dead, and Death and Hades gave up the dead in their keeping; they were judged, each man on the record of his deeds. Then Death and Hades were flung into the lake of fire. This lake of fire is the second death; and into it were flung any whose names were not to be found in the roll of the living”.’
She paused for breath and glanced at her male companion as if seeking approval. The man bowed his head and remained stony-faced.
‘Let God’s will be done, then,’ he said without emotion.
The woman nodded to the two brawny monks who held the young man.
‘So be it,’ she intoned.
They spun their captive round to face the platform, pushing him forward in spite of his resistance; he would have fallen onto the structure had they not been holding him up. Even before he had fully recovered his balance they had twisted his arms behind his back and one of them had expertly secured them with a short length of rope.
‘I am not guilty! Not guilty!’ the young man was crying as he tried vainly to struggle with them. ‘Ask about the manacles! The manacles! Ask!’
The burly man awaiting them on the platform, now moved forward and lifted the captive up as if he had been no more than a child. He placed him on the stool and pulled the noose around his neck, stifling his cries, while one of the escorts secured a rope around his feet.
Then the two escorts backed off the platform, leaving the executioner standing next to the young man, now precariously balanced on the stool, his neck in the noose.
The religious started their Latin chant again, their voices taking on a swifter, harsher note and, catching the grim eye of the executioner, the abbess nodded swiftly.
The muscular man simply kicked the stool from under the feet of the young man who gave one last, strangled cry before the noose tightened irrevocably. Then he swung to and fro, his legs kicking as he was slowly throttled to death by the rope.
Above the courtyard, staring down at the proceedings through a small iron grilled window, Brother Eadulf of Seaxmund’s Ham shuddered, genuflected and muttered a swift prayer for the soul of the dead. He turned away from the window back into the gloomy cell.
Seated on the only stool in the cell, watching him with dark eyes sparkling with a frightening anticipation, was a thin-faced, cadaverous-looking man. He wore the robes of a religious and an ornate gold crucifix around his neck.
‘So now, Saxon,’ the man’s voice was brittle and hectoring, ‘perhaps you will give some thought to your own future.’
Brother Eadulf allowed a grim smile to mould his features in spite of what he had witnessed below.
‘I did not think my future needed much thought. I believe that it is a very finite one so far as this world is concerned.’
The seated man’s lips twisted in a sneer at the other’s attempted humour.
‘All the more reason to pay it some heed, Saxon. How we fulfil our last hours in this world impinges on our eternity in the Otherworld.’
Eadulf took a seat on the wooden cot. ‘I will not quarrel with your knowledge of law, Bishop Forbassach, yet I am truly perplexed,’ he said lightly. ‘I have studied some years in this country but never once did I see an execution. Surely, your laws, the
Bishop Forbassach, Chief Judge to King Fianamail of Laigin, therefore a Brehon as well as a bishop of the kingdom, pursed his lips in a cynical smile.
‘Times change, Saxon. Times change. Our young King has decreed that Christian laws and punishments — what we called the Penitentials — must supersede the old ways of this land. What is good for the Faith throughout all other lands using Christ’s laws must also be good enough for us.’
‘Yet you are a Brehon, a judge, sworn to uphold the laws of the five kingdoms. How can you accept that Fianamail has the legal authority to change your ancient laws? That can only be done every three years at the great Festival of Tara by agreement with all the kings, Brehons, lawyers and laymen.’
‘You seem to know a lot for a stranger in our land, Saxon. I will tellyou. We are of the Faith before all other considerations. I swore not only to uphold the law but also to uphold the Faith. We should all accept the divine laws of the Church and reject the darkness of our pagan ways. But this is beside the point. I did not come to argue law with you, Saxon. You have been found guilty and have been sentenced. All that is now required of you is your admission of guilt so that you may make your peace with God.’
Eadulf folded his arms with a shake of his head.
‘So that is why I was made to witness the execution of that poor young man? Well, Bishop Forbassach, I have already made my peace with God. You seek an admission of guilt from me merely to absolve yourself of your own guilt in giving a false judgment. I am innocent and will declare it as that poor young man did. May God greet young Brother Ibar kindly in the Otherworld.’
Bishop Forbassach rose to his feet. The smile had not left his thin features but it was more strained and more false than before. Eadulf sensed a simmering violence in the man, born of his frustration.
‘Brother Ibar was foolish to cling to his plea of innocence as, indeed, are you.’ He moved across to the cell window and stared down into the courtyard below for a moment or so. The body of the young man still swung from the gibbet, twitching now and again to display the gruesome fact that death was a long time claiming the unfortunate victim. Everyone apart from the patient executioner had disappeared.
‘Interesting … that last cry of his,’ Eadulf reflected aloud. ‘
Bishop Forbassach did not reply. After a moment or two he turned and walked to the door. He hesitated a moment, hand on the latch, then turned to regard Eadulf with cold, angry eyes.
‘You have until noon tomorrow to make up your mind whether you will die with a lie on your lips, Saxon, or having cleansed your soul of your guilt over this foul crime.’
‘It seems,’ Brother Eadulf replied softly, as Forbassach banged on the door to attract the attention of the guard, ‘that you are very anxious for me to admit to something of which I am innocent. I wonder why?’
For a moment Bishop Forbassach’s mask slipped and, if looks could kill, Eadulf knew that he would have been dead at that moment.
‘After midday tomorrow, Saxon, you will not have the luxury of being able to wonder.’ The cell door opened and Bishop Forbassach left. Eadulf rose and moved rapidly to the door as it swung shut behindhim and called loudly through the small grille: ‘Then I shall have until noon tomorrow to meditate on your motivations. Maybe that will give me time enough to discover what dark evil is stirring here, Forbassach! What about the manacles?’
There was no answer. Eadulf listened for a moment to the receding sound of leather slapping on the granite flags of the corridor, the noise of the slamming of a distant door and the rasping of iron bolts.
Eadulf stood back. Alone again, he felt black despair descend on him. For all his attempts to hide his feelings from Forbassach, he could not hide them from himself. He walked over to the window and stared down at the gibbet below. The body of Brother Ibar swung slightly from the rope now. There was no longer any twitching in the limbs. Life had departed. Eadulf tried to force a prayer from his lips but no sounds would come. His mouth was dry, his tongue swollen. Tomorrow at midday he would be swinging down there on that gibbet. There was nothing to prevent it.
Fearna, the great place of the alder trees, was the principal settlement of the Uí Cheinnselaigh, the royal dynasty of the kingdom of Laigin. The town stood on the side of a hill at a point where two valleys, through which large rivers flowed, connected with each other like the two arms of a great ‘Y’ and formed a single broad valley where the same rivers now flowed as one southwards and then eastwards towards the sea.
Fidelma and her companions, having spent the night at Morca’s inn, had taken the ford across the broad River Slaney, then the road which ran between the Slaney and the River Bann, on whose hills the capital of the Laigin kings stood. Their arrival among the sprawl of timber and stone buildings went unnoticed and unremarked as many travellers, merchants and traders, as well as emissaries from other kingdoms, came and went regularly. Strangers were so frequent in the township as to excite no comment.
