Absolution by Murder (22 page)

Authors: Peter Tremayne

Tags: #_NB_Fixed, #_rt_yes, #Church History, #Fiction, #tpl, #Mystery, #Historical, #Clerical Sleuth, #Medieval Ireland

BOOK: Absolution by Murder

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‘You should have told me about this assignation before you went off gallivanting in those vaults,’ he admonished.

There was a tap on the door and a sister entered with a steaming pottery mug.

‘Ah, the infusion,’ grinned Eadulf. ‘It may not taste sweetly, sister, but it will cure your head. I guarantee it.’

Fidelma sipped at the noxious brew, screwing her face up.

‘Best to swallow it as fast as possible,’ advised Eadulf.

Fidelma pulled a face at him but took his advice, shutting her eyes and swallowing the warm drink as fast as possible.

‘That was truly horrible,’ she said, as she put down the mug. ‘You seem to be constantly making me imbibe your noxious concoctions. I think you take a pleasure in it.’

‘There is a saying in your language, Fidelma, that the bitterer the medicine the better the cure,’ replied Eadulf complacently. ‘Now where were we … ?’

‘Seaxwulf. You say his body has gone? But why? And why kill Seaxwulf and then go to such pains to hide the body?’

‘He was killed to prevent him from speaking with you. That much is obvious.’

‘But what had Seaxwulf to tell me? What was so important that he had to make a secret rendezvous and then get killed for it?’

‘Perhaps Seaxwulf had learnt the identity of our murderer?’

Fidelma sat down on the cot and clenched her teeth angrily.

‘Three murders, three and we are not even close to a discovery yet.’

Eadulf shook his head.

‘I disagree. We are too close, sister,’ he said with emphasis.

Fidelma glanced up in surprise.

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean that if we were not close then there would have been only one murder committed. The other two were committed to prevent us gaining the knowledge that those murdered had. We came too close and the murderer was forced to act before we realised that fact.’

Fidelma thought for a moment.

‘You are right. I am not thinking straight. You are absolutely right, Eadulf.’

Eadulf smiled ruefully.

‘I have also discovered that Athelnoth was not entirely lying to us about the brooch.’

‘How?’

Eadulf held out his hand. In his palm was a small silver brooch. Its workmanship was exquisite and its whorls and circular patterns were emphasised by enamel work and semiprecious stones.

Fidelma took it and held it up, turning it over in her fingers.

‘There is little doubt that this is of Irish workmanship,’ she said. ‘Where did you find it?’

‘When Brother Edgar, the physician, stripped the body of Athelnoth for the post-mortem examination we found that he had a small purse tied against the flesh of his body on a leather thong. There was nothing in the purse save this brooch. Oh, and a small scrap of vellum with some Greek writing.’

‘Show me.’

Eadulf handed it to her a little uncomfortably.

‘My Greek is not good enough to understand it fully.’

Fidelma’s eyes were sparkling. ‘A love poem. “Love shook my heart, like a mountain wind that falls upon oak trees.” Short and simple.’ She sighed softly. ‘Each time we think we have solved a mystery, the mystery only deepens.’

‘I don’t understand. Surely this is an easy riddle? This must be the brooch that Étain dropped and that Athelnoth said he was going to return – the brooch he mislaid when he took us to his
cubiculum
to show us? And it was obvious that he was writing some love poem to Étain, an attempt to win her favour just as Sister Gwid indicated.’

Fidelma turned worried eyes on Eadulf.

‘If this was the brooch Étain dropped, and Athelnoth were going to return it, why would he keep it in a small purse next to his skin? And with a love poem? Surely the brooch was there at the very time he was pretending to search for it in front of us? If so, Athelnoth was lying again. But for what purpose?’

Eadulf smiled: ‘Because he did have an infatuation for Étain. He wrote the love poem to her. Perhaps he wanted the brooch as a keepsake. People do become enamoured of objects belonging to people they have a passion for. They sometime vent their passion on the object.’

Fidelma’s eyes brightened.

‘A keepsake! What a fool I am. I think you have taken us a step nearer to the truth.’

Eadulf cast her a bewildered glance, not sure whether she was being sarcastic or not.

‘Seaxwulf was reading Greek love poems in the
librarium
the other evening. And he asked us if lovers exchanged gifts. Don’t you see?’

Eadulf looked totally bemused.

‘I don’t see how this helps us. Are you saying that Seaxwulf killed Athelnoth?’

‘And then drowned himself in a cask of wine? Think again, Eadulf!’

With an exclamation of exasperation she stood up abruptly, swaying a little. Eadulf caught her arm anxiously and they stood for a moment as she recovered from the fit of giddiness. Then she broke away in agitation.

‘Let us go down to the
apotheca
again and examine the cask from which our third corpse has gone missing. There is something I think Seaxwulf had which we must find.’

‘Are you fit enough?’ he demanded anxiously.

‘Of course,’ snapped Fidelma. Then she paused and a smile passed over her features. ‘Yes, I am,’ she said more softly. ‘You were right. It was a bitter medicine but my headache has gone. You have a talent there, Eadulf. You would make a fine apothecary.’

Chapter Sixteen

Eadulf led the way by the quicker route to the wine cellar through a small passageway and stair from the abbey kitchens. Had Fidelma known this short route it would have saved her much time in finding her way through the gloomy catacombs. Fidelma caught her breath as they traversed the kitchens, which were still full of strong odours, with the inevitable reek of stale boiled cabbage and herbs dominating. The stench followed them down a circular stone stair into the
apotheca.

Fidelma went straight to the cask and sought the stool by which she had climbed to its rim. It took her a moment to mount carefully, watched anxiously by Eadulf, who held an oil lamp aloft to give a better light than the single candle she had previously used.

The cask held nothing more ominous than the dark liquid of the wine.

Fidelma leant over, peering into it. There was nothing in its crimson black murkiness that she could see. She turned and observed a long pole nearby, presumably for measuring the liquid in the casks for it had a series of measures carved into it. She took it and lowered it into the cask, feeling about with it in case the body had somehow sunk to the bottom.

There was no contact. There was nothing in the cask except what there was meant to be. She felt a little light-headed from the perfume of the wine.

Fidelma dismounted and walked around the cask. Then she paused, reaching out and feeling the oak wood. It was damp on one side. She sniffed at her fingertips. The scent of the wine was unmistakable.

‘Shine the light on the floor,’ she commanded.

Eadulf held the lamp obligingly.

The floor was wet and there were some scuff marks on its surface.

‘Our friend pulled the body out of the cask on this side and started to drag it … that way. Come on.’

She moved decisively, following the tell-tale line across the stone-flagged floor.

Eadulf followed her.

There were two parallel marks scuffed into the dust of the sandstone surface of the floor, with occasional damp patches. It seemed that someone had dragged the missing body by the arms so that the ankles left the marks across the floor.

The trail led into a passageway off the main
hypogeum
that was cut into the natural sandstone rock and which narrowed so that only two people could walk abreast. Fidelma went to move into it but, to her surprise, she found that Eadulf had laid a restraining hand on her arm.

‘What is it?’ she demanded.

‘I have been told that this leads to one of the more popular of the male
defectora,
sister,’ Eadulf replied. Even by the unnatural light of the lamp she could see that he was blushing.

‘A lavatory?’

Eadulf nodded.

Fidelma sniffed and turned back into the tunnel.

‘Alas, I cannot spare their modesty nor mine. This is the way our murderer dragged the body of Seaxwulf.’

With a sigh of resignation, Eadulf followed her as she moved quickly onward along the narrow defile through the rock.

The tunnel seemed endless.

After a while Fidelma halted, ears straining to catch a discordant sound that had impinged upon her senses.

‘What’s that?’

Eadulf was frowning as he listened.

‘Thunder?’

The faint noise echoing along the passageway did, indeed, sound like the far-off rumble of distant thunder.

‘Thunder is not so consistent and remorseless,’ commented Fidelma.

She began to move forward again.

The faint breeze that they had felt throughout the abbey cellars and along the tunnel began to grow colder and sharper.

They turned a corner of the man-made tunnel and a sudden blast of cold, damp air hit them, causing the light of the oil lamp to waver and flicker out.

There came the overpowering scent of the sea, not just salt spray but the scent of seaweed.

‘We must be near the sea,’ Fidelma called, having to raise her voice so that Eadulf could hear. ‘Can you relight the lamp?’

‘No,’ Eadulf’s voice came forlornly. ‘I have nothing to light it with.’

They were standing in a darkness which, initially, they had thought as black as pitch. But gradually their eyes grew used to the gloom and a faint grey light spread itself along the tunnel.

‘There must be an opening up ahead,’ yelled Eadulf.

‘Let us continue,’ Fidelma replied.

Eadulf could just see her dark sharp moving forward.

‘Have a care,’ he called. ‘Stick close by the wall lest you slip.’

She made no acknowledgement to his cautious warning but moved firmly on, almost having to feel her way forward.

The roar grew louder.

She realised then that it was the sea. The tunnel entrance was coming out close to the edge of the sea. She could hear its breathless rasping over the shingle, and the angry crash as the waves came in and smashed against the rocks.

She pressed forward. She realised why Seaxwulf’s body had been dragged along this passageway towards the sea. The murderer had thrown the body into the waves. The light was growing brighter and the sound was now deafening.

She turned a corner and found herself unable to see as salt sea spray cascaded over her. Involuntarily she closed her eyes and took a step forward. Her foot was not connecting with the rocky floor; she seemed to hang suspended in the air. Then a strong hand caught her arm and she found herself being pulled backwards. She was back on
terra firma
with Eadulf at her side.

The tunnel had twisted and ended abruptly in the mouth of a small cavern from which was a fall of one hundred or more feet to the rocks and sea below.

Fidelma found herself shivering slightly at the nearness of the catastrophe.

‘I told you to have a care, sister,’ reproached Eadulf, his hand still on her arm.

‘I’m all right now.’

Eadulf shrugged and let go her arm.

‘That was a dangerous turn. You were blinded by the sudden light and spray.’

‘I’m all right now,’ she repeated, annoyed with her own awkwardness. ‘And I can see why the brethren choose this place
to perform their defecations. It is continually washed by the sea. An excellent place.’

She turned, without embarrassment, and examined the cave entrance. She guessed it was situated in the cliffs below the abbey that fronted on to the grey, brooding northern seas.

‘At least we know now where Seaxwulf’s body has gone,’ she said, gesturing at the white froth crashing around the rocks below. She had to raise her voice to be heard above the restless waves.

‘But not where the person who transported his body here went,’ Eadulf pointed out. ‘There were tracks leading into the tunnel but none coming out. There would have been tracks obliterating the first ones had the murderer returned the same way.’

Fidelma looked at Eadulf appreciatively.

‘I think that we were only minutes behind the murderer, who perhaps heard us coming along the tunnel and so was prevented from returning that way. Which means’ – she peered around in the gloom – ‘that there is another exit.’ She suddenly grunted in satisfaction and pointed.

To one side a small series of stone steps, carved in the rock, led upwards.

She moved forward, stumbling slightly, for the rock was wet and slippery from the salt sea spray.

She balanced herself and began the ascent, assuming that Eadulf would follow.

It took a while, but she found herself emerging among some brambles on the windy grass atop the cliffs.

The abbey buildings were further up the rise from the spot where she had emerged.

‘Sister Fidelma!’ She jumped at the sound of a voice nearby.
‘Where on earth have you sprung from?’

She turned and found herself gazing into the astonished dark eyes of Abbess Abbe. By the abbess’s side Brother Taran stood, mouth agape.

Fidelma could not repress a soft chuckle at the question.

‘Not on earth, sister,’ she replied.

Abbe showed she did not understand. Then she jumped as Eadulf also emerged from the stairwell among the bramble bushes that covered it and on to the grass.

‘From under the earth,’ Eadulf explained, dusting himself down.

Abbess Abbe’s eyes were wide in her perplexity.

‘Where does that hole lead to? What were you doing down there?’

‘A long story,’ Fidelma said. ‘Have you been here long?’

The abbess smiled sadly.

‘A little while. I was walking with Brother Taran along the cliffs here to get some fresh air before the afternoon’s debate. I was wishing that Étain could be here. She had a way of calming tempers. And tempers are flaring and each exchange gets more heated. I fear that we shall have another Nicaean Council on our hands.’

Eadulf seemed bewildered. The abbess explained for him.

‘At the Council of Nicaea, when Arius of Alexandria rose to speak, one Nicholas of Myra was so outraged that he struck him in the face. There was uproar and pandemonium, with the delegates running out of the debating chamber lest they be beaten by either Arius’s followers or those that opposed him. In the panic that followed, I believe several of the brethren were killed. I feel that soon we shall have Wilfrid physically assaulting Colman.’

Fidelma was examining her closely.

‘Have you seen anyone else walking near here?’

Abbe shook her head and turned to her companion.

‘How about you, Brother Taran? You were here when I arrived.’

Taran raised the fingers of his right hand and pressed the bridge of his nose as if the action might help his recollection.

‘I saw Sister Gwid walking nearby and Wighard, Deusdedit’s secretary.’

‘Were Wighard and Gwid walking together or separately?’ Eadulf demanded.

‘Sister Gwid was on her own. She seemed to be in a hurry, heading to the harbour. Wighard was heading to the abbey, through the kitchen gardens yonder. Why do you ask?’

‘No matter,’ said Fidelma hurriedly. ‘We should be getting back to the abbey ourselves—’

She paused, frowning.

Sister Athelswith was hurrying in their direction. She was holding her skirts and trotting, in something as near to a run as she could manage without losing dignity.

‘Ah, Sister Fidelma! Brother Eadulf!’ She paused, gasping for breath.

‘What is it, sister?’ asked Fidelma, allowing her to regain her breath.

‘The king himself … the king requests your presence immediately.’

Abbess Abbe sighed.

‘I wonder what my brother can want? Let us all go back to the abbey and find out what ails him.’

Brother Taran gave a deprecating cough.

‘You’ll forgive me. I need to make a visit to the harbour
first. I will join you in the
sacrarium
later.’

He left them, turning quickly down the path to the harbour.