She moved back a few paces to look at it, her hands on her hips.
Eadulf was right, she thought, when he had identified it as being an unusual vehicle. No wainwright of the Five Kingdoms had constructed this wagon. However, she had seen the like when in Gaul and, as Eadulf had reminded her, when they had been in Rome. Had the victims been foreigners? Had they brought the wagon over from one of the kingdoms of Britain or even further, from Gaul?
‘Shall we examine the inside?’ suggested Eadulf, impatient at the length of her examination of the exterior of the wagon.
‘Not for the moment,’ she demurred. ‘I want to see what we can gather from the exterior.’
‘Apart from what I have already told you?’ he asked, somewhat truculently.
‘Let us consider,’ she said, smiling a little. ‘The wagon is definitely of the style you identified – a rheda, and unusual in this country. It is of good workmanship although it appears to have travelled a long distance. Outwardly, it has been well kept, although curiously, the windows and one door have been secured by a trained carpenter. Only one door gives entrance to the wagon. Fortunately, the fire was a poor one or put out too quickly and efficiently for it to have destroyed the vehicle. The flames damaged only the driving seat. It appears that someone had been able to light a bucket of tar, which caused the fire. The driver had sufficient time to descend from the wagon without being overcome by flames or smoke.
She waited a moment before resuming.
‘Yet look at the way the burn-marks are formed. They are on the driver’s seat – but also located on the backrest. It is as if someone was holding a bucket of flammable material and then threw the contents of it towards the driver’s seat. But to get that angle, that someone must have stood in front of the driver’s seat, just to the right, facing it. The only problem is, you could not throw burning tar in that fashion.’
‘We know the girl was already dying from the poison. She might not have known what she was doing,’ Eadulf said, missing her point. ‘She could have lit the bucket and overturned it accidentally.’
‘Are you suggesting that she could have lit the bucket of incendiary material, dismounted, managed to throw it over the driver’s seat of the wagon, turned and run a few paces before she conveniently died?’ There was no guile in Fidelma’s voice as she posed the question.
Eadulf thought hard. ‘If she did not do this, what are we saying? Are we back to some wraith with Aidan’s cloak of invisibility who did this? If we don’t accept that, then we come back to a greater mystery. A line of wagons on a long deserted stretch of road with flat marsh all around. Yet someone is able to get to the back wagon, set fire to it, and … having already poisoned the girl, let alone the man … then disappears as miraculously.’
As he spoke, Eadulf gave an involuntary shiver. He had converted to the New Faith when still a youth, yet had been raised at a time when the gods and goddesses of his people were powerful entities. Somewhere in the back of his mind he had retained a belief in the nature deities of the Angles and Saxons – the ése, with the shape-shifting Nixie, the water spirits who could rise out of the waters and marshes and take human form; or, indeed, the elves who used magic to create harm to humans in equal measure as they helped them.
Suddenly Fidelma climbed up onto the driver’s seat and bent close to the burned areas, sniffing curiously at them. She glanced firstly at the overturned tar bucket and then at a goatskin water bag; sniffing at both of them. She alighted, looking pleased and holding the goatskin bag.
‘That’s just a water bag,’ Eadulf said as he helped her down.
‘Remember the dead girl was observed frequently drinking from it? Comal implied it contain alcohol because she thought the girl was drunk.’
Fidelma gave it a shake and could hear a faint swish of water.
‘We’ll soon tell if it’s alcohol.’ Eadulf reached for the bag but she held it back.
‘Don’t touch it. It might be the source of the poison. We’ll let Brother Conchobhar examine it.’
Fidelma handed it to Aidan and told him to tell the nearby warrior to take it directly to Brother Conchobhar and ask him to examine the contents and to be careful in case of poison. As he rejoined them Aidan muttered: ‘I say that it was the second body in the wagon that is responsible. Maybe he wasn’t dead and—’
‘We can forget him as an assailant,’ Fidelma said impatiently. ‘Brother Conchobhar assures us that he had been dead for two or three days. Nor are we dealing with Otherworld spirits. Aside from that, Aidan, you and Eadulf each bore witness to the fact that both doors were sealed from the outside. The only accessible door was secured – again from the outside – by a piece of knotted rope which you had to cut. The fire was definitely set from outside the wagon.’
The comment she had just made, however, awoke a thought in Fidelma. ‘I don’t suppose you still have the rope that was cut from the door?’ she asked Eadulf.
She was pleasantly surprised when he rummaged in his belt bag and produced a piece of cord. ‘I’d forgotten all about it,’ he confessed. ‘Thank goodness you have taught me how essential it is to keep such things.’
Fidelma stared at it for a moment. The knot was still in place because Aidan had only cut through the strand of the rope.
‘The king of knots,’ she observed.
‘The what?’ Eadulf was confused.
‘It is an old and simple knot, both easy to tie and to untie. But not many people would have such knowledge.’ She sighed and shook her head slightly. ‘It’s curious that the girl secured the door with it. The catch was not broken, so why secure the door? There must be an explanation.’
‘If we can find it,’ Eadulf said.
‘We shall find it. It is just a question of gathering the facts and applying logic.’
Eadulf sighed a little. ‘That is just the problem. We have no real facts about the victims, and no idea why the girl was driving westward for days with a corpse in her wagon and why she was dressed as a boy.’
Fidelma shook her head. ‘The facts might not make much sense at the moment, but …’
Eadulf’s expression was woebegone. ‘I have seen you achieve so much over the years,’ he said. ‘I’ve seen you unravel a mystery like a ball of thread when there is no obvious start or end to that ball. This is different. There is no thread.’
She did not bother to answer the obvious question but moved to the door of the vehicle instead and opened it, by which time Aidan had rejoined them.
‘Best bring a lantern,’ she instructed the warrior, who stood looking glumly on. ‘The hide blinds are nailed into place covering all the windows. It makes it as black as night inside.’
Fidelma waited until Aidan had fetched a lantern before swinging up into the coach and peering round. The smell immediately caught her throat and she coughed. Even the removal of the putrid body had not improved the stench. She wrinkled her nose in distaste. Aidan, in fact, had positioned himself away from the door and was trying not to breathe through his nose.
‘You say that the male body was lying on the floor of the wagon?’ she asked Eadulf.
‘Under a blanket,’ he confirmed, leaning into the vehicle and pointing to the spot.
She looked carefully around. ‘There is not much here, apart from the usual things that you’d expect to find. Trunks with clothes for either the girl or the man but all made of simple materials. There is nothing of value, apart from a few religious books.’
Then to Eadulf’s surprise she began to knock on the wooden panels of the interior and then bend to examine the wooden seats. Finally she turned, saw his questioning look and shrugged.
‘Just a chance there might be some secret place where an important object might have been hidden.’
‘I did say …’ Eadulf began.
‘I know what you said,’ she snapped back. ‘Better two pairs of eyes than one to examine the vehicle.’
Eadulf sighed. He knew that the more difficult she found the mystery, the more
irritable his wife could be until she finally found a scent to follow. He had spent most of the night, and even during his ride with little Alchú that morning, turning over the facts; so few facts that they made no sense to him. He now stood silently watching while Fidelma checked and re-checked the interior of the vehicle. She finally gave up and climbed out.
‘Now, Aidan,’ she said briskly, ‘let’s look at the oxen.’
The warrior glanced at Eadulf in surprise. ‘Look at the oxen, lady?’ he echoed.
Eadulf was sure that she was going to stamp her foot.
‘Yes, the oxen – the beasts that pulled this wagon,’ she explained as if to an imbecile. ‘If the wagon cannot tell us anything, then perhaps the beasts that pulled it can.’
Without another word, Aidan led them out of the barn to a field at the back. Eadulf recognised the two oxen – castrated adult male cattle, small in stature, long in back, with wide, slightly elevated, projecting horns. Most people raised among cattle were able to judge the docile beasts and Eadulf had placed them as three year olds.
Fidelma regarded them critically for a moment. ‘Worth about twenty-five screpalls apiece, I’d say.’
That made them valuable beasts in anyone’s terms, Eadulf realised. Even a Fer Midad, a clansman without property, could rate an honour price of only twelve screpalls.
Fidelma swung over the wooden fence into the field with ease, and began to examine the prints made in the mud in which the placid animals were standing.
‘They have been well looked after,’ she commented.
Eadulf, who had followed, stared at the ground in bewilderment. ‘How can you tell?’
‘These oxen are shoed. Since the hooves are cloven, they have to put half-moon shoes on them and you can see the marks distinctly.’
She then walked round to their rumps with Eadulf following at her heels.
‘What are you looking for?’ he asked, seeing that her eyes were running over the area of the hip joints of the animals. Almost before he asked, he knew the answer.
‘The selaibh,’ she replied.
In a society where the currency was based on the value of cattle, to be a person without any cattle was to be poor indeed, so it was important to keep a record of one’s wealth. The selaibh was a brand which indicated ownership. Branding to Eadulf, however, implied something different. He shivered, remembering that in Rome he had seen people with the letter ‘F’ branded on their cheeks or sometimes on their arms. It stood for fugitivus and indicated a slave who had tried to run away. Branding slaves as proof of ownership had been the norm in Ancient Rome. And now, in more recent times, the Angles and the Saxons had started to adopt branding as a means of punishment, and had incorporated it into their own law system.
‘There!’ Fidelma pointed to a distinct brand-mark among the black hairs of the ox.
‘Does it mean anything to you?’ Eadulf asked.
‘As a matter of fact, it does. It is a mark that I have often seen in Midhe, the Middle Kingdom, when I was studying at Brehon Morann’s law school.’
When she paused, almost tantalisingly, he pressed: ‘And so?’
‘The brand is that of the Prince of Tethbae, whose lands are in the western part of Midhe. The head of the family calls himself An Sionnach … The Fox. That is his mark, a fox’s head. The Prince of Tethbae claims descent from the Uí Néill High Kings, but he is trusted by nobody, especially not the Uí Néill.’
CHAPTER FIVE
Rather than return to the palace, Fidelma suggested that Rumann could serve their eter-shod, or middle meal of the day, in his tavern. This was a light meal consisting of cold meats, hard-boiled eggs, bioror – a watercress salad – and bread, washed down with linn, a light ale. They sat in a quiet corner of the tavern. Ever since they had returned from viewing the oxen, Fidelma had been unusually silent.
Aware of her favourite maxim – no speculation without information – Eadulf decided not to make any comment, although he could tell that she was obviously trying to reason out something based on the information she had recently gathered.
The silence was not something Aidan was used to, however, and so he finally broke it with the question: ‘Do you have a theory about these deaths, lady?’
She frowned, annoyed at the distraction for a moment. Then she forced a quick smile. ‘Theory? I wish I had!’
‘But something about the oxen has caused you to start making some connection,’ he said.
Eadulf waited for the irritable response, but to his surprise, Fidelma merely shook her head. He supposed that, as a warrior, she absolved Aidan from a lack of knowledge of her methods.
‘As my trend of thought is leading me nowhere, I will share it. The oxen, as I observed, carry the brand-mark of Sionnach the Fox, Prince of Tethbae, who, by all rumours, is a person one does not want as an enemy. Could these oxen be stolen from him? Or is this strange, foreign wagon also his?’
‘I’m sorry,’ Eadulf intervened. ‘Where exactly is this place – Tethbae? I do not know it.’
‘It is in the west of the Middle Kingdom, Midhe,’ she replied. The widening of his eyes caused her to ask: ‘What?’
‘Then it should not be too far north of the Hill of Uisneach?’
‘The southern borders of the territory of Tethbae are marked by the River Eithne, a short journey north of Uisneach,’ Fidelma confirmed. ‘The river actually rises on Sliabh an Caillaigh where you were held prisoner by those conspirators who murdered the High King Sechnussach and tried to seize power.’
Eadulf remembered well enough the time when he feared for his life: imprisoned in an ancient tomb with old Brother Luachan, waiting to be sacrificed to some pagan god.
‘It was not a nice place,’ he reflected quietly.
‘But why did you ask the question?’
‘Because I was thinking that if this prince, Sionnach, has a territory close to Uisneach, then we might have a connection.’
‘Which is?’ Fidelma did not follow his reasoning.
‘When I asked Baodain where his troupe had come from, he answered that they were returning after performing at the Fair of Uisneach.’
‘But they also said that the girl and her wagon only joined them on the Slíge Dála a short time before the fire,’ Aidan reminded them.
‘Isn’t that too much of a coincidence? She just happens to be driving oxen with the brand of this Sionnach when she joins a troupe that had recently been performing on the borders of Sionnach’s own territory.’
Fidelma looked at him sharply. ‘What did you just say?’
Eadulf blinked. ‘That it was too much of a coincidence …’
‘No – before that. You said Baodain’s troupe had been performing at the Fair of Uisneach.’
Eadulf was puzzled. ‘Well, that is what Baodain himself told me.’
‘Are you absolutely sure that they had come from the Fair of Uisneach?’ she pressed him.
Aidan came to Eadulf’s aid. ‘He did, lady. I was there when friend Eadulf asked the question and heard the reply Baodain gave.’
Fidelma sat back with a frown.
‘Is something wrong?’ asked Eadulf.
Fidelma looked from one to another. ‘There is something you have both missed. Uisneach is sacred to the old pagan good Bel. We are told that it was Mide, the Druid of the Nemedian, who lit the first sacred fires of Bealtaine there in the time beyond time. So this is why the great Fair of Uisneach is held there … at the Feast of Bealtaine.’
Eadulf was still looking puzzled, but Aidan immediately saw the point.
‘The Fair of Cashel is also celebrated at the start of Bealtaine, the period of the Fires of Bel,’ Aidan said. ‘So how could Baodain and his troupe have been performing at the Fair of Uisneach when the fair has yet to be celebrated? There was no fair at Uisneach! It is not due until next week, when Bealtaine starts.’
‘Exactly so,’ Fidelma said. ‘I think we will have to have a further word with our friend Baodain. It might not mean anything at all, b
ut it is a curious mistake.’
‘So you think there might be some link with this Sionnach of Tethbae, with the murdered couple and with Baodain’s troupe?’ asked Aidan.
‘We can only move forward a step at a time,’ Fidelma told him. ‘The essence of discovering the truth is to take each fact and double-check it, discarding nothing but adding nothing. I think …’
She was interrupted by a commotion at the door of the tavern as several people entered. The leader of the group was a tall, arrogant-looking individual, richly dressed, and it was plain to see that his companions were either in awe of him or were his acolytes. He was bearded, dark-haired and had a hooked nose which at some time had been broken and badly set. It was hard to see whether the leader was a rich merchant or some petty noble. His three companions were equally richly attired. One of them, with corn-coloured hair, carried a sword in the manner of a warrior. He called for the tavern-keeper in a strident tone. Rumann came shuffling forward.
‘We need rooms, tavern-keeper,’ the newcomer demanded.
‘Of course,’ Rumann answered. ‘For how long?’
The man looked towards the leader, who swivelled his gaze across the tavern, assessing it disdainfully.
‘I suppose this dump is the only tavern in this township?’
Rumann’s mouth tightened but only for a moment. Business was business, although arrogance was unusual among most travellers to the main township of Muman.
‘This is the best and biggest,’ he replied without modesty.
The man sniffed derisively, but responded, ‘Then I suppose we shall be staying for the course of your fair.’
‘For the Oenach Cashel?’ Rumann smiled gently at the newcomer. ‘Are you participants at the fair?’ The tavern-keeper was well known for his sense of humour.
The Second Death (Sister Fidelma Mysteries) Page 7