The Subtle Serpent

Sister Brónach succeeded in dragging her eyes away from the bloodied, mangled flesh around where the head should have been. The sight of the gory mess fascinated yet appalled and sickened her. The body was plainly that of a young and previously healthy woman, perhaps scarcely out of puberty. The only other disfigurement, apart from the missing head, was a wound in the chest. There was a bluish bruise on the flesh above the heart and, looking closer, the cutting woundmarked where a sharp blade point, or some such implement, had entered the heart. But the wound had long since ceased to bleed.

Sister Brónach forced herself to bend down and reached for one of the arms of the corpse to place them across the body before the stiffening of the flesh made such a task impossible. She suddenly dropped the arm and let out a loud gasp of breath almost as if she had received a blow in the solar plexus.

Startled, Sister Síomha followed the direction of Brónach’s outstretched hand, now pointing to the left arm of the corpse. Something was tied around the arm which had been hidden from them by the position of the corpse. It was a length of wood, no more than a stick with notches carved on it. Sister Brónach knew Ogham, the ancient form of Irish writing, when she saw it, though she did not understand the meaning of the characters. Ogham was no longer in general use throughout the five kingdoms for the Latin alphabet was now being adopted as the form of characters in which Irish was written.

In bending forward to examine the wooden stick, however, her eyes caught sight of something clutched in the other hand of the corpse. A small, worn leather thong was wound around the right wrist and travelled into the clenched fist. Sister Brónach had steeled herself again to her task, kneeling beside the body and taking up the small white hands. She could not prise apart the fingers; the stiffening of death had already locked the hand permanently into a fist. Nevertheless, the fingers were splayed just wide enough for her to see that the leather thong was attached to a small metal crucifix and this was what the lifeless right hand was clutching so tightly.

Sister Brónach let out a low groan and glanced across her shoulder to where Sister Síomha was bending, with a fixed expression, to see what had been discovered.

‘What can it mean, sister?’ Sister Síomha’s voice was taut, almost harsh.

Sister Brónach’s face was grave. She was now fully in control of her features again.

She breathed deeply before replying in a measured tone as she stared down at the poorly wrought crucifix of burnished copper. Obviously no person of rank and wealth would have such a cheap object as this.

‘It means that we should now summon Abbess Draigen, good sister. Whoever this poor headless girl was, I believe that she was one of our own. She was a sister of the Faith.’

Far off, in the tiny tower overlooking their community, they could hear the striking of the gong to mark the passing of another time period. The clouds were suddenly thickening and spreading across the sky. Cold flakes of snow were drifting across the mountains again.

Chapter Two

The Foracha, the coastal barc of Ross of Ross Ailithir, was making a swift passage parallel to the southern coast of the Irish kingdom of Muman. Her sails were full with an icy, cold, easterly wind almost laying the vessel over and whistling among the taut ropes of the rigging, playing on the tightly stretched cordage like harp strings. The day appeared fine, apart from the blustery sea winds swooping down from the distant coastline. A host of sea birds were circling the little ship, beating their wings against the squalls to remain in position, the gulls crying with their curious plaintive wail. Here and there, some hardy cormorants speared into the waves, emerging with their prey, oblivious to the jealous cries of the gulls and storm petrels. And among the sea birds were the species after which the Foracha received her name — the guillemots, with their dark brown upper parts and pure white underparts, moving in tight formations to inspect the vessel before wheeling back to their densely-packed colonies on the precipitous cliff ledges.

Ross, the captain of the vessel, stood by the steersman at the tiller with feet spaced apart, balancing to the roll as the wind thrust the waves to rush against the ship, heeling her to starboard so that the little barc would roll slowly, slowly until it seemed that she was heading for disaster. But then her bow would rise over the wave and plunge downwards, setting her back to the port side. In spite of the rolling motion of the ship, Ross stood without the necessity to clutch any support,forty years of sea-going was enough for him to anticipate every pitch and roll with an automatic adjustment of his weight without moving from the spot. On land, Ross was moody and irritable, but at sea he was in his element and fully alive to all its moods. He became a flesh and blood extension to his swift sailing barc and his deep green eyes, reflecting the changing humours of the sea, watched his half-a-dozen crewmen with a cautious approval as they went about their tasks.

His bright eyes never missed a thing, either on sea or in the sky above it. He had already perceived that some of the birds wheeling overhead were rarely to be seen in winter and had ascribed their presence to the mild autumnal weather that had only recently given way to the winter coldness.

Ross was a short, stocky man with greying, close-cropped hair, and his skin was tanned by the sea winds almost to the colour of nut. He was a man with a dour humour and always ready with a loud bellow when he was displeased.

A tall sailor, caressing the tiller in his gnarled hands, suddenly narrowed his eyes and glanced across to where Ross was standing.

‘Captain …’ he began.

‘I see her, Odar,’ returned Ross before he had even finished. ‘I’ve been watching her this last half hour.’

Odar, the steersman, swallowed as he regarded his captain with surprise. The object of their conversation was an oceangoing ship with tall masts which was now a mile or so distant. It had, as Ross had indicated, been visible for some time to the smaller barc. But it was only in these last few minutes that the steersman had become aware that something was not right about the ship. It was under full sail and was riding very high out of the water. Not much ballast in her, Odar, the steersman had thought. But the main curiosity was that its course was erratic. In fact, twice it had changed course in such an unconventional and capricious manner that thesteersman had believed that it was going to capsize. He had also noticed that the topsail of the ship seemed badly fixed and was swinging in all manner of directions. It was then that he had decided to bring the matter to the attention of his captain.

Ross, however, was making no idle boast when he said that he had been watching the ship for half-an-hour. Almost from the first time that he had noticed the other ship he was aware that it was either sailed by poor seamen or there was something wrong on board. The sails filled and deflated as each unpredictable wind caught them with no one on board seeming to correct the ship’s heading.

‘The way she is heading, captain,’ muttered Odar, ‘she’ll be piling up on the rocks soon.’

Ross did not reply for he had already made the same deduction. He knew that a mile or so ahead were some semi-submerged rocks, their black granite rising among streams of sea foam which poured down the sides as the seas broke over them with a noise of thunder. Moreover, Ross knew that around the granite bastions was a line of reefs under water over which a small draught vessel such as his barc could easily pass but that the sea-going ship to his port had no chance.

Ross gave a low sigh.

‘Stand by to turn towards her, Odar,’ he grunted to the steersman and then he yelled to his crew. ‘Ready to loose the main sail!’

With deft precision, the Foracha swung from its course to a new tack with the wind full at her back so that it fairly flew across the waves towards the large ship. It cut the distance with great rapidity until the barc was but a cable’s distance away and then Ross moved forward to the rail, cupping his hands to his mouth.

‘Hóigh!’ he yelled. ‘Hóigh!’

There was no responding cry from the now towering, dark vessel.

Suddenly, without warning, the fickle wind changeddirection. The tall, dark bow of the sea-going ship was turned directly towards them, the sails filled and it was bearing down on them like an infuriated sea monster.