Shroud for the Archbishop

by Peter Tremayne

  ‘Doubtless, you have already made sure there is nothing of value?’ asked Fidelma dryly.

  ‘Of course I have …’

  The woman suddenly snapped her mouth shut.

  Furius Licinius frowned with anger.

  ‘You were ordered not to enter his room until you were told,’ he said threateningly.

  The woman brought her chin up aggressively.

  ‘All very well for you to give orders. I’ll warrant that you have never gone short of a meal.’

  ‘Did you remove anything from Brother Ronan Ragallach’s room?’ Fidelma asked sharply. ‘Tell the truth or you will regret it.’

  The woman brought a startled gaze back to Fidelma.

  ‘No, I have not touched …’

  Her voice died away under Fidelma’s penetrating scrutiny and she dropped her eyes.

  ‘One must live, sister. These are hard times. One must live.’

  ‘Brother Eadulf, go with this woman and find out what she has removed from Ronan Ragallach’s room. If you are not honest, woman, you will be discovered and lies are not only rewarded by punishment in this world.’

  The woman hung her head sullenly.

  Brother Eadulf glanced with a suppressed smile to Fidelma, knowing that her harsh tone was often feigned. He nodded briefly and turned to the woman.

  ‘Come now,’ he said sternly. ‘Show me what you have taken and be sharp about it.’

  Furius Licinius turned back and continued his ascent of the stairs in response to Fidelma’s gesture to continue.

  ‘These damned peasants!’ he muttered. ‘They would rob you if you lay ill and dying. I have no time for them.’

  Fidelma decided not to reply but followed him silently to a small room on the next floor. It was dark and dismal with a smell of stale sweat and cooking odours.

  ‘I wonder how much they demanded for this hovel?’ mused Licinius, swinging back the door and motioning Fidelma to enter. ‘There are too many of these thieves who rent rooms to pilgrims to Rome and acquire great fortunes by overpricing them.’

  ‘You did tell me that this hostel was not under the control of the church,’ Fidelma said. ‘But surely the church has some say about rents in the city?’

  Licinius smiled thinly.

  ‘Bieda is a fat little businessman who makes a fortune from various properties. In each he hires a quae res domestic dispensat …’

  ‘A what?’ demanded Fidelma.

  ‘Someone to run the house for him, like the woman downstairs. The good Bieda is probably deducting the cost of this empty room from her salary.’

  ‘Well, it is wrong of the woman to take things from this room but I would not like to see her suffer if her income depends on keeping the room occupied.’

  Furius Licinius sniffed deprecatingly.

  ‘The likes of her will survive anyway. What did you wish to see?’

  Fidelma looked into the shadowy darkness of the room. Even though the shutters were not closed, the tiny window let little light into the room, the sky being blotted out by the towering aqueduct outside.

  ‘Simply to be able to see would be my first priority,’ she complained. ‘Is there a candle here?’

  Licinius managed to locate a stub of a candle by the bed and lit it.

  There was scarcely a thing in the room apart from a rough wooden bed, with a sweat-stinking blanket and a pillow, and a small table and chair by its side. A large sacculus was slung on a hook hammered into one wall. Fidelma took it down and poured the contents on to the bed. There was nothing of interest but Brother Ronan’s spare clothes and sandals. His shaving tackle was placed on the table by the bed.

  ‘He lived a frugal life, eh?’ grinned Licinius, allowing himself some pleasure at the disappointment on Fidelma’s face.

  Fidelma did not reply but stuffed the clothes back into the sacculus and rehung it on the hook. Then she examined the room carefully. There certainly was nothing to show that someone had lived for some months in this place. She went to the bed and began to strip it with care. Ten minutes later there was still nothing to show for her labours.

  Furius Licinius stood leaning against the door post, watching her with interest.

  ‘I told you that nothing had been found,’ he said. However, the relief in his voice was obvious after the humiliation in Wighard’s chambers.

  ‘So I understood.’

  She bent down and peered round the floor. Nothing but dust. She started as she saw black beetles scurrying this way and that. What were they? Large, ugly creatures!

  ‘Scarabaeus,’ Furius Licinius identified laconically, as he saw the object of her consternation. ‘Cockroaches. These old houses are riddled with them.’

  Fidelma was about to rise to her feet in disgust when she saw something half hidden by the bed. She bent forward, trying to ignore the scurrying beetles. It was a small scrap of papyrus. She knew from the texture that it was not vellum. It had been well trodden on so that it was covered in dirt and scarcely discernible against the grime of the floor.

  She raised the stub of candle and peered closely at it.

  The papyrus was clearly torn from a larger piece. It was a jagged piece not more than a few inches square. There were some strange hieroglyphics on it which she was unable to recognise. The characters were neither Greek nor Latin or even the ancient Ogham script of her own land.

  She handed it to the mortified Furius Licinius with a tight smile.

  ‘What do you make of these characters? Can they be identified?’

  Furius Licinius peered at the torn papyrus and then shook his head.

  ‘I have not seen this sort of writing before,’ he said slowly. Then he added, lest the custodes be humiliated by this woman yet again, ‘Do you think it matters?’

  ‘Who knows?’ Fidelma shrugged and put the slip of papyrus into her marsupium. ‘We shall see. But you were right, Furius Licinius; there is nothing which seems immediately of help to us in this room.’

  There came the sound of footsteps on the stair. Eadulf came in with a smile and carried a small pile of objects.

  ‘I’m afraid it took some time to retrieve everything. At least, I think this is everything. We were just in time to prevent these items being sold by the good lady downstairs,’ he grinned.

  One by one he placed the items on the bed: a string of prayer beads; a crucifix of red Irish gold, not very well worked but certainly of some value; an empty crumena or purse without anything in it; several objects of veneration presumably purchased from local shrines, and two small testaments, one of Matthew and one of Luke.

  Furius Licinius gave a cynical chuckle.

  ‘A month’s rent, eh? This would have covered three months or more in this hovel. Not to mention the coins that must have gone missing from the crumena.’

  Fidelma was examining the two testaments very carefully, turning them page by page as if expecting something to fall out of them. They were in Greek but not of good workmanship. There was nothing compressed within their leaves. She gave up with a sigh as she finished her task.

  ‘You found nothing?’ Eadulf asked, glancing round the room.

  Fidelma shook her head, thinking he meant between the pages of the testaments.

  ‘Hidden panels?’

  Fidelma realised that he was referring to their search of Brother Ronan’s room.

  Furius Licinius smiled tolerantly.

  ‘The decurion Marcus Narses has already looked for any place where things could have been hidden.’

  ‘Nevertheless …’ Eadulf returned the smile and began to examine the walls carefully, tapping gently on them with his knuckles and listening to the sound of the knocking. They waited until he had covered the walls and the floor and returned with a sheepish smile.

  ‘The decurion Marcus Narses was right,’ he grinned at Licinius. ‘There are no places where Brother Ronan Ragallach could hide the stolen valuables from Wighard’s trunk.’

  Fidelma had collected Brother Ronan Ragallach’s belongings and
put them in the sacullus, which she had taken from the wall.

  ‘We will take these with us for safe keeping, Furius Licinius. You may tell the woman that when we are satisfied, they will be returned in default of any outstanding payment. But the deacon Bieda must come to claim them and present his accounts for the room at the same time.’

  The young tesserarius smiled approvingly.

  ‘It shall be as you say, sister.’

  ‘Good. I was hoping to question Brother Sebbi before the evening meal and, hopefully, Abbess Wulfrun and Sister Eafa afterwards. But I think the hour grows too late.’

  ‘Would it not be a good idea to find out more about this Ronan Ragallach?’ queried Eadulf. ‘We have been concentrating on those close to Wighard but information about the very man accused of killing him has not been examined at all.’

  ‘Since Ronan Ragallach has fled his prison, this would be hard to achieve,’ replied Fidelma dryly.

  ‘I did not mean the questioning of Ronan,’ Eadulf said. ‘I thought, perhaps, the time had come to see the place where Ronan Ragallach worked and question his companions.’

  Fidelma realised that Eadulf was absolutely correct. She had been overlooking matters.

  ‘He was employed in a minor role in the Munera Peregrinitatis – the Foreign Secretariat,’ interposed Licinius.

  Fidelma silently rebuked herself. She should have examined Ronan Ragallach’s place of work before now.

  ‘Then,’ she said with studied tone, ‘we must by all means examine this Foreign Secretariat next.’

  In the chamber which the military governor had set aside for them, Eadulf had taken up his clay tablets and stylus and was jotting down the notes concerning the salient points of the Abbot Puttoc’s interview and the questioning of Brother Eanred. On returning to the palace they learnt that the department of the Munera Peregrinitatis, in which Ronan Ragallach had been employed as a scriptor, was closed and its superior was at cena, the evening meal.

  To her annoyance, Fidelma discovered that no arrangements had been made for them to eat in the main refectory of the palace and so Furius Licinius was sent to secure something for them to eat and drink while they returned to the chamber. While Eadulf busied himself with his note taking, Fidelma stored the items gathered from the lodging house. Having done so, she returned to the table and, sitting down, placed two items on it and examined them with curiosity. The piece of sackcloth picked up from the splinter on Eanred’s door and the torn piece of papyrus.

  Eadulf looked up from his writing and paused with a frown.

  ‘What are those?’ he demanded.

  ‘I wish I were sure,’ replied Fidelma frankly. ‘They probably have nothing to do with this inquiry.’

  ‘Oh, the sackcloth,’ Eadulf made a dismissive grimace as he recognised it. ‘And the other?’

  Fidelma was apologetic.

  ‘Sorry, I forgot to mention it. A piece of papyrus found on the floor of Ronan’s room. I can make nothing of it.’

  She slid it across to Eadulf.

  ‘It has writing on it,’ he observed.

  ‘Strange hieroglyphics,’ Fidelma sighed. ‘I have no idea of what they are.’

  Eadulf smiled broadly.

  ‘Easily answered. It is the language of the Arabians. Those who follow the prophet Mahomet.’

  Fidelma stared at him in almost speechless surprise.

  ‘How do you know this?’ she demanded. ‘Can it be that you are proficient in this tongue?’

  Eadulf’s face wore a smug expression.

  ‘I cannot pretend that much. Alas, no. I will not deceive you. But I have seen such writing before, when I was previously living in Rome. The hieroglyphics are distinctive and I have not forgotten their shape. It may be another language entirely using the same form of lettering but I would say that it is probably the writing used by the Arabians.’

  Fidelma looked at the papyrus and pursed her lips thoughtfully.

  ‘Where in Rome would we be able to find someone able to decipher what is written here?’

  ‘There should be someone, perhaps in the Munera Peregrinitatis …’

  Fidelma gave him a quick glance. Eadulf abruptly realised what he said.

  ‘The very office in which our friend Ronan Ragallach worked,’ he mused. Then he shrugged. ‘But is that significant?’

  There was a discreet knock on the door.

  Fidelma took up the pieces of papyrus and sackcloth and put them back into her marsupium.

  ‘That we shall see,’ she said, before calling, ‘enter!’

  A thin, wiry man, with dark hair and a sallow complexion entered. One of his dark eyes was slightly cast, so that Fidelma felt, at times, an embarrassment as to which eye she should focus on. The face was familiar but Fidelma could not place him.

  Eadulf recognised the religieux immediately.

  ‘Brother Sebbi!’

  The wiry man smiled.

  ‘I heard from a custodes that you wished to speak with me and, as I had finished my evening meal, I asked where you might be found.’

  ‘Come in and be seated, Brother Sebbi,’ invited Fidelma. ‘You have saved us the task of sending for you. I am Fidelma …’

  Brother Sebbi nodded as he seated himself.

  ‘Fidelma of Kildare. I know. I was at Witebia when you and Brother Eadulf cleared up the mystery of the death of the Abbess Étain.’ He paused and grimaced awkwardly. ‘This is a bad business, very bad.’

  ‘Then you know what we are about, Sebbi?’ Fidelma asked.

  Sebbi drew his thin lips back in a grin.

  ‘It is common talk all over the Lateran Palace, sister. The Bishop Gelasius has empowered you and Brother Eadulf to investigate the circumstances of Wighard’s death, just as Oswy commanded you to find the murderer of Abbess Étain at Witebia.’

  ‘We would like to know your whereabouts at the time of Wighard’s death,’ Eadulf added.

  Sebbi’s smile seemed to broaden.

  ‘Asleep, if I had sense.’

  Fidelma gazed thoughtfully at him.

  ‘And did you have sense, Brother Sebbi?’

  Sebbi’s face was serious a moment and then the grin came back.

  ‘I see you have a sense of humour, sister. I was in bed asleep. I was awakened by some noise in the corridor. I went to the door to see several custodes around the door of Wighard’s chamber. I asked what was wrong and was told.’

  ‘Was there anyone else about? I mean Puttoc, for example?’

  Sebbi shook his head.

  ‘But the noise woke you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So it was loud?’

  ‘Of course. There was shouting and stamping feet.’

  ‘Did it not surprise you that the Abbot Puttoc, whose chamber is next to your cubiculum, was sleeping through all this?’

  Eadulf cast a worried glance at Fidelma, clearly concerned that she was still casting doubts on Puttoc’s statement in retaliation for the abbot’s treatment of her.

  ‘No,’ Sebbi leant closer across the table. ‘The Abbot is known to take sleeping draughts, for he suffers from insomnia. He takes medications as another takes food.’

  ‘Is this hearsay, Sebbi, or do you know it as a fact?’ demanded Fidelma.

  Sebbi made a small gesture with his hand.

  ‘I have served under the abbot at Stanggrund for fifteen years. I should know. But ask Eanred, his servant. It is a fact. Eanred always carries a bag of medications. Each evening Eanred has to mix a concoction of mulberry leaves, cowslip and mullein into a wine which Puttoc drinks.’

  Fidelma glanced at Eadulf who nodded understanding.

  ‘A sleeping draught not uncommonly used.’

  Sebbi continued.

  ‘Puttoc lives on his medicines. That is probably why he bought Eanred here in the first place. Only Eanred is capable of producing cures for Puttoc’s insomnia. Puttoc never wanders far without his servant.’

  Fidelma was curious.

  ‘A servant?’


  ‘Eanred was a slave before Abbot Puttoc bought and freed him in keeping with the Faith of the Holy Church. But Eanred still considers himself as Puttoc’s man, even though he is a freeman.’

  ‘How did this come about, Sebbi?’ prompted Fidelma.

  ‘Well, during the days of Swithhelm, who ruled the East Saxons, few in the kingdom kept the Faith. Seven years ago, Puttoc decided to journey to that land in an attempt to recall the lost sheep back to the one true God. Because I was raised there … in fact, I was named after the prince Sebbi who now rules that land … the Abbot Puttoc chose me to accompany him. It was when we arrived at Swithhelm’s court that we found Eanred as a slave awaiting execution.’

  Sebbi paused for a moment and when they made no comment he went on:

  ‘It arose in conversation with Swithhelm that the king regretted the forthcoming death of this slave for Eanred had a reputation as a herbalist and healer. But if a slave kills a master, there is an end to it. He must forfeit his life unless someone else compensate the kin of the slain master by paying them his wergild and then buying the slave. But who wants to buy a slave who has already killed his master?’

  ‘So Eanred was Swithhelm’s slave?’ Fidelma queried.

  ‘Oh no. Eanred belonged to a farmer named Fobba near the northern banks of the River Tamesis.’

  ‘How did this Eanred become a slave?’ asked Eadulf. ‘Was he captured or was he born to it?’

  ‘His parents sold him into slavery when he was a child during a time of great famine so that they might have the means to live,’ Sebbi replied. ‘In our lands a slave is a piece of property, like a horse or other livestock, which can be bought and sold for profit.’ He grinned wryly at Fidelma’s disgusted expression. ‘The Faith abhors this practice but the law of the Saxons is older than their conversion to the Faith and so the Church has to tolerate …’

  Fidelma made an impatient gesture with her hand. She knew as much from her own experiences of the problems which Irish missionaries faced in the conversion of the heathen Saxons. It was scarcely seventy years since the Saxons had begun to give up their gods of war and bloodshed and converted to Christianity. Many still clung to their old beliefs while even the Christians intermixed the new faith with old customs.