"mind was just as sharp and penetrating as her own." - The Council of the Cursed). However, she suffered many betrayals in the past (Cian, Liadin, Abbess Ita of Cill Dara) so that she became extremely cautious with her emotions and it is not easy for her to become close to people; it took quite a long time for her to fully realize her feelings for Eadulf, and her only close female friend/confidente is Della, a former prostitute (it is to Della that she turns to for comfort and counsel when she believes her marriage to Eadulf is in danger of falling apart in The Leper's Bell). She also admits quite freely that one of her worst faults is her temper, and she is constantly amazed that Eadulf shows so much patience with her: "She knew that she could not really contemplate an existence without Eadulf's support. Who else would tolerate her sharp temper, which she accepted was her biggest fault?" (The Chalice of Blood) However, in spite of her self-confessed shortcomings, she has proven herself to be devoted to family and friends and a caring and loving wife and mother (although she does wish that her duties as a dalaigh didn't cause her to be away from her son so often and for so long). Brother Eadulf Brother Eadulf has appeared in all but three of the Sister Fidelma novels and in one short story ("The Lost Eagle"). An Angle by birth from Seaxmund's Ham (today "Saxmundham") in the Kingdom of East Anglia (Eadulf refers to himself as an "Angle", while almost everybody else refers to him as "Saxon", much to his annoyance), Eadulf was raised as a hereditary gerefa, or reeve, of his people. Eadulf was converted to Christianity by an Irish monk named Fursa sometime before the novels begin and subsequently educated in Ireland, studying first at Daru (Durrow) then medicine at the great medical school of Tuaim Brecain. He then undertook a pilgrimage to Rome to understand the differences between the ideas of the Church of Rome and those of the Church of Ireland, remaining there studying for two years and returning as a follower of Rome. In the novel The Devil's Seal, it is learned that he has a younger brother Egric, who, although both brothers were converted to Christianity, chose to follow the path of the warrior and that due to lack of news