Absolution by Murder

by Peter Tremayne

  Fidelma stared at him a moment and suddenly smiled at his apparent anxiousness.

  ‘You seem greatly concerned for my health, Eadulf.’

  The Saxon frowned for a moment.

  ‘Of course. We have much work to do,’ he replied shortly. He halted at the dormitorium he shared with other brothers of no particular status, disappearing for a moment before reemerging with a small leather bag, his pera or satchel.

  Fidelma found herself being led by Eadulf into the large kitchens, where thirty of the brethren laboured over steaming cooking pots to supply the wants of the great abbey and its guests. Fidelma screwed up her face as the stench of rancid food mingled with innumerable other smells that were impossible to describe. She choked a little as she picked out the stink of rotting cabbage. Eadulf asked for the use of an iron kettle from the dour-faced chief cook, who said she would send an assistant to them.

  To their surprise Sister Gwid came forward with a kettle.

  ‘What are you doing here, Gwid?’ asked Fidelma.

  The gawky Pictish sister smiled sadly.

  ‘As my Greek no longer has a role to play, I have sought occupation in the kitchens until I have decided what I am to do. I think, when the synod is ended, I shall join any group that goes back to Dál Riada, perhaps back to Iona.’ She handed the kettle to Eadulf. ‘Is there anything else?’

  Eadulf shook his head.

  The tall girl returned to some task on the further side of the kitchen.

  ‘A poor girl,’ Fidelma said softly. ‘I feel sorry for her. She took Étain’s death badly.’

  ‘You may be sorry later,’ reproved Eadulf. ‘At this moment we must do what we can to prevent any danger of contagion from the plague.’ He set to work simmering water and preparing his herbs while Fidelma looked on with interest.

  ‘Are you serious about this herbal protection from the Yellow Plague?’ she asked as he stirred the herbs into his concoction.

  Eadulf was irritated at her question.

  ‘It does work.’

  She waited in silence while Eadulf prepared the mixture and poured it into a large earthenware jar. From the jar he poured two pottery mugs and handed one to Fidelma, raising his own in silent toast.

  Fidelma smiled and raised the drink to her lips. The taste was foul and her expression showed it.

  ‘It is an ancient cure.’ Eadulf grinned disarmingly.

  Fidelma found herself returning his smile ruefully.

  ‘So long as it does work,’ she observed. ‘Now let us leave here and walk among the fragrance of the cloisters. The kitchen smells cause my head to ache violently.’

  ‘Very well, but we will take the jug of this mixture to your cubiculum first.

  ‘You must drink a glass every evening before retiring,’ Eadulf told her solemnly as they deposited the jug at her cubiculum and then went out into the quietness of the cloisters. ‘There is enough there for a week.’

  ‘Was it something you learnt at the medical school of Tuaim Brecain?’ she enquired.

  Eadulf inclined his head.

  ‘I learnt many things in your country, Fidelma. At Tuaim Brecain I saw many things I thought impossible. I saw doctors cut into the skulls of men and women and remove growths and those men and women have lived.’

  Fidelma grimaced indifferently.

  ‘The school of Tuaim Brecain is renowned throughout the world. The great Bracan Mac Findloga, the physician who established the school two centuries ago, is still spoken of with awe. Did you have an ambition to become a physician?’

  ‘No.’ Eadulf shook his head. ‘I wished for knowledge, any knowledge. In my own land I was the son of the hereditary gerefa, the local arbiter of the law, but I wanted to know more. I wanted to know everything. I tried to devour knowledge like the bee devours nectar, flitting from one flower to another but never staying long. I am no specialist but have a little knowledge of many things. It comes in useful from time to time.’

  ‘Sometimes that is good thing,’ agreed Fidelma. ‘Especially in the pursuit of truth, knowledge in a single subject can blind one as much as having no knowledge at all.’

  Eadulf grinned, that brief boyish grin of his.

  ‘You have a specialised knowledge of law, Sister Fidelma. The law of your own land.’

  ‘But in our ecclesiastical schools a general knowledge is also demanded of students before they can be qualified.’

  ‘You are an anruth. I know it translates as “noble stream” and is one step below the highest educational qualification in your land. But what does it mean?’

  Fidelma smiled. ‘It means that the anruth has studied for at least eight years, often nine years, and become a master of the subject but with a knowledge also of poetry, literature, historical topography and many other things.’

  Eadulf sighed.

  ‘Alas, our people here have no such establishments of learning as you do. Only since the coming of Christian teaching, the foundation of the abbeys, have we begun even to learn to read and write.’

  ‘It is better to start late than never to start at all.’

  Eadulf chuckled.

  ‘Truly said, Fidelma. That is why I have this insatiable thirst for knowledge.’

  He paused. They sat for a few moments in silence. Oddly, so Fidelma felt, it was not an uncomfortable silence. It was a companionable silence. Companionable. She suddenly identified the feeling she had. They were companions in adversity. She smiled, happy in the conclusion of the chaos of her thinking.

  ‘We should get back to our investigation,’ she ventured.

  ‘Deusdedit’s death brings us no closer to solving Étain’s murder.’

  Eadulf suddenly snapped his fingers, causing her to start.

  ‘I am a fool!’ he snarled. ‘Here am I pondering on my own ego when I should be about the business in hand.’

  Fidelma frowned in surprise at his sudden anger with himself.

  Eadulf continued: ‘You asked me to make enquiries about Brother Athelnoth.’

  It took her a moment to dredge her mind back to their suspicions of Athelnoth.

  ‘And you discovered something?’

  ‘Athelnoth was lying to us.’

  ‘That we already know,’ affirmed Fidelma. ‘But you have discovered something specific about his lies?’

  ‘As we agreed, I made some enquiries among the other brothers about Athelnoth. Do you remember that he said he first met Étain when he was sent by Colmán to meet her at the border of Rheged and escort her here to Streoneshalh?’

  Fidelma nodded.

  ‘You told me that Étain was an Eoghanacht princess whose husband was killed and she then entered the religious order.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And she taught in the abbey of the Blessed Ailbe of Emly before she became abbess at Kildare?’

  Again, Fidelma inclined her head patiently.

  ‘And she was elected abbess at Kildare … ?’

  ‘Only two months ago,’ supplied Fidelma. ‘What are you driving at, Eadulf?’

  Eadulf smiled almost complacently.

  ‘Only that last year Athelnoth spent six months at the abbey of Emly. I found a brother who was a student with him. They both went to Emly together and returned to Northumbria together.’

  Fidelma’s eyes widened.

  ‘Athelnoth studied at Emly? Then he must have met Étain there and must have a knowledge of Irish, both of which matters he denied.’

  ‘So Sister Gwid was right, after all,’ confirmed Eadulf. ‘Athelnoth knew Étain and doubtless desired her.’ His voice was tinged with self-satisfaction. ‘When Étain rejected Athelnoth, he was so mortified that he killed her.’

  ‘It does not necessarily follow,’ Fidelma pointed out, ‘although, I grant you, it is a feasible deduction.’

  Eadulf spread his hands.

  ‘Well I still think the story of the brooch was false. Athelnoth was lying all the time.’

  Fidelma grimaced suddenly.

  ‘One other th
ing we have overlooked – if Athelnoth was at Emly last year then he must have known Gwid there. She was studying under Étain.’

  Eadulf gave a confident smirk.

  ‘No; that did occur to me. Athelnoth was at Emly before Gwid. He left Emly the month before Gwid arrived. I asked Gwid when she attended Emly and then checked the time that Athelnoth was there. Athelnoth’s fellow student was most obliging with the information.’

  Fidelma rose, unable to suppress a tinge of excitement.

  ‘We will send for Athelnoth immediately to explain this mystery.’

  Sister Athelswith put her head through the door of the officium.

  ‘I have been unable to locate Brother Athelnoth, Sister Fidelma,’ she said. ‘He is not in the domus hospitale nor is he in the sacrarium.’

  Fidelma was exasperated.

  ‘He must be somewhere in the abbey,’ she protested.

  ‘I will send a sister to look.’ Sister Athelswith turned and hurried off.

  ‘We might as well examine the sacrarium ourselves,’ Eadulf suggested, ‘in case the good sister has missed him. It would be easy to do so among so many people gathered there.’

  ‘At least we might find Brother Taran and take the opportunity to have a word with him,’ Fidelma agreed, rising.

  They could hear the shouting before they opened the doors to the sacrarium and slipped inside. The debate was in full angry flood. Wilfrid was on his feet, banging his hand in agitation on the wooden lectern before him.

  ‘I say it is a scandal! An invention of Cass Mac Glais, the swineherd of your pagan Irish king Loegaire!’

  ‘That is not so!’ Cuthbert was also on his feet, his face red with anger.

  Old Jacobus, the ageing James who had arrived in the kingdom of Kent with the Roman missionary Paulinus fifty years before, was rising to his feet as well, helped by his neighbours. He balanced insecurely, both hands placed in front of him on a stick over which he bent. The benches fell silent at the sight of the old man. Even the supporters of the Columban order grew quiet. There was no denying that Jacobus had authority for he was the link with the blessed Augustine sent by Gregory the Great to preach to the pagans of the Saxon kingdoms.

  Only when the great chapel was silent did he commence to speak in a sharp, cracked voice.

  ‘I apologise for my young friend, Wilfrid of Ripon.’

  There was a murmur of surprise and Wilfrid’s head snapped up, irritation on his features.

  ‘Yes,’ went on Jacobus, undeterred, ‘Wilfrid is in error about the origin of the tonsure affected by the Irish and the Britons.’

  He held their attention now.

  ‘Our brethren have been misled. This tonsure they affect was that worn by Simon Magus of Samara who thought he could buy the power of the Holy Spirit and was duly rebuked by Peter. When I was a young man, I came to this island with Paulinus. We wore the same tonsure as that worn by our Holy Father, Gregory the Great; the same tonsure as worn by Augustine and his companions. Such was our outrage when we saw the Britons and our brethren of Ireland affecting a symbol which is contradictory to the faith.

  ‘Let me ask you, Brother Cuthbert, you who aspire to the everlasting crown of life, why do you persist in bearing on your head the semblance of an imperfect crown in contradiction to that faith?’

  Cuthbert sprang up angrily.

  ‘By your permission, venerable Jacobus, this is the tonsure ascribed to the blessed apostle John and no other and you will see that it has the appearance of a crown or circle.’

  Jacobus shook his head.

  ‘If I stand facing you directly, brother. But if you would bow your head towards me or stand in any other position you like …’

  Frowning, Cuthbert did so.

  There was a roar of laughter from the Roman benches.

  ‘See, an imperfect crown, a semicircle: decurtatam eam, quam tu videre putabas, invenies coronam!’ cried the old man.

  Cuthbert sat down abruptly, his face reddening.

  Jacobus pointed to his own small circle shaved on the crown of his head.

  ‘Here is the true circle, the symbol of the crown of thorns, blessed of Peter, the rock on which our church is built. Even some churches of the Britons now accept the truth of it. Those Britons who fled this land to settle in distant Iberia, in the land of Galicia, have now accepted the corona spinea. Thirty years ago the Synod of Toleda demanded the suppression of this barbaric tonsure among the clergy of the Britons of Galicia.’

  Jacobus resumed his seat, smiling in self-satisfaction.

  Fidelma felt a stirring of anger that there was silence on the Columban benches. Why did no one come forward to explain the tonsure of Columba and its deep mystical meaning? The warriors of Ireland and Britain considered it dishonourable to be deprived of that part of their hair, making them less than men. In the ancient times of the druids, the tonsure – the airbacc giunnae – was similarly cut. For the people of Ireland, the tonsure had a long and mystical association. Fidelma took a step forward and was opening her mouth to speak when Eadulf’s hand closed on her arm.

  She gave a startled jump and turned.

  Eadulf gestured with his head across the sacrarium.

  Brother Taran was leaving through a side door.

  Fidelma bit her lip, half turning back to the debating chamber but another speaker was on his feet, his voice raised in querulous argument.

  Fidelma realised that it was impossible to cross the sacrarium to follow Taran, therefore it was best to leave by the door through which they had entered and then try to intercept him.

  She motioned Eadulf to follow her.

  By the time they had circumvented the walls of the sacrarium there was no sign of Taran.

  ‘He cannot have gone far,’ Eadulf commented, his voice full of annoyance.

  ‘Let us try in that direction.’ Fidelma pointed to the route by the monasteriolum.

  They hurried along a cloistered area and emerged into the quadrangle before the monasteriolum.

  ‘Wait!’ hissed Fidelma as she suddenly pulled Eadulf back into the shadows.

  In the middle of the quadrangle the figures of Wulfric and Brother Seaxwulf stood, as if waiting for Taran as the Pictish monk hurried towards them.

  Seaxwulf said something and immediately turned away towards the monasteriolum. Fidelma noticed for the first time that Seaxwulf walked curiously, his back bent, and obviously in discomfort. She remembered what Abbess Abbe had said about Abbot Wilfrid’s punishment for his thieving secretary. A beating with a birch. She shivered slightly at the thought of the wounds such an assault could make.

  Wulfric and Taran were now standing looking after the Saxon brother until he disappeared inside the building of the monasteriolum. Then Taran reached inside his habit and took out something which he handed to Wulfric. Wulfric glanced at it, slid it into his tunic, said something in a low voice and chuckled. He turned and hurried away towards the side gate.

  Brother Taran paused for a few moments gazing after him, his hands on his hips. Then he turned slowly and began to walk back across the quadrangle towards the place where Fidelma and Eadulf stood.

  Fidelma drew Eadulf out of the shadows.

  Taran started as he saw them, giving a quick glance over his shoulder, obviously to see if Wulfric had disappeared. Wulfric had already gone through the side gate and so Taran turned back with a confident smile of greeting.

  ‘A bright day, Sister Fidelma,’ he called. ‘And Brother Eadulf, is it not? I have heard of your investigation. Indeed, the entire abbey speaks of it. It is almost as controversial a debating point as the matters before the synod.’

  Fidelma did not respond to his attempt at being gregarious and amiable.

  ‘We were having a walk away from the dull dustiness of our chambers. As you say, it is a bright day. But it is good that we encountered you.’

  ‘Oh? How so?’ queried the Pictish monk, suddenly on his guard.

  ‘You visited Etain in her cubiculum on the day of her deat
h, did you not?’

  For a passing moment Taran looked surprised.

  ‘I … I did,’ he admitted. ‘Why do you ask?’ Then he smiled. ‘Of course, I am stupid. Yes, I went to see her but early in the morning.’

  ‘Why?’ asked Eadulf.

  ‘It was a personal matter.’

  ‘Personal?’ Fidelma’s voice had a biting edge to it.

  ‘I know … I knew Abbess Étain and thought it only right that I should make my presence at Streoneshalh known to her and wish her well in the debate.’

  ‘When did you know her?’ asked Fidelma. ‘You did not mention this to me on our journey from Iona.’

  ‘You did not ask,’ replied Taran with aplomb. ‘You knew I studied in Ireland. I studied philosophy at Emly and Sister Étain, as she was then, was my tutor for a while.’

  ‘You also studied at Emly?’ asked Fidelma with raised brows. ‘Emly is famed for its learning but it seems many people have studied there. Did you meet Sister Gwid at Emly?’

  Taran blinked, recovered from his surprise and shook his head.

  ‘No. I did not even know that she had studied there. Why did she not tell me?’

  ‘Perhaps because you did not ask her.’ Fidelma could not help the riposte.

  ‘Did you know Athelnoth at Emly?’ Eadulf asked.

  ‘Him I did know. I was just completing my studies when Athelnoth arrived to study there. I knew him for perhaps a month or so before I left. But did you say Sister Gwid was at Emly?’

  ‘For a while,’ Fidelma said. ‘Had you seen Étain since you left Emly?’

  ‘No. But I always had respect for her. She was an excellent tutor and when I heard she was here I made it my business to seek her out. You see, I did not know she had become Abbess of Kildare. That was why I did not connect Étain with yourself, Sister Fidelma.’

  ‘How long were you together with Étain on the day of her death?’ Eadulf queried.

  Taran pursed his lips as he thought for a moment or two.

  ‘A short while, I think. We agreed to meet later that day for she was busy preparing her opening address for the debate and had no time to talk.’