Peter Tremayne - Hemlock at Vespers

Sinsear stood with his face drained of all emotion.

“He suggested to Cano that he invite Cessair to a rendezvous in the hut and gave him the pretext of discussing a means of leaving the abbeys. Then he left Fosse in plenty of time to climb the old oak, hiding among the low-hanging branches, to await the arrival of Cessair and her companion. That was why Sister Delia did not hear anyone approach them from behind. He jumped down. I saw the indentation where he landed. He landed just behind Delia and felled her with a blow before she knew it. Am I right?”

Sinsear did not respond.

“Perhaps then he revealed his twisted love to Cessair. Perhaps he begged her to go with him. Did she react in horror, did she laugh? How did she treat this frenzied would-be-lover? We only know how it resulted. He struck her several blows on the head and then, in a gruesome ritual, which serves to demonstrate his immaturity, he decided to punish her beauty by which she beguiled him by mutilating her face with a knife. Whether he tied her first to the tree or not, we do not know unless he tells us. But I have no doubt that she was dead by then.

“Something made him pick up the vial of holy blood and his religious training took the better of him, for instead of leaving it in Cessair’s purse, he put it in his own for safekeeping. Knowing the missing vial was irrelevant, I could not account for its disappearance before.

“Perhaps then he heard Sister Delia coming to. He turned and raced on to Nivelles to raise the alarm. He believed that Sister Delia would probably go on to Fosse to raise the alarm which is why he chose Nivelles.”

Abbot Heribert was staring at Sinsear, seeing the truth of Fi-delma’s accusation confirmed in his cold features.

“How did you first suspect him?” he asked.

“Many reasons can be mentioned if you think back over the events. But, according to his story, Sinsear went along the path in search of Cessair and Delia. He found Cessair dead and tied to the tree. He claimed that he had reached the point after Delia had disappeared. But how could he have seen the body tied to the tree when it was on the far side of the tree to the path he was traveling?

“Even allowing he somehow might have spotted something that made him suspicious, that he was so distraught that he did not think to cut her down and see if he could revive her, why did he run on to Nivelles?”

“For help. He wished to raise the alarm and, as he pointed out when you asked, Nivelles was closer than Fosse to the place. It is logical.”

“There was an even closer place to seek help,” Fidelma pointed out. “Why not go there? He knew that Brother Cano was waiting in the woodsman’s hut just a few hundred meters away. Had he been innocent, he would have rushed to seek Cano and get immediate help.”

The scream made them freeze.

Sinsear had turned and drawn a knife and made a thrust at Brother Cano. He was babbling incoherently.

Cano reacted by striking out in self-defense, felling the young monk with a blow to the jaw.

“Now you can punish him by whatever laws apply here,” Fi-delma told Abbot Heribert. She turned to the Abbess. “And we, Ballgel, shall escort poor Sister Delia back to Nivelles. We have much to talk about….” She paused and glanced sadly at Brother Cano who was now sitting quietly, his head in his hands.

“Even the ancients were acutely aware of the role of emotions causing the symptoms of mental illness. Aegra amans -the lover’s disease-can make people lose all reason. Even the most mature people can go mad and to the young and immature love can destroy the soul as well as the mind.”

It was the evening of All Saints’ Day and Tressach, a warrior of the guard of the royal palace of Tara, home of Sechnasach, High King of Ireland, was unhappy. That evening he had drawn the most unpopular duty, which was to act as sentinel in that area of the palace complex where generations of High Kings were buried. Rows of carved granite memorials marked the mounds where many of the great monarchs were interred, often with their chariots, armor, and such grave goods as were needed to help them on their journey to the Otherworld.

Tressach felt uncomfortable that this duty fell to his lot on this night of all nights. The evening of All Saints, or All Hallows, as some now named it, was an ancient observance which many still called the Samhain Festival even though the five kingdoms had long accepted the new Faith of Christendom. Samhain, according to ancient tradition, was the one night of the year when the mystic realms of the Otherworld became visible to the living and when the souls of the dead could enter the living world to wreak vengeance on any who had wronged them in life. So strong was this belief among the people that even when the new faith entered the land it could not be suppressed. The Christians therefore incorporated the ancient festival by creating two separate celebrations. All Saints’ Day was set aside as a day when the saints, known and unknown, were glorified, and the following day, All Souls, was given to the commemoration of the souls of the faithful dead.

Tressach shivered slightly in the cold evening air as he approached the walled-off compound of graves, far away from the main palace buildings which made up the High King’s capital. Autumn was departing with rapidity and the first signs of winter, the white fingers of a creeping evening frost, were permeating across the sacred hills of Royal Meath.

Tressach paused as he contemplated the path that he had to take between the darkened mounds with their granite stone portals. They called this “the avenue of the great kings,” for here were entombed some of the most famous of ancient rulers. There was the imposing tomb of Ollamh Fodhla, the fortieth king, who gathered the laws of Ireland and established a féis, or convention, which sat at Tara every three years at the feast of Samhain. This was when judges, lawyers and administrators gathered to discuss the laws and revised them. Indeed, Tressach knew that hosts of judges and lawyers had already descended on Tara, for the convention fell this very year. They would start their deliberations in the morning.

Here, also, was the imposing tomb of Macha Mong Ruadh, Ma-cha of the Foxy Hair, the seventy-sixth monarch and the only woman to have ruled all Ireland. Beyond were the tombs of Con-aire the Great, of Tuathal the Legitimate, of Art the Solitary, of Conn of the Hundred Battles and of Fergus of the Black Teeth. Tressach could reel off the names of those who inhabited the graves like a litany. How were the mighty laid low.

Yet, why a warrior needed to waste his time patrolling this resting place of the dead was a mystery to Tressach. What need was there to guard this desolate place; and why this night, of all the dark autumnal nights? Tressach would have preferred to be somewhere else… anywhere else.

At least he had a lantern, but its light gave him little comfort. He began to walk with a quick pace as he passed down the darkened aisle between the tombs. The quicker he completed his task, so that-in good conscience-he could report to his commander that he had walked through the compound, the better. The thought that, at the end of his vigil, there would be a mug of cuirm, a strong mead, acted as an added incentive.

He turned a corner and conscience made him pause near a row of tombs for an inspection. He held his lantern before him. He owed it to his commander and his pride as a warrior to make a cursory check at each vantage point. His eyes fell on a newly dug grave and he found himself suppressing a shiver. He knew that Garbh, the keeper of the cemetery, whose duties included the maintenance of the graves and the digging of new tombs, had been working here over the last two days. Although the grave was unfinished and empty, Tressach felt a morbid fascination as he stared at the yawning black hole with its piled dark earth around it. His imagination began to run riot and fearful childhood fantasies clutched at his mind. Any moment something fearful could raise itself out of that black pit! He genuflected and turned abruptly away.