

  Creoda pursed his lips in a sullen expression. ‘They were great friends, the three of them. Thick as thieves and no secret safe with any of them but was shared between them. Or, at least, that is my opinion.’

  ‘And didn’t you also attend old Liag’s instruction on star lore?’

  Creoda inclined his head. ‘I did.’

  ‘And who else attended?’

  ‘Gabrán came with Beccnat, of course. They were always together and, in spite of Lesren’s disapproval, I heard that they were going to marry.’

  ‘Who else?’

  ‘Escrach. I liked Escrach very much…I had hoped that…’ He shrugged. ‘Anyway, Escrach tried to comfort Gabrán after he returned from the coast when it was found that Beccnat had been killed. Escrach was a kindly girl. She and Gabrán had been friends from childhood. Then, of course, Ballgel attended and sometimes Accobrán the tanist.’

  ‘Accobrán?’ Eadulf was surprised. ‘He is several years older than all of you.’

  Creoda grimaced.

  ‘I am not sure whether he was interested in star lore or in Beccnat,’ he said bitterly. ‘I know Gabrán did not like the way that the tanist sought her out at feastings to dance with him.’

  ‘Did she protest at his attentions?’ asked Fidelma.

  Creoda sighed and shook his head. ‘The tanist had an eye for girls. I think he and Gabrán quarrelled over Beccnat because he danced with her at some festival. But Accobrán was not the oldest to attend Liag’s classes. That smith — Gobnuid — he came along a few times.’

  ‘I am interested in what Liag taught in these sessions,’ Eadulf said. ‘He taught about the moon and the stars? What in particular?’

  ‘The old lore, the old names of the stars and what their courses meant, the moon and its powers…you must know the sort of thing? Perhaps if Liag hadn’t taught so much about the moon then the girls might still be alive.’

  Fidelma raised her eyebrows.

  ‘You ought to explain that,’ she suggested.

  ‘Liag was always going on about knowledge meaning power. There was no need to fear the darkness of the night for if you possessed the knowledge of the secret names of the moon then you could control her. The night held no secret for Liag and he taught that power came at night.’

  Eadulf frowned. ‘Power came at night?’

  ‘Had he taught that there were things to fear at night, Beccnat, Escrach and Ballgel might never had ventured forth,’ Creoda said. ‘Had they feared, then they might still have been alive.’

  ‘Where fear is, knowledge and safety are not,’ Fidelma reproved him.

  Creoda stared at her for a moment and then, almost pleading, asked: ‘Will you find out who has done this evil?’

  ‘I will find the person responsible,’ Fidelma replied gently. ‘On that account you should have no fear.’

  They remounted and retraced their route back to the main path.

  ‘Are we still seeking out Liag?’ asked Eadulf after they had ridden some way in silence.

  She nodded absently, apparently lost in thought. Eadulf did not interrupt her and they rode on without speaking. They came to the spot where they had seen the two boys panning for gold on the previous day. At first they thought the river and its banks were empty, but a loud plop caused them to glance to where a rock overhung the riverbank.

  A small boy was sitting on the rock and had obviously just thrown a stone into the water for he held another in his hand. At first they thought that it was one of the boys they had seen on the previous day. He was about twelve years old with fair hair and small limbs, and his clothing was not dissimilar to the other boys’. Some passing thought in the back of her mind caused Fidelma to ease her horse to a halt where the track passed close to the overhang. Eadulf looked at her in surprise and also halted.

  ‘A pleasant day, boy,’ she called.

  The boy stirred and seemed to notice them for the first time. His expression was morose.

  ‘The day may be pleasant but not so all that passes in it,’ he replied sullenly.

  Fidelma’s eyes widened a little and she chuckled in appreciation at the other’s words. ‘You sound like a philosopher, my boy.’

  He put down his stone and put his arms round his knees. ‘I have heard the old ones say it when things go wrong for them.’

  ‘And what is going wrong for you on this bright day?’

  ‘Gobnuid made fun of me.’

  ‘Gobnuid the smith?’ Fidelma frowned.

  The boy nodded. ‘I brought him something I thought valuable and he laughed at me.’

  ‘Is your name Síoda?’

  The boy scowled immediately.

  ‘What do you know of me?’ he demanded defensively. ‘Has Gobnuid been spreading the story-’

  ‘I heard from your friends that you had discovered some metal,’ Fidelma interrupted.

  ‘I thought it was gold,’ the boy affirmed, his mood swinging again to gloom. ‘Gobnuid said it wasn’t. He gave me a coin for it but I thought I would be really wealthy.’

  ‘Ad praesens ova cras pullis sunt meliora,’ said Eadulf.

  The boy glanced at him as if he were stupid. ‘He’s a foreigner, isn’t he?’ he asked Fidelma.

  Fidelma smiled.

  ‘It is a Latin saying that eggs today are better than chicken tomorrow,’ she explained. ‘In other words, a coin in your pocket is better than the promise of riches to come. It’s good advice.’

  The boy sniffed. ‘I was sure that the metal was gold.’

  ‘Did you find it in this river?’ Fidelma asked.

  ‘I did not.’

  ‘I saw two other boys panning for gold here yesterday. They seemed to believe that you had found the gold in the river here.’

  The boy laughed bitterly. ‘I told them that I had found it in the river when I thought it was valuable. I didn’t want them to find out where I had really discovered it. Now I don’t care. I am not going to be wealthy.’

  ‘So you did not find the metal in the river?’ Fidelma sought clarification.

  The boy shook his head. ‘I found it on the Thicket of Pigs. There are old mines there.’

  ‘The Thicket of Pigs?’ Fidelma’s brow creased a moment.

  The boy pointed across to the hill in front of them. ‘It is really the wooded area on top of that hill, but the entire hill is now called by that name.’ He confirmed the knowledge they already had.

  ‘Should you be in the mines at your age?’ demanded Eadulf. ‘Surely it is dangerous?’

  The boy regarded him with a frown.

  ‘There are many metal workings around here,’ he said. ‘My father worked in them when he was not much older than I am. They are abandoned now. We all play in them. The boys from the area, that is.’

  ‘So, you were playing in the mines on the Thicket of Pigs when you found the metal?’

  The boy sniffed.

  ‘I was not playing but exploring,’ he corrected grandly.

  Fidelma smiled briefly. ‘Even so, you should have a care. My companion is right. It is very dangerous to play…to explore disused mine workings.’

  The boy sniffed again and returned to his contemplation of the river. Fidelma bade him farewell but he did not bother to respond and so she and Eadulf rode off.

  ‘Why were you interested in where the boy picked up his fool’s gold?’ asked Eadulf, in a reproving tone, after they had ridden some distance. ‘We should be concentrating on other matters.’

  Fidelma glanced at him. ‘I am interested in the fact that the piece of metal which Gobnuid showed me, the piece he said the boy had found, and which he assured me was fool’s gold, was real gold. I have handled both metals before an
d know the difference. I tested the nugget at Gobnuid’s forge. It was gold.’

  Eadulf stared at her for a moment before replying. ‘You mean that this smith, Gobnuid, cheated the boy?’

  ‘Certainly he told him an untruth.’

  ‘Why would he do that? Just to make some money?’

  Fidelma did not reply for a moment. Then she said, ‘That is what I would like to find out. The girls met their deaths at the Thicket of Pigs. Could there be a connection?’

  A silence fell between them again before Eadulf finally said: ‘How long do you think we will remain here?’

  Fidelma’s eyebrows rose quickly. Her eyes widened. ‘Here? In these woods?’

  ‘No, at Rath Raithlen, away from Cashel.’

  ‘When we have been asked to investigate a matter such as this, do we not usually remain until we have a resolution, Eadulf?’ she asked, puzzled.

  ‘Before there was not a little one awaiting our return,’ he replied. ‘You have not mentioned Alchú once since we left Cashel.’

  The corners of Fidelma’s mouth suddenly tightened.

  ‘Because my son’s name is not always on my lips, it does not mean to say that he is not in my thoughts,’ she snapped. Her sudden anger was born of guilt that until that very morning Alchú had actually been entirely out of her thoughts.

  ‘We have not discussed our son since we left Cashel.’ Eadulf spoke softly but with emphasis on the change of personal pronoun.

  Fidelma flushed guiltly. She knew that Eadulf was justified but, in her guilt, she became more defensive.

  ‘Is there need to discuss him? He is safe at Cashel with Sárait. We have other more pressing business to attend to.’

  Eadulf’s jaw was determined. ‘He is barely a month old. You have already given him up to a wet nurse. I learnt enough about such matters, when I studied at the great medical school of Tuam Brecain, to know that allowing the baby to suckle at your breast returns the mother’s body to health and helps the love develop between the child and the mother instead of-’

  ‘This is not the time nor place to criticse my ability as a mother, Eadulf,’ she snapped.

  Eadulf controlled a spasm of anger. ‘I am not sure that I understand your moods, Fidelma. Ever since the child was born you have become a changed person.’

  ‘Are we not allowed to change, then?’ She knew well what he meant for she had been questioning her motivations of late. ‘Some people would be better off for a change!’ She was growing irritable and the irritation lay in the knowledge that she was in the wrong and Eadulf had every right to discuss the matter. ‘If you are so worried about the child, why don’t you ride back to Cashel and leave me here to resolve this problem?’

  Eadulf blinked a little and then he shrugged.

  ‘A verbis ad verbera,’ he sighed. The Latin quotation meant ‘from words to blows’ and described a discussion that spilled into anger.

  Fidelma opened her mouth to reply hotly and then she sighed. She leant forward from her horse and placed a hand on Eadulf’s arm.

  ‘Non sum qualis eram bonae sub regno Cinarea,’ she said contritely.

  After a moment’s reflection, Eadulf remembered the line from Horace, ‘I am not what I was under the reign of good Cynara.’ It was used to signify a change of character and behaviour. He made to reply but Fidelma raised a finger to her lips. Her expression was suddenly penitent.

  ‘Let us say no more at the present, Eadulf. Do not press me further until I am ready. Ever since Alchú came into this world I have felt strangely disturbed. It is as if my mood changes from moment to moment for no apparent reason.’

  Eadulf looked concerned. ‘You did not tell me this before?’

  She smiled thinly. ‘You should have noticed.’

  ‘I did but did not think that you were ill…’

  She shook her head. ‘It is not an illness of the body. When I consider my actions with reason, I perceive myself as if some irrational fever has overtaken me. Sometimes I fear for myself. Yet it is only when I think of the baby, Eadulf. My logic remains when I concentrate on other matters. This makes me fear even more.’

  Eadulf ran a hand through his hair as if to massage his mind into some line of positive thought. ‘I seem to recall…I was told that sometimes, after a birth, a mother can feel unhappy-’

  ‘I have resolved to see old Conchobhar when we return to Cashel,’ Fidelma intervened sharply. ‘Until then, let us speak about this no more.’

  Conchobhar was chief apothecary at Cashel as well as an astrologer.

  Eadulf realised that it was pointless to pursue the matter further. They rode on silently, entering the thickness of the woods where the trees grew close together down to the riverbank. They tried to keep the river to their left as they rode along but the track twisted and turned and once or twice they had to retrace their path to follow another route. But suddenly they emerged along a stretch which both Fidelma and Eadulf recognised.

  ‘There’s the hill,’ muttered Eadulf as they halted in a clear space by the river. ‘What was it that Accobrán called it?’

  ‘Cnoc a’ Bhile,’ replied Fidelma.

  ‘That’s it. Hill of the Sacred Tree.’ Eadulf sighed. ‘I think I have heard that such a tree relates to the habitation of the pagan gods.’

  ‘Bile was a sacred oak, according to the old ones, and when Danu, the divine water of heaven, flooded down it nurtured the oak and produced acorns and out of each acorn grew one of the ancient gods and goddesses. That is why the old deities are called the Tuatha de Danaan, the children of the goddess Danu.’

  Eadulf looked uncomfortable. ‘I thought Bile was a god of darkness and death from the underworld.’

  Fidelma shook her head. ‘Some of the New Faith who came here from Rome have viewed the old deity in that form. Our people still hold the great tree sacred and many of our chieftains are inaugurated under its branches, for it was symbolic of our kings, a place of origin of all the people. It is sacrilege to cut a sacred tree although the chief or king’s rod of office might be cut and carved from a branch of the tree to give him power. A few centuries ago the High King carried such a wand of office cut from a sacred ash tree. The tree was called Bile Dathí and it was classed as one of the six wondrous trees of Ireland.’

  Eadulf frowned. ‘I thought that you said Bile was an oak tree?’

  ‘Language changes. Now any tree regarded as sacred is called by that name. Bile has also long been seen as a divine personification, a god who the ancients belived ferried souls along the sacred rivers, or by sea, to the Otherworld.’

  Eadulf felt uncomfortable. He had grown to manhood before he had converted to the New Faith, and was still trying to deny his pagan past. Fidelma seemed more comfortable in the ancient lore of her people even though the people of Éireann had accepted Christianity several centuries before. But now a memory stirred.

  ‘I passed through Londinium once,’ he said reflectively. ‘It is mainly deserted these days but once it was a thriving Roman city.’

  ‘I have heard of it,’ Fidelma responded gravely.

  ‘The Welisc, who called themselves Britons, once dwelt there and continued to do so even when Rome ruled the city.’

  Fidelma nodded, frowning slightly as she wondered what Eadulf was getting at.

  ‘I know the Welisc shared many ancient gods and goddesses with the Irish.’

  ‘This is true. What is your point?’

  ‘Near where I was staying was an ancient gate called Bile’s Gate which opened onto the great river Tamesis which flows past the city. An old man told me that in ancient times, when people died, their heads were severed from their bodies and taken through the gate and ferried downriver. Not far away a confluence called Welisc Brook emptied into the Tamesis and here the heads were thrown into the river with various items like swords, shields and so on. A terrible pagan custom.’

  Fidelma smiled and nodded. ‘Not so terrible. The ancients believed that the soul dwelt in the head and to honour the dead the
y often removed the heads — which freed the souls — and deposited them in their most sacred places. It is fascinating that there is such a reminder of the ancient custom in the heart of what is now the land of the Angles and Saxons.’

  Eadulf shook his head sadly.

  ‘Semel insanivimus omnes,’ he said. ‘We have all been mad once. I do not know whether people should be reminded of such things. It is a hard enough job to convert them to the true Faith without referring to the old one. We learnt that last year, didn’t we?’

  Eadulf was obviously thinking of how many of the Saxon kingdoms had recently converted back to the old gods of the forefathers. Sigehere, king of the East Saxons, on the very borders of Eadulf’s own country of the East Angles, had reopened the pagan temples after the plague of two years before.

  ‘You cannot build the future by ignoring the past or trying to destroy past knowledge. But we all make such mistakes. I view with sadness the account by the Bishop Benignus, who became the successor of the Blessed Patrick at Armagh, when he wrote that Patrick burnt one hundred and eighty books of the Druids in his attempts to convert the people to the New Faith. The destruction of knowledge, any knowledge, does not provide a sure foundation for the future.’

  ‘You surely cannot disapprove of the destruction of the pagan faith when you are sworn to proselytise for the New Faith?’ Eadulf was aghast.

  ‘What I am saying is that mankind’s folly should be destroyed by laughter, not by creating martyrs. That is the tradition of our satirists and why our laws have strong punishments for those who satirise people without justification. Castigat ridendo mores.’

  Eadulf pondered.

  ‘They correct customs by laughing at them?’ he hazarded.

  Fidelma smiled. ‘In other words, laughter will succeed where threats, punishments and pious lectures will not.’

  Eadulf sighed. ‘It is an interesting philosophy. I am sure there is an argument against it.’

  ‘Tell me, when you have discovered it. In the meantime, let us continue with our task.’

  They moved their horses on at a slow walking pace towards the tree-covered hill where they had previously met Liag.

  ‘We’d better raise a shout,’ muttered Eadulf, glancing around nervously. ‘He might try to avoid us.’