Hemlock at Vespers sf-9

by Peter Tremayne

  Sárnat looked puzzled.

  “The moon was bright,” she conceded.

  “But if you had truly examined it then you would have seen a red glow to it. The air was still and comparatively dry. It is almost a guarantee of stormy winds from the west.”

  Fidelma suddenly paused and pointed to some plants growing along the edge of the pathway.

  “Here’s another sign. See the trefoil? Look at the way its stem is swollen. And those dandelions nearby, their petals are contracting and closing. Both those signs mean it will be raining soon.”

  “How do you know these things?” asked the girl wonderingly.

  “By observation and listening to the old ones, those who are wise in the ancient knowledge.”

  They had climbed above the rocky cliffs and stood overlooking a sheltered depression in the center of the island where a few gaunt, bent trees grew amidst several stone, beehive-shaped huts and a small oratory.

  “So this is Abbot Selbach’s community?” Fidelma mused. She stood frowning at the collection of buildings. She could see no movement nor signs of life. She raised her voice. “Hello there!”

  The only answer that came back was an angry chorus of disturbed seabirds; of newly arrived auks seeking their summer nesting places who suddenly rose, black and white or dark brown with brilliantly colored bills and webbed feet. The black guillemots, gulls and storm petrels followed, swirling around the island in an angry chiding crowd.

  Fidelma was puzzled. Someone must have heard her yet there was no response.

  She made her way slowly down the grassy path into the shallow depression in which the collection of stone buildings stood. Sárnat trotted dutifully at her side.

  Fidelma paused before the buildings and called again. And again there was no reply.

  She moved on through the complex of buildings, turning round a corner into a quadrangle. The shriek came from Sister Sárnat.

  There was a tree in the center of the quadrangle; a small tree no more than twelve feet high, bent before the cold Atlantic winds, gaunt and gnarled. To the thin trunk of this tree, secured by the wrists with leather thongs, which prevented it from slumping to the ground, the body of a man was tied. Although the body was secured with its face toward the tree trunk, there was no need to ask if the man was dead.

  Sister Sárnat stood shaking in terror at her side.

  Fidelma ignored her and moved forward a pace to examine the body. It was clad in bloodstained robes, clearly the robes of a religieux. The head was shaven at the front, back to a line stretching from ear to ear. At the back of his head, the hair was worn long. It was the tonsure of the Irish church, the airbacc giunnae which had been an inheritance from the Druids. The dead man was in his sixties; a thin, sharp-featured individual with sallow skin and a pinched mouth. She noticed that, hanging from a thong round his neck, he wore a crucifix of some value; a carefully worked silver cross. The bloodstains covered the back of the robe which actually hung in ribbons from the body.

  Fidelma saw that the shoulders of the robe were torn and bloodied and beneath it was lacerated flesh. There were several small stab wounds in the back but the numerous ripping wounds showed that the man had clearly been scourged by a whip before he had met his death.

  Fidelma’s eyes widened in surprise as she noticed a piece of wood fixed to the tree. There was some writing on it. It was in Greek; “As the whirlwind passes, so is the wicked no more …” She tried to remember why it sounded so familiar. Then she realized that it was out of the “Book of Proverbs.”

  It was obvious to her eye that the man had been beaten and killed while tied to the tree.

  She became distracted by the moaning of the girl and turned, suppressing her annoyance.

  “Sárnat, go back to the cove and fetch Lorcán here.” And when the girl hesitated, she snapped “Now!”

  Sárnat turned and scurried away.

  Fidelma took another step toward the hanged religieux and let her eyes wander over the body, seeking more information. She could gather nothing further other than that the man was elderly and a religieux of rank, if the wealth of the crucifix was anything to go by. Then she stepped back and gazed around her. There was a small oratory, no larger than to accommodate half-a-dozen people at most behind its dry stone walls. It was placed in the centre of the six stone cells which served as accommodation for the community.

  Fidelma crossed to the oratory and peered inside.

  She thought, at first in the gloom, that it was a bundle of rags lying on the small altar. Then, as her eyes grew accustomed to the dim light, she saw that it was the body of a young religieux. It was a boy not even reached manhood. She noticed that his robes were dank and sodden. The fair brown hair dried flat against his temples. The features were not calm in death’s repose but contorted in an odd manner, as if the boy had died in pain. She was about to move forward to make a closer investigation, when she nearly tripped over what seemed to be another bundle.

  Another religieux lay stretched face downward, arms outstretched, almost like a supplicant praying toward the altar. His hair was dark. He was clad in the robes of a Brother. This religieux was older than the youth.

  She moved forward and knelt down, seeking a pulse in his neck with her two fingers. It was faint but it was there right enough; the body was unnaturally cold. She bent further to examine the face. The man was about forty. Even unconscious the features were placid and quite handsome. A pleasant face, Fidelma conceded. But dried blood caked one side of the broad forehead where it had congealed around a wound.

  She shook the man by the shoulder but he was deeply unconscious.

  Checking her exhalation of breath, Fidelma stood up and, moving swiftly, she went from stone cell to stone cell but each one told the same story. There was no one hiding from her within the buildings. The cells of the community were deserted.

  Lorcán came running along the path from the cove.

  “I left the girl behind with Maenach,” he grunted as he came up to Fidelma. “She was upset. She says that someone is dead and…”

  He paused and stared around him. From this position, the tree with its gruesome corpse was hidden to him.

  “Where is everyone?”

  “There is a man still alive here,” Fidelma said, ignoring the question. “He needs our immediate attention.”

  She led the way to the small oratory, stooping down to enter and then standing to one side so that Lorcán could follow.

  Lorcán gasped and genuflected as he saw the young boy.

  “I know this boy. His name is Sacán from Inis Beag. Why, I brought him here to join the community only six months ago.”

  Fidelma pointed to the figure of the dark-haired man on the floor which Lorcán had not observed.

  “Do you recognize that Brother?” she asked.

  “The saints defend us!” exclaimed the boatman as he bent down. “This is Brother Spelán.”

  Fidelma pursed her lips.

  “Brother Spelán?” she repeated unnecessarily.

  Lorcán nodded unhappily.

  “He served as Abbot Selbach’s dominus, the administrator of this community. Who did this deed? Where is everyone?”

  “Questions can be answered later. We need to take him to a more comfortable place and restore him to consciousness. The boy-Sacán, you called him? — well, he is certainly beyond our help.”

  “Sister,” replied Lorcán, “my friend Maenach knows a little of the physician’s art. Let me summon him so that he might assist us with Spelán.”

  “It will take too long.”

  “It will take but a moment,” Lorcán assured her, taking a conch shell from a rough leather pouch at his side. He went to the door and blew on it long and loudly. It was echoed by a tremendous chorus of frightened birds. Lorcán paused a moment before turning with a smile to Fidelma. “I see Maenach on the cliff top with the young Sister. They are coming this way.”

  “Then help me carry this Brother to one of the nearby cells so th
at we may put him on a better bed than this rough floor,” instructed Fidelma.

  As she knelt down to help lift the man she suddenly noticed a small wooden cup lying nearby. She reached forward and placed it in her marsupium, her large purselike bag, slung from her waist. There would be time to examine it later.

  Between them, they carried Brother Spelán, who was quite heavy, to the nearest cell and laid him on one of two wooden cots which were within.

  Maenach came hurrying in with Sister Sárnat almost clutching at his sleeve. Lorcán pointed to the unconscious religieux.

  “Can you revive him?” he asked.

  Maenach bent over the man, raising the unconscious man’s eyelids and then testing his pulse.

  “He is in a deep coma. Almost as if he is asleep.” He examined the wound. “It is curious that he has been rendered so deeply unconscious from the blow that made this wound. The wound seems superficial enough. The brother’s breathing is regular and untroubled. I am sure he will regain consciousness after a while.”

  “Then do what you can, Maenach,” Fidelma said. “Sister Sárnat, you will help him,” she instructed the pale, shivering young girl who still hovered uncertainly at the door of the cell.

  She then took the boatman, Lorcán, by the arm and led him from the cell, turning him toward the quadrangle, and pointing silently to the figure bound to the tree.

  Lorcán took a step forward and then let out a startled exhalation of breath. It was the first time he had observed the body.

  “God look down upon us!” he said slowly as he genuflected. “Now there are two deaths among the religious of Selbach!”

  “Do you know this person?” Fidelma asked.

  “Know him?” Lorcán sounded startled at the question. “Of course. It is the Abbot Selbach!”

  “Abbot Selbach?”

  Fidelma pursed her lips with astonishment as she reexamined the body of the dead abbot. Then she gazed around her toward the empty landscape.

  “And did you not say that Selbach had a community of twelve Brothers here with him?”

  Lorcán followed her gaze uncertainly.

  “Yes. Yet the island seems deserted,” he muttered. “What terrible mystery is here?”

  “That is something we must discover,” Fidelma replied confidently.

  “We must leave for the mainland at once,” Lorcán advised. “We must get back to Dún na Séad and inform the Ó hEidersceoil.”

  The Ó hEidersceoil was the chieftain of the territory.

  Fidelma raised a hand to stay the man even as he was turning back to the cell where they had left Brother Spelán.

  “Wait, Lorcán. I am a dálaigh, an advocate of the Law of the Fenechus, holding the degree of Anruth. It is my task to stay and discover how Abbot Selbach and little Sacán met their deaths and why Brother Spelán was wounded. Also we must discover where the rest of the community has disappeared to.”

  Lorcán gazed at the young religieuse in surprise.

  “That same danger may yet attend us,” he protested. “What manner of magic is it that makes a community disappear and leaves their abbot dead like a common criminal bound to a tree, the boy dead and their dominus assaulted and unconscious?”

  “Human magic, if magic you want to call it,” Fidelma replied irritably. “As an advocate of the law courts of the five kingdoms of Ireland, I call upon you for assistance. I have this right by the laws of the Fenechus, under the authority of the Chief Brehon. Do you deny my right?”

  Lorcán gazed at the religieuse a moment in surprise and then slowly shook his head.

  “You have that right, Sister. But, look, Abbot Selbach is not long dead. What if his killers are hiding nearby?”

  Fidelma ignored his question and turned back to regard the hanging body, her head to one side in reflection.

  “What makes you say that he is not long dead, Lorcán?”

  The sailor shrugged impatiently.

  “The body is cold but not very stiff. Also it is untouched by the scavengers…”

  He gestured toward the wheeling birds. She followed his gaze and could see among the seabirds, the large forms of black-backed gulls, one of the most vicious of coastal scavengers. And here and there she saw the jet black of carrion crows. It was the season when the eggs of these harsh-voiced predators would be hatching along the cliff-top nests and the young birds would be demanding to be fed by the omnivorous parents, feeding off eggs of other birds, even small mammals and often rotting carcasses. She realized that the wheeling gulls and crows would sooner or later descend on a corpse but there was no sign that they had done so already.

  “Excellently observed, Lorcán,” she commented. “And presumably Brother Spelán could not have been unconscious long. But do you observe any other peculiar thing about the Abbot’s body?”

  The boatman frowned at her and glanced at the slumped corpse. He stared a moment and shook his head.

  “Selbach was flogged and then stabbed three times in the back. I would imagine that the thrust of the knife was upward, between the ribs, so that he died instantly. What strange ritual would so punish a man before killing him?”

  Lorcán stared more closely and sighed deeply.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Just observe for the moment,” Fidelma replied. “I may need you later to be a witness to these facts. I think we may cut down the body and place it out of reach of the birds within the oratory.”

  Lorcán took his sharp sailor’s knife and quickly severed the ropes. Then he dragged the body into the oratory at Fidelma’s direction.

  Fidelma now had time to make a more careful examination of the young boy’s body.

  “He has clearly been immersed for a while in the sea. Not very long but several hours at least,” she observed. “There are no immediate causes of death. He has not been stabbed nor has he been hit by any blunt instrument.”

  She turned the body and gave a quick sudden intake of breath.

  “But he has been scourged. See, Lorcán?”

  The boatman saw that the upper part of the boy’s robe had been torn revealing that his back was covered in old and new welts and scars made by a whip.

  “I knew the boy’s family well on Inis Beag,” he whispered. “He was a happy, dutiful boy. His body was without blemish when I brought him here.”

  Fidelma made a search of the boy’s sodden clothing, the salt water drying out was already making white lines and patches on it. Her eyes narrowed as she examined the prayer cord which fastened the habit. A small metal hook was hanging from it on which a tiny leather sheath was fastened containing a small knife, a knife typical of those used by some rural orders to cut their meat or help them in their daily tasks. Caught on the projecting metal hook was a torn piece of woollen cloth. Carefully, Fidelma removed it and held it up.

  “What is it, Sister?” asked Lorcán.

  “I don’t know. A piece of cloth caught on the hook.” She made a quick examination. “It is not from the boy’s clothing.” She placed it in her marsupium, along with the wooden cup. Then she cast one final look at the youthful body before covering it. “Come, let us see what else we can find.”

  “But what, Sister?” Lorcán asked. “What can we do? There is a storm coming soon and if it catches us here then here we shall have to remain until it passes.”

  “I am aware of the coming storm,” she replied imperturbably. “But first we must be sure of one thing. You say there were twelve brothers here as well as Selbach? Then we have accounted for only two of them, Spelán and Sacán. Our next step is clear-we must search the island to assure ourselves that they are not hidden from us.”

  Lorcán bit his lip nervously.

  “What if it were pirates who did this deed? I have heard tales of Saxon raiders with their longboats, devastating villages further along the coast.”

  “A possibility,” agreed Fidelma. “But it is not a likely one.”

  “Why so?” demanded Lorcán. “The Saxons have raided along the coas
ts of Gaul, Britain and Ireland for many years, looting and killing…”

  “Just so,” Fidelma smiled grimly. “Looting and burning communities; driving off livestock and taking the people to be slaves.”

  She gestured to the deserted but tranquil buildings.

  Lorcán suddenly realized what she was driving at. There was no sign of any destruction nor of any looting or violence enacted against the property. On the slope behind the oratory, three or four goats munched at the heather while a fat sow snorted and grunted among her piglets. And if that were not enough, he recalled that the silver crucifix still hung around the neck of the dead abbot. There had been no theft here. Clearly, then, there had been no pirate raid on the defenseless community. Lorcán was even more puzzled.

  “Come with me, Lorcán, and we will examine the cells of the Brothers,” instructed Fidelma.

  The stone cell next to the one in which they had left Spelán had words inscribed on the lintel.

  Ora et labora. Work and pray. A laudable exhortation, thought Fidelma as she passed underneath. The cell was almost bare and its few items of furniture were simple. On a beaten earthen floor, covered with rushes strewn as a mat, there were two wooden cots, a cupboard, a few leather tiag leabhair or book satchels, hung from hooks, containing several small gosepl books. A large ornately carved wooden cross hung on a wall.

  There was another maxim inscribed on a wall to one side of this cell.

  Animi indices sunt oculi.

  The eyes are the betrayer of the mind.

  Fidelma found it a curious adage to exhort a Christian community to faith. Then her eyes fell on a piece of written vellum by the side of one of the cots. She picked it up. It was a verse from one of the Psalms. “Break thou the arm of the wicked and the evil man; seek out his wickedness till thou find none…” She shivered slightly for this was not a dictum of a God of love.

  Her eyes fell on a box at the foot of the bed. On the top of the box was an inscription in Greek.

  Pathémata mathémata. Sufferings are lessons.

  She bent forward and opened the box. Her eyes rounded in astonishment. Contained in the box were a set of scourges, of whips and canes. There were some words carved on the underside of the lid. They were in plain Irish.