Peter Tremayne - Hemlock at Vespers

“No. Irél is one not given to a belief in wandering spirits. My captain wants permission to open the tomb. He believes that someone is inside and hurt.”

The Abbot looked aghast.

“But that tomb has not been opened in fifteen hundred years,” he protested. “How could anyone be inside?”

“That’s what Garbh told him,” agreed the warrior.

“Garbh?” queried Fidelma.

“The keeper of the cemetery. My captain, Irél, sent for him and requested that he open the doors of the tomb.”

“And did Garbh do so?” asked the Abbot, irritably.

“No. He refused unless Irél obtained higher authority. That is why Irél sent me to you, to seek your permission.”

“Quite right. This is a matter of seriousness,” Colmán muttered. “The decision to open tombs is not one a soldier-even the captain of the palace guard-can make. I’d better come along and see this Irél, your captain.” Colmán rose to his feet and glanced at Fidelma. “If you will forgive me, Sister…”

But Fidelma was rising also.

“I think I will come with you,” she said quietly. “For if a voice comes from a sealed tomb, then someone must have been able to enter it… or else, God forbid, it is indeed a spirit calling to us.”

They found Irél, the somber-faced captain of the palace guard, standing outside the tomb with another warrior. There was a third man there, a stocky man with rippling muscles who was clad in a workman’s leather jerkin and trousers. He had pugnacious features and was arguing with the captain. The man turned as they approached and, with relief on his face, greeted Abbot Colmán by name.

“I am glad that you have come, my lord Abbot. This captain is demanding that I break open this tomb. Such an act is sacrilege and I have refused unless ordered to do so by a churchman of authority.”

Irél stepped forward and saluted the Abbot.

“Has Tressach explained the matter to you?” His voice was curt.

The Abbot glanced disdainfully at him.

“Can we hear this voice?” Colmán’s tone was sarcastic and he cocked an ear as if to listen.

“We have not heard it since I sent for Garbh,” replied Irél, keeping his irritation in check. “I have been trying to get Garbh to open the tomb, for every moment is urgent. Someone may be dying in there.”

The man called Garbh laughed drily.

“Look at the doors. Not opened in fifteen hundred years. Whoever died in there died over a millennium ago.”

“Garbh, as keeper of the cemetery, is within his rights to refuse your request,” Abbot Colmán explained. “I am not sure that even I can give such permission.”

It was then that Sister Fidelma stepped forward.

“In that case, I shall give the order. I think we should open the tomb immediately.”

Colmán swung round and frowned at Fidelma.

“Do you take this matter seriously?”

“That an experienced captain of the guard and a warrior take it so should be enough reason to accept that they heard something. Let us see if this is so.”

Irél looked at the young religieuse in surprise while Garbh’s features were forming into a sneer of derision.

Colmán however sighed and motioned to Garbh to start opening the doors of the tomb.

“Sister Fidelma is a dálaigh, an advocate of the law courts, and holds the degree of Anruth,” he explained to them in order to justify his action. “She has the authority.”

Garbh’s eyes flickered imperceptibly. It was the only indication that he made in recognition of the fact that the young religieuse held a degree which was only one below the highest legal qualification in the land. Irél’s shoulders seemed to relax as if in relief that a decision had finally been made.

It took some time for Garbh to smash open the ancient locks of the door and swing them open.

As they pressed forward there were some gasps of astonishment.

Just inside the door was the body of a man.

They could see that this was no ancient body. It was the body of a man who was but recently dead. From his back there protruded a length of wood with which he had clearly been shot or stabbed. It was like the shaft of an arrow but without feathered flights. He lay face down behind the doors, hands stretched out as if attempting to open the doors from the inside. They could see that his fingernails were torn and bleeding where he had scraped at the door in his terror. And his face! The eyes were wide with fear, as if he had been confronted by some evil power of darkness.

Tressach shivered violently. “God look down on us!”

Garbh was rubbing his chin in bewilderment.

“The tomb was securely sealed,” he whispered. “You all saw the seals on the door. It has been sealed for fifteen hundred years.”

“Yet this man was inside trying to break out.” Fidelma pointed out the obvious. “He was apparently dying even as Irél was ordering the tomb to be opened. It was his dying cries that Tressach and Irél heard.”

Irél glanced toward Sister Fidelma.

“This is hardly a sight for a Sister of the Faith,” he protested as he saw her moving forward.

“I am a dálaigh” she reminded him. “I shall take charge of this investigation.”

Irél glanced questioningly to Abbot Colmán, who nodded slightly, and the captain stood aside to allow Fidelma to enter the tomb. She ordered the lanterns to be held up to illuminate the area.

Fidelma moved forward curiously. She had heard all the stories of Tigernmas, the infamous High King, who had ordered his Druids to be put to death and turned to the worship of a gigantic idol. Generations of children had been frightened into obedience with tales of how the evil king’s soul would ascend from the Otherworld and take them off unless they obeyed their parents. And now she stood at the door of his tomb, unopened since his body had been placed in it countless generations ago. It was not an inviting place. The air was stale, dank and smelling of rotting earth and vegetation. A noxious, unclean atmosphere permeated the place.

The first thing she noticed was that the body was of a man of middle years, somewhat plump, with well-kempt white hair. She examined the torn and bleeding hands and looked at the softness of the fingers and palms. He was clearly someone not used to manual work. She examined his clothing. Apart from the dust and dirt of the tomb and the stains of blood from his wound, they were the clothes of someone of rank. Yet he wore no jewelry, no symbols of office, and when she examined the leather purse attached to the belt around his waist, she found only a few coins in it.

Only when she had conducted this scrutiny did she turn to examine his face. She tried to ignore the terrible mask of dread on it. Then she frowned and called for a lantern to be held more closely, studying the features with some dim memory tugging at her mind. The features seemed familiar to her.

“Abbot Colmán, please look at this man,” she called. “I have a feeling that I should know him.”

Colmán moved forward somewhat unwillingly and bent down beside her.

“Christ’s wounds!” exclaimed the Abbot, forgetting his calling. “It is Fiacc, the Chief Brehon of Ardgal.”

Fidelma nodded grimly. She knew that she had seen the man’s features before. The chief judge of the clan of Ardgal was one of the learned judges of the country.

“He must have been here to attend the convention,” breathed Colmán.

Fidelma rose and dusted her clothing. “The more important thing to discover is what he was doing here at all,” she pointed out. “How did a respected judge come to be in a tomb which has never been opened in generations and get himself stabbed to death?”

“Witchcraft!” supplied Tressach in a breathless tone.