Sister Grella’s eyes were pools of indignant fire.
‘Well now,’ Fidelma said, rising, ‘Laigin is doing that very thing, demanding Osraige as the honour price for the slaughter of Dacan. It seems that the very war you claim that you sought to prevent will take place.’
Grella rose with her.
‘Let me appeal to you as a woman, Fidelma. I was married to Dacán when I was fifteen. It was an arranged marriage in this new custom of the Faith where I had little say. I stayed three years with that old man. He was not capable of fathering children and it was on those grounds that I asked for a divorce. Rather than be shamed by a hearing before the Brehon, in which such a matter would be discussed, Dacán gave me that divorce without contention. He taught me many things, for which I am grateful. He taught me enough to allow me to go to an ecclesiastic college, the college of Cealla, to study and attain my degree. The strange thing is that, in a way, I cared for that old man, unfriendly though he was, as if he had been my father. I did not kill him, Fidelma of Kildare. I am guilty of several things, but I did not kill him.’
‘Sister Grella, some sense within me makes me want to believe you. However, the evidence is against you. The evidence of Dacán’s hidden papers. The bonds with which he was tied. Your sudden disappearance from the abbey after you had not told me the truth about your former marriage to Dacán and other matters.’ Fidelma compressed her lower lip in thought. ‘You knew that Dacán was searching for the heir of Illan. The evening before he died, he wrote to his brother that he had discovered where Illan’s heir was hiding. The evidence suggests that you killed him to prevent him finding the heir of Illan in order to please your lover, Salbach.’
‘No! This is not true. You cannot claim that I am guilty of that deed!’
‘No? Perhaps not. It seems that it will be for the High King’s assembly to decide.’
‘Yet you know, in the heart, Fidelma, that it is not true,’ pressed Grella angrily.
‘I am appointed by the king of Cashel. I can only follow my duty. I have a war to prevent. Cass!’
The young warrior came into the cabin. He looked from Grella’s white, pinched face, to Fidelma’s stern expression.
‘Cass, Sister Grella will be returning with us to Ros Ailithir as our prisoner.’
‘Then she has confessed?’ The relief on Cass’s face was obvious.
Grella hissed angrily.
‘Confess to something I did not do? Take me as a prisoner to the abbey. Salbach will free me — one way or the other!’
‘Don’t count on it,’ smiled Cass without humour.
They returned together to Ros Ailithir. Fidelma led the way while Cass rode close beside Sister Grella. Fidelma was quiet during the short ride, deep in thought. There was something nagging at her. If Sister Grella was being truthful then she was no nearer to Dacán’s killer than before. She had not even proved the link between Salbach and Intat. Even if Grella had killed Dacan, betrayed her soul-friend Eisten, could she have also killed her? And where were the sons of Illan? Why had Dacan been so sure that there was an heir at the age of choice? Where were these boys called ‘Primus’ and ‘Victor’ …? ‘Victor’ and ‘Primus’ … ‘Primus’ …
Chapter Sixteen
Victor!
That was the name which kept troubling Fidelma; it had been tumbling around in her mind since Sceilig Mhichil. The images of the two black-haired boys from Rae na Scríne were also in her mind’s eye. But the sons of Illan had been described as copper-haired. Yet the name, the name Victor … Hic est meum. Victor. Didn’t the name mean ‘triumphant’ and ‘victorious’ and wasn’t the equivalent in Irish — Cosrach?
She suddenly gasped at the ease of the solution to the conundrum. The sons of Illan had been called Primus and Victor. Primus meant ‘first’ and wasn’t Cétach just a pet form of cét which also meant ‘first’? Cétach bore the name of a son of the legendary prince who founded the kingdom of Osraige. Primus — Cétach. Victor — Cosrach! Although the two boys had vanished, surely the other children from Rae na Scríne might be able to identify or describe the religieux who had brought them to Sister Eisten for safekeeping.
She halted her horse abruptly causing, a startled Cass to draw rein lest his steed collide with her. Sister Grella’s mount, almost impacting with his, shied and nearly stumbled.
Fidelma cursed softly under her breath, blaming herself for a fool that she had not seen that simple solution before.
‘What is it?’ Cass demanded, a hand snaking to his sword hilt, looking around as if expecting an attack from an unseen enemy.
‘An idea!’ she replied happily. She knew now whom Dacán had been searching for and why Cétach had been so afraid of Salbach. It must have been Cétach and Cosrach whom Intat had been sent to kill when he set fire to Rae na Scríne.
‘Only an idea? I thought there was danger,’ Cass complained in annoyance.
‘There is nothing more dangerous than an idea, Cass,’ laughed Fidelma, intoxicated with the simple logic of her conclusion. ‘A single idea, if it is right, saves us years of laborious experience, the harsh learning of trial and error.’
Cass glanced around nervously.
‘Ideas may not threaten our lives with swords and arrows.’
Fidelma chuckled dryly, still happy with her thoughts.
‘They may be more harmful than that. Come on.’
Without further explanation, she urged her horse to break into a canter along the trail leading down into Ros Ailithir.
Brother Conghus met them at the gate and, as they arrived, the abbot himself came hurrying up.
‘Sister Grella!’ he gasped, looking from Grella to Fidelma in astonishment. ‘You have captured the culprit, cousin?’
Fidelma, to Cass’s surprise, made no effort to dismount. She leant forward across the pommel of her saddle and spoke quietly to her cousin.
‘Grella is to be held securely on my authority. She has much to answer for before the assembly of the High King when it meets here. What she wants to tell you as an explanation for her disappearance is entirely up to her.’
Abbot Brocc looked anxiously.
‘Does this mean that you have reached a conclusion?’ He glanced across his shoulder at the abbey with an almost conspiratorial air. ‘The High King and his retinue have already arrived. Barrán, the Chief Brehon, has been asking about you and …’
Fidelma held up a hand to silence the worried abbot.
‘I can say no more at this time. We will return as soon as possible.’
‘Return? Where are you going?’ Brocc’s voice was almost a wail as Fidelma urged her horse away from the abbey gates.
‘Guard Sister Grella well, if for nothing less than her own safety,’ Fidelma called across her shoulder.
Cass, his face showing that he was equally as perplexed as the abbot, urged his horse after her.
‘If you cannot tell the abbot, sister,’ he complained, after he had caught up with her, ‘perhaps you can tell me? Where are we going now?’
‘I need to find the orphanage where the children from Rae na Scrine were taken,’ she replied. ‘I know it lies along this coast to the east.’
‘You mean the place run by Brother Molua?’
‘Do you know it?’ She was surprised.
‘I know of it,’ Cass asserted. ‘I spoke to Brother Martan about it. It should not be too difficult to find. It lies about ten miles to the east of here along the coast near a tidal estuary. But why do you want to go to this orphanage? What knowledge can we pick up there?’
‘Oh, Cass!’ muttered Fidelma, ‘if I knew that, I would not need to go!’
Cass shrugged helplessly but followed as Fidelma urged her horse along the highway.
It proved, as Cass said, not more than ten miles across a broad headland. There were several stone and timber buildings which rose above the mud banks of a large tidal estuary into which a river pushed sedately from the mountains to the north. They had to cross the river at a narrow ford which led to the cluster of buildings which, Fidelma noticed as she grew nearer, were surrounded by a wooden fencing. A broad-shouldered man met them at the gates. He wore the clothes of a forest worker but Fidelma noticed the crucifix which hung around his muscular neck.