Badger's Moon (18 page)

Bébháil regarded her with large, dark eyes.

‘My husband was not a man who was well liked, lady,’ she said softly. ‘You must already know that he had several enemies. However, I will not lift a finger to point in any direction.’

Fidelma was quiet for a moment or two, Then she said, ‘Have you ever heard the name of Biobhal spoken? It sounds very similar to your own name, I know. But it seems your husband was calling it out when he died.’

Bébháil frowned and shook her head rapidly.

‘There is no one in these parts who has such a name,’ she said simply. ‘Biobhal? Are you sure that he was not calling out my name?’

‘Tómma was sure and apparently Creoda also heard it.’

‘I know of no such name, lady.’

Fidelma gave her a smile of reassurance. ‘I have done with my questions. Can I do anything for you, Bébháil? Can you call on anyone to come and be with you? Is there anyone who is able to make the funeral arrangements for you?’

‘I have a sister who lives nearby. Tómma will fetch her for me.’ Her voice was low and measured and still without emotion. Fidelma rose, reached forward and laid a comforting hand on the woman’s shoulder.

‘I will ask the tanist to do so. Tómma should stay here until your relatives arrive so that you are not alone.’

‘Alone?’ Bébháil sighed. ‘Ah! Let the days of lamentation begin for my man was alive and now is dead. Cry and clap your hands and sing the
Nuall-guba
, the lamentation of sorrow.’

‘It shall be done with all ceremony, Bébháil,’ Fidelma assured her solemnly in answer to the ritual instruction of one who has suffered the death of a near one. She called for Accobrán to come in to receive instructions from Bébháil.

She was about to turn from the room when she caught sight of a small piece of glinting polished metal standing on a table. She frowned and took it up in her hand. It was heavy and there was a glint of metallic yellow about it.

‘You appear rich, Bébháil,’ she said quietly. ‘This is a large gold nugget.’

‘Let me see!’ Accobrán demanded, reaching out his hand and taking it from her. He seemed abruptly curt. He turned it over for a moment or two and then put it carelessly back in place. ‘It’s only iron pyrites – fool’s gold,’ he said. Was it relief that Fidelma heard in his voice?

‘Ah,’ Fidelma said softly. ‘
Non teneas aurum totum quod splendet ut aurum
.’

Bébháil continued to sit without moving as if she no longer saw nor heard them.

Outside, Fidelma told Tómma what was intended and while she was speaking to him Accobrán followed her out and informed her that he had agreed to undertake the task of arranging the funeral obsequies.

‘I’ll also alert Bébháil’s sister and her family,’ he agreed. ‘When can the funeral go ahead, lady?’

‘As soon as custom allows,’ replied Fidelma. ‘There is nothing more to be learnt from the body. Eadulf and I will meet you at the rath on your return.’

Accobrán raised an eyebrow. ‘Your return? Return from where, lady?’

Fidelma was already moving back to her horse with Eadulf trailing in her wake. She mounted up quickly.

‘We will have a word with this youth Creoda and then I want to see Liag to find out how he just happened to be passing by here. Perhaps he noticed something.’

Accobrán looked uncomfortable. ‘I should go with you. I have told you that he—’

‘Don’t worry,’ Fidelma interrupted him. ‘Eadulf and I will find the way. You concentrate on finding the sister of Bébháil.’

She knew well enough that Accobrán had not meant that they needed to be guided to Liag’s hermitage but that he was worried for their safety. However, she had begun to feel that she had now had enough of being chaperoned. She needed freedom to continue her own investigations now she knew the lie of the land.

Side by side, she and Eadulf rode silently along the bank of the river, retracing their route of the previous day towards the place where Liag dwelt. Accobrán stood staring after them a few moments before he mounted his own horse and rode off in the opposite direction.

After a while, Eadulf said: ‘We should have asked Accobrán for his hunting horn. Didn’t he say that he had to use it to summon the hermit?’

Fidelma glanced at him with amusement. ‘If our upraised voices do not summon Liag then nothing will.’

Eadulf grimaced without humour. ‘What do you think the old apothecary was doing so close to the tannery?’

‘That is what I hope to find out.’

‘And destroying evidence?’ added Eadulf.

‘The question has occurred to me,’ she replied quietly.

Eadulf fell silent. It was obvious that Fidelma had considered all the matters he had wondered about.

It was not long before they spotted a log cabin through the trees.

‘This must be Creoda’s
bothán
,’ Fidelma said as she turned her horse towards it.

They were some distance away when a youth emerged and called shrilly: ‘What do you want here?’ He was clearly nervous.

‘Are you Creoda?’

The youth was clad in a tanner’s traditional leather apron. He wore a sharp leather-worker’s knife in his belt and had one hand on the handle. His features displayed his anxiety. He regarded them with suspicion.

‘I am Creoda,’ he replied. Then he seemed to relax. ‘Ah, you are the
dálaigh
. I saw you at Lesren’s tannery yesterday.’

Fidelma and Eadulf dismounted.

‘We have come to ask you a few questions about Lesren,’ Fidelma told him.

The boy thrust out his lower lip in a grimace. ‘Lesren is dead.’ He jerked his head towards Eadulf. ‘He was there with the tanist. He saw the body.’

‘I know. We have come from the tannery.’

‘I can tell you little more.’

‘I just need to hear your version of the events.’

Creoda hesitated before commencing his story. ‘I had finished my noonday meal when Tómma called for me. We went to the tannery together. There was some work for us to do but everyone else had been sent home. We arrived at the tannery but there was no sign of Lesren. We asked at the
bothán
but he was not there and so we went looking for him. We found him by the edge of the woods. That is all.’

‘I gather that he was still alive,’ said Fidelma.

‘Alive? Aye, barely; alive but rambling.’

‘What did he say?’

‘Tómma was bending down by him. He will tell you.’

‘We would like to know what you heard – just to clarify things.’

Creoda pursed his lips. ‘Nothing that made sense. I heard some snatches of words and a name…it was indistinct. Tómma turned to me and asked me if I had heard the name before.’

‘What was the name? And had you heard it?’

Creoda shook his head once more. ‘Tómma clarified the name for me because, at first, I thought he was calling for his wife, Bébháil. But the name was apparently Biobhal. It is not a name that I know or have heard the like of here.’

‘Biobhal,’ repeated Fidelma. ‘Are you sure that was the name?’

‘I asked Tómma to repeat it. I have never heard of its like,’ affirmed the tannery worker.

‘Then we will trouble you no more,’ Fidelma said gravely, turning to remount her horse.

‘Will you find this killer who threatens our peace, Sister?’ demanded the boy. ‘Three of my friends have been slaughtered by this moonlight maniac and now comes the death of him who was training me in the art of tannery.’

Fidelma glanced back at the youth.

‘Lesren was killed in the sunlight,’ she said pointedly.

The youth blinked as if he had not considered this.

Fidelma waited for a while and then said: ‘Yet you have reminded me. You knew all the girls who have been killed. Did they know each other well?’

Creoda pursed his lips in a sullen expression. ‘They were great friends, the three of them. Thick as thieves and no secret safe with any of them but was shared between them. Or, at least, that is my opinion.’

‘And didn’t you also attend old Liag’s instruction on star lore?’

Creoda inclined his head. ‘I did.’

‘And who else attended?’

‘Gabrán came with Beccnat, of course. They were always together and, in spite of Lesren’s disapproval, I heard that they were going to marry.’

‘Who else?’

‘Escrach. I liked Escrach very much…I had hoped that…’ He shrugged. ‘Anyway, Escrach tried to comfort Gabrán after he returned from the coast when it was found that Beccnat had been killed. Escrach was a kindly girl. She and Gabrán had been friends from childhood. Then, of course, Ballgel attended and sometimes Accobrán the tanist.’

‘Accobrán?’ Eadulf was surprised. ‘He is several years older than all of you.’

Creoda grimaced.

‘I am not sure whether he was interested in star lore or in Beccnat,’ he said bitterly. ‘I know Gabrán did not like the way that the tanist sought her out at feastings to dance with him.’

‘Did she protest at his attentions?’ asked Fidelma.

Creoda sighed and shook his head. ‘The tanist had an eye for girls. I think he and Gabrán quarrelled over Beccnat because he danced with her at some festival. But Accobrán was not the oldest to attend Liag’s classes. That smith – Gobnuid – he came along a few times.’

‘I am interested in what Liag taught in these sessions,’ Eadulf said. ‘He taught about the moon and the stars? What in particular?’

‘The old lore, the old names of the stars and what their courses meant, the moon and its powers…you must know the sort of thing? Perhaps if Liag hadn’t taught so much about the moon then the girls might still be alive.’

Fidelma raised her eyebrows.

‘You ought to explain that,’ she suggested.

‘Liag was always going on about knowledge meaning power. There was no need to fear the darkness of the night for if you possessed the knowledge of the secret names of the moon then you could control her. The night held no secret for Liag and he taught that power came at night.’

Eadulf frowned. ‘Power came at night?’

‘Had he taught that there were things to fear at night, Beccnat, Escrach and Ballgel might never had ventured forth,’ Creoda said. ‘Had they feared, then they might still have been alive.’

‘Where fear is, knowledge and safety are not,’ Fidelma reproved him.

Creoda stared at her for a moment and then, almost pleading, asked: ‘Will you find out who has done this evil?’

‘I will find the person responsible,’ Fidelma replied gently. ‘On that account you should have no fear.’

They remounted and retraced their route back to the main path.

‘Are we still seeking out Liag?’ asked Eadulf after they had ridden some way in silence.

She nodded absently, apparently lost in thought. Eadulf did not interrupt her and they rode on without speaking. They came to the spot where they had seen the two boys panning for gold on the previous day. At first they thought the river and its banks were empty, but a loud
plop
caused them to glance to where a rock overhung the riverbank.

A small boy was sitting on the rock and had obviously just thrown a stone into the water for he held another in his hand. At first they thought that it was one of the boys they had seen on the previous day. He was about twelve years old with fair hair and small limbs, and his clothing was not dissimilar to the other boys’. Some passing thought in the back of her mind caused Fidelma to ease her horse to a halt where the track passed close to the overhang. Eadulf looked at her in surprise and also halted.

‘A pleasant day, boy,’ she called.

The boy stirred and seemed to notice them for the first time. His expression was morose.

‘The day may be pleasant but not so all that passes in it,’ he replied sullenly.

Fidelma’s eyes widened a little and she chuckled in appreciation at the other’s words. ‘You sound like a philosopher, my boy.’

He put down his stone and put his arms round his knees. ‘I have heard the old ones say it when things go wrong for them.’

‘And what is going wrong for you on this bright day?’

‘Gobnuid made fun of me.’

‘Gobnuid the smith?’ Fidelma frowned.

The boy nodded. ‘I brought him something I thought valuable and he laughed at me.’

‘Is your name Síoda?’

The boy scowled immediately.

‘What do you know of me?’ he demanded defensively. ‘Has Gobnuid been spreading the story—’

‘I heard from your friends that you had discovered some metal,’ Fidelma interrupted.

‘I thought it was gold,’ the boy affirmed, his mood swinging again to gloom. ‘Gobnuid said it wasn’t. He gave me a coin for it but I thought I would be really wealthy.’

‘
Ad praesens ova cras pullis sunt meliora
,’ said Eadulf.

The boy glanced at him as if he were stupid. ‘He’s a foreigner, isn’t he?’ he asked Fidelma.

Fidelma smiled.

‘It is a Latin saying that eggs today are better than chicken tomorrow,’ she explained. ‘In other words, a coin in your pocket is better than the promise of riches to come. It’s good advice.’

The boy sniffed. ‘I was sure that the metal was gold.’

‘Did you find it in this river?’ Fidelma asked.

‘I did not.’

‘I saw two other boys panning for gold here yesterday. They seemed to believe that you had found the gold in the river here.’

The boy laughed bitterly. ‘I told them that I had found it in the river when I thought it was valuable. I didn’t want them to find out where I had really discovered it. Now I don’t care. I am not going to be wealthy.’

‘So you did not find the metal in the river?’ Fidelma sought clarification.

The boy shook his head. ‘I found it on the Thicket of Pigs. There are old mines there.’

‘The Thicket of Pigs?’ Fidelma’s brow creased a moment.

The boy pointed across to the hill in front of them. ‘It is really the wooded area on top of that hill, but the entire hill is now called by that name.’ He confirmed the knowledge they already had.

‘Should you be in the mines at your age?’ demanded Eadulf. ‘Surely it is dangerous?’

The boy regarded him with a frown.

‘There are many metal workings around here,’ he said. ‘My father worked in them when he was not much older than I am. They are abandoned now. We all play in them. The boys from the area, that is.’