Penance of the Damned (Sister Fidelma)

by Peter Tremayne

  ‘So it is not a new rule of the Abbey at Imleach?’

  ‘Indeed it is not, lady,’ he averred sharply. ‘Abbot Ségdae did not believe in conformity of dress for members of his abbey, but people were free to choose.’

  ‘So this is why only Brothers Mac Raith and Máel Anfaid wear the loman?’

  Brother Mac Raith was frowning. ‘Is there some rule which we have broken here by using this dress?’

  ‘By the wearing of it? None that I know of,’ Fidelma said. ‘But I am interested to know why you decided to adopt this form. You have just admitted that as a scribe you did not have to wear it if it was only introduced as a practical aid for workers in the field.’

  The young man hesitated again; this time he actually blushed.

  ‘Come on, man. Answer the question!’ Brother Tuamán ordered impatiently.

  ‘We thought it made us look more distinguished. Few others at Imleach had adopted the fashion so we thought it would make us stand out.’

  Fidelma was actually smiling broadly.

  ‘Vanitas vanitatum!’ Brother Tuamán sneered.

  ‘Well, I suppose it is natural for a young man to have a certain vanity about his looks and dress.’

  ‘Natural – for a member of the Faith?’ Brother Tuamán was outraged. ‘“Turn my eyes from looking at worthless things,” say the holy scriptures.’ He whipped round to the young man, who had now gone pale. ‘Remember the words of the Lord – “for the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.” Remember that. You would learn that lesson in pain, if we followed the Penitentials of Cuimín.’

  ‘I was not aware you knew of Cuimín’s Penitentials?’ Fidelma seized on his words.

  ‘I know of their content. You may recall that I have told you that Abbot Ségdae was considering that content,’ he said. ‘Anyway, I was trying to show Brother Mac Raith that surrender to vanity is not the way to a good religious life. We must strive to follow the teachings of the Faith. I remind him of …’

  ‘I know. A quote from the Psalms echoed by Samuel,’ replied Fidelma, causing the eyes of the steward to widen in astonishment. ‘Wanting to have a good appearance is a natural condition of men and women of all ages. Do we not have a proverb that cleanliness is part of the glory of this world?’ Then she turned to the chastened young man. ‘Still, it is wise to remember, Brother Mac Raith, that the tree with handsome foliage may look beautiful but it often bears bitter fruit, so good appearance may not be worth pursuing, after all.’

  ‘There is one thing I would like to ask,’ Eadulf intervened. ‘How many of these loman, as you call them, do you and Brother Máel Anfaid possess?’

  The young man looked bewildered. ‘Why, we only have one each. The art of twisting the strands and tying the knot at the end cause them to be hard to come by, as well as expensive.’

  ‘So you have one and Brother Máel Anfaid has one?’

  ‘That is so.’

  ‘I was told that you were looking for Brother Máel Anfaid earlier,’ Brother Tuamán commented. ‘Was this what you were seeking him for?’

  ‘Not exactly,’ Fidelma replied evasively. ‘But you remind me, has he returned yet? I would still like to see him.’

  ‘Returned?’ The steward raised his brows a moment.

  ‘He was not here when we came looking for him earlier. We were told he had gone into town, perhaps to see his uncle at the Abbey of Nechta. But we could not find him. I just wondered if he had returned.’

  ‘Not that I know.’ The steward glanced at the young scribe, who quickly shook his head.

  ‘Then we will trouble you no longer,’ Fidelma said.

  ‘Now what?’ Eadulf asked as they left the guest-hostel and Fidelma turned towards the main gate of the fortress.

  ‘I thought we should go in search of the missing brother and see if he still retains his loman.’

  Enda said, ‘If there were only two and Brother Mac Raith still wears his, then it seems obvious …’

  ‘One thing I have learned, Enda,’ she admonished. ‘Never trust the obvious.’

  As they approached the gate they noticed there was some excitement there. Two men, looking like boatmen by their clothing, were engaged in an agitated conversation with one of the guards. Fidelma recognised Ceit, the guard fortress commander. He glanced round as she came up.

  ‘Have you seen Brehon Faolchair?’ he asked.

  ‘He is probably in the great hall with Conrí. Why, what’s wrong?’

  ‘There’s been another death, lady.’

  ‘You mean that of the girl, Ciarnat.’

  ‘No, someone down at the riverbank.’

  ‘Not the guard who escaped last night?’ asked Eadulf.

  ‘Not him,’ Ceit replied scathingly. ‘He’s the sort that is deserving of death but is so sly and quick, I doubt death will ever find him.’

  ‘Then who is it?’ Fidelma tried to keep the exasperation from her voice.

  Ceit gestured to the boatmen. ‘These folk say that a body has been found in the river, a little downstream.’

  ‘He wore a tonsure, lady,’ muttered one of the boatmen, bobbing his head in respect. ‘And the poor fellow was naked, save for the remnant of his robe.’

  ‘A tonsure and a robe?’ Fidelma said. ‘It sounds as if the dead man was a religieux. Why didn’t you go to see Brother Éladach at the Abbey of Nechta?’

  The boatman shrugged. ‘The religieux was a stranger to all of us, but one of my men said he thought he had seen him before, at the fortress. We knew there was a religious deputation staying there. Anyway, it is here that we knew we would find the Brehon.’

  ‘These boatmen have seen this man walking along the river quays from time to time during the last week,’ added Ceit.

  A feeling of inevitability overcame Fidelma. ‘Ceit, if you can’t find Brehon Faolchair, tell Conrí of this matter. Say that we have gone with these men to see if we can identify this body.’

  She instructed the boatmen to lead the way.

  ‘Are you sure the body is not that of a local religieux, one from the Abbey of Nechta?’ she asked as she fell in step with them.

  ‘I would swear that he is a stranger here,’ one of the boatman replied. ‘But apart from that I cannot give much information. The only thing we can tell you for sure is that the man did not enter the water and drown by accident.’

  Fidelma did not break her stride although it took a slight effort. Somehow she had already realised that it would have been no drowning accident that brought the boatmen hurrying up to the fortress. ‘What makes you say that?’

  ‘Because there was an injury to his head. He was struck before he entered the water.’

  They greeted the statement in momentary silence. Then Eadulf moved closer to Fidelma, saying, ‘Are you thinking what I am thinking?’

  ‘Indeed,’ she sighed. ‘I think we have found the missing Brother Máel Anfaid.’

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Fidelma, Eadulf and Enda accompanied the two boatmen to the wooden quays along the river. The area was still crowded with merchants, boatmen and buyers. No one took any notice of them, or seemed aware of their mission, as they pushed through the throngs. It appeared that the body had been found beyond the precincts of the trading quays or any habitation, for they walked until the track narrowed into a muddy footpath that was hard to follow through gorse, brambles and bushes.

  ‘How was the body spotted so far along here?’ Fidelma asked the leading boatman.

  The man spoke over his shoulder: ‘We had been bringing a cargo from the Ford of the Oaks – it’s downriver from here. As we rowed towards the township quays, one of the crew noticed the body. It was face downwards, caught among some rocks. We edged in, and discovered that the man was dead. I left one of my men with the body and I came on to report the find to the fortress.’

  He paused in mid-stride and raised his voice: ‘Hoi! Linneáin! Are you there?’

  From behind some boulde
rs and bushes a voice answered.

  The boatmen led the way round the boulders and they came across another man sitting morosely on a rock. Nearby, stretched on its back, was a body. The water-soaked robe had been arranged to make a decent covering. There was no sign of a belt or cord to fasten the robe. The seated boatman stood up hurriedly and nodded nervously to the newcomers.

  ‘Has anything been disturbed?’ Fidelma asked immediately, glancing at the scene.

  ‘Not since we dragged him from the river here,’ the man, Linneáin, replied, nodding to the rocks that bordered the nearby waters. ‘I merely arranged the robe for dignity’s sake.’

  ‘Any sign of a belt or cord to fasten the robe?’

  ‘He was in the river so perhaps it has been loosened and is somewhere in the water,’ the man suggested. ‘I didn’t see anything like that.’

  Fidelma was pretty sure that she knew the real reason why the belt was missing. She knelt down by the corpse. He was a young man, pleasant-featured in spite of the puffiness of the drowned features. He wore the tonsure of St John, his dark hair cut back from the forehead to a line from ear to ear and long at the back. With help from Enda, Eadulf turned the body over. It was obvious how he had come by his violent death as there were signs of abrasions and blood clotted at the back of the skull. The man had certainly taken a number of blows; he had been struck with great ferocity. Gently they returned the corpse to its former position and stood back.

  There was a sudden movement along the bank and they could hear Conrí’s voice calling them.

  ‘This way!’ Eadulf gave an answering cry. ‘Keep coming along the path and you’ll find us.’

  A few moments later Conrí, followed by Brehon Faolchair, appeared around the rocks. The group moved back to let the newcomers view the body.

  Brehon Faolchair took only one glance and sighed: ‘That is Brother Máel Anfaid from Imleach. Any sign of the cord belt, the loman?’

  ‘None,’ she confirmed.

  ‘So it seems that the cord that Ciarnat was hanged with was his.’ Conrí’s voice was almost relieved.

  ‘Having killed Ciarnat and strung her up with his own loman, it seems that he came here and drowned himself in remorse,’ Brehon Faolchair concluded.

  ‘I think not,’ Fidelma said with a touch of quiet sarcasm. ‘Unless, in his fit of remorse, he was able to beat himself to death on the back of the head before jumping into the river.’

  Brehon Faolchair was in no mood for irony. He immediately knelt to check the body, Eadulf helping him to lift the head. When he stood up, his face was a mask of dismay. ‘Another murder? Ciarnat – and now the person that you think was set up to pay for her death. It is hard to comprehend.’

  ‘This young man was killed in the same manner as Ciarnat – slain by violent blows to the back of the head. That reminds me – Gormán also said he was rendered senseless by a blow to the back of the head, just before Abbot Ségdae was murdered.’

  Brehon Faolchair’s eyes widened. ‘You don’t mean to say that the same person was responsible in all three instances?’

  Fidelma did not answer.

  ‘Let us go through it,’ Eadulf offered. ‘Ciarnat was murdered but her death was arranged to look like suicide – in such a way that it quickly became obvious that it was not. The clue was Brother Máel Anfaid’s loman, or cord belt, a new fashion worn only by him and his companion Brother Mac Raith. It was placed there as a clue to mislead us. It was easily traced to Máel Anfaid.’

  Fidelma was nodding in agreement. ‘Máel Anfaid was dead even before Ciarnat. He was killed, the cord belt was taken, and then the body was dumped in the river. Then the murderer went to kill Ciarnat.’

  Brehon Faolchair was still puzzled. ‘There is a complicated mind at work here.’

  ‘Complicated, indeed,’ Conrí agreed. ‘At the moment, these killings appear random; unrelated.’

  ‘Yet there is a link. The death of Abbot Ségdae, of Ciarnat and of Máel Anfaid are all connected …’ Fidelma stopped abruptly.

  Brehon Faolchair shook his head. ‘I cannot see that.’

  Fidelma turned to the three bemused boatmen. ‘I have only one question more for you. I presume that you are all local men?’

  ‘That we are, lady,’ agreed the leader.

  ‘You know this river well?’

  The fellow could not help a smug grim. ‘An Mháigh? I know the river well, lady, from the place where it rises and all along its sixty-two kilometres to where it empties in the sea estuary.’

  ‘Its flow doesn’t look powerful,’ she said, looking at the almost calm waters.

  ‘You should see it after a rainstorm, lady. The river drains the plains here and just north of where we are now is An Lúbach, the twisted river that reinforces it. Downstream at the Ford of Oaks the river becomes a tidal one and the tide often pushes against the flow downstream.’

  ‘You say that you found the body in the water but snagged by these rocks here on the bank?’

  ‘That is so.’

  ‘So the body could have been pushed into the water further upstream and then floated down here in the current?’

  The boatman held his head to one side as he considered. ‘It depends, lady. Today the river is calm, the flow not great. I don’t think a body would float far today. Apart from that, it could have easily been seen if it floated by the quays before reaching this area.’

  It was a good point. ‘How long do you think he has been dead?’ Fidelma asked Eadulf.

  ‘Not more than a cadar,’ he replied, using the native measurement for a quarter of a day. ‘Perhaps even less than that.’

  ‘So it is likely that he was killed at this point rather than floating here from upstream?’

  ‘Given the nature of the river and the quays, it is possible,’ Eadulf returned thoughtfully. ‘It cannot be said to be a certainty.’

  ‘A short search of this area of the bank would be useful. We may find something,’ Fidelma said. She then addressed the boatmen, telling them, ‘You have been most helpful, and we are grateful for your service.’

  ‘I know these men,’ Brehon Faolchair added, ‘so I will ensure their help is properly acknowledged and rewarded.’

  With the boatmen dismissed, they made a search of the immediate surroundings, but it produced nothing unusual or that they could connect with the death of the religieux. Brehon Faolchair then asked Conrí and Enda to carry the body to the township, to the Abbey of Nechta. There, Brother Éladach, the young man’s uncle, seemed too shocked to fully take in what had happened. Fidelma and her companions left the Brehon with Conrí to help him. Then she led Eadulf and Enda away, across to a deserted part of the river near the wooden bridge.

  It was obvious to Eadulf that Fidelma had chosen this isolated spot as there was something on her mind which she did not wish to speak about in front of anyone else. Eventually, she found an old fallen tree, bleached into a grey-white log by the sun, to provide a seat for them by the riverbank. The two men sat down with her and waited while she stared moodily at the whispering river.

  ‘It makes no sense,’ she suddenly said aloud.

  Eadulf shifted his weight on the log. He agreed entirely but he did not feel inclined to comment. It was Enda who spoke.

  ‘Forgive me, lady. I am a simple warrior and only when playing fidchell, wooden wisdom, do I excel in solving conundrums. However, if there is a link between the three murders, surely one has to go back to the first murder as a starting point.’

  ‘And so?’ Fidelma said to encourage him.

  ‘As you know, I do not believe that my friend, Gormán, killed Abbot Ségdae.’

  ‘Belief is not knowledge,’ Eadulf interrupted grumpily.

  ‘That is true – but what if this plan to destabilise Prince Donennach’s rule was not the result of Abbot Ségdae’s murder but the cause of it?’

  Fidelma was about to chide the young warrior but then she hesitated.

  Enda went on thoughtfully, ‘I was trying to think of a
reason – a good reason – why Gormán would flee from the fortress, knowing that you had made a successful appeal for a new hearing.’

  ‘And did you find an answer?’ Fidelma wanted to know.

  ‘What if Gormán was persuaded to escape by the same person who killed the abbot? As I said, what if the murder itself was part of the plot to cause such conflict?’

  ‘That is rather far-fetched,’ Eadulf objected. ‘Aibell was the one who arranged for Gormán to escape from the fortress, she the one who bribed the guard and arranged the horses. Are you now saying …?’

  ‘Then there is also the involvement of Ciarnat and Máel Anfaid,’ Fidelma butted in. ‘How does that fit into your plot?’

  ‘Well, I still think that is the link, lady.’ Enda would not give way.

  A call interrupted them. It was Conrí, coming from the Abbey of Nechta.

  ‘Brehon Faolchair has asked me to find you. There is to be a meeting with Prince Donennach immediately in the great hall.’

  Fidelma was not enthusiastic. ‘For what purpose would this meeting be? The investigation of the recent deaths has not yet truly begun.’

  ‘It is Abbot Nannid who has demanded it, lady.’ Conrí shrugged. ‘He was with the prince when we reported Ciarnat’s death. He was not happy about it and will be even less so when he hears of Brother Máel Anfaid’s demise.’

  Fidelma rose from her seat with a sigh. ‘No doubt he will use the new deaths to put more pressure on Prince Donennach. We had better go and placate him.’

  As she fell in step with Conrí, she said in a quiet voice: ‘I have a request to ask of you, Conrí.’

  ‘Which is? You have only to ask, lady.’

  ‘Abbot Nannid and his steward have been absent from Mungairit for some months now. He must have left soon after we resolved the mystery there.’

  ‘Ah, you’ve heard the story of how he arrived here and ordered the rebuilding of this little community of Nechta?’

  ‘Don’t you find that strange?’

  ‘It’s not strange that he should try to assert his authority over all the religious communities of the Uí Fidgente,’ replied Conrí thoughtfully, ‘but now that you mention it, it is odd that he should spend such a long time away from his own abbey.’