Whispers of the Dead sf-15

by Peter Tremayne

  “Slieve Nuada is that large hill you can see from here,” Abbot Laisran intervened. “I know the place, and I know the boy.”

  It was not long before they arrived at the shepherd’s dwelling next to a traditional lias cairach or sheep’s hut. The sheep milled about over the hill indifferent to the arrival of strangers. Fidelma noticed that their white fleeces were marked with the blue dyed circle that identified the flock and prevented them from mixing into neighboring flocks during common grazing.

  Finn was weathered and bronzed-a handsome youth with a shock of red hair. He was kneeling on the grass astride a sheep whose stomach seemed vastly extended, almost as if it were pregnant but unnaturally so. As they rode up they saw the youth jab a long, thin, needle-like biorracha into the sheep’s belly. There was a curious hiss of air and the swelling seemed to go down without harm to the sheep which, when released, staggered away, bleating in irritation.

  The youth look up and recognized Abbot Laisran. He put the biorracha aside and came forward with a smile of welcome.

  “Abbot Laisran. I have not seen you since my father’s funeral.”

  They dismounted and tethered their horses.

  “You seem to have a problem on your hands,” Abbot Laisran said, indicating the now transformed sheep.

  “Some of them get to eating plants that they should not. It causes gas and makes the belly swell like a bag filled with air. You prick them with the needle and the gas escapes. It is simple and does not hurt the creature. Have you come to buy sheep for the abbey?”

  “I am afraid we are here on sad business,” Laisran said. “This is Sister Fidelma. She is a dálaigh.”

  The youth frowned.

  “I do not understand.”

  “Two days ago you met a girl on the road from the inn at Ballacolla.”

  Finn nodded immediately.

  “That is true.”

  “What made you accost her?”

  “Accost? I do not understand.”

  “You were driving in a donkey cart?”

  “I was.”

  “She was on horseback?”

  “She was. A black mare.”

  “So what made you speak to her?”

  “It was Segnat from Tir Bui. I used to go to her father’s fortress with my father, peace on his soul. I knew her.”

  Fidelma concealed her surprise.

  “You knew her?”

  “Her father was chieftain of Tir Bui.”

  “What was your father’s business in Tir Bui? It is a long journey from here.”

  “My father used to raise the old horned variety of sheep which is now a dying breed. He was a treudaighe and proud of it. He kept a fine stock.”

  The treudaighe was a shepherd of rank.

  “I see. So you knew Segnat?”

  “I was surprised to see her on the road. She told me she was on her way to join her husband, Conri, the new lord of Ballyconra.”

  Finn’s voice betrayed a curious emotion which Fidelma picked up on.

  “You do not like Conri?”

  “I do not have the right to like or dislike such as he,” admitted Finn.

  “I was merely surprised to hear that Segnat had married him when he is living with a woman already.”

  “That is a choice for the individual,” Fidelma reproved. “The New Faith has not entirely driven the old forms of polygyny from our people. A man can have more than one wife just as a woman can have more than one husband.”

  Abbot Laisran shook his head in annoyance.

  “The Church opposes polygyny.”

  “True,” agreed Fidelma. “But the judge who wrote the law tract of the Bretha Croilge said there is justification for the practice even in the ancient books of the faith for it is argued that even the chosen people of God lived in a plurality of unions so that it is no easier to condemn it than to praise it.”

  She paused for a moment.

  “That you disapproved of this meant you must have liked Segnat. Did you?”

  “Why these questions?” countered the shepherd.

  “Segnat has been murdered.”

  Finn stared at her for some time, then his face hardened.

  “Conri did it! Segnat’s husband. He only wanted her for the dowry she could bring into the marriage. Segnat could also bring more than that.”

  “How so?”

  “She was a banchomarba, a female heir, for her father died without male issue and she became chieftainess of Tir Bui. She was rich. She told me so. Another reason Conri sought the union was because he had squandered much of his wealth on raising war bands to follow the High King in his wars against the northern Uí Néill. That is common gossip.”

  “Gossip is not necessarily fact,” admonished Fidelma.

  “But it usually has a basis of fact.”

  “You do not appear shocked at the news of Segnat’s death,” observed Laisran slyly.

  “I have seen too many deaths recently, Abbot Laisran. Too many.”

  “I don’t think we need detain you any longer, Finn,” Fidelma said after a moment. Laisran glanced at her in astonishment.

  “Mark my words, you’ll find that Conri is the killer,” called Finn as Fidelma moved away.

  Abbot Laisran appeared to want to say something, but he meekly followed Fidelma to her horse and together they rode away from the shepherd’s house. Almost as soon as they were out of earshot, Abbot Laisran leaned forward in excitement.

  “There! We have found the killer. It was Finn. It all adds up.”

  Sister Fidelma turned and smiled at him.

  “Does it?”

  “The motive, the opportunity, the means, and the supporting evidence, it is all there. Finn must have killed her.”

  “You sound as if you have been reading law books, Laisran,” she parried.

  “I have followed your successes.”

  “Then, tell me, how did you work this out?”

  “The biorracha, a long sharp needle of the type which you say must have caused the girl’s mortal wound.”

  “Go on.”

  “He uses blue dye to identify his sheep. Hence the stain on the corpse.”

  “Go on.”

  “He also knew Segnat and was apparently jealous of her marriage to Conri. Jealousy is often the motive for murder.”

  “Anything else?”

  “He met the girl on the road on the very night of her death. And he drives a small donkey cart to transport the body.”

  “He did not meet her at night,” corrected Fidelma pedantically.

  “It was some hours before sunset.”

  Abbot Laisran made a cutting motion with his hand.

  “It is as I say. Motive, opportunity, and means. Finn is the murderer.”

  “You are wrong, Laisran. You have not listened to the whispers of the dead. But Finn does know the murderer.”

  Abbot Laisran’s eyes widened.

  “I fail to understand. . ”

  “I told you that you must listen to the dead. Finn was right. It was Conri, Lord of Ballyconra, who murdered his wife. I think the motive will be found to be even as Finn said. . financial gain from his dead wife’s estate. He probably knew that Segnat’s father was dying when he married her. When we get back to the abbey, I will send for the local bó-aire, the magistrate, to take some warriors to search Conri’s farmstead. With luck he will not have destroyed her clothing and personal belongings. I think we will also find that the very black mare he was riding was the same the poor girl rode on her fatal journey. Hopefully, Echen will be able to identify it.”

  Abbot Laisran stared at her blankly, bewildered by her calmness.

  “How can you possibly know that? It must be guesswork. Finn could have just as easily killed her as Conri.”

  Fidelma shook her head.

  “Consider the death wound. A needle inserted at the base of the neck under her braid.”

  “So?”

  “Certainly, a long sharp needle, like a biorracha, could, and probably did, c
ause that wound. However, how could a perfect stranger, or even an acquaintance such as Finn, inflict such a wound? How could someone persuade the girl to relax unsuspecting while they lifted her braid and then, suddenly, insert that needle? Who but a lover? Someone she trusted. Someone whose intimate touch would arouse no suspicion. We are left with Segnat’s lover-her husband.”

  Abbot Laisran heaved a sigh.

  Fidelma added, “She arrived at Ballyconra expecting to find a loving husband, but found her murderer who had already planned her death to claim her inheritance.”

  “After he killed her, Conri stripped her of her clothes and jewels, dressed her in peasants’ clothes and placed her in a cart that had been used by his workers to transport dyed clothing. Then he took her to the woods where he hoped the body would lie unseen until it rotted or, even if it was discovered, might never be identified.”

  “He forgot that the dead can still tell us many things,” Fidelma agreed sadly.

  “They whisper to us and we must listen.”

  CORPSE ON A HOLY DAY

  The day was hot in spite of the breeze blowing off the sea from the south. The procession of pilgrims had left the sandy beach and was beginning to climb the steep green hill toward the distant oratory. They had stood in reverent silence before the ancient granite stone of St. Declan, a stone that, it was said, had floated to the spot across the sea bearing on it vestments and a tiny silver bell. It had floated ashore on this isolated part of the Irish coast and was found by a warrior prince named Declan who knew it was God’s way of ordaining him to preach the New Faith. So he began his mission among his own people, the Déices of the kingdom of Muman.

  There the stone had stood since the moment it had landed bearing its miraculous gifts. The young brother who was conducting the pilgrims around the sites sacred to Declan had informed his charges that if they were able to crawl under the stone then they would be cured of rheumatism but only if they were already free from sin. None of the band of pilgrims had ventured to seek proof of the stone’s miraculous property.

  Now they followed him slowly up the steep hill above the beach, straggling in a long line, passing the gray abbey walls, and moving toward the small chapel perched on the hilltop. This was the final site of the pilgrimage. It was the chapel that St. Declan had built two centuries before and in which his relics now reposed.

  Sister Fidelma wondered, and not for the first time, why she had bothered to join this pilgrimage on this stifling summer’s day. Her thought was immediately followed by a twinge of guilt, as it had been before. She felt an inner voice reprimanding her and pointing out that it was her duty as a religieuse to revere the life and works of those great men and women who had brought the Faith to the shores of Ireland.

  Her peripatetic journey, fulfilling her main duty as a dálaigh, or advocate, of the law courts of the five kingdoms of Ireland, had brought her to the subkingdom of the Déices on the south coast of Muman. When she had realized that she was staying a few days at the great abbey of Ard Mór, which St. Declan had founded, coinciding with the Holy Day set aside for his veneration, she had attached herself to the band of pilgrims being conducted around the principal sites associated with his life and work. Fidelma was always keen to acquire knowledge. She pressed her lips in a cynical grimace as she realized that she had answered her own question as to why she was part of this pilgrim group.

  Brother Ross, the young man in charge, had been prattling on about the life of Declan as he preceded them up the hill. He was an intense young man, scarcely more than the “age of choice,” hardly out of his teenage. Even the steep climb did not seem to make him breathless or cause him to pause in his enthusiastic monologue.

  “He was one of the four great saints who preached in the five kingdoms of Ireland before the coming of the Blessed Patrick. They were Ailbe, the patron saint of our kingdom of Muman, Ciarán also of Muman, Ibar of Laigin, and Declan of the Déices of Muman. So we may boast that this kingdom of Muman was the first to convert to the New Faith. .”

  Brother Ross was naively passionate as he began to enumerate the miracles of the saint, of how he raised people who died of the Yellow Plague. The pilgrims listened in a respectful and awed silence. Fidelma had assessed the dozen or so men and women who were trudging up the hill and came to the conclusion that she appeared to have nothing in common with them except a membership of the religious.

  They were now approaching the brow of the bare hill where the small oratory of gray granite stood. It was perched on the top of the round hump, surrounded by a low stone wall. From a distance, it had appeared a small speck of a building. As they drew nearer Fidelma could make out its rectangular dry-stone walls. It was scarcely thirteen feet by nine feet in dimensions and its steep sloping roof was in proportion.

  “This is where the earthly remains of the blessed saint repose,” announced Brother Ross, halting and allowing the pilgrims to gather around him by the gate of the low wall. “After the end of his arduous mission through the countryside he returned to his beloved settlement of Ard Mór. He knew he was not long for this world and so he gathered the people and the clergy around him and counseled them to follow in his footsteps in charity. Then, having received the divine sacrament from Bishop mac Liag, he departed this life in a most holy and happy fashion, escorted by a chorus of angels to the kingdom of heaven. Vigils were held and solemn masses celebrated, signs and wonders were seen, a conclave of saints gathered from all corners of the land.”

  Brother Ross spread one hand toward the oratory, his voice warming to his theme.

  “His earthly remains were escorted to this, his first little church, to be laid to rest within it. I will lead you inside. Only three may accompany me at a time for, as you can see, it is very small. In the oratory lies a recess in the ground in which is a stone-built coffin. This is the resting place designated by Declan himself at the bidding of an angel. His relics are there and great signs and miracles are worked through the intervention of the Blessed Declan.”

  He stood with bowed head for a moment while the pilgrims mumbled their respectful “Amens.”

  “Wait here for a moment until I enter the oratory and ensure we are not disturbing any worshiper. This day is holy to the saint and many people come to pray here.”

  They paused by the wall as Brother Ross instructed while he turned inside the enclosure and crossed to the lintel door and disappeared inside.

  A moment or two later, the young man burst out of the oratory, his face flushed, his mouth working yet uttering no sound. Sister Fidelma and the others stood staring at him in total surprise. The sudden change from quiet respect to such agitation was bewildering. For several moments, the young man could not utter a word and then they came out in a spluttering staccato.

  “Uncorrupted! A miracle! A miracle!”

  His eyes were wide and rolled as if he had trouble in focusing.

  Fidelma stepped forward in front of him, “Calm yourself, brother!” she demanded, her voice rising in sharp command to quell his excitement. “What ails you?”

  Brother Ross seemed finally to focus on her with his wide staring eyes.

  “The body of the saint. . it is uncorrupted!”

  “What do you mean?” Fidelma demanded in irritation.

  “You are not making sense.”

  The young man swallowed and breathed deeply for a moment as if to gather his composure.

  “The sarcophagus! The stone has been swung aside. . the body of the blessed Declan lies there. . the flesh is uncorrupted. . truly. . a miracle. . a miracle! Go and spread the news. .”

  Fidelma did not waste time on trying to make further sense of the young man’s incoherent claims.

  She strode quickly by him, shaking aside his restraining hand, and went into the oratory, crouching a little to pass under the lintel. There was only one small window to give natural light and she paused, blinked, and waited a moment for her eyes to adjust. Two tall candles on an altar at the end of the small chapel were unlit b
ut, surprisingly, a small stub of candle stood splattering on the tomb slab.

  This stone slab had been pushed at an angle from the recess in the ground revealing the contents of the shallow grave. She strode forward and peered down. Brother Ross had been right in so far that a body lay there. But it was not the body of someone who had been interred two centuries before. She bent down to examine it. Two things she noticed: the blood was still glistening and wet, and when she touched the forehead, the flesh was still warm.

  When she emerged, she found Brother Ross still lyrical with excitement. The pilgrims were gathered excitedly around him.

  “Brethren, this day you have witnessed one of the great miracles of Declan. The saint’s body has not corrupted and decayed. Go down to the abbey and tell them and I will stay here and watch until you return with the abbot. .”

  He hesitated as the eyes of the pilgrims turned expectantly as one to where Fidelma exited from the oratory with a grim face.

  “You saw it, didn’t you, Sister?” demanded Brother Ross. “I told no lie. The body is uncorrupted. A miracle!”

  “No one is to enter the chapel,” Fidelma replied coldly.

  Brother Ross drew his brows together in anger.

  “I am in charge of the pilgrims. Who are you to give orders, Sister?”

  “I am a dálaigh. My name is Fidelma of Cashel.”

  The young man blinked at her brusque tone. Then he recovered almost immediately.

  “Lawyer or not, these pilgrims should be sent to tell the abbot. I will wait here. . This is truly a miracle!”

  Fidelma turned to him cynically.

  “You who know so much about the Blessed Declan may provide the answers to these questions. Was Declan stabbed through the heart before being laid to rest?”

  Brother Ross did not understand.

  “Was the Blessed Declan, in reality, a young woman?” went on Fidelma, ruthlessly.

  Brother Ross was outraged and said so.

  Fidelma smiled thinly.

  “Then I suggest you examine your uncorrupted body a little further. The body in the grave is that of a young woman who has recently been stabbed in the heart. It has been placed in the grave on top of old bones which presumably are the skeleton of Declan.”