Hemlock At Vespers (43 page)

Abbot Heribert’s brows drew together in anger but Fidelma held up a hand to silence him.

“Go on, Brother Sinsear. What are you saying?”

“They had a special meeting spot in a glade not a far distance from here. A woodsman’s hut. It occurs to me, in the circumstances, that the hut might be examined.”

“You should have spoken up sooner, Brother,” snapped Abbot Heribert. “Cano may have fled by now. I see no point in seeking him in that hut.”

“You are presuming that he is guilty of this deed, Heribert,” Fidelma rebuked him. “Yet I think we should investigate this hut. Do you know the way to it, Brother Sinsear?”

“I think so. There is a small path leading off this track about fifty meters in that direction.” He pointed toward Fosse, and on the far side of the track to the oak tree where Cessair had been found.

“How far into the forest?”

“No more than three hundred meters.”

“Then lead the way. Father Abbot, you may send the rest of Brothers of your community to escort the Sisters and the body of Cessair back to the abbey of Nivelles.”

Heribert made to object and then did her bidding.

Brother Sinsear turned pale eyes on Fidelma.

“Could Cano really have done such a terrible deed? Oh God, to maltreat such grace and beauty! Why did she not give her love to one who would appreciate such exquisite—”

Abbot Heribert interrupted him.

“Let us get a move on, Brother Sinsear. I expect it will be a waste of time. If Cano killed her then he will not be hiding in a forest hut but will have left the area by now.”

“You are also forgetting the missing Sister Della,” Fidelma pointed out. “And it is wrong to assume Cano’s guilt.”

“Yes, yes,” Heribert snapped. “Have it your own way.”

With the young Brother Sinsear leading the way, clutching at a newly cut hawthorn stick, they trod a well-worn little path through the great forest.

Eventually they came on a little glade, a pleasant spot through which a small stream meandered. By it stood a woodsman’s crude hut. The door was shut and there was no sign of life.

Fidelma raised her hand and brought them to a halt on the edge of the glade. As they neared the door of the hut, Fidelma’s keen eyes surveyed it quickly. The first things she noticed were bloodstains on the doorjamb and several palm prints on the door as if someone had, with bloodied hands, pushed it open with their palm or palms. Blood was on a piece of wood near the door.

They heard a sobbing sound from within.

“Brother Cano!” Sinsear suddenly called. “The Abbot and I are here.”

There was a silence. The sobbing suddenly halted.

“Sinsear?” came a hesitant male voice. “Thank God! I need help.”

There was another sound now. A feminine cry which sounded as if it were stifled almost immediately.

Fidelma glanced at her companions.

“Stay back. I shall go in first.” She turned and raised her voice. “Brother Cano? I am Fidelma of Kildare. I have come to help you. I am coming in.”

There was no response.

Slowly Fidelma leant forward, placing her hand near the bloodied imprint and pushed against the door. It swung open easily.

At the far end of the woodsman’s hut she saw a young man clad in religious robes, kneeling on the floor. His hair was disheveled, his eyes red and cheeks stained as if from weeping. He held a piece of bloodstained cloth in his hands. Before him lay the prone figure of a girl. Her eyes were open and she appeared conscious but her clothes were covered in blood.

Fidelma heard a sound behind her and swung round. She saw Abbot Heribert and the others trying to squeeze behind her and swiftly waved them back.

“Stay there!” she snapped. There was such a power in her voice that they paused. “I will speak with Cano and Sister Della first.”

Fidelma turned and took a step into the hut.

“I am Sister Fidelma,” she repeated. “May I attend to Sister Della?”

“Of course.” The young man seemed bewildered.

Fidelma knelt by his side. He had been trying to cleanse her wounds.

“Lie still,” she said, as she examined the wound of the young religieuse. Sister Della had been clubbed on the back of the head in the same fashion as Sister Cessair. Unlike the blow delivered to Cessair, it had not broken the bone of the skull. There was, however, a nasty swelling.

“Am I dying, Sister?” The girl’s voice was faint.

“No. In a moment we will get you back to the Abbey so that you may be properly attended. What can you tell me about the attack on Sister Cessair and yourself?”

“Little enough.”

“A little in these circumstances may mean a lot,” encouraged Fidelma.

“Alas, the little is nothing. Sister Cessair and I were bringing the phial of the holy blood of Blessed Gertrude to the Abbey of Fosse. We were walking through the woods. I remember …” She paused and groaned. “I did not hear anyone behind us for we were talking together and …” She held up a hand to her head. “There came a sharp blow and then I can remember nothing until I came to, lying on the path with a blinding pain in my head. I thought I was alone. I could see no one. I began to look around and then, then I saw Cessair….”

She gave a heart-rending sob.

“What then?” prompted Fidelma gently.

“I could do nothing for her, except try to get help. I came here and—”

“You came here?” Fidelma interrupted quickly. “Why come to this woodsman’s hut? Why not go on to the Abbey of Fosse or back to Nivelles?”

“I knew Cano would be here.” The girl groaned again.

“She knew that I had arranged to meet Cessair here on the journey from Nivelles to Fosse,” interrupted Cano defiantly. “I am not ashamed of it.”

Fidelma ignored him and smiled down at the girl.

“Rest awhile. It will not be long before we have you safe and your wound attended.”

Only then did she turned to Cano.

“So you were waiting here for Cessair?”

“Cessair and I loved one another. We often met here because Abbot Heribert was vehement against us.”

“Tell me about it.”

“There is not much to tell. I arrived at Fosse about a month ago to join the community. Although there are several Irish religious here and in Nivelles, it is a strange land. They are more inclined to celibacy than we are in Eireann. They do not have the number of mixed houses that we do. Abbot Heribert was fanatical for the rule of celibacy; even though there is no such proscription in the church, he makes it a rule in his abbey. I think I would have left long ago had I not met Cessair.”

“When did you and Cessair meet?”

“The week after I came here. It was Brother Sinsear who introduced me when we were taking produce from Fosse to Nivelles.”

“Brother Sinsear introduced you?”

“Yes. As a gardener, Sinsear often took produce between the two abbeys. He knew many of the religieuse at Nivelles.”

“Did Cessair have any enemies that you knew of ?”

“Only Abbot Heribert, when he discovered our relationship.” Cano’s voice was bitter. From the doorway, Fidelma heard Heribert’s expression of anger.

“Why didn’t you leave and move on to a mixed house?”

“We planned to but Abbess Ballgel counseled Cessair against it.”

Fidelma frowned.

“Why would she be against such a plan?”

Cano shrugged.

“She was … protective of Cessair. She felt Cessair was too young.”

“More protective than of her other charges?”

“I do not know. All I know is that we were desperate and planning to leave here.”

Fidelma waited a while. Then she said abruptly:

“Did you kill Cessair?”

The young monk raised a tear-stained face to her and there was a haunted look in his eyes.

“How can you ask such a question?”

“Because I am a
dálaigh,
an advocate of the law,” replied Fidelma. “It is my duty to ask.”

“I did not.”

“Tell me what happened this morning, then.”

“I knew that Cessair and Della were bringing the vial to Fosse for the annual blessing. So we arranged to meet here.”

“Surely that would mean a delay in the bringing of the vial to Fosse? The service was at midday.”

“Cessair was going to persuade Della to take the phial on to Fosse while she joined me here. We only meant to meet briefly to make some arrangements and then Cessair would hasten after Della, pretending she had broke her sandal on the road.”

“What arrangements were you going to make?”

“Arrangements to leave this place. Perhaps to go back to Ireland.”

“I see. So you arrived here … ?”

“And here I waited. I thought Cessair was late and was about to go down to the main track to see if there was a sign of her when Della came stumbling into the hut. She was almost hysterical and told me what had happened, then she passed out. I could not leave her alone and have been trying to return her to consciousness ever since. It is only a moment ago that she regained her senses.”

Fidelma turned to Della.

“Do you agree with this account?”

The girl had raised herself on an elbow, she still looked pale and shaken.

“So far as I am able. I do not remember much at all.”

“Very well. Then I think we should get you to the abbey where you may have the wound tended.” She glanced at Cano who was twisting his hands nervously. Then she remembered something.

“Do you have the vial of blood, Sister Della? The holy blood of the Blessed Gertrude?”

Della frowned and shook her head

“Cessair carried it in her
marsupium.”

“I see,” replied Fidelma thoughtfully, before turning to the others and waving them forward.

“We will carry Sister Della to Fosse,” she told them. “There are a few more questions that I wish to ask but we should ensure that Sister Della gets proper treatment for her wound.”

The church and community of Fosse was not as spectacular as some of the abbeys which Fidelma had encountered in her travels. She reminded herself that it was barely twenty years old. It was not more than a collection of timber houses around a large, rectangular wooden church.

Sister Della was immediately taken to the infirmary while the Abbot led the Abbess and Fidelma to the refectory for refreshments. Brother Sinsear and Brother Cano were told to go to their cells and await the Abbot’s call.

Abbess Ballgel was the first to break the uneasy silence that had fallen among them. She had seen Fidelma’s work before while they had been together at the Abbey of Kildare.

“Well, Fidelma, do you see a solution to this horror? And where is the holy blood of Gertrude?”

“Let us summarize what we know. We can eliminate certain things. Firstly, the concept that this action was committed by robbers. I have already given one main reason, that is the mutilation of Cessair. That was done from hate. Secondly, we have the testimony from Della who says that she was walking along talking with Cessair and did not hear or see anything until she was struck from behind.”

“You mean, if there had been robbers waiting in ambush then she would have seen something of them?”

“Just so. The very idea of even a single person creeping unobserved behind someone walking in a forest is, I find, rather a difficult one to accept.”

Abbess Ballgel frowned quickly.

“You claim that Sister Della is lying?”

“Not necessarily. But think of it in this way; think of a forest path strewn with dead leaves, twigs and the like. An animal might move quietly over such a carpet but can a human? Could a man or woman creep up so quickly behind someone walking along and strike them before they knew it?”

“Then we must question the girl further,” snapped Heribert, “and force her to confess.”

Fidelma looked at him in disapproval.

“Confess to what?”

“Why, the killing of the other girl,” replied Heribert.

Fidelma gave a deep sigh.

“There is another more plausible explanation why Sister Della did not hear her assailant creep up behind her.”

The Abbot frowned in anger.

“What game are you playing? First you say one thing and then you say another. I do not follow.”

The Abbess Ballgel intervened as she saw Fidelma’s facial muscles go taut and her eyes change color.

“Fidelma is a qualified advocate used to these puzzles. I suggest we allow her to follow her path of reasoning.”

The Abbot sat back his face set in a sneer.

“Proceed, then.”

“Before I come back to that point, let us proceed along another route. The savagery with which Sister Cessair was attacked, the fact that her features were mutilated, the fact that Sister Della was left unmarked except for the blow that laid her unconscious, means that Cessair was, indeed, singled out particularly in this attack. She was, as I said before, attacked out of some great malice toward her.”

“It is logical, Fidelma,” agreed the Abbess.

“Then we must consider who had such a hatred of Cessair.”

She paused and allowed them to consider her proposal in silence.

“Well, we can eliminate almost everyone,” the Abbess smiled briefly.

“How so?”

“Brother Cano was her lover. Sister Della was her closest friend in the abbey. Cessair made no enemies … except …”

She suddenly hesitated.

“Except?” encouraged Fidelma gently.

The Abbess had dropped her eyes.

It was Abbot Heribert who flushed with anger.

“Except me, you mean?” He rose to his feet. “What are you implying? Because I uphold the teaching of celibacy? Because I forbid any liaison with women among the members of my community ? Because I urged the Abbess to forbid Sister Cessair to see Brother Cano as I had forbidden him to meet with her? Are these things to be thrown at me in accusation that I murdered her?”

“Did you?”

Fidelma asked the question so quietly that for a long time it seemed that the Abbot had not heard her.

“How dare you!”

“I dare because I must,” replied Fidelma calmly. “Keep your bluster to yourself, Abbot. We are hear to discover the truth, not to engage in games of vanity.”

Heribert went red in the face. He was inarticulate with rage.

The Abbess Ballgel leant forward.