Smoke in the Wind Read Online Free PDF

he could give some assistance.
    The captain had curtly dismissed his offer of help.
    ‘A landlubber is as much use to me as a bucket with a hole to bail out,’ he shouted harshly. ‘Get below and stay there!’
    Eadulf remembered hauling himself back, hurt and disgruntled, across the rocking, sea-swamped decks to the steps which led down to the cabin below. Just as he started down, the mighty seas seemed to lift the vessel up and toss it forward. He lost his hold and his last memory was of being tumbled forward into space and then . . . then nothing until he awoke a few moments ago.
    The stocky monk smiled approvingly as Eadulf recited these memories.
    ‘And what is your name?’ he asked.
    ‘I am Eadulf of Seaxmund’s Ham, emissary of Theodore of Canterbury,’ Eadulf replied immediately and then demanded with irritation: ‘But where is Sister Fidelma, my companion? What has happened to the ship? How did I get here? Where did you say it was?’
    The round-faced monk grinned and held up his hand to halt the rapid succession of questions. ‘It seems that the blow to your head has damaged neither your mental faculties nor your lack of patience, Brother Saxon.’
    ‘My patience is wearing thin with each passing second, ’ snapped Eadulf, attempting to sit up in bed and ignoring his throbbing temples. ‘Answer my question, or I shall not answer for my lack of patience.’
    The stocky man shook his head in mock sorrow, making a disapproving noise with his tongue. ‘Have you never heard the saying, Vincit qui patitur , Brother Saxon?’
    ‘It is not one of my maxims, Brother. Often patience does not bring results. Sometimes it is merely an excuse for doing nothing. Now I require some explanations.’
    The monk raised his eyes to the ceiling and spread his hands as if in surrender to greater forces. ‘Very well. I am Brother Rhodri and this, as I have explained, is Porth Clais in the kingdom of Dyfed.’
    ‘On the west coast of Britain?’
    Brother Rhodri made an affirmative gesture. ‘You are in the land of the Cymry, the true Britons. Your ship ran in here yesterday in the late afternoon to shelter from the storm. We are a little port in which many a ship from Éireann make their first landfall. You were, as you now recall, knocked unconscious in the storm and could not be roused. So you were carried off the ship when it harboured here. You were placed in this little hospice which I run. You have been lying unconscious nearly a day.’
    Eadulf lay back against the pillows and swallowed. ‘Unconscious for a day?’ he echoed.
    Brother Rhodri was serious. ‘We were worried for you. But, deo juvante , you have recovered.’
    Eadulf sat up again with an abruptness which made him dizzy. He realised that one of his questions had not been answered.
    ‘My companion, Sister Fidelma . . . what of her?’
    Brother Rhodri grimaced wryly. ‘She was very worried for you, Brother Saxon. She and I shared your nursing. This morning, however, she was summoned to go to our mother house to see Abbot Tryffin.’
    ‘Abbot Tryffin? Mother house?’
    ‘This is the peninsula known in Latin as Menevia where the abbey of Dewi Sant is situated.’
    Eadulf had heard of the great abbey of Dewi Sant. He knew that those Britons who dwelt in the west of the island which they now shared with the Angles and Saxons regarded the abbey as almost as important as Iona, the Holy Island, in the northern kingdom of Dál Riada. It was accepted that two pilgrimages to the abbey was the equivalent of one pilgrimage to Rome and a pilgrim could acquire enough indulgences - pardons of temporal punishment due for sins committed - to last them for many years. Eadulf realised that he was thinking in terms of the teachings of Rome, where the Holy Father granted indulgences out of the Treasury of Merit won for the Church by Christ and the Saints. Eadulf knew well enough that the churches of the Irish and the Britons did not believe in such things as indulgences