Shroud for the Archbishop

by Peter Tremayne

  ‘That will not be necessary, Eadulf will conduct me. I would be obliged, however, if you made out our authority as soon as possible and ensure we have the written approval of the Praetor Peregrinus before the midday Angelus.’

  She had opened the door and was aware of the young officer of the custodes who had escorted her from her lodging. He was still standing outside waiting for orders.

  ‘Also,’ Fidelma went on turning to Marinus, ‘I would be indebted if I could have the services of one of your palace guard as a symbol of my authority. It is always better to have an immediately recognisable symbol of authority. This young man might do.’

  Marinus pursed his lips wondering whether he ought to protest but then he slowly nodded.

  ‘Tesserarius!’

  The young guard sprang to attention.

  ‘At your service, Superista!’

  ‘You will take your orders from Sister Fidelma or from Brother Eadulf until I personally relieve you of that duty. They act with the authority of myself, Bishop Gelasius and the Praetor Peregrinus.’

  The young man’s face was a picture of astonishment.

  ‘Superista?’ he stammered as if he doubted that he had heard correctly.

  ‘Have I made myself clear?’

  The tesserarius coloured hotly and swallowed hard.

  ‘By your command, Superista!’

  ‘Good. I will send the authority after you, Sister Fidelma,’ Marinus assured her. ‘Do not hesitate to call upon me if I am needed.’

  Fidelma, followed by Eadulf, swept from the room, followed by a bewildered young officer of the guards.

  ‘What are your orders, sister?’ the young man asked as they entered the courtyard. The sky was light now with the pale grey shades of dawn and the birds were beginning to make a noisy chorus which offset the gushing of the central fountain.

  Fidelma paused in mid-stride and examined the young man who had brought her so rudely from her bed. In the light of day he still looked slightly arrogant and in the richness of his attire, even though it was the ceremonial of the Lateran Guard, he was every inch a Roman noble. Fidelma suddenly smiled broadly.

  ‘What is your name, tesserarius?’

  ‘Furius Licinius.’

  ‘Of an old patrician family of Rome, no doubt?’

  ‘Of course … yes,’ the young man frowned, missing her sarcasm.

  Fidelma sighed softly.

  ‘That is good. I may need someone who will advise me closely on the customs of this city and of the Lateran. We are charged with investigating the death of the archbishop-designate Wighard.’

  ‘But an Irish monk did it.’ The young man seemed perplexed.

  ‘That is for us to ascertain,’ Fidelma said sharply. ‘But you obviously know about the death?’

  The young man cast a long and curious glance at Fidelma and then shrugged.

  ‘Most of the guards do, sister! But I know that the Irish monk is guilty.’

  ‘You seem very certain, Furius Licinius. Why?’

  ‘I was on duty in the guard room when my comrade, the decurion Marcus Narses, came in with the Irish monk, Ronan Ragallach. The body of Wighard had just been discovered and this Ronan was arrested in the vicinity of his chamber.’

  ‘That would be called an evidence of circumstance,’ replied Fidelma. ‘Yet you say you are certain. How so?’

  ‘Two nights ago, I was on guard duty in the courtyard where Wighard’s chambers are situated. Someone was skulking there about midnight. I chased the person and came upon this same Irish monk who denied being the person I had chased. In doing so he lied to me. He gave me a false name – Brother “Ayn-dina” …’

  ‘Brother Aon Duine?’ Fidelma queried, gently correcting the pronunciation and when the tesserarius nodded his assent she turned slightly to hide the grin which split her features. Even Eadulf, having a good knowledge of Irish, could share the joke hidden to the young officer.

  ‘I see,’ she said solemnly, having composed herself. ‘He told you then that he was “Brother No-one”, for that is what it means in my tongue. What then?’

  ‘He claimed that he had come from some chambers which I later knew to be as false …’

  ‘ … as his name?’ Eadulf asked with an air of innocence.

  ‘By the time I realised his lies, he had fled. This is why I am convinced he is guilty.’

  ‘But guilty of what?’ Fidelma observed. ‘Whether it proves him guilty of the murder has yet to be seen. We will discuss this later with the monk, Ronan Ragallach. Come, Furius Licinius, conduct me to this physician who examined the body of Wighard.’

  Chapter Five

  Cornelius of Alexandria, the personal physician to His Holiness, Vitalian, Bishop of Rome, was a short, swarthy man. A black-haired Alexandrian Greek, with a prominent, bulbous nose and thin lips. While clean shaven, a blue-black stubble gave the impression that he would need to scrape his facial hair three times daily to remain without a beard. His eyes were dark and penetrating. He rose uncertainly as Furius Licinius entered his chamber, followed by Fidelma and Eadulf.

  ‘Well, tesserarius?’ His tone demonstrated his annoyance at being disturbed.

  ‘Are you Cornelius the physician?’ It was Fidelma who asked, falling easily into Greek. Then she realised that Brother Eadulf was not fluent in the language and so repeated her question in colloquial Latin.

  The Alexandrian examined her with a speculative look.

  ‘I am personal physician to the Holy Father,’ he confirmed. ‘Who are you?’

  ‘I am Fidelma of Kildare and this is Brother Eadulf of Canterbury. We are charged by the Bishop Gelasius to investigate the death of Wighard.’

  The physician snorted derisively.

  ‘There is little to investigate, sister. There are no mysteries about the facts of Wighard’s death.’

  ‘Then you may tell us, how did he die?’

  ‘Strangulation,’ came the prompt reply.

  Fidelma recalled her meeting with Wighard at Witebia when he was scriba, secretary to the archbishop Deusdedit.

  ‘Wighard was a big man, as I remember. It would take a powerful person to strangle him.’

  Cornelius sniffed. He had, it seemed, an annoying habit of making sounds through his nose by way of comment and punctuation.

  ‘You would be surprised, sister, how little effort it takes to strangle even a powerful man. A mere compression of the carotid arteries and the jugular veins in the neck cuts off the supply of blood to the brain and produces unconsciousness almost immediately, perhaps three seconds at the most.’

  ‘Provided the subject allows that pressure to be exerted on his neck,’ replied Fidelma thoughtfully. ‘Where is Wighard’s body now? Still in his chamber?’

  Cornelius shook his head.

  ‘I have had it removed to the mortuarium.’

  ‘A pity.’

  Cornelius compressed his lips in annoyance at the implied criticism.

  ‘There is nothing about his death that I cannot tell you, sister,’ he said distantly.

  ‘Perhaps,’ Fidelma’s reply was softly said. ‘Show us the body of Wighard and then you may explain to us how you came by your findings.’

  Cornelius hesitated and then gave an elaborate shrug combining with it a mocking half-bow.

  ‘Follow me,’ he said, turning and leading the way from his chamber through a small door which opened on to a small spiral stone staircase. They descended after him, down into a gloomy passageway and thence into a large cold marble-flagged room. There were several table-like slabs, also of marble, which immediately proclaimed their usage by their shrouded contents. The slabs held what were obviously bodies covered by stained linen cloths.

  Cornelius went to one of them and removed the cloth casually, tossing it to one side.

  ‘The body of Wighard,’ he sniffed, nodding towards the pale, waxy-faced corpse.

  Fidelma and Eadulf moved to the slab and peered down while Licinius hovered dutifully in the background. In life, W
ighard of Canterbury had been a large, jovial-looking man with greying hair, and rotund features. Although, as Fidelma recalled from their meeting at Witebia, his cherubic-like features had hidden a coldly calculating mind and an ambition sharpened like a sword. The eyes in the rotund face had been those of a cunning fox. Without muscle tension to control his features, the pale, waxy flesh sagged causing a change of expression that made him almost unrecognisable to those who had known him in life.

  Fidelma’s eyes narrowed as she saw the traces of lesions around his neck.

  Cornelius saw her examination and moved forward with a grim smile.

  ‘As you see, sister, strangulation.’

  ‘Not by use of the hands, though.’

  Cornelius raised his eyebrows at Fidelma’s observation, doubtless surprised at her attention to the detail.

  ‘No, that is true. He was garrotted by his own prayer cord.’

  The religious wore knotted cords around their habits which doubled as a belt and as a guide for their prayers, each knot marking the number of prayers to be said daily.

  ‘The facial expression seems one of tranquillity, as if he were merely asleep,’ Fidelma said. ‘There seems little sign of his violent end to life.’

  The Alexandrian physician shrugged.

  ‘He was probably dead before he knew it. As I have said, it does not take long to achieve an unconscious state once the carotid arteries are compressed … here and here,’ he indicated on the neck. ‘You see,’ he began to warm to his theme as a teacher imparting knowledge to bright students, ‘it was the great physician Galen of Pergamum who identified these arteries and showed that they carried blood and not air as had been commonly supposed before. He named them carotid from the Greek word to stupefy, showing that a compression of these arteries produces stupor …’

  Brother Eadulf shot an amused glance at Fidelma.

  ‘I had heard,’ he intervened, ‘that Herophilus, who founded your own great school of medicine at Alexandria three centuries before the birth of the Christ, argued that blood not air passed through the arteries and that was four centuries before Galen.’

  Cornelius stared at the Saxon monk in some astonishment.

  ‘You know something of a physician’s lore, Saxon?’

  Eadulf grimaced disarmingly.

  ‘I studied for a few years at Tuaim Brecain, the premier school of medicine in Ireland.’

  ‘Ah,’ Cornelius nodded, satisfied with the explanation. ‘Then you may have a little knowledge. The great Herophilus certainly did reach that conclusion, but it was left to Galen to clearly identify it as fact and name the function of the carotid arteries. Additionally, the jugulum, that which we call the collarbone, gives its name to several veins here. These convey blood from the head while the arteries send blood to the head. All were compressed in the case of Wighard. Death, I believe, was within seconds.’

  As he was speaking, Fidelma was examining the limbs and hands of the corpse, paying particular attention to the fingers and the nails. Finally she straightened.

  ‘Was there any sign of a struggle, Cornelius?’

  The physician shook his head.

  ‘How was the body lying?’

  ‘Face down on the bed, as I recall. Rather, the torso was on the bed while the lower legs were on the floor as if he had been kneeling by the side of the bed.’

  Fidelma exhaled gently in thought.

  ‘Then let us remove ourselves to Wighard’s chambers. It is essential I know the exact position of the body.’

  Furius Licinius interrupted by clearing his throat.

  ‘Shall I ask the decurion Marcus Narses to attend us, sister? It was he who found the body, as well as apprehended the murderer.’

  A brief expression of vexation crossed Fidelma’s features.

  ‘You mean, he apprehended Brother Ronan?’ she corrected softly. ‘Yes, by all means have this Marcus Narses meet us in Wighard’s chamber. Go and find him. Cornelius will conduct us to the chamber.’

  The physician stared a little resentfully at Fidelma’s assumption that he would obey her orders but he made no protest.

  ‘This way, then.’

  They left the mortuarium and crossed a small courtyard, following a maze of passages until they came out into a pleasant courtyard, dominated by a fountain. Cornelius led Fidelma and Eadulf across the yard and into a building of three storeys in height, ascending a marble staircase. This was clearly the domus hospitale of the Lateran Palace, the guest quarters where the special guests of the Bishop of Rome were given hospitality. On the third floor Cornelius halted in a corridor. A single custos stood on guard before the door but he deferred to the authority of Cornelius who pushed open the tall, carved door into the rooms beyond.

  There was a pleasant-looking reception room while beyond was the bed chamber of the late archbishop. It was a fine suite of rooms with tall windows opening on to the sun-filled quadrangle.

  Cornelius led the way into the bed chamber.

  Fidelma observed that the room was in keeping with the opulence of the other chambers of the Lateran Palace, hung with rich tapestries and with rugs spread over the tiled floor. These were no mere narrow cubicula of the type she had been used to. The bed was large, of a wooden frame, carefully carved with a myriad of religious symbolism. Apart from a rumpled bed cover, it appeared that the bed had not been slept in nor even prepared for the night. The bed cover was still firmly in place though it looked dishevelled as if someone had lain on the bottom half of the bed.

  Cornelius pointed to the end of the bed.

  ‘Wighard lay face downward across the lower part of the bed.’

  ‘Can you show us exactly his position?’ Fidelma asked.

  Cornelius looked far from happy but he moved forward and bent across the bed. From the waist upwards he laid his torso on the bed itself but his legs were bent almost in a kneeling position at the side of the bed and on the floor.

  Fidelma stood for a while in thought.

  Eadulf was also examining the position.

  ‘Could it have been that Wighard was kneeling in prayer when his killer entered and garrotted him with his own prayer cord?’

  ‘A possibility,’ mused Fidelma. ‘But, if he knelt at prayer, his prayer cord would be in his hands, and, if not, around his waist. The killer must have struck at once, so swiftly as not to have alarmed Wighard. Therefore, the killer had the prayer cord in his own hands … there could have been no struggle for its possession to alarm the archbishop.’

  Eadulf agreed reluctantly.

  ‘Can I get up now?’ demanded Cornelius almost petulantly from his uncomfortable position.

  ‘Of course,’ Fidelma agreed contritely. ‘You have been most helpful. I do not think we need trouble you further.’

  Cornelius rose with a loud sniff.

  ‘And the body? His Holiness expects to offer a requiem mass in the basilica at midday. After which the body is to be taken to the Metronia Gate of the city and buried in the Christian cemetery outside the Aurelian Wall.’

  ‘A burial so soon?’

  ‘It is the custom in this land.’

  Eadulf said: ‘The heat of the day makes burial at the earliest moment advantageous to public health.’

  Fidelma half nodded absently as she studied the rumpled bed covers. Then she raised her eyes and smiled quickly at Cornelius.

  ‘I have no further need to view the body. Let its disposal be as the Holy Father wishes.’

  Cornelius hesitated at the door, almost reluctant to leave now.

  ‘Is there anything further … ?’

  ‘Nothing,’ Fidelma replied firmly, turning back to the bed.

  The Alexandrian physician sniffed again, then turned and left the apartment.

  Eadulf was watching Fidelma’s examination of the bed with curiosity.

  ‘Have you seen something, Fidelma?’

  Fidelma shook her head.

  ‘But there is something here I do not yet understand. Something which …’ Sh
e caught herself and shook her head. ‘My old master, Morann of Tara, used to say, do not speculate before you have acquired as much information as is available.’

  ‘A wise man,’ observed Eadulf.

  ‘It was such that made him chief of the judges of Ireland,’ agreed Fidelma. She pointed to the position which Cornelius had taken at the end of the bed. ‘Here we have Wighard, standing or kneeling by his bed, presumably, in view of the hours, about to prepare for his night’s repose. Was he about to draw off the bed cover and prepare for bed, or was he kneeling in prayer?’

  She stood staring thoughtfully at the spot as if seeking inspiration from it.

  ‘Either way, we must presume his back was to the door. His murderer enters, so quietly that Wighard does not even turn, is not even suspicious, and then, we must believe that this murderer is able to seize Wighard’s prayer cord and garrote him so swiftly that he does not struggle and is dead before he even realises it.’

  ‘That is according to the information so far,’ Eadulf grimaced. ‘Perhaps we should now see this Brother Ronan and see what light he has to shed on the matter.’

  ‘Brother Ronan can wait a moment more,’ Fidelma said, her intent gaze wandering around the room. ‘Bishop Gelasius said that the gifts that Wighard brought for the Holy Father were stolen. As Wighard’s secretary, Eadulf, you would know where they were kept.’

  Eadulf pointed into the other room.

  ‘They were kept in a trunk in Wighard’s reception room.’

  Fidelma turned back into the first room. It also reflected the affluence and elegance of the palace, with its furnishings and tapestries. As Eadulf had indicated, a large wooden trunk, bound with iron, stood in one corner. Its lid was already opened and she could see that there was nothing left inside.

  ‘What was kept in the trunk, Eadulf? Do you know?’

  Eadulf smiled a little vainly.

  ‘That was my duty as scriba, secretary to the archbishop. As soon as I arrived in Rome, I was called upon to take up my duties, so I know all about the matter. Every kingdom in the Saxon lands had sent gifts to His Holiness through Canterbury to show that they all submitted to the decision at Witebia; to demonstrate by those gifts that the rule of Rome was accepted among them and that Canterbury was to be the principal bishopric of the kingdoms. There was a tapestry woven by the ladies-in-waiting to the saintly Seaxburgh. She is wife to Eorcenberht of Kent and has endowed a great monastery on the Isle of Sheppey.’