The Subtle Serpent

by Peter Tremayne

  ‘When the sisters washed the body and prepared it, the items were removed. I have them in my chamber.’

  Fidelma controlled the disapproving response that came to her tongue. What was the point of her examination if vital evidence had been removed? She checked herself and said: ‘Be so good as to tell me where these items were placed on the corpse.’

  Abbess Draigen sniffed dangerously. She was obviously unused to being ordered to do anything, especially by a young religieuse.

  ‘Sister Síomha and Sister Brónach, who found the corpse, will be able to inform you of this matter.’

  ‘I will speak with them later,’ Fidelma replied patiently. ‘As of this moment, I would like to know where the items were found.’

  The abbess’s mouth tightened and then she relaxed a little yet her voice was stiff.

  ‘There was a copper crucifix, with a leather thong, poorly made, gripped in the right hand of the corpse. The thong was wrapped around the wrist.’

  ‘Did it seem to have been placed there?’

  ‘No; the fingers of the hand were clasped tightly around it. In fact, the sisters had to break the bones of two fingers to extract it.’

  Fidelma forced herself to examine the hand in order to verify it.

  ‘And apart from the breaking of the fingers, when the body was washed, was any particular attention given to the hands? Were they specifically manicured?’

  ‘I do not know. The body was washed and cleaned in accordance with custom.’

  ‘Can you speculate on the blue stain?’

  ‘Not I.’

  ‘And what was the other item which was found?’

  ‘There was a wooden wand inscribed in Ogham on the left arm,’ continued the abbess. ‘This was tied on to the forearm and more easily removed.’

  ‘Tied on? And you have this still? You have it together with the binding?’ pressed Fidelma.

  ‘Of course,’ replied the abbess.

  Fidelma stood back and surveyed the corpse.

  Now came the most distasteful part of the task.

  ‘I need help to turn the corpse over, Abbess Draigen,’ she said. ‘Would you assist me?’

  ‘Is it necessary?’ demanded the abbess.

  ‘It is. You may send for another sister, if you so wish.’

  The abbess shook her head. Sniffing at her piece of cloth to inhale the odour of lavender, before thrusting it into her sleeves, the abbess moved forward and helped Fidelma manipulate the corpse, firstly moving it on to its side and then over so that the back was exposed. The blemishes were immediately apparent. The marks of recent welts crisscrossed the white flesh as if this body had been scourged before death. In life, some of those abrasions had broken the skin and caused bleeding.

  Fidelma breathed in deeply and promptly regretted doing so for the stench of decay caused her to retch and cough, scrabbling for her lavender cloth.

  ‘Have you seen enough?’ demanded the abbess, coldly.

  Fidelma nodded between coughs.

  Together, they returned the corpse to its former position.

  ‘I presume that you now want to see the items found on the corpse?’ asked the abbess, as she conducted Fidelma from the cave into the main store room.

  ‘What I want first, mother abbess,’ Fidelma replied carefully, ‘is to wash.’

  Abbess Draigen’s lips thinned, almost in a malicious expression.

  ‘Naturally. Then come this way, sister. Our guests’ hostel has a bath-tub and it is the hour when our sisters usually bathe so the water will be heated.’

  Fidelma had already been shown the tech-óired, the guests’ hostel of the abbey, where she would be staying during the time she was with the community. It was a long, low wooden building divided into half a dozen rooms with a central room for a bathing chamber. Here there was a bronze container in which water was heated by a wood fire and then poured into a wooden dabach or bath-tub.

  The abbey apparently followed the general fashion of bathing in the five kingdoms. People usually had a full bath every evening, the fothrucud which took place after the evening meal, while first thing in the morning people washed their face, hands and feet, which process was called the indlut. Daily bathing was more than just a custom among the people of the five kingdoms, it had grown almost into a religious ritual. Every hostel in the five kingdoms had its bath-house.

  The abbess left Fidelma at the door of the guests’ hostel and agreed to meet her an hour later in her own chamber. There was no one else staying in the tech-óired and so Fidelma had the place to herself. She was about to move into her own chamber when she heard sounds coming from the central bathing room.

  Frowning, she moved along the darkened corridor and pushed open the door.

  A middle-aged sister was straightening up after stoking the fire beneath the bronze container in which water was already steaming. She caught sight of Fidelma and hastily dropped her eyes, folding her hands under her robes and bowing her head obsequiously.

  ‘Bene vobis,’ she greeted softly.

  Fidelma entered the room.

  ‘Deus vobiscum,’ she replied, returning the Latin formula. ‘I did not realise there were other guests here.’

  ‘Oh, there are not. I am the doirseór of the abbey but I also look after the guests’ hostel. I have been preparing your bath.’

  Fidelma’s eyes widened slightly.

  ‘It is kind of you, sister.’

  ‘It is my duty,’ replied the middle-aged religieuse without raising her eyes.

  Fidelma gave a glancing examination to the scrupulously clean bathing chamber, the wooden tub standing ready almost filled with hot water, the room heated by the warmth of the fire. Pleasant smelling herbs permeated the atmosphere of the room. A linen cloth was laid ready with a tablet of sléic, a fragrant soap. Nearby was a mirror and a comb together with cloths for drying the body. Everything was neat and orderly. Fidelma smiled.

  ‘You do your duty well, sister. What is your name?’

  ‘I am Sister Brónach,’ replied the other.

  ‘Brónach? You were one of the two sisters who found the corpse.’

  The religieuse shivered slightly. Her eyes did not meet Fidelma’s.

  ‘It is true, sister. I and Sister Síomha found the body.’ She genuflected quickly.

  ‘Then it will save me some time, sister, if, while I bathe, you tell me of that event.’

  ‘While you bathe, sister?’ There was a tone of disapproval in the other’s voice.

  Fidelma was curious.

  ‘Do you object?’

  ‘I … ? No.’

  The woman turned and, with surprising strength, lifted the heated water in the bronze container from the fire and tipped it into the wooden dabach, already partly filled with steaming water.

  ‘Your bath is ready now, sister.’

  ‘Very well. I have clean garments with me and my own cíorbholg.’ The cíorbholg was, literally a comb-bag, which was indispensable to all women in Ireland for in this little bag they carried not only combs but articles for their toilet. The old laws of the Book of Acaill even laid down that, in certain cases of a quarrel, a woman could be exempted from liability if she showed her ‘comb-bag’ and distaff, the cleft stick three feet in length from which wool or flax was wound. These were the symbols of womanhood.

  Fidelma went to get a change of clothing from her bag. She was fastidious about personal cleanliness and like to keep her clothing washed regularly. There had been few opportunities to wash or change clothing on Ross’s small ship and so she now took the occasion to change. When she returned, Sister Brónach was heating more water on the fire.

  ‘If you hand me your dirty clothes, sister,’ she greeted as Fidelma reentered the room, ‘I will launder them while you bathe. They can be hung before the fire to dry.’

  Fidelma thanked her but again she could not make eye contact with the doleful religieuse. She removed her clothes, shivering in the cold in spite of the fire, and swiftly slid into the luxuri
ously warm waters of the bath tub, letting out a deep sigh of contentment.

  She reached for the sléic and began to work it into a lather against her body while Sister Brónach gathered her discarded dirty clothes and placed them into the bronze container.

  ‘So,’ Fidelma began, as she luxuriated in the foam of the perfumed soap, ‘you were saying that you and Sister Síomha found the body?’

  ‘That is so, sister.’

  ‘And who is Sister Siomha?’

  ‘She is the steward of the abbey, the rechtaire or, as some of the largest abbeys in this land call it by the Latin term, the dispensator.’

  ‘Tell me when and how you found the body?’

  ‘The sisters were at midday prayers and the gong sounded the start of the third cadar of the day.’

  The third quarter of the day began at noon.

  ‘My task at that time was to ensure the abbess’s personal bath-tub was filled ready. She prefers to bathe at that time. The water is drawn from the main well.’

  Fidelma lay back in the tub.

  ‘Main well?’ she frowned slightly. ‘There is more than one well here?’

  Brónach nodded gloomily.

  ‘Are we not the community of Eo na dTri dTobar?’ she asked.

  ‘The Salmon of the Three Wells,’ repeated Fidelma, inquisitively. ‘Yet this is but a metaphor by which the Christ is named.’

  ‘Even so, sister, there are three wells at this spot. The holy well of the Blessed Necht, who founded this community, and two smaller springs that lie in the woods behind the abbey. At the moment, all water is brought from the springs in the wood, for the Abbess Draigen has not fully performed the purification rituals for the main well.’

  Fidelma was at least happy to learn that, for she had a horror of drinking water in which the headless corpse had reposed.

  ‘So you went out to draw water from the well?’

  ‘I did but could not easily work the winding mechanism. It was hard to turn. Later I realised that it was the weight of the body. As I was trying my best to wind up the pail of water, Sister Síomha came out to rebuke me for my tardiness. I do not think that she believed that I was having difficulty.’

  ‘Why was that?’ asked Fidelma from the tub.

  The middle-aged nun ceased stirring the cauldron with Fidelma’s clothes in it and reflected.

  ‘She said that she had recently drawn water from the well and there was nothing wrong with the mechanism.’

  ‘Had anyone else used the well that morning — either before Sister Síomha or before the time that you went to draw water there?’

  ‘No, I do not think so. There was no need to draw fresh water until midday.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Well, we both hauled away at the mechanism until the corpse appeared.’

  ‘You were both shocked, of course?’

  ‘Of course. The thing was without a head. We were afraid.’

  ‘Did you notice anything else about the corpse?’

  ‘The crucifix? Yes. And, of course, the aspen wand.’

  ‘The aspen wand?’

  ‘Tied on the left forearm was a stick of aspen wood on which Ogham characters were cut.’

  ‘And what did you make of it?’

  ‘Make of it?’

  ‘What did the characters say? You clearly recognised what it was.’

  Brónach shrugged eloquently.

  ‘Alas, I can recognise Ogham characters when I see them written, sister, but I have no knowledge of their meaning.’

  ‘Did Sister Síomha read it?’

  Brónach shook her head and lifted the bronze vessel from the fire, removing the items of clothing with a stick and putting them into a tub of cold water.

  ‘So neither of you were able to read the Ogham or recognise its purpose?’

  ‘I told the abbess at the time that I thought it was some pagan symbol. Didn’t the old ones tie twigs on a corpse to protect against the vengeful souls of the dead?’

  Fidelma stared carefully at the middle-aged sister but she had her back turned as she bent to her task beating the clothes to take the water out of them.

  ‘I have not heard that, Sister Brónach. What was the abbess’s response to your idea?’

  ‘Abbess Draigen keeps her own counsel.’

  Was there an angry tone to her voice?

  Fidelma rose from the tub and reached for the drying cloth before scrambling out. She rubbed herself energetically, rejoicing in the invigoration of her limbs. She felt fresh and relaxed as she put on her clean clothing. Since her return from Rome she had indulged herself by using undershirts of white sída or silk, which she had brought back with her. She noticed Sister Brónach casting a look at the garments, an almost envious look which was the first emotion Fidelma had witnessed on her generally mournful countenance. On top of her underwear, Fidelma drew on her brown inar or tunic which came down nearly to her feet and was tied with a tasselled cord at her waist. She slipped her feet into her well-shaped, narrow-toed leather shoes, cuaran, which were seamed down along the instep and were fitted without the necessity of thongs to fasten them.

  She turned to the mirror and completed her toilet by setting her long, rebellious red hair in place.

  She was aware that Sister Brónach had fallen silent now, as she finished laundering Fidelma’s dirty clothes.

  Fidelma rewarded her with a smile.

  ‘There now, sister. I feel human again.’

  Sister Brónach was contented to nod without any comment.

  ‘Is there anything else to tell me?’ Fidelma pressed. ‘For example, what happened after you and Sister Síomha pulled the body from the well?’

  Sister Brónach kept her head lowered.

  ‘We said a prayer for the dead and then I went to fetch the abbess while Sister Síomha stayed with the body.’

  ‘And you returned directly with Abbess Draigen?’

  ‘As soon as I had found her.’

  ‘And the Abbess Draigen took charge?’

  ‘Surely so.’

  Fidelma picked up her bag, turning for the door but then pausing a moment by it to glance back.

  ‘I am grateful to you, Sister Brónach. You keep your guests’ hostel well.’

  Sister Brónach did not raise her eyes.

  ‘It is my duty,’ she said shortly.

  ‘Yet for duty to have meaning you must be content in its performance,’ Fidelma replied. ‘My mentor, the Brehon Morann of Tara, once said — when duty is but law then enjoyment ends for the greater duty is the duty of being happy. Good night, Sister Brónach.’

  In the Abbess Draigen’s chamber, the abbess regarded the flushed-faced Fidelma — her flesh still tingling after the warmth of her bath — with begrudging approval. The abbess was seated at her table on which a leather-bound Gospel was open at a page she had been contemplating.

  ‘Sit down, sister,’ she instructed. ‘Will you join me in a glass of mulled wine to keep out the evening chill?’

  Fidelma hesitated only a moment.

  ‘Thank you, mother abbess,’ she said. As she had been conducted across the abbey courtyard by a young novice, who introduced herself as Sister Lerben, personal attendant to the abbess, she had felt a soft flurry of snow and knew that the evening would become more icy.

  The abbess rose and went to a jug standing on a shelf. An iron bar was already heating in the fire and the abbess, wrapping a leather cloth around it, drew it out of the fire and plunged its red hot point in the jug. She then poured the warm liquid into two pottery goblets and handed one to Fidelma.

  ‘Now, sister,’ she said, as each had taken some appreciative sips at the liquid, ‘I have those objects which you wanted to see.’

  She took something wrapped in cloth and placed it on the table, then sat opposite and began to sip her wine again while watching Fidelma above the rim.

  Fidelma set down her goblet and unwrapped the cloth. It revealed a small copper crucifix and its leather thong.

  She sta
red at the burnished object for a long time before she suddenly remembered her mulled wine and took a hurried sip at it.

  ‘Well, sister,’ asked the abbess, ‘and what do you make of it?’

  ‘Little of the crucifix,’ Fidelma replied. ‘It is common enough. Poor craftsmanship and the sort that many of the sisterhood have access to. It could well be of local craftsmanship. It is a crucifix that an average religieuse might possess. If this belonged to the girl whose body you found then it denotes that she was an anchoress.’

  ‘In that, I concur. Most of our community have similarly worked copper crucifixes. We have an abundance of copper in this area and local craftsmen produced many such as that. The girl does not appear to be local, though. A farmer from nearby thought it might have been his missing daughter. He came to see the body but that turned out not to be the case. His daughter had a scar which the body did not possess.’

  Fidelma raised her head from contemplation of the crucifix.

  ‘Oh? When was this farmer come here?’

  ‘He came to the abbey on the day after we found the body. He was named Barr.’

  ‘How did he know the body had been found?’

  ‘News travels rapidly in this part of the world. Anyway, Barr spent a long time examining the body, he obviously wanted to make sure. The corpse may be that of a religieuse from some other district.’

  Indeed, thought Fidelma, it would fit in with the condition of the corpse’s hands if she was a member of a religious house. The women who did not labour in the fields, indeed the men also, prided themselves on having well manicured hands. Fingernails were always kept carefully cut and rounded and it was considered shameful for either men or women to have unkempt nails. One of the great terms of abuse was to call someone créhtingnech or ‘ragged nails’.

  Yet it did not fit with the coarsely-kept feet, the mark of an ankle manacle, and the signs of scourging on the girl’s back.

  The abbess had picked up another piece of cloth and laid it carefully on the table.

  ‘This is the aspen wand which was found tied on the left forearm,’ she announced, carefully throwing back the cloth.

  Fidelma was gazing at a wand of aspen some eighteen inches in length. The first thing that she noticed was that it was notched in regular measurements and then, to one side, was a line of Ogham, the ancient Irish form of writing. The characters were more newly cut than the measurements on the other side of the stick. She looked closely at them, her lips forming the words.