Peter Tremayne - The Leper's bell

There was no need to ask the question. The faces of mother and son affirmed the truth. The silence that descended was almost unearthly. Everyone seemed to be holding their collective breath while awaiting any new revelation Fidelma might make.

Brehon Baithen leant forward from his chair. ‘Are you going to eventually name the guilty one, Fidelma?’ he asked softly, a faint note of sarcasm in his voice.

She swung round with raised brows. ‘Is it not obvious? Gobnat killed her own sister because it was her husband, Capa, who was enamoured of Sárait. It was Capa who killed Callada and who raped Sárait. Having then discovered that his wife had killed Sárait, Capa did everything to lead suspicion away from her, even to the point of killing the dwarf Iubdán whom he had mistaken for Forindain.’

Gobnat began to protest shrilly, calling Fidelma worse than a whore to protect her whoring friend. It needed firmness to restore order, as well as some of the guards, who now took their orders from Caol. Brehon Baithen was looking baffled.

‘For those who do not possess the quickness of your mind, Fidelma, perhaps you would share those of its processes that have led you to make this accusation?’

‘I am prepared to do so. I said in my opening that there were two sisters, Gobnáit and Sárait. They were very different in character, although both married warriors. But while Capa was married to Gobnat he lusted after her younger sister. He felt that the only thing that stood in the way of a consummation of that lust was Callada. He killed Callada at Cnoc Áine. Then, having thought that his path was clear, he found Sárait revolted by him. He raped her. The rest of her story I have told you.

‘Sárait had not only confided in Delia — without naming Capa, of course — but had made the mistake of confiding in her sister, from whom one might have expected a close sympathy and understanding. Gobnat, to whom Capa had not been able to resist boasting of his subjection of her sister, became enraged. Despising Delia as she did, she decided to strike down Sárait in such a way that guilt and punishment might be laid at Delia’s door. The object of Capa’s jealousy, Gormán, whom Gobnat suspected of being Delia’s lover, would therefore also be implicated.’

Brehon Baithen rubbed his chin. ‘What made you suspect that Gormán was Delia’s son?’

‘From the first Gormán told Eadulf and me that he was the son of a prostitute. When I went to see Delia, she mentioned that she was a mother. The connection became easy to work out. In fact, Gormán told us that he thought Capa disliked him because his mother was a prostitute. That was only partially true. Capa also knew that Sárait had become fond of Gormán while she rejected his own attentions. So he tried to implicate Gormán in the killing of the dwarf. Capa felt he had to kill Forindain, by the way, because he thought the dwarf might have been able to identify his wife. He could not be sure that the dwarf had not seen her face in the lantern light of the inn.’

‘What I can’t understand is why did Gobnat go to the trouble that you have described when she must have had countless opportunities to kill her sister without evolving such an ingenious plot?’ Baithen pondered.

‘As I say, she wanted to absolve herself of any implication in it, and to implicate Delia. To that end, she stole Delia’s cloak, a distinctive garment. Then came the charade of sending the message to the palace. If anyone saw her, she could be sure that it was not Gobnat who would be described. Someone in rich silk, indeed, when Gobnat dressed so austerely.’

‘This is madness!’ cried Gobnat.

‘We will see,’ replied Brehon Baithen.

Old Brehon Dathal coughed and stood up.

‘I have listened to these accusations. In my opinion, were I still Chief Brehon, I would stop you now, Fidelma, and dismiss the case at once. There are too many suppositions, and questions pile up for you to answer.’

It was clear that Brehon Baithen was irritated by this intervention, but before he could remonstrate Fidelma replied: ‘Then let me continue and I will answer them.’

‘Indeed,’ Brehon Baithen said quickly. ‘We will hear what the learned dálaigh has to say, as is custom in my court, Dathal.’

‘Like all plans,’ Fidelma went on, ‘Gobnat’s plan went awry. First, Sárait came to her sister’s dwelling with Alchú. She thought that while she carried the child with her, Capa would not attack her again. She knew that even in his perverted lust he would never endanger an Eóghanacht baby. He was, strangely, a loyal servant of my family. Gobnat had no such loyalty — only hatred.

‘Although Gobnat planned to kill her sister in cold blood, the murder was done in a fit of rage. The number of knife wounds demonstrates that. How she must have hated Sárait. She struck her again and again in her fury. The head wound occurred when Sárait fell, striking her head against a small cauldron by the fireplace that I noticed had been dented. At least that is my guess. The murder, I believe, was done in Gobnat’s house. Where else would Sárait go in response to an urgent message from her sister but to her sister’s house? Gobnat’s aim was to hide the body at Delia’s house so that it would be found with the cloak. But before she could do so, Capa, her husband, came home. Capa was no angel and he knew what would happen to him if Gobnat was caught and told her reasons. He now had to get rid of Sárait’s body and little Alchú.

‘Something prevented him from taking the body to Delia’s house, and hence the first flaw in the plot. The other thing was that by some strange morality he could not bring himself to kill the baby. Sárait had been right. He could not do it directly, but he left the child in the woods to die.’

Capa was standing up to protest. His face was pale and the muscles were twitching around his mouth.

‘This is a fantasy! Where is your proof?’

‘When we first start on the path of deceit we have to weave through many side paths. We keep having to cover the original lie by more lies. And more actions. You took the body of Sárait into the woods where Conchoille, the woodsman, later found her. When you simply left the baby elsewhere for the beasts to devour, you did not realise that Corb and Corbnait were nearby. They took the child away with them, believing it to be simply abandoned.

‘You had probably not long returned to your home when Conchoille, who knew Sárait, came running to say he had found her body. You then went through the motions of being an outraged brother-in-law. Gobnat, meanwhile, had to bury the cloak in her own yard for the time being because the discovery of the murder and Alchú’s being missing made it difficult to do anything else.

‘This is where Capa began to act on his own to cover up this terrible affair. He feared the dwarf Forindain could identify Gobnat, and while we were searching for the dwarf in Cnoc Loinge he came across the person he thought was Forindain and killed him. That was a mistake.

‘Gobnat also made a mistake. She had succumbed to Capa’s insistence that they lay another false trail. He had her write a ransom note that would point to Uí Fidgente involvement. The three Uí Fidgente chiefs were to be released in return for Alchú. It was a good idea to do it while Capa was away at Imleach and Cnoc Loinge. But Capa had not realised that we would demand evidence that the person who wrote the note held Alchú. After the meeting when we decided to ask for evidence, he was sent to get a herald’s standard from a room near our chamber and took the opportunity to snatch a pair of baby shoes from our chest. When the shoe was presented as evidence I did not realise that Eadulf had seen it in the chest of clothes well after the abduction. Alchú had not been wearing them. They had been taken long afterwards.