Dancing With Demons (31 page)

Authors: Peter Tremayne

Tags: #_NB_Fixed, #_rt_yes, #Adult, #blt, #Clerical Sleuth, #Fiction, #Historical, #Mystery, #Suspense, #Medieval Ireland

BOOK: Dancing With Demons

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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 for
hanging 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.

Fidelma paused and said to Eadulf, who was directly behind her, for there was scarcely room to turn back: ‘Let’s see where this emerges.’

She reached forward to the mechanism that lay in a recess, and as she did so, her hand touched something cold and sharp. Holding the lamp closer, she reached in and withdrew the object.

‘Well, well. I was not looking for this, but it confirms what I suspect.’ She turned and showed the object to Eadulf.

It was a knife of the sort used in kitchens to cut meat. It had a thin, sharp blade which was now stained and a little rusty.

‘Blood?’ asked Eadulf laconically.

‘Remember that Torpach the cook was moaning about a missing knife?’ Fidelma said.

‘But we already have the assassin’s knife.’

Fidelma smiled softly. ‘So we do, so we do,’ she said as she carefully put the knife in her
marsupium
and then turned again to the recess. She fumbled and clicked the lever that obviously undid the mechanism.

The panel swung inward a fraction.

Fidelma had to move back up the step to allow it to swing inwards, so narrow was the space.

They emerged into a large but darkened room. Only the light from the lamp illuminated it. There were boxes stacked on one side and shelves containing all manner of linen and household items.

‘A storeroom?’ suggested Eadulf.

Fidelma nodded and turned back to the panel. ‘I presume that this must operate two ways?’

There were a series of pegs to one side, a few with garments hanging on them. Eadulf checked them one by one. It was the same system as in the room above. The central peg turned and then clicked a mechanism. The secret door could, indeed, have been operated from either position – in the side room of the High King’s chamber or here, from this storeroom.

Fidelma sighed softly. ‘Well, there is not much else to learn here.’ She gave a final glance round and moved towards the main door.

Opening it, they emerged into the main corridor of the lower part of the
Tech Cormaic.
As they did so, they heard a gasp. Brónach, her arms full of linen, was walking down the corridor.

‘I thought you were above the stair!’ gasped the woman. ‘What are you doing in there?’

Fidelma ignored the question and asked one of her own. ‘What is this room used for?’ she demanded.

‘Used for?’ echoed Brónach. ‘Why, you must have seen for yourself. It is used as storage – for bedlinen and old clothes and the like.’

‘I see. Who usually has access to it?’

The head of the female servants gestured with her hand. ‘Why, lady, the door is unlocked. Anyone can enter or exit freely of their own will.’

‘Anyone? So is one particular person in charge of it?’

‘I am the senior female servant. It is we, not the men, who are in charge of the household chores, therefore we control the linen.’

‘Are you saying that you, Báine and Cnucha use this room more than anyone else?’

‘Just so.’

‘And it serves no other purpose than storing the bedlinen and old clothes?’

‘What other purpose could a storeroom serve?’

‘An interesting question,’ replied Fidelma dryly. ‘Tell me again, Brónach, where is your room?’

The woman scowled. ‘On the floor above this one.’

‘I see. I thought some of the maids slept on this level?’

‘They do. Down the corridor.’

‘And who are
they
?’

‘Báine and Cnucha, of course.’

‘They are both young,’ observed Fidelma as if the thought had just occurred to her.

‘Too young,’ confirmed the woman. ‘They have no conception of what it means to attend to the needs of a High King.’

‘Yet they have worked here for some time?’

‘If two or three years are long.’ Brónach sniffed deprecatingly. ‘I myself have been in service to this house for nine years. Apart from me, Báine has been here longest but she has ideas above her station. She claims to be the daughter of an
ollamh,
a learned man with an honour price of twenty
seds.
If this is so, why is she in service, and no more in rank than a
saer-fuidhir
— a servant? Her mind has been turned by—I mean, the lady Muirgel seems to have befriended her. That is not good. It gives food to her ideas of grandeur. She thinks that we, her fellows in service, are not good enough for her.’

‘And Cnucha?’ asked Fidelma.

‘She is a poor thing, scuttling about, hardly dares say boo to a goose. She will not rise to be a trusted servant. The girl has been here three years, but she still has to be chased and told what she should do.’

Fidelma glanced along the corridor. ‘And their rooms are at the end, along here?’

‘They are.’

Fidelma nodded thoughtfully and thanked the woman before moving off towards the hall with Eadulf following.

‘It doesn’t help us, does it?’ he asked softly.

‘What … ?’ She seemed distracted for a moment. ‘Oh, you mean because anyone could have entered the storeroom and used the secret door if they knew how?’

‘Just so. But there is one thing I have learned.’

‘Which is?’

‘That if there was a conspiracy to kill Sechnussach, the conspiracy could not have been so close to him, because they would have surely known about the secret passage and stair to his chamber. That would have been a perfect route to kill him and none the wiser.’

Fidelma paused in mid-stride and regarded him thoughtfully for a moment.

‘Could it be that the passage is a secret that Sechnussach did not share with others?’

‘Surely such a thing could not be completely hidden from the household?’

‘Had Brónach known, I think she would have guessed why we were no longer on the floor above and commented on it,’ pointed out Fidelma. ‘Nevertheless, it is worth pursuing. Let’s go and find Brother Rogallach. If anyone knows about it, he would.’

They found Brother Rogallach in the library room checking an inventory. He looked up and smiled a greeting as they entered.

‘Do I know about the history of the building of
Tech Cormaic
?’ he replied to the question. ‘Well, I am in charge of running the household and there is nothing that I do not know about it. I was
bollscari,
the house steward, to Sechnussach’s father Blathmac and to his brother Diarmait when they were joint High Kings. I rode with them in the royal procession when they came to Tara over twelve years ago. It was an epoch in our history. They were just and kindly kings who, alas, fell victim to the dreadful Yellow Plague. Their deaths, for me, ended a golden age that is now sung of in ancient sagas.’

There was no doubt that Brother Rogallach was proud of his role.

‘But what of the house, rather than the household?’ pressed Eadulf.

Brother Rogallach shrugged as if dismissing the subject. ‘As its name suggests, the great King Cormac, the son of Art, first built it. A magnificent structure.’

‘You are know all the rooms?’

‘Of course.’

‘Are there any odd rooms?’

‘Odd rooms?’ He was puzzled.

‘Secret rooms, passages, stairways, anything of that sort?’ asked Fidelma.

Brother Rogallach chuckled. ‘What need of secret rooms and passages in the house of the noble High Kings, lady?’

‘So you’ve never encountered a secret passage?’

‘Never. And I would know,’ he added confidently.