Belach stood with ghastly face on the bottom stair. His wife, Monchae, stood, peering fearfully over his shoulder.
“You heard it, too?” he whispered nervously.
“I heard it,” confirmed Fidelma.
“God look down on us,” sighed the man.
Fidelma made an impatient gesture.
“Light a candle, Belach, and we will search this place.”
The innkeeper shrugged.
“There is no purpose, Sister. We have heard such noises before and made a search. Nothing is ever found.”
“Indeed,” echoed his wife, “why search for temporal signs from a specter?”
Fidelma set her jaw grimly.
“Why would a specter make noises?” she replied. “Only something with a corporeal existence makes a noise. Now give me a light.”
Reluctantly, Belach lit a lamp. The innkeeper and his wife stood by the bottom of the stair as Fidelma began a careful search of the inn. She had barely begun when Monchae gave a sudden shriek and fell forward onto the floor.
Fidelma hurried quickly to her side. Belach was patting her hands in a feeble attempt to revive her senses.
“She’s fainted,” muttered the man unnecessarily.
“Get some water,” instructed Fidelma and when the water had been splashed against the woman’s forehead and some of it nursed between her lips, Monchae blinked and opened her eyes.
“What was it?” snapped Fidelma. “What made you faint?”
Monchae stared at her a moment or two, her face pale, her teeth chattering.
“The pipes!” she stammered. “The pipes!”
“I heard no pipes,” Fidelma replied.
“No. Mugrán’s pipes… on the table!”
Leaving Belach to help Monchae to her feet, Fidelma turned, holding her candle high, and beheld a set of pipes laying on the table. There was nothing remarkable about them. Fidelma had seen many of better quality and workmanship.
“What are you telling me?” she asked, as Monchae was led forward by Belach, still trembling.
“These are Murgán’s pipes. The pipes he took away with him to war. It must be true. His ghost has returned. Oh, saints protect us!”
She clung desperately to her husband.
Fidelma reached forward to examine them pipes.
They seemed entirely of this world. They were of the variety called
“How are you sure that these are the pipes of Murgán?” she asked.
“I know them!” The woman was vehement. “How do you know
what garment belongs to you, or what knife? You know its weave,
its stains, its markings“
She began to sob hysterically.
Fidelma ordered Belach to take the woman back to her bed.
“Have a care, Sister,” the man muttered, as he led his wife away. “We are surely dealing with evil powers here.”
Fidelma smiled thinly.
“I am a representative of a greater power, Belach. Everything that happens can only occur under His will.”
After they had gone, she stood staring at the pipes for a while and finally gave up the conundrum with a sigh. She left them on the table and climbed the stairs back to her own bed, thankful it was still warm for she realized, for the first time, that her feet and legs were freezing. The night was truly chill.
She lay for a while thinking about the mystery which she had found here in this desolate mountain spot and wondering if there was some supernatural solution to it. Fidelma acknowledged that there were powers of darkness. Indeed, one would be a fool to believe in God and to refuse to believe in the Devil. If there was good, then there was, undoubtedly, evil. But, in her experience, evil tended to be a human condition.
She had fallen asleep. It could not have been for long. It was still dark when she started awake.
It took a moment or two for her to realize what it was that had aroused her for the second time that night.
Far off she could hear pipes playing. It was a sweet, gentle sound. The sound of the sleep producing
“
Fidelma knew the tune well for many a time had she been lulled into drowsiness as a child by its sweet melody.
She sat up abruptly and swung out of bed. The music was real. It was outside the inn. She went to the shuttered window and cautiously eased it open a crack.
Outside the snow lay like a crisp white carpet across the surrounding hills and mountains. The sky was still shrouded with heavy grey-white snow clouds. Even so, the nightscape was light, in spite of the fact that the moon was only a soft glow hung with ice crystals that produced a halo around its orb. One could see for miles. The atmosphere was icy chill and still. Vapor from her breath made bursts of short-lived clouds in the air before her.
It was then that her heart began to hammer as if a mad drummer were beating a warning to wake the dead.
She stood stock still.
About a hundred yards from the inn was a small round knoll. On the knoll stood the figure of a lonely piper and he was playing the sweet lullaby that woke her. But the thing that caused her to feel dizzy with awe and apprehension was that the figure shimmered as if a curious light emanated from him, sparkling like little stars against the brightness of the reflecting snow.
She stood still watching. Then the melody trailed off and the figure turned its head in the direction of the inn. It gave vent to an awesome, pitiful cry.
“I am alone! I am alone! Monchae! Why did you desert me? I am alone! I will come for you soon!”
Perhaps it was the cry that stirred Fidelma into action.
She turned, grabbed her leather shoes and seized her cloak, and hurried down the stairs into the gloomy interior of the main room of the inn. She heard Belach’s cry on the stair behind her.
“Don’t go out, Sister! It is evil! It is the shade of Murgán!”
She paid no heed. She threw open the bolts of the door and went plunging into the icy stillness of the night. She ran through the deep snows, feeling its coldness against her bare legs, up toward the knoll. But long before she reached it, she realized that the figure had disappeared.
She reached the knoll and paused. There was no one in sight. The nocturnal piper had vanished. She drew her cloak closer around her shoulders and shivered. But it was the night chill rather than the idea of the specter that caused her to tremble.
Catching her breath against the icy air, she looked down. There were no footprints. But the snow, on careful inspection, did not lie in pristine condition across the knoll. Its surface was rough, ruffled as if a wind had blown across it. It was then she noticed the curious reflective quality of it, here and there. She bent forward and scooped a handful of snow in her palm and examined it. It seemed to twinkle and reflect as she held it.
Fidelma gave a long, deep sigh. She turned and retraced her steps back to the inn.
Belach was waiting anxiously by the door. She noticed that he now held the sword in his hand.
She grinned mischievously.
