‘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.’
‘So, you were playing in the mines on the Thicket of Pigs when you found the metal?’
The boy sniffed.
‘I was not playing but exploring,’ he corrected grandly.
Fidelma smiled briefly. ‘Even so, you should have a care. My companion is right. It is very dangerous to play…to explore disused mine workings.’
The boy sniffed again and returned to his contemplation of the river. Fidelma bade him farewell but he did not bother to respond and so she and Eadulf rode off.
‘Why were you interested in where the boy picked up his fool’s gold?’ asked Eadulf, in a reproving tone, after they had ridden some distance. ‘We should be concentrating on other matters.’
Fidelma glanced at him. ‘I am interested in the fact that the piece of metal which Gobnuid showed me, the piece he said the boy had found, and which he assured me was fool’s gold, was real gold. I have handled both metals before and know the difference. I tested the nugget at Gobnuid’s forge. It was gold.’
Eadulf stared at her for a moment before replying. ‘You mean that this smith, Gobnuid, cheated the boy?’
‘Certainly he told him an untruth.’
‘Why would he do that? Just to make some money?’
Fidelma did not reply for a moment. Then she said, ‘That is what I would like to find out. The girls met their deaths at the Thicket of Pigs. Could there be a connection?’
A silence fell between them again before Eadulf finally said: ‘How long do you think we will remain here?’
Fidelma’s eyebrows rose quickly. Her eyes widened. ‘Here? In these woods?’
‘No, at Rath Raithlen, away from Cashel.’
‘When we have been asked to investigate a matter such as this, do we not usually remain until we have a resolution, Eadulf?’ she asked, puzzled.
‘Before there was not a little one awaiting our return,’ he replied. ‘You have not mentioned Alchú once since we left Cashel.’
The corners of Fidelma’s mouth suddenly tightened.
‘Because my son’s name is not always on my lips, it does not mean to say that he is not in my thoughts,’ she snapped. Her sudden anger was born of guilt that until that very morning Alchú had actually been entirely out of her thoughts.
‘We have not discussed our son since we left Cashel.’ Eadulf spoke softly but with emphasis on the change of personal pronoun.
Fidelma flushed guiltly. She knew that Eadulf was justified but, in her guilt, she became more defensive.
‘Is there need to discuss him? He is safe at Cashel with Sárait. We have other more pressing business to attend to.’
Eadulf’s jaw was determined. ‘He is barely a month old. You have already given him up to a wet nurse. I learnt enough about such matters, when I studied at the great medical school of Tuam Brecain, to know that allowing the baby to suckle at your breast returns the mother’s body to health and helps the love develop between the child and the mother instead of-’
‘This is not the time nor place to criticse my ability as a mother, Eadulf,’ she snapped.
Eadulf controlled a spasm of anger. ‘I am not sure that I understand your moods, Fidelma. Ever since the child was born you have become a changed person.’
‘Are we not allowed to change, then?’ She knew well what he meant for she had been questioning her motivations of late. ‘Some people would be better off for a change!’ She was growing irritable and the irritation lay in the knowledge that she was in the wrong and Eadulf had every right to discuss the matter. ‘If you are so worried about the child, why don’t you ride back to Cashel and leave me here to resolve this problem?’
Eadulf blinked a little and then he shrugged.
‘A verbis ad verbera,’ he sighed. The Latin quotation meant ‘from words to blows’ and described a discussion that spilled into anger.
Fidelma opened her mouth to reply hotly and then she sighed. She leant forward from her horse and placed a hand on Eadulf’s arm.
‘Non sum qualis eram bonae sub regno Cinarea,’ she said contritely.
After a moment’s reflection, Eadulf remembered the line from Horace, ‘I am not what I was under the reign of good Cynara.’ It was used to signify a change of character and behaviour. He made to reply but Fidelma raised a finger to her lips. Her expression was suddenly penitent.
‘Let us say no more at the present, Eadulf. Do not press me further until I am ready. Ever since Alchú came into this world I have felt strangely disturbed. It is as if my mood changes from moment to moment for no apparent reason.’
Eadulf looked concerned. ‘You did not tell me this before?’
She smiled thinly. ‘You should have noticed.’
‘I did but did not think that you were ill…’
She shook her head. ‘It is not an illness of the body. When I consider my actions with reason, I perceive myself as if some irrational fever has overtaken me. Sometimes I fear for myself. Yet it is only when I think of the baby, Eadulf. My logic remains when I concentrate on other matters. This makes me fear even more.’
Eadulf ran a hand through his hair as if to massage his mind into some line of positive thought. ‘I seem to recall…I was told that sometimes, after a birth, a mother can feel unhappy-’
‘I have resolved to see old Conchobhar when we return to Cashel,’ Fidelma intervened sharply. ‘Until then, let us speak about this no more.’
Conchobhar was chief apothecary at Cashel as well as an astrologer.
Eadulf realised that it was pointless to pursue the matter further. They rode on silently, entering the thickness of the woods where the trees grew close together down to the riverbank. They tried to keep the river to their left as they rode along but the track twisted and turned and once or twice they had to retrace their path to follow another route. But suddenly they emerged along a stretch which both Fidelma and Eadulf recognised.
‘There’s the hill,’ muttered Eadulf as they halted in a clear space by the river. ‘What was it that Accobrán called it?’
‘Cnoc a’ Bhile,’ replied Fidelma.
‘That’s it. Hill of the Sacred Tree.’ Eadulf sighed. ‘I think I have heard that such a tree relates to the habitation of the pagan gods.’
‘Bile was a sacred oak, according to the old ones, and when Danu, the divine water of heaven, flooded down it nurtured the oak and produced acorns and out of each acorn grew one of the ancient gods and goddesses. That is why the old deities are called the Tuatha de Danaan, the children of the goddess Danu.’
Eadulf looked uncomfortable. ‘I thought Bile was a god of darkness and death from the underworld.’
Fidelma shook her head. ‘Some of the New Faith who came here from Rome have viewed the old deity in that form. Our people still hold the great tree sacred and many of our chieftains are inaugurated under its branches, for it was symbolic of our kings, a place of origin of all the people. It is sacrilege to cut a sacred tree although the chief or king’s rod of office might be cut and carved from a branch of the tree to give him power. A few centuries ago the High King carried such a wand of office cut from a sacred ash tree. The tree was called Bile Dathí and it was classed as one of the six wondrous trees of Ireland.’