Peter Tremayne - The Council of the Cursed

The young man replied, ‘At this hour Brother Sigeric will be in the scriptorium , Sister. I will take you there.’

‘One moment.’ Fidelma was looking at the doors to the individual chambers in the corridor. ‘If this was Bishop Ordgar’s original chamber, tell me who occupied the rooms on either side.’

‘His steward, Brother Benevolentia, is in the chamber to your left,’ Brother Chilperic indicated. ‘Bishop Ordgar has now been moved to the chamber on his left.’

‘Whose chamber is that, on the other side to Ordgar’s original chamber-to the right?’

‘That is now unoccupied,’ replied Brother Chilperic.

‘And unoccupied on the night of the murder?’

The man shook his head. ‘No, that was occupied by Lord Guntram.’

‘Lord Guntram? The local governor?’

‘He had come to the abbey to see the bishop and stayed late so that he was in no condition to ride back to his fortress.’

‘Ah, he was the visiting nobleman of whom Bishop Leodegar spoke. How do you mean-he was in no condition?’

Brother Chilperic looked uncomfortable. ‘He is a rather profligate young man, I am afraid, and the bishop keeps a good wine cellar.’

Fidelma was quiet as they followed the steward to the scriptorium . Leaving them at the door, he hurried off to convey the latest development to the bishop, his leather sandals slapping on the flags of the corridor.

Fidelma and Eadulf watched him go. Then Eadulf said in a whisper, ‘You think that someone in the chapel, on hearing we were investigating the matter, hurried to the chamber to search it?’

‘And why would that be?’ countered Fidelma. ‘If there was something incriminating in that chamber, why not retrieve it during the week that has passed since the killing of Dabhóc?’

Eadulf looked disappointed. ‘It is a mystery,’ he admitted.

Fidelma chuckled. ‘We are here to solve such mysteries,’ she reminded him, before reaching forward to turn the handle of the door into the scriptorium .

There was only one person inside-a young man poring over a scroll that was spread on the wooden table before him. He looked up as they entered and nervously started to rise in his seat. When Fidelma began to introduce herself, the young man made a motion of his hand.

‘I know who you both are. I saw you in the chapel last night.’

‘Be at ease, Brother Sigeric,’ invited Fidelma. ‘I understand that you were first on the scene in Bishop Ordgar’s chamber. You are a scribe in this abbey, I believe?’

The young man sank back into his chair and carefully laid his quill down on the desk before him.

‘I write a fair hand,’ he said, almost defensively. ‘I have good Latin, passable Greek and some Hebrew. Therefore, in kindness, I am scribe to the bishop.’

‘And are you a Frank?’

‘I am a Burgund. I was born and raised in this city.’

‘Have you served long in this abbey?’

‘Since I was fifteen years old.’

‘So that would be…?’

‘I have seen four and twenty summers.’

‘Nine years,’ reflected Fidelma. ‘You must know this abbey well.’

The young man shrugged but said nothing.

‘I would imagine that there has never been a mysterious death at the abbey before,’ she continued.

‘None that I am aware of.’

‘And now you have played a central role in the matter.’

Brother Sigeric looked alarmed. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

‘You are a key witness.’

‘I saw nothing,’ replied the young man.

‘On the contrary, you saw a great deal by discovering the scene of the murder.’

The young man’s jaw came up. ‘I was not there when the Hibernian abbot was killed.’

‘We did not say that you were. But we would like to find out exactly how you came to Bishop Ordgar’s chamber that night. It was in the hour before dawn, I am told.’

Brother Sigeric sniffed slightly. ‘I explained everything to Bishop Leodegar.’

‘And now you will explain to me.’

‘I was just passing…’

‘In the middle of the night?’ intervened Fidelma. ‘Tell me, where is your chamber in relationship to Bishop Ordgar’s?’

The young man seemed unwilling to speak for a moment.

‘The rooms of the hospitia are on the second floor of this building,’ Fidelma prompted him. ‘Surely the dormitoria are on the first floor?’

‘As scribe I have my own chamber. It is on the second floor…’

‘Where exactly?’ she pressed.

‘It is on the eastern side of the building overlooking the courtyard between this building and the Domus Femini .’

‘Then it still does not explain why you were just passing Bishop Ordgar’s chamber in the middle of the night.’

The young man sighed deeply as if suddenly resigned. ‘The women here live separately to the men,’ he muttered.

The sentence surprised Fidelma. ‘I do not see the connection.’

‘When the Blessed Reticulus became the first bishop here, or the first we know of, as many claimed Amator preceded him, this was a mixed house. But Bishop Leodegar is of the faction that believe men and women should be separated and, indeed, that the clerics should adopt the code of celibacy if they wish to serve the New Faith. Yet we still have free choice on the matter. Rome has not decreed it as the Rule.’

‘So you do not agree with Bishop Leodegar’s Rule? There is no need to be defensive on this matter,’ Fidelma assured him. ‘Eadulf and I share not only a union in our Faith but a union in marriage. There is no Rule of celibacy in our churches either.’

The young man was nervous. ‘You will understand, then,’ he said, almost pleading.

‘We can only understand when we know what it is that you are trying to say, Sigeric. Now, explain why you were abroad that night before dawn.’

Brother Sigeric bit his lip. ‘I went to meet a girl.’

He paused and Fidelma had to prompt him to continue.

‘Who was this girl?’

‘Her name is Valretrade. She is one of the religieuse who serve in the Domus Femini beyond the wall. We became friends when this was still a mixed community. She also had a talent for copying the old texts and so we met here. After the bishop separated the communities, we contrived to meet regularly.’

‘And that night you were on your way to an assignation with Valretrade?’

‘I had received a message from her urging me to meet her.’

‘How did you receive such a message?’

‘It was a crude method. My room, as I said, looks across the courtyard that separates us from the Domus Femini . Almost exactly opposite to my window is the chamber occupied by Valretrade. We arranged that when either one of us needed to see the other urgently, we would place a lighted candle in the windows.’

‘And that night you saw the candle?’

Brother Sigeric nodded quickly. ‘I was not sleeping comfortably and I awoke. That was when I saw the candle. I lit an answering one in my window. Once it was seen, the arrangement was that Valretrade raised her candle and moved it from side to side three times. I then did the same. If she then extinguished the candle, it meant that she was on the way to our meeting place. This happened that night and so I left to go to our prearranged meeting point, having also extinguished my candle.’

‘What if you had not awoken and seen the candle? It was not a guaranteed way of communication.’

‘I grant you that,’ the young man said. ‘But it was the best we could do in the circumstances. Usually, there was never urgency in the meetings. We knew, more or less, on which nights we would meet. That night was different. The signal meant it was urgent.’