“Then what happened?” urged Fidelma after the dominus paused.
“Then? As you might expect, I could not make such an oath. Their anger spilt over while I remonstrated with them. More for the fear of the consequences than anger, I would say. One of their number knocked me on the head. I knew nothing else until I came to with the young Sister and the boatman bending over me.”
Fidelma was quiet for a while.
“Tell me, Spelán, what happened to your companion, Brother Snagaide?”
Spelán frowned, looking around as if he expected to find the Brother in a coiner of the cell.
“Snagaide? I do not know, Sister. There was a great deal of shouting and arguing. Then everything went black for me.”
“Was Brother Snagaide young?”
“Most of the brethren, apart from myself and Selbach, were but youths.”
“Did he have fair hair?”
Spelán shook his head to her surprise. Then it was not Snagaide who lay dead on the strand.
“No,” Spelán repeated. “He had black hair.”
“One thing that still puzzles me, Spelán. This is a small island, with a small community. For two years you have lived here in close confines. Yet you say that you did not know about the sadistic tendencies of Abbot Selbach; that each night he took young members of the community to some remote part of the island and inflicted pain on them, yet you did not know? I find this strange.”
Spelán grimaced dourly.
“Strange though it is, Sister, it is the truth. The rest of the community were young. Selbach dominated them. They thought that pain brought them nearer salvation. Being sworn by the Holy Cross never to speak of the whipping given them by the abbot, they remained in silence. Probably they thought that I approved of the whippings. Ah, those poor boys, they suffered in silence until the death of gentle, little Sacán… poor boy, poor boy.”
Tears welled in the dominus’s eyes.
Sister Sárnat reached forward and handed him the cup of water.
Fidelma rose silently and left the cell.
Lorcán followed after her as she went to the quadrangle and stood for a moment in silent reflection.
“A terrible tale, and no mistake,” he commented, his eyes raised absently to the sky. “The Brother is better now, however, and we can leave as soon as you like.”
Fidelma ignored him. Her hands were clasped before her and she was gazing at the ground without focusing on it.
“Sister?” prompted Lorcán.
Fidelma raised her head, suddenly becoming aware of him.
“Sorry, you were saying something?”
The boatman shrugged.
“Only that we should be on our way soon. The poor Brother needs to be taken to Chléire as soon as we can do so.”
Fidelma breathed out slowly.
“I think that the poor Brother…” she paused and grimaced. “I think there is still a mystery here which needs to be resolved.”
Lorcán stared at her.
“But the explanation of Brother Spelán…?”
Fidelma returned his gaze calmly.
“I will walk awhile in contemplation.”
The boatman spread his hands in despair.
“But, Sister, the coming weather…”
“If the storm comes then we will remain here until it passes.” And, as Lorcán opened his mouth to protest, she added: “I state this as a dálaigh of the court and you will observe that authority.”
Lorcán’s mouth drooped and, with a shrug of resignation, he turned away.
Fidelma began to follow the path behind the community, among the rocks to the more remote area of the island. She realized that this would have been the path which, according to Spelán, Abbot Selbach took his victims. She felt a revulsion at what had been revealed by Spelán, although she had expected some such explanation from the evidence of the lacerated backs of the two young Brothers she had seen. She felt loathing for the ascetics who called themselves gortaigid, those who sought salvation by bestowing pain on themselves and others. Abbots and bishops condemned them and they were usually driven out into isolated communities.
Here, it seemed that one evil man had exerted his will on a bunch of youths scarcely out of boyhood who had sought the religious life and knew no better than submit to his will until one of their number died. Now those youths had fled the island, frightened, demoralized and probably lost to the truth of Christ’s message of love and peace.
In spite of general condemnation she knew that in many abbeys and monasteries some abbots and abbesses ordered strict rules of intolerable numbers of genuflections, prostrations and fasts. She knew that Erc, the bishop of Slane, who had been patron of the blessed Brendan of Clonfert, would take his acolytes to cold mountain streams, summer and winter, to immerse themselves in the icy waters four times a day to say their prayers and psalms. There was the ascetic, Mac Tulchan, who bred fleas on his body and, so that his pain might be the greater, he never scratched himself. Didn’t Finnian of Clonard purposely set out to catch a virulent disease from a dying child that he might obtain salvation through suffering?
Mortification and suffering. Ultan of Armagh was one of the school preaching moderation to those who were becoming indulgently masochistic, ascetics who were becoming fanatical torturers of the body, wrenching salvation through unnatural wants, strain or physical suffering.
She paused in her striding and sat down on a rock, her hands demurely folded in front of her, as she let her mind dwell on the evidence. It certainly appeared that everything fitted in with Spe-lán’s explanation. Why did she feel that there was something wrong? She opened her marsupium and drew out the piece of cloth she had found ensnared on the belt hook of the youthful Sacán. It had obviously been torn away from something and not from the boy’s habit. And there was the wooden cup, which had dried out now, which she had found on the floor of the oratory. It had obviously been used for an infusion of herbs.
She suddenly saw a movement out of the corner of her eye, among the rocks. She swung round very fast. For a moment her eyes locked into the dark eyes of a startled youth, the cowl of his habit drawn over his head. Then the youth darted away among the rocks.
“Stop!” Fidelma came to her feet, thrusting the cup and cloth into her marsupium. “Stop, Brother, I mean you no harm.”
But the youth was gone, bounding away through the rocky terrain.
With an exasperated sigh, Fidelma began to follow, when the sound of her name being called halted her.
Sister Sárnat came panting along the path.
“I have been sent by Brother Spelán and Lorcán,” she said. “Lor-cán entreats you to have a care of the approaching storm, Sister.”
Fidelma was about to say something sarcastic about Lorcán’s concern but Sárnat continued.
“Brother Spelán agrees we should leave the island immediately and report the events here to the Abbot of Chléire. The Brother is fully recovered now and he is taking charge of things. He says that he recalls your purpose here was to bring a letter from Ultan to the Abbot Selbach. Since Selbach is dead and he is dominus he asks that you give him the letter in case anything is required to be done about it before we leave the island.”
Fidelma forgot about the youth she was about to pursue.
She stared hard at Sister Sárnat.
The young novitiate waited nervously, wondering what Fidelma was staring at.
“Sister…” she began nervously.
Fidelma sat down on the nearest rock abruptly.
“I have been a fool,” she muttered, reaching into her marsu-pium and bringing out the letters she was carrying. She thrust back the letter addressed to the Abbot of Chléire and tore open Ultan’s letter to Selbach, to the astonished gaze of Sister Sárnat. Her eyes rapidly read the letter and her features broke into a grim smile.
“Go, Sister,” she said, arising and thrusting the letter back into the marsupium. “Return to Brother Spelán. Tell him and Lorcán that I will be along i
n a moment. I think we will be able to leave here before the storm develops.”
Sárnat stared at her uncertainly.
“Very well, Sister. But why not return with me?”
Fidelma smiled.
“I have to talk to someone first.”
A short while later Fidelma strode into the cell where Spelán was sitting on the cot, with Lorcán and Maenach lounging nearby. Sister Sárnat was seated on a wooden bench by one wall. As Fidelma entered, Lorcán looked up in relief.
“Are you ready now, Sister? We do not have long.”
“A moment or two, if you please, Lorcán,” she said, smiling gently.
Spelán was rising.
“I think we should leave immediately, Sister. I have much to report to the Abbot of Chléire. Also …”
“How did you come to tear your robe, Spelán?”
Fidelma asked the question with an innocent expression. Beneath that expression, her mind was racing for she had made her opening arrow-shot into the darkness. Spelán stared at her and then stared at his clothing. It was clear that he did not know whether his clothing was torn or not. But his eyes lighted upon a jagged tear in his right sleeve. He shrugged.
“I did not notice,” he replied.
Fidelma took the piece of torn cloth from her marsupium and laid it on the table.
“Would you say that this cloth fitted the tear, Lorcán.”
The boatman, frowning, picked it up and took it to place against Spelán’s sleeve.
“It does, Sister,” he said quietly.
“Do you recall where I found it?”
“I do. It was snagged on the hook of the belt of the young boy, Sacán.”
The color drained from Spelán’s face.
“It must have been caught there when I carried the body from the strand…” he began.
“You carried the body from the strand?” asked Fidelma with emphasis. “You told us that some of the young Brothers fishing there saw it and brought it back and all this happened before you were awakened after they had tied Selbach to the tree and killed him.”
Spelán’s mouth worked for a moment without words coming.
“I will tell you what happened on this island,” Fidelma said. “Indeed, you did have a gortaigid here. One who dedicated his life to the enjoyment of mortification and suffering but not from any pious ideal of religious attainment… merely from personal perversion. Where better to practice his disgusting sadism than a hermitage of youths whom he could dominate and devise tortures for by persuading them that only by that pain could they obtain true spirituality?”
Spelán was staring malignantly at her.
“In several essentials, your story was correct, Spelán. There was a conspiracy of secrecy among the youths. Their tormentor would take them one at a time, the youngest and most vulnerable, to a remote part of the island and inflict his punishment, assuring the boy it was the route to eternal glory. Then one day one of the youths, poor little Sacán, was beaten so severely that he died. In a panic the tormentor tried to dispose of his evil deed by throwing the body over the cliffs. As he did so, the hook on the boy’s belt tore a piece of cloth from the man’s robe. Then the next morning the body washed ashore.”
“Utter nonsense. It was Selbach who …”
“It was Selbach who began to suspect that he had a gortaigid in his community.”
Spelán frowned.
“All this is supposition,” he sneered but there was a fear lurking in his dark eyes.
“Not quite,” Fldelma replied without emotion. “You are a very clever man, Spelán. When Sacán’s body was discovered, the youths who found him gathered on the shore around it. They did not realize that their abbot, Selbach, was really a kindly man who had only recently realized what was going on in his community and certainly did not condone it. As you said yourself, the conspiracy of silence was such that the youthful brothers thought that you were acting with Selbach’s approval. They thought that mortification was a silent rule of the community. They decided to flee from the island there and then. Eight of them launched the currach and rowed away, escaping from what had become for them an accursed place…”
Lorcán, who had been following Fidelma’s explanation with some astonishment, whistled softly.
“Where would they have gone, Sister?”
“It depends. If they had sense they would have gone to report the matter to Chléire or even to Dún na Séad. But, perhaps, they thought their word would be of no weight against the abbot and dominus of this house. Perhaps these innocents still think that mortification is an accepted rule of the Faith.”
“May I remind you that I was knocked unconscious by these same innocents?” sneered Spelán.
Maenach nodded emphatically.
“Indeed, Sister, that is so. How do you explain that?”
“I will come to that in a moment. Let me tell you firstly what happened here. The eight young Brothers left the island because they believed everyone else supported the rule of mortification. It was then that Brother Fogach came across the body and carried it to the oratory and alerted you, Spelán.”
“Why would he do that?”
“Because Brother Fogach was not your enemy, nor was Brother Snagaide. They were your chosen acolytes who had actually helped you carry out your acts of sadism in the past. They were young and gullible enough to believe your instructions were the orders of the Faith and the Word of God. But inflicting punishment on their fellows was one thing, murder was another.”
“You’ll have a job to prove this,” sneered Spelán.
“Perhaps,” replied Fidelma. “At this stage Fogach and Snagaide were willing to help you. You realized that your time was running out. If those brothers reported matters then an official of the church, a dálaigh, would be sent to the island. You had to prepare your defense. An evil scheme came into your mind. It was still early. Selbach was still asleep. You persuaded Snagaide and Fo-gach that Selbach was responsible in the same way that you had persuaded their fellows that Selbach approved of this mortification. You told them that Selbach had flogged Sacán that night- not you-and now he must be ritually scourged in turn. Together you awoke Selbach and took him and tied him to that tree. You knew exactly what you were going to do but first you whipped that venerable old man.
“In his pain, the old man cried out and told your companions the truth. They listened, horrified at how they had been misled. Seeing this, you stabbed the abbot to stop him speaking. But the abbot’s life would have been forfeit anyway. It was all part of your plan to hide all the evidence against you, to show that you were simply the dupe of Selbach.
“Snagaide and Fogach ran off. You now had to silence them. You caught up with Fogach and killed him, smashing his skull with a stone. But when you turned in search of Snagaide you suddenly observed a currach approaching. It was Lorcán’s currach. But you thought it was coining in answer to the report of the eight Brothers.
“You admitted that you were a trained apothecary. You hurried to your cell and mixed a potion of herbs, a powerful sleeping draught which would render you unconscious within a short time. First you picked up a stone and smote your temple hard enough to cause a nasty-looking wound. But Maenach, who knows something of a physician’s art, told us that he would not have expected you to be unconscious from it. In fact, after you had delivered that blow, you drank your potion and stretched yourself in the oratory where I found you. You were not unconscious from the blow but merely in a deep sleep from your potion. You had already worked out the story that you would tell us. It would be your word against the poor, pitiful and confused youths.”
Fidelma slowly took out the cup and placed it on the table.
“That was the cup I found lying near you in the oratory. It still smells of the herbs, like mullein and red clover tops, which would make up the powerful sleeping draught. You have jars of such ingredients in your cell.”
“You still can’t prove this absurd story,” replied Spelán.
�
��I think I can. You see, not only did Abbot Selbach begin to suspect that there was a gortaigid at work within his community but he wrote to Ultan of Armagh outlining his suspicions.”
She took out the letter from Ultan of Armagh.
Spelán’s eyes narrowed. She noticed that tiny beads of sweat had begun to gather on his brow for the first time since she had begun to call his bluff. She held the letter tantalizingly in front of her.
“You see, Spelán, when you showed yourself anxious to get your hands on this letter, I realized that it was the piece of evidence I was looking for; indeed, that I was overlooking. The letter is remarkably informative, a reply to all Selbach’s concerns about you.”
Spelán’s face was white. He stared aghast at the letter as she placed it on the table.
“Selbach named me to Ultan?”
Fidelma pointed to the letter.
“You may see for yourself.”
With a cry of rage that stunned everyone into immobility, Spe-lán suddenly launched himself across the room towards Fidelma with his hands outstretched.
He had gone but a few paces when he was abruptly halted as if by a gigantic hand against his chest. He stood for a moment, his eyes bulging in astonishment, and then he slid to the ground without another word.
It was only then that they saw the hilt of the knife buried in Spelán’s heart and the blood staining his robes.
There was a movement at the door. A young, dark-haired youth in the robes of a religieux took a hesitant step in. Lorcán, the first to recover his senses, knelt by the side of Spelán and reached for a pulse. Then he raised his eyes and shook his head.
Fidelma turned to the trembling youth who had thrown the knife. She reached out a hand and laid it on his shaking arm.
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