Hemlock at Vespers: Fifteen Sister Fidelma Mysteries

by Peter Tremayne

  She reached the knoll and paused. There was no one in sight. The nocturnal piper had vanished. She drew her cloak closer around her shoulders and shivered. But it was the night chill rather than the idea of the specter that caused her to tremble.

  Catching her breath against the icy air, she looked down. There were no footprints. But the snow, on careful inspection, did not lie in pristine condition across the knoll. Its surface was rough, ruffled as if a wind had blown across it. It was then she noticed the curious reflective quality of it, here and there. She bent forward and scooped a handful of snow in her palm and examined it. It seemed to twinkle and reflect as she held it.

  Fidelma gave a long, deep sigh. She turned and retraced her steps back to the inn.

  Belach was waiting anxiously by the door. She noticed that he now held the sword in his hand.

  She grinned mischievously.

  “If it were a spirit, that would be of little assistance,” she observed dryly.

  Belach said nothing, but he looked and bolted the door behind Fidelma as she came into the room. He replaced the sword without comment as she went to the fire the warm herself after her exertion into the night.

  Monchae was standing on the bottom step, her arms folded across her breast, moaning a little.

  Fidelma went in search of the jug of corma and poured out some of the spirit. She swallowed some and then took a wooden cup to Monchae and told her to drink it.

  “You heard it? You saw it?” the wife of the innkeeper wailed.

  Fidelma nodded.

  Belach bit his lip. “It is the ghost of Murgán. We are doomed.”

  “Nonsense!” snapped Fidelma.

  “Then explain that!” replied Belach, pointing to the table.

  There was nothing on the table. It was then Fidelma realized what was missing. She had left the pipes on the table when she had returned to bed.

  “It is two hours or so until sunrise,” Fidelma said slowly. “I want you two to return to bed. There is something here which I must deal with. Whatever occurs, I do not wish either of you to stir from your room unless I specifically call you.”

  Belach stared at her with white, taut features.

  “You mean that you will do battle with this evil force?”

  Fidelma smiled thinly.

  “That is what I mean,” she said emphatically.

  Reluctantly, Belach helped Monchae back up the stairs, leaving Fidelma standing in the darkness. She stood still, thinking, for a while. She had an instinct that whatever was happening in this troubled isolated inn, it was building toward its climax. Perhaps that climax would come before sunrise. There was no logic to the idea but Fidelma had long come to the belief that one should not ignore one’s instincts.

  She turned and made her way toward a darkened alcove at the far end of the room in which only a deep wooden bench was situated. She tightened her cloak against the chill, seated herself and prepared to wait. Wait for what, she did not know. But she believed that she would not have to wait for long before some other manifestation occurred.

  It was a short time before she heard the sounds of the pipe once more.

  The sweet, melodious lullaby was gone. The pipes were now wild keening. It was the hair-raising lament of the gol-traige, full of pain, sorrow and longing.

  Fidelma held her head to one side.

  The music was no longer outside the old inn but seeming to echo from within, seeping up under the floorboards, through the walls and down from the rafters.

  She shivered but made no move to go in search of the sound, praying all the while that neither Monchae nor Belach would disobey her instructions and leave their room.

  She waited until the tune came to an end.

  There was a silence in the old building.

  Then she heard the sound, the sound she had heard on her first waking. It was a soft, dragging sound. Her body tensed as she bent forward in the alcove; her eyes narrowed as she tried to focus into the darkness.

  A figure seemed to be rising from the floor, upward, slowly upward on the far side of the room.

  Fidelma held her breath.

  The figure, reaching its full height, appeared to be clutching a set of pipes beneath its arms. It moved toward the table in a curious limping gait.

  Fidelma noticed that now and again, as the light of the glowing embers in the hearth caught it, the figure’s cloak sparkled and danced with a myriad pinpricks of fire.

  Fidelma rose to her feet.

  “The charade is over!” she cried harshly.

  The figure dropped the pipes and wheeled around, seeking to identify the speaker. Then it seemed to catch its breath.

  “Is that you, Monchae?” came a sibilant, mocking whisper.

  Then, before Fidelma could prepare herself, the figure seemed the fly across the room at her. She caught sight of light flashing on an upraised blade and instinct made her react by grasping at the descending arm with both hands, twisting her body to take the weight of the impact.

  The figure grunted angrily as the surprise of the attack failed.

  The collision of their bodies threw Fidelma back into the alcove, slamming her against the wooden seat. She grunted in pain. The figure had shaken her grip loose and once more the knife hand was descending.

  “You should have fled while you had the chance, Monchae,” came the masculine growl. “I had no wish to harm you or the old man. I just wanted to get you out of this inn. Now, you must die!”

  Fidelma sprang aside once more, feverishly searching for some weapon, some means of defense.

  Her flailing hand knocked against something. She dimly recognized it as the alabaster figure of the Madonna and Child. Automatically, her fingers closed on it and she swung it up like a club. She struck the figure where she thought the side of the head would be.

  She was surprised at the shock of the impact. The alabaster seemed to shatter into pieces, as she would have expected from a plaster statuette, but its impact seemed firm and weighty, causing a vibration in her hand and arm. The sound was that of a sickening smack of flesh meeting a hard substance.

  The figure grunted, a curious sound as the air was sharply expelled from his lungs. Then he dropped to the floor. She heard the sound of metal ringing on the floor planks as the knife dropped and bounced.

  Fidelma stood for a moment or two, shoulders heaving as she sought to recover her breath and control her pounding emotions.

  Slowly she walked to the foot of the stairs and called up in a firm voice.

  “You can come down now. I have laid your ghost!”

  She turned, stumbling a little in the darkness, until she found a candle and lit it. Then she went back to the figure of her erstwhile assailant. He lay on his side, hands outstretched. He was a young man. She gave a soft intake of breath when she saw the ugly wound on his temple. She reached forward and felt for a pulse. There was none.

  She looked round curiously. The impact of a plaster statuette could not have caused such a death blow.

  Fragments and powdered plaster were scattered in a large area. But there, lying in the debris, was a long cylindrical tube of sacking. It was no more than a foot high and perhaps one inch in diameter. Fidelma bent and picked it up. It was heavy. She sighed and replaced it where she had found it.

  Monchae and Belach were creeping down the stairs now.

  “Belach, have you a lantern?” asked Fidelma as she stood up.

  “Yes. What is it?” demanded the innkeeper.

  “Light it, if you please. I think we have solved your haunting.”

  As she spoke she turned and walked across the floor to the spot where she had seen the figure rise, as if from the floor. There was a trapdoor and beneath it some steps which led into a tunnel.

  Belach had lit the lamp.

  “What has happened?” he demanded.

  “Your ghost was simply a man,” Fidelma explained.

  Monchae let out a moan.

  “You mean it is Murgán? He was not killed at Loch
Derg?”

  Fidelma perched herself on the edge of the table and shook her head. She stooped to pick up the pipes where the figure had dropped them onto the table.

  “No; it was someone who looked and sounded a little like Murgan as you knew him. Take a look at his face, Monchae. I think you will recognize Cano, Murgán’s younger brother.”

  A gasp of astonishment from the woman confirmed Fidelma’s identification.

  “But why, what ... ?”

  “A sad but simple tale. Cano was not killed as reported at Loch Derg. He was probably badly wounded and returned to this land with a limp. I presume that he did not have a limp when he went away?”

  “He did not,” Monchae confirmed.

  “Murgán was dead. He took Murgán’s pipes. Why he took so long to get back here, we shall never know. Perhaps he did not need money until now, or perhaps the idea never occurred to him....”

  “I don’t understand,” Monchae said, collapsing into a chair by the table.

  “Cano remembered that Murgán had some money. A lot of money he had saved. Murgán told you that if he lost his life, then there was money in the inn and you would never want for anything. Isn’t that right?”

  Monchae made an affirmative gesture.

  “But as I told you, it was just Murgán’s fantasy. We searched the inn everywhere and could find no sign of any money. Anyway, my man, Belach, and I are content with things as they are.”

  Fidelma smiled softly.

  “Perhaps it was when Cano realized that you had not found his brother’s hoard that he made up his mind to find it himself.”

  “But it isn’t here,” protested Belach, coming to the support of his wife.

  “But it was,” insisted Fidelma. “Cano knew it. But he didn’t know where. He needed time to search. How could he get you away from the inn sufficiently long to search? That was when he conceived a convoluted idea to drive you out by pretending to be the ghost of his brother. He had his brother’s pipes and could play the same tunes his brother had played. His appearance and his voice made him pass for the person you once knew, Monchae, but, of course, only at a distance with muffled voice. He began to haunt you.”

  “What of the shimmering effect?” demanded Belach. “How could he produce such an effect?”

  “I have seen a yellow claylike substance that gives off that curious luminosity,” Fidelma assured them. “It can be scooped from the walls of the caves west of here. It is called mearnáil, a phosphorus, a substance that glows in the gloom. If you examine Cano’s cloak you will see that he has smeared it in this yellowing clay.”

  “But he left no footprints,” protested Belach. “He left no footprints in the snow.”

  “But he did leave some tell-tale sign,” Fidelma pointed out. “You see, he took the branch of a bush and, as he walked backward away from the knoll, he swept away his footprints. But while it does disguise the footprints, one can still see the ruffled surface of the snow where the bush has swept over its top layer. It is an old trick, taught to warriors, to hide their tracks from their enemies.”

  “But surely he could not survive in the cold outside all these nights?” Monchae said. It was the sort of aspect which would strike a woman’s precise and practical logic.

  “He did not. He slept in the inn, or at least in the stable. Once or twice he tried to search the inn while you lay asleep. Hence the bumps and sounds that sometimes awakened you. But he knew, however, that he could only search properly if he could move you out.”

  “He was here with us in the inn?” Belach was aghast.

  Fidelma nodded to the open trapdoor in the floor.

  “It seemed that he knew more of the secret passages of the inn than either of you. After all, Cano was brought up in this inn.”

  There was a silence.

  Monchae gave a low sigh.

  “All that and there was no treasure. Poor Cano. He was not really evil. Did you have to kill him, Sister?”

  Fidelma compressed her lips for a moment.

  “Everything is in God’s hands,” she said in resignation. “In my struggle, I seized the statuette of Our Lady and struck out at Cano. It caught him on the table and fragmented.”

  “But it was only alabaster. It would not have killed him, surely?”

  “It was what was inside that killed him. The very thing that he was looking for. It lies there on the floor.”

  “What is it?” whispered Monchae, when Belach reached down to pick up the cylindrical object in sackcloth.

  “It is a roll of coins. It is Murgán’s treasure. It acted as a bar of metal to the head of Cano and killed him. Our Lady had been protecting the treasure all these years and, in the final analysis, Our Lady meted out death to him that was not rightful heir to that treasure.”

  Fidelma suddenly saw the light creeping in through the shutters of the inn.

  “And now day is breaking. I need to break my fast and be on my way to Cashel. I’ll leave a note for your bo-áire explaining matters. But I have urgent business in Cashel. If he wants me, I shall be there.”

  Monchae stood regarding the shattered pieces of the statuette. “I will have a new statuette of Our Lady made,” she said softly.

  “You can afford it now,” replied Fidelma solemnly.

  HEMLOCK AT VESPERS

  Sister Fidelma was late. The vesper-bell had already ceased proclaiming the arrival of the sixth canonical hour, the time set aside for prayers, long before she reached the dusk-shrouded gates of the grey stone abbey building. The services were over and the community had already filed into the refectory for the evening meal as she, having cursorily brushed the dust of travel from her, entered and hurried toward her place with arms folded into her habit, her head bent in submissive attitude.

  While her head was lowered, the keen observer might have noticed that there was little else that was submissive about Sister Fidelma’s bearing. Her tall, well-proportioned figure, scarcely disguised by her flowing robe, carried the attitude of a joy in living, a worship of activity, rather than being cowed by the somber dignity associated with a religieuse. As if to add to this impression, rebellious strands of red hair broke from beneath her head-dress adding to the youthful coloring of her pale, fresh face and piercing green eyes which hardly concealed a bubbling vitality and sense of humor.

  The refectory hall was lit by numerous spluttering oil lamps whose pungent smell mingled with the heavy aroma of the smoky turf fire which smoldered in the great hearth set at the head of the chamber. Lamps and fire combined to generate a poor heat against the cold early spring evening.

  The Abbess had already started the Gratias as Sister Fidelma, ignoring the scandalized or amused glances from the lines of Sisters—each expression fitting their individual characters—slipped into her place at the end of one of the long tables and genuflected, slightly breathlessly, and with more than seemly haste.

  “Benedic nobis, Domine Deus, et omnibus donis Tuis quae ex lorgia liberalitate Tua sumnus per—”

  The sudden cry of agony was followed by several seconds of shocked silence. Then the cry, a harsh male howl, came again, followed by a crash of someone falling and the sound of breaking pottery. Sister Fidelma, eyes wide at the unexpectedness of the interruption, raised her head. Indeed, all those in the great refectory hall of the abbey had done so, peering around with excited whispers.

  All eyes came to stare toward the end of the hall, to the table which was usually occupied by the visitors to the House of Blessed Brigid in Kildare. There was a commotion near the table and then Sister Fidelma saw one of the community hurry forward to where the Abbess, and the other leading members of the House of Brigid, stood behind their table which was placed on a slightly raised platform to dominate the hall.

  She saw Sister Poitigéir, whom she recognized as the Sister-apothecary, lean forward and whisper excitedly into the Abbess’s ear. The Abbess’s placidity of features did not alter. She simply inclined her head in dismissal of her informant.

  B
y this time a babble of sound had erupted from the hundred or so members of the community gathered to partake of their evening meal following the celebration of vespers.

  The Abbess banged her earthenware mug on the table for silence, determined to finish the formula of the Gratias.

  “... sumnus per Jesum Christum Dominum nostrum. Amen.”

  Across the hall, Sister Fidelma could see two members of the community laboring to carry what appeared to be a man’s body from the refectory. She saw Follaman, a large, ruddy-faced man, who looked after the male guests at the community’s hostel, enter the refectory and help the Sisters with their burden.

  “Amen. ” The word echoed raggedly but there was scarcely another sound as the hundred members of the community slid into their seats. This was the moment when the meal usually began with the handing round of bread but the Abbess held her hand to prevent the monitors from commencing to dispense the meal.

  There was an expectant silence. She cleared her throat.

  “My children, we must delay our repast a moment. Our guest has been taken ill and we must await the report of our Sister-apothecary who believes that our guest may have eaten something which has disagreed with him.”

  She stilled another eruption of excited murmuring with a sharp gesture of her thin white hand.

  “While we wait, Sister Mugain shall lead you in the devotion ...” Without further explanation, the Abbess swept from the platform while Sister Mugain began intoning a mixture of Latin and Irish in her shrill voice:

  Regem regum rogamus

  In nostris sermonibus

  anacht Nóe a luchtlach

  diluui temporibus

  King of Kings

  We pray to you

  Who protected Noah

  In the day of the Flood

  Sister Fidelma leant close to Sister Luan, a gawky girl, beside whom she sat.

  “Who was the person who was carried out?” she asked softly. Sister Fidelma had only just rejoined her community after a two week journey to Tara, the royal capital of the five kingdoms of Ireland, seat of the High King.