my voice.’
Fidelma rose, knowing well the symbolism of the wand.
‘I will not fail you, brother.’
Colgú gazed fondly on his sister, then held out both hands and placed them on her shoulders.
‘And since I cannot persuade you to take a troop of warriors with you, I can offer you the next best thing.’
Fidelma frowned as Colgú turned and clapped his hands. The door opened and his Brehon and chamberlain entered. They were followed by Bishop Ségdae, an elderly hawk-faced man whose features seemed to fit his name. They had obviously been waiting outside for this moment. They bowed briefly to Fidelma in respectful greeting. Then, with no word being spoken, the chamberlain moved forward to Colgú’s left side. He carried a small wooden box. He held out the casket towards the king.
‘I have been meaning to do this for some time,’ Colgú confessed in a confidential tone, as he turned to open the box. ‘Especially after you thwarted the Uí Fidgente in their plot to destroy my kingdom.’
He took out a length of golden chain. It was a simple and unadorned piece some two feet in length.
Fidelma had seen other kings of Cashel perform the ceremony and she suddenly realised what was about to take place. Even so, she was surprised.
‘Do you mean to raise me to the Niadh Nasc?’ she whispered.
‘I do,’ confirmed her brother. ‘Will you kneel and take the oath?’
The Niadh Nasc, the order of the Golden Chain or Collar, was a venerable Muman nobiliary fraternity which had sprung from membership of the ancient elite warrior guards of the kings of Cashel. The honour was in the personal presentation of the Eóghanacht king of Cashel and each recipient observed personal allegiance to him, being given, in turn, a cross to wear which had originated from anancient solar symbol for it was said the origins of the honour were shrouded in the mists of time. Some scribes claimed that it had been founded almost a thousand years before the birth of Christ.
Slowly, Fidelma sank to her knees.
‘Do you, Fidelma of Cashel, swear on all that you honour to defend and guard the legitimate king of Muman, the head of your house, and receive in brotherhood and sisterhood your companions who bear the order of the Golden Chain?’
‘I swear it,’ whispered Fidelma and placed her right hand in that of her brother, Colgú the king.
He took the length of golden chain and wrapped it around their joined hands in a symbolic act of binding them.
‘Conscious of your loyalty towards our person, house and order, and of the solemn vow you have sworn to obey, defend, protect and guard the same, so now do we bind you with this chain to our service and invest you as a Niadh Nasc. Let death and not dishonour sever these links.’
There was silence for a moment and then, with an awkward laugh, Colgú unwound the chain and raised his sister to her feet, bestowing a kiss on both her cheeks. Then he turned back to the box and took out another length of golden chain. This time there was a singularly shaped cross attached to the end of it, a white cross with rounded ends in which a plain cross was inserted. It was the insignia of the order, a cross that was old before Christian symbolism. Gravely, Colgú placed it around his sister’s neck.
‘Any person within the five kingdoms of Éireann will know this insignia,’ he said solemnly. ‘You have refused the protection of my warriors in the flesh but this will afford you their protection in spirit because anyone who offers offence to a member of this order also offers offence to the kings of Cashel and the brethren of the Niadh Nasc.’
Fidelma knew that her brother was making no idle boast. Few were admitted to the order, even fewer women achieved the honour.
‘I will wear this insignia with honour, brother,’ she said quietly.
‘May it protect you in your journey to the Forbidden Valley and your negotiation with Laisre. Also, Fidelma, remember my exhortation —
Beware what you say, when and to whom.
Her brother’s advice was echoing in Fidelma’s mind as she brought her attention back to the grim forbidding peaks of the mountain range above her.
Chapter Three
The climb upwards through the foothills into the mountains took much longer than Eadulf had expected. The track twisted and turned like a restless serpent through precipitous embankments of rock and earth, crossing gushing streams that poured from the towering mountain peaks, through dark wooded glades and across open rocky stretches. Eadulf wondered how anyone could live in such an isolated habitation for Fidelma assured him this was the only route into the region from the south.
As he peered upwards towards the impossible heights, his eye caught something flashing momentarily. He blinked. He had seen the flash at least two or three times before on their upward climb and, at first, he thought that he had merely imagined it. He must have betrayed his concern, perhaps by a tightening of his neck muscles or straining his head too long in the direction of the point of the glinting light, because Fidelma said quietly: ‘I see it. Someone has been watching our approach for the last half hour.’
Eadulf was aggrieved.
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘Tell you what? It should be no surprise that someone watches strangers riding through these mountains. Mountain folk are a suspicious people.’
Eadulf relapsed into silence. Nevertheless, he continued to keep a wary eye on the surrounding hills. To his perception, the flash was the sun striking on metal. Metal meant weapons or armour. That always meant a potential danger. The journey continued in silence for a while and still they climbed higher. At one point they were forced to dismount, so steep and rocky did the path become, and lead their horses upwards.
Eventually, Eadulf was about to ask Fidelma if she thought that there would be much further to climb when the pathway suddenly curved around the shoulder of the mountain and, unexpectedly, a broad glen stretched away before them. It was heather filled with a mass of red, orange and green gorse presenting a strange etherealspectacle. And still the higher mountain peaks seemed as distant as before.
‘This journey is neverending,’ Eadulf grumbled.
Fidelma paused and turned in her saddle to regard the Saxon sternly.
‘Not so. We have but to cross this great glen and pass through those peaks beyond. Then we shall be in the territory of Laisre; in Gleann Geis itself.’
Eadulf frowned momentarily.
‘I thought that you had never been in this territory before?’
Fidelma suppressed a sigh.
‘Nor have I, though I have passed it by.’
‘Then how …?’
‘Ah, Eadulf! Do you think our people have no knowledge of the making of maps? If we don’t know how to cross our own country, how could we send missionaries across the great lands to the east?’
Eadulf felt a little foolish. He was about to speak again but he suddenly observed that Fidelma’s body had tensed and she was staring across the glen before them, looking upwards into the sky. He followed her gaze.
‘Birds,’ he remarked.
‘The ravens of death.’ Her voice was low.
The dark specks were circling against the azure sky, seemingly moving lower and lower in a spiral.
‘A dead animal, no doubt,’ Eadulf suggested, adding: ‘A big one to attract so many scavengers.’
‘Big, indeed,’ agreed Fidelma. Then she nudged her horse forward with a determined movement. ‘Come on, it is on our way, and I have a mind to see what attracts so many scavengers.’
Reluctantly Eadulf followed her. Sometimes he wished that his companion was not always filled with
