“That was the cabin I spent the night in,” she replied softly.
Eadulf shivered slightly at the tone in her voice.
“But you said …” he began.
“I know what I said. I know what happened,” her voice was now confident.
Eadulf moved forward and began to brush the coating of snow from the stones and wood. Then he turned to her with a serious expression.
“Where did you say the barn was?”
Fidelma pointed without saying anything further. Eadulf went to explore, scraping the snow away here and there. Then he looked up with a shake of his head.
“One thing is for certain, a cabin and a barn stood here until a short while ago.”
Fidelma turned quickly. “You mean that it was knocked down recently?”
“That I do,” replied Eadulf. “And that must have taken several men, working hard, for some hours. Where they have left bits of wood, it has been smashed and obviously one can see that the breaks are not weathered. This was done very recently. But who did it and why? If there had been no snowfall during the last few days then we might have seen the remains of the buildings earlier.”
“Maybe we were meant to ride past without noticing them. But did they drive off the cow, the goats and the chickens?”
“That would be logical,” agreed Eadulf. “Also, you will have noticed that most of the timbers and a lot of the domestic materials are not here. Only the bits of rough-hewn stone that could not be removed have been left, knocked down and spread about. But why?”
“There must be some evidence of where the remains of this cabin and barn have been taken.”
“With the snows of the last two days and nights, I doubt we could find a trail,” murmured Eadulf, glancing around. He crossed back to the ruins of the cabin and stared at it thoughtfully. Then he suddenly bent down and rubbed snow away from some objects on the ground. He rose, holding them in his hand. “Maybe they were in a hurry, for these seem valuable, too valuable to leave behind.”
Fidelma moved forward and peered at them closely.
“Not the usual tools of a hill-farmer,” she muttered. “That is a
Eadulf gazed at her blankly. “Understand?”
“The voices I heard in the night. The thuds. What might have happened to the couple who lived here. Above all, why a man could leave no tracks in the snow. Why a so-called hill-farmer could have a colloquial knowledge of Latin. And why he would call himself Faelur. It all begins to fit together.”
“I wish I could follow this,” sighed Eadulf. “Anyway, what do we do now?”
Fidelma was regarding the piles of stone which had marked the walls of the
“Come with me but watch where you are walking. It is very dangerous terrain here, I think. And, perhaps, we should be quiet.”
Eadulf regarded her in amazement but he shrugged and did as he was told.
Keeping her eyes close to the ground, Fidelma walked slowly up from what had been the back of the cabin towards the distant shoulder of the hill. The way led past large boulder-like rocks that were as tall as a man. She had not gone far when she paused by the side of one such boulder. She bent down. Peering over her shoulder, Eadulf could see a place where it seemed twigs and fronds had been laid, but which the fallen snow had almost covered. Fidelma removed one or two of these and revealed an opening into the ground.
Eadulf was about to say something when a sound caught his attention. A distant thudding and he was sure he heard a voice calling.
Fidelma turned quickly, a finger to her lips, and motioned him to back away, returning to the cabin.
“We must get away from here immediately,” she whispered.
Eadulf found the intensity in her voice frightening.
“Monsters? Dwellers underground? What is it?” he demanded.
She smiled thinly. “More dangerous than that. Come, let’s get our horses. We have a long ride ahead of us.”
“To Cashel?” Eadulf queried. “I thought we were going to stay at a
“We do not go to Cashel but to the fortress of Caol, the commander of my brother’s bodyguard. We should be able to reach it before nightfall. Caol will be able to raise warriors so that we can return and put an end to this evil business.”
It was two days later that a party of warriors, most of them wearing the golden torc collars of the elite warriors of the Nasc Niadh, bodyguards to the King of Muman, rode into the settlement of Beal Atha Gabhann. Fidelma and Eadulf were among them but it was Caol, their commander, who rode at their head. Swiftly he brushed aside the challenge of the guards, two warriors of Rechtabra, the tanist of the Airthir Chliach, by asserting the authority of the King. They stood uncertainly at the gates of the hunting lodge as Caol swept by them into the main hall. His men swiftly deployed to secure the place. Even as they did so, Rechtabra emerged from one of the rooms with Maen at his side. The tanist was red-faced in fury and demanded to know what was meant, while Scoth, with a female attendant, had emerged from another chamber. Scoth was looking frightened.
Caol had confronted them both. “We are on the business of your King.”
He then stood aside and signalled one of his men to allow Fidelma and Eadulf to make their entrance into the hall.
“Fidelma!” cried Scoth. “’What on earth does this mean?”
“I have come to talk about silver mines,” she said quietly.
Rechtabra’s brows drew together and made a dismissive gesture with one hand. “What nonsense is this?” he demanded. “Do you think I would break my word? I have told you, that I am prepared to answer Scoth’s allegations before my prince and his Brehon. What more do you want?”
“I want, cousin, to resolve a matter of illicit mining, of the kidnapping of workers to excavate the mine, and of the kidnapping of hill-farmers to prevent them revealing news of the whereabouts of the mine.”
“I have told you that there is nothing illegal about the mines I run,” snapped Rechtabra. “As for kidnapping …”
Scoth had turned to her cousin.
“Nothing illegal? You know full well that the mine is — ”
“It is not of that particular matter I have come,” asserted Fidelma. “I speak of the silver mine in the high pass opposite Sliabh Coimealta.”
Rechtabra stared at her for a moment and then laughed shortly. “There is no such mine there, let alone a silver mine.”
Fidelma regarded him for a moment as if trying to peer beyond his bland expression, and then she turned to examine Scoth in the same way. Then she shook her head sadly before she began to speak.
“The main entrance to the silver mine was hidden on the far side of the mountain. But the seams that the miners followed ran deep. One of the seams came through the hillside — underneath, or close enough, to the cabin of Cuilind and his wife, Ciarnat. Apparently, they heard the thudding and the voices of the miners at work under their cabin. Cuilind, roused from his sleep, went to investigate. He found one of the air tunnels and was trying to find where it led when the warriors, who were guarding the miners, caught him. Ciarnat heard his call but was caught also. Their guard-dog must have set up a barking and, the poor beast, for adhering to its duty, was bludgeoned to death.
“The warriors made Cuilind and Ciarnat prisoners but were unsure of what to do next. They left the hill-farm alone until they could send for orders. That was when I arrived and spent a curious night there. I tended to the animals and, in the cabin, during the night, I also heard the miners at work as Cuilind must have done. Thankfully, so it seems, I did not go to investigate as he had done. However, the next morning I was confronted by a man calling himself Faelur, wolfman. A nice touch of the dramatic. He was the overseer of the mine, who had come
