Peter Tremayne - Chalice of Blood

‘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 BrotherDonnchad 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 themanuscripts 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, theabbey 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?’