Chalice of Blood by Peter Tremayne

beneath them pounded against its supports with alarming ferocity. The great sawn tree trunks on which the crossbeams rested had been driven deep into the river bed and there were about fifteen on each side. The width of it, like the Irish roads, according to Brehon Law, was broad enough to take two carriages, with room to spare between them. It was an easier crossing than last time, Eadulf remembered, when he had had to ford the rushing waters on horseback.
    ‘Well, a bridge certainly makes the old roadway easier to traverse,’ Fidelma observed. ‘We should make better time now.’
    In fact, it was hardly any time before they came to the next natural obstacle across the track. This was a smaller river called the Teara, a tributary of the Siúr that they had just crossed. The ford here was easy, for there was an island in the middle of the river that divided it into two small crossings.
    ‘This is where they say the road took its name,’ Gormán suddenly said, tired of the silence of their journey.
    ‘I have travelled this road several times,’ Eadulf replied, ‘and never once worked out why it is called the “Track of Patrick’s Cow”.’
    ‘Why it is called Rian Bó Phádraig?’ Gormán hesitated and glanced at Fidelma. ‘There is an old legend.’

    ‘You may as well tell it,’ she invited. She had heard the legend before.
    ‘Well, the old folk say that the Blessed Pádraig, who helped bring the Faith especially to the northern kingdoms, had a cow and this cow had a calf. The cow and her calf were peacefully grazing on the banks of the Teara, this very river we are crossing. The story is that a thief from near Ard Mór stole the calf. The cow was consumed with anger at the loss of her calf and chased the thief all the way across the mountains to Ard Mór, and its tracks made this road.’
    Eadulf pursed his lips sceptically.
    ‘But doesn’t this road lead from Cashel to Lios Mór?’ he pointed out in pedantic fashion.
    ‘And continues all the way on to Ard Mór,’ Gormán added, with a grin at his puzzled companion.
    ‘It is a legend,’ Fidelma intervened impatiently. ‘It is not to be taken literally. The road is far older than the time of the Blessed Pádraig. It joins the Slíge Dalla, the Way of the Blind, at Cashel, which, as you recall, is one of the five great roads that lead to Tara. There is no way of knowing why legends come about. The Blessed Ailbe converted our kingdom to the new Faith long before Pádraig arrived here and before Declan built his abbey at Ard Mór. Why would Pádraig have a cow grazing on the banks of the Teara River of all the rivers in Ireland? It makes no sense.’
    ‘Legends,’ Gormán solemnly announced, ‘are often the result of half-understood events, or events that have become embroidered out of all proportion by their retelling.’
    ‘Yet they are usually founded in truth,’ observed Eadulf.
    ‘The question is, how do you find that truth?’ Fidelma retorted.
    ‘Doesn’t the legend become its own truth?’ asked Gormán.
    Eadulf chuckled. ‘You are becoming a philosopher, Gormán.’
    The young warrior turned to him and, without warning, lunged
forward, knocking Eadulf off his horse with a single blow of his hand. As he fell, Eadulf was aware of a curious whistling sound in the air. Something thudded into a tree just behind his horse. Gormán yelled to Fidelma to take cover and at the same time drew his sword. He urged his cob forward towards a group of trees a short distance away along the side of the highway.
    Fidelma had time to see a figure with drawn bow release a second arrow before she slithered from her mount and crouched down. She heard it whistle past, wide of its intended target.
    ‘Stay down!’ she cried, as she saw Eadulf trying to rise from the dust in the road where he had fallen.
    ‘Has Gormán gone mad?’ he protested, not having seen the arrow that had nearly embedded itself in him but was now stuck in the tree.
    ‘He just saved