Peter Tremayne - Hemlock at Vespers

Lorcán bit his lip nervously.

“What if it were pirates who did this deed? I have heard tales of Saxon raiders with their longboats, devastating villages further along the coast.”

“A possibility,” agreed Fidelma. “But it is not a likely one.”

“Why so?” demanded Lorcán. “The Saxons have raided along the coasts of Gaul, Britain and Ireland for many years, looting and killing…”

“Just so,” Fidelma smiled grimly. “Looting and burning communities; driving off livestock and taking the people to be slaves.”

She gestured to the deserted but tranquil buildings.

Lorcán suddenly realized what she was driving at. There was no sign of any destruction nor of any looting or violence enacted against the property. On the slope behind the oratory, three or four goats munched at the heather while a fat sow snorted and grunted among her piglets. And if that were not enough, he recalled that the silver crucifix still hung around the neck of the dead abbot. There had been no theft here. Clearly, then, there had been no pirate raid on the defenseless community. Lorcán was even more puzzled.

“Come with me, Lorcán, and we will examine the cells of the Brothers,” instructed Fidelma.

The stone cell next to the one in which they had left Spelán had words inscribed on the lintel.

Ora et labora. Work and pray. A laudable exhortation, thought Fidelma as she passed underneath. The cell was almost bare and its few items of furniture were simple. On a beaten earthen floor, covered with rushes strewn as a mat, there were two wooden cots, a cupboard, a few leather tiag leabhair or book satchels, hung from hooks, containing several small gosepl books. A large ornately carved wooden cross hung on a wall.

There was another maxim inscribed on a wall to one side of this cell.

Animi indices sunt oculi.

The eyes are the betrayer of the mind.

Fidelma found it a curious adage to exhort a Christian community to faith. Then her eyes fell on a piece of written vellum by the side of one of the cots. She picked it up. It was a verse from one of the Psalms. “Break thou the arm of the wicked and the evil man; seek out his wickedness till thou find none…” She shivered slightly for this was not a dictum of a God of love.

Her eyes fell on a box at the foot of the bed. On the top of the box was an inscription in Greek.

Pathémata mathémata. Sufferings are lessons.

She bent forward and opened the box. Her eyes rounded in astonishment. Contained in the box were a set of scourges, of whips and canes. There were some words carved on the underside of the lid. They were in plain Irish.

God give me a wall of tears

my sins to hide;

for I remain, while no tears fall,

unsanctified.

She looked across to Lorcán in surprise.

“Do you know whose cell this was?” she demanded.

“Assuredly,” came the prompt reply. “Selbach shared this cell with his dominus -Spelán. The cell we placed Spelán in, the one nearest the oratory, belongs to two other members of the community.”

“Do you know what sort of man Selbach was? Was he a man who was authoritarian, who liked to inflict punishment? Was the Rule of his community a harsh one?”

Lorcán shrugged.

“That I would not know. I did not know the community that well.”

“There is evidence of pain and punishment in this place.” Fi-delma sensed a cold tingle against her spine. “I do not understand it.”

She paused, noticing a shelf on which stood several jars and bottles. She moved to them and began to examine the contents of each jar, sniffing its odors or wetting the tip of her finger from the concoctions before cautiously tasting it. Then she reached into her marsupium and took the wooden cup she had retrieved from the floor of the oratory. It had recently been used for the wood still showed the dampness of its contents. She sniffed at it. A curious mixture of pungent odors came to her nostrils. Then she turned back to the shelf and examined the jars and bottles of herbs again. She could identify the dried heads of red clover, dried horse-chestnut leaves and mullein among the jars of herbs.

Lorcán stood watching her impatiently.

“Spelán uses this as the community’s apothecary,” he said. “On one of my trips here I cut my hand and it was Spelán who gave me a poultice of herbs to heal it.”

Fidelma sighed a little as she gave a final look around.

Finally she left the cell, followed by an unhappy Lorcán, and began to examine the other cells again but this time more carefully. There was evidence in one or two of them that some personal items and articles of clothing had been hurriedly removed but not enough to support the idea of the community being attacked and robbed by an outside force.

Fidelma emerged into the quadrangle feeling confused.

Lorcán, at her side, was gazing up at the sky, a worried expression on his face.

Fidelma knew that he was still concerned about the approaching weather but it was no time to retreat from this mystery. Someone had killed the Abbot of the community and a young Brother, knocked the dominus unconscious and made ten further members of the brotherhood disappear.

“Didn’t you say that the community had their own boat?” she asked abruptly.

Lorcán nodded unhappily.

“It was not in the cove when we landed,” Fidelma pointed out.

“No, it wouldn’t be,” replied the boatman. “They kept their boat further along the shore in a sheltered spot. There is a small shingled strand around the headland where a boat can be beached.”

“Show me,” Fidelma instructed. “There is nothing else to do until Spelán recovers consciousness and we may learn his story.”

Somewhat reluctantly, with another glance at the western sky, Lorcán led the way along the pathway towards the cove but then broke away along another path which led down on the other side of a great rocky outcrop which served as a headland separating them from the cove in which they had landed.

Fidelma knew something was wrong when they reached a knoll before the path twisted and turned through granite pillars toward the distant pounding sea. Her eyes caught the flash of black in the sky circling over something on the shore below.

They were black-backed gulls. Of all gulls, these were birds to be respected. They frequently nested on rocky islands such as Inis Chloichreán. It was a carrion-eater, a fierce predator given to taking mammals even as large as cats. They had obviously found something down on the beach. Fidelma could see that even the crows could not compete with their larger brethren. There were several pairs of crows above the melee, circling and waiting their chance.

Fidelma compressed her lips firmly.

Lorcán continued to lead the way down between the rocks. The area was full of nesting birds. May was a month in which the black-backed gulls, along with many another species, laid their eggs. The rocky cliffs of the island were ideal sites for birds. The females screamed furiously as they entered the area but Lorcán ignored their threatening displays. Fidelma did not pretend that she was unconcerned.

“The Brothers kept their boat just here…” began Lorcán, reaching a large platform of rocky land about twelve feet above a short pebbly beach. He halted and stared.

Fidelma saw the wooden trestles, on which the boat had apparently been set. There was no vessel resting on them now.

“They used to store the boat here,” explained Lorcán, “placed upside down to protect it against the weather.”

It was the gathering further down on the pebbly strand, an area of beach no more than three yards in width and perhaps ten yards long, that caused Fidelma to exclaim sharply. She realized what the confusion of birds was about. A dozen or more large gulls were gathered, screaming and fighting each other, while forming an outer circle were several other birds who seemed to be interested spectators to the affair. Here and there a jet-black carrion crow perched, black eyes watching intently for its chance, while others circled overhead. They were clustering around something which lay on the pebbles. Fidelma suspected what it was.