‘I have not heard of this,’ admitted Abbot Ségdae. ‘When was it?’
‘About three centuries ago, according to the annalists.’
‘If Novatian and his followers were declared heretics three centuries ago, how can you claim that Brother Lugna is a member of their sect?’ Brehon Aillín demanded.
‘Oh, the Novatianists still exist. Novatian was executed in the massacre of Christians in Rome by the Emperor Valerian. But his sect spread rapidly after his death. They were numerous in many lands and they called themselves katharoi, which is the Greek for “puritans”, to denote that they kept themselves pure from what they saw as the lax and forgiving ways of the Roman popes. Some demanded that even those born and raised in the Faith must be baptised again before they could join the Novatianists and be considered saved. Of course the Novatianists are still regarded as heretics but I am not sure that they have been censured with any force since the time of Pope Clement.’
Abbot Iarnla turned to glare at his steward. ‘Is it true that you follow the teachings of this Novatian?’
‘Why should I deny it?’ retorted Brother Lugna with arrogance.
‘I hold the Faith pure and untainted. There is no room for those who are half-hearted about declaring their beliefs.’
‘And that is why you were concerned when Brother Donnchad returned from the Holy Land and you discovered that far from being strengthened in his Faith, his mind was full of questions for which he tried to find answers?’ said Abbot Iarnla.
‘The devil had tempted Donnchad while he wandered in the wilderness,’ Brother Lugna replied calmly.’ ‘He was not strong enough to fight the devil and fell into the greatest sin of all. He denied the Faith. There is no room in Christendom for those who deny the Faith even if they eventually come seeking forgiveness on their hands and knees. They should be turned away and punished.’
‘Just as your founder Novatian preached,’ said Fidelma.
‘Just as he taught,’ agreed the steward. ‘Such sinners are condemned in this life and in the next. Those who give them forgiveness and succour are the real heretics. They will not receive forgiveness of the Lord when the time comes. They will be made to answer at the awful Day of Judgement.’
‘There is a day of judgement come today,’ Fidelma pointed out. ‘We are here to judge who is responsible for Brother Donnchad’s death.’
‘I shall not deny my Faith,’ Brother Lugna replied stubbornly. ‘At least I will not die a sinner and a blasphemer as Donnchad did.’
‘So you killed Brother Donnchad!’ Abbot Iarnla accused, his voice rising. ‘You admit it!’
The refectorium erupted once more.
‘I deny it!’ shouted the steward, red with anger.
Brehon Aillín stamped his staff of office loudly but it took a long time before he was able to quell the noise of surprise and outrage that had arisen.
When some degree of quiet was restored, Fidelma held up her hand.
‘Let us come to the answer in the proper order,’ she said, glancing at the Brehon.
Brehon Aillín was looking anxious and said, ‘There are contentious matters here and in view of what you have told me, I am prepared to let you proceed for a little while longer in the manner you wish. But I urge you, for the sake of peace in this abbey, come to the point as quickly as you can.’
‘I shall proceed as quickly as the matter allows.’ Fidelma’s voice was grave. She turned back to those gathered in the refectorium. ‘The views expressed by Brother Lugna are part of the intolerance that I believe we must fight against. Beliefs are things to be cherished but we cannot be intolerant of others whose beliefs we disagree with. That intolerance can lead to war and even murder. It did lead to murder in the case of Brother Donnchad.
‘As with the killing of Glassán the master builder, two people were involved in the murder of Brother Donnchad. Both parties to his murder were zealots for the Faith and could not tolerate someone who, rightly or wrong – for I make no judgement – began to ask questions instead of simply believing.
‘When it became known to these two people that Brother Donnchad was researching writings that were critical of the Faith and meant to produce a scholastic work on them, they decided that he should be silenced. He was not to be allowed to proclaim his doubts or voice his questions because of the shame, as they saw it, it would bring upon this abbey.’
Many heads turned to Brother Lugna and to Abbot Iarnla. They both sat with expressions of defiance.
Brehon Aillín leant forward. ‘Do you accuse the abbot or his steward? Or both of them? There is no one in a higher position to protect the reputation of the abbey than they are.’
‘A moment more of patience,’ Fidelma urged. ‘One of the two people planned the murder and the other was their accomplice. But we must first comment on the circumstances of the murder. One of them entered Brother Donnchad’s cubiculum and killed him. They had to remove all the manuscripts that Brother Donnchad had in his cubiculum that would show what he was working on. They could not allow the papers to be known.’
‘How are you going to demonstrate that?’ snapped Abbot Iarnla. ‘There was only one key to the cubiculum, which Brother Donnchad had, and that was by his side when he was found. And no one came out of his cubiculum bearing any papers before his body was discovered.’
‘That was where the second person was involved. It was the Venerable Bróin who gave me the clue with his story of seeing an angel in white fluttering in the sky. The Venerable Bróin occupied the cubiculum beneath Brother Donnchad. What he actually saw was a large piece of parchment fluttering down. The killer, having despatched Donnchad, threw the precious manuscripts out of the window. The window, as you will recall, faces the wasteland that lies just before the abbey graveyard. The window is too small for anyone to enter or exit through it. But it is large enough to throw out the manuscripts to the second person waiting below to collect them.’
She suddenly swung round.
‘What happened to them, Brother Donnán? Have they been destroyed, given to your confederate, or have you hidden them away in the library?’
Brother Donnán turned white, stood up quickly, sat down again and then slowly rose to his feet once more.
‘I … I deny it!’ he gasped but there was no conviction in his voice.
‘The first mistake you made was over a piece of parchment written on by Brother Donnchad. We found the piece below the window. You neglected to pick it up; it was such a small piece, you probably did not notice it. There were only a few words written on it anyway. You, who are certainly an expert on his writings, denied it was Brother Donnchad’s hand. Yet Cunán, the assistant librarian at Fhear Maighe, who is also an expert, not only identified it as Brother Donnchad’s, but was also able to prove this by the particular way letters were formed, by showing us writings received from Brother Donnchad as example.
‘Donnchad wrote an entreaty that the chalice be removed from him. What chalice? The chalice of his knowledge. Brother Donnchad had also written Deicide several times; he was not referring to the Jews killing the Christ but to himself, to his own research, which was killing his Faith. He knew what was happening and he used the words written in the gospel of Luke when even Jesus doubted: “Father, if you be willing, remove this chalice from me …’ It was to be a bitter chalice for Brother Donnchad.
‘Brother Donnán also tried to lead us away from the books Donnchad was researching. Then he discovered that the original book by Celsus was in Fhear Maighe. By coincidence, the abbey of Ard Mór had asked and paid for a copy of it, having read Origenes’ answer to it, which this abbey had lent them after Brother Donnchad had read it. A messenger arrived at the library with the news that the copy was ready and that it would be sent by barge. As the physician, Brother Seachlann, was going to Ard Mór, he volunteered to take the message. Brother Donnán overheard this and even wrote down the titles of the books. However, he thought it was the original that Fhear Maighe was sending. He passed that information on
to someone on the barge, who arranged for it to be attacked and the copy stolen.’
There was a deathly hush in the great room. Everyone was sitting spellbound.
‘The attack on the barge was made to appear as if men from the Uí Liatháin carried it out. I will explain why, in a moment.’
Uallachán and Cumscrad stirred uneasily in their seats but they made no comment.
‘Brother Donnán’s accomplice, or should I say the person who was the main instigator of all these events, then learned that Fhear Maighe still had the original of Celsus’s work. An attack on the library to destroy this copy and, indeed, to kill the librarian who might have read the work was arranged.
‘Why were you involved, Brother Donnán?’ Fidelma asked the scriptor. ‘You have been at this abbey a long time. I suppose you have pride in your library, your scriptorium, and pride in the abbey which you hoped would become one of the great teaching abbeys of Christendom. Did you fear that if a scholar of Brother Donnchad’s merit declared his doubts, it would destroy your ambitions for the abbey and tarnish the reputation you took such pride in?’
Brother Donnán resumed his seat and folded his hands before him. He was shaking his head. His face was set, his mouth compressed into a firm line.
‘You will not tell us who the instigator was in all this?’ Fidelma shrugged and turned towards Abbot Iarnla. ‘Who, more than most, wanted to protect the reputation of this abbey and make it, as I have said, renowned for its Faith and learning throughout Christendom? Who wanted this abbey to rise as a great monument to the Faith that would last forever?’
Many in the refectorium were now looking with open hostility at Brother Lugna, while a few were casting suspicious glances at Abbot Iarnla.
‘Who,’ declared Fidelma, speaking in a slow, deliberate tone, ‘has the ultimate power here?’
The eyes of all the brethren now focused on the abbot. Abbot Iarnla stared at her for a moment, and then his eyes suddenly widened. An expression of horror crossed his face and he turned to look at Lady Eithne. Everyone followed his gaze.
‘This is a scandalous accusation!’ she declared, immobile in her seat. ‘Am I being accused of killing my own son? I cannot and will not stand for it.’
‘Did you kill your son, Lady Eithne?’ asked Fidelma coldly.
‘I loved my son. Anyway, it would have been physically impossible for me to do what is claimed here. There was only one key to the cell, which was found by my son’s body in the locked cell after I had left him on that final visit when Brother Lugna called me to the abbey.’
‘You had another key made,’ Fidelma asserted flatly.
‘How could I have done that?’
‘Simple. I had overlooked that you made two visits to his cell. Brother Lugna told us about the day.’ She turned to Brehon Aillín. ‘Brother Donnchad disappeared for a day but came back in the evening and locked himself in his chamber. That was four days before his death. Brother Lugna told me that he sent for Lady Eithne the next day and she came and saw him. That was three days before his death, and later that same day Donnchad went to the scriptorium. Brother Máel Eoin remembered that he was upset because he had mislaid his pólaire, the wax tablet for making notes. He had not mislaid it, Lady Eithne had taken it during her visit.’
‘Why would I take his notebook?’
‘You pressed the key into it so that the shape of it was made in the wax. Donnchad was too preoccupied to notice your actions, or maybe you distracted him somehow. You took the tablet out concealed in your robes. I saw that you had your own smith at your fortress. It was easy to get him to make a key from the impression. The original key never left the cell. When I handled it later, when Brother Gilla-na-Naomh showed it to me, it was still slippery with wax.’
‘That is true,’ declared Brother Gilla-na-Naomh.
Lady Eithne’s mouth thinned.
‘You returned to see Donnchad on the day of his death. You returned specifically to kill him. After you had killed him, thrown the papers and books through the window to your accomplice, Brother Donnán, you were able to exit his chamber, leaving his key by his body. You locked the door with your newly made key. It was realising that you made two visits that put everything in perspective for me.’
In the brief moment of silence that followed, Brother Lugna cried out, ‘I was not involved in any of this!’
‘In a way, you are the person mainly responsible for this,’ Fidelma replied harshly. ‘Oh, you will not be found guilty of the killing nor of conspiracy to kill, but you were the malign influence over that woman,’ she indicated Lady Eithne. Then she turned back to the Brehon. ‘She had developed a fierce pride in the Faith. That pride increased when she encountered Brother Lugna and she saw in him the means to build up this abbey as a shrine to her sons Donnchad and Cathal. But Cathal chose to remain in Tarentum as its Bishop. Only Brother Donnchad had returned here. So this was to be his shrine, a beacon for the Faith, as she called it. But, to her horror, her son was having doubts about the very fundamentals of the Faith. He was even researching and writing an essay on the matter. That could not be allowed.’
Fidelma addressed Lady Eithne again. ‘Who could you turn to to stop your son ruining your great plans for the abbey and, by association, your self-aggrandisement? Brother Lugna was actually too pious. I suspect he also thought he was making a shrine for himself. But you knew the scriptor was proud of the abbey, proud of the library that he had built up, and proud of its reputation. So you drew him into the plan, the plan to take the documents your son had gathered and to destroy them and any trace of writings that questioned the Faith.’
‘I was not told that she was going to kill Brother Donnchad,’ Brother Donnán suddenly said, loudly and clearly. ‘I would not have agreed to that.’
‘Shut up, you fool!’ cried Lady Eithne.
‘By the time Brother Donnán knew Donnchad had been killed, he was too involved and too frightened to do anything but continue as Lady Eithne’s accomplice.’ Fidelma looked at the librarian. ‘What did you do with the books and papers Lady Eithne threw from the chamber?’
‘As you said, I gathered them up and later took them to Lady Eithne’s fortress.’
‘You met Brother Gáeth along the way and said you were simply taking books from the library to her. But how were you able to alert her about the copy of Celsus’s book at Fhear Maighe just as we were setting off there?’
‘I was on the road outside the abbey, on my way to see Lady Eithne, when I saw Glassán riding off on some errand. He paused long enough to tell me that Brother Lugna had just seen Cumscrad and was in a rage, for he had learned that the library at Fhear Maighe held the Celsus book. I knew Lady Eithne would be interested.’
‘Interested to send her warriors to Fhear Maighe. So all Brother Donnchad’s papers are now destroyed?’
Brother Donnán shrugged.
‘One thing that Lady Eithne and Brother Donnán did not know,’ Fidelma said to Brehon Aillín, ‘was that her son had already written a brief account of his findings and his thoughts. Oh, not the great reference work that he was planning, citing those writers of centuries ago who presented their criticisms against the new Faith. This was only a short account of his ideas. He included the fact that he had tried to talk to you, Lady Eithne, his own mother, about his doubts. Instead of discussing them, you threatened him if he spoke out. He believed that you would attempt to steal his work and suppress it. He mistakenly believed that your accomplice was Brother Lugna. He even thought Brother Lugna might contemplate physical violence against him. That’s why he asked Abbot Iarnla for a key to his cell.’
There was a deathly silence as Fidelma paused, shaking her head.
‘There were other matters to be considered along the way. When Lady Eithne heard that Abbot Iarnla had sent for me, she sent two of her mercenary warriors to waylay us on the road here. They were to ambush and kill my companions and me. They did not succeed and one of them was killed by Gormán, and the other, a bánaí, fle
d. He was later to die in the attack on Fhear Maighe. It seemed he was the leader of a band of mercenaries from a kingdom called Kernow on the island of Britain. A band of mercenaries that you hired, Lady Eithne. I have since found that your clan, the Déisí, has a small settlement in that kingdom. The mercenaries were disguised as Uí Liatháin. Then, of course, there was the earlier attack on the barge by warriors dressed as Uí Liatháin. One of these attackers was wounded. And you felt you should send for the physician, Brother Seachlann, to attend to the man’s wound. That was part of your undoing, lady. You have more than once demonstrated to me your complete lack of concern for those you consider beneath your rank. That is why you did not attend the funeral of Glassán.
‘You told Seachlann your warrior was wounded practising with his sword. So it was Brother Seachlann who provided me with an important piece of information. The two knife thrusts that killed Brother Donnchad showed some knowledge of anatomy, in that they were struck in points in the back where death was fairly certain. Brother Seachlann, when examining your warrior, realised you possessed a good knowledge of anatomy. You could have treated the man yourself and not aroused suspicion.’
Colgú was frowning. ‘Why the subterfuge? Why would Lady Eithne have her warriors disguised as Uí Liatháin? To create war between them and the Fir Maige Féne? To spread alarm and dissension?’
‘For an even more sinister purpose,’ replied Fidelma. ‘She knew of the tensions between the Fir Maige Féne and the Uí Liatháin and she knew they were often blamed for many things. Her intention was to create a conflict between them. She had hired an unusual number of mercenary warriors. I believe that she intended to use the ensuing conflict to step in as a peacemaker and claim, as a reward, some of the territories of the two clans to extend her own power around this abbey. Moreover, she needed the extra revenue from the new territories to finance her rebuilding of the abbey.’
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