The Mammoth Book of Historical Whodunnits Volume 3 (The Mammoth Book Series)

by Mike Ashley

“I believe in the Otherworld and our transition from this one to that but . . . I think that those who repose in the Otherworld have more to do than to try to return to this one to murder people. I have investigated several similar matters where shadows of the Otherworld have been blamed for crimes. Never have I found such claims to be true. There is always a human agency at work.”

  Abbot Laisran shrugged.

  “So we must accept that the girl is guilty?”

  “Let me hear more. Who was this Brother Síoda?”

  “A young man. He worked in the abbey fields. A strong man. A farmer, not really one fitted in mind for the religious life.” Abbot Laisran paused and smiled. “I’m told that he was a bit of a rascal before he joined us. A seducer of women.”

  “How long had he been with you?”

  “A year perhaps a little more.”

  “And he was well behaved during this time? Or did his tendency as a rascal, as you describe it, continue?”

  Abbot Laisran shrugged.

  “No complaints were brought to me and yet I had reason to think that he had not fully departed from his old ways. There was nothing specific but I noticed the way some of the younger religieuse behaved when they were near him. Smiling, nudging each other . . . you know the sort of thing?”

  “How was this prophecy of Brother Síoda’s death delivered?” she replied, ignoring his rhetorical question.

  “It was at the mid-day mealtime. Sister Scáthach had been quiet for some days and so, instead of eating alone in her cell, Sister Sláine brought her to the refectory. Brother Síoda was sitting nearby and hardly had Sister Scáthach been brought into the hall than she pointed a finger at Brother Síoda and proclaimed her threat so that everyone in the refectory could hear it.”

  “Do you know what words she used?”

  “I had my steward note them down. She cried out: ‘Beware, vile fornicator for the day of reckoning is at hand. You, who have seduced and betrayed, will now face the settlement. Your heart will be torn out. Gormflaith and her baby will be avenged. Prepare yourself. For the shadows of the Otherworld have spoken. They await you.’ That was what she said before she was taken back to her cell.”

  Fidelma nodded thoughtfully.

  “You said something about her having to know facts about Brother Síoda’s life that he thought no one else knew?”

  “Indeed. Brother Síoda came to me in a fearful state and said that Scáthach could not have known about Gormflaith and her child.”

  “Gormflaith and her child? Who were they?”

  “Apparently, so Brother Síoda told me, Gormflaith was the first girl he had ever seduced when he was a youth. She was fourteen and became pregnant with his child but died giving birth. The baby, too, died.”

  “Ah!” Fidelma leant forward with sudden interest. “And you say that Brother Síoda and Sister Scáthach did not know one another? How then did she recognise him in the refectory?”

  Abbot Laisran paused a moment.

  “Brother Síoda told me that he had never spoken to her but of course he had seen her in the refectory and she must have seen him.”

  “But if no words ever passed between them who told her about his past life?”

  Abbot Laisran’s expression was grim.

  “Brother Síoda told me that there was no way that she could have known. Maybe the voices that she heard were genuine?”

  Fidelma looked amused.

  “I think I would rather check out whether Brother Síoda had told someone else or whether there was someone from his village here who knew about his past life.”

  “Brother Síoda was from Mag Luirg, one of the Uí Ailello. No one here would know from whence he came or have any connection with the kingdom of Connacht. I can vouch for that.”

  “My theory is that when you subtract the impossible, you will find your answers in the possible. Clearly, Brother Síoda passed on this information somehow. I do not believe that wraiths whispered this information.”

  Abbot Laisran was silent.

  “Let us hear about Sister Sláine,” she continued. “What made you choose her to look after the girl?”

  “Because she worked in the apothecary and had some understanding of those who were of bizarre humours.”

  “How long had she been looking after Sister Scáthach?”

  “About a full month.”

  “And how had the girl’s behaviour been during that time?”

  “For the first week it seemed better. Then it became worse. More violent, more assertive. Then it became quiet again. That was when we allowed Sister Scáthach to go to the refectory.”

  “The day before the murder?”

  “The day before the murder,” he confirmed.

  “And Sister Sláine slept in the next cell to the girl?”

  “She did.”

  “And did she always lock the door of Sister Scáthach’s cell at night?”

  “She did.”

  “And on that night?”

  “Especially on that night of her threat to Síoda.”

  “And the key was always hung on a hook outside the cell so that there was no way Sister Scáthach could have reached it?”

  When Abbot Laisran confirmed this, Fidelma sighed deeply.

  “I think that I’d better have a word with Sister Scáthach and also with Sister Sláine.”

  Fidelma chose to see Sister Scáthach first. She was surprised by her appearance as she entered the gloomy cell, which the girl inhabited. The girl was no more than sixteen or seventeen years old, thin with pale skin. She looked as though she had not slept for days, large dark areas of skin showed under her eyes that were black, wide and staring. The features were almost cadaverous, as if the skin was tightly drawn over the bones.

  She did not look up as Fidelma and Laisran entered. She sat on the edge of her bed, hands clasped between her knees, gazing intently on the floor. She appeared more like a lost waif than a killer.

  “Well, Scáthach,” Fidelma began gently, sitting next to the girl, much to the surprise of Laisran who remained standing at the door, “I hear that you are possessed of exceptional powers.”

  The girl started at the sound of her voice and then shook her head.

  “Powers? It is not a power but a curse that attends me.”

  “You have a gift of prophecy.”

  “A gift that I would willingly return to whoever cursed me with it.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “They say that I killed Brother Síoda. I did not know the man. But if they tell me that it was so then it must be so.”

  “You remember nothing of the event?”

  “Nothing at all. So far as I am aware, I went to bed, fell asleep and was only awoken when the steward and the abbot came into my cell to confront me.”

  “Do you remember prophesying his death in the refectory?”

  The girl nodded quickly.

  “That I do remember. But I simply repeated what the voice told me to say.”

  “The voice?”

  “The voice of the shadow from the Otherworld. It attends me at night and wakes me if I slumber. It tells me what I should say and when. Then the next morning I repeat the message as the shadows instruct me.”

  “You hear this voice . . . or voices . . . at night?”

  The girl nodded.

  “It comes to you here in your cell?” pressed Fidelma. “No where else?”

  “The whispering is at night when I am in my cell,” confirmed the girl.

  “And it was this voice that instructed you to prophesy Brother Síoda’s death? It told you to speak directly to him? Did it also tell you to mention Gormflaith and her baby?”

  The girl nodded in answer to all her questions.

  “How long have you heard such voices?”

  “I am told that it has been so since I was a little girl.”

  “What sort of voices?

  “Well, at first the sounds were more like the whispering of the sea. We lived by the sea and so I was no
t troubled at first for the sounds of the sea have always been a constant companion. The sounds were disturbing but gentle, kind sounds. They came to me more in my head, soft and sighing. Then they increased. Sometimes I could not stand it. My parents said they were voices from the Otherworld. A sign from God. They brought me here. The abbey treated me well but the sounds increased. I was placed here to be looked after by Sister Sláine.”

  “I hear that these voices have become very strident of late.”

  “They became more articulate. I am not responsible for what they tell me to say or how they tell me to say it,” the girl added as if on the defensive.

  “Of course not,” Fidelma agreed. “But it seems there was a change. The voice became stronger. When did this change occur?”

  “When I came here to this cell. The voice became distinct. It spoke in words that I could understand.”

  “You mention voices in the plural and singular. How many voices spoke to you?”

  The girl thought carefully.

  “Well, I can only identify one.”

  “Male or female.”

  “Impossible to tell. It was all one whispering sound.”

  “How did it became so manifest?”

  “It was as if I woke up and they were whispering in a corner of the room.” The girl smiled. “The first and second time it happened, I lit a candle and peered round the cell but there was no one there. Eventually I realised that as strong as the voices were they must be in my head. I resigned myself to being the messenger on their behalf.”

  “And the voice instructed you to do what?”

  “It told me to stand in the refectory and pronounce their messages of doom.”

  Abbot Laisran learnt forward in a confiding fashion.

  “Sometimes these messages were of violence against the whole community and at other times violence against individuals. But it was the one against Brother Síoda that was the most specific and named events.”

  Fidelma nodded. She had not taken her eyes from the girl’s face.

  “Why do you believe this voice came from the Other-world?”

  The girl regarded her with a puzzled frown.

  “Where else would it be from? I am a good Christian and say my prayers at night. But still the voice haunts me.”

  “Have you heard it since the warning you were to deliver to Brother Síoda?”

  The girl shook her head.

  “Not in the same specific way.”

  “Then in what way?”

  “It has gone back to the same whispering inconsistency, the sound of the sea.”

  Fidelma glanced around the cell.

  “Is this the place where you usually have your bed?”

  The girl looked surprised for a moment.

  “This is where I normally sleep.”

  Fidelma was examining the walls of the cell with keen eyes.

  “Who occupied the cells on either side?”

  “On that side is Sister Sláine who looks after this poor girl. To the other side is the chamber occupied by Brother Cruinn, my steward.”

  “But there is a floor above this one?”

  “The chamber immediately above this is occupied by Brother Torchán, our gardener.”

  Fidelma turned to the lock on the door of the cell.

  Abbot Laisran saw her peering at the keyhole.

  “Her cell was locked and the key on the inside when Brother Cruinn and I came to this cell after Brother Síoda had been found.”

  Fidelma nodded absently.

  “That is the one puzzling aspect,” she admitted.

  Abbot Laisran looked puzzled.

  “I would have thought it tied everything together. It is the proof that only Scáthach could have brought the weapon and robe into her cell and therefore she is the culprit.”

  Fidelma did not answer.

  “How far is Brother Síoda’s cell from here?”

  “At the far end of this corridor.”

  “From the condition of the robe that you showed me, there must have been a trail of blood from Brother Síoda’s cell to this one?”

  “Perhaps the corridor had been cleaned,” he suggested. “One of the duties of our community is to clean the corridors each morning.”

  “And they cleaned it without reporting traces of the blood to you?” Fidelma was clearly unimpressed by the attempted explanation. Fidelma rose and glanced at the girl with a smile.

  “Don’t worry, Sister Scáthach. I think that you are innocent of Brother Síoda’s death.” She turned from the cell, followed by a deeply bewildered Abbot Laisran.

  “Let us see Sister Sláine now.”

  At the next cell, Sister Sláine greeted them with a nervous bob of her head.

  Fidelma entered and glanced along the stone wall that separated the cell from that of Sister Scáthach’s. Then she turned to Sister Sláine who was about twenty-one or two, an attractive looking girl.

  “Brother Síoda was a handsome man, wasn’t he?” she asked without preamble.

  The girl started in surprise. A blush tinged her cheeks.

  “I suppose he was.”

  “He had an eye for the ladies. I presumed that you were in love with him, weren’t you?”

  The girl’s chin came up defiantly.

  “Who told you?”

  “It was a guess,” Fidelma admitted with a soft smile. “But since you have admitted it, let us proceed. Do you believe in these voices that Sister Scáthach hears?”

  “Of course not. She’s mad and has now proved her madness.”

  “Do you not find it strange that this madness has only manifested itself since she was moved into this cell next to you?”

  The girl’s cheeks suddenly suffused with crimson.

  “Are you implying that . . .?”

  “Answer my question,” snapped Fidelma, cutting her short.

  The girl blinked at her cold voice. Then, seeing that Abbot Laisran was not interfering, she said, “Madness can alter, it can grow worse . . . it is a coincidence that she became worse after Abbot Laisran asked me to look after her. Just a coincidence.”

  “I am told that you work for the apothecary and look after sick people? In your experience, have you ever heard of a condition among people where they have a permanent hissing, or whistling in the ears?”

  Sister Sláine nodded slowly.

  “Of course. Many people have such a condition. Sometimes they hardly notice it while others are plagued by it and almost driven to madness. That is what we thought was wrong with Sister Scáthach when she first came to our notice.”

  “Only at first?” queried Fidelma.

  “Until she started to claim that she heard words being articulated, words that formed distinct messages which, she also claimed, were from the shadows of the Otherworld.”

  “Did Brother Síoda ever tell you about his affair with Gormflaith and his child?” Fidelma changed the subject so abruptly that the girl blinked. It was clear from her reaction that Fidelma had hit on the truth.

  “Better speak the truth now for it will become harder later,” Fidelma advised.

  Sister Sláine was silent for a moment, her eyes narrowed as she tried to penetrate behind Fidelma’s inquisitive scrutiny.

  “If you must know, I was in love with Síoda. We planned to leave here soon to find a farmstead where we could begin a new life together. We had no secrets from one another.”

  Fidelma smiled softly and nodded.

  “So he did tell you?”

  “Of course. He wanted to tell me all about his past life. He told me of this unfortunate girl and her baby. He was very young and foolish at the time. He was a penitent and sought forgiveness. That’s why he came here.”

  “So when you heard Sister Scáthach denounce him in the refectory, naming Gormflaith and relating her death and that of her child, what exactly did you think?”

  “Do you mean, about how she came upon that knowledge?”

  “Exactly. Where did you think Sister Scáthach obtai
ned such knowledge if not from her messages from the Other-world?”

  Sister Sláine pursed her lips.

  “As soon as I had taken Sister Scáthach back to her cell and locked her in, I went to find Brother Síoda. He was scared. I thought at first that he had told her or someone else apart from me. He swore that he had not. He was so scared that he went to see Abbot Laisran . . .”

  “Did you question Sister Scáthach?”

  The girl laughed.

  “Little good that did. She simply said it was the voices. She had most people believing her.”

  “But you did not?”

  “Not even in the madness she is suffering can one make up such specific information. I can only believe that Síoda lied to me . . .”

  Her eyes suddenly glazed and she fell silent as if in some deep thought.

  “Cloistered in this abbey, and a conhospitae, a mixed house, there must be many opportunities for relationships to develop between the sexes?” Fidelma observed.

  “There is no rule against it,” returned the girl. “Those advocating celibacy and abstinence have not yet taken over this abbey. We still live a natural life here. But Síoda never mixed with the mad one, never with Scáthach.”

  “But you have had more than one affair here?” Fidelma asked innocently.

  “Brother Síoda was my first and only love,” snapped the girl in anger.

  Fidelma raised her eyebrows.

  “No others?”

  The girl’s expression was pugnacious.

  “None.”

  “You had no close friends among the other members of the community?”

  “I do not get on with the women, if that is what you mean.”

  “It isn’t. But it is useful to know. How about male friends?”

  “I’ve told you, I don’t . . .”

  Abbot Laisran coughed in embarrassment.

  “I had always thought that you and Brother Torchán were friends.”

  Sister Sláine blushed.

  “I get on well with Brother Torchán,” she admitted defensively.

  Fidelma suddenly rose and glanced along the wall once more, before turning with a smile to the girl.

  “You’ve been most helpful,” she said abruptly, turning for the door.

  Outside in the corridor, Abbot Laisran was regarding her with a puzzled expression.

  “What now?” he demanded. “I would have thought that you wanted to develop the question of her relationships?”