A novel of Ancient Ireland featuring Sister Fidelma
Ireland, mid 7th century AD
CHRONICLES OF
ANGELCYNN
Leah Kelley
England and Norway,
886-8 AD
He stopped when he became aware that Brother Marcan was staring over his shoulders, looking upwards, with an expression of utter surprise.
Brother Augaire turned his head.
High up, yet not so far away that he was unable to pick out details, he saw the figure of the girl that he had seen on the shore. She was standing on the edge of the cliff, high above the crashing waves. Her pale arms were held up as if in supplication.
'A strange place to choose for prayer ...' Brother Marcan began.
But Brother Augaire was already throwing aside his fishing rod and springing to his feet. The shout of 'Stop!' died on his lips as the girl seemed to throw herself outwards, as if taking a dive, her hands still held out before her as if in some entreaty.
'Deus misereatur ...' Brother Marcan began to mumble but his fellow religieux was already scrambling across the boulders along the shore.
'Follow me closely!' he cried over his shoulder. 'There is a small path under the rock face here and we may get to the spot where she fell. The tide is not at its highest as yet.'
Gasping, slipping, stumbling and tearing their robes, the two men darted and scrambled through the rocks and pools that lined the area at the foot of the jagged walls of rock that formed Rinn Carna. They moved quickly, thanks to Brother Augaire's fisherman's knowledge of that stretch of shoreline. Even so, it took a while to where the body of the girl lay floating, face down, rocking gently on the whispering wavelets.
Robert smiled. His grandson Erik had been a welcome surprise when he showed up at Falconhearst's gates several years ago, a lad of the tender age of ten and three and looking for all the world just like one of those Viking devils who had stolen his mother ten and four years hence. After Robert's beautiful daughter, Amelia, had been taken he had searched for her without success for many years. Then, totally unexpected, the very same Viking who had taken his beloved
Amelia came bearing their son to his grandfather.
Alas, Robert's lovely daughter died in birthing the child, but before she had succumbed to death she gained a promise from her beloved, albeit fearsome, Viking master that her son would be taken to her father to be trained in Anglo-saxon warfare, and thus Christianity, when he came of an age to do so. The Viking kept his word to his little beloved slave, though Erik was not at all pleased
about it at the time.
From that time on Erik had been forced to spend nine months out of every year with his grandfather, who quickly won the lad's affection, and the other three summer months with his Viking father out raiding, pillaging, and whatever else those devils did to their hapless victims.
Six years ago, Erik's father died and Erik made the decision to live in England as Robert's heir to Falconhearst. Soon thereafter Robert passed the earldom to his grandson due to his own failing health. Since that time Erik had thrown himself into Alfred's cause with single-minded purpose, proving himself a formidable warrior indeed with his background in Viking warfare combined with full Anglo-saxon warrior training with one of the best, Robert himself.
My last feelings, just before the hands seized me, were of my cold limbs. My last memory before darkness was of a trivial nature. I recall noticing the torches lining the cathedral walls and the leaping shadows that sprang from their fire to perform a macabre dance as if for my entertainment. They reminded me of a travelling dance troupe from Venice I once saw, tall, thin figures garbed in black cloaks and doublets, rising and falling like shafts of dark water in rhythm.The cold gusts of air feeding the torches seemed to increase as I watched, as if doors had opened somewhere. I should have been warned, but instead I paid no attention.
I was kneeling on the steps of the side altar, the very altar where Thomas à Becket had fallen under the swords of Henry's knights nearly thirty years earlier. I was not lost in prayer, as it might have appeared to an onlooker, should any such be passing through the church at this late hour [...] For although I was ostensibly on a pilgrimage to the tomb of the martyr to pray for my sins (and God knows there were plenty of those strung out like dark pearls in the years behind me), I had another reason altogether for keeping a vigil this night: I had been sent to recover Eleanor's letters.
