Peter Tremayne - Hemlock at Vespers

Fidelma raised her head, suddenly becoming aware of him.

“Sorry, you were saying something?”

The boatman shrugged.

“Only that we should be on our way soon. The poor Brother needs to be taken to Chléire as soon as we can do so.”

Fidelma breathed out slowly.

“I think that the poor Brother…” she paused and grimaced. “I think there is still a mystery here which needs to be resolved.”

Lorcán stared at her.

“But the explanation of Brother Spelán…?”

Fidelma returned his gaze calmly.

“I will walk awhile in contemplation.”

The boatman spread his hands in despair.

“But, Sister, the coming weather…”

“If the storm comes then we will remain here until it passes.” And, as Lorcán opened his mouth to protest, she added: “I state this as a dálaigh of the court and you will observe that authority.”

Lorcán’s mouth drooped and, with a shrug of resignation, he turned away.

Fidelma began to follow the path behind the community, among the rocks to the more remote area of the island. She realized that this would have been the path which, according to Spelán, Abbot Selbach took his victims. She felt a revulsion at what had been revealed by Spelán, although she had expected some such explanation from the evidence of the lacerated backs of the two young Brothers she had seen. She felt loathing for the ascetics who called themselves gortaigid, those who sought salvation by bestowing pain on themselves and others. Abbots and bishops condemned them and they were usually driven out into isolated communities.

Here, it seemed that one evil man had exerted his will on a bunch of youths scarcely out of boyhood who had sought the religious life and knew no better than submit to his will until one of their number died. Now those youths had fled the island, frightened, demoralized and probably lost to the truth of Christ’s message of love and peace.

In spite of general condemnation she knew that in many abbeys and monasteries some abbots and abbesses ordered strict rules of intolerable numbers of genuflections, prostrations and fasts. She knew that Erc, the bishop of Slane, who had been patron of the blessed Brendan of Clonfert, would take his acolytes to cold mountain streams, summer and winter, to immerse themselves in the icy waters four times a day to say their prayers and psalms. There was the ascetic, Mac Tulchan, who bred fleas on his body and, so that his pain might be the greater, he never scratched himself. Didn’t Finnian of Clonard purposely set out to catch a virulent disease from a dying child that he might obtain salvation through suffering?

Mortification and suffering. Ultan of Armagh was one of the school preaching moderation to those who were becoming indulgently masochistic, ascetics who were becoming fanatical torturers of the body, wrenching salvation through unnatural wants, strain or physical suffering.

She paused in her striding and sat down on a rock, her hands demurely folded in front of her, as she let her mind dwell on the evidence. It certainly appeared that everything fitted in with Spe-lán’s explanation. Why did she feel that there was something wrong? She opened her marsupium and drew out the piece of cloth she had found ensnared on the belt hook of the youthful Sacán. It had obviously been torn away from something and not from the boy’s habit. And there was the wooden cup, which had dried out now, which she had found on the floor of the oratory. It had obviously been used for an infusion of herbs.

She suddenly saw a movement out of the corner of her eye, among the rocks. She swung round very fast. For a moment her eyes locked into the dark eyes of a startled youth, the cowl of his habit drawn over his head. Then the youth darted away among the rocks.

“Stop!” Fidelma came to her feet, thrusting the cup and cloth into her marsupium. “ Stop, Brother, I mean you no harm.”

But the youth was gone, bounding away through the rocky terrain.

With an exasperated sigh, Fidelma began to follow, when the sound of her name being called halted her.

Sister Sárnat came panting along the path.

“I have been sent by Brother Spelán and Lorcán,” she said. “Lor-cán entreats you to have a care of the approaching storm, Sister.”

Fidelma was about to say something sarcastic about Lorcán’s concern but Sárnat continued.

“Brother Spelán agrees we should leave the island immediately and report the events here to the Abbot of Chléire. The Brother is fully recovered now and he is taking charge of things. He says that he recalls your purpose here was to bring a letter from Ultan to the Abbot Selbach. Since Selbach is dead and he is dominus he asks that you give him the letter in case anything is required to be done about it before we leave the island.”

Fidelma forgot about the youth she was about to pursue.

She stared hard at Sister Sárnat.

The young novitiate waited nervously, wondering what Fidelma was staring at.

“Sister…” she began nervously.

Fidelma sat down on the nearest rock abruptly.

“I have been a fool,” she muttered, reaching into her marsu-pium and bringing out the letters she was carrying. She thrust back the letter addressed to the Abbot of Chléire and tore open Ultan’s letter to Selbach, to the astonished gaze of Sister Sárnat. Her eyes rapidly read the letter and her features broke into a grim smile.

“Go, Sister,” she said, arising and thrusting the letter back into the marsupium. “ Return to Brother Spelán. Tell him and Lorcán that I will be along in a moment. I think we will be able to leave here before the storm develops.”

Sárnat stared at her uncertainly.

“Very well, Sister. But why not return with me?”

Fidelma smiled.

“I have to talk to someone first.”

A short while later Fidelma strode into the cell where Spelán was sitting on the cot, with Lorcán and Maenach lounging nearby. Sister Sárnat was seated on a wooden bench by one wall. As Fidelma entered, Lorcán looked up in relief.

“Are you ready now, Sister? We do not have long.”

“A moment or two, if you please, Lorcán,” she said, smiling gently.

Spelán was rising.

“I think we should leave immediately, Sister. I have much to report to the Abbot of Chléire. Also …”

“How did you come to tear your robe, Spelán?”

Fidelma asked the question with an innocent expression. Beneath that expression, her mind was racing for she had made her opening arrow-shot into the darkness. Spelán stared at her and then stared at his clothing. It was clear that he did not know whether his clothing was torn or not. But his eyes lighted upon a jagged tear in his right sleeve. He shrugged.

“I did not notice,” he replied.

Fidelma took the piece of torn cloth from her marsupium and laid it on the table.

“Would you say that this cloth fitted the tear, Lorcán.”

The boatman, frowning, picked it up and took it to place against Spelán’s sleeve.

“It does, Sister,” he said quietly.

“Do you recall where I found it?”

“I do. It was snagged on the hook of the belt of the young boy, Sacán.”

The color drained from Spelán’s face.

“It must have been caught there when I carried the body from the strand…” he began.

“ You carried the body from the strand?” asked Fidelma with emphasis. “You told us that some of the young Brothers fishing there saw it and brought it back and all this happened before you were awakened after they had tied Selbach to the tree and killed him.”

Spelán’s mouth worked for a moment without words coming.

“I will tell you what happened on this island,” Fidelma said. “Indeed, you did have a gortaigid here. One who dedicated his life to the enjoyment of mortification and suffering but not from any pious ideal of religious attainment… merely from personal perversion. Where better to practice his disgusting sadism than a hermitage of youths whom he could dominate and devise tortures for by persuading them that only by that pain could they obtain true spirituality?”