by Mike Ashley
She sat for some time on the log, turning matters over in her own mind. Then she pulled out the piece of parchment and read it again, considering it carefully. She replaced it in her marsupium and stood up abruptly, her mouth set in a grim line.
She retraced her steps back down the hill to the community and went straight to the Father Superior’s chamber.
Father Maílín was still seated at his desk and looked up in annoyance as she entered.
“Have you finished your investigation, Sister?”
“Not as yet,” Fidelma replied and, without waiting to be asked, sat down. A frown crossed Father Maílín’s brow but before he could admonish Fidelma, she cut in with a bored voice, “I would remind you that not only am I sister to the King of Cashel but, in holding the degree of Anruth as an advocate of the court, I have the privilege of even sitting in the presence of the High King. Do not, therefore, lecture me on protocol.”
Father Maílín swallowed at the harshness of her tone.
He had, indeed, been about to point out that a member of the brethren was not allowed to sit in the presence of a Father Superior without being invited.
“You are a clever man, Father Maílín,” Fidelma suddenly said, although the Father Superior missed the patronizing tone in her voice.
He stared at her not knowing how to interpret her words.
“I need your advice.”
Father Maílín shifted his weight slightly in his chair. He was bewildered by her abrupt changes of attitude.
“I am at your service, Sister Fidelma.”
“It is just that you have been able to reason out an explanation for a matter which is beyond my understanding and I would like you to explain it to me.”
“I will do my best.”
“Excellent. Tell me how these thieves were able to overpower and hang an old man in his chamber and leave the room, having secured the window on the inside and locking the door behind them, leaving the key in the room?”
Father Maílín stared at her for some moments, his eyes fixed on her in puzzlement. Then he began to chuckle.
“You are misinformed. The key was never found. The thieves took it with them.”
“I am told that there was only one key to that room which the Venerable Gelasius kept in his possession. Is that true?”
Father Maílín nodded slowly.
“There was no other key. Our smithy had to pick the lock for us to gain entrance to the room.”
Fidelma reached into her marsupium and laid the key before him.
“Don’t worry, I tried it in Gelasius’s lock. It works. I found the key on the floor behind his desk.”
“I don’t . . . I can’t . . .”
His voice stumbled over the words.
Fidelma smiled sharply.
“Somehow I didn’t think you would be able to offer an explanation.”
Father Maílín ran a hand, distractedly, through his hair. He said nothing.
“Where are the writings that the Venerable Gelasius was working on?” went on Fidelma.
“Destroyed,” Father Maílín replied limply.
“Was it you who destroyed them?”
“I take that responsibility.”
“Veritas odium parit,” repeated Fidelma softly.
“You know your Terence, eh? But I did not hate old Gelasius. He was just misguided. The more misguided he became, the more stubborn he became. Ask anyone. Even Brother Ledbán, who worked closely with him, refused to cast a mould for a bookplate which carried some Ogham script because he thought Gelasius had misinterpreted it.”
“You felt that Gelasius was so misguided that you had to destroy his work?”
“You do not understand, Sister.”
“I think I do.”
“I doubt it. You could not. Gelasius was like a father to me. I was protecting him. Protecting his reputation.”
Fidelma raised an eyebrow in disbelief.
“It is the truth that I tell you,” insisted the Father Superior. “Those papers on which he was working, I had hoped that he would never release to the world. He was the great philosopher of the Faith and yet he grew senile and began to doubt his faith.”
“In what way did he grow senile?”
“What other condition could account for his doubt? When I reproved him for his doubt he told me that one must question even the existence of God for if God did exist then he would approve of the homage of reason rather than fear born out of ignorance.”
Fidelma inclined her head.
“He was, indeed, a wise man,” she sighed. “But for those doubts . . . you killed him!”
Father Maílín sprang to his feet, his face white.
“What? Do you accuse me of his murder? It was the itinerants, I tell you.”
“I do not believe your itinerant theory, Father Maílín,” she said firmly. “No one who considers the facts could believe it.”
The Father Superior slumped back in his seat with hunched shoulders. There was guilt written on his features. He groaned softly.
“I only sought to protect Gelasius’s reputation. I did not kill him,” he protested.
“You, yourself, have given yourself a suitable motive for his murder.”
“I didn’t! I did not . . .”
“I will leave you for a moment to consider your story. When I return, I shall want the truth.”
She turned out of his chamber and made her way slowly to the chapel. She was about to pass the Venerable Gelasius’s door when some instinct drew her inside again. She did not know what made her enter until she saw the shelf of books.
She made her way across the room and began to peer along the line of books.
“Gaius Plinius Secundus,” she muttered to herself, as her eyes rested on the book which she was unconsciously looking for – Naturalis Historia.
She began to flip through pages seeking the half forgotten reference.
Finally, she found the passage and read it through. The passage contained what she expected it would.
She glanced quickly round the room and then went to the bed. She climbed on it and stood at the edge, reaching her hands up towards the beam above. It was, for her, within easy arm’s length. She stepped down again to the floor. Then she made her way to the chapel and stood inside the door as she had done a short time before.
Her gaze swept around the chapel and then, making up her mind on some intuition, she walked to the altar and went down on her hands and knees but it was not to pray. She bent forward and lifted an edge of the drape across the altar.
Beneath the altar stood a silver crucifix and two golden chalices. In one of them, was a rosary of green stone beads. Fidelma reached forward and took them out. She regarded them for a moment or two and then heaved a deep sigh.
Gathering them in her arms she retraced her steps to Father Maílín’s chamber. He was still seated at his desk. He began to rise when she entered, and then his eyes fell to the trophies she carried. He turned pale and slumped back in his seat.
“Where did you . . .” he began, trying to summon up some residue of sharpness by which he hoped to control the situation.
“Listen to me,” she interrupted harshly. “I have told you that it is impossible to accept your story that thieves broke in, killed Gelasius and left him in a room secured from the inside. I then find that you disapproved of the work which Gelasius was doing and after his death destroyed it. Tell me how these matters add up to a reasonable explanation?”
Father Maílín was shaking his head.
“It was wrong to blame the itinerants. I realize that. It seemed that it was the only excuse I could make. As soon as I realized the situation, I distracted the brethren and quickly went into the chapel and removed the first things that came to hand. The crucifix and the cups. These I placed under the altar where you doubtless discovered them. I returned to Gelasius’s room and seized the opportunity to take his rosary from the drawer. Then it was easy. I could now claim that we had been robbed.”
&n
bsp; “And you destroyed Gelasius’s work?”
“I only collected the text that Gelasius had been working on at the time and destroyed it lest it corrupt the minds of the faithful. Surely it was better to remember Gelasius in the vigour of his youth when he took up the banner of the Faith against all comers and destroyed the idols of the past? Why remember him as he was in his dotage, in his senility – an old embittered man filled with self-doubts?”
“Is that how you saw him?”
“That is how he became, and this I say even though he had been a father to me. He taught us to overthrow the idols of the pagans, to recant the sins of our fathers who lived in heathendom . . .”
“By despising, denigrating and destroying all that has preceded us, we will simply teach this and future generations to despise our beliefs. Veritas vos liberabit!”
Father Maílín stared at her quizzically.
“How do you know that?”
“You did not destroy all Gelasius’s notes. Gelasius, towards the end of his life, suddenly began to realize the cultural wealth he had been instrumental in destroying. It began to prey on his mind that instead of bringing civilization and knowledge to this land, he was destroying thousands of years of learning. Benignus writes that the Blessed Patrick himself, in his missionary zeal, burnt 180 books of the Druids. Imagine the loss to learning!”
“It was right that such books of pagan impropriety be destroyed,” protested the Father Superior.
“To a true scholar it was a sacrilege that should never have happened.”
“He was wrong.”
“The burning of books, the destruction of knowledge, is a great crime against humanity. No matter in whose name it is done,” replied Fidelma. “Gelasius saw that. He knew he was partially responsible for a crime which he had committed against his own culture as well as the learning of the world.”
Father Maílín was silent for a moment and then he said: “I did not kill him. He took his own life. That was why I tried to blame the itinerants.”
“Gelasius was murdered,” Fidelma said. “But not by the itinerants. He was murdered by a member of this community.”
Father Maílín was pale and shocked.
“You cannot believe that I . . . I only meant to cover up his own suicide and hide the nature of his work. I did not kill him?”
“I realize that . . . now. The thing that had misled me was the fact that you and the real killer both shared a fear of the nature of Gelasius’s work. But you both took different ways of dealing with it. When the killer struck, he wanted to make it appear that Gelasius committed suicide and so discredit him. However, you, believing that Gelasius’s suicide was genuine, and would bring discredit on the Faith, then tried to disguise what you thought was a suicide and blame itinerants for murder.”
“Who killed the Venerable Gelasius, then?” demanded Father Maílín. “And how? There was only one key and you say that you found it in the room.”
“Let me first explain why I did not think Gelasius took his own life. The obvious point was that it was physically impossible for him to do so. He was old and frail. I stood on the bed and reached to the roof beam. I am tall and therefore could reach it. But for an elderly and frail man, and one of short stature, it was impossible for him to stand on the bed, tie the rope and hang himself.
“Yet one of your brethren went to considerable lengths to draw attention to the nature of the work that Gelasius was doing, pretending to express approval for it but, at the same time, hinting that Gelasius was so overawed by his revelations that he could not face the fact of his complicity in the destruction of our ancient beliefs and rituals. He even said that Gelasius had approved of a quotation by Pliny which, cunningly he left for me to find, having wetted my curiosity. It was the passage where Pliny wrote that, ‘amid the suffering of life, suicide is the gods’ best gift to men’. The murderer was Brother Ledbán.”
“Ledbán?” Father Maílín looked at her in amazement. “The Delbatóir? But he worked closely with the Venerable Gelasius . . .”
“And so knew all about his work. And one of the mistakes Ledbán made was in pretending he had no knowledge of Ogham when, as you yourself testify, he knew enough to accuse Gelasius of wrong interpretation.”
“But there is one thing you cannot explain,” Father Maílín pointed out, “and in this your whole argument falls apart. There was only one key and that you confess you found inside Gelasius’s room.”
Fidelma smiled knowingly.
“I think you will find a second key. What is the task of Brother Ledbán?”
“He’s the Delbatóir . . . why?”
“He makes the metal book plates and book shrines, casting them from moulds in gold or silver. It is not beyond his capability to cast a second key, having made a mould from the first. You simply take the key and press it into wax to form the mould from which you will make your cast. You will note, as I did, the key I found – Gelasius’s own key – was covered in grease. A search of Ledbán’s chamber or his forge should bring the second key to light if he does not confess when faced with the rest of the evidence.”
“I see.”
“However, it was wrong of you, Father Maílín, to try to disguise the manner of Gelasius’s death.”
“You must understand my position. I did believe Gelasius had committed suicide. If so, the nature of his work would be revealed. Would you rather Christendom knew that one of its great theologians committed suicide in protest at being responsible for the destruction of a few pagan books?”
“I would rather Christendom might learn from such an act. However, it was a greater guilt to fabricate the false evidence.”
“My desire was to save Gelasius from condemnation,” protested Father Maílín.
“Had Gelasius resorted to suicide, then he would have been condemned for his action,” Fidelma said. “What was it that Martial wrote?
When all the flattery of life is gone
The fearful steal away to death, the brave live on.
“But, as you frequently remarked, the Venerable Gelasius was a brave man and would have lived to argue his case had he not been murdered. I will leave it to you to arrest Brother Ledbán and await instructions from the Abbot.”
She smiled sadly and turned towards the door.
“Must everything come out?” called Father Maílín. “Must all be revealed?”
“That is up to the Abbot,” replied Fidelma, glancing back. “Thankfully, in this case, it is not in my purview to make such moral judgments on what took place here. I only have to report the facts to the Abbot.”
King Hereafter
Philip Gooden
Philip Gooden lives and works in Bath and is the author of the Shakespearean murder mysteries Sleep of Death (2000) and Death of Kings (2001), featuring his actor-detective, Nick Revill. Not surprisingly, Gooden turns to the Shakespearean world for the following story, the world of Macbeth. The facts may be more Shakespearean than historical, but it’s no less a puzzle for that.
It was not until some weeks after I’d finally bedded the Lady Gruoch that we got round to talking about her husband. Naturally, we’d already chatted about him in a general way: that is, about his bed preferences and peculiarities. Not many of either, according to my lady. He was more the warrior than the lover. But now we started to talk about him as a man, with flaws and failings and weak points. His strengths we took for granted. I, the young cuckolder, found myself in the odd position of defending Gruoch’s husband against his wife.
She leaned on an elbow and traced out my cheekbone with a long finger. The firelight gave a hectic gleam to her already flushed and naked chest.
“He is superstitious,” she said.
“Most men are,” I said, “more so than women in my experience.”
“He won’t go anywhere on Friday. He says it’s an unlucky day to travel, for God’s sake.”
“There are other days to move in.”
“He’s afraid of the dark.”
&nbs
p; “Then he is sensible,” I said, pinching one of her hard little nipples. “Why do you despise him so much?”
“He has no ambition. No hunger.”
“Now we come to it.”
“Not like you, Canmore,” she said. Her tone was hopeful.
“A man situated as I am has no need of ambition. I only have to wait.”
“You know what happened to the horse that waited for the grass to grow,” she said.
“The proverb is something musty,” I said.
“Huh,” she snorted, horse-like herself.
The Lady Gruoch was fierce, impatient. That was the mood I liked her in best, the mood when we came together front to front, like two enemies in the field. As we did now.
She was right too. Of course I was ambitious. The notion that I was willing to wait until the prize fell into my lap was pretence, a necessary cloak in company. By instinct, I would rather have seized it.
She returned to the subject a few days later when we were out hunting. We were spending much time together at that period, uninterrupted time. Her husband was off in the west, fighting as usual, doing the King’s business against a raggle-taggle bunch of mercenaries and rebels. It was a campaign that I’d participated in, my first in fact. I left the field when the only task remaining was cleaning up, an operation well suited to Gruoch’s husband. He liked cleaning up almost as much as he liked fighting. The few trees along the western shores would be laden with the bodies of kerns and gallow-glasses, shrivelling in the sea winds like long, discoloured fruit.
I knew that he was more at home out there, campaigning and cleaning up, than he would have been in his castle with Gruoch. For my part I was happier here, on his side of the bed, than I ever was on the battlefield. Gruoch told me that she’d been waging her own campaign to bed down with me. Naturally I was flattered. Almost old enough to be my mother, she could have passed for my sister. Now I wanted her to enjoy the fruits of conquest for as long as possible. Let her husband hang and head the malcontents to his heart’s content, I said to myself, as long as he stays away a little longer.