Whispers of the Dead

by Peter Tremayne

  Now they followed him slowly up the steep hill above the beach, straggling in a long line, passing the gray abbey walls, and moving toward the small chapel perched on the hilltop. This was the final site of the pilgrimage. It was the chapel that St. Declan had built two centuries before and in which his relics now reposed.

  Sister Fidelma wondered, and not for the first time, why she had bothered to join this pilgrimage on this stifling summer’s day. Her thought was immediately followed by a twinge of guilt, as it had been before. She felt an inner voice reprimanding her and pointing out that it was her duty as a religieuse to revere the life and works of those great men and women who had brought the Faith to the shores of Ireland.

  Her peripatetic journey, fulfilling her main duty as a dálaigh, or advocate, of the law courts of the five kingdoms of Ireland, had brought her to the subkingdom of the Déices on the south coast of Muman. When she had realized that she was staying a few days at the great abbey of Ard Mór, which St. Declan had founded, coinciding with the Holy Day set aside for his veneration, she had attached herself to the band of pilgrims being conducted around the principal sites associated with his life and work. Fidelma was always keen to acquire knowledge. She pressed her lips in a cynical grimace as she realized that she had answered her own question as to why she was part of this pilgrim group.

  Brother Ross, the young man in charge, had been prattling on about the life of Declan as he preceded them up the hill. He was an intense young man, scarcely more than the “age of choice,” hardly out of his teenage. Even the steep climb did not seem to make him breathless or cause him to pause in his enthusiastic monologue.

  “He was one of the four great saints who preached in the five kingdoms of Ireland before the coming of the Blessed Patrick. They were Ailbe, the patron saint of our kingdom of Muman, Ciarán also of Muman, Ibar of Laigin, and Declan of the Déices of Muman. So we may boast that this kingdom of Muman was the first to convert to the New Faith . . .”

  Brother Ross was naively passionate as he began to enumerate the miracles of the saint, of how he raised people who died of the Yellow Plague. The pilgrims listened in a respectful and awed silence. Fidelma had assessed the dozen or so men and women who were trudging up the hill and came to the conclusion that she appeared to have nothing in common with them except a membership of the religious.

  They were now approaching the brow of the bare hill where the small oratory of gray granite stood. It was perched on the top of the round hump, surrounded by a low stone wall. From a distance, it had appeared a small speck of a building. As they drew nearer Fidelma could make out its rectangular dry-stone walls. It was scarcely thirteen feet by nine feet in dimensions and its steep sloping roof was in proportion.

  “This is where the earthly remains of the blessed saint repose,” announced Brother Ross, halting and allowing the pilgrims to gather around him by the gate of the low wall. “After the end of his arduous mission through the countryside he returned to his beloved settlement of Ard Mór. He knew he was not long for this world and so he gathered the people and the clergy around him and counseled them to follow in his footsteps in charity. Then, having received the divine sacrament from Bishop mac Liag, he departed this life in a most holy and happy fashion, escorted by a chorus of angels to the kingdom of heaven. Vigils were held and solemn masses celebrated, signs and wonders were seen, a conclave of saints gathered from all corners of the land.”

  Brother Ross spread one hand toward the oratory, his voice warming to his theme.

  “His earthly remains were escorted to this, his first little church, to be laid to rest within it. I will lead you inside. Only three may accompany me at a time for, as you can see, it is very small. In the oratory lies a recess in the ground in which is a stone-built coffin. This is the resting place designated by Declan himself at the bidding of an angel. His relics are there and great signs and miracles are worked through the intervention of the Blessed Declan.”

  He stood with bowed head for a moment while the pilgrims mumbled their respectful “Amens.”

  “Wait here for a moment until I enter the oratory and ensure we are not disturbing any worshiper. This day is holy to the saint and many people come to pray here.”

  They paused by the wall as Brother Ross instructed while he turned inside the enclosure and crossed to the lintel door and disappeared inside.

  A moment or two later, the young man burst out of the oratory, his face flushed, his mouth working yet uttering no sound. Sister Fidelma and the others stood staring at him in total surprise. The sudden change from quiet respect to such agitation was bewildering. For several moments, the young man could not utter a word and then they came out in a spluttering staccato.

  “Uncorrupted! A miracle! A miracle!”

  His eyes were wide and rolled as if he had trouble in focusing.

  Fidelma stepped forward in front of him, “Calm yourself, brother!” she demanded, her voice rising in sharp command to quell his excitement. “What ails you?”

  Brother Ross seemed finally to focus on her with his wide staring eyes.

  “The body of the saint . . . it is uncorrupted!”

  “What do you mean?” Fidelma demanded in irritation.

  “You are not making sense.”

  The young man swallowed and breathed deeply for a moment as if to gather his composure.

  “The sarcophagus! The stone has been swung aside . . . the body of the blessed Declan lies there . . . the flesh is uncorrupted . . . truly . . . a miracle . . . a miracle! Go and spread the news . . .”

  Fidelma did not waste time on trying to make further sense of the young man’s incoherent claims.

  She strode quickly by him, shaking aside his restraining hand, and went into the oratory, crouching a little to pass under the lintel. There was only one small window to give natural light and she paused, blinked, and waited a moment for her eyes to adjust. Two tall candles on an altar at the end of the small chapel were unlit but, surprisingly, a small stub of candle stood splattering on the tomb slab.

  This stone slab had been pushed at an angle from the recess in the ground revealing the contents of the shallow grave. She strode forward and peered down. Brother Ross had been right in so far that a body lay there. But it was not the body of someone who had been interred two centuries before. She bent down to examine it. Two things she noticed: the blood was still glistening and wet, and when she touched the forehead, the flesh was still warm.

  When she emerged, she found Brother Ross still lyrical with excitement. The pilgrims were gathered excitedly around him.

  “Brethren, this day you have witnessed one of the great miracles of Declan. The saint’s body has not corrupted and decayed. Go down to the abbey and tell them and I will stay here and watch until you return with the abbot . . .”

  He hesitated as the eyes of the pilgrims turned expectantly as one to where Fidelma exited from the oratory with a grim face.

  “You saw it, didn’t you, Sister?” demanded Brother Ross. “I told no lie. The body is uncorrupted. A miracle!”

  “No one is to enter the chapel,” Fidelma replied coldly.

  Brother Ross drew his brows together in anger.

  “I am in charge of the pilgrims. Who are you to give orders, Sister?”

  “I am a dálaigh. My name is Fidelma of Cashel.”

  The young man blinked at her brusque tone. Then he recovered almost immediately.

  “Lawyer or not, these pilgrims should be sent to tell the abbot. I will wait here. . . . This is truly a miracle!”

  Fidelma turned to him cynically.

  “You who know so much about the Blessed Declan may provide the answers to these questions. Was Declan stabbed through the heart before being laid to rest?”

  Brother Ross did not understand.

  “Was the Blessed Declan, in reality, a young woman?” went on Fidelma, ruthlessly.

  Brother Ross was outraged and said so.

  Fidelma smiled thinly.

  “
Then I suggest you examine your uncorrupted body a little further. The body in the grave is that of a young woman who has recently been stabbed in the heart. It has been placed in the grave on top of old bones which presumably are the skeleton of Declan.”

  Brother Ross stared at her for a moment in horror and then hurried back into the oratory.

  Fidelma instructed the pilgrims to wait outside and then hurried after the young man, pausing just inside the door.

  Brother Ross, kneeling by the tomb, turned and glanced up toward her. His face, even in the semigloom, was white.

  “It is Sister Aróc, a member of the community of Ard mór.”

  Fidelma nodded grimly.

  “Then I think we should dispatch the pilgrims back to Ard mór and ask them to inform the abbot of what has been found here.”

  The band of pilgrims were spending the night in the hostel at Ard mór anyway.

  “Shouldn’t we go . . . ?”

  Fidelma shook her head.

  “I will stay and you may stay to assist me.”

  Brother Ross looked bewildered.

  “Assist you?”

  “As a dálaigh, I am taking charge of the investigation into how Sister Aróc met her death,” she replied.

  When the pilgrims had been dispatched down the hill toward the monastery, Fidelma returned into the chapel and knelt by the tomb. Sister Aróc was no more than twenty years old. She was not particularly attractive; in fact, rather plain-featured. A country girl with large-boned hands whose skin was rough and callused. They lay in a curious clawlike attitude at her sides, as if the fingers should be grasping something. Her hair was mouse-colored, an indiscernible gray-brown.

  As Fidelma had previously noticed, there was one wound on the body. There was no need to ask what had caused it. A thin knife blade with its rough worked handle still protruded from it. Her habit was ripped just under the left breast where the knife had entered and doubtless immediately penetrated her heart. The blood had soaked her clothing. It had not dried and that indicated death had not occurred long before. In fact, she thought the time could probably be measured in minutes rather than hours.

  A thought had occurred to Fidelma and she examined the floor of the chapel, tracing her way carefully back to the door and outside. She was looking for blood specks but something else caught her eye—droplets of wax near the sarcophagus. The fact alone was not surprising. She would imagine that many people over the years had entered with candles and bent to examine the stone that had covered the relics of the saint. What was surprising was the fact that the tallow grease lay in profusion over the edge of the sepulcher on which the flat covering stone would have swung shut.

  Fidelma, frowning, seized the end of the flat stone and exerted her strength. It swung. It was not easy to push it but, nevertheless, it could be moved with a rasping sound back into place across the tomb. Thoughtfully, she returned it to the position in which she had found it.

  She let her gaze wander back to the body to examine the knife again. It was a poor country person’s knife, a general implement used for a variety of purposes.

  She made no effort to extract it.

  She turned her attention to the accoutrements worn by the girl. A rough, wooden crucifix hung around her neck on a leather thong. It was crudely carved but Fidelma had seen many like it among the poorer religious. Her eyes wandered down to the worn leather marsupium that hung at the girl’s waist.

  She opened it. There was a comb inside. Every Irish girl carried a comb. This one was made of bone of the same poor quality as her other ornaments. Long hair being admired in Ireland, it was essential that all men and women carry a cior or comb. She also found, rather to her surprise, there were half a dozen coins in the marsupium. They were not of great value but valuable enough to suggest that robbery was no motive in this killing even if the thought had occurred to Fidelma. It had not.

  The more Fidelma looked at the corpse, at the position of it, the more she realized that there was something bizarre about this killing; more peculiar than even the usual aberrant fact of violent death. She could not quite put her finger on it. It was true that the corpse’s facial muscles seemed slightly distorted in death as if there was a smile on its features. But that was not what bothered her.

  By the time she left the oratory, three senior religious were entering the low gate to the oratory grounds. Fidelma immediately recognized the pale, worried features of Rian, the Abbot of Ardmore. With him there was a tall woman, whose features were set and grim, and a moon-faced man, whose features looked permanently bewildered, whom she also recognized as the steward of the abbey. What was his name? Brother Echen.

  “Is it true, Fidelma?” greeted the abbot. He was a distant cousin and greeted her familiarly.

  “True enough, Rian,” she replied.

  “I knew it would happen sooner or later,” snapped the tall sister with him.

  Fidelma turned inquiring eyes on her.

  “This is Sister Corb,” Abbot Rian explained nervously.

  “She is the mistress of the novices in our community. Sister Aróc was a novitiate under her charge.”

  “Perhaps you would be good enough to explain the meaning of that remark,” invited Fidelma.

  Sister Corb had a long, thin, angular face. Her features seemed permanently set in a look of disapproving derision.

  “Little explanation needed. The girl was touched.”

  “Touched?”

  “Crazy.”

  “Perhaps you might explain how that manifested itself and why it would lead to her death?”

  The abbot interrupted anxiously.

  “I think it might be better explained, Fidelma, by saying that the girl, Sister Aróc, isolated herself from most of us in the community. Her behavior was . . . eccentric.”

  The abbot had paused to try to find the correct word.

  Fidelma suppressed a sigh.

  “I am still not sure how this manifested itself. Are you saying that the girl was half-wit? Was her behavior uncontrollable? Exactly what marked her out as so different that death was an inevitable outcome?”

  “Sister Aróc was a fanatic about religious beliefs.” It was the moon-faced steward of the abbey, Brother Echen, who spoke up for the first time. “She claimed that she heard voices. She said that they were”—he screwed up his eyes and genuflected—“she said they were voices of the saints.”

  Sister Corb sniffed in disapproval.

  “She used it as an excuse not to obey the Rule of the community. She claimed she was in direct communication with the soul of the Blessed Declan. I would have had her flogged for blasphemy but Abbot Rian is a most humane man.”

  Fidelma could not help the censure that came into her voice.

  “If, as you say, the girl was touched, not of the same mental faculty as others, what good would a flogging have done?” she asked dryly.

  “I still do not see how this behavior would have led to her death . . . her death sooner or later was the phrase I think you used, Sister Corb?”

  Sister Corb looked disconcerted.

  “What I meant to say was that Sister Aróc was otherworldly. Naive, if you like. She did not know how . . . how lecherous men can be.”

  The abbot seemed to have a coughing fit and Brother Echen seemed to have taken an intense interest in his feet.

  Fidelma stared hard at the woman. Her eyebrow rose in automatic question.

  “I mean . . . I mean that Aróc was not versed in the ways of the world. She let herself enjoy the company of men without realizing what men expect from a young girl.”

  The abbot had regained his composure.

  “Sadly, Sister Aróc was not possessed of good sense but I think that Sister Corb might be overstating the attraction that Aróc could stir in the minds of any male members of our community.”

  Sister Corb’s lips twisted cynically.

  “The Father Abbot sees only the good in people. It does not matter the extent of the attractive qualities, a young gir
l is a young girl!”

  Fidelma raised her hands in a gesture indicating hopelessness and let them fall.

  “I am trying to understand what is implied here and how this is providing a clue to how and why Sister Aróc came by her death in such bizarre circumstances.”

  Sister Corb’s eyes narrowed slightly and she stared across the chapel ground to where Brother Ross was leaning against the low dividing wall, still looking pale and shaken.

  “Have you asked him?”

  “Brother Ross? Why?”

  Sister Corb’s lips compressed.

  “In fairness, I should not say another word.”

  “You have either said too much or too little,” Fidelma replied dourly.

  “Where was he when the killing took place?”

  “That I can answer,” Fidelma replied. “Brother Ross was conducting the band of pilgrims around the sites associated with the Blessed Declan. I was part of that band.”

  Sister Corb was not convinced.

  “How can you be so sure?” she demanded.

  “Brother Ross had been with us during the last two hours.”

  “So why could he not have killed the girl before he met you?” pressed Sister Corb, refusing to be budged from her suspicion.

  “Because”—smiled Fidelma—“she was killed not long before we arrived at the chapel and found her. In fact, I would say she was killed only minutes before.”

  Sister Corb’s mouth snapped shut. She seemed irritated at Fidelma’s logic.

  “Why would you accuse Brother Ross anyway?” asked Fidelma with interest.

  “I have had my say,” muttered the mistress of novitiates, her lips forming into a thin line of defiance.

  “I will tell you when you have answered my questions to my satisfaction,” replied Fidelma softly. The fact that there was no belligerence in her voice made it that much more imposing. Sister Corb was well aware of the powers of an advocate of the law courts.