The Subtle Serpent

by Peter Tremayne

  ‘No. I did not say that. I said that every member of the community is accounted for.’

  Fidelma felt a sudden surge of adrenalin.

  ‘I have yet to reason that subtle alteration in emphasis.’

  ‘Often members of our community go on missions, on journeys to other abbeys.’

  ‘Ah,’ Fidelma tensed. ‘So there are members of your community away at the moment?’

  ‘Only two members.’

  ‘Why was I not told this?’

  ‘It was not the question which you asked, sister,’ replied the abbess.

  Fidelma’s lips compressed.

  ‘There is hardship enough in this matter without games of mind reading and semantics. Explain who is away from the abbey at this time and why.’

  Abbess Draigen blinked at the sharpness in Fidelma’s voice.

  ‘Sister Comnat and Sister Almu are away at this time. They are on a mission to the abbey of the Blessed Brenainn at Ard Fhearta.’

  ‘When did they go?’

  ‘Three weeks ago.’

  ‘Why did they go?’

  Abbess Draigen was looking irritated.

  ‘You may not know that we, in this abbey, have some reputation for our penmanship. We copy books for other houses. Our sisters have just completed a copy of Murchú’s life of the Blessed Patrick of Ard Macha. Sister Comnat was our leabhar coimedach, our librarian, while Almu was her assistant. They were given the task of taking the copy of the book to Ard Fhearta.’

  ‘Why didn’t Sister Síomha tell me this?’ snapped Fidelma.

  ‘Presumably because …’

  ‘I am tired of hearing presumptions, Abbess Draigen,’ she interrupted. ‘Summon Sister Síomha now.’

  The Abbess Draigen paused for a moment as if to control her response to Fidelma’s anger and then, clenching her jaw tight, she reached forward and rang a small silver bell that stood on her table. Sister Lerben entered a moment later and the abbess told her to ask the rechtaire to attend her immediately.

  A few moments passed before there came a tap on the door and it opened. Sister Síomha entered, saw Fidelma, and her mouth broadened in a slight smile of obvious contempt.

  ‘You rang for me, mother abbess?’

  ‘I summoned you,’ Fidelma replied harshly.

  Sister Síomha looked startled, her face loosing the self-satisfied expression.

  ‘A short time ago I asked you if every member of the community was accounted for. You replied that they were. Now I discover that two members of this community are not accounted for. Sister Comnat and Sister Almu. Why was I misled?’

  Sister Síomha had flushed and glanced quickly at the abbess who seemed to incline her head slightly.

  ‘You do not have to ask permission of the mother abbess to reply to my questions,’ Fidelma said sharply.

  ‘Every member of this community was accounted for,’ replied Sister Síomha defensively. ‘I did not mislead you.’

  ‘You told me nothing of Comnat and Almu.’

  ‘What was there to tell you? They are on a mission to Ard Fhearta.’

  ‘They are not in the abbey.’

  ‘Yet they are accounted for.’

  Fidelma exhaled in exasperation.

  ‘Semantics!’ she jeered. ‘Do you care more about morphology, with word formations and inflections, than with truth?’

  ‘You did not …’ began Sister Síomha, but this time it was Abbess Draigen who interrupted.

  ‘We must help Sister Fidelma all we can, Sister Síomha,’ she said, causing the young sister to glance at her in surprise. ‘She is, after all, a dálaigh of the court.’

  There was a slight pause.

  ‘Very well, mother abbess,’ Sister Síomha said, bowing her head in compliance.

  ‘Now, as I understand it,’ began Fidelma determinedly, ‘there are two members of this community who are not in the abbey?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And they are the only two members of your community who are unaccounted for?’

  ‘They are not unaccounted for …’ began Sister Síomha but halted at the look of thunder on Fidelma’s face. ‘There is no one else outside of the abbey at the moment,’ she confirmed.

  ‘I am told that they left for Ard Fhearta three weeks ago.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Surely the journey there and back is not so long? When were they expected to return?’

  It was Abbess Draigen who confessed: ‘They are overdue. That is true, sister.’

  ‘Overdue?’ Fidelma arched an eyebrow disdainfully. ‘And no one thought to inform me of this?’

  ‘It has no bearing on this matter,’ interposed the abbess.

  ‘I am the arbiter of what has or has not a bearing on the matter,’ replied Fidelma icily. ‘Have you had any word from the sisters since they left?’

  ‘None,’ replied Sister Síomha.

  ‘And when were they expected back?’

  ‘They were expected back after ten days.’

  ‘Have you informed the local bó-aire?’ The question was directed at Abbess Draigen. ‘Whatever you may think of Adnár, he is the local magistrate.’

  ‘He would be of no help,’ Draigen said defensively. ‘But nevertheless, you are right. He shall be informed that they are missing. Messengers often go between his fortress and that of Gulban which is on the road to Ard Fhearta.’

  ‘I shall be seeing Adnár shortly to discuss the matter we have touched on, abbess. I will inform him of this matter. Tell me, what are these sisters like? A physical description, if you please.’

  ‘Sister Comnat has been here at least thirty years. She is sixty or more years of age and has been our librarian and our chief penman for fifteen of those years. She is well skilled in her work.’

  ‘I need a more physical description,’ insisted Fidelma.

  ‘She is short and thin,’ replied Draigen. ‘Her hair is grey though her eyebrows still retain the blackness of their youth and the eyes, too, are dark. She has a distinctive mark, a scar on her forehead where once a sword cut her.’

  Fidelma mentally ruled out the librarian as the headless victim.

  ‘And of Sister Almu?’

  ‘She was chosen to accompany Sister Comnat not only because she is her assistant but because she is young and stronger. She is about eighteen. Fair-haired and blue-eyed with pleasing features. She is a little on the short side.’

  Fidelma was silent for a moment.

  ‘The headless corpse could have been eighteen years old. It gave the impression of fairness and was short in stature.’

  ‘Are you claiming that this headless corpse is Sister Almu?’ demanded the abbess in disbelief.

  ‘It is not!’ snapped Sister Síomha.

  ‘Almu was a close friend of my steward,’ Draigen explained. ‘I am prepared to believe that she would recognise the body of Almu.’

  Fidelma folded her arms determinedly.

  ‘Since we like to play with semantics, mother abbess, let me be precise. I am saying that it could be Sister Almu. You say Almu is an assistant to the librarian and worked copying books?’

  ‘Yes. Sister Almu promises to be one of our best scribes. She is highly proficient in her art.’

  ‘There was blue staining on the fingers of the hand of the corpse. Would that not point to the corpse having worked with a pen?’

  ‘Staining?’ interrupted Sister Síomha in annoyance. ‘What staining?’

  ‘Do you tell me that you did not notice the blue stains on thumb, index finger and along the edge of the little finger where it would rest on paper? The blue-black of an ink? The sort of stain someone who practised penmanship might have?’

  ‘But Sister Almu is with Sister Comnat at Ard Fhearta,’ protested the abbess.

  ‘She is certainly not among the community of this abbey, that much is certain,’ Fidelma commented dryly. ‘Are you sure that no one recognised the body?’

  ‘How can one recognise the body without a head?’ Sister Síomha dema
nded. ‘And if it was Almu, I would know. She is a close friend of mine, as the abbess has said.’

  ‘Perhaps you are right,’ conceded Fidelma. ‘But as to recognising a body without a head, why, I have just shown you one method of recognition. I will acknowledge that, in a religious community, one’s first and usually only contact with the physical features of a fellow religious is with the face. But I would ask, didn’t the thought ever occur that, as these sisters were overdue, there was a remote possibility that this body, which had marks of being a member of the Faith, was that of your assistant librarian?’

  ‘Not even a slightest’ thought,’ replied Sister Síomha stiffly. ‘Neither does your suggestion make it so. You have provided no proof that the body belongs to Almu.’

  ‘No, that is so,’ Fidelma agreed. ‘What I am doing at this time is putting forward some hypotheses based on the information that I am now getting. Information which,’ she held Abbess Draigen’s eyes a moment and then turned to Sister Síomha who now dropped her gaze, ‘information which should have been given me freely, instead of this wasting of time with the sins of self-regard.’

  ‘Why would anyone want to stab and decapitate Sister Almu and thrust her body down a well?’ demanded the abbess. ‘If it is the body of the sister, that is.’

  ‘We have not been able to prove it was Almu. And we doubtless will not until we find the other part of the corpse.’

  ‘You mean her head?’ asked the abbess.

  ‘I have been told that when the corpse was taken from the well, no one was allowed to draw water and that the community has used the other springs hereabouts?’

  Abbess Draigen nodded confirmation.

  ‘Has anyone been down the well shaft to see if the head was also placed down there?’

  The abbess looked towards Sister Síomha.

  ‘The answer is - yes,’ Sister Síomha replied. ‘As steward it was my duty to arrange for the purification of the well. I sent one of our strongest young girls down it.’

  ‘And she was?’

  ‘Sister Berrach.’

  Fidelma’s expression showed total astonishment.

  ‘But Sister Berrach is …’ She bit her tongue, regretting what she had been about to say.

  ‘A cripple?’ sneered Sister Síomha. ‘So you have noticed her?’

  ‘I merely observed that Sister Berrach is surely disabled. How can she be strong?’

  ‘Berrach has been in this community since she was three years old,’ said the abbess. ‘She was adopted not long before I came here myself and raised by the community. Although the growth of her legs was stunted, she has developed a strength in her arms and torso that is truly surprising.’

  ‘And did she find anything when she went down the well? Perhaps I should hear this from her own lips?’

  Abbess Draigen reach forward and rang the bell on the table before her.

  ‘Then you may ask her yourself, sister.’

  Once more Sister Lerben, the attractive, young novice, opened the door almost immediately.

  ‘Lerben,’ ordered the abbess, ‘fetch Sister Berrach here.’

  The novice bobbed her head and disappeared. It was only a few moments later that there was a timid knock at the door and, at the abbess’s response, the wary features of Sister Berrach peered around the portal.

  ‘Come in, sister,’ Draigen spoke to her almost consolingly. ‘Do not be alarmed. You know Sister Fidelma? Yes, of course you do.’

  ‘H … h … how can I se … serve?’ stuttered the sister, propelling herself forward into the chamber with her heavy blackthorn stick.

  ‘Easy enough,’ Sister Síomha intervened. ‘I had the responsibility of examining the well of the Blessed Necht after the headless corpse was removed. You will recall, Berrach, that I asked for your assistance in this, didn’t I?’

  The disabled religieuse nodded, as if eager to please.

  ‘You asked me to go down the well, to be lowered on a rope with a lantern. I was to wash down the walls of the well and cleanse it with water that had been blessed by our mother abbess.’

  She phrased her sentences like an oft repeated lesson. Fidelma noticed that her stammer vanished in the recital of this. She found herself wondering whether poor Sister Berrach was simple, a grown woman with a deformed body and the mind of a child.

  ‘That is so,’ Sister Síomha said approvingly. ‘What was it like in the well?’

  Sister Berrach seemed to consider for a moment and then smiled as the answer came to her.

  ‘D … d … dark. Yes, it was very d … dark d … down there.’

  ‘But you had a means of lighting that darkness,’ Fidelma spoke encouragingly and moved forward towards the girl. She laid a friendly hand on her arm and felt its strength and sinew under the sleeve of the robe. ‘You had a lantern, didn’t you?’

  The girl glanced up at her nervously and then returned Fidelma’s smile.

  ‘Oh yes,’ she smiled. ‘I was given a la … lantern and with th … th … that I c … could see well enough. But it was n … n … not really light d … d … down there.’

  ‘Yes. I understand what you mean, Sister Berrach,’ Fidelma said. ‘And when you reached the bottom of the well, did you see anything that … well … anything that should not have been down there?’

  The girl put her head on one side and thought carefully.

  ‘S … sh … shouldn’t be d … down there?’ she repeated slowly.

  Sister Síomha made her exasperation clear.

  ‘The head of the corpse,’ she explained bluntly.

  Sister Berrach shivered violently.

  ‘There was no … nothing else d … down there but the dark and the water. I saw n … n … nothing.’

  ‘Very well,’ Fidelma smiled. ‘You may go now.’

  After Sister Berrach had left the abbess sat back and studied Fidelma speculatively.

  ‘What now, Sister Fidelma? Do you still hold to your belief that this body is that of Sister Almu?’

  ‘I did not say it was,’ countered Fidelma. ‘At this stage of my investigation, I must speculate. I must hypothesise. The fact that Sister Comnat and Sister Almu are overdue in returning to this abbey may simply be a matter of coincidence. Nevertheless, I must be in possession of all the facts if I am to progress. There must be no further playing of games. When I ask questions, I shall expect appropriate answers.’

  She glanced to Sister Síomha but directed her remarks to Abbess Draigen. She saw an angry look remould the features of the rechtaire of the community of The Salmon of the Three Wells.

  ‘That much is clear, sister,’ replied the abbess tautly. ‘And perhaps now that all our bruised dignities and self-esteems have been massaged, we may return to our respective businesses?’

  ‘Willingly,’ agreed Sister Fidelma. ‘But one thing more …’

  Abbess Draigen waited with raised eyebrows.

  ‘I am told that there are some copper mines in this vicinity?’

  The question was not expected by the abbess and Draigen looked surprised.

  ‘Copper mines?’

  ‘Yes. Is this not so?’

  ‘It is so. Yes; there are many such mines on this peninsula.’

  ‘Where are they in relationship to this abbey?’

  ‘The nearest ones are on the far side of the mountains to the south-west.’

  ‘And to whom do they belong?’

  ‘They are the domain of Gulban the Hawk-Eyed,’ replied Draigen.

  Fidelma had expected some such answer and she nodded thoughtfully.

  ‘Thank you. I will detain you no longer.’

  As she turned from the abbess’s chamber she saw Sister Síomha regarding her with an intense expression. If looks could kill, Fidelma found herself thinking wryly, then she would have been dead on the spot.

  Chapter Eight

  In returning to Adnár’s fortress that afternoon, Fidelma decided not to give any advance warning to the chieftain by crossing directly over the strip of wat
er separating the community of The Salmon of the Three Wells from the fortress of Dún Boí, but to traverse the path through the forest, and come upon the fortress from the landward side. The journey was further, but she had been so long on shipboard that she desired a leisurely walk through the forest in order to clear her mind. The forest presented just the sort of countryside she enjoyed walking in. Its great oaks spread along the shoreline and across the skirts of the high mountain behind.

  She had informed Sister Brónach of her intentions and left the abbey mid-afternoon. It was still a pleasant day, the mild sun warming to the skin when it flickered through the mainly bare branches of the trees. High up, beyond the snow-dusted forest canopy, the sky was a soft blue with strands of white, fleecy clouds straggling along in the soft winds. The ground was hard with a winter frost toughening what would otherwise have been soft mud underfoot. The sun had not yet penetrated it and the crisp leaves, shed weeks ago, crackled under her tread.

  From the abbey gates a track drove through the forest around the bay but at a distance so that the sea’s great inlet was mainly obscured from the gaze of any traveller taking this route. Only now and again, through the bare trees, could a glimpse of flashing blue, caused by the sun’s reflection, be discerned. Not even the sounds of the sea could be heard, so good a barrier were the tall oak trees, interspersed with protesting clumps of hazel trying to survive among their mighty and ancient brothers. There were whole clumps of strawberry trees with their toothed evergreen leaves, their short trunks and twisting branches rising twenty feet and more in height.

  Through the trees, now and then, Fidelma could pick up the rustle of undergrowth as a larger denizen of the forest made its cautious passage in search of food. The startled snap of twigs and branches as a deer leapt away at the sound of her approach, the swish of dried, rotting leaves as an inquisitive red squirrel tried to remember where it had left a food hoard. The sounds were numerous but identifiable to anyone attuned to the natural world.

  As she walked along, Fidelmá came to an adjoining road that led in the direction of the distant mountains and she saw that there were signs that horses had recently passed this way. While the ground was hard, there were traces of horses’ droppings. She remembered having seen, that morning, the procession of horses, riders and running attendants, moving down from the mountain and realised that this was the point where they must have joined the road.