‘That is fair enough,’ agreed Fidelma easily.
Iorwerth started in surprise at her ready agreement. ‘If not my daughter’s death, then what do you want to speak to me about?’
‘Yesterday you had a visitor to your forge.’
Iorwerth’s jaw clenched. ‘I have many come to the forge. It is my business.’
‘This man was a warrior and, I am told, a stranger to this district.’
The smith was frowning. ‘I do not usually have warriors. .’ He paused, and his expression told them that he had recalled the man. ‘Why do you inquire after that man?’
‘What do you know about him?’
‘As you say, he was a stranger, a warrior. His horse had loosed a shoe. I fixed it.’
‘You had never seen him before?’
‘Never. He spent a short time here. He asked for mead to drink, for which he paid, and spent a pleasant time exchanging some gossip while I fixed his horse’s shoe. That was all.’
‘Tell me,’ Fidelma pressed, ‘did Elen, Gwnda’s daughter, pass by at that time?’
‘How did you know that?’ demanded Iorwerth, slightly surprised at the recollection. ‘She did. I remember that because the warrior asked me who she was.’
‘You told him, of course?’
‘I said that she was the daughter of Gwnda, lord of Pen Caer.’
‘Did he tell you why he wanted to know?’
‘I think he said something like, “There’s a fine-looking girl, who is she?” ’
‘Nothing else passed between you?’
Iorwerth shook his head. ‘Nothing, as I recall. He passed the time of day while I fixed his horse’s shoe. We exchanged a few jokes and gossiped. That is all.’
‘Did he mention his name by any chance?’
Again, Iorwerth made a negative gesture.
‘Nor where he came from?’
‘No, although I could guess.’
‘Really? And what was your guess?’
‘He was either from Ceredigion or somewhere along its borders.’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘Smiths are a close-knit community. It is easy to recognise types of work. From what I saw of his horse and his weapons, I could swear that the work was done in Ceredigion.’
‘Very well.’
‘Why do you ask about this man?’
‘A matter of curiosity,’ smiled Fidelma. ‘Let me ask you something else. Were you ever a warrior?’
Iorwerth looked startled. ‘Never. I have always been a smith.’
‘I understand that you learnt your craft in Dinas?’
The bolt went home. Iorwerth blinked rapidly. He did not reply for a moment or two. Then he said, slowly: ‘It is many years since I was last in Dinas.’
‘Twenty years ago?’
‘That is about right. How did you know this?’
Fidelma had taken something from her marsupium. She suddenly held it before his eyes. It was the red gold chain with the bejewelled image of the hare hanging from it.
‘Have you ever seen that before?’ she demanded.
A paleness crept over Iorwerth’s features as he stared at the pendant.
‘Where did you get that?’ he asked slowly.
‘Do you recognise it?’ she insisted.
‘I last saw that twenty years ago. Where did you get it?’
‘Iolo the shepherd, before he died, gave it to Idwal. Iolo told the boy that it belonged to his mother.’
Iorwerth stepped back as if he had received a body blow. His eyes widened and his mouth had opened slightly. He was looking at them but not seeing them. Then his features seemed to dissolve.
‘Oh, my God!’ he cried.
Then, before either of them could react, he had turned, grabbed the mane of an unsaddled horse, swung himself up and gone racing away over the bridge and into the woods.
Chapter Nineteen
Eadulf turned with grim humour. ‘Well, he certainly recognised the necklet. But what does that tell us? Indeed, what can we deduce from anything?’
Fidelma was smiling with a dreamy satisfied air. ‘The deduction is simple, Eadulf. I believe that we have now all the pieces to set up the picture of what has happened in this place.’
Eadulf’s surprise was only slightly less than that displayed by Iorwerth. ‘Surely you cannot mean that?’
‘Surely I can,’ replied Fidelma with dry mischief. ‘Let us hope our young friend Dewi returns from the abbey of Dewi Sant soon.’
‘What then?’
‘Then we can explain this puzzle, apportion the blame, and return to Porth Clais in search of a ship. I am sure that you urgently want to continue the journey to Canterbury?’
Eadulf did not reply.
‘Good,’ went on Fidelma as if he had spoken. ‘Tonight is a chance to enjoy ourselves. The eve of All Hallows Day. The ancient pagan festival of the dead. We can join in the feasting and bonfires.’
‘Are you sure that you have a solution to this riddle?’ Eadulf seemed unconvinced.
‘I would not have said so otherwise,’ replied Fidelma quietly.
The evening meal, served by the taciturn Buddog, was eaten in a gloomy atmosphere. Gwnda sat moodily at the head of the table, drumming his fingers occasionally on the table top. He seemed preoccupied with his thoughts. The main savoury dishes had been cleared away when Buddog brought in a plate of small cakes speckled with currants from the gooseberry bushes.
‘These are good,’ Eadulf said desperately, trying to ease the brooding ambience.
‘Have you not seen them before?’ asked Fidelma, feeling sorry for him. ‘We call them speckled bread at home and also serve them at this time of year-’
Eadulf had bitten deeply and a spasm of agony distorted his face. He put his hand to his mouth and drew out a small metal finger ring which he held up, staring at it in surprise.
‘What in the name. .?’
Fidelma was chuckling. ‘Don’t worry, you are not being poisoned. It is merely a tradition.’
Eadulf turned the ring over curiously. ‘What does it mean?’ he demanded.
He did not notice Fidelma colour a little.
‘I’ll explain later,’ she said. ‘It is a tradition of the feast at this time of year.’
From outside came the sound of music and voices, especially children’s, raised in singing. Eadulf’s expression clearly asked a question.
‘It is for the eve of All Hallows,’ Gwnda replied morosely.
‘Oh, the new celebration.’ Eadulf remembered that Fidelma had explained the bonfire to him.
‘New?’ said Fidelma sharply. ‘Come, Eadulf, surely you know of the antiquity of the feast? You have been in the five kingdoms long enough, even if you did not realise that the Britons also celebrated it.’
‘I know that it was Boniface, the fourth of his name to be Bishop of Rome, who introduced the celebration of All Saints’ Day fifty years ago,’ Eadulf replied stubbornly.
‘Because he could not stop the Gauls, Britons and Irish from celebrating the ancient festival of the New Year, the feast of Samhain. So he merely gave it a Christian guise. Isn’t that so, Gwnda?’
The lord of Pen Caer was still moody. ‘What’s that? Oh, yes. Our people have celebrated the Calan Gaeaf since the days beyond time.’
‘We still call it Samhain,’ Fidelma said. ‘Many still believe it is the true start of the new year, for the old ones believed that darkness must come before rebirth and so we enter the period of darkness in these winter months before the rebirth of life. In fact,’ she smiled briefly, ‘the old ones used to say that this was the best time for women to conceive so that the baby could be born within the period of light.’
‘I thought it was a ceremony of the dead,’ Eadulf pointed out.
‘In a way,’ agreed Fidelma. ‘Because the feast marks an end and a beginning. It is thought by the ancient wise men that this was a night suspended in time when the borders of natural and supernatural become blurred. It is the period whe
n the Otherworld becomes visible to this world. . a time when those departed souls to whom you had done wrong in this life might return to wreak vengeance on you. . to even the balance of good and evil. .’
With a crash, Gwnda pushed back his chair, and strode from the room.
Eadulf smiled uneasily. ‘He seems to have a problem with that,’ he observed wryly.
‘I think that many people have a problem with it, if they truly believe it. It was the old way of trying to ensure that everyone behaved in a moral fashion towards their friends and neighbours in this life.’ She paused and held her head to one side, listening to the sounds of music and shouting from outside. ‘Let’s go and look at these celebrations. The bonfire will probably be lit by now.’
It was a black night. The moon was still hanging low on the horizon whenever it could poke out between the clouds, but across the hills they could see several bonfires here and there, bright specks in the distance. Already the township bonfire was alight and the shouts and cries of the children could be heard over the wild notes of the pipes, the beating of goatskin drums and the blare of horns. Some of the older people were dancing in a circle before the bonfire. Fidelma and Eadulf walked down to join the crowd watching the ascending flames.
The straw figure they had seen in Iorwerth’s forge had been burnt away to almost nothing. A few remains could still be discerned on top of the fire.
‘Human sacrifice?’ Eadulf grinned cynically.
Fidelma took the question seriously. ‘In olden times, it was the custom to offer a god called Taranis, the god of thunder, offerings in a wooden vessel, some say in the figure of a man made of wood. The figure symbolised the messenger to the gods.’
Eadulf’s attention had been distracted and he seemed to be searching the crowd by the bonfire.
‘What is it?’ asked Fidelma.
‘I was trying to see if I could spot Iorwerth or our friend Iestyn,’ he replied. ‘I would have expected their attendance at such a celebration.’
Fidelma agreed. She turned, and abruptly found herself facing the grinning figure of Iestyn standing behind her.
‘Not gone yet, Gwyddel?’ he sneered.
‘As you can see,’ she replied evenly. ‘However, it is to be hoped that tomorrow may be a good day for our departure.’
‘Tomorrow? Are you leaving tomorrow?’ His tone rose to a sharp interrogative.
Fidelma merely moved away, drawing Eadulf with her and leaving the farmer staring suspiciously after them.
Out of earshot, Eadulf turned to her with a worried frown. ‘Why did you say that to him? You know he will tell his friend Clydog. They’ll be waiting for us on the road.’
‘I just wanted to add some fuel to the simmering pot, Eadulf,’ she replied calmly. ‘Tomorrow we will have reached a resolution to this matter. I am just hoping that your trust in young Dewi is not misplaced. He should have returned here by today or tomorrow at the latest.’
‘I can’t see what Dewi’s arrival will do to help us now. I don’t think the authority of Gwlyddien will count for much here. Clydog has many fighting men at his disposal.’
‘That is true,’ agreed Fidelma. ‘I am gambling on the fact that Clydog will not attempt-’
They suddenly became aware of a rise in the level of the noise of the voices. The music of the instruments grew hesitant and then awkwardly trailed off. Even the shouts and screams of the children began to trail away. They heard cries of men, harsh and commanding. Figures moved in the darkness. Figures on horseback, bearing aloft brand torches and naked swords.
Fidelma turned in their direction. By the bonfire, seated on horseback, she could see a familiar figure. ‘Clydog!’ she hissed.
Then, grabbing Eadulf by the sleeve, she plunged away into the darkness between the nearest stone cabins. They paused in the shadows for a moment to regain their breath.
‘This is something I did not expect,’ she muttered. ‘I did not think Clydog would show his hand until Gwlyddien had been persuaded to march against the Hwicce.’
‘Perhaps Gwlyddien has already has been persuaded?’ Eadulf offered. ‘Anyway, what can we do now? Iestyn will tell him that we are in the township. There is no way we can reach our horses in Gwnda’s stables from here without being seen.’
Fidelma motioned in the gloom to the darkness of the woods behind the township buildings. ‘That is the only avenue of eluding Clydog and his robbers. Come on.’
She led the way quickly and silently from the buildings and into the woods. It was difficult to find a pass through the undergrowth but Fidelma seemed to stumble on a deer path along which their movement became easier.
‘Let’s hope that there is no truth in the old superstition, ’ muttered Eadulf, floundering behind her in the darkness.
‘What do you mean?’
‘We’ve been involved in bringing to justice many who have now joined the souls in your Otherworld. Let us hope that those vengeful souls do not have the ability to come back this night and visit vengeance on us!’
Fidelma did not bother to respond. She was still annoyed with herself for not having foreseen the possibility of this event. It had not occurred to her that Clydog would feel secure enough to ride into the township and take over.
‘How long will it be before they realise that we must have taken to the woods?’ grunted Eadulf. ‘I doubt if we will get a long start on them.’
Fidelma halted so suddenly that Eadulf almost cannoned into her.
‘What. .?’ he began.
‘Water, up ahead,’ she replied. ‘It must be the stream that borders the township. We’ll have to find a place to cross.’
A moment later they came on the dark rushing waters of the stream. Here and there in the darkness were little patches of white water as the swiftly flowing current rushed and gurgled over the stones and rocks in the river bed.
‘The deer track leads straight down to it,’ she pointed out. ‘The stream is no more than two or three metres wide here, and I think I can just see a path on the other side. That means that the deer use this as a crossing, and if a deer can cross here so can we. Are you ready?’
‘Let me go first, just in case,’ insisted Eadulf, moving forward.
Fidelma allowed him to go on. Sometimes she was so absorbed that she forgot that Eadulf’s masculine pride could be wounded when she did not allow him to take the lead in those areas where he felt he should.
She waited while he stepped into the bed of the stream and heard him gasp as the coldness struck him. Then he began to pick his way across, swaying now and then as the deceptive force of the current pushed against him. The waters, however, did not rise above his knees and soon he was scrambling up the far bank. She did not wait for him to call to her but began to cross immediately. As she reached the bank he leaned forward and helped her out.
The clouds were bunching up now and obscuring what little light there had been from the low-lying moon, causing the woods to be almost in total darkness. There was, however, a faint gloom which allowed them to follow the deer trail with a fairly fast pace.
‘We must be a fair distance from Llanwnda now,’ muttered Eadulf breathlessly after they had been travelling for some time.
‘I think we have only been moving in a semicircle,’ Fidelma replied cautiously.
A moment or so later, they came to a darkened building. Eadulf shivered as he recognised its outlines. ‘It’s the woodsman’s hut. We have not gone far at all.’ He sounded disappointed.
‘But at least we have come upon the main track through the wood. If we follow this road we will come to the forge of Goff. .’
Eadulf grunted in dismay. ‘But that is about seven or eight kilometres from here, and without horses. . why. .!’
Fidelma suspected that if she could see his features in the darkness they would be extremely woebegone. But it was too dark and she had only his voice to go by.
‘A good pace, Eadulf, and we should be there by daylight. We might be able to get horses from Goff and rid
e on to the abbey of Dewi Sant to prevent this conspiracy from bearing fruit.’
She halted abruptly. ‘I thought I saw a movement ahead,’ she whispered.
Eadulf strained forward, peering along the track. The trees seemed to converge on them in a dark twist of gnarled branches. He shivered slightly.
‘Isn’t one of these trees the one on which they strung up Idwal?’ he muttered nervously.
Fidelma nodded before realising that he could not see her gesture in the darkness.
‘I think so,’ she agreed.
The clouds seemed to part abruptly and the moon emerged once again to cast a gloomy light over the woods. This time they both saw it.
A body was swinging from one of the lower branches of a squat oak just ahead of them. It hung low to the ground so that the toes of the feet, fully extended, almost brushed the earth. The head was at a curiously disjointed angle to the body.
Fidelma moved forward, Eadulf nervously at her side. He wished that Fidelma had not told him the folklore of this night, the eve of All Hallows.
They halted before the body. Once again the moon had disappeared behind the clouds. It was impossible to see who it was, although Eadulf felt that there was something very familiar about it. They both came to the realisation at the same moment. It was Iorwerth.
‘Dabit deus his quoque finem,’ Fidelma sighed sadly.
‘You don’t sound surprised?’ muttered Eadulf, recognising the line of Virgil which indicated that God granted an end to all trouble.
‘I am not,’ she replied. ‘Though I thought he was made of sterner stuff. Otherwise I would not have shown him that piece of jewellery. Let’s cut him down.’
Eadulf took out his knife and began to saw at the rope. ‘I don’t follow what you mean. Who killed him?’
‘He did it himself.’
The rope split and Eadulf lowered the body to the ground. ‘Why should he. .?’
Sounds broke the stillness of the night. Lights moved in the darkness; burning brand torches. Their provenance was obvious. Fidelma grabbed Eadulf’s hand.
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