It was Brother Rogallach who welcomed them and offered to fill their baths in preparation for the evening ablutions before the main meal of the day. He was apologetic that the female servants had been needed to help at some feast Cenn Faelad was giving that evening for those kings and nobles attending the Great Assembly, who had arrived in their absence. He was, he told them with a smile, fully recovered from his injury and able to attend to their needs. Fidelma allowed Eadulf to bathe first. After the experience of Eadulf’s capture and her desperate attempt to rescue him from the Hag’s Mountain, she had come to realise just how much she really did care for the Saxon, and to be aware of how ill she had often treated him. She sat for a time, tapping her fingers on the tabletop in an unconscious rhythm, torn between feelings of guilt about Eadulf and irritation with herself, for she knew she was missing some vital clue about the death of Sechnussach.
‘Something ails you, lady?’ asked Brother Rogallach as he re-entered the room, having left Eadulf to his bath.
Fidelma grinned apologetically. ‘I am sorry, I was distracted for a moment. I was trying to solve a riddle.’
The bollscari looked eager. ‘I am good at riddles.’
‘I doubt if you could solve this one,’ she replied gravely.
‘Try me.’
‘Very well, then.’ Fidelma chuckled. ‘I was wondering what the formula was for a happy marriage.’
Brother Rogallach pulled a face. ‘Oh. As you say, it is not a question I give much thought to. I have decided to follow the ways of celibacy which many in our Faith now argue is the best way to be.’
‘Quite so,’ smiled Fidelma, still grave.
‘However … ’
She looked up as Brother Rogallach paused thoughtfully. ‘However?’ she prompted.
Brother Rogallach actually blushed. ‘Nothing, lady. At least, nothing that is appropriate to your question.’
‘Tell me,’ pressed Fidelma, intrigued.
‘It was a favourite saying of the late High King. I believe it was an epigram from the poet Marcus Martialis.’
‘And it was?’
Brother Rogallach looked embarrassed. ’Sit non doctissima conjux.’
Fidelma snorted. ‘May my wife not be very learned? That is not a good attitude towards my sex, Rogallach.’
Brother Rogallach smiled nervously. ‘I have to say that Sechnussach utterd it many times recently, after … ’He stopped suddenly. ‘I will set about heating more water now, lady.’
He left Fidelma sitting thoughtfully at the table.
‘May my wife not be very learned,’ she muttered. Then she leaned back and sank into a meditative silence.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
‘I think I am beginning to see a light in this matter,’ announced Fidelma.
Eadulf pushed away his plate. They were finishing their first meal of the day in the guesthouse.
‘So late?’ he teased. ‘I thought that you usually saw a light almost immediately when you were faced with a conundrum.’
Fidelma pouted at him but in good humour.
‘You pay a pretty compliment, Eadulf, but it is unjustified. However, it is true that this matter has been more complicated than many we have encountered. At first, it seemed so easy — we knew the name of the killer and there were witnesses. The killer had committed suicide at the scene. Everything was clear. There were few questions to be asked, for the Great Assembly only needed confirmation of the facts and to learn whether Dubh Duin had had any help. Or so it was thought.’
‘Except that the Great Assembly chose to send for you to enquire into the matter,’ Eadulf pointed out. ‘They did not count on your ability to unravel even the tightest knot.’
Fidelma was without when it came to her abilities.
‘I would hope that it would not have been beyond the ability of any competent dálaigh to uncover the facts,’ she said.
‘Uncovering the facts and then piecing them together to make sense are two different arts.’
Fidelma chuckled softly. ‘I swear, Eadulf, you are a salve for my ego. However, I am aware of my shortcomings and there are many things I should have done before reaching this point in the investigation. Anyway, it is not too late. Let us go to the Tech Cormaic to do something I should have done a long time ago.’
She left the guesthouse followed by Eadulf and walked to the royal house. The guard outside saluted them respectfully.
However Brónach, the chief of the female servants, greeted them with a suspicious look as they entered.
‘Can I help you, lady?’ she asked, addressing Fidelma.
‘You cannot,’ Fidelma assured her bluntly. ‘We have no need of your services for the time being, thank you.’
For a moment it seemed to Eadulf that the woman would argue against being so peremptorily dismissed. But instead, she just tightened her lips and turned away.
Unperturbed, Fidelma climbed the stairway to the High King’s chambers. Eadulf followed, wondering whether she was wise to be so antagonistic to the servant. But he knew that Fidelma never did anything without a purpose.
The royal apartments were unlocked as, indeed, they had been left empty. Cenn Faelad would only move into them after he had been formally inaugurated — and that would not be before Fidelma had delivered her findings to the Great Assembly.
She motioned Eadulf to close the door behind them and went to the side of the bed. It was now merely the bare bedframe made of yew. Everything else had been stripped. Eadulf stood with his back against the door watching her as she bent down and then looked around the room.
Eventually she straightened and walked over to the small erdam, the side room, in which, she had been told, the High King stored his clothes.
She opened the door and said to Eadulf, ‘I’m going to need your help.’
‘Why? What are we to do?’ he asked, joining her.
‘I made only a cursory examination of this room before, but now we must look for another exit to this room.’
‘Another exit? I thought none could exist?’
‘I am convinced that there was a witness in this side room when Dubh Duin cut the throat of Sechnussach.’
Eadulf frowned but he nodded. ‘The mysterious scream in spite of the cut throat?’
‘Exactly so.’ She was pleased that he had caught the point. ‘Now,’ she glanced about, ‘at least we know that there is only one wall in which any concealed door might be — unless it be a trapdoor leading down or up, and I would be surprised if that was possible.’
Eadulf regarded the wall on which there was a rack of pegs forhanging clothes fixed to the red yew panelling. His keen eyes ran over the wood and their joints and an idea came to him. He went to the rack and began to tug and twist at each peg in turn while Fidelma watched him curiously.
‘When I was in Rome I saw a device which opened a secret door,’ he explained to her, as he tackled the pegs. It was the middle one, turned to the side and pushed, which clicked a mechanism. One of the wall panels gave a little, and swung inwards.
‘Well done!’ Fidelma smiled triumphantly, moving forward to push the panel open. ‘It looks like a narrow space and it leads downwards. We’ll need a lamp.’
‘I saw one in the bedchamber.’ Eadulf went to fetch it, then had to spend some time igniting it with the flint and tinderbox he always carried in his marsupium at his belt. Fidelma was hardly able to restrain her impatience but with the lamp alight, she insisted on going first. They stepped through into a recess between the wall of this chamber and the wall of the adjoining one. Fidelma had paused to ensure there was no similar doorway immediately opposite. There was none; the small landing led onto a narrow and steep set of steps that led down to the lower floor. At the bottom, on the left-hand side, was a catch and hinges that showed the means of exit from the hidden passage.