The Dove of Death

by Peter Tremayne

  ‘Then the facts are simple. This New Faith is spreading through the land. The princes have seized upon it and great centres have been erected, like the abbey built here by Gildas. These new centres dominate the lives of the people. But the beliefs of a thousand years and more are hard to eradicate. The old gods and goddesses live on, and in the depths of the great forests north of here, they are still respected and worshipped. And even among those who follow the Christ, while they might genuflect before His symbols, in their minds they still respect the old gods and the customs of the ancestors.’

  Eadulf stirred uneasily. He had been a youth brought up with the gods of the Saxons – Woden, Thunor, Tyr and Freya – until a wandering monk from Hibernia had converted him to the New Faith. But still, in times of stress, it was the old gods that he mentally invoked. Iarnbud’s comment was a telling one.

  Iarnbud noticed his discomfort and smiled knowingly.

  ‘I think you understand me well, Saxon,’ he said, before turning to Fidelma. ‘You have travelled on shipboard to this place, lady. Have you noticed the behaviour of seamen or the fisherfolk? Have they abandoned their faith in the protection of the old sea gods? They have not. They will give them their due, especially to the goddess of the moon who controls the seas. They will not even mention her true name once they set foot on shipboard for fear of her.’

  Fidelma had to agree that among the fisherfolk of her own land, this was true, for there were many names by which the moon was called, and all were euphemisms for her proper name. Names such as ‘The Brightness’, ‘The Radiance’, ‘The Queen of the Night’ and ‘The Fair Mare’. She shivered slightly. Was Iarnbud secretly laughing at her?

  Eadulf was trying to disguise his irritation.

  ‘What does it matter?’ he said. ‘Most people accept the Faith now.’

  ‘The New Faith is but a veneer to disguise other true allegiance to the old ways.’ Iarnbud turned to face him. ‘When your Saxon hordes started to land on the island of Britain, the Britons had long converted to the New Faith and welcomed you at first with talk of peace and the rule of Thou Shalt Not Kill. Your people, crying upon your War God Woden, soon dissuaded them by eliminating them or driving them from the land.’

  Eadulf’s jaw tightened. ‘I am not responsible for what my ancestors did,’ he muttered. ‘I live in the present.’

  ‘And the Saxon kingdoms are now being converted to the New Faith,’ pointed out Fidelma, coming to his defence.

  Iarnbud laughed. ‘Indeed, converted by those religious of Hibernia. Do you see any Britons converting the Saxons? The Britons have better sense. One day you Hibernians may regret it.’

  Trifina suddenly stretched languorously and yawned.

  ‘You will excuse me,’ she said, rising to her feet. ‘The hour grows late and I must retire.’

  With a glance that embraced the company, she rose and left them.

  Eadulf waited until she was ascending the stairs before he turned to Iarnbud.

  ‘What do you mean,’ he demanded angrily, ‘that the Britons have better sense?’

  ‘When the Bishop of Rome sent the Roman Augustine to Britain less than a hundred years ago, he decided to meet with the bishops of the Britons. He even chastised them for making no attempt to convert the Angles and Saxons to the New Faith before his coming. Augustine was an arrogant man who had swallowed the stories told him by the Saxons that the Britons were savages. So, when he met the bishops of the Britons, he pitched his camp on their borders and demanded that they come to him. When they did so, he remained seated, not even rising to greet his fellow bishops as was the custom, but launching into a tirade of criticism of their behaviour and rites and rituals. He ordered them to join him in converting the Saxons and accepting his church at the old capital of the British Cantii as their spiritual centre.’

  Eadulf frowned. ‘The Cantii?’

  ‘The town or burgh, as you call it in your language, of the Cantii, Canterbury. Agustine was ignorant as well as arrogant. Did not the Britons have greater and older centres of their faith? There was Blessed Ninian’s great abbey of Candida Casa in Strath-Clóta with its extensive library. And the Blessed Dewi’s abbey of Menevia in Dyfed. Augustine was a brash upstart and the Britons were astounded at his behaviour. And when they refused to submit themselves to him, he lost his temper and in a rage told them that the Saxons would come and the Britons would suffer vengeance for refusing to meet his terms. On his return to his new Saxon flock, he even officially designated Athelberht, the King of Kent, as Bretwalda, ruler over all the Britons.’ Iarnbud’s voice was bitter. ‘So the Britons continued to flee from the Saxon arrogance in search of new lands to dwell in freedom.’

  At this point, Bleidbara rose abruptly.

  ‘Forgive me. I have to be on board my ship early in the morning, for I have duties to attend to.’ The warrior bade a good night to them all and left through the door that led to the kitchen quarters.

  No sooner had he departed than the girl, Argantken, rose and said something in pointed tones to Macliau. As the young man stared at her, it was clear to Fidelma from the way his eyes took time to focus that he had indulged himself a little too freely with wine. When Macliau answered her, in a slightly slurred speech, Fidelma was surprised to see the girl flush and reply in petulant fashion, even stamping her foot. Macliau’s face grew angry, his voice irate as he responded. The girl’s mouth became a thin line and she stomped her way across the room and up the stairs.

  Macliau glanced at the company with an imbecilic grin, which was obviously meant to be one of apology, but Brother Metellus was pretending not to notice that anything was amiss.

  ‘We are all human beings,’ the monk was now pointing out, continuing the discussion that had been raging. ‘Augustine was a stranger in a strange land. He was a monk from the Caelian Hill in Rome, and had merely been wrongly advised as to the nature and history of the Britons.’

  ‘So ignorance excuses all things? Do you Romans not have a saying – ignorantia non excusat?’ Iarnbud riposted, picking up the thread again.

  Macliau was chuckling and nodding approvingly.

  ‘A point well made, Iarnbud. I swear that I enjoy your visits. At least we are not wanting in stimulus.’

  Fidelma had raised her head with interest. ‘So you do not reside in this fortress, Iarnbud?’

  The bretat shook his head. ‘It is my choice to live on my little boat among the islands. I prefer life under the open sky.’

  ‘You have no fear of these thieves and murders?’ Eadulf enquired.

  ‘Fear?’ The sallow-faced man smiled thinly. ‘I fear only that the sky may fall and crush me, the sea may rise and drown me, or the earth may open and swallow me.’

  Fidelma recognised the ancient ritual saying which meant that he feared nothing at all.

  She glanced at Eadulf and raised a hand to her mouth as if to disguise a yawn. Eadulf took the hint and he rose, bowing slightly to Macliau.

  ‘This has been a long day for us. We will retire, with your permission.’

  Fidelma followed him, leaving Macliau, Brother Metellus and Iarnbud still in conversation.

  Once in their chamber Eadulf showed his irritation.

  ‘Well, I for one did not find Iarnbud’s conversation stimulating but rather insulting,’ he began, but Fidelma raised a finger to her lips.

  ‘You cannot change history and so you cannot stop people from giving their views on it, Eadulf,’ she admonished.

  ‘And what about those silly ghost stories of fishermen transporting souls at night?’

  ‘It is obvious that Iarnbud and, by logical deduction, Macliau and his sister do not want us investigating any strange lights along the shore at night. Their supernatural story was meant to frighten us. That is why I pretended to go along with it in the end, once I realised their intention.’

  ‘So you don’t believe in such phantoms as claimed by Iarnbud?’ queried Eadulf.

  ‘You should know me better by now,’ she rebuked him. �
��However, I have read Procopius.’

  ‘Procopius?’ Eadulf repeated.

  ‘The Byzantine historian who wrote about the Gothic Wars as part of his History of the Wars of Justinian. Just over a hundred years ago he recounted this story of the transportation of souls, the belief of the people of this very area of Gaul. I have heard the tale many times and yet we cannot go through life believing all the old folklore and legends.’

  ‘If it was a story purposely told to stop us investigating what was happening on the shore, what do you intend?’ Eadulf had gone to the window and was watching the area where they had previously seen the lights. There was no sign of any light or movement there now, although he could just make out pinpricks of light from the distant islands. The large ship was still a fairly discernible black shadow in the inlet below.

  ‘It is too late now but I think we should go to the shore tomorrow and see if we can discover anything,’ she said. ‘Particularly, I would like to examine that ship to see if it is painted black and has a dove engraved on its bow.’

  ‘I doubt we will see anything,’ Eadulf said in resignation, returning to the bed. ‘They have had plenty of warning to change things, having heard our story.’

  ‘Yet why do so at all when they could simply silence us? The captain had no compunction about slaughtering Bressal or Murchad.’ She was silent for a moment, and Eadulf knew she was mastering her emotions. Eventually she went on: ‘I was trying to work out the relationship between Macliau and the girl Argantken. She is without finesse.’

  ‘That one is easy enough,’ shrugged Eadulf indifferently. ‘She is his mistress.’

  Fidelma’s eyes widened. ‘Would a chieftain’s son bring his mistress into his father’s house? She is lacking in grace and manners…’

  ‘De gustibus et coloribus non est disputandum,’ sighed Eadulf. About tastes and colours there is no disputing, meaning it was better not to argue about matters of personal preference.

  He was about to get into bed when through the window came the sound of raised voices, as if in argument. They were speaking in the language of the Bretons but their tones sounded familiar.

  ‘There you are,’ grinned Eadulf. ‘I’ll wager that is Macliau and Argantken.’

  Fidelma swung out of the bed and went swiftly to listen at the window. The voices continued for a few moments and then suddenly ceased. She told Eadulf, ‘If I took that wager, you would lose. That was Trifina, and I swear the second voice was that of Bleidbara.’

  ‘And if that were so, what of it?’ Eadulf enquired tiredly, lying down.

  ‘Did you notice that Bleidbara seems to be enamoured with the lady Trifina, who studiously ignores him, but the girl with the dark hair who was serving us was making cow’s eyes at him while he acted oblivious to her?’

  Eadulf had not heard the expression ‘cow’s eyes’ before but he got the idea.

  ‘I wonder what they were arguing about?’ mused Fidelma as she returned to the bed.

  ‘Unrequited love?’ yawned Eadulf. ‘If the young man is enamoured of Trifina, then maybe he chose this moment to seek her out and make his protestation of love. And if she was not interested, she might well have stated it in strong terms. Is it really any of our concern?’

  Fidelma pulled a face at him.

  ‘I am not concerned at all. Mysteries interest me, that is all. Anyway, we’ve had a long day. We will talk about these things tomorrow.’

  Chapter Eight

  Eadulf came awake with a start. The room was bathed in that cold light that marks the moments after an early-summer sunrise when the sun is still shrouded by cloud. He wondered what had disturbed him and then he heard a movement by the window. Fidelma was sitting there, wrapped in a cloak and staring out to sea. Eadulf eased himself up on the bed.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ He found himself speaking in a whisper.

  Fidelma glanced at him without moving from her perch on the sill.

  ‘I’ve been sitting here watching since just before dawn. Sometimes, at that hour, people will move about thinking the world is asleep. I was hoping to see the ship and get some explanation for the lights last night.’

  ‘Is it the same ship?’ queried Eadulf, swinging from the bed.

  Fidelma beckoned him. ‘See for yourself.’

  Eadulf hastened across the cold boards and stared out. The ship had gone. There was no sign of it.

  ‘If you were here before dawn, then the ship sailed in the night,’ he gasped. ‘Bleidbara must have moved it immediately after the meal, warned by our conversation. Perhaps we should not have referred to it?’ he added in mild rebuke.

  ‘I feel that the answer to this mystery is out there – on one of those islands,’ Fidelma continued, ignoring his censure. ‘I can see no sign of the vessel at all.’

  ‘The banner of a dove flies above this castle,’ contradicted Eadulf. ‘The answer must be here.’

  ‘I was thinking that if the answer was that simple, then our presence should have concerned our hosts enough to attempt to be rid of us.’

  Eadulf shivered a little and tried to put it down to the early-morning chill. He went to put on his sandals before returning to stare out at the seascape before him. There was a faint morning mist rising from the dark outlines of the islands dotting the waters of Morbihan. The sea was flat and calm, glinting now and then as the sun broke through the clouds. Visibility was fair but he could see no movement on the waters.

  ‘We are not even sure that Bleidbara’s ship is the sea-raider,’ he said reasonably.

  ‘It would be a coincidence if it were not,’ Fidelma mused. ‘It would explain how the ship’s cat reached the abbey.’ Observing her husband’s hesitation, she went on: ‘Let’s consider this: our ship is attacked and you observe a carving of a dove, which is a strange emblem for a warship to have. It sails off, having taken our ship as a prize. We escape and eventually land here, where we come across the ship’s cat, wandering wild. We find a merchant and his companions attacked, killed and robbed. One of the slain has a torn banner clutched in his hand that also bears the symbol of a dove. We are told that this symbol is the emblem of the lord of Brilhag. We are more or less taken prisoner by his warriors and brought inside this fortress where the same flag of these raiders flies above us. We see a warship anchored in the inlet below which is said to be in the service of this same lord and captained by the commander of his warriors, Bleidbara. There are strange lights along the shore and we are told some ancient legend which is meant to scare us from investigation. What is the logical deduction?’

  Eadulf smiled wanly. ‘You have always taught me that there can be more than one answer,’ he pointed out.

  A frown of irritation crossed Fidelma’s brow, since she immediately admitted to herself that he was right. The logic was tenuous – and it was only the mystery of how Luchtigern, the cat, had come to the abbey that made her determined to follow that logic.

  ‘Very well. If there is more than one logical interpretation of these facts, then it is the task of the dálaigh to investigate and discover which is the correct one,’ she said at last.

  Eadulf was about to respond when there was a knock on the door. It was the mournful girl who had been in charge of the servants during the night before.

  ‘I beg your pardon,’ she said, ‘but I heard your voices and wondered whether I can be of assistance to you? I can order the preparation of your breakfast, if you wish.’

  Automatically Fidelma replied that they would wash first and come down for breakfast later.

  The girl inclined her head and was about to leave the chamber when a thought suddenly occurred to Fidelma.

  ‘Wait,’ she called. The girl turned expectantly back into the room. ‘What is your function here?’

  ‘I am the stewardess of this household, in charge of the running of its domestic affairs and of all the household attendants.’

  ‘You speak excellent Latin,’ Fidelma commented. ‘What is your name?’

  ‘Iuna, lady.’ A
faint smile hovered on the girl’s lips but did not form completely. It was as if she had disciplined her features to remove all emotions from them. ‘You are about to observe how can a mere servant be educated? This is Armorica, lady – although we now call it Little Britain by virtue of the refugees from Britain that have flocked to our shores during recent centuries.’

  She seemed to offer it as an explanation. Eadulf remained puzzled and said so, and therefore the girl continued with further explanation.

  ‘This was part of Gaul, conquered by the Romans, and it became a province of their empire centuries ago. Many of the great families were brought up for generations as bilingual, with Latin as well as their native tongue. You will even find that many of the Britons who came here were also adept in Latin, for Britain, too, was a province of Rome. So many people speak Latin quite naturally and as well as they speak their own language.’

  ‘Ah,’ smiled Eadulf, ‘then it also explains why your Latin is so different from that which we were taught.’

  Fidelma thought she should say something here in case the girl thought he was insulting her command of the language.

  ‘My land, Hibernia, was never part of the Roman empire, and the Latin we have learned is from the texts, not the colloquial form that you speak as a living language. I have noticed that Iarnbud also speaks a Latin that does not derive from the ancient texts.’

  The girl shrugged as if she was uninterested. However, Fidelma saw a glimmer of suspicion in her eyes.

  ‘How long have you been in service here?’ she asked.

  ‘Most of my life,’ the girl replied shortly. ‘Now if there is anything you desire…?’

  ‘What are your bathing customs here?’ Fidelma attempted to mollify her. ‘We did not bathe last night and I should have asked but neglected to do so.’

  ‘You have only to express your wishes, lady,’ replied the girl. ‘They will be fulfilled.’

  As Eadulf knew, the people of Fidelma’s land bathed daily, generally in the evening when, before the main meal, they had a full body wash in hot water. It was a custom Eadulf still found slightly alien, for he had grown up when a bath, apart from a swim in a local river, was very infrequent. Baths were attended with perfumes and soap called sléic. In the morning, it was the custom to wash only the face and hands and often in cold water. So Fidelma passed on her wants to the girl and was assured that bowls of water would be brought to them immediately, together with any toilet articles that might be wanted.