A Prayer for the Damned

more rain in the air. The wind was cold but not as chilly as it had been in previous days. It seemed to be blowing from the south. There was a shimmer of white across the plain that showed a frost was still lying on the ground. He could see sheep flocks moving across the plain with their shepherds, dark shapes against the flat whiteness.

Along the walkway a sentinel raised a hand in greeting with a smile. Eadulf acknowledged the salutation and walked on, breathing deeply in the cold morning air. He found it helped to clear the fuzziness of his mind. Lack of sleep was debilitating, and when it reached the state when the mind was too tired to rest it caused an additional sense of frustration.

He suddenly became aware of another figure at the corner of the walkway: an elderly man in a short woollen cloak with rabbit fur trimming. The long hair was white and tied back with a leather thong. The figure seemed familiar, but it took a moment for Eadulf to recognise him.

‘Give you a good day, Ordwulf,’ he called, reverting to his Saxon speech.

The old man turned, startled, the eyes wide like those of someone caught at some illegal enterprise. Then he frowned as if trying to recall who Eadulf was. Eadulf realised that at their previous encounter Ordwulf had seemed to live in his own world, and he wondered whether the father of Berrihert was senile.

‘I am Eadulf of Seaxmund’s Ham, in the land of the South Folk,’ he said gently. ‘We met two days ago when. .’

Ordwulf made a thrusting gesture with his hand. ‘I know, I know. Do you take me for an imbecile?’

Eadulf was a little puzzled at the angry retort. ‘Of course not.’ Then a thought came to him. ‘I understood that you and your sons had accommodation in the town? I did not realise that you were staying in the fortress.’

‘We are in some place set aside for religious in the town,’ muttered the old man. ‘But I came here at first light, when they opened the gates. There was someone I wanted to see.’ He turned back to gaze across the battlement towards the distant mountains in the north. ‘It is a pleasant enough land, but it is not Deira,’ he said.

Eadulf knew that Berrihert and his brothers had come from the southern area of Northumbria, the old independent kingdom of Deira which Athelfrith of Bernicia had conquered, uniting the two kingdoms as the land north of the River Humber — Northumbria. That had been within the living memory of some.

Ordwulf grimaced at the distant mountains. ‘There is no sea coast here. My tun, my fortress, stood on the coast. I was once lord as far as I could see along the sea’s low dim level. From north to south along the shoreline, I was lord. Now I am an exile in this strange land.’

‘Are you homesick for Deira?’ Eadulf enquired politely.

‘Homesick?’ The old man seemed to contemplate the question for a while. ‘I do not long for places. I long for my dead wife and for comrades who once peopled those places.’

Eadulf stood feeling uncomfortable for a moment.

‘Tempori parendum,’ he muttered.

The old man cast a disapproving look at him. ‘You have the gift to speak good Saxon. Speak it, for I am sick of foreign gibberish!’

‘I said that one must yield to time,’ explained Eadulf. ‘As time changes so must we change with it.’

‘Unctuous rubbish!’ snapped Ordwulf. Eadulf blinked at the vehemence in his voice. ‘Time is a thief. It took Aelgifu, my wife, from me and what did it leave me?’

‘With three fine sons, at least,’ Eadulf pointed out. ‘Sons to be proud of.’

‘Fine sons, you say?’ The old Saxon warrior turned to him and seemed to take in his manner of dress as if for the first time, examining him from poll to feet. He scowled. ‘I suppose your kind would say that?’

‘What do you mean?’ Eadulf was beginning to be irritated. He felt the insult in the man’s words but did not understand the meaning of it.

‘Three sons all entered into this New Faith of yours. All pious and holy and not one of them a warrior.’

‘Why wish your sons to be warriors? Is it not better to serve God and help people live than to take up the sword and meet an early death?’

‘Help people live? Had even one of them been a warrior, my wife might yet have lived, instead of dying in this strange land. May Hel be waiting at the gates of Nifheim, the place of mist, to receive him that caused her death.’

Eadulf shuddered a little as the old man called upon Hel, the ancient goddess of death. Eadulf had been raised with the old gods and goddesses of his people and even now he sometimes felt the power of the old deities — of Woden, Thunor, Tyr and Freya — and realised that he still feared them. But above all he feared Hel who ruled the land of the dead.

‘Do you reject the New Faith?’ he rebuked the old man.

Ordwulf gave a wheezy laugh. ‘The old faith was good enough for my forefathers and me. When my time comes, let me have my battleaxe in my right hand and Woden’s name on my lips so that I may enter Wael Halla and feast with the gods and heroes of my people.’

‘Yet your sons. .’ Eadulf began to protest.

‘My sons!’ sneered the old man. ‘They could not protect their own mother from the members of the very Faith they espoused. I curse them! I curse them as I rejoice that he who took my lady Aelgifu from me is now sped to suffer the tortures of the damned. May Hel eat his living flesh!’

The old man spat over the wall and then turned and hurried away, leaving Eadulf staring after him in horror.

Fidelma was regarding Muirchertach Nár in astonishment.

‘Are you admitting that you went to Abbot Ultán’s chamber to murder him?’ she asked incredulously.

Muirchertach lowered his head with a deep sigh. ‘I went with that intention but I did not do so. I did not do so for the simple reason that someone else had already killed him.’

Fidelma sat back in her chair and folded her hands in her lap, trying to re-form her features to keep the surprise out of her face. She stared long and hard at him.

‘Can you tell me why you went with this intention?’

Muirchertach glanced at his wife. She appeared to shrug indifferently as if she had washed her hands of the matter.

‘My wife has told you that she was of the Uí Briúin Aí. Have you heard of the poetess Searc of that clan?’

Fidelma was unfamiliar with the name and shook her head.

‘Searc was the younger Sister of my wife. She was a gentle, affectionate girl, as befitted her name,’ Muirchertach explained. Fidelma was reminded that the name Searc actually meant ‘love’ or ‘affection’.

‘I presume that she is dead since you speak in the past tense,’ Fidelma commented.

‘She is. Had she lived, she would have become one of the greatest of our poets.’

‘Go on,’ Fidelma prompted, after he had paused again.

‘Searc had the ability to become as great a poetess as Liadan or Ita. Five years and more have passed since Connacht acknowledged her as among the foremost of its banfilidh, or female poets. So she went on her first circuit to the centres of the five kingdoms to recite her poetry at the great festivals. She attended a gathering at Ard Macha and it was there that she met a young poet called Senach.’

He paused and Fidelma waited patiently for him to gather his thoughts. She glanced at Aíbnat, who sat staring into the fire. The woman had a controlled expression on her features and it was as if she was not really hearing what was being said.

‘They fell in love with each other,’ he continued. ‘Senach was a member of the abbey of Cill Ria and when he returned there after the poetry festival in Ard Macha, Searc followed him.’

This time when he paused, Fidelma said: ‘I presume that Ultán was abbot of Cill Ria by this time?’

‘Ultán was abbot at the time,’ Muirchertach confirmed.

‘So, tell me what happened.’

‘I think that you know by now of Abbot Ultán’s attitudes. He is one of those reformers who now