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Fidgente had been defeated at Cnoc Áine scarcely two years ago. Out of their defeat, young Conrí had been elected as the new warlord, and he had proved his diplomatic skills by forging an alliance with Cashel on behalf of the new chief Donennach.
    ‘I thought these lands belonged to the Ciarraige Luachra, not the Uí Fidgente?’ Brother Eadulf was snappish. He had disapproved of this journey from the start. However, he had decided to do some research in the library of Cashel before they had set off.
    Conrí did not lose his good humour.
    ‘Two generations ago, our chieftain Oengus mac Nechtain brought the Ciarraige Luachra into our territory. But you are right, Brother Eadulf, the main Uí Fidgente territory is more to the north-east.’
    ‘So what is the sound we hear?’ Fidelma demanded, reverting to the unanswered question that she had posed.
    ‘That is the sound of the sea. We are scarcely six kilometres from it.’
    ‘I have been closer to seashores before and not heard such a noise.’
    ‘Before the abbey, beyond those hills, is a wide sandy shore which runs south to north some eleven or twelve kilometres. We call it Banna Strand, the sandy seashore of the peaks. The sea is so very high and tempestuous here, even on the calmest days, and its rollers are so thunderous, that you might feel as if the earth is trembling as you get nearer. The winds that whip off the sea are fierce at times and produce a good robust air by which the people here prosper in health, or so I have been told by the apothecaries.’
    Brother Eadulf viewed the scene before him with critical eyes.
    ‘It does not seem that the trees prosper,’ he observed. ‘Those that are
inclined to grow are bent almost along the ground. They are gnarled and distorted like phantoms from another world.’
    Not for the first time, during the two days of their journey from Cashel, Fidelma shot Eadulf a glance of disapproval at his carping tone. Then she turned back to the vista that stretched before them.
    The abbey, its buildings enclosed by a circular defensive wall like most of the monastic settlements in these parts, was built on the crown of a hill. Round the bottom of the hill a river meandered its way to the sea. Eadulf could see a number of fortified homesteads and farms dotted here and there across the valley and reminded himself that until recently the Uí Fidgente had been a very martial people. There seemed to be no clusters of buildings immediately outside the walls of the abbey, which unlike some of the great monasteries was clearly not used as a centre of habitation.
    Conrí was at pains to point out the number of holy wells in the vicinity, the standing stones and thriving farmsteads. ‘Ard Fhearta is over a hundred years old,’ he told them, and there was pride in his voice. ‘It was built by the great Bréanainn—’
    ‘Of the Ciarraige Luachra,’ Brother Eadulf could not help but interpose. ‘I have read the story.’
    ‘The name Ard Fhearta means “height of the graveyard”, doesn’t it?’ Fidelma mused, ignoring him. ‘So the abbey is built on the site of an old pagan burial ground?’
    ‘As are many abbey foundations and churches of our new Faith,’ agreed Conrí. ‘I am told by Abbot Erc that the purpose of doing so is to sanctify the old sites so that all our ancestors may join us in the Christian Otherworld.’
    Brother Eadulf frowned. His people, the South Folk, who traced their descent to Casere, son of the great god Woden, had believed that the only way to achieve immortality was to die sword in hand, the name of Woden on their lips. Then and only then would they be allowed into the afterlife, to sit with the gods in the great hall of the heroes. Now and then the indoctrination of his early years rose and fought with his conversion to the New Faith. Eadulf still sought guarantees, and that was why he had rejected the teachings of the Irish who had converted and educated him for the more fundamental absolutes of