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bitter expression crossed his features, distorting their handsomeness.
    ‘I am on a pilgrim ship simply because I am a pilgrim.’
    Fidelma eyed him cynically. ‘A warrior of the High King’s bodyguard, a warrior of the Fianna, going on a pilgrimage? That does not seem creditable.’
    She did not know whether it was the flickering light but his expression seemed strange.
    ‘That is because I am a warrior no longer.’
    Fidelma was puzzled in spite of her hostile reaction at seeing him again.
    ‘Are you telling me that you have left the High King’s militia to enter a religious Order? That I cannot believe. You were never comfortable with religion.’
    ‘So you can foretell the course of my entire life? Am I not allowed to change my opinions?’ There was an abrupt animosity in his voice. She was not perturbed by it. She had faced his temper many times in her youth.
    ‘I know you too well, Cian. I garnered knowledge the hard way – or don’t you remember? I remember. I could hardly forget.’
    She made to turn into the cabin that Wenbrit had designated for her, when Cian took his hand from the doorframe, by which he had been balancing himself, and made to reach out to her. The ship was tugged a little by the waves, causing him to stumble forward. He caught his balance using his hand again.
    ‘We must talk, Fidelma,’ he said urgently. ‘There should not be enmity between us now.’
    Her attention was caught for a moment by the curious note of desperation in his voice. She hesitated, but only for an instant.
    ‘There will be plenty of time to talk later, Cian. It will be a long voyage … perhaps, now, it may be too long,’ she added with acid in her tone.
    She entered the cabin, shutting the door quickly behind her before he could reply. For a moment or two she stood with her back against the door, breathing heavily and wondering why she had broken out into a cold sweat. She would not have suspected that meeting Cian
again after all these years would make her feel such a resurgence of the emotions which she had spent many months suppressing after he had deserted her.
    She did not deny that she had become infatuated with Cian after that first meeting at the Festival of Tara. No; if she were really honest now, she would admit that she had fallen in love with him. In spite of his arrogance, his vanity, and pride in his martial prowess, she had fallen in love for the first time in her life. He stood for everything that Fidelma disliked but there was no accounting for the chemistry which they shared. They were opposites in character and, inevitably, like magnets, the unlike had attracted. It was surely a recipe for disaster.
    Cian was a youth in pursuit of conquests while Fidelma was a young woman bound up in the concept of romantic love. Within a few weeks he had made her life a turmoil of conflicting emotions. Even Grian recognised that Cian’s pursuit of Fidelma was merely a superficial one. Her friend was young, attractive and, above all, an intelligent woman – and Cian wanted to boast about the conquest. He would not care once the conquest had been made. And Fidelma, intelligent or no, refused to believe that her lover had so base a motive. Her refusal was the cause of many arguments with Grian.
    Suddenly, there was a heartrending groan from the gloom of the cabin, causing Fidelma to stiffen and return abruptly to the present, forgetting her tumbling anguished memories. For a second she struggled to recall where she was. She had entered the cabin which Wenbrit had indicated to her; the cabin she was to share. She had entered and stood in the darkness.
    The groan was agonised as if someone was in deep pain.
    ‘What’s wrong?’ Fidelma whispered, trying to focus in the direction of the sound.
    There was a fraction of a moment’s silence and then a voice cried peevishly: ‘I am dying!’
    Fidelma glanced swiftly round. It was almost pitch black in the cabin.
    ‘Is there no light in here?’
    ‘Who needs