A Prayer for the Damned

‘I did everything as you asked, lady.’

‘Then I shall not detain you any longer. You may return to little Alchú.’

Muirgen hurried off, and Fidelma and Eadulf entered the room. Sister Marga rose uncertainly.

‘I shall not go back to Cill Ria, even if I am forced,’ she declared fiercely.

Fidelma moved forward with a smile. ‘No one will force you to go back,’ she said. ‘Be seated.’ Then she sniffed the air. ‘A nice fragrance,’ she observed.

‘I have just bathed. Your attendant was most helpful,’ replied the girl stiffly.

‘Excellent. You were able to ask for whatever perfumed sleic or fragrances our apothecaries could provide?’

‘As a matter of fact, I have my own, which I always carry in my cíorbholg.’

Fidelma sniffed again and said approvingly: ‘A good choice. Eadulf tells me that you were shocked to hear of the assault on Fergus Fanat?’

Sister Marga’s face was set in stone. ‘I did not attack him.’

‘You have to admit that it was an unfortunate coincidence that you fled from Cashel at the time he was attacked?’

‘It was nothing more than a coincidence. I had to get away, that is all. I did not know Fergus Fanat had been attacked.’

‘Life is so full of coincidences,’ Fidelma observed with a sigh. ‘In fact, the one constant factor in all our lives is that when events do become intertwined there does seem to be a fated eventuality to them. We believe that coincidence is an unusual occurrence instead of its being a normal one.’

Sister Marga stared at her, trying to understand. ‘Since you have brought me forcibly back here, I demand to be protected from Brother Drón. I demand sanctuary. I will not go back to the Abbey of Cill Ria.’

‘Fergus Fanat offered you protection,’ Fidelma pointed out. ‘You did not appear to want that.’

The girl coloured hotly. ‘I trusted Fergus. .’ she said brokenly. ‘But he did not trust me. Now I cannot trust him further. After he told me that he had seen me come from Ultán’s chamber that night, I told him that Ultán had summoned me there and why. But I also told him that I was innocent of his death. He was alive when I left the chamber. But I am sorry that he has been attacked. I am glad he is recovering. Muirgen told me,’ she added. ‘I wish him no harm at all. I believed that I loved him, but love means knowing and trusting someone and he showed that he neither knew nor trusted me. Even he thought me guilty of. .’

Fidelma smiled sympathetically. ‘Even the person you loved thought you guilty of murder. Well, the blindness of a lover often distorts things through the fear it arouses. It is easy to swing from love to jealousy and into a total distortion of reality.’

Sister Marga was trying to follow what Fidelma was saying. Then she repeated: ‘My fear is of Brother Drón. I will kill myself rather than be taken back to Cill Ria.’

Fidelma was thoughtful. ‘There is no need to fear Brother Drón. I can assure you that you will not be forced back to the Abbey of Cill Ria. We will meet again in a little while.’

Fidelma, followed by Eadulf, left the girl sitting with a bewildered expression on her features.

Outside, Eadulf was equally bewildered.

‘Did you learn anything?’ he demanded.

‘Oh, I did.’ Fidelma smiled. ‘Now I must spend a short time with that trunk we found in Ultán’s room. It is still under lock and key in my brother’s strongroom.’

‘But there was nothing of interest there. Clothes, papers, the records of Ultán’s embassy on behalf of Ard Macha. . just papers.’

‘Exactly so,’ Fidelma replied. ‘Once I have seen those we can set up our brandubh board.’

Eadulf looked startled, not being privy to her discussion with Abbot Laisran. She chuckled and took his arm.

‘The great hall is to become the brandubh board for this game in which we will find the centre piece. The centre piece is the murderer and we will now trap it.’

CHAPTER TWENTY

The great hall of Cashel was not filled to capacity. It had been agreed that only the most distinguished guests and those directly involved in the matter would witness the resolution to the murders of Abbot Ultán and Muirchertach Nár. These were the kings, their leading nobles, their brehons and the leading churchmen. The princes and chiefs of the Eóghanacht, the Déisi and the Uí Fidgente were all gathered there. Barrán, the Chief Brehon of the Five Kingdoms, sat in judgement with the High King Sechnassach on his left side and Colgú, king of Muman, on his right. A chagrined and silent Brehon Ninnid had taken his place behind King Fianamail of Laigin, among the seated nobles and other dignitaries. Fidelma and Eadulf sat slightly to the right in front of the judges, and Caol, as guard commander, stood close by, having placed his men at strategic points about the hall.

Brother Drón was seated with Sister Sétach under guard. Sister Marga was seated with those who had been requested to attend in the role of witnesses, ranging from Aíbnat and Abbot Augaire and Dúnchad Muirisci, to Rónán the tracker, Delia, Brother Berrihert with his two brothers, Brehon Baithen and Brother Conchobhar. Even so, the spacious hall was only half filled.

Colgú’s steward, having been given a signal from the Brehon Barrán, moved forward and turned to the assembly. He banged his staff on the floor three times to call them to order. Then Brehon Barrán turned to Fidelma.

‘Are you ready to present your resolution to the matters that have been placed before us?’

‘I am,’ she responded, rising from her seat.

‘Proceed,’ instructed the Chief Brehon.

‘The matters before us are the murders of two men. First, the murder of Abbot Ultán of Cill Ria, the emissary of the Comarb of the Blessed Patrick. Second, the murder of King Muirchertach Nár of Connacht. .’

‘I would like to make a protest,’ cut in a voice.

To her surprise it was Brehon Ninnid who had risen. Even Brehon Barrán seemed astonished.

‘A protest? About what?’ he demanded.

‘The learned brehon presents the slaying of Ultán, an abbot, to be considered before the murder of a king, Muirchertach. That is not socially just.’

For a moment Fidelma did not understand the meaning of the intervention. Then she realised. There was no humour in her smile.

‘I present these murders in order of their chronological precedence rather than that of their social precedence,’ she replied dryly.

Brehon Barrán was frowning at Ninnid. He, too, had realised as Fidelma had that Ninnid, having been admonished by Barrán over the release of Brother Drón, was now trying to ingratiate himself by attempting to show off points of law. He was trying to present a good figure in front of his king.

‘I will not accept frivolous interruptions in this court,’ Brehon Barrán snapped and, flushing, the petulant Ninnid sat down.

‘Let us begin, as we should,’ Fidelma said with emphasis, ‘with the first murder. It should not fall to a mere advocate such as I to judge a man when he is dead but the judgement is necessary to an understanding of this death. Everyone here had cause to dislike Abbot Ultán, even his close associates — or should I say especially his close associates? He was not a likeable man. He pretended to have been converted to the Faith even as the Apostle Paul had been when he saw the blinding light on the road to Damascus, as the Scriptures tell us. But I believe that Ultán’s conversion was false. He used his rescue from the judgement of the sea, to which he had been condemned as an unrepentant criminal, in order to seize a path that would lead him to power. He was persuasive. He was even appointed by the Comarb of the Blessed Patrick as his