Cross of Vengeance by Cora Harrison Read Free Book Online Page B

windows and the others were clear. There had been no hurried shouts or running figures from the farmers on Roughan Hill, so the fire at Kilnaboy had gone unnoticed by the parishioners. Not much of a fire – there were no marks on the stone outside.
    But it wouldn’t have taken much of a fire to destroy the precious contents of the round tower. And the sooner the truth was known, the better. Mara looked across towards the two figures of Father MacMahon and Ardal O’Lochlainn just as Sorley came down heavily from the ladder following young Danann, and they both yielded their place to Ardal. Then she walked across and stood beside the priest. His old face was rigid with horror, his eyes almost starting from his head. Sorley came across and joined them, grey and exhausted as though he had been fighting a tornado for hours. Mara said nothing. Ardal would have to be allowed to check for himself. She would wait until the door was opened and their worst fears confirmed. By now her boys had joined her and she was glad to see that they all stood very quietly with solemn faces.
    Ardal moved the ladder and repositioned it so that the top now touched the wooden door – uninjured, noticed Mara. As if by a signal, Sorley put his hand on the key and climbed up without a word. The cords that suspended the key from his jerkin were long enough to permit him to undo the lock without untying. He went straight inside and all held their breath while Ardal climbed up also. They would both now be in the tiny round first-floor room which had seemed so hot a few hours ago at noon. She expected them to pull in the ladder in order to reach the top floor, but they did not do so; the inside ladder must not have been damaged, proof that the fire had been relatively trivial.
    Mara, followed by her boys, moved forward and gazed upwards. Yes, they had succeeded in climbing up. Perhaps, she thought, hoping for the best, the relic had escaped. All might still be well and she and the boys could go back to their peaceful law school and get on with their studies without having to spend time working on unravelling a mystery which did not interest her greatly. She strained her ears, hoping against hope, but heard no word from either of them.
    Then the sound of returning footsteps came to them. In a moment, Ardal was back down again and one look at his face, drained of all colour, told her what he had found. Father MacMahon groaned aloud and the boys shuffled their feet with embarrassment.
    ‘I think you had better look at this, Brehon.’ Ardal’s voice was very quiet and he held out a small object to her. The boys crowded around. ‘Don’t touch it – it’s hot.’ His left hand, she saw, had the mark of a burn on the fingers, but he did not appear to notice it, other than by using an unaccustomed right hand.
    ‘You know what it is, don’t you?’ he asked, and she nodded.
    ‘A traveller’s lamp,’ she said. Most travellers and pilgrims carried them in the satchels beside their horses. Small rounded lamps, the size of a baby’s fist, with a perforated lid that could be lifted and a spike inside where the stump of a candle could be held upright and safely. It had a small ring of quartz at the base. A quick slash with a knife against the quartz would produce a spark and the candle could be lit and safely enclosed with the perforated lid. Once it had been made from bronze, probably, but now the metal had dissolved and then set into an ugly lump.
    And yet, oddly, there inside the lid was something that was not metal.
    ‘Vellum,’ said Cormac, looking over her shoulder.
    Ardal took the tip of his knife and levered up the lid, wincing slightly as the heat from the metal inflamed his burn. The small piece of calf skin had half-dissolved in the heat. Cormac picked it out with his nails and held it up, waving it gently to and fro to cool it.
    ‘Why put a piece of vellum in the lamp?’ asked Slevin with interest. ‘Though vellum or parchment would burn