Hemlock at Vespers: Fifteen Sister Fidelma Mysteries

by Peter Tremayne

  “That is so,” agreed Fidelma.

  “Well, I alone of all of you knew that it was a waste of time to kill Nechtan.”

  There was a pause before Fidelma asked patiently: “Why would it be a waste of time, Gerróc?”

  “Why kill a man who was already dying?”

  “Already dying?” prompted Fidelma after the exclamations of surprise had died away.

  “I was physician to Nechtan. It was true that I hated him. He cheated me of my fees but, nevertheless, as a physician here, I lived well. I did not complain. I am advancing in years now. I was not going to imperil my security by accusing my chieftain of wrongdoing. However, a month ago, Nechtan started to have terrible headaches, and once or twice the pain was so unbearable that I had to strap him to his bed. I examined him and found a growth at the back of the skull. It was a malignant tumor for within a week I could chart its expansion. If you do not believe me, you may examine him for yourselves. The tumor is easy to discern behind his left ear.”

  Fidelma bent over the chief and examined the swelling behind the ear with repugnance.

  “The swelling is there,” she confirmed.

  “So, what are you saying, Gerróc?” Marbán demanded, seeking to bring the old physician to a logical conclusion.

  “I am saying that a few days ago I had to tell Nechtan that it was unlikely he would see another new moon. He was going to die anyway. The growth of the tumor was continuing and causing him increased agony. I knew he was going to die soon. Why need I kill him? God had already chosen the time and method.”

  Daolgar of Sliabh Luachra turned to Marbán with grim satisfaction on his face.

  “Then it leaves only you, Tanist of the Múscraige. You clearly did not know that your chieftain was dying and so you had both the motive and the opportunity.”

  Marbán had sprung to his feet, his hand at his waist where his sword would have hung had they not been in the feasting hall. It was a law that no weapons were ever carried into a feasting hall.

  “You will apologize for that, chieftain of Sliabh Luachra!”

  Cuill, however, was nodding rapidly in agreement with Daolgar’s logic.

  “You were very quick to offer your newfound wealth as chieftain to pay the compensation should anyone else confess. Had they done so, it would have solved a problem, wouldn’t it? You would emerge from this without a blemish. You would be confirmed as chieftain of the Múscraige. However, if you were guilty of causing Nechtan’s death then you would immediately be deposed from holding any office. That is why you were so eager to put the blame on to me.”

  Marbán stood glowering at the assembly. It was clear that he now stood condemned in the eyes of them all. An angry muttering had arisen as they confronted him.

  Sister Fidelma raised both her hands to implore silence.

  “Let us not quarrel when there is no need. Marbán did not kill Nechtan.”

  There was a brief moment of surprised silence.

  “Then who did?” demanded Dathó angrily. “You seem to be playing cat and mouse with us, Sister. If you know so much, tell us who killed Nechtan.”

  “Everyone at this table will concede that Nechtan was an evil, self-willed man who was at war with life. As much as we all had reason to hate him, he hated everyone around him with equal vehemence.”

  “But who killed him?” repeated Daolgar.

  Sister Fidelma grimaced sorrowfully.

  “Why, he killed himself.”

  The shock and disbelief registered on everyone’s faces.

  “I had begun to suspect,” went on Fidelma, “but I could find no logical reason to support my suspicion until Gerróc gave it to me just now.”

  “Explain, Sister,” demanded Marbán wearily, “for I cannot follow the same logic.”

  “As I have said, as much as we hated Nechtan, Nechtan hated us. When he learnt that he was to die anyway, he decided that he would have one more great revenge on those people he disliked the most. He preferred to go quickly to the Otherworld than to die the lingering death which Gerróc doubtless had described to him. If it takes a brave man to set the boundaries to his own life, then Nechtan was brave enough. He chose a quick-acting poison, realgar, delighting in the fact that it was a substance that Cuill, the husband of his current mistress, often used.

  “He devised a plan to invite us all here for a last meal, playing on our curiosity or our egos by saying that he wanted to make public reparation and apology for those wrongs that he had done to us. He planned the whole thing. He then recited his wrongdoing against us, not to seek forgiveness, but to ensure that we all knew that each had cause to hate him and seek his destruction. He wanted to plant seeds of suspicion in all our minds. He made his recitation of wrongdoing sound more like a boast than an apology. A boast and a warning.”

  Ess was in agreement.

  “I thought his last words were strange at the time,” she said, “but now they make sense.”

  “They do so now,” Fidelma endorsed.

  “What were the words again?” queried Daolgar.

  “Nechtan said: ”And now I will raise my goblet to each and every one of you, acknowledging what I have done to you all. After that, your law may take its course and I will rest content in that knowledge ... I drink to you all ... and then you may have joy of your law.”

  It was Fidelma who was able to repeat the exact words.

  “It certainly does not sound like an apology,” admitted Marbán. “What did he mean?”

  It was Ess who answered.

  “I see it all now. Do you not understand how evil this man was? He wanted one or all of us to be blamed for his death. That was his final act of spite and hatred against us.”

  “But how?” asked Gerróc, confused. “I confess, I am at a loss to understand.”

  “Knowing that he was dying, that he had only a few days or weeks at most, he set his own limits to his lifespan,” Fidelma explained patiently. “He was an evil, spiteful man, as Ess acknowledges. He invited us to this meal, knowing that, at its close, he would take poison. As the meal started, he asked Ciar, the attendant, to send for his own judge, Brehon Olcán, hoping that Olcán would find us in a state of confusion, each suspecting the other, and come to a wrong decision that one or all of us were concerned in his murder. Nechtan killed himself in the hope that we would be found culpable of his death. While he was talking to us he secreted the poison in his own goblet.”

  Fidelma looked around the grim faces at the table. Her smile was strained.

  “I think we can now speak with the Brehon Olcán and sort this matter out.”

  She turned toward the door, paused and looked back at those in the room.

  “I have encountered much wrongdoing in this world, some of it born of evil, some born of desperation. But I have to say that I have never truly encountered such malignancy as dwelt in the spirit of Nechtan, sometime chieftain of the Múscraige.”

  It was the following morning as Fidelma was riding in the direction of Cashel that she encountered the old physician, Gerróc, at a crossroads below the fortress of Nechtan.

  “Whither away, Gerróc?” she greeted with a smile.

  “I am going to the monastery of Imleach,” replied the old man gravely. “I shall make confession and seek sanctuary for the rest of my days.”

  Fidelma pursed her lips thoughtfully.

  “I would not confess too much,” she said enigmatically.

  The old physician gazed at her with a frown.

  “You know?” he asked sharply.

  “I know a boil which can be lanced from a tumor,” she replied.

  The old man sighed softly.

  “At first I only meant to put fear into Nechtan. To make him suffer a torment of the mind for a few weeks before I lanced his boil or it burst of its own accord. Boils against the back of the ear can be painful. He believed me when I pretended it was a tumor and he had not long to live. I did not know the extent of his evil mind nor that he would kill himself to spite us all.�
�

  Fidelma nodded slowly.

  “His blood is still on his own hands,” she said, seeing the old man’s troubled face.

  “But the law is the law. I should make confession.”

  “Sometimes justice takes precedence over the law,” Fidelma replied cheerfully. “Nechtan suffered justice. Forget the law, Gerróc, and may God give you peace in your declining years.”

  She raised a hand, almost in blessing, turned her horse and continued on her way toward Cashel.

  THOSE THAT TRESPASS

  “The matter is clear to me. I cannot understand why the Abbot should be bothered to send you here.”

  Father Febal was irritable and clearly displeased at the presence of the advocate in his small church, especially an advocate in the person of the attractive, red-haired religieuse who sat before him in the stuffy vestry. In contrast to her relaxed, almost gentle attitude, he exuded an attitude of restlessness and suspicion. He was a short, swarthy man with pale, almost cadaverous features, the stubble of his beard, though shaven, was blue on his chin and cheeks and his hair was dark like the color of a raven’s wing. His eyes were deep-set but dark and penetrating. When he expressed his irritability his whole body showed his aggravation.

  “Perhaps it is because the matter is as unclear to the Abbot as it appears clear to you,” Sister Fidelma replied in an innocent tone. She was unperturbed by the aggressive attitude of the priest.

  Father Febal frowned; his narrowed eyes scanned her face rapidly, seeking out some hidden message in her features. However, Fidelma’s face remained a mask of unaffected candor. He compressed his lips sourly.

  “Then you can return to the Abbot and report to him that he has no need for concern.”

  Fidelma smiled gently. There was a hint of a shrug in the position of her shoulders.

  “The Abbot takes his position as father of his flock very seriously. He would want to know more details of this tragedy before he could be assured that he need not concern himself in the matter. As the matter is so clear to you, perhaps you will explain it to me?”

  Father Febal gazed at the religieuse, hearing for the first time the note of cold determination in her soft tones.

  He was aware that Sister Fidelma was not merely a religieuse but a qualified advocate of the Brehon Law courts of the five kingdoms. Furthermore, he knew that she was the young sister of King Colgú of Cashel himself, otherwise he might have been more brusque in his responses to the young woman. He hesitated a moment or two and then shrugged indifferently.

  “The facts are simple. My assistant, Father Ibor, a young and indolent man, went missing the day before yesterday. I had known for some time that there had been something troubling him, something distracting him from his priestly duties. I tried to talk to him about it but he refused to be guided by me. I came to the church that morning and found that the golden crucifix from our altar and the silver chalice, with which we dispense the communion wine, were both missing. Once I found that Father Ibor had also vanished from our small community here, it needed no great legal mind to connect the two events. He had obviously stolen the sacred objects and fled.”

  Sister Fidelma inclined her head slowly.

  “Having come to this conclusion, what did you do then?”

  “I immediately organized a search. Our little church here is attended by Brother Finnlug and Brother Adag. I called upon them to help me. Before entering the order, Finnlug was master huntsman to the Lord of Maine, an excellent tracker and huntsman. We picked up the trail of Ibor and followed it to the woods nearby. We were only a short distance into the woods, we came across his body. He was hanging from the branch of a tree with the cord of his habit as a noose.”

  Sister Fidelma was thoughtful.

  “And how did you interpret this sight?” she asked quietly.

  Father Febal was puzzled.

  “How should I interpret this sight?” he demanded.

  Fidelma’s expression did not change. “You tell me that you believed that Father Ibor had stolen the crucifix and chalice from the church and ran off.”

  “That is so.”

  “Then you say that you came across him hanging on a tree.”

  “True again.”

  “Having stolen these valued items and ran off, why would he hang himself? There seems some illogic in this action.”

  Father Febal did not even attempt to suppress a sneer.

  “It should be as obvious to you as it was to me.”

  “I would like to hear what you thought.” Fidelma did not rise to his derisive tone.

  Father Febal smiled thinly.

  “Why, Father Ibor was overcome with remorse. Knowing that we would track him down, realizing how heinous his crime against the Church was, he gave up to despair and pronounced his own punishment. He therefore hanged himself. In fact, so great was his fear that we would find him still alive, he even stabbed himself as he was suffocating in the noose, the knife entering his heart.”

  “He must have bled a lot from such a wound. Was there much blood on the ground?”

  “Not as I recall.” There was distaste in the priest’s voice as if he felt the religieuse was unduly occupied with gory detail. “Anyway, the knife lay on the ground below the body where it had fallen from his hand.”

  Fidelma did not say anything for a long while. She remained gazing thoughtfully at the priest. Father Febal glared back defiantly but it was he who dropped his eyes first.

  “Was Father Ibor such a weak young man?” Fidelma mused softly.

  “Of course. What else but weakness would have caused him to act in this manner?” demanded the priest.

  “So? And you recovered both the crucifix and chalice from his person, then?”

  A frown crossed Father Febal’s features as he hesitated a moment. He made a curiously negative gesture with one hand.

  Fidelma’s eyes widened and she bent forward.

  “You mean that you did not recover the missing items?” she pressed sharply.

  “No,” admitted the priest.

  “Then this matter is not at all clear,” she observed grimly. “Surely, you cannot expect the Abbot to rest easy in his mind when these items have not been recovered? How can you be so sure that it was Father Ibor who stole them?”

  Fidelma waited for an explanation but none was forthcoming.

  “Perhaps you had better tell me how you deem this matter is clear then?” Her voice was acerbic. “If I am to explain this clarity to the Abbot, I must also be clear in my own mind. If Father Ibor felt that his apprehension was inevitable and he felt constrained to inflict the punishment of death on himself when he realized the nearness of your approach, what did he do with the items he had apparently stolen?”

  “There is one logical answer,” muttered Father Febal without conviction.

  “Which is?”

  “Having hanged himself, some wandering thief happened by and took the items with him before we arrived.”

  “And there is evidence of that occurrence?”

  The priest shook his head reluctantly.

  “So that is just your supposition?” Now there was just a hint of derision in Fidelma’s voice.

  “What other explanation is there?” demanded Father Febal in annoyance.

  Fidelma cast a scornful glance at him.

  “Would you have me report this to the Abbot and inform him that he need not worry?; that a valuable crucifix and a chalice have been stolen from one of his churches and a priest has been found hanged but there is no need to worry?”

  Father Febal’s features grew tight.

  “I am satisfied that Father Ibor stole the items and took his own life in a fit of remorse. I am satisfied that someone then stole the items after Ibor committed suicide.”

  “But I am not,” replied Fidelma bitingly. “Send Brother Finnlug to me.”

  Father Febal had risen automatically in response to the commanding tone in her voice. Now he hesitated at the vestry door.

  “I am
not used—” he began harshly.

  “I am not used to being kept waiting,” Fidelma’s tone was icy as she cut in, turning her head away from him in dismissal. Father Febal blinked and then banged the door shut behind him in anger.

  Brother Finnlug was a wiry looking individual; his sinewy body, tanned by sun and wind, proclaimed him to be more a man used to being out in all sorts of weather than sheltering in the cloisters of some abbey. Fidelma greeted him as he entered the vestry.

  “I am Fidelma of—”

  Brother Finnlug interrupted her with a quick, friendly grin.

  “I know well who you are, lady,” he replied. “I saw you and your brother, Colgú the King, many times hunting in the company of my Lord of Maine.”

  “Then you know that I am also an advocate of the courts and that you are duty bound to tell me the truth?”

  “I know that much. You are here to inquire about the tragic death of Father Ibor.” Brother Finnlug was straightforward and friendly in contrast to his superior.

  “Why do you call it a tragic death?”

  “Is not all death tragic?”

  “Did you know Father Ibor well?”

  The former huntsman shook his head.

  “I knew little of him. He was a young man, newly ordained and very unsure of himself. He was only here about a month.”

  “I see. Was he the newest member of the community then? For example, how long has Father Febal been here?”

  “Father Febal has been priest here for seven years. I came here a year ago and Brother Adag has been here a little more than that.”

  “I presume that your little community were on good terms with one another?”

  Brother Finnlug frowned slightly and did not reply.

  “I mean, I presume that there was no animosity between the four of you?” explained Fidelma.

  Finnlug’s features wrinkled in an expression which Fidelma was not able to interpret.

  “To be truthful, Father Febal liked to emphasize his seniority over us. I believe he entered the Church from some noble family and does not forget it.”

  “Was that attitude resented?”