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stifled a sudden yawn.
    â€˜Time enough to talk during the three days of our journey to Ros Ailithir. Now I would prefer a hot bath and sleep.’

Chapter Three
    It had not been a pleasant journey through the great glens and across the high mountain ranges of Muman. While the storm had abated on the second day, the incessant rains had left the ground soaked with cloying mud which sucked at their horses’ hooves and fetlocks like anxious, delaying hands and slowed their pace. The valley bottoms and grassy plains were turned into swampy, and often flooded, lands across which passage was almost impossible, and certainly not made with any speed. The skies continued sulky grey and threatening, with no sign of a bright autumnal sun breaking through and the moody clouds continued to hang low and dark like hill fog. Even the occasional whining wind, moaning in the tree tops, where the leaves had almost vanished, did not dispel their shroud.
    Fidelma felt cold and miserable. It was not the weather for travelling. Indeed, if the matter were not so urgent, she would never have contemplated such a journey. She sat her horse stiffly, her body felt chilled to its very marrow despite the heavy woollen cloak and hood which normally helped her endure the icy fingers of inclement temperatures. In spite of her leather gloves, the hands that gripped her horse’s reins were numb.
    She had not spoken to her companion for at least an hour or more, not since they had left the wayside tavern where they had eaten their midday meal. Her head was bent forward into the chill air. Her concentration was devoted to keeping her
horse on the narrow path as it ascended the steep hill before them.
    In front of her, the young warrior, Cass, equally wrapped in a heavy woollen cloak and fur collar, sat his horse with a studied poise. Fidelma smiled grimly to herself, wondering just how much he was attempting to present a good figure to her critical gaze. It would not do for a member of the élite bodyguard of the king of Muman to show any weakness before the sister of the heir-apparent. She felt a reluctant sympathy with the young man and when, every now and then in an unguarded moment, she saw him shiver from the damp chill, she felt herself more compassionately disposed towards him.
    The path twisted over the shoulder of the mountain and a blast of cold air from the south-west hit them in the face as they emerged from the sheltering outcrop of rocks. Fidelma became aware of the subtle tang of salt in the air, the unmistakable odour of the nearness of the ocean.
    Cass reined in his mount and allowed Fidelma to edge her horse alongside his. Then he pointed across the tree-strewn hills and undulating plain which seemed to disappear in the direction of the southern horizon. Yet the clouds hung above the plain in such a fashion that she could not see where land ended and sky began.
    â€˜We should be at the abbey of Ros Ailithir before nightfall,’ Cass announced. ‘Before you are the lands of the Corco Lofgde.’
    Fidelma screwed her eyes against the cold wind and stared forward. She had not made the connection, when her brother had told her that the kings of Osraige came from Corco Lofgde. She had not realised that the abbey of Ros Ailithir was in their clan lands. Could this be merely a coincidence? She knew little about them except that they were one of the great clans which made up the kingdom of Muman and that they were a proud people.

    â€˜What is this hill called?’ she asked, suppressing a shiver.
    â€˜They call this mountain the “Long Rock”,’ replied Cass. ‘It is the highest point before we reach the sea. Have you visited the abbey before?’
    Fidelma shook her head.
    â€˜I have not been in this part of the kingdom before but I am told that the abbey stands at the head of a narrow inlet on the seashore.’
    The warrior nodded in confirmation.
    â€˜Ros Ailithir is due south from here.’ He