Peter Tremayne - Hemlock at Vespers

Fidelma turned to regard him in curiosity.

“You can?”

“Yes, yes. You have said that we all had a reason to hate Nechtan and that implies that we would all therefore wish him dead. That gives every one of us a motive for his murder.”

“That is so,” agreed Fidelma.

“Well, I alone of all of you knew that it was a waste of time to kill Nechtan.”

There was a pause before Fidelma asked patiently: “Why would it be a waste of time, Gerróc?”

“Why kill a man who was already dying?”

“ Already dying?” prompted Fldelma after the exclamations of surprise had died away.

“I was physician to Nechtan. It was true that I hated him. He cheated me of my fees but, nevertheless, as a physician here, I lived well. I did not complain. I am advancing in years now. I was not going to imperil my security by accusing my chieftain of wrongdoing. However, a month ago, Nechtan started to have terrible headaches, and once or twice the pain was so unbearable that I had to strap him to his bed. I examined him and found a growth at the back of the skull. It was a malignant tumor for within a week I could chart its expansion. If you do not believe me, you may examine him for yourselves. The tumor is easy to discern behind his left ear.”

Fidelma bent over the chief and examined the swelling behind the ear with repugnance.

“The swelling is there,” she confirmed.

“So, what are you saying, Gerróc?” Marbán demanded, seeking to bring the old physician to a logical conclusion.

“I am saying that a few days ago I had to tell Nechtan that it was unlikely he would see another new moon. He was going to die anyway. The growth of the tumor was continuing and causing him increased agony. I knew he was going to die soon. Why need I kill him? God had already chosen the time and method.”

Daolgar of Sliabh Luachra turned to Marbán with grim satisfaction on his face.

“Then it leaves only you, Tanist of the Múscraige. You clearly did not know that your chieftain was dying and so you had both the motive and the opportunity.”

Marbán had sprung to his feet, his hand at his waist where his sword would have hung had they not been in the feasting hall. It was a law that no weapons were ever carried into a feasting hall.

“You will apologize for that, chieftain of Sliabh Luachra!”

Cuill, however, was nodding rapidly in agreement with Daol-gar’s logic.

“You were very quick to offer your newfound wealth as chieftain to pay the compensation should anyone else confess. Had they done so, it would have solved a problem, wouldn’t it? You would emerge from this without a blemish. You would be confirmed as chieftain of the Múscraige. However, if you were guilty of causing Nechtan’s death then you would immediately be deposed from holding any office. That is why you were so eager to put the blame on to me.”

Marbán stood glowering at the assembly. It was clear that he now stood condemned in the eyes of them all. An angry muttering had arisen as they confronted him.

Sister Fidelma raised both her hands to implore silence.

“Let us not quarrel when there is no need. Marbán did not kill Nechtan.”

There was a brief moment of surprised silence.

“Then who did?” demanded Dathó angrily. “You seem to be playing cat and mouse with us, Sister. If you know so much, tell us who killed Nechtan.”

“Everyone at this table will concede that Nechtan was an evil, self-willed man who was at war with life. As much as we all had reason to hate him, he hated everyone around him with equal vehemence.”

“But who killed him?” repeated Daolgar.

Sister Fidelma grimaced sorrowfully.

“Why, he killed himself.”

The shock and disbelief registered on everyone’s faces.

“I had begun to suspect,” went on Fidelma, “but I could find no logical reason to support my suspicion until Gerróc gave it to me just now.”

“Explain, Sister,” demanded Marbán wearily, “for I cannot follow the same logic.”

“As I have said, as much as we hated Nechtan, Nechtan hated us. When he learnt that he was to die anyway, he decided that he would have one more great revenge on those people he disliked the most. He preferred to go quickly to the Otherworld than to die the lingering death which Gerróc doubtless had described to him. If it takes a brave man to set the boundaries to his own life, then Nechtan was brave enough. He chose a quick-acting poison, realgar, delighting in the fact that it was a substance that Cuill, the husband of his current mistress, often used.

“He devised a plan to invite us all here for a last meal, playing on our curiosity or our egos by saying that he wanted to make public reparation and apology for those wrongs that he had done to us. He planned the whole thing. He then recited his wrongdoing against us, not to seek forgiveness, but to ensure that we all knew that each had cause to hate him and seek his destruction. He wanted to plant seeds of suspicion in all our minds. He made his recitation of wrongdoing sound more like a boast than an apology. A boast and a warning.”

Ess was in agreement.

“I thought his last words were strange at the time,” she said, “but now they make sense.”

“They do so now,” Fidelma endorsed.

“What were the words again?” queried Daolgar.

“Nechtan said: “And now I will raise my goblet to each and every one of you, acknowledging what I have done to you all. After that, your law may take its course and I will rest content in that knowledge … I drink to you all… and then you may have joy of your law.”

It was Fidelma who was able to repeat the exact words.

“It certainly does not sound like an apology,” admitted Marbán. “What did he mean?”

It was Ess who answered.

“I see it all now. Do you not understand how evil this man was? He wanted one or all of us to be blamed for his death. That was his final act of spite and hatred against us.”

“But how?” asked Gerróc, confused. “I confess, I am at a loss to understand.”

“Knowing that he was dying, that he had only a few days or weeks at most, he set his own limits to his lifespan,” Fidelma explained patiently. “He was an evil, spiteful man, as Ess acknowledges. He invited us to this meal, knowing that, at its close, he would take poison. As the meal started, he asked Ciar, the attendant, to send for his own judge, Brehon Olcán, hoping that Olcán would find us in a state of confusion, each suspecting the other, and come to a wrong decision that one or all of us were concerned in his murder. Nechtan killed himself in the hope that we would be found culpable of his death. While he was talking to us he secreted the poison in his own goblet.”

Fidelma looked around the grim faces at the table. Her smile was strained.

“I think we can now speak with the Brehon Olcán and sort this matter out.”

She turned toward the door, paused and looked back at those in the room.

“I have encountered much wrongdoing in this world, some of it born of evil, some born of desperation. But I have to say that I have never truly encountered such malignancy as dwelt in the spirit of Nechtan, sometime chieftain of the Múscraige.”

It was the following morning as Fidelma was riding in the direction of Cashel that she encountered the old physician, Gerróc, at a crossroads below the fortress of Nechtan.

“Whither away, Gerróc?” she greeted with a smile.

“I am going to the monastery of Imleach,” replied the old man gravely. “I shall make confession and seek sanctuary for the rest of my days.”

Fidelma pursed her lips thoughtfully.

“I would not confess too much,” she said enigmatically.

The old physician gazed at her with a frown.