The Subtle Serpent

‘I have known for some time. You are right, sister. My father would not help Brónach look after me. Only my grandmother helped until I was three years old. She was fostering another child then, a child who was older than I was. That child was full of malice and jealousy and in a fit of rage slew my grandmother, leaving me almost helpless. Then Brónach defied my father’s wishes and brought me back to the community and raised me — deformity and all.’

Sister Brónach grimaced.

‘The condition was that I would never identify her father. I have kept to that condition. The knowledge would not add pleasure for Berrach.’

‘I am happy in that ignorance,’ Berrach assured her. ‘It is no great loss.’

‘What is ironic is that the child who killed my mother would be allowed to enter the community also and eventually became our abbess.’

‘She will not be here for long. Neither will Sister Lerben,’ Fidelma assured them.

Sister Berrach reached forward and clasped Fidelma’s hand.

‘But you will tell no one of our story?’

‘No one,’ Fidelma reassured the girl. ‘Your secret is buried and forgotten, so far as I am concerned.’

Sister Brónach paused to wipe a tear from her eye.

‘Thank you, sister.’

Fidelma held out her hands, taking Brónach’s and Berrach’s hands in each of her own.

‘Care for one another, sisters, in the future as you have in the past.’

The canvas sail came cracking down the mast to fall into place. Ross watched his sailors with critical eyes as they swarmed up to secure it in place. A stiff winter wind was blustering across the inlet and bearing within its bosom snow squalls. The sky was almost black and the air was damp andchill, yet Ross was in no way perturbed at putting out to sea, in spite of the fact that even in this inlet the waters were choppy and the barc was bobbing to and fro alarmingly. Now the sails were finally in place, with Odar at the helm, the ship began to move forward at a cracking rate.

Sister Fidelma and Brother Eadulf stood on the stern deck with Ross. The two religious gripped the side rails to steady themselves, both jealous of the easy manner with which Ross stood by the helm, feet apart, balancing against the pitch of the deck. The burly seaman turned half apologetically to them.

‘It will be rough for a while,’ he called above the blustering wind, ‘but it will ease when we have stood out to sea.’

Fidelma grinned at Eadulf’s anxious face.

‘I’d rather be at sea than confined further in the grim atmosphere of that abbey,’ she replied as Ross turned to his other tasks

‘I shall not be sorry to leave here either,’ Eadulf confessed. ‘It has not been the best of times.’

Fidelma glanced sympathetically up at him. Then her eye caught the sight of the tall Gaulish merchant ship, still bobbing at anchor, vanishing behind them in the inlet.

‘I thought it was a mark of a fine man that Ross forwent his salvage on that ship and returned it to its Gaulish crew for their safe return home.’

‘A pity Waroc was not with them. As I said, he was a brave man.’

‘How long do you think that you will remain at Cashel?’ Fidelma changed the subject abruptly.

‘I am not sure. Until I hear from Theodore of Canterbury, I suppose.’

‘I plan to spend some time at Cashel myself,’ Fidelma remarked lightly. ‘It is so long since my brother and I have had any time together.’

‘You will want some rest after this,’ agreed Eadulf. ‘Plots and insurrections apart, the abbey of The Salmon of theThree Wells seemed filled with vain, greedy and twisted people. It will be pleasant to be among friends.’

‘You are too hard on them. Sister Comnat was an upright and sensible lady. And as for Brónach and Berrach … they, at least, knew love and caring.’

‘Yes. I felt sorry for them, especially.’

‘Sorrow? No, I would have said envy was what one should feel for them. It is not given to many to give and receive an unselfish mother’s love.’

Fidelma suddenly frowned and turned looking seaward, leaning on the ship’s rail.

‘I wonder if Brónach will ever tell her daughter the name of her father?’ She had seen the pleading eyes of Brónach and obeyed that silent prayer not to utter the name of Febal. Perhaps it was as well.

Eadulf had not caught her words.

‘What was that?’

Fidelma looked up at the tall Saxon monk and her face relaxed into a look of contentment.

‘I am glad that you are coming to Cashel, Eadulf,’ she said.