‘You saw the figure?’ sneered Cranat. ‘Do you swear it was me?’
‘It was a figure clad in a parti-coloured cloak, a cloak of office.’
Crón grimaced with an attempt at a smile, pointing to the cloak of office that she was wearing.
‘But I wear such a cloak.’
‘Truly,’ called Eadulf. ‘And I saw such a figure wearing a similar parti-coloured cloak climbing on the track across the hills to the mine on the day we were at Muadnat’s farmstead.’
‘I am now confused. Are you accusing Cranat or her daughter?’ cried Father Gormán.
‘Some time ago Crón told me that this same parti-coloured cloak is worn by all chieftains of Araglin and their ladies. You wear one too, don’t you, Cranat? And you also wear a strong perfume of roses.’
The widow of Eber scowled at her but Fidelma turned to Gadra.
‘Gadra, tell Móen I want him to smell something. Bring him here.’ She turned to the others. ‘Móen, to make up for deficiencies in his other senses, has a highly developed sense of smell which I have previously observed.’
Gadra did as she bid him, leading Móen, shuffling forward, to the front of the dais.
‘Father Gormán, will you come forward and witness this procedure? It must not be claimed later that Móen was in doubt.’
Somewhat reluctantly the priest came forward. Fidelma then turned to Gadra.
‘Instruct Móen to smell as I direct and then identify if he has ever detected the same scent before. Tell him that I want to see if he perceives the same scent as he did when he was handed the Ogam stick.’
She thrust out her hand allowing Móen to sniff at it. Cranat had risen to her feet.
‘I shall not let that beast near me!’ she protested, backing away.
‘You will have no choice,’ Fidelma assured her, signalling Dubán to come forward and stand behind her. Móen had shaken his head at Fidelma’s wrist. Fidelma motioned to Crón to hold out her hand. Móen sniffed at it. He turned and made some signs on Gadra’s hand.
Gadra shook his head.
Cranat put her hands resolutely behind her back.
‘Father Gormán,’ Fidelma instructed, ‘as Cranat is reluctant to hold out her hand to the boy, will you help her? Perhaps she will not object to a priest’s hand being laid upon her.’
‘I am sorry, lady,’ muttered Father Gormán, with evident distaste, reaching and firmly taking her left arm. Cranat pulled her head away in distaste as Móen sniffed at her wrist.
There was excitement in the hall as he turned and made rapid signs on Gadra’s hand. The old man looked shocked.
‘It is false!’ screamed Cranat. ‘You are in some plot to discredit me!’
But the old man was not looking at Cranat.
‘It is not the scent of the woman which he identifies,’ Gadra said slowly, staring aghast at Father Gormán. The priest had gone white.
Dubán had automatically stepped forward and gripped the priest by the wrist. Then he frowned disconcerted as he stared at the man’s struggling hand.
‘But Móen said that the person he sniffed at Teafa’s door had calloused hands. This priest’s hands are as soft as a woman’s.’
Fidelma was unperturbed.
‘You are not wearing your leather gloves today, Father Gormán?’ she remarked. ‘You see, Dubán, yesterday you gave me the answer that I was looking for when I thought your hands were calloused but, in fact, you were simply wearing leather gloves.’
With a sudden cry Father Gormán wrenched himself free of Dubán’s grasp, leapt from the dais and began to push from the hall. He barely reached half way across the hall when he was overpowered and led away. His features were distorted in a frenzy of rage. He began shouting unintelligibly: ‘And Christ said – “you serpents, you generation of vipers, how can you escape the damnation of hell?”!’
‘A most appropriate text,’ muttered Eadulf to disguise his astonishment.
Cranat collapsed back into her chair, her face flushed, her breathing heavy. She was regarding Fidelma with hatred.
‘You have some explaining to do before we can believe in this fantastic charge,’ she said quietly.
Chapter Twenty-One
Fidelma was still standing quietly before the dais and regarding them all with a sombre expression.
‘There are few places in these five kingdoms where I have encountered so much hatred, so much deceit and so much sadness,’ she began slowly. ‘Gormán and Menma might be guilty of taking human lives but that which stimulated them to do so is an evil inherent in this valley.
‘Was Eber the instigator of this malignancy or was he also a victim? We shall not know. Tomnát was certainly a victim. She might not have been had she been able to trust at least one person in this valley other than her fellow victim and sister; one person might have saved her.’
She turned and regarded Dubán without a change of expression.
The warrior lowered his gaze before her fiery green eyes.
‘Teafa had also been a victim but she had saved some of her self respect as well as her sister’s son. Móen was the saddest victim of them all.’
‘And wasn’t I a victim?’ demanded Cranat harshly. ‘I was a princess of the Déisi and yet I was forced to reduce myself in wedlock to this depravity?’
‘Forced? You were prepared to put up with it. Even when Teafa first came to warn you years ago that your husband was continuing his degeneracy and had encouraged your own daughter into his bed when she was only twelve or thirteen!’
‘That’s not true!’ gasped Crón, starting forward, her face draining of blood.
‘No?’ Fidelma grimaced sourly. ‘You have already confessed as much. Better these dark secrets should now be made known. Teafa saw Eber’s vileness starting all over again with you, Crón. You became a victim too. She went to warn Cranat to leave, to divorce and take you with her. But Cranat was content to merely remove herself from her husband’s bed and continued to live here because here was wealth and security. She left her daughter to fend for herself. It was not Cranat who then refused to speak further with Teafa but Teafa with Cranat.’
There was a deathly silence in the hall of assembly.
Fidelma turned to Crón and regarded her sorrowfully.
‘Yes, Crón, you were a victim but you also made yourself mistress of the situation. You used your father’s lascivious desires to wheedle yourself into power. Muadnat had been your father’s tanist. A few weeks ago you felt yourself strong enough to be able to demand that your father nominate you as tanist and then use his power to ensure the derbfhine support you. Indeed, because of Eber’s bribes only four people stood against you. Your own mother and Teafa, who both knew the price that you were paying; Agdae, Muadnat’s nephew; and Menma who was bound to Muadnat not only as a relative but by the power of Muadnat’s gold. You are unfit to hold office.’
She swung round again on Dubán.
‘And without office, Dubán, how long will you declare your love for Crón? Tomnat recognised that relentless ambition in you twenty years ago, when she felt that she could not confide her terrible secret. Now that Crón’s secret, the same secret, is out, will you remain faithful? No!’ She raised her hand as he made to answer. ‘No protestations now. Do not answer me until after the meeting of the derbfhine has declared whether Crón is to be chieftain of Araglin or not.’
Fidelma turned to the hall, sweeping everyone with her passionate gaze.
‘Morann of Tara once said, evil can enter as a tiny seed and, if unchecked, grows into an oak tree. A forest has grown here. The hope of Araglin lies in the innocence of youth, of boys like Archú and girls like Scoth.’ She smiled suddenly at Clídna. ‘And if any single haven of morality exists in this place, it is to be found here within this woman.’
Clídna blushed and hung her head.
Agdae rose slowly to his feet.
‘Your judgment on Araglin is harsh, sister,’ he said quietly. Then, with an awkward glance to the silent Cra
nat and her daughter, he added: ‘But it is not unjustly spoken. However, tell us how you came to identify Father Gormán? You also built up a good argument against Cranat.’
‘I knew it was unlikely that Cranat had killed them for a simple reason: if she had been the murderess then she would not have sent to my brother at Cashel to send a Brehon to make a formal investigation.’
‘Why did she do that?’ asked Eadulf.
‘Above all things, as we have learnt, Cranat is a princess of the Déisi. She did not want any finger of suspicion to be pointed at her house. She thought that the presence of a Brehon would lend moral weight to the matter. I believe that she really thought that Móen was guilty having discovered the truth of his birth.’
She gazed sorrowfully at Eadulf. ‘There was one point which destroyed the case against Cranat, which I presented purposefully to allay Gormán’s suspicion about where I was leading. Everyone failed to question it. That was good, otherwise Gormán might have been put on his guard but I am surprised some of you did not spot it.’
‘What was that?’ demanded Agdae gloomily.
‘You forgot the maxim – summa sedes non capit duos - the highest seat does not hold two. Crón had become tanist before her father’s murder. Muadnat was no longer tanist so Cranat could not have killed Eber with the hope of becoming wife of the new chieftain.’
‘Then what made you suspect Gormán?’ asked Gadra.
‘Easy to say,’ acknowledged Fidelma. ‘At Lios Mhór I first heard that Gormán was a fanatical advocate for Rome. As it turned out, he was simply a fanatic, an intolerant zealot, whatever he believed in. I learnt that he had built a chapel at Ard Mór and, I was informed, attracted much wealth to furnish it. His chapel here, Cill Uird, was equally opulent. Unlike most priests, he had money to equip and ride a horse.’
‘Wealth is not a sign of guilt,’ muttered Cranat.
‘It depends on where that wealth came from. Gormán had become the partner in a secret gold mine with Muadnat. How or why the partnership developed, perhaps we shall never know. My guess is that Muadnat, to exploit his mine and escape paying tribute to Eber, decided Gormán was a means of disguising where the gold came from. Gormán could pretend that it came as gifts from those who supported his beliefs. The gold was converted into riches stored in the chapels at Ard Mór and Cill Uird. What Muadnat overlooked was man’s inherent greed. Just because Gormán was a priest it did not mean that he was not a man.’
‘But why did he kill Eber and Teafa?’ demanded Crón, overcoming her resentment at what Fidelma had revealed about her relationship with her father.
‘I have said – he was an intolerant fanatic. Once he learnt that Eber was the father of Móen he was incensed against the immorality of it. Eber must be despatched to Gormán’s concept of hell and Móen, as a child of Eber’s incest, was to be punished by being accused of the murder. I have already explained that Teafa was killed to keep her silent about the evidence of the Ogam stick. The motive with Eber was no more complicated than Gormán’s zealous morality.’
‘But how did he learn that Móen was Eber’s son?’ asked Crón. ‘Even I did not know of it before you told us.’
Fidelma looked hard at Cranat.
‘I think that you can answer this question. Two weeks ago Dubán saw you and Teafa arguing. You left that argument and went directly to see Gormán. When Teafa found out that Crón had used her relationship with her father to become tanist, she went to you to argue further why this thing must not be so. She told you that Móen was the child of Eber’s incest?’
‘As priest here, Father Gormán had a right to know,’ replied Cranat.
‘But Gormán was a fanatic and that knowledge led directly to their deaths. After Cranat had told him, Gormán went in fury to accuse Eber and Teafa. Crítán witnessed the confrontation and saw Eber strike the priest. That was when Gormán decided to kill him.’
‘But what if Móen had not picked out the perfume of the church incense?’ Eadulf reflected. ‘I would have thought that such incense would have been a common enough odour to Móen to have recognised and identified it with the chapel before this?’
Fidelma shook her head sadly at Eadulf.
‘Don’t you remember that Gormán told us that he refused to allow Móen into the chapel? That he avoided him? Móen was, therefore, not able to identify the perfume before today.’
‘But why did Father Gormán kill my uncle, Muadnat?’ asked Agdae. ‘He was his partner in the illegal mine.’
‘I mentioned the reason briefly before. As Muadnat began to draw more and more attention to himself, trying to legally wrest the land back from Archú, Gormán became fearful. This behaviour could lead to the discovery of the mine because people’s attention was being focussed on the area. Menma was Gormán’s man, not Muadnat’s. He had Menma kill Muadnat to preserve the secret. For the same reason, he had Menma kill Morna and Dignait. And Gorman’s simple greed played the prime part.’
‘What made you realise that Menma served Gormán?’
‘That there was some collaboration between Gormán and Menma became obvious to me. I saw them arguing together once. When Archú told Gormán he wanted to bring Muadnat to court over his land dispute, Gormán told Archú to take his case to Lios Mhór. I found this curious until I realised that this would prevent Eber being involved in the case. Eber might have questioned Muadnat too closely. Gormán instructed Archú to go by a longer route to Lios Mhór. Perhaps the reason for this was so that Archú would not encounter the gold being transported to Ard Mór along the quicker route.
‘Gormán then found that one of the miners he was employing, Morna, had taken a piece of rock from the mine to his brother Bressal. Menma was told to kill Morna and also destroy the hostel. The excuse of outlaws in the district would serve as a covering for these acts.
‘There were several things that now drew my attention to Gormán. Eadulf had seen a slight figure wearing a parti-coloured cloak at Muadnat’s farmhouse. The figure vanished. Moments later, Gormán appeared but without a riding cloak. I knew Gormán had possessed such a cloak for I had seen the parti-coloured cloak in Gormán’s sacristy. Gormán’s clothes were also impregnated with a heavy scent from the incense he used in his church. Gormán wore gloves. The implication of these facts, I have already explained.
‘On the night before poor Brother Eadulf took the poisonous mushrooms, Gormán had overheard me expressing confidence to Crón that I could name the murderer by the next day. He slipped into the kitchen early the next morning and placed some false morel on the plates. Dignait had seen him in the kitchen and he realised that when word of the poison became known, she would not hesitate to point the finger at him to absolve herself. Or perhaps he had always meant to lay the blame on her. Menma was sent to silence her and told what to do with her body. Gormán was one of the few people who knew about the underground storage chamber on Archú’s farm for he had, as Archú told me, been there when someone died by accident and it was Gormán who suggested, at that time, the chamber be sealed. Gormán also wrote good Latin and Ogam. The parts of the puzzle were joining together.’
Fidelma paused and spread her hands expressively.
‘But, when all these facts were placed together, one main factor fitted the pieces of the puzzle into a frame. Gormán had been told that Móen was born of Eber’s incestuous relationship with his sister. He let the fact slip out when he was talking to me. His creed of intolerance could not accept it and for that he killed Eber and Teafa in an act whose motives were unrelated to the illegal gold mine.’
Three days later Fidelma and Eadulf stopped at Bressal’s ‘Hostel of the Stars’ to break the news of his brother’s death. The plump keeper of the hostel was shocked but resigned.
‘I suspected that death had overtaken him when he did not return. My brother spent his life searching for wealth in order to spend the rest of it doing nothing. He would not have been happy doing nothing. But it is sad that he could not have discovered that fact for hims
elf.’
Fidelma nodded. ‘Auri sacra fames - the cursed hunger for gold destroys more than it creates. Did not the blessed Matthew write: “Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust do corrupt and where thieves break through and steal”?’
Bressal smiled in agreement with the sentiment.
‘Say a prayer for Morna’s soul, sister.’
They rode on through the woods towards the main road which would lead them to Cashel. In the three days that they had been waiting at the rath of Araglin, since Fidelma’s relevations, news had reached her that the mineworkers had been rounded up and Gormán’s store of gold in the chapel at Ard Mór had been confiscated by the local Brehon, pending the result of the trial of Gormán at Cashel. But the trial would not take place. Fidelma had generously allowed Gormán to be imprisoned in the sacristy of his own chapel. On the day following his internment, Gormán ate a secret store of false morel and died within four hours. It was, remarked Brother Eadulf, still feeling delicate in health, a fitting end.
Agdae was appointed temporary tanist of the Araglin by a special meeting of the derbfhine of the family of Eber. Only Crón protested. It was obvious that she would not be confirmed as chieftain of Araglin. Dubán had not even waited for the results of the meeting but saddled his horse and vanished into the mountains. Cranat had also taken what possessions she could and ridden back to the land of the Déisi.
It was Eadulf who voiced Fidelma’s sentiments as they rode along.
‘I shall not be sorry to leave this place. I feel I need to find some good clean water to bathe in after all that has happened.’
The Spider's Web Page 31
