The Monk Who Vanished

‘Colgú would be assassinated. The Uí Fidgente would be blamed. Disorder and turmoil would rip Muman apart and you, dear cousin, would come forward and claim the crown, promising to unite the kingdom once again. You would have the support of the whole kingdom behind you when you marched to destroy the Uí Fidgente and from the ashes of that land you would give the Uí Néill tribute, allowing Mael Duin of Ailech to once more reach out his blood-red hand to take control of our kingdom.’

Many had risen in the Great Hall and began to crowd towards the spot where the drama was being played out. Eadulf felt himself pushed from his seat and urged forward in their forefront. He clung on desperately to his pilgrim’s staff as a means of keeping his balance in the throng.

He found himself near Donndubhain and Fidelma. He did not like the expression that was changing the tanist’s face from its handsome pleasant features to a mask of uncontrolled hatred. It was clear that Fidelma’s truth had struck home.

The tanist of Cashel was trying to assume a smug expression as he made another attempt to deny her accusation.

‘The Brehons want proof and not supposition, cousin,’ he said, clearly trying to sound amused but not succeeding. ‘Where is your proof for this outrageous nonsense?’

‘You do not think I have given you proof enough? There is Gionga. He will tell how you persuaded him to send his warriors …’

‘What if I did? You have no proof of anything else. Baoill and Fedach are dead and …’

Fidelma’s broad smile stopped him. ‘What name did you say?’ she asked softly.

‘Baoill and …’ He suddenly paused, realising the slip he had made.

‘I think the name that you gave to the archer was Fedach? Did I not say that no one knew his name? That the only person alive would be …?’

‘That is not proof enough. I might have heard it from someone else and …’

‘When you decided to kill Samradan the other night you made your fatal mistake. Without that killing, the jigsaw puzzle, our game of tomus, with which we played as children, would not have come into place within its frame.’

‘But it was I who led you to the assassin’s horses which had been hidden at Samradán’s stables,’ protested Donndubhain. ‘Would a guilty man do that?’

‘Yes. You hid the horses there yourself. Samradán was in Imleach at that time. Those horses had been kept elsewhere. Perhaps in your own stables. Then you took them to Samradán’s the very evening you killed him in order to close the circle so that a dead man would take the blame. You made a mistake in showing me those horses in your eagerness to throw me off your track. They were still hot and sweaty from their run from the place where they had been these last days. We will probably find which of your servants hid the horses on your instructions. From your own lips we have learnt the name of the archer — Fedach.’

‘Nonsense! The name proves nothing.’

‘You removed all items of identity from those horses, except for the Uí Fidgente symbol on the saddle by which you hoped that I might still be persuaded to blame Prince Donennach. You had emptied the archer’s purse, which was a stupid thing to do for it showed most clearly that everything had been tampered with. But you overlooked a single coin, however. A píss, an Uí Néill coin of Ailech.’

She held it out.

‘It showed me that the archer had been in Ailech recently.’

‘But it does not show that I was in Ailech’s pay,’ Donndubháin said. ‘Nor does it prove my guilt.’

‘No. But the death of Samradan showed me that you killed him. Where is your silver brooch, the one you said that you had tradedfrom Samradan, the one that came out of your illegal mining activity with him? The one he asked Nion the smith to make especially for his patron with its five red garnets?’

Donndubháin’s hand went automatically to his shoulder. His face went ashen.

Fidelma was holding out the brooch that she had taken from Samradán’s dead grasp. She held it up for everyone to see.

‘I found it clutched in Samradán’s hand. He tore it from Donndubháin in his death struggle along with the cloth you see attached to it.’

‘You can’t prove it is mine. A silver brooch with a solar symbol and red garnets on the ends,’ sneered Donndubháin. ‘I have seen others like it. Look!’

He pointed to where Nion was standing. It was true that the smith wore a similar solar emblem with red garnets.

Donndubháin swung round angrily to Finguine.

‘And look! He wears one exactly like it.’

Fidelma shook her head. ‘Yes. Finguine’s solar emblem was also crafted by Nion. That is why they are so alike. Those brooches were made by the same craftsman who made your one. But whereas the emblems worn by Nion and Finguine carry three red garnets, this one was made especially for you. It has five red garnets. I saw you wearing it on the day of the attempted assassination. Maybe it is meant to represent the five kingdoms of Eireann. Is your ambition so high, Donndubhain?’

Donndubhain acted so quickly that it was over in a moment. He slid one hand into his shirt and drew forth a short dagger, hidden in his waistband. At the same time he reached out a hand and grabbed Fidelma. She had not been expecting such a move and the next moment she was pressed, back against his chest, with the knife at her throat.

‘Donndubháin!’ cried Colgú, springing forward from his place. ‘You fool! You cannot hope to escape!’

The Great Hall had burst into chaos and there were cries of alarm.

‘If I do not, then your precious sister dies with me,’ shouted the Prince across the heads of the crowd.

The knife was so close against Fidelma’s neck that there was a faint spot of blood oozing along the knife edge.

‘Tell Capa to saddle me a fast horse. No tricks for Fidelma is coming with me …’ ordered Donndubháin.

He began to edge backwards from the pale-faced judges, and the anxious eyes of those gathered in the Great Hall.

There was a dull thud. The knife hand of Donndubhain trembled and then the knife dropped from the senseless fingers to the floor. Amoment afterwards it was followed by the unconscious body of the tanist of Cashel.

Fidelma swung round, eyes wide, heaving for breath.

Eadulf was standing there looking concerned. He held his pilgrim’s staff in two hands. He suddenly smiled as his eyes found Fidelma’s.

‘What works for a canis lupus can work for a human wolf as well.’

Fidelma threw back her head and laughed with relief as she embraced her companion.

Epilogue

Fidelma and Eadulf had paused on the south-west corner of the battlements of the walls of Cashel. Their eyes were on the westward mountains. It would not be long before the bell tolled the hour for the evening meal. It seemed peaceful and quiet now that the palace grounds were almost deserted and the town below the great seat of the Kings of Muman was emptying of its visitors. They had come for a spectacle in the court of the Brehons and had not been disappointed. Conflict had been averted, the guilty found and punished. Tomorrow morning, the Brehons would be departing and within a few days the Prince of the Uí Fidgente would return to his own land, having sworn a treaty of peace with Cashel.

It seemed that the month was going to end, as it usually did, with another period of fine, warm weather. The sun was lowering rapidly, a bright golden ball heading towards the western mountains in a splash of soft, rose-redness. The clouds, what few there were, lay in thin, long strands of darkness, tinged along the top by the