Peter Tremayne - Whispers of the Dead

Fidelma reached into her marsupium and laid the key before him.

“Don’t worry, I tried it in Connla’s lock. It works. I found the key on the floor behind his desk.”

“I don’t. . I can’t. .”

His voice stumbled over the words.

Fidelma smiled sharply.

“Somehow I didn’t think you would be able to offer an explanation.”

Father Máilín ran a hand, distractedly, through his hair. He said nothing.

“Where are the writings that the Venerable Connla was working on?” went on Fidelma.

“Destroyed,” Father Máilín replied limply.

“Was it you who destroyed them?”

“I take that responsibility.” “Veritas odium parit,” repeated Fidelma softly.

“You know your Terence, eh? But I did not hate old Connla. He was just misguided. The more misguided he became, the more stubborn he became. Ask anyone. Even Brother Ledbán, who worked closely with him, refused to cast a mold for a bookplate which carried some Ogham script because he thought Connla had misinterpreted it.”

“You felt that Connla was so misguided that you had to destroy his work?”

“You do not understand, Sister.”

“I think I do.”

“I doubt it. You could not. Connla was like a father to me. I was protecting him. Protecting his reputation.”

Fidelma raised an eyebrow in disbelief.

“It is the truth that I tell you,” insisted the Father Superior. “Those papers on which he was working, I had hoped that he would never release to the world. He was the great philosopher of the Faith and yet he grew senile and began to doubt his faith.”

“In what way did he grow senile?”

“What other condition could account for his doubt? When I reproved him for his doubt he told me that one must question even the existence of God for if God did exist then he would approve of the homage of reason rather than fear born out of ignorance.”

Fidelma inclined her head.

“He was, indeed, a wise man,” she sighed. “But for those doubts. . you killed him!”

Father Máilín sprang to his feet, his face white.

“What? Do you accuse me of his murder? It was the itinerants, I tell you.”

“I do not believe your itinerant theory, Father Máilín,” she said firmly. “No one who considers the facts could believe it.”

The Father Superior slumped back in his seat with hunched shoulders. There was guilt written on his features. He groaned softly.

“I only sought to protect Connla’s reputation. I did not kill him,” he protested.

“You, yourself, have given yourself a suitable motive for his murder.”

“I didn’t! I did not. .”

“I will leave you for a moment to consider your story. When I return, I shall want the truth.”

She turned out of his chamber and made her way slowly to the chapel. She was about to pass the Venerable Connla’s door when some instinct drew her inside again. She did not know what made her enter until she saw the shelf of books.

She made her way across the room and began to peer along the line of books.

“Gaius Plinius Secundus,” She muttered to herself, as her eyes rested on the book which she was unconsciously looking for- Naturalis Historia.

She began to flip through the pages seeking the half forgotten reference.

Finally, she found the passage and read it through. The passage contained what she expected it would.

She glanced quickly ’round the room and then went to the bed. She climbed on it and stood at the edge, reaching her hands up toward the beam above. It was, for her, within easy arm’s length. She stepped down again to the floor. Then she made her way to the chapel and stood inside the door as she had done a short time before.

Her gaze swept around the chapel and then, making up her mind on some intuition, she walked to the altar and went down on her hands and knees but it was not to pray. She bent forward and lifted an edge of the drape across the altar.

Beneath the altar stood a silver crucifix and two golden chalices. In one of them was a rosary of green stone beads. Fidelma reached forward and took them out. She regarded them for a moment or two and then heaved a deep sigh.

Gathering them in her arms she retraced her steps to Father Máilín’s chamber. He was still seated at his desk. He began to rise when she entered, and then his eyes fell to the trophies she carried. He turned pale and slumped back in his seat.

“Where did you. .” he began, trying to summon up some residue of sharpness by which he hoped to control the situation.

“Listen to me,” she interrupted harshly. “I have told you that it is impossible to accept your story that thieves broke in, killed Connla and left him in a room secured from the inside. I then find that you disapproved of the work which Connla was doing and after his death destroyed it. Tell me how these matters add up to a reasonable explanation?”

Father Máilín was shaking his head.

“It was wrong to blame the itinerants. I realize that It seemed that it was the only excuse I could make. As soon as I realized the situation, I distracted the brethren and quickly went into the chapel and removed the first things that came to hand. The crucifix and the cups. These I placed under the altar where you doubtless discovered them. I returned to Connla’s room and seized the opportunity to take his rosary from the drawer. Then it was easy. I could now claim that we had been robbed.”

“And you destroyed Connla’s work?”

“I only collected the text that Connla had been working on at the time and destroyed it lest it corrupt the minds of the faithful. Surely it was better to remember Connla in the vigor of his youth when he took up the banner of the Faith against all comers and destroyed the idols of the past? Why remember him as he was in his dotage, in his senility-an old embittered man filled with self-doubts?”

“Is that how you saw him?”

“That is how he became, and this I say even though he had been a father to me. He taught us to overthrow the idols of the pagans, to recant the sins of our fathers who lived in heathendom. .”

“By despising, denigrating and destroying all that has preceded us, we will simply teach this and future generations to despise our beliefs. Veritas vos liberabit!”

Father Máilín stared at her quizzically.

“How do you know that?”

“You did not destroy all Connla’s notes. Connla toward the end of his life, suddenly began to realize the cultural wealth he had been instrumental in destroying. It began to prey on his mind that instead of bringing civilization and knowledge to this land, he was destroying thousands of years of learning. Benignus writes that the Blessed Patrick himself, in his missionary zeal, burnt one hundred and eighty books of the Druids. Imagine the loss to learning!”

“It was right that such books of pagan impropriety be destroyed,” protested the Father Superior.

“To a true scholar it was a sacrilege that should never have happened.”

“Connla was wrong.”

“The burning of books, the destruction of knowledge, is a great crime against humanity. No matter in whose name it is done,” replied Fidelma. “Connla saw that. He knew he was partially responsible for a crime which he had committed against his own culture as well as the learning of the world.”

Father Máilín was silent for a moment and then he said: “I did not kill him. He took his own life. That was why I tried to blame the itinerants.”

“Connla was murdered,” Fidelma said. “But not by the itinerants. He was murdered by a member of this community.”

Father Máilín was pale and shocked.

“You cannot believe that I. . I only meant to cover up his own suicide and hide the nature of his work. I did not kill him.”