Valley of the Shadow Read Free

worth the hearing.’
    ‘Sometimes men, like children, will not sit and listen until they are made to,’ observed the Saxon philosophically. ‘A stick for the child – a sword for the adult. It helps concentrate the mind.’
    ‘Something to be said in that,’ agreed Fidelma. She paused and added: ‘I have known you too long to attempt to keep the truth from you, Eadulf. Certainly, I am apprehensive. Laisre is a law unto himself. While honour and duty make him answerable to my brother in Cashel, Cashel might be a million miles away.’
    ‘It is hard to believe that there is still an area of this land where the Faith is unknown.’
    Fidelma shook her head.
    ‘Not exactly unknown; rather it is known but rejected. The Faith reached these shores scarce two hundred years ago, Eadulf. There are still many isolated parts where the old beliefs die hard. We are
a conservative people who like to hang on to old ways and ideas. You have been educated at our ecclesiastical schools yourself. You know how many cleave to the old path and the old gods and goddesses …’
    Eadulf nodded reflectively. Only a month ago he had returned with Fidelma to Cashel after spending a short time in the valley of Araglin where they had encountered Gadra, a hermit, who held staunchly to the old religion. But the Faith was still young in many other lands. Eadulf, himself, had been converted only after he had reached young manhood. He had once been hereditary gerefa or magistrate to the thane of Seaxmund’s Ham in the land of the South Folk before he had fallen in with an Irishman named Fursa who had brought the Word of Christ and a new religion to the pagan Saxons. Soon Eadulf had forsworn the dark gods of his fathers and became so apt a pupil that Fursa had sent him to Ireland, to the great ecclesiastical schools of Durrow and Tuam Brecain.
    Eadulf had finally chosen the path to Rome rather than Iona. It had been attending the debate between the advocates of the Roman liturgy and the observances of Columba in Whitby that Eadulf had first worked with Fidelma, who was not only a religieuse but an advocate of the Irish courts of law. They had been through several adventures together. And here he was, back in Ireland, as special envoy to Fidelma’s brother, Colgú, king of Muman, on behalf of the new archbishop of Canterbury, Theodore of Tarsus.
    Eadulf knew well the extent to which people preferred to cling to old ways and old ideas rather than leap into the untried and unknown.
    ‘Is this chieftain, Laisre, whom we seek, so fearful of the Faith?’ he inquired.
    Fidelma shrugged.
    ‘Perhaps it is not Laisre who is to be feared but those who counsel him,’ she suggested. ‘Laisre is the leader of his people and will respect caste and status. He is willing to meet with me and discuss the matter of establishing a permanent representation of the Faith in his lands. That is a sign of a liberal attitude.’
    She paused and found her mind turning over the events of the previous week; thinking of the day on which her brother Colgú of Cashel, king of Muman, asked her to meet him in his private chamber …
     
    There was no doubting that Colgú of Cashel was related to Fidelma. They shared the same tall build, the same red hair and changeable
green eyes; the same facial structure and indefinable quality of movement.
    The young king smiled at his sister as she entered the room.
    ‘Is it true what I hear, Fidelma?’
    Fidelma looked solemn, the corner of her mouth quirked downwards.
    ‘Until I know what it is that you have heard, brother, I can neither verify nor deny it.’
    ‘Bishop Ségdae has told me that you have surrendered your allegiance to the House of Brigid.’
    Fidelma’s face did not change expression. She moved to the fire and sat down. It was her right to be seated in the presence of a provincial king, even if he had not been her brother, without seeking permission. It was not only her rank as an Eóghanacht princess that gave her this