Act of Mercy

by Peter Tremayne

  ‘When did it happen?’

  ‘About five years ago. It was during the border wars between the High King and the King of Laigin. I was taken by my comrades and nursed in the House of Sorrow at Armagh. It was soon realised that I would no longer be any use as a warrior and so, when I was well enough, I was forced to enter the Abbey at Bangor.’ It was clear that Cian felt himself ill-done by.

  ‘Forced?’ queried Fidelma.

  ‘Where else would I go? A one-armed man – what work could I do?’

  ‘The wound is irreversible? There are some very good physicians at Tuam Brecain.’

  Cian shook his head sullenly.

  ‘Not good enough, then or now. I spent a few years in the Abbey doing such menial tasks as much as my one good arm allowed.’

  ‘Have you consulted any other physicians?’

  ‘That is the purpose of my journey now,’ he admitted. ‘I was told about a physician in Iberia, a man named Mormohec who lives near the Shrine of St James.’

  ‘And you intend to see this Mormohec?’

  ‘There are enough shrines and tombs of saintly men in the Five Kingdoms for me not to be inspired to journey across the sea simply to see another. Yes, I am going to see this Mormohec. It is my last chance to get back to a real life.’

  Fidelma raised her eyebrows slightly. ‘A real life? Apparently you do not consider your current religious calling a real life then?’

  Cian gave a bark of cynical laughter.

  ‘You know me, Fidelma. You know me well enough. Can you see me settled as some fat frater, stuck behind the walls of an abbey all my life, or what is left of it, singing pious Psalms?’

  ‘What does your wife say?’

  Cian looked disconcerted.

  ‘My wife?’

  ‘As I recall, you married the daughter of the steward of the King at Aileach. Her name was Una. Wasn’t that why you left me at Tara without a word?’

  ‘Una?’ Cian pulled a face as if he had tasted something disagreeable. ‘Una divorced me the moment the physicians pronounced my wound would never be cured and that I would be crippled for the rest of my life.’

  Fidelma struggled to stop an expression of sheer malicious pleasure moulding her features. Mentally, she rebuked herself that her personal feelings intruded into another’s misfortune and yet she was still governed by what had happened to her ten years before.

  ‘That must have been a great shock to you … receiving a taste of your own medicine.’ The words were out before she could stop them.

  Cian was lost in his thoughts and missed the last part of the sentence which Fidelma had uttered with such satisfaction.

  ‘Shock. Yes, it was! That mercenary little cow!’

  Fidelma disapproved of his vehemence.

  ‘Had you not been divorced already, Cian, you have uttered one of the fundamental grounds for a wife to divorce her husband, according to the laws of the Cain Lánamna,’ she pointed out diffidently.

  Cian would not be constrained.

  ‘I would say worse about her, if it were worth my while.’

  ‘Did you have any children?’

  ‘No!’ The word cracked out. ‘She claimed it was my fault and laid that as the grounds for the divorce, rather than admitting the truth of it, that she did not want to live with a man who could no longer provide luxury for her.’

  ‘She accused you of sterility?’

  Fidelma knew well that sexual failings on the part of a husband provided grounds for divorce. A man who was claimed to be sterile was given as one of the grounds for divorce under the law. Fidelma hardly believed that Cian, so much the archetypical virile and lusty male, always intent to prove his masculinity, could be accused of that. Nevertheless, it seemed ironic to her that he, of all people, had been divorced for that reason.

  ‘I was not sterile. It was she who refused to have children,’ Cian protested with resentment in his voice.

  ‘But the court surely demanded and examined evidence in proof of what she accused you of?’

  Fidelma knew that the law adopted a very severe line towards women who left their husbands without just cause, as it did towards men who left their wives without a legal reason. A woman who could not show evidence of just cause was proclaimed ‘an absconder from the law of marriage’ and lost her rights in society until she had made amends.

  Cian made a noise, blowing air through his clenched teeth. His eyes dropped momentarily and in that gesture Fidelma knew that the courts would not have made their decision without that evidence. It sounded as if natural justice had caught up with Cian at long last. What was it her mentor, Brehon Morann, used to say? ‘Of injustice and justice, the guilty find justice the harder to bear.’

  ‘Anyway,’ Cian went on, shaking himself as if to rid himself of past ghosts, ‘I am glad the Fates have thrown us together again, Fidelma.’

  She pursed her lips cynically.

  ‘Why would that be, Cian? Do you want to attempt to make amends for the anguish you put a naive young girl through?’

  He broke into that old smile of charm that she had come to resent so deeply.

  ‘Anguish? You know that I was always attracted to you and I admired you, Fidelma. Let’s forget the past. I believed that I was doing the best for you. We have a long voyage ahead and …’

  Fidelma felt a sudden icy tingle at his attempt to disarm her. She took a step backwards.

  ‘Enough has been said between us, Cian,’ she responded coldly.

  She made to push by him but he caught her arm with his left hand. She was surprised at the strength of his grip.

  ‘Come, Fidelma,’ he said urgently. ‘I know that you still care for me, otherwise you would not respond with such passion. I can see your feeling in your eyes …’

  He made an attempt to draw her towards him with his one good arm. Balancing on one foot, she kicked him sharply in the shins. He winced and let go with a curse.

  Her features were filled with loathing.

  ‘You are pathetic, Cian. I could report your action to the captain of this vessel, but instead I will give you the chance to remain out of my way for the rest of the time we are forced to spend on this ship. Take your miserable little existence from my sight.’

  Without waiting for him to do as she instructed, she pushed roughly by him in search of Wenbrit. There was no one in the short corridor between the stern cabins. She paused outside the one that had been used by Sister Muirgel, for she had noticed that the door was slightly ajar. There was a sound of movement from beyond. She pushed the door open a fraction and called softly into the darkness.

  ‘Wenbrit? Are you in here?’

  There was another movement in the shadows.

  ‘Is that you?’ hissed Fidelma.

  There was a scraping noise and a flickering light illuminated the cabin. Wenbrit had adjusted the wick of a lantern to light the scene. Fidelma heaved a sigh of relief and entered the cabin, closing the door behind her.

  ‘What are you doing in the dark?’ she demanded.

  ‘Waiting for you.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘At breakfast, I heard them speaking of you as one who has a reputation for solving mysteries. Is it really true that you are a dálaigh of the law courts of your country?’

  ‘It is true.’

  ‘There is a mystery here that needs a solution, lady.’ The boy’s voice was full of suppressed excitement and something else – a curious tension, almost fear.

  ‘You’d better explain to me what this is all about, Wenbrit.’

  ‘Well, it is about the Sister who used this cabin – Sister Muirgel.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘She was sick, as you know.’

  Fidelma waited patiently.

  ‘They say that she went up on deck in the storm and fell overboard.’

  ‘It sounds as though you do not believe that, Wenbrit,’ Fidelma observed, judging the tone of his voice.

  Wenbrit suddenly reached forward and, from und
er the nearby bunk, he pulled out a dark robe.

  ‘I was sent down to tidy the cabin after breakfast and to gather her things. This was her robe.’

  Fidelma glanced at it.

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  Wenbrit grasped her hand and pressed it against the robe. It was moist.

  ‘Look closely at your hand, Sister. You will find that there is blood on it.’

  Fidelma held out her fingers to the flickering light; she could just see a dark stain on her fingertips.

  She stared at Wenbrit for a moment. Then she took the robe and held it up; there was a jagged tear in the front of it.

  ‘Where did you find this robe?’

  ‘Hidden under the bunk here.’

  ‘If this is blood …’ Fidelma paused thoughtfully, looking at the boy. Now she could understand the combination of fear and excitement on his face.

  ‘I am saying that Sister Muirgel was ill. Before I turned in last night, I came to see her, to find out if there was anything she wanted. She was still poorly and told me to leave her alone.’

  ‘And you did so?’

  ‘Of course. I went to my bunk. But something worried me.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘I think that Sister Muirgel was frightened.’

  ‘What, you mean frightened of the storm?’

  ‘No not the storm. You see, when I went to find out if she needed anything, she had her cabin door locked. I had to call out and reassure her who I was before she would open it for me.’

  Fidelma turned to the door-latch.

  ‘I did not think these doors could be secured,’ she said.

  The boy took the lantern and raised it so that she could see.

  ‘Look at the scratchmarks. All it needs is a piece of wood, even the end of one of those crucifixes that you religieux wear, lodged here so that the latch cannot be raised, and there you have a lock.’

  Fidelma stood back.

  ‘And Sister Muirgel had secured her door in this manner?’

  ‘She had. She was ill and she was frightened. It is impossible that she would have gone wandering out on deck in such a terrible storm in that state.’

  ‘Did you see her afterwards?’

  ‘No. I went to my bunk and fell asleep. I never stirred again until dawn.’

  ‘You were not on deck during the storm?’

  ‘It was not my duty to be, unless the captain specifically sent for me.’

  ‘So you did not see any more of Sister Muirgel after you left her?’

  ‘No. I was awakened by one of the religieux searching the ship just after dawn. I heard him talking to the others, saying that Sister Muirgel was missing. It was the man with whom you were speaking just now. Then I heard Murchad saying that if she was not on the ship she must have gone over the side during the night. The captain thought it was the only possible explanation.’

  ‘So, Wenbrit,’ Fidelma asked reflectively, ‘what do you make of it? Do you have another explanation?’

  ‘I say that Sister Muirgel was in no condition to go up on deck, especially not with the sea running as it was during the night.’

  ‘Desperation makes people do desperate things,’ observed Fidelma.

  ‘Not that one,’ pointed out Wenbrit.

  ‘So what do you say?’

  ‘I say that she was too sick to move on her own. The robe she was wearing has a jagged hole in it and bloodstains all over it. If she went overboard, it was not by accident.’

  ‘So what do you think happened?’

  ‘I think she was killed and then thrown overboard!’

  Chapter Nine

  A short silence fell between them as Fidelma considered the implications of the discovery.

  ‘Have you told the captain about this yet?’ she finally asked.

  Wenbrit shook his head.

  ‘After I heard that you knew about the law, I thought that I should speak with you first. I have not said a word to anyone else.’

  ‘Then I shall speak to Murchad. It might be a wise thing not to say anything to the others. Let everyone continue to think that Sister Muirgel was swept overboard.’ Fidelma picked up the robe and examined it again. ‘I will take this,’ she decided.

  There was one immediate aspect which puzzled her. The tattered state of the robe suggested that Sister Muirgel had been violently attacked and killed with a knife. Yet there was comparatively little blood on it. There was some – but not the quantity she would have expected to see from the grievous wounds suggested by the cuts in the material. And, if the killer had then thrown Sister Muirgel’s s body overboard, why bother to remove the robe from the body before doing so? Why place it under the bunk where it must surely be discovered?

  Fidelma found Murchad in his own cabin. She quickly told him of Wenbrit’s discovery.

  ‘What do you suggest we do, lady?’ Murchad was anxious. ‘Nothing like this has ever happened on board my ship before.’

  ‘As I explained earlier, you are the captain and under the Muirbretha you have the rights of a King and Chief Brehon while the ship is sailing the seas.’

  Murchad gave a lopsided grin.

  ‘Me? King and Chief Brehon? Hardly. But even though this ship is mine to control, I wouldn’t know how to set about finding who is responsible for this deed.’

  ‘You are the representative of law and order on this vessel,’ she insisted.

  Murchad spread his hands.

  ‘What could I do? Demand that the guilty person come forward from the passengers?’

  ‘Are we even sure that the guilty one would be found among the passengers?’

  Murchad raised his eyebrows.

  ‘My crew,’ he boomed indignantly, ‘have been with me for years. No, this evil came aboard with those pilgrims, I’ll guarantee it. You must advise me, lady.’

  He appeared so bewildered and undecided that Fidelma felt sympathy for the captain in his predicament.

  ‘You could request me to make some enquiries; give me authority to do so on your behalf.’

  ‘But if, as you say, someone killed this woman and threw her overboard during the storm, it will surely be impossible to discover the truth.’

  ‘We don’t know that until we start making those enquiries.’

  ‘You may put your own life in jeopardy, lady. A ship is a confined space where it is hard to hide. And once the killer knows you are on their track …’

  ‘It might act two ways. The ship is equally confined and impossible for a murderer to hide in.’

  ‘I would not like my King’s sister to be placed in such peril.’

  Fidelma was reassuring.

  ‘I have been at risk several times before, Murchad. So, do I have your authority?’

  He rubbed his jaw reflectively.

  ‘If you are certain that this is the right way to proceed, then, of course, you have my authority.’

  ‘Excellent. I will start an investigation but we will keep our suspicion of murder secret for the time being. We will not tell anyone about the discovery of the robe. You understand? I shall merely say that I am conducting an enquiry on your behalf because, under the laws of the Muirbretha, you must make a report to the legal authorities as to why a passenger has been lost overboard.’

  The idea that he should do so had not even occurred to Murchad.

  ‘Is that true? Is that what I must do?’

  ‘The family or kin of a passenger lost at sea can claim negligence against you and demand compensation unless it can be shown that it was an accident. That is the situation under law,’ she explained.

  Murchad looked dismayed.

  ‘I had not thought of that.’

  ‘To be honest, that is the least of your problems. The more serious situation would be if she was murdered and the culprit is not discovered. The family could demand you pay her full honour price – and didn’t Sister Crella claim that she was of a noble family of the North? Ah, I wish I had my textbooks with me. I have not had many dealings with the Muirb
retha. I recall the basic laws but I wish my knowledge were more exact. I will do my best to safeguard for any eventuality, Murchad.’

  The captain was despondent as he reflected on the enormity of the task.

  ‘May the saints grant you success in your enquiries,’ he said fervently.

  Fidelma thought for a moment and then gave a little sardonic grimace.

  ‘How shall we judge success? To discover that Muirgel has been murdered? Or that she simply fell overboard?’

  Murchad seemed so forlorn and Fidelma felt sorry for her cynicism.

  ‘We will take it that success merely means discovering the truth,’ she said solemnly. ‘I’ll start immediately.’

  As she went out onto the main deck she spied the shadowy but unmistakable figure of Sister Ainder leaning against the wooden rail gazing into the menacing sea mist which still enveloped the ship. She decided she would start with the sharp-faced Sister.

  Sister Ainder straightened as Fidelma greeted her. Fidelma, who was by no means short in stature, found herself having to look up at the tall woman. Sister Ainder was a woman of mature years, and still impressively handsome, although a smile did not sit easily on her immobile, mask-like features. Her striking eyes were set deep in a sallow symmetrical face. They were dark eyes which seldom blinked, focusing on Fidelma’s own in a searching gaze which gave the younger woman the uncomfortable feeling that they were seeing beyond the tangible and into the very depths of her soul. Sister Ainder exuded a calm, lofty demeanour, almost not of this world. Her voice was strong, smoothly modulated and controlled.

  ‘I must apologise for the embarrassing end to our service, Sister Fidelma,’ she intoned rather than spoke, like a reciter engaged at a reading while her co-religionists were at their meal. Fidelma had never noticed her curious manner of speaking before. Perhaps it was because previously she had been distracted in the company of others. ‘I do not understand the passions of the young.’

  ‘You refer to the exchange between Sister Crella and Brother Bairne? I did find Bairne’s choice of text from the Holy Book somewhat bizarre!’

  ‘There are some things better left unsaid,’ Sister Ainder remarked, as if agreeing with her.

  Fidelma asked, ‘Do you know what Bairne was accusing Crella of, or what Crella was accusing Bairne of? It seemed that something was going on between them.’