Bloodmoon

by Peter Tremayne

  ‘River transport?’ queried Eadulf.

  ‘Just east of here is the River of Noise. It flows eastward until it comes to the Great River, north of Eochaill, the Hill of the Yew Wood.’

  Fidelma’s jaw had tightened. ‘How did you know this courier was from Cenn Fáelad?’

  ‘He bore a royal seal and as soon as Grella saw him, she readily identified him and agreed to go with him.’

  Fidelma closed her eyes for a moment. ‘Grella saw the courier and was happy to go with him? The seal that he presented … was it like this?’ She reached into her comb bag and took out one of the gold seals she had.

  Éladach glanced at it with a frown. The metal figure was a tall woman with a crown, holding on her right shoulder a solar wheel. Eadulf shivered slightly: he associated such figures and symbols with the pagan faith.

  ‘That’s it. It’s the northern sun goddess Étain, the symbol of the Síl nÁedo Sláine …’

  ‘But that’s not the symbol of the Uí Néill but a branch of the family. Was the courier a tall man, dressed in black religious robes and wearing a cowl?’

  Éladach looked intrigued. ‘He was. But Grella knew him, and greeted him as a friend. He introduced himself as Fínsnechta, an Uí Néill prince.’

  ‘Fínsnechta! I think I can now tell you why Áed was found slaughtered near here. He seized this seal from his killer. We found it clutched in his dead hand. This is not the seal of Cenn Fáelad but the seal of his cousin, the leader of the conspirators who intend to overthrow him.’

  There was a silence, and then Éladach glanced at Petrán.

  ‘Take your horse and ride for the jetty on the River of Noise. Enquire whether Grella and that tall religieux in black have gone there; ask whether they took a boat and, if it is known, in what direction they are heading. Take a couple of men with you and send them on to see if there is any sign of the Saxon ship waiting along the coast.’

  ‘I shall, lord,’ the man said at once.

  ‘Come back as soon as you can with the news.’

  Petrán hesitated and said: ‘I was just going to attend to the girl, lord. She seems to be getting worse.’

  Éladach hesitated and an expression of irritation crossed his face. Then he relaxed. ‘You go,’ he said. ‘I will have her seen to by Pilib.’

  Petrán raised a hand in salute and was gone.

  Eadulf looked quickly at Éladach. ‘Did he say that you have someone here who is ill?’

  ‘Last night a young girl came to our gates in a state of collapse. She seems to have taken a fever. She arrived looking as if she had been ill used and soaked through.’

  ‘Ill used?’

  ‘She had rope burns on her wrists and she seemed to have been hit. We have given her a warm bed.’

  ‘When did she arrive?’ Eadulf asked.

  ‘We found her at the gates not long after the tall religieux left with the lady Grella.’

  Eadulf rose immediately. ‘If you take me to her, I shall see how I can help.’

  Éladach looked surprised. ‘What could you do?’ he asked doubtfully.

  ‘Eadulf studied the healing arts at the great academy of Tuaim Brecain,’ explained Fidelma.

  The Uí Liatháin prince looked impressed, so impressed that Eadulf felt obliged to explain: ‘I did not finish the full course, for I then decided to make the journey to Rome to hear at first hand what there was to be learnt there.’

  ‘Little enough, I fear,’ Éladach gave a twisted smile. ‘Usually everything one needs to know can be found where you are without making an exhausting pilgrimage. I know, for I have journeyed to many far lands in the east. Lands beyond Rome to Byzantium and even across the Southern Sea to the great city of Alexandria, whose learning was so feared that the great library there was burnt.’

  ‘Well, I have some knowledge,’ Eadulf said. ‘We have to wait for the return of your man, Petrán. So let us not neglect the girl any further. If I can help, I will willingly do so.’

  ‘She has been put in a corner of what we call our guest house, which I am afraid you must all share tonight as we have no other accommodation,’ Éladach explained.

  ‘That depends on what news Petrán can bring us,’ Fidelma said. ‘Then help yourself to refreshment and I will take Eadulf to the girl.’ Éladach motioned Eadulf to follow him. He led Eadulf out of the wooden building and turned towards a fair-sized log cabin. He went up a short flight of wooden steps, opened the door softly and called:

  ‘It is Éladach with someone trained in the healing arts, young lady. Can we enter?’

  At the term ‘lady’, Eadulf registered that meant Éladach had identified the girl as being of rank.

  There was a murmur in reply and Éladach seemed to take this as an affirmative because he led the way further into the dark interior. A fire was glowing at one end of the cabin, its red glow sending dancing shadows through the room, which was large with several beds in it. Some religious icons were arranged as decorations. The occasional sparkle of the reflecting fire showed that they were of silver. Even in such subdued light, Eadulf could see a figure stretched on a wooden bed in the corner.

  A girl’s voice seemed to be mumbling incoherently as she twisted and turned with sweat on her face and saturating her clothes. Eadulf listened carefully and then realised it was just ‘fever talk’, the product of an almost unconscious mind.

  ‘I will light a candle for you,’ volunteered Éladach. The winter day had suddenly grown very dark, because of the increasing bunching of the clouds by the wind rather than the hastening of sundown. Eadulf saw Éladach take up something from a table and go to the fire and, a moment later, he came back with a lighted taper in his hand. He turned and took up a candle that was on the table and lit it. Then he turned for the bed and came to stand at Eadulf’s shoulder, raising the candle so that they could see its occupant.

  The girl was obviously in a fever, for her face was deathly pale and drenched in sweat. Her head turned this way and that, and she moaned slightly. It was clear that she was in no condition to articulate anything. Yet she continued muttering, almost sobbing.

  Eadulf reached forward and stretched out a hand to her forehead. Whether she saw his hand or felt it, she seemed to shy away as he touched her.

  Her forehead was burning and wet.

  ‘It’s all right,’ he said softly to the girl. ‘I am here to help you.’ He glanced at Éladach. ‘Bring the light a little closer so that I can see her properly. It casts too many shadows where you are holding it. I think she has a fever but I don’t think …’

  He halted abruptly as Éladach brought his candle close to the girl’s face. Eadulf had recognised her immediately.

  He uttered an exclamation of surprise and then turned and issued a peremptory order in a tone that Éladach found unexpected. ‘You may leave me to minister to her. Would you ask Fidelma to come here?’

  When Fidelma entered, Eadulf turned to her immediately.

  ‘I think you had better look closely at this girl,’ he said.

  She moved forward, peered down at the pale face lying on the bed and caught her breath.

  ‘It’s Cairenn.’

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  ‘The girl must have escaped from her abductors,’ confirmed Eadulf.

  ‘What is wrong with her?’ asked Fidelma, leaning over the shaking, fever-ridden form.

  ‘A malaise brought on by exhaustion, a drenching in a river or some other water and who knows what else?’ he replied grimly. ‘She must have had a bad time with her captors and then probably escaped from them, or they left her to die.’

  ‘Can you do anything for her?’

  ‘I can do only my best. At least I still have my les and I believe I have enough herbs that will help. The main thing is for this fever to break. Fever is often nature’s way of burning up impurities in the body. But sometimes it needs help to break.’

  Fidelma was torn between concern for the girl’s health and the need to access her knowledge. But she accepted
Eadulf’s priority.

  ‘I’ll leave you to do what you can. It will be best not to identify her to Éladach until we are certain of all our facts. I feel that she might give us the final link in this mystery.’

  ‘Hopefully the fever should break tonight,’ Eadulf said. ‘Perhaps by tomorrow she will be able to tell us her story.’

  Fidelma turned to the door as it opened and Pilib entered.

  ‘Prince Éladach told me to come here to see if I can be of service to Brother Eadulf,’ he announced. ‘I am not skilled in the healing arts but, when our catha is on the march, I usually attend to wounds if they are not grievous.’

  Eadulf accepted the young man’s help and so Fidelma left them. Under Eadulf’s instruction, the young man fetched fresh water and a vessel in which to heat it. He put the cauldron on the fire while Eadulf rummaged in his medical bag. He realised that he did not have the essential herb he wanted and was about to give way to annoyance when a thought struck him. He turned to the young man.

  ‘Do you harvest the elderberries from the bushes which surround these buildings?’

  ‘We do, but it is months since the ripening season.’

  Eadulf was about to snap that he knew that but forced himself to smile. ‘I presume you dry and store the berries, flowers and some bark for later use?’ he asked patiently.

  Pilib’s eyes lit up and he nodded eagerly. ‘We do.’

  ‘Then fetch some here.’ He had hardly given the order when the young man went scurrying away.

  Eadulf took from his les a small bag of a white crystal-like substance, a bit like the salt extracted and dried from the sea. He had acquired it from a travelling physician from the Uí Fidgenti country. He emptied the contents into the remaining water, watching it dissolve in a moment. He also took from the les a bag of dried nettle roots and leaves and a bag of dried white willow leaves and buds with some pieces of its bark.

  Pilib returned, carrying the dried elderberries in a large bag.

  ‘We only need a handful,’ Eadulf said as the bag was held out enthusiastically to him. He took the amount he required and put them in the now-bubbling cauldron, together with a handful of the nettle mixture.

  ‘We must wait a while,’ he told the curious young man. ‘Unless we have another vessel to boil the willow in, we will have to leave that until we have finished with this mixture.’

  Finally, Eadulf turned to the young girl in the bed. She was semi-conscious, twisting and turning in her fever. At times it seemed her eyes were open and observing them, at others it was clear she was deep in the fever, with sweat pouring from her brow.

  Eadulf had started to bathe her face, neck and shoulders with the sodium water and a linen cloth. She twisted and moaned a little as the cold water touched her skin. Eadulf glanced back to the fire and saw the mixture was boiling, so he ordered the boy to remove it and pour it out to cool in a drinking vessel. The boy looked at him quizzically.

  ‘By boiling the herbs in the water,’ Eadulf explained, ‘they become what is called macerated, softened, and that produces a liquid which can then be drunk. That is the healing liquid.’

  Meanwhile he continued to bathe the girl with the sodium solution.

  ‘When she relaxes a little we will give her a drink of the elderberry mixture.’

  He bent over the girl and checked her pulse.

  ‘She is coming up to the point where the fever will break,’ he observed, touching her forehead,

  The girl’s eyelids fluttered for a moment. Eadulf realised that she was beginning to whisper in her delirium. He bent closer.

  ‘All wrong …’ The words came distinctly. ‘It was all wrong.’

  Eadulf sat on the edge of the cot and waved to the boy to bring over the herbal infusion he had made. He helped the girl to take a small sip, holding her head.

  She moved restlessly, still mouthing words almost unconsciously.

  ‘Wrong … betray … betrayed …’

  Eadulf dabbed at her forehead with the cold damp linen cloth. Then he helped her to another few sips of the infusion.

  ‘You are safe now, Cairenn,’ he said gently. ‘You are among friends.’

  ‘No, friends betrayed … Wrong … it wasn’t them … Wrong …’

  Eadulf frowned. He doubted the girl was even listening but something prompted him to try to communicate.

  ‘Who was wrong, Cairenn?’ he asked.

  ‘Wasn’t them …’ muttered the girl. ‘Betrayed.’

  Eadulf sighed and allowed her more sips of the herbal tea. Then he laid her head back on the pillow. He glanced up at the curious Pilib.

  ‘It’s all right. I’ll stay here a while and attend to her. You can leave us.’

  The young man left, reluctantly, and Eadulf turned back to the girl.

  ‘I wonder what you are trying to say,’ he said softly. ‘I wonder what was wrong and who betrayed whom?’

  He stood up and went to check the infusion of the willow bark, roots and leaves, which had mulched nicely into a strong tea. He poured some into a receptacle and took it to the girl. Holding her head again, he made her swallow as much of it as was possible. Then he bathed her face and neck once more. Some time later, the girl seemed to drift off into a deep sleep. By then, Eadulf’s eyelids were drooping and he was just about to give way to tiredness when Fidelma entered quietly.

  ‘How is she?’ she whispered.

  Eadulf blinked and stirred himself. ‘The fever has broken and I think she is sleeping naturally now. If she sleeps without interruption, she should be better in the morning.’

  Fidelma regarded him with approval. ‘You should get some rest now.’

  Eadulf shook his head. ‘I think I should remain here, just in case. I would have liked her to drink more of the willow infusion …’ He paused. ‘Is there any news from the messenger Éladach sent to … what was it called … the River of Noise?’

  Fidelma shook her head. ‘Darkness has already come down. It is so early this time of year. Anyway, a wind has risen and started to blow away the clouds, so it will be a fine night.’

  ‘If you can stay here a while, I could do with some fresh air, even the air of a winter evening.’

  ‘I’ll look after her. Anyway, I understand that this is Éladach’s guests’ accommodation, so we’ll all be staying here tonight. At least there is a good fire and several beds.’

  Eadulf went out and stood on the wooden steps, breathing deeply of the chill evening air. It was true what Fidelma had said. The quickening breeze from the west had dispelled the clouds and the sky was a dark blue canopy speckled with bright silver dots. The moon hung large and low in the sky but it had a curious red glow to it. Eadulf had seen the phenomenon often in his life and it always made him uneasy. He knew that before the adoption of the New Faith, the ancients had always described it as a ‘blood moon’ and predicted some historic happening, while the New Faith had converted it into a terrible act by God against those who had offended Him. He shivered slightly.

  A figure emerged from the darkness carrying some bags. It was Enda. He saw Eadulf gazing up at the night sky and sighed deeply.

  ‘Ésca cró-deirg,’ he remarked.

  ‘What?’ demanded Eadulf.

  ‘The blood-red moon.’ Enda nodded towards the orb. ‘It is a symbol that something is about to happen, that something important is about to be resolved.’

  ‘So long as it portends nothing terrible,’ Eadulf replied worriedly.

  ‘I think we have had our fair share of terrible happenings in the last few days. Things must only get better.’ Eadulf could almost see Enda smiling in the darkness. ‘Is this where we are to sleep?’

  At Eadulf’s confirmation, Enda began to mount the wooden steps to the cabin.

  ‘Try not to disturb the girl,’ cautioned Eadulf.

  ‘I am told she is Cairenn. Is her condition bad?’

  ‘Bad enough,’ Eadulf answered. ‘But she should be in a deep sleep now.’ Then, realising what might concern a non-m
edical mind, he added, ‘There is nothing to catch from her.’

  However, when the young warrior entered, with Eadulf following him, he took the baggage to a bed on the far side of the guests’ hostel.

  ‘Do you want me to look after her for the first part of the night?’ Fidelma asked as Eadulf came to look at the girl.

  Eadulf shook his head. ‘Best if you and Enda get some sleep. When I am sure she is resting comfortably, I will sleep as well.’

  It was still dark when the girl stirred, opened her eyes and clearly uttered the word: ‘Water.’

  Eadulf, half dozing, jerked awake. It took a few seconds before he responded to the request. He allowed her to swallow a few mouthfuls and then she lay back, blinking a little.

  ‘I feel weak,’ she said.

  ‘You had a little fever,’ he responded.

  She frowned at him in the flickering half-light of the nearly exhausted candle.

  ‘I know you.’

  Eadulf smiled. ‘I am Eadulf of Seaxmund’s Ham.’

  The girl’s eyes widened little. ‘You are the husband to Fidelma of Cashel. Where is she?’ The girl was agitated. ‘Is she safe?’

  ‘Safe and well,’ he replied. ‘She is sleeping in that bed over there.’

  ‘So she escaped from Tialláin?’

  ‘Tialláin is dead. He was killed by the Saxon, Aescwine. You escaped, remember? We came to the place where you said you would meet us. But you had gone with some warriors, unwillingly by all accounts.’

  ‘Glaisne’s men. They were to take me to him, but then they found he had been killed and their plot discovered … They took their vengeance out on me and then abandoned me to death. They … they …’

  Eadulf held up a pacifying hand. ‘You can tell us in the morning, when you have rested more. Don’t waste strength now. Suffice to say, you are safe. There is nothing to fear now.’

  ‘But I must tell you now. All is not as it seems. The High King is about to be betrayed, about to be assassinated. We must warn him … tell him to seek his enemy in the last place he was expecting betrayal. I was the distraction, I was expendable.’

  Eadulf patted her hand soothingly. ‘Yes, yes. Try not to think about it for the moment. You are safe now. Just rest and get well. The High King will be warned.’