The Dove of Death

‘Since time began, the sea folk that dwell along this coast have known the route to the Otherworld,’ Iarnbud replied. ‘Fishermen recognise the day when they are marked to perform a sacred duty. At midnight, they will hear a knocking at their door and they must then go to the shore, where they will see strange boats awaiting them — and these boats are not their own but strange empty vessels. They must go aboard and loose the sails and, even if there is no wind, an inexplicable breath of air will come and they will be taken out to sea and along the coast to the west to the place we call Bae an Anaon…’

‘The Bay of Souls,’ interpreted Brother Metellus. ‘I have heard it lies at the western end of Bro-Gernev, the kingdom that borders us to the west.’

‘Indeed,’ Iarnbud said. ‘It is a desolate place where the lost city of Ker Ys sank beneath the waves when its King was cursed by the Abbot Winwaloe because of his allegiance to the Old Faith.’

Once again, Fidelma tried to hide her amusement at their solemn faces, saying simply, ‘It seems that this Abbot was a powerful man if he was able to drown a city with a curse.’

Iarnbud sniffed in disapproval at her levity.

‘He was the son of Fracan, a prince of Dumnonia in the Old Country who had to flee here to escape the Saxons. He founded a great abbey in Bro-Gernev called Landevenneg.’

‘So what has this to do with the Bay of Souls?’ Eadulf was touchy at yet another reference to his people.

Iarnbud smiled, almost maliciously this time.

‘I say it to point out that it is a mysterious place, where there are mysterious currents beneath the waves and dark forces above them. The swell enters the bay with such mystical force that many avoid those brooding waters.’

‘I don’t understand the connection with warning us to avoid the shores here after nightfall.’ Fidelma was growing tired of Iarnbud’s tendency to the dramatic.

The sallow-faced man suddenly looked pained. ‘I am coming to that,’ he said.

‘You were talking about the fishermen being drawn by some strange wind to this Bay of Souls,’ prompted Brother Metellus with a grin at Fidelma.

Iarnbud compressed his lips for a moment in frustration at the loss of atmosphere the interruption in his story had made.

‘As the fishermen approach the Bay of Souls, they hear muffled voices around them and their boats grow heavy; so heavy that a boat’s gunwales sink to barely a finger’s breadth above the waterline. Yet they see no one on their boats and their crafts are drawn westward at amazing speeds — so that within a short time they come to land. They come to a place where there should be no land, but they arrive at an island, and here their ships are halted, and soon the weight in the boats lightens as if they were empty, and as they lighten the boatmen say they hear a voice asking invisible people for their names, and the names are given — men, women and children, all who are dead souls, who have waited for the time when the gods of the dead will transport them to the Otherworld, to the Island of the Blessed. And then the wind comes up again and the boats go back, the fishermen disembark and return to their homes and the strange vessels vanish until the next time the fisherfolk of these shores are asked to transport the souls of the dead again.’

Iarnbud sat back with a deep sigh at the end of his narrative.

Eadulf snorted indignantly.

‘It seems to me that the fishermen are superfluous in this story. If these dark forces supply the craft and the wind to take them to the Otherworld and back again, why are human fishermen needed to man their ships? These forces could do the job by their own powers.’

Iarnbud looked shocked.

‘We have similar stories,’ interposed Fidelma. ‘Stories even the coming of the New Faith has not entirely eradicated from our land. To the west of my brother’s kingdom is an island we called Tech Duinn, the House of Donn. Donn was our God of the Dead. It was an island where the souls of the dead had to assemble before they began their journey westward to the Otherworld.’

Iarnbud glanced at Bleidbara and shrugged as if he were disappointed. It was so slight that the motion of his shoulder was almost lost on Fidelma — but not quite. She turned to where Bleidbara had been sitting in silence during this whole conversation.

‘You are a warrior, a practical man,’ she said smoothly, ‘and you say you command a ship. Do you believe in such tales?’

Bleidbara had been deep in thought and now he looked up.

‘Tales?’ He reflected hurriedly. ‘I believe only in what I see, feel, hear and smell, lady.’

‘Anyway,’ she went on, ‘it was a good story, well told, and these ancient beliefs are to be respected.’

She looked at Eadulf for support. He interpreted her expression correctly, for he nodded earnestly.

‘That is so,’ he agreed. ‘For there is usually a reason behind an ancient tale. It is best to be sitting before a blazing hearth fire or, better yet, to be in a warm bed, rather than stalking the shores in the dead of night when the powers of the old gods are exalted.’

Brother Metellus regarded him in disgust.

‘The old gods have only the power we give them,’ he rebuked.

‘As do the new gods,’ Iarnbud rejoined quickly.

‘Are you a believer in the old gods, then, Iarnbud?’ asked Fidelma gently.

Iarnbud looked nervously at Macliau who pretended to be interested in his little dog, still stretched asleep at his feet.

‘I am, as you have heard, Bretat to Canao, Lord of Brilhag. I am a keeper of the arcane knowledge of the people of this land.’

‘That is not what I asked,’ Fidelma responded gently. ‘It just sounded as though you gave equal credence to the old gods as you do to the New Faith.’

The man pursed his lips in thought for a moment or two and then sighed.

‘It would seem strange, lady, that the gods who the people accepted at the time that was beyond time, and who were believed and worshipped for generation after generation for millennia, could suddenly lose their power and disappear in such a short space of time when some people turned to stories of other alien gods from the east.’

Brother Metellus did not seem outraged but he observed quietly: ‘That is sacrilege.’

Iarnbud was unperturbed by his condemnation.

‘You know from old, Brother Metellus, that I merely state what is logical. Many of our people still make offerings to the old gods and goddesses. They have proved their worth over the generations while the new deities have only just appeared in the land and need to demonstrate their greater power — if they have it.’

Macliau stirred and set down his wine and, as he had been doing throughout the evening, bent to caress the ears of his little dog Albiorix. It was obvious that he was fond of the animal.

‘Is it not enough that when the New Faith entered our lands, it did so soon after the Roman legions?’ he said vehemently. ‘First the Roman legions came and slaughtered our people, and then the New Faith came and subverted the minds of those who remained, turning them away from their very roots.’

Fidelma and Eadulf stared at the young man in surprise. Fidelma was aware that he had been helping himself very liberally to the wine and she wondered if this had been the means of making him so outspoken.

Trifina surprised them even further by giving a peal of laughter.

‘My brother likes to annoy people by being contrary,’ she said. ‘He says what he knows to be opposite to their views merely to provoke them.’

Macliau stared at his sister for a moment and Fidelma was sure that she gave him a warning signal. He turned back with a shrug.

‘I do not believe it is a fault to stimulate conversation,’ he explained grumpily. ‘If we all sat around agreeing with each other, it would surely be a boring existence.’

‘The way our great teachers provoked knowledge was taking an opposite view, to induce the student to bring forth argument,’ confirmed Iarnbud.

‘That was also the method in our land,’ agreed Fidelma. ‘But it sometimes gets in the way of the seeker after facts.’

Iarnbud leaned back in his chair and examined her quietly for a moment.