‘In truth, lady, I am trained in warfare and the command of men in battle. I can track men as well as animals. But unless they leave tracks for me to follow, I cannot find them.’
‘There are tracks from the scene of the murders of the merchants,’ Eadulf pointed out. ‘Have you examined them?’
‘I sent Boric, my best tracker, who is also my second-in-command, to examine the spot and retrieve the bodies,’ Bleidbara replied. ‘He is not back yet. But the sky was darkening and perhaps it was too late to see anything – there would be nothing to follow. Nonetheless, we will await his report. We are anxious to meet up with these brigands.’
Fidelma became aware that, as he spoke, Bleidbara seemed to concentrate his gaze on Trifina. His expression was one of almost dog-like devotion, his eyes never leaving her face as if ready to jump to her bidding. For her part, Trifina did not bother to glance at him once. Fidelma noted that the warrior was a personable young man with an affable smile and ready wit. She was just wondering what their relationship was when Trifina suddenly yawned, placed a hand over her mouth and murmured an apology to Macliau.
Her brother seemed to take the hint.
‘Come, let us turn our minds to more pleasant matters.’ He glanced towards Fidelma and Eadulf. ‘We have prepared a special meal for you because you are strangers to our land.’
He signalled to a waiting attendant and, from a side door, others brought in flagons of cider and more of the local white wine. The mournful young servant girl now appeared and started to direct the attendants with some authority as they served the evening meal. Her whole attitude had changed from subservience to authority. Fidelma’s quick eye caught the special attention that this girl seemed to be giving the commander of the guard, Bleidbara, while the young man still seemed to exhibit an unusual interest in Trifina. This body language at the table amused Fidelma, for it was clear that the young warrior was attracted by the daughter of the mac’htiern of Brilhag, while the servant girl was obviously attracted by him.
Bowls of steaming soup were placed before them and platters of freshly baked bread. Eadulf examined the soup, stirring it with a frown of curiosity.
‘Local mussel soup with leeks and cream,’ Macliau smiled as he explained.
Brother Metellus was already halfway through his bowl and he paused to wave his spoon in appreciation.
‘Leeks were a favourite of the Emperor Nero,’ he said breezily. ‘It is said that he was very partial to a soup made of leeks.’
The soup was followed by a dish of young eels, which they were told were seasoned with salt, and dressed in imported olive oil and vinegar. The eels were not to Fidelma’s liking and she contented herself with nibbling on a piece of bread while the others finished. Then came the main course: rabbit cooked in cider accompanied by a dish of ceps – large fleshy mushrooms cooked in butter, mixed with shallots, wild garlic, herbs and some nuts that Eadulf could not place.
Brother Metellus helped him out. ‘We called them nux Gallica, nuts of Gaul.’
‘Ah, I think we call them foreign nuts – Welsh Nuts,’ said Eadulf.
The walnuts certainly added to the flavour of the dish. And there was another vegetable dish that made Macliau smile as it was presented to them.
‘This one I am sure that you will not have come across.’
Fidelma surveyed the dish before tasting it.
‘I recognise what the Greeks call katos, the heart of the artichoke, which has long been known to our merchants importing them from the Mediterranean. I have also tasted this juice before…ah, it is lemons. I had them when I was in Rome. There is also sorrel mixed with it.’
Macliau looked disappointed. ‘So you have been to Rome?’ he asked, a little enviously.
‘I have.’
‘One day, I mean to travel there, for Brother Metellus has told me much about it. It sounds a great city,’ Macliau continued.
‘Nullus est instar domus,’ Eadulf soliloquised softly. There is nothing like your own home.
Fidelma glanced at him thoughtfully. He was looking down at his plate, his mind apparently elsewhere. Although Eadulf had spent years in her own land, he was actually an Angle from Seaxmund’s Ham in the land of the South Folk. He even made a joke of it when he was constantly referred to as a Saxon. Fidelma had made the assumption that he had accepted without question that he would remain happily at her brother’s capital of Cashel, although there had been little time spent there due to the nature of the tasks she had been requested to do on behalf of her brother, the King. In fact, she had made only one journey with Eadulf to his home territory, when his friend Brother Botulf had been murdered at Aldred’s Abbey. Was she assuming too much? And there was the matter of their son, Alchú. They had spent so little time with the child, having to leave him with his nurse Muirgen when they went on their journeys. Although Fidelma had a great sense of duty to her brother, the King, it had become a constant worry these days that the child would think that Muirgen was his mother rather than Fidelma.
At the bottom of the table to her left, she was aware of Argantken tucking into the food with gusto and hardly speaking to anyone. When she did, Fidelma tried to understand what she was saying but could barely make out one word in twenty. She felt sorry that the girl had no knowledge of Latin, which seemed to be the common language of the others at the table.
Then Fidelma realised someone was speaking to her. It was Iarnbud.
‘I beg your pardon?’ she said hastily.
‘I was merely asking your frank opinion of Rome. Unlike Macliau, I have no wish to go there. Rome has caused many problems to my people.’
Brother Metellus grimaced wanly as Fidelma glanced at him.
‘Don’t worry,’ he sighed. ‘Iarnbud and I are old antagonists but our battles are merely verbal.’
Fidelma turned back to Iarnbud.
‘I can understand your viewpoint, for I know some history of your people. But through Rome, the new Faith has been spread.’
Iarnbud sniffed to indicate he thought little of the idea.
‘A good thing or a bad thing?’ he asked, making clear that he thought the latter. ‘Ask a lot of fishing folk hereabouts and they’ll tell you they prefer to put their trust in the old gods of the sea when they set sail.’
Fidelma nodded politely, but did not reply; instead, she addressed Macliau.
‘Speaking of fishing folk, this evening there seemed to be a lot of activity along the shore, below the fortress. Why is that?’
Macliau gazed at her in bewilderment. ‘Activity?’
‘People were gathering on the foreshore here with lighted torches, and there was a large ship being towed to anchor in the bay below.’
Eadulf tried to disguise his surprise that she had mentioned the matter so blatantly, having previously warned him to be careful. Her words seemed to create uneasiness at the table. Bleidbara glanced at Trifina, and this time she returned his look with a frown.
Macliau was hesitating. ‘Activity? I did not…’
‘I think you refer to my men, lady.’ It was Bleidbara who spoke. ‘They are taking supplies to my ship which has been guided here to a safe anchorage for the night. That is all.’
‘Your ship?’ queried Fidelma.
‘As I have said, we are a seafaring people,’ broke in Macliau. ‘The ship is that of my father, Lord Canao. Bleidbara is her captain.’
‘You will often see lights along the foreshore in this area. Fishing is often done at night.’ It was Trifina who spoke. She had remained remarkably silent throughout the meal, sitting with her slightly bored expression, which Fidelma now realised was her standard facial cast ‘Don’t the people go fishing for carp at night?’
Fidelma smiled quickly. ‘Forgive me, lady, but carp is usually found in fresh water. I presume your Morbihan is seawater?’
Trifina waved her hand as if to indicate the matter irrelevant. ‘There are plenty of other fish to be found at night.’
Iarnbud’s expression had become more
serious, if such a feat were possible on his impenetrable features.
‘Many things are found at night when fishermen leave their homes,’ he stated.
‘That sounds mysterious, my friend.’ Fidelma turned to examine him.
‘It is not meant to be so. It is just a statement of fact.’
‘What sort of things?’ Eadulf demanded.
Macliau joined in with a chuckle. ‘Iarnbud is just jesting with you.’
‘Indeed, I have spoken in jest.’ The thin-faced man gave a parody of a smile. But there was no conviction in his voice and he looked away.
‘Yet there is a meaning behind your jest, Iarnbud,’ Fidelma challenged him. ‘Perhaps you will share it with us?’
Iarnbud turned his sallow face to them with his thin red lips drawn back in a mirthless smile. For someone whose features were usually without emotion, it was like watching a mask being bent and altered into unusual shapes.
‘All I mean is beware of this shore, lady. It is not a place to venture after nightfall.’
Fidelma regarded him with interest.
‘This shore?’ she asked, using his emphasis. ‘Why would that be?’
‘The fisherfolk around here will tell you,’ the man replied, as if wanting to increase the air of mystery.
‘I regret that I cannot wait to go out and find a fisherman,’ Fidelma said coolly, ‘so perhaps you will enlighten me – since I presume that you know the story?’
Iarnbud blinked at the forthrightness of her manner. He seemed to receive no help from Macliau or his sister Trifina.
‘This is the haunted coast. Along these savage shores the souls of the dead wait for their transportation to the Otherworld,’ he intoned solemnly.
While Eadulf shivered a little, Fidelma was doing her best to suppress a smile that played at the corner of her mouth.
‘And if we venture out at night we might encounter ghosts?’ she added innocently.
‘Since time began, the sea folk that dwell along this coast have known the route to the Otherworld,’ Iarnbud replied. ‘Fishermen recognise the day when they are marked to perform a sacred duty. At midnight, they will hear a knocking at their door and they must then go to the shore, where they will see strange boats awaiting them – and these boats are not their own but strange empty vessels. They must go aboard and loose the sails and, even if there is no wind, an inexplicable breath of air will come and they will be taken out to sea and along the coast to the west to the place we call Bae an Anaon…’
‘The Bay of Souls,’ interpreted Brother Metellus. ‘I have heard it lies at the western end of Bro-Gernev, the kingdom that borders us to the west.’
‘Indeed,’ Iarnbud said. ‘It is a desolate place where the lost city of Ker Ys sank beneath the waves when its King was cursed by the Abbot Winwaloe because of his allegiance to the Old Faith.’
Once again, Fidelma tried to hide her amusement at their solemn faces, saying simply, ‘It seems that this Abbot was a powerful man if he was able to drown a city with a curse.’
Iarnbud sniffed in disapproval at her levity.
‘He was the son of Fracan, a prince of Dumnonia in the Old Country who had to flee here to escape the Saxons. He founded a great abbey in Bro-Gernev called Landevenneg.’
‘So what has this to do with the Bay of Souls?’ Eadulf was touchy at yet another reference to his people.
Iarnbud smiled, almost maliciously this time.
‘I say it to point out that it is a mysterious place, where there are mysterious currents beneath the waves and dark forces above them. The swell enters the bay with such mystical force that many avoid those brooding waters.’
‘I don’t understand the connection with warning us to avoid the shores here after nightfall.’ Fidelma was growing tired of Iarnbud’s tendency to the dramatic.
The sallow-faced man suddenly looked pained. ‘I am coming to that,’ he said.
‘You were talking about the fishermen being drawn by some strange wind to this Bay of Souls,’ prompted Brother Metellus with a grin at Fidelma.
Iarnbud compressed his lips for a moment in frustration at the loss of atmosphere the interruption in his story had made.
‘As the fishermen approach the Bay of Souls, they hear muffled voices around them and their boats grow heavy; so heavy that a boat’s gunwales sink to barely a finger’s breadth above the waterline. Yet they see no one on their boats and their crafts are drawn westward at amazing speeds – so that within a short time they come to land. They come to a place where there should be no land, but they arrive at an island, and here their ships are halted, and soon the weight in the boats lightens as if they were empty, and as they lighten the boatmen say they hear a voice asking invisible people for their names, and the names are given – men, women and children, all who are dead souls, who have waited for the time when the gods of the dead will transport them to the Otherworld, to the Island of the Blessed. And then the wind comes up again and the boats go back, the fishermen disembark and return to their homes and the strange vessels vanish until the next time the fisherfolk of these shores are asked to transport the souls of the dead again.’
Iarnbud sat back with a deep sigh at the end of his narrative.
Eadulf snorted indignantly.
‘It seems to me that the fishermen are superfluous in this story. If these dark forces supply the craft and the wind to take them to the Otherworld and back again, why are human fishermen needed to man their ships? These forces could do the job by their own powers.’
Iarnbud looked shocked.
‘We have similar stories,’ interposed Fidelma. ‘Stories even the coming of the New Faith has not entirely eradicated from our land. To the west of my brother’s kingdom is an island we called Tech Duinn, the House of Donn. Donn was our God of the Dead. It was an island where the souls of the dead had to assemble before they began their journey westward to the Otherworld.’
Iarnbud glanced at Bleidbara and shrugged as if he were disappointed. It was so slight that the motion of his shoulder was almost lost on Fidelma – but not quite. She turned to where Bleidbara had been sitting in silence during this whole conversation.
‘You are a warrior, a practical man,’ she said smoothly, ‘and you say you command a ship. Do you believe in such tales?’
Bleidbara had been deep in thought and now he looked up.
‘Tales?’ He reflected hurriedly. ‘I believe only in what I see, feel, hear and smell, lady.’
‘Anyway,’ she went on, ‘it was a good story, well told, and these ancient beliefs are to be respected.’
She looked at Eadulf for support. He interpreted her expression correctly, for he nodded earnestly.
‘That is so,’ he agreed. ‘For there is usually a reason behind an ancient tale. It is best to be sitting before a blazing hearth fire or, better yet, to be in a warm bed, rather than stalking the shores in the dead of night when the powers of the old gods are exalted.’
Brother Metellus regarded him in disgust.
‘The old gods have only the power we give them,’ he rebuked.
‘As do the new gods,’ Iarnbud rejoined quickly.
‘Are you a believer in the old gods, then, Iarnbud?’ asked Fidelma gently.
Iarnbud looked nervously at Macliau who pretended to be interested in his little dog, still stretched asleep at his feet.
‘I am, as you have heard, Bretat to Canao, Lord of Brilhag. I am a keeper of the arcane knowledge of the people of this land.’
‘That is not what I asked,’ Fidelma responded gently. ‘It just sounded as though you gave equal credence to the old gods as you do to the New Faith.’
The man pursed his lips in thought for a moment or two and then sighed.
‘It would seem strange, lady, that the gods who the people accepted at the time that was beyond time, and who were believed and worshipped for generation after generation for millennia, could suddenly lose their power and disappear in such a short space of time when some people turned to sto
ries of other alien gods from the east.’
Brother Metellus did not seem outraged but he observed quietly: ‘That is sacrilege.’
Iarnbud was unperturbed by his condemnation.
‘You know from old, Brother Metellus, that I merely state what is logical. Many of our people still make offerings to the old gods and goddesses. They have proved their worth over the generations while the new deities have only just appeared in the land and need to demonstrate their greater power – if they have it.’
Macliau stirred and set down his wine and, as he had been doing throughout the evening, bent to caress the ears of his little dog Albiorix. It was obvious that he was fond of the animal.
‘Is it not enough that when the New Faith entered our lands, it did so soon after the Roman legions?’ he said vehemently. ‘First the Roman legions came and slaughtered our people, and then the New Faith came and subverted the minds of those who remained, turning them away from their very roots.’
Fidelma and Eadulf stared at the young man in surprise. Fidelma was aware that he had been helping himself very liberally to the wine and she wondered if this had been the means of making him so outspoken.
Trifina surprised them even further by giving a peal of laughter.
‘My brother likes to annoy people by being contrary,’ she said. ‘He says what he knows to be opposite to their views merely to provoke them.’
Macliau stared at his sister for a moment and Fidelma was sure that she gave him a warning signal. He turned back with a shrug.
‘I do not believe it is a fault to stimulate conversation,’ he explained grumpily. ‘If we all sat around agreeing with each other, it would surely be a boring existence.’
‘The way our great teachers provoked knowledge was taking an opposite view, to induce the student to bring forth argument,’ confirmed Iarnbud.
‘That was also the method in our land,’ agreed Fidelma. ‘But it sometimes gets in the way of the seeker after facts.’
Iarnbud leaned back in his chair and examined her quietly for a moment.
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