The Monk Who Vanished

Eadulf found his irritability increasing. ‘How can you say otherwise?’

‘Making maps of the stars and deciphering their meaning is an ancient tradition in this land.’

‘The New Faith should have replaced such pagan traditions. It is forbidden. Doesn’t the Book of Isaiah say:

’“Let your astrologers, your star-gazers who foretell

your future month by month,

persist, and save you!

But look, they are gone like chaff;

fire burns them up;

they cannot snatch themselves from the flames;

there is no glowing coal to warm them,

no fire for them to sit by.

So much for your magicians …” ’

Fidelma smiled softly. She always had a tendency to smile whenEadulf began to argue theology for, by his adherence to the new teachings of Rome, he and she found many points of difference in their attitudes to the Faith. Fidelma was a woman of her own culture.

‘You quote from the ancient texts of the Judaic Faith,’ she pointed out.

‘Of which Our Lord came as a Messiah,’ snapped Eadulf waspishly.

‘Exactly so. He came as a Messiah, as a Saviour, to show them a new path to understanding God. Who, according to Matthew, were the first to arrive in Jerusalem after the birth of the Christ?’

‘Who?’ Eadulf shook his head, wondering what point she was making.

‘Astrologers from the east, seeking the Saviour for they had seen his coming in a map of the heavens. And didn’t King Herod try to persuade them to betray that knowledge? Astrologers were the first to arrive in Bethlehem and worship the Saviour and offer him gold, frankincense and myrrh. Had astrology been cursed by God, would astrologers have been the first allowed to greet Him on Earth?’

Eadulf flushed irritably. Fidelma always had a good counterargument when he tried to assert anything that she disagreed with.

‘Well, Deuteronomy is clear,’ he went on stubbornly. ‘Nor must you raise your eyes to the heavens and look up to the sun, moon, and the stars, all the host of heaven, and be led on to bow down to them and worship them …’

‘ … the Lord your God created them for the guidance of the various peoples under the heavens,’ Fidelma added emphatically. ‘I trust, Eadulf, you were going to deliver the entire verse from Deuteronomy? Anyway, astrologers do not worship or bow down to the sun, moon and stars, but use them as guides. Our astrologers argue that we can no more alter the course of our stars than we can change our features and the colour of our hair and eyes. Yet we have free will to do as we please with the things that we are given.’

Eadulf sighed deeply. He was already tiring of the argument. He wished that he had not raised it. Fidelma always thrived on disputations, even to the point of becoming the Devil’s Advocate.

‘It is against the teachings …’ he began.

‘Show me one clear reference in the holy texts forbidding Christians not to take notice of the ancient science, apart from some obscure references …’

‘Jeremiah,’ returned Eadulf, remembering suddenly.

‘“Listen, Israel, to this word that the Lord has

spoken against you:

‘Do not fall into the ways of the nations;

do not be awed by signs in the heavens;

it is the nations who go in awe of these …” ’

‘What Israel did before the coming of the Messiah is a matter for Israel. But we are of the nations and Jeremiah admits, at least, there are signs in the heavens, although we are not awed by them but merely interpret them and attempt to understand them. And if there are signs in the heavens, who put them there? Wouldn’t it be blasphemy to claim that they were put there by another hand than God’s?’

Eadulf face was red with mortification. He felt himself about to explode with anger. He didn’t. Instead, he suddenly started to chuckle. ‘Why do I think that I can win an argument with a lawyer?’ he remarked shaking his head ruefully.

Fidelma hesitated a moment and then finally joined in his mirth. ‘Castigat ridendo mores,’ she said softly, resorting to one of her favourite quotations. It corrects customs by laughing at them.

They broke out of the woods abruptly onto a broad field of reeds. As their horses emerged from the woodland a group of small birds rose in a body making a twanging ‘ping-ping’ call-note. They gathered in a flock and swept low over the reeds, searching out the danger, before they settled back among tall feathery-headed reed grass with its dark purple flowered heads and rough-edged leaves.

‘Reedlings,’ Fidelma explained unnecessarily. ‘Our horses disturbed them.’

Eadulf could hear the rushing of the river a short distance away.

‘Can the warriors see us from the bridge?’ he asked for although some of the reeds stretched as tall as ten feet in height, there was a lot of low growth around the path, which he saw meandering through it to the open river. But along the banks was no more than reed canary-grass, of a shorter and smaller variety.

‘No. There is a slight bend in the river which hides us. Besides, the warriors will believe that we have gone back to Cashel to get my brother’s warriors.’

She nudged her mare forward and around Eadulf to take the lead.

‘Keep close behind me and do not deviate from the track. The grassland may look firm but it is marsh and some people have been known to be sucked under into the muddy depths.’

Eadulf found himself unable to suppress a shudder as he glanced around.

Fidelma pulled a face at his pale features.

‘To be alive at all involves risks and dangers so cheer up,’ she advised brightly, before she set off confidently enough, her horse picking its way through the tall waving reeds which looked so wild and dramatic against the skyline. Eadulf realised that the marshland was a whole jumble of growths and what he had thought was an entire plain of reeds was in fact intermixed with fen sedge, spike-rush and wilting bulrushes which were long past their flowering period. The whole growth created a curious green, varying brown and yellow surrounding.

The reedlings now and then took wing but only in small individual groups from the nests among the reeds. Their tiny tawny bodies, even the males with black markings, were hard to spot.

Eadulf became increasingly aware of the rushing waters and realised that the river was crossing a series of shallows and the noise that he was hearing was the movement of the waters over the stony bottom, hitting rocks and objects in mid-stream.