Whispers of the Dead

There was no hesitation.

“I went looking for Enda to come for the daily lesson my mother gave us in how to tell our letters.”

“And?”

“He was on his bed with the eggs. It is my job to go to the hen house and collect the eggs each morning. I had done so that morning and put them in the kitchen. He had stolen them from there.”

“Did you ask him where the eggs came from?”

The little girl chuckled.

“He told me that he found them under his bed. Of course, no one believed him. Anyway, I said that I would take charge of them and return them.”

“Did you do so?”

“I was taking them back to the kitchen when my mother came. Enda had already scuttled off. My mother asked me what I was doing with the eggs and I had to tell the truth, ’cos that’s important, isn’t it?”

Fidelma looked at the earnest expression on Faife’s face and sighed deeply.

“What did your mother say?”

“Mummy said that Enda would be in for a good beating when daddy returned.”

“And was he?”

Faife pouted, almost in disapproval.

“Daddy said he was not allowed to touch Enda. We get hit when we do something wrong, why was it wrong to hit Enda?”

“In what way do you get hit?”

“Mummy usually hits us with a switch across the back of the legs.”

“Go back to your place, Faife,” Fidelma said quietly. She paused for a moment. The law, according to her reading of it, was quite clear and did not only apply to foster children. Corporal punishment was prohibited against a child except for a single smack in anger with the palm of the hand. She wondered if she should make a point of this. She decided to leave it to judgment.

“Is the neighbor whose honey was stolen here?” she demanded, when Faife returned to her seat.

“It was my honey that was stolen.” A man with thin, sallow looks rose from his seat. His dress was of leather-patched woolen trousers, a short sleeve jacket and boots. “My name is Mel, lady. I am a neighbor of Colla and Dublemna.”

“And you keep bees?”

“Don’t worry,” grinned the man. “I know all about the Bechbretha, the law of bees, and I can assure you that I have given the necessary pledges to my four neighbors allowing them to have swarms from my hives to guarantee me immunity from any claim of trespass. However, as Colla had no wish to keep bees, I guaranteed him combs of honey from my hives in fair exchange. So I am aware of the law and I keep the law.”

Fidelma regarded the farmer with a solemn look.

“That is good. We have heard it suggested that you found that honeycombs were being removed from your hives?”

“I can confirm it. I noticed the missing combs a few weeks ago and I went ’round to my neighbors to warn them that there might be a thief about. However, it was only one comb that went missing at a time and that only every few days. It seemed so petty. It was only a few days ago, after the boy-this boy Enda-drowned in the pool, that Dublemna told me that they had found part of a honeycomb in his belongings. Of course, I would not prosecute my neighbors for what the boy had done, even though Colla had taken on this role as aite-foster father.”

Fidelma heaved a long inward sigh as she dismissed the bee-keeper. She sat in thought for a while.

“I am going to adjourn this case for an hour or so,” she suddenly announced. “I want to see where this death occurred so that I might fully understand the situation.”

It took them just under an hour to reach Colla’s homestead. Fécho, Tassach, Niall and Colla, Dublemna and their children as well as Mel accompanied Sister Fidelma and Brother Corbb. The party, at Fidelma’s request, made straight for the pond where Enda had been found. A copse of alder trees obscured it from the homestead. They all halted at a respectable distance while Fidelma went forward to make her examination. It was as Colla had described it. Indeed, it did not take long to realize that with such gently sloping banks, it was beyond question that the boy could have fallen in by accident. She walked around the pond several times, scrutinizing the area in search of rocks, stones or anything else that could have made the wound described by Tassach and Niall.

She turned and waved Maine forward.

“I want you to show me where you were playing that morning,” she told him.

The boy pointed to a section of larger woodland just beyond the copse.

“Exactly where?” she pressed.

The boy led her across to the woodland. It was not spacious between the trees and within a few meters one could be hidden along its paths. Fidelma noticed the ground was fairly hard and stony. There was an outcrop of boulders in one clearing. It was useless looking for the precise stone that came into contact with Enda’s head. Fidelma turned to the boy.

“Just tell me again, Maine, because I would like to be absolutely sure ofthis. . when you were playing here and Enda became bored with the game. He left.”

The boy nodded.

“And you all continued to play until you became bored and went off after him?”

“We did so.”

“Any idea of how long this was?” She did not ask with any hope, knowing that children really had no conception of the same sense of time as adults.

“I think it was a long time. Long enough for Faife to insist we play another game of hide and go seek. And I know that she was a long time being found. That’s when I became fed up. Una thought that Faife had gone home for I was the seeker and I easily found Una. Then we both sought for Faife.”

“But you found her eventually, under a bush?”

“We did.”

“Near here?”

“She was under that big bush there,” he pointed.

Fidelma moved forward and glanced quickly at it.

Maine led the way back to where the others were still waiting by the pool. There was little else to be seen that would help her. Fidelma examined their expectant faces.

“I will reserve my judgment in this matter. You will have my judgment on the seventh day from now.”

She hurried away so as not to see the crestfallen, puzzled expressions.

Three days later she was sitting in front of a fire in Brehon Spélan’s chambers. The old judge was seated on the opposite side of the fire to her, sipping mulled wine. Fidelma had just finished recounting the extent of the case to him.

“I see your difficulty, Fidelma,” the old judged sighed. “It is not often that it seems obvious what happened but there is insufficient evidence to pronounce the guilt of the person.”

“This is, indeed, a sad case,” she agreed. “Poor little Enda was placed in an environment that was hostile to him and that very hostility led to his murder. Indeed, not death by neglect, but murder. Colla tolerated him simply as a business transaction so that he would get all his smithy work done by Fécho. Colla’s wife Dublemna hated the boy. I think she is a bad woman who is not averse to physically punishing her children. .”

“Even though corporal punishment is against the law?” interposed Spélan.

“Even so,” agreed Fidelma. “That much Faife made clear. And only Colla seems to have prevented harm coming to Enda because he had obviously been told the law of fosterage when he made the contract.”

“So, from what you say, only little Maine welcomed Enda and in him did the child find any sense of companionship?” queried Spélan.

“That is so. But Dublemna was a vindictive and cruel foster mother as well as mother.”

“So you think it was she who actually killed Enda in some rage against the boy?” the old judged was