Smoke in the Wind

someone. The feverish man suddenly caught at his wrist. Eadulf found the eyes wide open, locked on him.

‘I fixed him, didn’t I?’ The voice was intense.

Eadulf smiled reassuringly. ‘You lie back. Just relax. You’ll be all right.’

The man continued to clutch at his wrist. ‘He took me unawares. Chased him into. . into. . took the meat knife. Got me. I. . had to kill him. . fixed him, didn’t I?’

‘Surely you did, my friend,’ muttered Eadulf. The man suddenly fell back exhausted, as Corryn re-entered and put down the saddle bag.

‘What’s the man’s name?’ Eadulf asked.

‘Sualda,’ replied Corryn. ‘Why?’

‘Sometimes it reassures patients if their physicians know who they are,’ Eadulf pointed out sarcastically. He took up his bag and began to busy himself, asking for hot water. The water and the hair moss arrived at the same time.

‘What are you doing?’ asked Corryn, after Eadulf had cleaned the wound.

‘An infusion of valerian to decrease the fever and then, on the clean wound, a poultice from hair moss soaked in a distillation of red clover blossom, comfrey and burdock. Then there will be nothing left but prayer.’

Corryn went away, calling one of the outlaws to watch Eadulf. The man waited until Eadulf had finished his ministrations before escorting him roughly from the hut. His wrists were secured behind him and he was taken to a larger, darker hut, pushed inside and secured to the support post in one of the walls. As he left, the man suddenly punched Eadulf full in the mouth. Eadulf’s head jerked back.

‘That’s for my brother, Saxon! He was killed by your people on a slave raid. Your death will be slow, I’ll warrant you.’

The man went out, and Eadulf heard a movement on the opposite side of the hut. Fidelma’s voice came out of the gloom.

‘Are you hurt?’ she asked anxiously.

‘It could have been worse,’ Eadulf replied stoically, licking his lips and tasting the salty blood. ‘No broken teeth.’

‘We’ve been in worse situations.’ She attempted to sound reassuring as she tested her bonds. They had been expertly tied. She had resorted to speaking in their common language. ‘What did they want with you?’

Eadulf told her briefly. ‘I think we can be sure of one thing,’ he said. ‘Whatever fate he has in store for you, to him and his men I am a mere Saxon. As soon as it is known whether this man, Sualda, will live or die, I will become expendable.’

Fidelma gave a troubled sigh. ‘Bear up, Eadulf. We have escaped from dangers before and will do so again.’

Eadulf had been struggling with his bonds, feeling them tight against his wrists and vainly searching for something which might assist in his loosening them. Fidelma listened to his ineffective efforts for some time before saying reprovingly: ‘Eadulf, there is no use contesting with the inevitable until you have a choice.’

‘What of the advice of your much-quoted friend, Publilius Syrus?’ demanded Eadulf in annoyance.

‘Syrus?’ Fidelma was confused.

‘You are always quoting lines from Publilius Syrus. Don’t you recall where he said that necessity can turn any weapon to advantage? Shouldn’t we be searching for what weapons we can to aid us in our necessity?’

There was silence between them for a moment or two.

‘It is no use arguing between ourselves, Eadulf,’ Fidelma replied at last. ‘Show me a weapon and I will turn it to advantage. As we have no weapon and no means of obtaining freedom at this moment, we can use the opportunity to reflect on our situation.’

Eadulf groaned inwardly. He could not argue with Fidelma’s logic. ‘There is little that actually makes sense,’ he pointed out.

‘I believe that Clydog and his men already knew that the community had deserted those buildings. They might even have known that we were inside.’

‘That’s absolutely-’

‘Ridiculous?’ Fidelma broke in. ‘Perhaps. But the only way they can have entered, without us knowing, is that they rode quietly up. They did not ring the bell. They came through the gates and across to the barn where they surprised us. I think they had been there before.’

‘Well, for what purpose?’

‘Solutions do not come as easily as questions arising from a contemplation of the facts, Eadulf. Was Clydog warned that we would be there? If so, by whom? How many people would know? And then, again, why would they want Clydog to come and take us away? To prevent us finding out the truth of what happened there? Was the old man the Father Superior, Father Clidro? How did he come to be hanged only a few hours before we found him?’

‘You forget about the Hwicce in the sepulchre,’ muttered Eadulf mournfully.

Fidelma smiled in the darkness. ‘The Hwicce. No, I am not forgetting him. Indeed, if Clydog and his men had been at Llanpadern before, then his presence begins to make sense.’

Eadulf shifted his position so far as his bonds allowed. ‘Well, for the love of Christ, do not mention the Hwicce in front of these fellows. They might think that I was connected with him. My span on earth is already more tenuous than I care to contemplate.’

Fidelma was still thoughtful. ‘Perhaps Clydog already knows about the body in the chapel sepulchre.’

‘Of course he does not.’ Eadulf was emphatic.

‘Why of course?’

‘Because if he had known he would have made some remark about the fact. Once he knew that I was a Saxon, he would have made the obvious comment.’

She was quiet for a while and then she sighed deeply again.

Eadulf continued now and then to pull at his bonds without success. It irritated him to be so helpless. Having recently spent weeks in a grim cell in the abbey of Fearna awaiting death, he felt an uncontrollable rage, a frustration, at being a helpless prisoner again in so short a space of time.

From the silence across the hut, Eadulf surmised that Fidelma had retreated into meditation. It was the art of the dercad by which countless generations of Irish mystics had achieved the state of sitcháin or peace, calming extraneous thought and mental irritations. Eadulf wished he could accomplish this art. In the time that he had been with Fidelma, he had learnt that she was a regular practitioner of the ancient art in times of stress. But the Blessed Patrick himself had once expressly forbidden some of the meditative arts of self-enlightenment because they had been practised in pagan times. However, the churches of the five kingdoms tolerated the dercad, not forbidding it but not really approving of it. Fidelma had told him that it was a means of relaxing and calming the riot of thoughts within a troubled mind.

Time passed. Slowly the air grew chill and the shadows of early evening began to darken. They could see the glimmer of the fire outside and hear the noisy laughter of the men.

Fidelma stirred anxiously. ‘One thing we can learn from that fire, Eadulf,’ she observed quietly.

‘Which is?’ came Eadulf’s response from the other side of the darkened hut.

‘That Clydog and his men are not afraid that their fire will attract unwelcome attention. They must be pretty confident of the security of their position.’

She finished abruptly as a man’s shadow appeared in the doorway of the hut. They could not see his features but it was the voice of Clydog which came out of the gloom.

‘There, now, as I promised, the feast is ready and we are ready to welcome you, as our chief guest, to join us, my lady.’

Chapter Nine

Clydog came into the hut, bent down and untied Fidelma’s bonds from the support post in the wall of the hut