Badger's Moon

The woman raised her head slowly. ‘You already know what sort of character Lesren was and why he did not want our daughter to associate with Gabrán. That much is certainly true.’ She paused and licked her lips. ‘It is also true that Gabrán wooed our daughter and they did, indeed, plan to get married. They used to meet regularly and they went to Liag’s place for his instruction, more from the opportunity to use it as a meeting place than a real interest in star lore.’

Liag, the apothecary snorted in disgust but Bébháil went on.

‘Lesren also spoke the truth when he said that Beccnat had decided not to marry Gabrán…’

‘Lies!’ shouted the boy, struggling between the two men who held him. ‘Becc, you have dealt with this before and dismissed the case against me. It is lies.’

‘It is the truth as Beccnat told me,’ insisted Bébháil quietly.

‘What caused her decision?’ asked Fidelma.

‘She heard that Gabrán had been seeing Escrach in secret. He had told Escrach that he was only pursuing Beccnat because he wanted to avenge himself on Lesren for what Lesren had done to his mother.’

‘Who told Beccnat this?’

‘It was Escrach herself, who was horrified at the idea, and as Beccnat was a friend had decided to warn her quietly. But Escrach was, at the same time, in love with Gabrán and could not denounce him openly nor desert him. She merely thought to warn Beccnat about him. Beccnat decided to break with the boy and, in truth, she was already finding consolation with the tanist there.’

Eyes once more turned on Accobrán, still held covered by Eadulf’s short sword.

‘We have already heard from a witness that Accobrán and Beccnat were meeting and behaving as lovers. Gabrán also displayed a hate of the tanist because he suspected him of having some affair with Beccnat,’ said Fidelma.

Goll stared at her in anguish. ‘But this does not mean to say that Gabrán killed Beccnat. The Brehon Aolú showed that he could not.’

Fidelma smiled quickly.

‘I will come to that. So now,’ she said, turning to the people in the hall who remained as if mesmerised by her, ‘we have the seeds of a first motive. The terrible feud between Lesren and Fínmed, which grew into the hatred of Fínmed’s son for Lesren and his desire for vengeance. If not directly on Lesren then on his daughter, Beccnat. From then on, there came cause and effect.’

She turned and sought the tanner’s assistant. ‘Creoda, stand forth for a moment.’

The youth came reluctantly to his feet.

‘You were attending sessions with Liag when he taught you about star lore.’

‘I have told you so,’ the young man said nervously.

‘Now tell me again, who were in these sessions with you?’

‘Beccnat and Gabrán, Escrach and Ballgel, and sometimes Accobrán came along.’

‘These sessions, did they usually take place at night?’

‘Of course. When else can you see the stars?’

‘Just so. Cast your mind back to the night of the full moon two months ago.’

‘You mean the time when Beccnat’s body was found?’

‘I mean just that. Did you have a session then?’

‘We did.’

‘Who was there?’

‘Only Escrach, Ballgel and myself.’

‘Were there any nightly sessions after that?’

‘A few.’

‘And can you confirm that at these sessions, after Beccnat’s death, you saw Escrach and Gabrán quite friendly towards each other and so confirm what Bébháil has reported to us?’ When the youth confirmed it, Fidelma went on: ‘Indeed, I think we can accept that there was close friendship between Escrach and Gabrán. Until Gabrán found out that he — according to his warped reasoning — had been betrayed to Beccnat by Escrach. Whether it took him some time to find out or whether Beccnat had told him before he killed her, we will have to leave it to him to tell us or not. I think he deliberately chose the night of the next full moon to arrange to meet Escrach at the Ring of Pigs, near where he had killed Beccnat, and there he slaughtered her in the same way.’

She glanced at the angry and pale-faced youth. If looks could kill, she would have long been dead.

‘Gabrán had nursed his hate for some time and I think by this time his reasoning had deserted him. He became filled with Liag’s stories of the power of the moon and the knowledge that is power. Maybe the terrible thing he had done to Beccnat had unbalanced his mind and that was what made him wait until the full of the moon for his second killing.’

‘And the third killing?’ questioned Becc, rousing himself like some somnambulant. ‘Why would he kill Ballgel? You are not saying that he also had some affair with Ballgel?’

‘That is not so!’ shouted Sirin the cook in protest from the side of the hall. ‘I would have known it.’

‘The death of poor Ballgel. Even that killing, at the next full of the moon, had a motive. Ballgel was the third of the three girls, three friends, who had been close to one another and studied star lore. Maybe Gabrán suspected that what Escrach had told Beccnat she might also have mentioned to Ballgel. Perhaps Beccnat herself might have said something to her. He knew that the three of them, as young girls do, shared secrets. Creoda told us that the girls were, in his words, “thick as thieves and no secret safe with any of them but was shared between them”. Gabrán had to be sure that no secret knowledge remained outside his own. He decided to kill her as well.’

A deep, collective sigh seem to resonate throughout the hall.

‘If you asked my opinion, I would be hard pressed to judge such a person as Gabrán in terms of his responsibility in law,’ Fidelma added. ‘Is he truly a dásachtach, a person of unsound mind, who is unable to plead in law? Do not forget our law is concerned not only to protect society from the insane but also to protect the insane from society. I suspect I would consider that he started out as a fer lethchuinn, a person who under our law is only half sane.’

‘You have been very clever, Sister Fidelma,’ sneered Goll. ‘You have almost made the people here believe your story.’

‘Everything I have said is based on the evidence as it has been told me,’ Fidelma assured him. ‘Surely you wanted the truth? You yourself were not sure about your son. That’s why you were following him when you encountered Brother Dangila and Gabrán on the Thicket of Pigs the other day.’

The shot went home. Pale-faced, Goll sat back. Then Fínmed rose, having calmed herself. She spoke steadily.

‘Yet there is one thing that you have forgotten in spite of your cleverness, Sister Fidelma. That is the very thing that has shown my son to be innocent of Beccnat’s murder, and so every other accusation that you have made against him falls. It is the very point by which the Brehon Aolú judged Gabrán innocent, and under that judgement he cannot be tried again.’

‘Before you go further,’ Fidelma replied gently, ‘Aolú did not find Gabrán innocent. He looked at the evidence and said that there was none to charge Gabrán with the crime. Under law, he has not been tried. So my arguments may still stand in court.’

‘Clever, dálaigh!’ the woman replied triumphantly. ‘But too clever. You have forgotten the crucial point of the evidence. Gabrán was not in this territory on the night of the full moon. He was at the house of Molaga. We have the evidence of Accobrán the tanist who was at the same place and I am sure you have already checked with Brother Túan, steward of Molaga, when he was visiting our abbey. This evidence proves my son was not in the territory when Beccnat died.’

Fínmed sat down, staring at Fidelma with a look of victory. There was a momentary quiet in the hall. Then Accobrán slapped his thigh with a laugh.

‘You are checkmated there, dálaigh! Too clever by half! I can vouch for what Fínmed has said in spite of my dislike for Gabrán. He was in Molaga on the night of that full moon.’

Eyes turned expectantly on Fidelma, but she did not seem to be perturbed.