Peter Tremayne - Hemlock at Vespers

“Talos suggests that Tullius takes male lovers. You indicate that you know of this. The conclusion therefore is that not only did you take the word of a deacon against a priest, but you preferred to condemn a man on the grounds that he had a female lover or mistress while supporting a young man who is said to have a male lover. Why is one to be condemned and the other to be accepted in your eyes?”

Abbot Miseno set his jaw firmly.

“I am not Tullius’s lover, if that is what you are implying. Tullius is under my patronage. He is my protege.”

“Are you retracting your claim that Tullius had a male lover?”

“You have spoken to the young custos.” It was a statement rather than a question.

“Do you admit you are prejudiced in your judgment?”

“Are you saying that Tullius lied to me? If so, what proof do you have?”

“As much proof as you have to say that he told the truth.”

“Why should he lie to me?”

“You are about to ordain him. I suspect that you now intend him to replace Cornelius here?”

Abbot Miseno’s face showed that her guess was right.

“But what has this to do with the death of the Gaul?”

“Everything,” Fidelma assured him. “I think I am now ready to explain what happened.”

She turned and called everyone to come forward to the place before the altar.

“I can tell you why Docco, a visitor to this country and this city, died and by whose hand.” Her voice was cold and precise.

They appeared to surge forward, edging near to her with expectant expressions.

“Sister Fidelma!” It was Egeria who spoke. “We know there was only one person who wanted my brother dead. Everyone else here was a stranger to him.”

Enodoc’s face was white.

“This is not true. I would never harm anyone …”

“I don’t believe you!” cried Egeria. “Only you had reason to kill him.”

“What if Docco was killed simply because he was the first to take the sacrament?” interrupted Fidelma.

There was a tense silence.

“Go on,” urged Abbot Miseno in an icy tone.

“Docco was not singled out as a victim. Any of us might have been the victim. The intention was to discredit Father Cornelius.”

There was an angry glint in Abbot Miseno’s eyes and they narrowed on Fidelma.

“You will have to answer for these accusations…”

“I am prepared to do so. It was something that the Abbot said that gave me an idea of the true motive of this terrible deed. He said that if Father Cornelius had been a true priest, then once the wine was blessed and the transubstantiation occurred, the poison would have been rendered harmless when the wine became the Blood of Christ. The motive of this crime was to demonstrate that Father Cornelius was unworthy to hold office.”

Father Cornelius stood gazing at her in awe.

Fidelma went on.

“For some time the deacon, Tullius, had been feeding stories to Abbot Miseno about the misconduct of Cornelius, stories which Cornelius categorically denies. But Abbot Miseno was convinced. Tullius was his protege and could do no wrong in the Abbot’s eyes. Furthermore, Miseno was about to ordain Tullius and, as a priest, he would need his own ecclesia. What better than to give him this church… once Cornelius had been removed. But Cornelius was not going without a fight. Any accusations of misconduct would have to be argued before the local bishop.”

“Who are you accusing?” demanded Cornelius, intervening. “Miseno or Tullius?”

“Neither.”

Her answer was met with blank looks.

“Then whom?”

“Terentius of the custodes!”

The young man took a step backward and drew his short ceremonial sword.

“This has gone far enough, barbarian!” he cried in anger. “I am a Roman. No one will believe you.”

But Tullius was moving forward.

“What have you done, Terentius?” he cried in a high-pitched voice. “I loved you more than life, and you have ruined everything.”

He ran as if to embrace Terentius and then seemed to freeze in mid-stride. It was clearly not meant to happen but the young deacon had inadvertently run forward onto the sword which the cus-tos had been holding defensively in front of him. Tullius gave a gurgling cry, blood gushed from his mouth and he fell forward.

Enodoc reached forward and snatched the sword from the guard’s hand. There was no struggle. The custos stood frozen in shock, staring down at the body of his friend.

“But I did it for you, Tullius!” he wailed, suddenly sinking to his knees and reaching for the hand of the corpse. “I did it for you.”

A short time later Fidelma sat with Father Cornelius and Abbot Miseno.

“I was not sure whether Tullius and Terentius had planned this together, or even whether you might be part of the plan yourself, Abbot Miseno,” she said.

Miseno looked pained.

“I might be a fool, one of ill judgment, but I am not a murderer, Sister.”

“How did you realize that Terentius was the murderer?” demanded Father Cornelius. “I cannot understand this.”

“Firstly, the motive. It was easy to eliminate the fact that Docco was an intended victim. There were too many improbables, too many coincidences had to happen to ensure that the Gaul was the first and only victim. So I had to look for another motive. That motive was not so obscure and, as I said, it was Abbot Miseno’s interpretation of the fact of transubstantiation which gave me a clue. The motive was to discredit you, Father Cornelius. Who would benefit from that? Obviously Tullius the deacon.”

“So why did you think Tullius was innocent?”

“Because if he had been involved, then he would have given himself a better alibi for, it appeared at first, only he had the opportunity to poison the wine. Then I learnt that Tullius had a male lover. It became clear that it was Terentius, the custos.”

“Yes, but what made you so sure he was the murderer?”

“He was the only other person with opportunity. And, most importantly, he lied. He said that he had entered the church by the main doors just before the Gaulish seaman. He also told me that he had been coming along the street and saw you both quarreling on the path to the sacristy.”

“Well that was no lie, we were arguing,” Miseno confirmed.

“Surely, you were. But the sacristy, where that argument took place, as Enodoc told me, is entered by a path on the other side of this church. You have to walk a long way round to enter the main doors. Enodoc didn’t have time to do so, so he blundered through the sacristy into the church.”

“I do not follow.”

“If Terentius had seen you both arguing then he was on the path outside the sacristy and therefore he was on the far side of the building. What was he doing there? Why did he not come through the sacristy, like Enodoc, knowing the service was about to start? He had been there enough times with Tullius. No, he came in through the main doors.

“He had seen your quarrel and gone to the sacristy door. Watching through the window, he waited until he saw Tullius take the bread into the ecclesia; then he slipped in and poisoned the wine and left, hurrying round the church to come in by the main doors and thus giving himself an alibi.”

“And he did this terrible deed purely in order to help Tullius become priest here?” asked Miseno, amazed.

“Yes. He had reasoned out that it did not matter who was killed by the poison, the end result was that you would believe that Cornelius was not fit to be a priest because the transubstantiation had not happened. That would ensure Tullius became priest here. That plan nearly succeeded. Love makes people do insane things, Miseno. Doesn’t Publilius Syrus say: amare et sapere vix deo conced-itur? Even a god finds it hard to love and be wise at the same time.”