‘I am wondering why no one has cleared the wreckage and the bodies. Eadulf reported a village nearby and the wreck must have been noticed.’ She frowned. ‘Eadulf, do you think you can remember your way across the sands to this island? I think we should make an attempt to search it, especially those blackened ruins.’
Eadulf was reluctant.
‘That was Uaman’s Tower. He is dead. What are you hoping to find there?’ he demanded.
She smiled patiently.
‘It would be good if we found the missing companions of Abbess Faife for a start,’ she said with soft irony.
Eadulf coloured a little.
‘It’s best if we leave our horses among those trees there.’ He had spotted the very place where Basil Nestorios and Gorman had camped on the night of the escape from Uaman’s fortress. ‘It will keep them out of the wind.’
They tethered their mounts where Eadulf suggested so that the horses had movement and were within reach of fodder. Then Eadulf led the way down to the bank, searching his memory for the path across the shifting
The tide would not be at its flood until early evening. The sandbanks looked firm enough but he knew their treachery. Crabs scuttled about, following the waters, taking refuge in little pools, and here and there a sea bass or pollock had been caught unawares in these pools, splashing in search of its vanishing environment.
‘Follow me,’ he instructed the others, adding, ‘and when I say “follow” I mean follow closely in my footsteps.’
He climbed down from the bank on to the sand, which sank a little under his weight, water running over his feet. Then he began to move forward, traversing the sandy link to the rocky edge of the island proper and making his way up some stone-flagged steps to the grassy knoll on which the Tower of Uaman rose.
As they had seen, the great oak gates, reinforced by iron, hung open, one at an odd angle. There were some skeletons at the gate. They had been Uaman’s warriors, cut down by Gorman, their flesh picked clean by the scavenging birds that circled this shoreline. Eadulf had a curious feeling of satisfaction when he saw Conri and his two warriors loose and remove their swords from their sheaths and peer nervously around. At least he was not the only one who nursed a strange fear of this place.
They passed through the gates into the main courtyard.
‘Let us search quickly and depart,’ muttered Conri, glancing uneasily about him.
Fidelma smiled softly, understanding his feelings but not, apparently, sharing them.
‘Eadulf, where is the best place to start looking?’ she asked.
Eadulf cleared his throat nervously.
‘There is a door through there that leads to the cells where Basil Nestorios and I were held. It also gives access to Uaman’s chambers.’
‘Take me there. Conri, you and your men can search these outbuildings.’ She turned and made for the door that Eadulf had indicated without waiting for an acknowledgement.
The living chambers of the fortress were certainly deserted and had been ransacked of furniture. They must have been picked bare of goods when the local villagers, long dominated by Uaman, had attacked the place. It was not long before they all met up again in the courtyard, certain now there was no one else in the ruined fortress. However, Conri was standing with some excitement showing on his face.
‘Come and look at this, lady,’ he invited, waving his sword towards the doors of what appeared to be storerooms. ‘What do you make of this?’
The storerooms seemed full of cases and barrels.
Fidelma went to them and examined them quickly.
‘These cases have been immersed in the sea,’ she observed. ‘It looks as though someone has rescued them from the remains of the shipwreck.’ Fidelma noticed the watermarks on the boxes and barrels. ‘Mostly oil and wine from Gaul, but look at these.’
They came forward and peered over her shoulder. One of the boxes had been prised open.
‘Gold!’ exclaimed Eadulf.
‘Gold, indeed, and not our native gold because it is too pale,’ added Conri. ‘Our gold has a reddish tinge to it.’
Fidelma stood up and regarded the stored goods, head on one side. ‘Come,’ she finally said. ‘Let us go outside and see if there is anything else this island can reveal.’
They left the circular fortress, walking along the grassy knoll. The low tide revealed long stretches of sandy pebbled beaches but at the southern end there were rocks that stretched out under the water. They had no difficulty in spotting the rotting timbers of the main bulk of a wreck still protruding from the water. It was clearly a merchantman but it had been dashed so hard against the rocks that its masts were broken and timbers smashed. Only its stern seemed intact, and even that was fast decaying in the rough winter seas.
Then the smell caught at their nostrils. Among the prickly bushes that lined the beaches lay more decomposing bodies. They had been there for some time and the carrion had been feasting. Trying to control her look of distaste, Fidelma approached one of them. Her eyes took in the remnants of clothing.
‘Seamen, foreign seamen,’ she muttered. ‘I have seen that style of clothing somewhere.’
It was Eadulf who supplied the answer.
‘When I was returning from Rome, I took passage on a Gaulish merchant ship, and they wore a similar style of clothing.’
‘Gaulish? Mugron identified the boot that was found as that of a Gaulish seaman. That makes sense.’
‘Those poor wretches, drowning so near to land,’ muttered Conri.
‘Look at this.’ Fidelma pointed to one of the corpses.
Holding a hand over his mouth to avoid the stench, Conri, with Eadulf at his shoulder, did so.
‘This man did not drown. He has a broken sword blade snapped off between his ribs.’
Eadulf was aghast.
‘You mean these men made it ashore and were cut down?’
‘The man who killed this sailor thrust his sword in but it must have been ill tempered, for when he tried to withdraw the blade it broke,’ Fidelma explained. ‘Thus the tip of the blade remains in the rotting flesh as a mute testimony to the crime.’
Eadulf pointed to another corpse which lay on its back.
‘The skull of this one seems smashed. It might have been done in the wreck or against the rocks…’
‘Then how did the man manage to crawl up here so far above the waterline?’ queried Fidelma. She slowly shook her head. ‘We are seeing nothing but plain and gruesome murder. Either that ship was deliberately wrecked or people stood on this shore waiting for the survivors and killed them.’
The usually silent warrior, Socht, had been looking at the channel between the tip of the island and the southern shore.
‘It would take a bad seaman and bad luck to run ashore here even in darkness, lady,’ he muttered.
‘Could it be that the Abbess Faife and her companions were passing here when this deed occurred? They saw this crime and had to be silenced?’ Conri speculated.
‘If so, then there are matters that puzzle me,’ said Eadulf.
They turned to him with expressions of curiosity.
‘Well, if it was the intention to keep this matter a secret, why leave Abbess Faife so close to the scene, along the roadside where Mugron found her a short time later? Why have these bodies been left strewn on this island and floating in the waters around it? Why leave the booty in the fortress with gates and doors wide open so that anyone could — even as we died-enter and discover it?’
‘The questions are pertinent,’ agreed Fidelma.
‘But are there answers to them?’ demanded Conri.
‘It shows that whoever did this thing is supremely confident,’ Eadulf concluded. ‘That they fear no one in this area.’
No one commented and so Eadulf continued.
‘There was only one person who had such power and overweening belief in himself…’ Eadulf paused and then shrugged. ‘But I saw him die. Now there is only one undisputed chief of this land.’
