Our Lady of Darkness

cabin to sleep it off. Then one or both of them returned to the body, thinking to dispose of it. Yet another coincidence … they were just about to remove the body when Abbess Fainder came trotting out of the darkness on her horse. They scurried back to the boat wondering what to do. Then Mel arrived.’

‘Fainder has told her story of how she spotted the body,’ Coba agreed. ‘That fits into your theory.’

‘Except that the Saxon’s robes were covered in blood and he had a piece of …’ Abbess Fainder did not finish as she remembered what the girl had said about Gabrán’s state of clothing.

‘What happened to the bloody cloth that was grasped in Gabrán’s hand, Fial?’ Coba asked.

‘The boatman gave it to the religieux. He said that it could be put to good use if the religieux could get back to the abbey.’

‘In other words, it was to be planted on Brother Eadulf,’ muttered Fidelma. ‘But let us not get ahead of the story. With the arrival of theabbess there was panic. They heard Mel hailing Abbess Fainder as he approached the quay. Gabrán’s employer was cornered on the boat. They could no longer attempt to hide the crime. It therefore became imperative to allow Gabrán’s employer to fade into the darkness and for Gabrán not to be suspected. Someone came up with the idea of forcing young Fial to give false evidence on the assurance that she would be freed. Is that so?’

Fial confirmed her surmise.

‘I kept my part. I told everyone what I was instructed to say. I identified the Saxon by his unusual tonsure. They told me that I had to be locked in a room in the abbey for my own safety until after the trial. Days passed then, two days ago, a religieux came and let me out.’

‘The same person who sat with the boatman who instructed you to identify the Saxon?’

‘Not the same. I had not seen this man before. He took me to Gabrán’s boat. Gabrán was on board. Before I could struggle, I was shackled as I was before. I heard the big man say to Gabrán, “You are to get rid of her”! That was all he said. Gabrán replied: “It shall be done.” The religieux left and Gabrán pushed me down into the same small dark cabin that I had shared with Gormgilla. He grinned at me and said: “It shall be done but at a time of my own choosing”.’

Fial started to sob again. ‘I have been down there for all eternity. Gabrán came down last night and … and … he used me.’

Fidelma wrapped the girl’s sobbing form in her arms and gazed towards Coba.

‘It was, sadly, my arrival at the abbey and my enquiries that caused the poor girl to be taken from there and returned to Gabrán.’

Abbess Fainder, who was very pale, cleared her throat nervously.

‘How can we be sure that she is telling the truth this time? She admits that she has lied before, so maybe she is lying now? It seems too grotesque a tale to be real.’

‘Too grotesque to be made up by a thirteen-year-old child,’ replied Fidelma sharply. She turned back to Fial. ‘Just a few questions more, little one. While you were imprisoned in the darkness on the boat, you did not waste your time, did you?’

Fial looked at her questioningly. ‘How did you know?’

‘You managed to get a sharp piece of metal and you started digging out the fixture of the metal chain that bound your ankle.’

‘I don’t know how long it took me. Ages.’

‘And when you were free …?’

‘I could only free my leg iron. I still had manacles on my wrists.’

‘Just so. But you were able to climb up through the small hatch into Gabrán’s cabin? The hatchway into the main cabin was locked, of course.’

‘So she killed him!’ cried Abbess Fainder, realising where this was now leading. ‘She stabbed him at the time that I came aboard. Why,’ she paused, wondering, ‘she must have been in the very process of killing Gabrán. I knocked at the cabin door and the girl slid back through the hatch. Then, while I was bent over the body, she escaped through the cabin and went over the side of the ship. That was the splash I heard.’

‘You are nearly right, Mother Abbess,’ agreed Fidelma.

‘Nearly right?’ The abbess was belligerent.

‘When Fial climbed into the cabin she found that Gabrán was dead already. He had been killed by a sword blow which had been delivered with a terrific force. Am I right, Fial? Shall I continue?’

The girl seemed stunned by her apparent omniscience. When she did not speak, Fidelma continued: ‘Fial knew where Gabrán kept his keys and released herself from the wrist manacles. She was about to leave when a desire came over her for revenge; revenge for the terrible injury that this brute had done her. It was, perhaps, an instinctive adolescent reaction. She grabbed a knife that lay nearby and pulling Gabrán up by his hair — she grasped the hair so tightly in her rage that some of it came out by the roots — she plunged the knife half-a-dozen times into his chest and arms. The wounds were superficial. Then the abbess knocked on the cabin door. Fial dropped the knife and let go her hold on the body. That, indeed, was the soft thud that Fainder heard.

‘Fial knew that she had to escape. The only way lay below but the door was locked. She grabbed at some keys in Gabrán’s cabin. There were four of them. She knew one of them had to fit the lock of her prison below. It was her only means to escape. She scuttled back into the cabin. The rest is obvious.’

Fidelma paused and placed her hands either side of the girl’s face and drew it up so that Fial was forced to look directly into her eyes.

‘Have I told it correctly, my dear? Is that how it happened?’

Fial let out a great sob.

‘I would have killed him if I could. I hated him so — what he did to me! What he did to me!’

Fidelma dropped her arms around the child to comfort her.

Coba leaned backwards in his chair, closed his eyes for a moment and let out a long sigh.

‘Do I understand this correctly? While the abbess was in Gabrán’s cabin, the girl made her way up on deck and jumped into the torrent? The current of the river is strong there. Why not simply go ashore?’

‘It was a point that confused me at the time,’ Fidelma confessed. ‘However, I did not take into account how strong fear is as a means of compulsion. Poor Fial was scared for her life. She did not know where she was. The last thing she wanted to do was draw attention to herself by walking off the ship onto a jetty. She did not know if her enemies were there. She obviously could swim well and took that route. Then shortly afterwards, on shore, when she encountered Fainder and Mel …’

‘ … She thought that we were part of this slave conspiracy,’ Mel supplied.

‘Conspiracy is a good word, Mel. For there are many mysteries here yet to be solved.’

Abbess Fainder sniffed disdainfully.

‘That is very true, Sister. For if Fial did not kill Gabrán, and you finally seem to accept that I did not — then who did kill him?’ Her eyes suddenly glistened. ‘Or are we to conclude that your Saxon came looking for revenge?’

Fidelma’s eyes flashed angrily.

‘I hope this poor child’s testimony has demonstrated that Brother Eadulf was not guilty of the rape and murder of Gormgilla, and that another hand guided that outrageous conspiracy!’

‘Even so, Sister,’ Coba interposed, ‘where are you leading us? You say Gabrán was murdered but not by Fial nor by the abbess. I cannot see who else could have killed him, nor even why he was killed.’

‘Gabrán was merely a tool. He was the means by which the trade in human beings was carried out, the means by which they were transported down to the sea port. Gabrán did not have the brains to plan and sustain this vile commerce. Have you forgotten Fial’s words already? She spoke of the cowled religious who ordered her to falsely identify Brother Eadulf.’

Mel rubbed the back of his neck. ‘She also mentioned another crewman who helped him when Gabrán was lying drunk. So who was the other crewman? Did he turn on Gabrán?’

Fidelma made a quick, impatient motion of her hand.

‘No. Gabrán turned on him. That crewman was the man who was killed the next day — the one that poor Brother Ibar was wrongly executed for murdering.’