Brother Dianach, who was speaking. Then she located where the voices were coming from, Brother Dianach’s sleeping chamber. The rooms were only partitioned by wood and so the sounds were not exactly muffled.
She did not move but lay listening intently for the second voice. She had already guessed who it would be. She was not disappointed.
‘Give me the vellum and I will hand it to him.’
It was Brother Solin’s voice.
‘I have it here.’
Solin gave a hiss. ‘Not so loud, boy, otherwise you might wake our fellow guests. We would not want that to happen.’
Brother Dianach gave an uncharacteristic laugh.
‘The Saxon will not wake. He quaffed enough mead and wine to sleep a week. Listen, you can hear him snoring like a pig!’
‘Quickly, now!’ Brother Solin became impatient. ‘It is essential I keep the rendezvous.’
‘Here is the vellum, Brother.’
There was a silence as if Solin were checking the object that he had been handed.
‘Good. Now back to sleep with you. I will report to you in the morning. If all goes well, Cashel will fall to us before the summer is out.’
Fidelma started up with a jerk. It was a reaction which she could not help. It was lucky that her movement had been drowned by the departure of Solin himself. Fidelma sat for a moment, heart pounding. She could hear from the soft footfalls that Solin wastip-toeing past her sleeping chamber. She swung out of bed and dragged on her robe and leather-soled shoes.
Solin had left the hostel by the time she had reached the head of the stairs but she had to refrain from any hurried descent for it would alert Brother Dianach. There was no time to wake Eadulf who slept in the chamber opposite. She went as swiftly as she could down the stairs and out into the cold darkness of the early morning.
The night was so still; so quiet. Yet the moon, although passed its full, shone with a bright white light, bathing the courtyard with its eerie glow. The figure of Brother Solin was hurrying quietly across the courtyard. She could see that he was carrying something, something white and rolled up in one hand. She found she had to wait in the darkened shadows of the hostel door because the moonlight was too intense to venture straight across the courtyard after him.
Brother Solin vanished round the corner of the building complex which she and Eadulf had visited a few hours before. Only after he had turned the corner did she hurry forward. Having reached the corner, she halted and peered carefully around it. Fidelma stood still, frustrated. There was now no sign at all of Brother Solin; no indication of where he could have disappeared to. She peered into the twilight, turning in all directions. Burning torches throughout the ráth enhanced the curious flickering twilight which spread over the buildings. There was no sign of the northern cleric’s stocky figure or even inviting shadows which might indicate where he lurked. The main pathway led directly towards the stables of the ráth and she took a few hesitant steps along it, then stopped and shrugged.
There was no point in attempting to find Solin now. He had gone to ground. There was little choice left to her but to return to the hostel and her interrupted sleep. What had Brother Solin meant? Cashel would fall before the summer had ended. That was what he had said. Summer had but one more month to run. What threat was here and how was Solin involved? That the key to the mystery lay with Solin was now abundantly clear in her mind. But what was the mystery? She still could not see any possible explanation.
She had already moved a reluctant pace or two in the direction of the hostel when she heard a scuffling noise. She held her head to one side. It had come from the direction of the stables. She turned back and moved quietly into the shadows, moving slowly down towards the stable entrance. A brand torch was lit above the stable door throwing a pool of flickering light over the entrance.
Had she heard a smothered cry, drawn out as if in agony? She waited some moments trying to detect any further sound.
A figure abruptly emerged at the stable entrance, standing for a moment as if examining whether it was observed.
It was clad from head to foot in a cloak and a hood which was held by one hand across the lower part of the face. Only the eyes and nose were visible. It was a slender figure, Fidelma could tell that in spite of the cloak which almost shrouded it. It was as the figure glanced along the path that the torchlight fell on the visible portion of its features — fell only momentarily and with shadows dancing this way and that, obscuring the exact contours of the face. However, Fidelma felt in no doubt that she had recognised the distinctive dark eyes and the features of Orla.
The slender figure hurried abruptly into the darkness towards the building which housed Murgal’s apartment and others.
Fidelma stood in indecision. Should she follow the furtive figure and if so for what reason? She still had to find Brother Solin. Solin would surely be the last person that Orla would wish a tryst with in the middle of the night after her threat to kill him.
Perhaps Brother Solin had gone elsewhere? Why shouldn’t the sister of the chieftain and wife of his tanist visit the stables of the ráth at any hour she wanted to do so? It was no business of Fidelma’s and yet … yet it was clear that Orla had no wish to be seen. Why? By the time Fidelma had considered the problem the figure had vanished into the darkness and Fidelma was alone in the silence of the night.
Fidelma suppressed a sigh and turned away. If the unlikely had happened and Solin had met Orla in the stable then he must have departed by another exit.
The groan was so low that for a moment she thought it was some movement of the night wind. Then it came again. It was a human sound, she realised within a moment, and it came from the stables.
She turned back and hurried to the doorway, peering into the darkness beyond. There was a gasping of agonised breath.
She could see only the shadowy outlines of the horses now moving restlessly in the dark. She moved to the brand torch outside and took it down from its metal holder. Then, carrying it aloft, she moved forward looking carefully to locate the source of the sound.
The figure lay at the far end of the stable, stretched on its back, one hand across its chest, the other stretched out behind its head.
Fidelma had no trouble recognising the thick-set figure of Brother Solin of Armagh.
She moved quickly to his side but one glance at the blood pumping from his lower chest, where his hand was vainly trying to stem the flow, was enough to show that Brother Solin was dying. His eyes were closed, his lips twisted in pain.
‘Solin!’ she spoke sharply. ‘Who did this to you?’
The man rolled his head but did not open his eyes. The lips twisted further in agony.
‘Solin, it is Fidelma. Who stabbed you?’
The lips parted and Fidelma had to lean close to hear the painful gasping breath.
The head fell back. Brother Solin of Armagh was dead.
Fidelma sighed and finished off the aphorism,
She compressed her lips and stared down at the body. And what did that mean? ‘Gentle in manner,’ Solin had begun. The end of the aphorism was ‘resolute in deed’. Well, his killer had been resolute in this deed but certainly it was not done in gentle manner. Orla had said that she would kill Solin if she saw him again and she had, apparently, kept her word.
Realising Solin was beyond mortal help, she made a quick search of his body. The piece of vellum which Brother Dianach had given him, and which she had seen him carrying, was nowhere in the vicinity. She held her torch aloft and peered carefully around. There was no sign of anything remotely resembling the vellum. Had Orla taken it? If so, why? And what had Orla’s anger with Solin to do with Solin’s threat of Cashel falling before the summer ended?
Fidelma began to rise, torch in hand, and as she did so she felt a sharp sensation in her back. A harsh male voice hissed: ‘Make no further move, lady.’
