Master of Souls sf-16

by Peter Tremayne

  As they had seen, the great oak gates, reinforced by iron, hung open, one at an odd angle. There were some skeletons at the gate. They had been Uaman’s warriors, cut down by Gorman, their flesh picked clean by the scavenging birds that circled this shoreline. Eadulf had a curious feeling of satisfaction when he saw Conri and his two warriors loose and remove their swords from their sheaths and peer nervously around. At least he was not the only one who nursed a strange fear of this place.

  They passed through the gates into the main courtyard.

  ‘Let us search quickly and depart,’ muttered Conri, glancing uneasily about him.

  Fidelma smiled softly, understanding his feelings but not, apparently, sharing them.

  ‘Eadulf, where is the best place to start looking?’ she asked.

  Eadulf cleared his throat nervously.

  ‘There is a door through there that leads to the cells where Basil Nestorios and I were held. It also gives access to Uaman’s chambers.’

  ‘Take me there. Conri, you and your men can search these outbuildings.’ She turned and made for the door that Eadulf had indicated without waiting for an acknowledgement.

  The living chambers of the fortress were certainly deserted and had been ransacked of furniture. They must have been picked bare of goods when the local villagers, long dominated by Uaman, had attacked the place. It was not long before they all met up again in the courtyard, certain now there was no one else in the ruined fortress. However, Conri was standing with some excitement showing on his face.

  ‘Come and look at this, lady,’ he invited, waving his sword towards the doors of what appeared to be storerooms. ‘What do you make of this?’

  The storerooms seemed full of cases and barrels.

  Fidelma went to them and examined them quickly.

  ‘These cases have been immersed in the sea,’ she observed. ‘It looks as though someone has rescued them from the remains of the shipwreck.’ Fidelma noticed the watermarks on the boxes and barrels. ‘Mostly oil and wine from Gaul, but look at these.’

  They came forward and peered over her shoulder. One of the boxes had been prised open.

  ‘Gold!’ exclaimed Eadulf.

  ‘Gold, indeed, and not our native gold because it is too pale,’ added Conri. ‘Our gold has a reddish tinge to it.’

  Fidelma stood up and regarded the stored goods, head on one side. ‘Come,’ she finally said. ‘Let us go outside and see if there is anything else this island can reveal.’

  They left the circular fortress, walking along the grassy knoll. The low tide revealed long stretches of sandy pebbled beaches but at the southern end there were rocks that stretched out under the water. They had no difficulty in spotting the rotting timbers of the main bulk of a wreck still protruding from the water. It was clearly a merchantman but it had been dashed so hard against the rocks that its masts were broken and timbers smashed. Only its stern seemed intact, and even that was fast decaying in the rough winter seas.

  Then the smell caught at their nostrils. Among the prickly bushes that lined the beaches lay more decomposing bodies. They had been there for some time and the carrion had been feasting. Trying to control her look of distaste, Fidelma approached one of them. Her eyes took in the remnants of clothing.

  ‘Seamen, foreign seamen,’ she muttered. ‘I have seen that style of clothing somewhere.’

  It was Eadulf who supplied the answer.

  ‘When I was returning from Rome, I took passage on a Gaulish merchant ship, and they wore a similar style of clothing.’

  ‘Gaulish? Mugron identified the boot that was found as that of a Gaulish seaman. That makes sense.’

  ‘Those poor wretches, drowning so near to land,’ muttered Conri.

  ‘Look at this.’ Fidelma pointed to one of the corpses.

  Holding a hand over his mouth to avoid the stench, Conri, with Eadulf at his shoulder, did so.

  ‘This man did not drown. He has a broken sword blade snapped off between his ribs.’

  Eadulf was aghast.

  ‘You mean these men made it ashore and were cut down?’

  ‘The man who killed this sailor thrust his sword in but it must have been ill tempered, for when he tried to withdraw the blade it broke,’ Fidelma explained. ‘Thus the tip of the blade remains in the rotting flesh as a mute testimony to the crime.’

  Eadulf pointed to another corpse which lay on its back.

  ‘The skull of this one seems smashed. It might have been done in the wreck or against the rocks…’

  ‘Then how did the man manage to crawl up here so far above the waterline?’ queried Fidelma. She slowly shook her head. ‘We are seeing nothing but plain and gruesome murder. Either that ship was deliberately wrecked or people stood on this shore waiting for the survivors and killed them.’

  The usually silent warrior, Socht, had been looking at the channel between the tip of the island and the southern shore.

  ‘It would take a bad seaman and bad luck to run ashore here even in darkness, lady,’ he muttered.

  ‘Could it be that the Abbess Faife and her companions were passing here when this deed occurred? They saw this crime and had to be silenced?’ Conri speculated.

  ‘If so, then there are matters that puzzle me,’ said Eadulf.

  They turned to him with expressions of curiosity.

  ‘Well, if it was the intention to keep this matter a secret, why leave Abbess Faife so close to the scene, along the roadside where Mugron found her a short time later? Why have these bodies been left strewn on this island and floating in the waters around it? Why leave the booty in the fortress with gates and doors wide open so that anyone could — even as we died-enter and discover it?’

  ‘The questions are pertinent,’ agreed Fidelma.

  ‘But are there answers to them?’ demanded Conri.

  ‘It shows that whoever did this thing is supremely confident,’ Eadulf concluded. ‘That they fear no one in this area.’

  No one commented and so Eadulf continued.

  ‘There was only one person who had such power and overweening belief in himself…’ Eadulf paused and then shrugged. ‘But I saw him die. Now there is only one undisputed chief of this land.’

  ‘Slebene!’ muttered Conri.

  ‘Is there any other?’ Eadulf challenged.

  ‘Well,’ agreed Conri, ‘only the wronged dead are allowed to come back from the Otherworld on the night of the feast of Samhain to wreak vengeance on the living of this world. As Uaman was not wronged when he perished here, though he wronged many himself, he does not qualify to return on the feast of Samhain. So I agree with Eadulf, we must beware of Slebene.’

  Fidelma peered around the deserted island and a cold wind caught at her, causing her to shiver slightly.

  ‘There seems much wrong in this land of the Corco Duibhne. Yet before we can accuse Slebene we must gather proof against him.’

  Eadulf was unhappy that Fidelma did not support his view that it was more than apparent that Slebene was to blame.

  ‘There can be no other explanation,’ he said determinedly.

  ‘Perhaps not, but I am only interested in what can be argued before the Brehons.’ Conri was about to speak when Fidelma held up her hand. ‘We will speak of this no more until we can argue fact and not speculation.’

  Another gust of cold air hit them and Eadulf glanced at the darkening, grey sea with its choppy waves. The hour was growing late.

  ‘The tide is on the turn,’ he said. ‘I think we should go back across the sands to the mainland before we are cut off for the night.’

  ‘What of the goods in the storeroom? What of the gold?’ demanded Conri.

  ‘We must leave it. Our first consideration is to find the missing women,’ snapped Fidelma. ‘We can deal with that matter later.’

  The journey back was an easier one as they had their own footsteps in the sand to guide them safely over the sand dunes to the firm shore. The sky was darkening when they left the island and they could h
ear the sibilant whispering of the sea as the oncoming tide gathered for its onslaught across the sand.

  ‘We have a short time before darkness. Let me see where the body of the abbess was found.’

  They collected their horses and Conri led them a short distance along the road and then up through some trees towards the dark shape of a conical stone hut.

  ‘Mugron found her outside the coirceogach and then dragged the body behind it, packing it with snow to preserve it until he reached Ard Fhearta to alert us.’

  Fidelma dismounted and looked about. She realised there would be little to find. Too long had passed and too many people had been here. Also, there had been several falls of snow since the incident, obscuring everything. But the hope of discovering some significant clue was not the reason for her coming. She merely needed to see and feel the atmosphere of the place where the deed was done as it helped her to recreate it in her mind. She looked around. They were out of sight of the island, being round a bend in the road, and the road itself was a short distance away below them.

  Fidelma bent down and entered the stone hut. There were traces of a travellers’ fire, some discarded pottery items and a few pieces of rag… no, not rags, but clothing. She looked carefully at one of them. It turned out to be a leather jerkin, a seaman’s jerkin, of the style she had seen on the decomposing corpses on the island. Nearby was the boot — a coisbert.

  She emerged from the coirceogach and held out the items to Conri.

  ‘I presume that this is the boot and clothing that Mugron showed you?’

  Conri gave an affirmative gesture.

  ‘They may mean nothing,’ she said, replacing them in the hut. ‘There are many ways that the clothing could have come here. There is also a chance someone took it from one of the corpses and brought it here. Perhaps one of the people who killed Faife could have been carrying it or even wearing it. There are lots of possibilities.’

  Conri was looking at the sky with impatience.

  ‘I do not think that we should spend any more time here. We need to find a place to pass the night,’ he said. ‘It is going to be a cold one and I do not fancy the idea of sleeping out under the trees.’

  ‘I told you that there was a village up the mountainside just here. We should have no trouble in finding a sheltered place. It was people from it who destroyed Uaman’s fortress once they learnt they were free from his thrall.’

  ‘Let us hope that they are more hospitable these days,’ the warlord muttered.

  ‘People’s actions in normal circumstances cannot be judged by their actions in extreme conditions,’ replied Eadulf. ‘I am sure we will find hospitality there.’

  ‘Then lead on, Eadulf,’ Fidelma instructed. ‘It has been a tiring day.’

  They remounted and Eadulf led the way up the track in the direction he knew the village lay. It was not far up the hillside, on the easy slopes just before the trees stopped and the great bald, rocky hills began to climb into the towering Sliabh Mis mountains. Eadulf swung round a bend on the track and came abruptly into what was the centre of the village. There was a blacksmith’s workshop in its usual position at the end of the settlement and a series of buildings, both stone and wooden structures, spread either side of the track. It was not quite dark yet and Eadulf was surprised by the utter stillness of the place. It seemed deserted.

  ‘Are you sure this is the place, Eadulf?’ Fidelma found herself whispering as they halted.

  ‘I am sure.’

  He leant forward in his saddle and gave forth a loud shout.

  ‘Hoigh! Hoigh!’

  There was a sudden fluttering of alarmed birds rising into the air but when their angry squawks died away no one had appeared or answered the call.

  As an automatic reaction, Conri’s two warriors had their swords unsheathed and ready as they examined their surroundings.

  ‘Your villagers seem to have deserted this place,’ commented Conri unnecessarily.

  Eadulf rode forward between the houses, peering in at half-open doorways. It was true. It seemed that the entire village had been deserted, and certainly fairly recently judging by the condition of the buildings and what he could see of their interiors.

  Fidelma was resigned.

  ‘Well, if we cannot find hospitality we can, at least, have a roof over our heads this night,’ she said philosophically.

  Eadulf pointed to a building.

  ‘That looks suitable for accommodation. There is even a well beside it.’

  They dismounted and Socht and his companion took charge of the

  ‘From the dust, this place cannot have been deserted for more than a week or two,’ Fidelma commented. ‘I wonder why the people decided to leave?’

  A moment later the second warrior returned. He wore a grin on his face. He said nothing but had his bow in one hand and held up two rabbits in the other.

  Conri smiled appreciatively.

  ‘Well, we won’t starve tonight. And we have water at hand and there is still corma in my saddle bag to keep out the winter’s chill.’

  At a nod from Conri, the warrior went outside to skin and gut the animals ready for cooking while the warlord constructed a spit that could be turned over the fire he had made.

  It was while they were seated in the main room of the deserted building in front of the fire, watching the sizzling carcasses of the rabbits being turned over it, that they all heard a slight, muffled sound.

  It was a soft thump. The noise seemed to come from under the very floor on which they sat. Yet the floor appeared to be a hardened earth surface.

  Conri glanced at the others and placed a finger to his lips. His brows were drawn together. He began to examine the floor without moving from his seat. Then he silently pointed. There was a spot where dried rushes had been strewn and they saw a metal ring almost buried in the straw.

  Quietly, quickly, Conri rose and moved to it. His two warrior companions had drawn their swords ready. The warlord bent down, gripped the metal ring quietly, paused only a moment and then pulled it abruptly upwards. A small trapdoor came away and Conri peered down.

  ‘Come out of that!’ he shouted in a thunderous bellow.

  A moment later a small head and shoulders emerged.

  A frightened fair-haired boy, freckle-faced, terror in the blue eyes that peered round at the company. His hair was matted and his face smudged with dirt.

  ‘It’s a boy!’ cried Conri in surprise, then he bent with one hand and hauled the child bodily up into the room. The lad could have been no uaimh talun, an underground chamber for storing food.’

  It was clear that the boy was still very frightened.

  Fidelma smiled encouragingly at him.

  ‘Come here, child,’ she instructed. ‘Come, tell me your name.’

  The boy shuffled forward a step.

  ‘I am Iobcar, son of Starn the blacksmith,’ he said hesitantly yet with a curious dignity.

  ‘Well,’ Fidelma’s smile widened at the child’s tone, ‘well, Iobcar son of Starn the blacksmith, I am Fidelma of Cashel. Tell me what you were doing in that souterrain?’

  ‘Hiding,’ the boy said simply.

  ‘From whom?’

  ‘From you,’ the boy replied without guile, causing some merriment from the two warriors.

  ‘Tell us, Iobcar son of Starn the blacksmith,’ invited Fidelma, ‘why would you be hiding from us?’

  ‘I thought you were the bad people.’

  ‘The bad people?’

  ‘The people of Uaman the Leper.’

  Eadulf frowned in irritation.

  ‘Uaman the Leper is long dead, boy,’ he snapped and received a look of rebuke from Fidelma for his manner.

  ‘My father said that he was so bad that the Otherworld would not have him and he had to return to this one.’

  Fidelma tried to hide her chuckle of amusement.

  ‘So your father Starn is a philosopher?’ observed Eadulf sarcastically. The boy shook his head, taking the question seriously.


  ‘He is a blacksmith,’ he protested. ‘I have told you as much.’

  ‘Very well, Iobcar,’ intervened Fidelma. ‘But tell us where the people of this village have gone and why.’

  The boy examined her thoughtfully.

  ‘I cannot tell you where they have gone, for that is a secret,’ he said after some hesitation. ‘But the reason why is because they were fearful that Uaman would punish them now that he has returned from the Otherworld.’

  Eadulf was about to interrupt to correct the boy again but Fidelma gave him a warning glance. He held his peace.

  ‘So when was this? When did they leave?’

  ‘Last week.’

  ‘And why were you left here?’

  ‘I was not. I returned here to find something that I had left behind.’ He glanced nervously over his shoulder at the underground storage space. Seeing the movement, Conri bent down again and with a grunt of triumph he came up with a small bow, not large but fit enough for use by the boy. The boy’s face was immediately troubled but Fidelma again smiled encouragement.

  ‘We do not want your bow, Iobcar,’ she said, motioning Conri to give it to the boy. ‘Nor do we want you to betray the secret of where your people have gone. We would like to know more details about why they felt forced to evacuate this place.’

  The boy took his bow and stood for a moment staring at Fidelma as if trying to read her mind.

  ‘My father used to say that Uaman was the great curse of our people when he dwelt below on the island. His men would often raid our village for sheep and goats and… well, other things. Then perhaps two moons ago it was reported that he was dead and the villagers went down to the island and burnt his fortress and took back what was theirs.’

  They waited patiently while the boy paused again, as if to gather his thoughts.

  ‘Not long ago Uaman’s men appeared in our village again. They demanded tribute on behalf of the master. The village elders gave them what they could. One day soon afterwards my father went to the island and came back and said these men had wrecked a ship there. The elders met and decided the village must move beyond the mountains. We all left about seven days ago to find a new village. Yesterday I found I had forgotten my bow and so today I came in search of it. I had just found it when I heard you calling and thinking you to be Uaman’s people I hid myself in the uaimh talun. But you found me.’