Chalice of Blood

‘Yet Gáeth grew up with your sons and your son Donnchad believed him to be his friend,’ Eadulf pointed out.

‘I believe that in my stables there is an old workhorse who grew up with my sons,’ replied the lady in a cutting tone. ‘Am I suppose to like the horse too? It is just a horse.’

Fidelma rose to her feet. ‘We have troubled you long enough, Lady Eithne,’ she said decisively, glancing at Eadulf who also rose. ‘We thank you for your time and your hospitality.’

Lady Eithne raised a hand and beckoned to one of her attendants who had stood quietly in the background awaiting her orders. The man came forward.

‘My steward will see you out,’ she said. ‘I hope you find the culprit. When you return to Cashel, remember me to your brother, the King, and tell him something of the great work being done here at Lios Mór.’

‘When I return to Cashel, lady, I hope I shall be able to report a resolution of this matter,’ Fidelma said solemnly and bade Lady Eithne farewell.

On the road back to the abbey, Fidelma called a halt, ostensibly so that they could water their horses by a tiny stream. While Gormán led the beasts to the water, Fidelma sat on a nearby boulder. She seemed deep in troubled thought.

Eadulf guessed what she was thinking. ‘She seems a cold sort of woman,’ he observed.

‘She certainly does not like Abbot Iarnla,’ agreed Fidelma. ‘And is enamoured of Brother Lugna.’

‘Does not like Abbot Iarnla?’ grunted Eadulf. ‘Last time we saw her she more or less accused him of being her son’s murderer because he was jealous of young talent.’

‘It’s not beyond the realms of possibility,’ sighed Fidelma. ‘I have known such things happen before. In fact, the thought crossed my mind the night he paid me a visit to claim how powerless he is.’ Fidelma had told Eadulf of her night visitor.

‘Abbot Iarnla told you that it was almost a good thing that Donnchad was murdered so that he had an excuse to send for us to tell us about the problems with Brother Lugna and Lady Eithne,’ said Eadulf. ‘Do you think he precipitated the cause to send for you?’

‘It occurred to me.’

‘Well, now, we are told that the plan is to replace Abbot Iarnla with Brother Lugna as abbot.’

Fidelma did not reply. ‘I think I can work everything out but it’s the basic motive that confuses me. There is just one thing I am not clear on, something that does not fit correctly here. Something that I am overlooking and I can’t quite put my finger on it. It is the linchpin, it holds together all the parts.’ She shrugged and stood up. ‘Let me think for awhile and then I will tell you what I believe happened but it is all supposition.’

They remounted their horses and continued in silence. They had just passed the spot where the roadway branched southward to Ard Mór when a figure moving up a hill to the south of them caught Fidelma’s attention. It was scrambling up towards a mound near the top of the hill. It was a man. He had his back to them and so he didn’t notice them. Fidelma halted to stare up at him. When he reached the mound he disappeared behind it.

‘Did you see who that was?’ Fidelma asked her companions.

‘A religieux,’ offered Gormán.

‘It was Brother Gáeth,’ Eadulf announced. ‘He is beyond the borders of the cultivated fields of the abbey. Aren’t daer-fudir supposed not to leave the lands of their community?’

‘Perhaps he has permission to do so,’ replied Fidelma. ‘Anyway, he is still on the lands of the Déisi so I am not going to report such a silly infraction of the law.’

She stared up at the mound behind which Brother Gáeth haddisappeared. There were many such ancient burial mounds scattered across the countryside.

The thought occurred to her in a sudden flash.

‘Gormán, what would you call that place?’ she asked.

The warrior looked up. ‘Don’t they call them the mounds of the dead?’

A broad smile spread across Fidelma’s face.

‘I think we may have found the solution.’ She swung off her horse.

‘Stay here with the horses and wait for me,’ she told an astounded Eadulf and Gormán. ‘We do not want to intimidate Brother Gáeth.’

‘Wait,’ protested Eadulf. ‘You cannot go up there alone.’

‘Of course I can,’ she retorted. ‘Stay here and do not follow.’

‘But you might be in danger,’ Gormán said. ‘I’ll come with you.’

‘You will both stay there. I am in no danger from Brother Gáeth.’

‘But you never know, he is-’

‘He is not a simpleton,’ snapped Fidelma, guessing what was passing through Gormán’s mind. She began to climb the hill. As she approached the mound on its summit, she saw that, although it was mainly earth- covered, it was certainly man-made. It was formed of large stones placed as a circular cabin over which sods of earth had been placed. She walked slowly round the circular stone wall and, as she expected, came to a small entrance. There was a flickering light inside. She halted and bent down to peer in.

‘Stop!’ cried an echoing voice. ‘This is a place of the dead.’

She halted, bending in the entrance. ‘Yet it is where you come, Brother Gáeth. Why are you here?’

Brother Gáeth was sitting in the centre of the small stone hut. It smelled of that strange mustiness that she associated with thegraveyard. There was an oil lamp on a stone ledge to one side. She noticed that there was also a bright polished crucifix perched on another stone ledge behind him. It was ornate and reflected the light of the lamp. There were some small boxes and other objects piled along the walls, and among them she noticed two funerary urns of baked clay.

‘This is a place of my dead,’ replied Brother Gáeth softly. ‘They are here, here beyond harm.’

‘And I have no wish to harm them or you, Gáeth. May I be allowed to enter?’

Brother Gáeth stared at her for a moment or so, as if trying to make up his mind what to do. Then he shrugged. ‘You have been kind to me, Sister. You may enter.’

She crawled in and sat down near some boxes. The interior was no more than five or six metres in diameter. She coughed a little in the musty air. Then she glanced towards the ornate crucifix. It was of silver with several semi-precious stones in it. She had seen similar workmanship before.

‘Brother Donnchad brought that back from the Holy Land, didn’t he?’ she said softly, inclining her head towards it.

‘It was his gift to me,’ Brother Gáeth said defensively.

‘Indeed.’ Fidelma glanced at the funerary urns. Brother Gáeth saw her look.

‘My father and my mother. I … Donnchad and I rescued their ashes and brought them here. This was an ancient chief’s mound. They deserved to rest here and not in the grave of paupers. My father was Selbach of Dún Guairne, a chief of the Uí Liatháin.’

‘I know,’ Fidelma replied softly. ‘Yet cremation is frowned on by the churches of Ireland. I thought the practice had ended.’

‘Because my parents were daer-fudir, Eochaid said it did not matter for there was no place to set up a memorial to them anyway. But they rest here now.’ Brother Gáeth reached out andtouched one of the urns. ‘Those I have loved rest here. Donnchad helped me bring them here when I was a boy, just after they died.’

‘Ah, Donnchad knew of this place.’

‘We often played here. It was,’ he paused, searching for the right word, ‘it was our special camp. No one dared come near the mound of the dead. That’s what we called it. It was our secret.’

‘So Donnchad requested you to bring some things here before he died.’

Brother Gáeth’s brow creased. ‘How did you know that?’

‘He asked you to bring them here because he feared that he would die and they would be stolen. Isn’t that it?’

Brother Gáeth made a movement with his right hand that encompassed the interior of the mound. ‘Donnchad gave me things to bring here for safe keeping.’