Dancing With Demons

‘What do we forget, lady?’ he asked coldly.

‘I accept that I have been a dupe, a fool, that Brehon Barrán did, indeed, manoeuvre me into the company of Dubh Duin who purposefully made himself attractive to me. Lonely women can be misled by kind and gentlewords from honey-tongued suitors. It is true that all along I confided in Barrán, who promised to draw up the agreement for my divorce from Sechnussach and now denies it was so. I see now how he was putting the blame on me. But there is something the lady Fidelma said that we have all overlooked.’

When she looked at Fidelma, the latter smiled encouragement and motioned for her to continue.

‘Fidelma said that Brehon Barrán was working with someone else, his lover, someone who wanted to share the power with him and was as ambitious for it as he was. So when Báine charges Barrán, let us remember the full extent of the part she played. She obviously led Barrán on. She was his lover.’

But Fidelma was already answering her. ‘Lady Gormflaith, I would have spared you this with the best will in the world. However, you are right in your reminder to the Great Assembly that there was someone else working with the Chief Brehon. But it was not Báine, a lowly servant in the royal house, who was Barrán’s lover and co-conspirator — someone eager to share power with him as High King.’

‘Then name the woman, if you know it,’ instructed Brehon Sedna.

‘I am afraid that there was one other person who helped bring Dubh Duin into your life, Gormflaith. One other person who gave their authority to ask the guards to pass Dubh Duin into the royal enclosure at night, and finally gave instruction to the guard Erc to allow Dubh Duin free access at night so that he could pass in when the time came for the assassination … ’

Muirgel, with a scream, had leaped up and seemed for a moment to be trying to escape but Irél had seized her.

Gormflaith gazed ashen-faced at her eldest daughter.

‘It’s not true!’ shouted Brehon Barrán, springing up, and found the hand of one of the Fianna on his shoulder restraining him.

‘Of course it’s true,’ jeered Báine from her seat. ‘Muirgel was in this plot from the start. Again, I will bear witness to it.’

‘But in a plot to … to kill her own father!’ Brehon Sedna was horrified.

‘Ambition destroys the feelings of its possessor,’ muttered Abbot Colmán, using an old saying.

Muirgel stood, held by Irél, scowling at them; her blazing eyes seemed to be cursing them silently.

‘She thought to use us all,’ Báine said in disgust. ‘We were together as conspirators, each with our own ambitions. She was too arrogant to see that we were using her and her clownish lover, Barrán. Clownish, aye, for how could a young girl like Muirgel love him, a decrepit old man? She was using him, just as she used everyone else. She was ambitious for power — power was her only god.’

Fidelma let her gaze wander from the snarling young woman to the suddenly deflated old man who had once been Chief Brehon of the five kingdoms, renowned throughout the land. Now he seemed a feeble, emotional wreck of a man. He sat forward, his head in his hands as he realised how he, in turn, had been manipulated.

‘Ambition is a mounting demon who first corrupts and then rots the heart and the mind.’ Fidelma spoke out strongly, addressing all present. ‘It invites the shallow residue of humanity to dance with it and, if the dance be successful, it has but one reward — transient power and fame before sinking into the oblivion of the grave.’

Eadulf regarded her in surprise. She smiled back.

‘They are lines from a pagan poet,’ she explained softly.

Abbot Colmán and Brehon Sedna were now calling for order among the astonished and voluble Great Assembly.

‘The Chief Brehon Barrán is, of course, suspended from his office and his nomination as tánaiste to the High King is withdrawn. He, together with Muirgel, daughter of Sechnussach, and Báine and Cuan, will be held for the conspiracy in the assassination of Sechnussach,’ Brehon Sedna announced solemnly.

Abbot Colmán nodded his agreement with the announcement.

‘It is good to come to an end of this affair,’ he said. ‘My only regret is that Dubh Duin killed himself so that we cannot try him for the murder of the High King.’

‘But Dubh Duin did not murder the High King.’

The sentence clearly spoken by Fidelma caused a silence more complete than any that had gone before. It seemed that all present held their breath.

Brehon Sedna stared at her in disbelief. ‘Are you joking with us, Fidelma?’

‘It is no joke.’

‘What of the witnesses — what of the fact that, when caught in the act, Dubh Duin took his own life? Be reasonable.’

‘Nevertheless, the truth remains that Dubh Duin did not murder Sechnussach,’ she said again, more firmly still.

‘You will have to explain yourself.’

‘It is simple to do so. When Dubh Duin took his knife and cut Sechnussach’s throat, the High King was already dead.’

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

This new announcement was greeted with a stunned silence, as if everyone present had suddenly been transformed into statues of stone. Even the conspirators, about to be led away, looked shocked.

It was Abbot Colmán who finally broke the spell that had descended on the hall.

‘I think you had better explain, Fidelma,’ he said at last, trying to sound stern but sounding merely bewildered.

Fidelma turned to Iceadh the physician. ‘I would like to present my first witnesses for this statement. Stand up, Iceadh.’

The old physician did so, peering round nervously at the assembly.

‘When I first asked you to describe to me the wounds inflicted on Sechnussach’s body, what exactly did you tell me?’

Iceadh sniffed impatiently. ‘My account was no different from the one I gave everyone else. Sechnussach’s throat was cut. The jugular vein severed. Short stab to the heart. Either could have been fatal. Sharp instrument found with assassin. A hunter’s knife. Honed to sharpness that would slice anything. Sechnussach died instantly.’

‘Precisely,’ agreed Fidelma. ‘And the one thing that we have been overlooking was the short stab to the heart that, as you say, could be just as fatal as the cutting of the throat.’

Iceadh frowned and shook his head fiercely. ‘I did not overlook it,’ he said grumpily. ‘I reported it as I saw it.’

‘And I am glad you did so,’ confirmed Fidelma, with a pacifying smile. ‘But everyone else overlooked it. You see,’ she went on, turning to the Great Assembly, ‘Sechnussach had already been stabbed in the heart and killed before Dubh Duin entered the chamber and cut his throat.’

Brehon Sedna was leaning back and smiling sceptically as a ripple of sound ran round the Great Assembly.

‘Now that is a theory that you will be hard-pressed to prove, Fidelma,’ he remarked, almost patronisingly.

Fidelma flushed a moment and then returned his smile with her most dangerous icy look.

‘I never make claims that I cannot substantiate, Brehon Sedna. I now intend to prove it,’ she said sharply. She turned again to the physician. ‘Now, Iceadh, I know little of your profession but I have often watched my old mentor, Brother Conchobhair, at his work in Cashel.’

‘Brother Conchobhair is known to me,’ Iceadh acknowledged, ‘for I have read his treatise on the treatment