‘A scratch, no more. Pass me my robe, Enda,’ she instructed quietly and when the young man did so, she swung out of the bed. She regarded the two young warriors carefully.
‘Now we are alone, tell me, and speak the truth. Did either of you have any hand in Eadulf’s escape?’ She asked the question swiftly, breathlessly.
Dego answered immediately with a negative gesture. ‘I swear it, lady.’ Then he smiled crookedly. ‘However, had such an idea occurred to us, I think we might well have considered participation in it.’
Enda agreed solemnly. ‘That is about the size of it, lady. The idea did not occur to us and now that someone else has carried out the plan it puts shame on us.’
Fidelma pursed her lips in rebuke. While her heart agreed with them, her rational thought did not.
‘It would put a shame on you to break the law,’ she admonished.
‘Not break the law, lady,’ insisted Enda, ‘just bend it a little to buy time for the Brehon Barrán to arrive.’
She looked up as Lassar entered, followed by her brother Mel. They had apparently made sure that Bishop Forbassach and his men had left the inn.
‘This is a bad business, Sister,’ fussed Lassar. ‘It is difficult to run an inn these days but if I have offended the bishop who is a Brehon, the abbess and the King all at once, I shall have no hope in continuing to run the inn. No hope at all.’
Mel put his arm around his sister’s shoulders to comfort her.
‘It is a bad business, lady,’ he echoed uncomfortably. ‘We have come to ask you, openly and honestly, whether you have a hand in this business.’
‘We have not,’ Fidelma assured them. ‘Do you want us to leave the inn?’
‘Forgive us, lady. This is naturally upsetting for my sister. It would be unjust to turn you from the inn when there are no grounds for doing so.’
Lassar sniffed and dabbed at her eyes with an edge of her shawl.
‘You are welcome to stay here. I just meant …’
‘And you are right to point out your position,’ Fidelma interrupted firmly. ‘I can assure you that if our staying here becomes a matter of compromising your livelihood then we will depart. If you feel happy with our staying then we shall stay. We have done nothing wrong in the eyes of the law of this land, in spite of Bishop Forbassach’s suspicions. That I can assure you.’
‘We accept your word, Sister.’
‘Then the only thing we can do now is to try to get some sleep during whatever is left of the night.’
Lassar and her brother left the room together but Fidelma motioned Dego and Enda to hold back.
‘Now that we are assured that none of us are involved, this does bring up a problem,’ she whispered softly.
Dego inclined his head in agreement.
‘If we did not help Eadulf to escape, who did and for what purpose?’ he asked.
‘For what purpose?’ echoed Enda, puzzled.
Fidelma smiled gently at the young warrior.
‘Dego has seen the point. I have observed that several people involved in these events have disappeared — key witnesses at the abbey. Is it at all possible that Eadulf has been induced to “disappear” also in the same manner?’
The possibility made her feel uneasy but it was one which had to be faced, as far-fetched as it seemed, but then, on reflection, it was no more far-fetched than the other mysteries connected with this business. There was a silence while the three of them thought about the implication.
‘Well, there is little we can do now in the middle of the night,’ Fidelma admitted reluctantly. ‘What is clear, however, is that we must find Eadulf before Bishop Forbassach and his men do.’
Once alone, Fidelma did not know whether to give way to the feeling of wild elation which had been her first response to the news that Eadulf had escaped the gibbet, or to allow the nagging depression to overtake her thoughts — the fear that he might have escaped into a worse fate. She could not regain her state of sleep. Surely things were not as bad? She had been certain that Eadulf was facing death that morning. Now he had escaped. Had Brehon Morann been too cynical when he had once advised her that any time things appeared to be going better, it meant that something had been overlooked? What had she overlooked?
She sought vainly for sleep in the art of the
Eadulf had not gone to bed that night. Knowing that it was likely to be his last night on earth had somehow made the idea of sleeping it away seem a senseless act. He sat on his bed, the only comfortable seat, gazing through the bars of his cell window at the little patch of night-blue sky. He tried to form his random, panic-stricken thoughts into one cohesive stream of thought, but try as he might those thoughts rebelled. It was not true, as the sages claimed, that a man faced with imminent death could concentrate more clearly. His thoughts kept leaping here and there. To his childhood, to his meeting with Fidelma at Whitby, to his further meeting in Rome and then his coming to the Kingdom of Muman. His mind kept rambling through memories, bittersweet memories.
The sound was muffled. A grunt. Something falling. He was standing up, looking towards the door, when the bolts rasped open.
A dark figure stood in the doorway. It wore a cowled robe.
‘It … it can’t be time already,’ Eadulf protested, horrified by the thought. ‘It is not yet daylight.’
The figure beckoned in the gloom. ‘Come,’ it whispered urgently.
‘What is happening?’ Eadulf’s voice was a protest.
‘Come and do not speak,’ insisted the figure.
Eadulf moved reluctantly across to the cell door.
‘It is imperative that you do not say anything. Just follow us,’ the cowled figure ordered. ‘We are here to help you.’
He realised that there were two other men in the corridor. One held a candle. The other was dragging the recumbent form of Brother Cett into the cell that he was vacating. Eadulf’s heart began to beat faster as he saw what was happening.
He stepped quickly after them; his reluctance had vanished. The cell door was shut and secured.
‘Raise your hood, Brother,’ whispered one of the cowled figures. ‘Head down now.’
He obeyed immediately.
The small group walked smartly along the corridor and down the stairs, Eadulf content to follow where they led, through a maze of corridors and suddenly, without meeting any impediment, they were outside the walls of the abbey, through the gates by the riverbank. Another figure was there holding the reins of several horses. Without a word, the leading figure helped Eadulf to mount while the others were already springing into the saddles of their horses. Then they were trotting rapidly away from the abbey gates, along by the moonlit silver waters of the river.
They reached a clump of trees and the leader caused them to halt, raising his head as if in an attitude of listening.
‘No sounds of pursuit,’ the man muttered. ‘But we must be vigilant. We will ride hard from now on.’
‘Who are you?’ asked Eadulf. ‘Is Fidelma among you?’
‘Fidelma? The
‘I can ride,’ replied Eadulf stiffly, yet still bewildered at who these men might be if they had not been sent by Fidelma.
‘Let us ride!’
The leader dug his heels into his horse’s flanks and the beast leapt forward. Within a second, the other horses were following. Eadulf felt the exhilarating breath of the cold night wind on his cheeks and in his hair, blowing the cowl from his head, his hair ruffling and tousling in its grip. For the first time in weeks he had a sense of levity, of excitement. He was free with only the elements to constrain and caress his body.
He lost count of time as the body of horsemen thundered along the riverside road, turning into woods, up a
