Peter Tremayne - The Haunted Abbot

‘I did not want to do this, Gadra, but your determination thrusts this action upon me.’

She had their attention now. They turned to her expectantly.

‘You were right, Gadra, when you said that your daughter Gélgeis made a mistake when she left Maigh Eo with Cild. She discovered that mistake soon afterwards and, as you said, she wrote to you about it. She was young, in a foreign land, and her husband abused her badly. All this you knew.’

‘I am glad that you accept my word on this, Fidelma,’ replied Gadra, frowning but clearly not understanding where Fidelma was leading.

‘Gélgeis was reported dead in Hob’s Mire, where Cild has now taken his own life. Cild had been of an unbalanced nature probably since childhood. On that I have said that we may accept the word of his brother Aldhere.’

The outlaw smiled thinly and gave a mocking bow in her direction.

‘Again, as I have said, a woman was seen about the abbey. She resembled Gélgeis. Her form haunted Abbot Cild. Therewas the slaughter of the black cat on the high altar, recalling an incident from his youthful madness. This wraith pursued him, until it drove him completely out of his mind with the result that he killed Lioba and then took his own life.’

‘We have heard about Lioba’s movements in the abbey,’ agreed Sigeric. ‘So this spectre was one of flesh and blood?’

‘Indeed, it was. There were several witnesses to this spectre, including myself. Yesterday morning, on the marshes with Eadulf and Mul, I found evidence of how one of the manifestations was done and traces of how a ghostly sheen was given to her appearance.’

‘What purpose would this false haunting achieve?’ demanded Gadra.

‘The very thing it has achieved — to drive Cild insane.’

‘Why?’

‘An act of vengeance for the cruelty that he has inflicted.’

Sigeric leaned forward.

‘And Lioba played this role? But what cruelty had the abbot done to her?’ he demanded.

‘The other evening, when Eadulf and I were watching Abbot Cild with Brother Willibrod and the others waiting by the marsh — you’ll recall they had been asked to be there by Higbald who planned to kill them and lay the blame on Aldhere — just as he killed Wiglaf and his men and laid the blame on Abbot Cild … while we were watching, the image of Gélgeis on horseback appeared in the marsh …’

‘That’s right, that’s right,’ cried Brother Willibrod. ‘But that was no ordinary person! It glowed! It was a ghost …!’

‘It was not. As I have said, the next morning we went to the spot and found proof that a real person had been on horseback. She had smeared herself with a special clay which glows and reflects near a light … the light supplied by the ignis fatuus.’

‘Where are you leading us now, Fidelma?’ demanded Sigeric.

‘Shortly after the apparition put Cild to flight, Higbald and his men came along — and Lioba was with them. The apparition had not been Lioba. Young Brother Redwald was right when he pointed out that Lioba only bore a superficial resemblance to Gélgeis … and that he was absolutely certain that it wasGélgeis whom he saw bending over me when I was stricken with fever.’

There was a long silence.

Fidelma turned to Gadra. ‘You see, Gélgeis did not perish in Hob’s Mire. She is alive and sought vengeance on Cild — and was supported in that vengeance by the man who gave her comfort in her misery and with whom she went to live.’

Gadra was shaking his head as if unable to understand what she was saying.

‘I don’t understand.’

Fidelma turned to Aldhere. ‘Tell me, Aldhere, did Botulf ever speak to you of Gélgeis’s sister, Mella? Did he tell you the news that Gélgeis heard just before she left the abbey on the night she disappeared?’

‘News?’ Aldhere was bewildered.

‘Did Botulf tell you that Mella had been taken by a Saxon slaver and had died?’

‘No, why would-?’ His jaw clamped shut suddenly.

Fidelma had turned to the woman at his side.

‘Will you cast aside your veil now, Gélgeis?

Bertha the Frank rose slowly to her feet. Then she drew her veil aside, along with a flaxen hair piece, and revealed a small, pale complexion surmounted by red hair. She smiled at Fidelma, but it was a smile filled with venom, and bowed her head slowly in her direction.

It took a long while for the hubbub to die down.

When it did, Gélgeis spoke, slowly and coldly.

‘You are very clever, Fidelma of Cashel. How did you know?’

‘I suspected when Brother Eadulf observed the scar on the arm of the woman known as Bertha and when Garb told us that Brother Pol had observed the scar on Gélgeis’s arm caused by Cild’s whip. If Bertha and Gélgeis were one and the same, then things began to fit into a pattern. Was it your intention to drive Cild insane when you began these appearances as the ghost of yourself?’

‘I did not drive Cild insane — he was insane when I married him, although I did not realise it. He wanted the money and position that he thought marriage to me would bring him. He did not realise that under our law, no such privileges come byright as they do under Saxon law. When he realised it he showed his true, evil self. He never loved me. His dementia became more extreme. It is a just retribution that he has taken his own life. My satisfaction is but a small token of the payment that I am owed. My life was a misery. Finally I wrote to my father and told him of my unhappiness.’

Gadra had sat down abruptly, pale and bewildered. There was no pity in her look when Gélgeis glanced at the shocked old man.

‘I desperately wanted my father to come and rescue me from my misery. When I needed practical help, all that came back was a message via Brother Pol and that message was no more than a lecture on duty, obedience, law and the rituals of law. That is what he is pursuing now with his stupid troscud. What use is that? Ritual to hide the reality. There is no feeling in ritual.

‘Each day I prayed that my father would come riding up to the abbey and take me away from the pain that my life had become. Yes, I made the choice to go with Cild. Must I suffer forever from a wrong choice? In my own land, I could have been divorced from him by law. Is that not so, ddlaigh ?’

Fidelma inclined her head.

‘In our law, divorce is permitted for many reasons. There are several grounds for divorce and eleven circumstances for a separation without fine or penalty from either partner.’

Gélgeis chuckled without humour.

‘And here, in this land, there is no right for women to divorce. And still my father spoke to me of obedience to law and ritual. Now he comes here with his law and ritual but without care for me.’

Perhaps only Fidelma heard the lonely wail of a lost child that lay behind the girl’s coldness.

‘And so you met Aldhere?’ she prompted.

‘Yes, I met Aldhere and we shared a hatred of Cild. I ran off with him and stayed with him in the guise of a badly treated Frankish slave woman, thus explaining my veil and accent. We managed to convince people that Gélgeis had perished in Hob’s Mire. It was only when we heard recently from Wiglaf that his Cousin Botulf was increasingly concerned that Cild was growingmore and more demented that we decided that we would help that beast suffer.’

‘Did Botulf know that you were not dead?’

Aldhere intervened. ‘Botulf, as I have said before, was an old friend of mine. He knew Gélgeis was unhappy. He knew that she had found happiness with me and had decided to leave Cild. Botulf knew our secret and kept it until death.’

‘From Wiglaf I learnt the secret of the tunnels into the abbey,’ went on Gélgeis, ‘and using them I made the ghostly appearances.’