“But he did come by me. He did leave his position,” pointed out Brother Manchán.
“That was when he went to check whether the fish was ready; when he noticed that the fish and Roilt were missing.” Fidelma frowned as an idea occurred to her. “Did you see Dian pass by?”
Brother Manchán nodded. “I had my head down rolling dough but I was aware that he passed my table.”
“How long was it before he announced that Roilt was missing?”
Brother Manchán thought for a moment.
“I think that some time passed between my being aware of him passing my table and the moment I thought I heard a door bang. That made me look up and go to the corner where I could see without obstruction. I saw Brother Dian standing by the kitchen door. He was looking rather flushed, as from exertion. I asked him what was wrong and that was when he said that the fish was missing and that he could not find Brother Roilt.”
Fidelma was thoughtful. “Thank you, Brother Manchán.”
She went forward to where Brother Gebhus was standing nervously awaiting her.
“Now, Brother Gebhus.” She drew him to one side of the kitchen, away from where Brother Dian was now intent on ensuring the fruit dishes were being handed to the servers.
“I don’t know anything, Sister,” the young man began nervously.
Fidelma suppressed an impatient sigh. She pointed to a hearth where a fire crackled under a hanging cauldron.
“Would you like to put your hand in that fire, Brother Gebhus?” she asked.
Brother Gebhus looked startled. “Not I!”
“Why?”
“I don’t want my hand burnt.”
“Then you do know something, Gebhus, don’t you?” she replied acidly. “You know that the fire will burn your hand.”
Brother Gebhus stared blankly at her.
“Think about the meaning of what you are saying before you answer my questions,” explained Fidelma. “I need them to be answered with accuracy. How long have you worked here?”
“Two years in this kitchen.”
“You assist Brother Dian?”
He nodded briefly, eyes warily on her.
“How well did you know Brother Roilt?”
“Not well. I . . . I tried to avoid him. I did not like him because . . .” He hesitated.
“He made advances to you?”
The young man sighed deeply. “When I first came to the abbey. I told him that I was not like that.”
“You were standing here when Dian went to look for Roilt?”
“He went to look for the fish,” corrected Gebhus. “The chief server had come in and said that the gratias was about to be said and Brother Dian turned and looked down the aisle there to where Brother Roilt was cooking the fish for the guest of honor. He could not see him and so he went to find him.”
“And you remained here?”
“I was here from the moment I came into the kitchen this evening.”
“Was Brother Dian with you the whole time?”
“Not the whole time. He had to discuss the meal with Brother Roilt before we began and once or twice he went to consult with him and the other cooks.”
The refectory door opened at that point and Abbot Laisran came in, looking worried. He approached Fidelma.
“I just had to come to see if you had any news. Have you decided who stole the fish?”
Fidelma smiled her curious urchin-like grin.
“I knew who stole the fish some time ago. But you are just in time, Father Abbot.”
She turned and called for everyone to gather around her. They did so, expectantly, almost fearfully.
“Do you know who murdered Brother Roilt?” demanded Brother Dian, asking the question that was in everyone’s minds.
Fidelma glanced swiftly at them, observing their growing anticipation.
“Brother Manchán, would you mind removing your apron?” she asked.
The young brother suddenly turned white and began to back away.
Brother Torolb grabbed him and tore the apron off. Beneath the pristine white apron, Brother Manchán’s habit was splattered with bloodstains.
Abbot Laisran was bewildered. “Why would Brother Manchán kill Roilt?”
“Reasons as old as the human condition: jealousy, love turned to hatred; an immature and uncontrollable rage at being rejected by a lover. Manchán had been Roilt’s lover until Roilt turned his attentions to a new young novitiate. Roilt rejected Manchán for a younger man. Presumably Roilt was neither sensitive nor tactful in bringing an end to his relationship and so Manchán killed him.”
The young man did not deny her accusation.
“How did you know?” asked the Abbot.
“Brother Manchán was very eager to point an accusing finger at others in the kitchen and out of it, especially at Brother Dian. I realized that he was just too eager.”
“But you must have had something else to go by?” Brother Dian asked. “Something made you suspect him.”
“Brother Manchán was, of course, best placed to kill Roilt. When everyone had their attentions fixed on their tasks he seized the opportunity. He went forward, struck so quickly that Roilt did not have time to cry out, and then he dragged Roilt to the storeroom. He even went into the garden and opened the wooden gate, which was usually kept shut and bolted, in an attempt to lay a false trail. He pointed out to me that the gate had been open. Yet Dian, finding it so, had shut it and bolted it again almost immediately. How had he known that it had been open?”
“And he also took the fish to lay a false trail?” suggested Brother Dian.
Fidelma shook her head with a smile. “He did not have time to do that. No; the fish was actually stolen by someone else. The opportunity to take the fish was seized when Roilt was no longer there to prevent it.”
“Just a minute,” interrupted Abbot Laisran. “I still do not understand how you initially came to suspect Manchán. Suspicion because he tried to lay the blame on others is not sufficient, surely?”
“You are right, as always, Father Abbot,” conceded Fidelma. “What alerted me was the problem of his apron.”
“His apron?” frowned the Abbot.
“Manchán would have us believe that he was working away making bread. Indeed, there was a fine dust of flour over his clothing with the exception of his apron which was clean; pristine white. It was clearly not the apron that he had been wearing while he was working. Why had he changed it? When Roilt was killed blood had splattered on the floor. It would have splashed on his clothes, especially on a white apron. He changed the apron in the storeroom, covering the bloodstains that had seeped through onto his habit. Seeing that clean white apron made me suspicious and his eagerness to point the finger at others simply confirmed my instinct. The reference to the gate merely confirmed matters. Now you have the proof,” she added with a gesture at Manchán’s bloodstained robes.
Abbot Laisran stood nodding his head thoughtfully as he considered the matter. Then he suddenly looked at her in bewilderment. “But the fish? Who stole the fish?”
Sister Fidelma moved across to the kitchen door and pointed down to the empty tin dish by the door.
“I noticed this earlier. It looks as though it is used to contain milk. Therefore, would I be correct in presuming that there is a cat who frequents the kitchen area?”
Brother Dian gave a gasp which was enough acknowledgment of this surmise.
Fidelma grinned. “I suggest that a search of the garden will probably disclose the remains of the fish and your cat curled up nearby having had one of the best meals of its life. It was the cat who stole the fish.”
CRY “WOLF!”
Is that all the petitions and statements?” asked Sister Fidelma with a sigh of relief.
It had been a long morning and Sister Fidelma had been fulfilling the job that she liked least as a dálaigh or an advocate of the courts of the five kingdoms of Éireann. Having qualified to the level of anruth, only one level below the highest degree
accorded by the ecclesiastical and secular colleges of Ireland, she would often be asked by the Chief Brehon, the senior judge, of the kingdom of Muman, which her brother, Colgú, ruled from Cashel, to hear minor cases. This usually meant visiting outlying corners of the kingdom where there was no permanent Brehon. She would judge minor cases, or study submissions from plaintiffs to see whether there was some case of civil or criminal law that had to be heard by a more senior Brehon.
She had spent the night in her least favorite part of her brother’s kingdom. It was a disputed territory claimed by the princes of the Uí Fidgente and those of the Eóghanacht Áine. The Eóghanacht Áine were related to her own family and there had been many conflicts between them and the Uí Fidgente. Yet, these conflicts apart, she admitted that the area was a beautiful country. It was a large, fertile valley; a lush green plain which was sheltered by surrounding hills and stretched north to a great sea inlet.
The main township was set at a river bend where the river of the plain, Maigue, and the little crooked river, Camoge, intersected at a spot called Cromadh, or the crooked ford. At this juncture stood the Wood of Eóghan, rising on a hill surmounted by the ancient fortress of the chief, Díomsach the Proud. Fidelma had discovered that the man’s name had not been given lightly for he was, indeed, a proud man and conscious of his lineage from the ruling family of the kingdom, albeit a branch that had long separated from the Eóghanacht of Cashel. The Eóghanacht Áine were one of the seven main branches of the family establishing their rule over Muman. The Áine claimed precedence as second to the senior branch at Cashel. They were proud and arrogant.
But the area in which Díomsach claimed his power spread into this fertile valley which the Uí Fidgente also claimed as their territory. The Uí Fidgente were just as stubborn and proud. Many times had they risen up in rebellion against Cashel itself, even asserting a claim to the kingship. The continuing dispute as to who should rule in Cromadh made the presence of any dálaigh, let alone the sister of the king of Cashel, a subject of great tension. At all such courts held at Cromadh, the local chief of the Uí Fidgente claimed it was his right to attend and sit with the chief of the Tuatha Cromadh. It was a demand that was reluctantly agreed upon.
Fidelma now glanced at the haughty face of Díomsach as he sat on her right-hand side in his great hall. She had heard a number of complaints that morning, none of them major. Then she turned to the equally stony face of Conrí, local chieftain of the Uí Fidgente. Both kept silent.
“Is that all the submissions and statements?” she asked again, more sharply.
“I see no more supplicants,” replied Conrí of the Uí Fidgente in a bored voice.
Brother Colla, the scriptor who was taking a record of the proceedings, coughed nervously, looking toward Fidelma.
“You have something to say, Brother Colla?” she inquired.
“There is one other person who demands a hearing,” he said quietly. Then he hesitated.
Sister Fidelma looked at him with curiosity.
“Then why isn’t this person brought before me?”
The scriptor shuffled his feet awkwardly.
“He has been detained outside by Fallach, the . . .”
Díomsach’s brows came together sharply.
“Fallach will doubtless have a good reason,” he snapped, adding quickly to Fidelma, “he is my chief of warriors. Who is this man apprehended by Fallach?”
“Lord, it is the farmer Febrat.”
To Sister Fidelma’s surprise, Díomsach burst out chuckling.
“Febrat? That half-wit? Then there is no more to be said. Our hearing is ended and we may retire for the feasting and entertainment.”
He made to rise but Sister Fidelma said quietly, “I am afraid that it is I who must say when my court may disperse, Díomsach. I would know more about this man Febrat and why you would exclude him from the right of petition to the courts of this land.”
Díomsach reseated himself and looked momentarily uncomfortable.
“The man is mad, Fidelma of Cashel.”
Sister Fidelma smiled cynically.
“Are you saying that he is adjudged insane and without responsibility in law?”
The chief shook his head but was silent.
“I am still, then, awaiting an answer.”
“I am also intrigued,” Conrí of the Uí Fidgente added, not disguising his delight at Díomsach’s discomfort.
Díomsach sighed softly.
“Febrat may not be legally insane but I think we are approaching a point where he must be adjudged as such. Febrat is a farmer. His farmstead is across the river, in the valley. It is the farthest farmstead in my territory bordering on the lands of my good friend, Conrí.” Díomsach inclined the upper half of his body toward the Uí Fidgente chief. It was an ironic gesture of deference, which was returned in kind by Conrí.
“I know the area,” Conrí confirmed with a polite smile.
“Then know this,” went on Díomsach. “Twice in the last two weeks he has come to my fortress claiming that the Uí Fidgente were raiding his farmstead.”
The smile vanished from Conrí’s lips.
“That is a lie!” he snapped. “There have been no such raids.”
“Nevertheless, we were not initially surprised when Febrat came here with this story,” Díomsach went on grimly. “It cannot be said that the Uí Fidgente are the most trustworthy neighbors . . .”
Fidelma raised a hand as Conrí clapped a hand to his empty sword sheath, half rising from his seat. It was a firm rule that no weapons could be carried into a feasting hall or into a Brehon’s court.
“Sit down, Conrí, and calm yourself,” she admonished sharply. “Let us hear out this story. Did you investigate Febrat’s complaint?” she turned back to ask of Díomsach.
The chief nodded swiftly.
“Of course. Fallach and some of our warriors rode out and found nothing. Not broken blades of grass, a missing sheep, nor dog in frenzied mood. There was no sign of any movement of horses having ridden around the farmstead. Fallach questioned one or two people, including Febrat’s own wife, Cara, and she dismissed the idea as a figment of his imagination. Not being able to discover anything, Fallach returned.”
“Then there had been no raid?” asked Fidelma.
“Of course, there had not,” snapped Conrí. “My men would not raid a farmstead without my knowing of it, and they would know their punishment would be that much more harsh should I have discovered it. This man Febrat was indulging in liquor or was a liar.”
Díomsach nodded slowly.
“In this we find agreement, my friend. But then, two days afterwards, Febrat came to me with the same tale. He had the same sincerity and anguish as he had the first time he reported such an event. He named his neighbor, claiming this farmer was the man leading the raid. We had to take him seriously and so I accompanied Fallach and some warriors to investigate again only to find that once more there was nothing to justify his complaint.”
Sister Fidelma sat with raised eyebrows.
“He came twice to you claiming that his farmstead was being raided and each time you found nothing? Did you question his wife and did you also question the man whom he charged led the raid?”
Díomsach nodded quickly.
“We did. The man that he claimed led the raid was a farmer named Faramund. He was aghast at the accusation, and as we found nothing, nothing further was done.”
“And what did Febrat’s wife say? What did you say her name was? Cara?”
“Cara said that she thought her husband was imagining such things for she knew nothing.”
“What did Febrat say to this?”
“He was trying to persuade his wife that it had happened.”
“But if she was there, and if it happened, she would know,” Fidelma pointed out. “How could he persuade her otherwise?”
“’That’s just it. On both occasions Febrat’s wife was away that night. I think she was staying with her mother.”
<
br /> “On both occasions?” pressed Fidelma.
Díomsach nodded: “That is the sum total of it, Fidelma of Cashel.”
“Has the man a history of instability?”
“I do not know,” Díomsach replied.
“And what does his wife say about this imagining?”
The chief shrugged.
“Only that perhaps her husband was working too hard or drinking too much.”
Conrí nodded in grim satisfaction.
“So long as the good name of the Uí Fidgente has been cleared on this matter, I care not about the man.”
“But he is here and wishes to make another supplication,” Fidelma pointed out.
“Why?”
There was a silence.
“Maybe he wishes to test our wits again,” Díomsach replied. “Or he is truly mad and we must bring in a physician to judge him.”
“Brother Colla,” Sister Fidelma instructed the scriptor quietly, “ask Fallach the warrior to come before us . . . but without his prisoner.”
Fallach was a lean but muscular, dark-haired man. He came to stand before them with an expression of detached disdain.
“Fallach, I understand that a farmer called Febrat came to make supplication before this court,” Fidelma said. “You hold him prisoner. Tell me why and what you know of this man.”
Fallach frowned for a moment, glancing swiftly toward his chief, Díomsach.
“Lady,” he began, addressing her as such for he knew her to be sister to the King of Muman and not merely a religieuse or simple dálaigh. “I did not want you to be bothered by the fantasies of this man, Febrat. That is why I detained him before he could enter this court.”
“What do you know of these fantasies?”
Fallach shifted his weight for a moment.
“Lady, twice he has come to my chief, Díomsach, claiming that the Uí Fidgente were raiding his land and harming his livestock. Twice have these claims proven to be untrue. On both occasions we have gone to his farm and found it to be in perfect peace. No harm has come to his farm or to his livestock. His wife, Cara, cannot explain her husband’s attitude. She has told us that nothing has ever happened to make her husband behave in this manner.”
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