Whispers of the Dead

by Peter Tremayne

  “It is well known that Brother Ross desired the girl,” she replied defensively.

  “Desired?”

  “Lusted for her.”

  Brother Echen snorted with derision.

  “That is, with all respect, only Sister Corb’s interpretation. Her jaundiced view of the intentions of men in any situation leads her to make leaps of imagination.”

  Fidelma swung ’round to him.

  “You do not share Sister Corb’s view?”

  “Ask Brother Ross himself.” the steward replied casually.

  “He liked the girl’s company. They were often together and he did not ridicule her, as some did. But he had no lecherous intentions.”

  “How do you know this?”

  “As steward of the community, it is my job to know things, especially to keep a watch for anything which might lead to a disturbance among the brethren.”

  “What, in this matter, might have led to a disturbance?”

  Brother Echen glanced at Sister Corb meaningfully.

  Fidelma turned and smiled at the abbot.

  “Father Abbot, if you and Sister Corb will wait with Brother Ross . . .?”

  She waited until they had moved out of earshot before turning back to Brother Echen.

  “Well?” she prompted.

  “Sister Corb was creating trouble for Brother Ross. She was jealous.”

  “Jealous?”

  Brother Echen shrugged eloquently.

  “You know . . .”

  “I don’t know. Tell me.”

  “Corb was jealous of Ross because she wanted Aróc for herself. Sister Corb is . . . well, that is why she has a peculiar attitude to men and ascribes lust as their only motive.”

  “Did Aróc respond to Corb’s advances, if that is what she made?”

  “No. Aróc was otherworldly, as I have said. She did not care for any physical contact. She was one of the aesthetes sworn to a life of celibacy. She rejected Corb even as she would have rejected Ross had he thrust his attentions on her.”

  “What makes you sure that he did not?”

  “He told me that he did not. He enjoyed her company and speaking to her of the saints and of the Faith. He respected her too much.”

  “How well did you know Sister Aróc?”

  Brother Echen shrugged.

  “Not well at all. She had been six months with the community. She was still technically under the instruction of the mistress of the novitiates—Sister Corb. Truth to say that I spoke only once to her and that was when her case had come up before the council.”

  “Her case?”

  “Corb had been asked to report on her novitiates by the abbot when we sat in council to discuss the affairs of the community. That was when Corb talked of Sister Aróc’s eccentric behavior. It was decided that I should question her about the voices she claimed to hear.”

  “And what did you decide?”

  Brother Echen shrugged.

  “She was not mad in any dangerous sense, if that is what you mean. However, her mind was not sound. She was ‘otherworldly,’ as have said. I have met one or two religious who claim to have spoken with Christ and his Holy Saints, and known many who have claimed as much, and more who have become saints themselves.”

  “Just one point more, where were you during the last hour?”

  Brother Echen grinned broadly.

  “With ten witnesses who will account for my presence, Sister. I was giving a class in calligraphy to our scribes for I am considered to have a good, firm hand.”

  “Ask Sister Corb to come to me,” Fidelma dismissed him.

  Sister Corb came but was still belligerent.

  “Why haven’t you spoken to Ross?” she demanded without preamble. “There is some way he must have killed her . . .”

  “Sister Corb!” Fidelma’s sharp tone quelled her. “We will speak of matters of which you are competent to give evidence. Firstly, where were you during this last hour?”

  Sister Corb blinked.

  “I was in the abbey.”

  “And you can prove this fact?”

  The mistress of the novitiates frowned for a moment.

  “Most of the time I was instructing the novitiates this morning.”

  Fidelma picked up her hesitation.

  “During this last hour?”

  “Are you accusing me . . .?”

  “I am asking where you were and whether you can prove it.”

  “After instructing the novitiates I spent some time in the abbey gardens. I do not know whether anyone saw me there or not. I was just returning when I heard the pilgrims coming to tell the abbot what had happened here and so I joined him and Brother Echen.”

  “Very well. How long did it take you to climb the hill to this chapel?”

  Sister Corb looked surprised.

  “How long . . .?”

  “Approximately.”

  “Ten minutes, I suppose, why . . .?”

  “That is most helpful,” Fidelma replied, cutting the woman short. She left Sister Corb, ignoring the look of anger on her angular features, and walked across to Brother Ross.

  “Death is not a pleasant thing to look on, is it, Brother?” she opened.

  The young man raised his light blue eyes and stared at her for a moment.

  “It was gloomy in the oratory. I did not see too well. I thought I saw . . .”

  Fidelma smiled reassuringly.

  “You made it plain what you thought you saw.”

  “I feel stupid.”

  “I understand that you knew Sister Aróc quite well?”

  The youth flushed.

  “Well enough. We . . . we were friends. I could say that . . . that I was her only friend in the abbey.”

  “Her behavior was described as a little eccentric. She heard voices. Didn’t that bother you?”

  “She was not mad,” Brother Ross replied defensively. “If she believed it then I saw no cause to question her belief.”

  “But the others thought that she was insane.”

  “They did not know her well enough.”

  “What do you think she was doing up here in the oratory?”

  “She often came to the oratory to be near to the Blessed Declan. It was his voice that she claimed that she heard.”

  “Did she tell you what this voice told her?”

  Brother Ross gave the question consideration.

  “Aróc believed that she was being chosen by the saint as his handmaiden.”

  “How did she interpret that?”

  Brother Ross grimaced.

  “I don’t think that even she knew what she was talking about. She thought she was being told to obey the will of someone two centuries dead.”

  “And what was that will?”

  “Celibacy and service,” replied Brother Ross. “At least, that is what she said.”

  “You say that she liked to come to the oratory to be close to Saint Declan. Did you help her remove the lid of the sarcophagus and then grease it with tallow candle wax to allow her to swing it to and fro at will?”

  Brother Ross raised a startled face to meet her cool gaze.

  Fidelma went on rapidly.

  “Do not ask me how I know. That is obvious. I presume that you did help her for there was no one else to do so.”

  “It was not an act of sacrilege. She just wanted to look on the bones of the Blessed Declan and touch them so that she could be in direct contact with him.”

  “Did you know that Sister Aróc would be here this morning?”

  Brother Ross quickly shook his head.

  “I had told her that the pilgrims would be coming to see the oratory this morning—it being the Holy Day.”

  “It sounds as though she was strong-willed. Maybe she did not care. After all, today would be a day of special significance for her. As the feast of Saint Declan, the day on which he departed life, it would be obvious that she would come here.”

  “Truly, I did not know.”

  “What I fi
nd curious is, knowing her so well as you did, even knowing her habit to open the tomb and gaze on the relics of the saint, why you came rushing out crying the saint’s body was uncorrupted. Had you not known what the relics were like, had you not known what Aróc looked like, it might have been explicable . . .”

  “I told you, it was dark in the oratory and I truly thought . . .”

  “Truly?” Fidelma smiled cynically. “Not for one moment did you consider any other option than to rush forth and proclaim that Declan’s dusty relics had been suddenly translated to incorrupt flesh?”

  Brother Ross wore a stubborn look.

  “I have told you all I know in this matter.” He folded his arms defiantly.

  Fidelma’s lips thinned and she gazed an inordinately long time on him; examining, particularly, the front of his robe.

  “Do you have any suspicion of who killed Sister Aróc?” she finally asked him.

  “I know only that she died a violent death here when there was no need for such an end to her life,” he replied belligerently.

  Fidelma turned away toward the agitated figure of Rian, the Abbot of Ard mór.

  “I am grieved, Fidelma. I am the head of my community, the shepherd of my flock. If there was violence brewing I should have felt it.”

  “You are only a man and not one of the prophets, Rian,” Fidelma admonished. “There is no need for you to take any blame for this onto your shoulders.”

  “How can I help resolve this matter?”

  “By answering a few questions. Did you know Sister Aróc?”

  “I am abbot,” he responded gravely.

  “I meant, know her on a personal level and not merely as one of your flock.”

  The abbot shook his head.

  “She was brought to me six months ago by Sister Corb, who wished to induct her into the school of the novices. She was of the age of choice. She struck me as a religious girl although not overly bright. Apart from my one interview with her, I have only seen her at a distance.”

  He paused, and then glancing swiftly across the chapel ground toward Sister Corb, he continued.

  “Sister Corb came to me a few days ago to lodge an official complaint. It was only then that I heard of her curious behavior; what was it that Brother Echen described it as—‘otherworldly’? Echen was sent to speak with her but he reported that she was eccentric but not dangerous.”

  “Do you know whether Sister Corb might have other motives for complaining about Aróc?”

  The abbot flushed slightly and then grimaced.

  “I know what you mean. I had not thought that applied in this case. But Sister Corb does have several liaisons which I would not approve of. But, as abbot, sometimes it is diplomatic to feign a lack of knowledge.”

  “Several?” Fidelma’s brows arched. “Could it be that some of her—her liaisons, as you call them, might have been jealous of Sister Corb?”

  The abbot looked startled.

  “Do you mean . . .?”

  “Questions again,” snapped Fidelma. “Every question I ask, I seem to get answered by a question!” She repented at once as the Father Abbot seemed to wince at her outburst.

  “I apologize. It is just that it is so difficult to extract information.”

  “No, it is I who should apologize, Fidelma. There are several members of the community who would be angered by Corb’s attention to Sister Aróc, if that is what you are asking. But I do not think that they would be worth considering in this case.”

  “Why not?”

  “If my meager knowledge of law is anything to go by, as well as being a suspect by motive, you must also be suspect by opportunity.”

  “Your knowledge is correct,” affirmed Fidelma.

  “Well, you indicated to Brother Echen and to Sister Corb that this murder took place shortly before your group of pilgrims arrived at the hilltop. Look around you.”

  The Father Abbot spread his arms.

  Fidelma knew what he meant without looking. The hill, as they wound their way up the only track, was just a round grassy hump without trees, without bushes, and only the small oratory on top. Anyone leaving the oratory shortly before the arrival of the band of pilgrims would have no place to hide.

  She smiled quickly.

  “No, Father Abbot, I suppose it was not a sound thought to imagine someone sneaking up from the abbey and killing Sister Aróc and then sneaking away moments before a party of pilgrims arrived at the oratory.”

  “Then what are you saying? Who killed Sister Aróc?”

  Sister Fidelma turned to the others and waved them to come forward.

  “My investigation seems to have drawn to its close,” she said, addressing the abbot.

  He looked bewildered.

  “Then I must ask you again, who killed Sister Aróc?”

  Fidelma glanced toward Brother Ross.

  Sister Corb was smiling in grim satisfaction.

  “I knew it,” she muttered. “I . . .”

  Fidelma raised her hand for silence.

  “I made no accusation, Sister Corb. And you should know the penalty for false accusation.”

  The mistress of the novitiates was suddenly silent, staring at her in bewilderment.

  “But if Brother Ross is not the murderer,” began Brother Echen helplessly, “who killed her?”

  Fidelma glanced again to the young religieux.

  “Brother Ross will tell you,” she said quietly.

  “But you said . . .,” began the abbot.

  Fidelma shook her head impatiently.

  “I said nothing. I implied he did not murder Aróc but I did not say that he did not know who killed her.”

  Brother Ross was regarding her with frightened eyes.

  “You would not believe the truth,” he said quietly.

  “I know the truth,” Fidelma replied.

  “How? How could you know . . .”

  “It was not that hard to work out, given the time factor and the situation of the oratory where no one could hide.”

  “You’d better explain it to us, Sister Fidelma,” the abbot said.

  “Our group of pilgrims came to the oratory and, as I have pointed out, Aróc’s death occurred, judging by the condition of the corpse, moments before,” Fidelma explained. “Ross went into the oratory first. Moments later he came out. He might well have had time to stab Aróc and then return to us to pretend that he had discovered the body. But the evidence is against that. Such a stab wound would have caused blood to spurt on his robes.

  “It was obvious that Aróc was killed while lying in the open tomb. She was not killed elsewhere and dragged to the open tomb. There were no blood splatters leading to the tomb which would have been made. If Brother Ross had killed her, then his robes would have been drenched in spurting blood from the wound. Instead, he has some spots of blood on his right hand and his sleeve. They were made when he bent to touch the corpse.”

  She pointed to his robes so that they could verify her statement.

  The abbot was worried.

  “You have presented us with a conundrum. Tell us the answer. The killer was hiding in or behind the oratory, is that it?”

  Fidelma sighed shortly.

  “I would have thought it obvious.”

  Brother Ross gave a little groan.

  “I confess! I confess! I killed her. I did it.”

  Fidelma looked pityingly at him.

  “No you did not.”

  Sister Corb was indignant.

  “That will not do, Sister. The man has confessed. You cannot deny his confession.”

  Fidelma glanced at her.

  “Brother Ross is even now trying to save his friend’s soul. He believes that the Penitentials would prohibit Sister Aróc being accorded the last rites, a forgiveness of sins and burial in sanctified ground in a state of spiritual peace. It is time to tell the truth, Brother Ross.”

  “The truth?” pressed Brother Echen. “What is the truth?”

  “She killed herself.�
�

  Brother Ross groaned piteously.

  “When you have eliminated every other explanation as being impossible, that which remains must be the truth,” Fidelma said dryly.

  “Am I right, Brother Ross?”

  The young man’s shoulders had slumped in resignation.

  “She . . . she was not of this world. She heard voices. She thought she was being instructed by spirits, from the otherworld. By the Blessed Declan. She had visions. She made me open the tomb so that she could touch the holy relics. I greased the stone so that she could swing it open by herself when she wanted. She often spoke of joining the holy saint. I did not think she meant to kill herself.”

  “What happened?” demanded the abbot.

  “I brought the pilgrims to the oratory and went inside before them in case there was a worshiper at prayer. I had no wish to disturb anyone. I saw her body lying in the open grave with both hands gripping the knife in her breast. I realized with horror what she had done. There was no time nor place to hide the body from the pilgrims. If I had attempted to swing the tomb shut those outside would have heard me. I forced her hands from their grip on the knife and put them at her sides. I tried to remove the knife but it was buried to the hilt, that was when the spots of blood stained my sleeve and hand. I think I panicked, believing the pilgrims would come in any moment. The only thing I could think of was to pretend the saint’s body was uncorrupted and hope it would distract the pilgrims to run down to the abbey to report the news, giving me time to dispose of the body. I did not count on . . .”

  He glanced toward Fidelma and shrugged.

  “The crime of suicide forbids her being laid in hallowed ground,” pointed out Sister Corb. “The suicide is classed as a fingalach, a kin-slayer; a person no better than a murderer.”

  “That is why I tried to protect her so that her soul could journey on to the otherworld in peace,” sobbed the youth. “I loved her that much.”

  “There is no need to worry,” Fidelma assured him gently. “Sister Aróc can be buried in consecrated ground.”

  Here the abbot began to protest. Fidelma cut him short.

  “Sister Aróc, for legal purposes, was classed a mer, one of unsound mind. The law states that the rights of the mentally disturbed should take precedence over other rights. A lenient view is taken of all offenses committed by them.”