Brehon Morann's classes. Emerging from the affair battered but unbowed, she applied herself wholeheartedly to her studies and eventually qualified as an anruth, the second highest rank after an Ollamh in the Irish legal system. In the novels and short stories, she pursues a career as a dalaigh to the Brehon Court of Ireland. In 659, while still studying at Brehon Morann's law school, Fidelma traveled to visit Lúach, an old friend, but found upon her arrival that Lúach had been missing for five days. Fidelma undertook an investigation into her friend's disappearance, but found more questions than answers, especially from those closest to Lúach (see the e-novella Lair of the White Fox). After her studies were complete, on the advice of her mentor Abbot Laisran of Durrow Fidelma became a nun (referred to throughout the series as a "religieuse"), joining St. Brigid's mixed abbey at Cill Dara (Kildare). She later left this community some time after her return from Rome for reasons outlined in the story "Hemlock at Vespers", and now refers to herself as "Fidelma of Cashel" rather than "Sister Fidelma". Strong-minded and independent, Fidelma often chafes at the structure of the religious life; she seems to have become a religieuse more as a career move (monasteries were the intellectual centers of seventh-century Ireland) than as an expression of Christian devotion; in the novel A Prayer for the Damned, Fidelma considers renouncing her religious vows but decides against it. Fidelma's anam chara or "soul friend" (the Irish equivalent of a confessor and spiritual guide) had been her friend Liadin, as Fidelma had been to her, but Liadin later betrayed and broke her oath to Fidelma (see the short story "At the Tent of Holofernes" in the short story collection Hemlock at Vespers). Since that time Fidelma had no real anam chara, but in The Leper's Bell she realized that she had unknowingly come to regard Eadulf as her anam chara and finally recognized him as such. Even so, she continued to seek advice from clerical mentors, particularly Abbot Laisran and Brother Conchobar of Cashel. In 664, Fidelma accompanied the Irish delegation as an advisor on law to the Synod of Whitby, where she met Brother Eadulf (quite literally running into him); later, they were asked to work together to investigate the murder of Abbess Etain of Kildare, a leading member of the Church of Columba faction (see Absolution