The Seventh Trumpet Read Online Free PDF Page A

figure, and Fidelma would have said, overall, that her features were plain. She found the girl’s almost permanent apologetic smile extremely irritating. However, looks did not matter. It was the intellect that went with them. Dúnliath’s interests, however, were few. She seemed to indulge herself only in entertainment, in the songs of the bards, in dancing and the tales of storytellers. She seemed to have no leanings towards more intellectual pursuits or statecraft. And she was hopeless at board games like brandubh or fidchell . Fidelma felt guilty for even thinking these thoughts. After all, it was what her brother, Colgú, saw in the girl that mattered and not what she felt. Colgú had helped her when she had decided that she wanted to marry Eadulf, a stranger not only to her clan and her kingdom, but to her entire culture. There were many among her people, the Eóghanacht, who had disapproved of the ‘Saxon’ as they called Eadulf. Her brother had stood up for her. Now it was her turn to stand up for her brother.
    She tried to hide her thoughts from Colgú as she bade farewell to him and Abbot Ségdae; however, she realised he was sensitive enough to know that she had reservations.
    A short while later, she stood impatiently watching Eadulf choose items to pack in his saddle-bag. Even though he had now fully accepted that Fidelma was no longer of the religious, Eadulf himself continued to maintain the robes of a religieux. He still felt a commitment to the organisations of the Faith.
    ‘Have you given instruction to Muirgen about little Alchú?’ he asked, not for the first time.
    Alchú was their three-year-old son who, during the times they had to be away from Cashel, was looked after by their faithful nurse, Muirgen, whose husband, Nessán of Gabhlach, herded sheep for Colgú.
    ‘Of course,’ Fidelma replied, suppressing the urge to tell Eadulf to stop fussing.
    When Fidelma had entered their chambers and asked him if he would come with her to Cluain Mór, explaining the purpose of the trip, Eadulf had actually felt a sense of relief. He had seen the sparkle of exhilaration in her eyes; a change from the dark and unyielding expression that she had worn during these last few weeks since the meeting of the Council of Brehons. He had come to realise, more than anyone, how important her ambition was to become Chief Brehon of Muman. Right from the start, during the six years of their often tempestuous relationship, Fidelma had always insisted that her first duty was to the law, and that she had only joined a religious community for the sake of security, on the advice of her cousin, Abbot Laisran. Her father and mother had died when she was a baby and, at the time, her brother had not even been heir-apparent to the Kingdom of Muman.
    When Eadulf and Fidelma had first met at the great Council of Streoneshalh, he discovered that Fidelma had already left the community of Cill Dara and was employed by individual prelates to give them legal advice or counsel. For many years she had lived separate from religious communities and their Rule. Indeed, Eadulf could hardly consider himself as involved in any one community. He, too, had acted for some years as an emissary between kings and prelates.
    While the Faith did not forbid marriage among the religious, in spite of a growing number of ascetics who advocated celibacy, their relationship had often been a cause of some friction. Fidelma had always placed the law first. He had often thought that life in a religious community was the answer to the problems that beset them. He had even tried to live for a short time in such a community, before King Colgú had ordered Fidelma and himself to go south to the Abbey of Lios Mór to investigate the death of its famous scholar, Brother Donnachad. That had been when Fidelma had announced her firm intention to leave the religious in name as well as practice. The rest was left to him to make his choice.
    Eadulf had considered carefully