Peter Tremayne - Act of Mercy

Fidelma gave an involuntary shiver. Gurvan smiled a little sadistically at her reaction.

‘No, lady, apart from the passenger cabins which had already been searched, I looked everywhere. The only conclusion is that the poor woman went overboard.’

‘Thank you, Gurvan.’ Fidelma rose and made her way back through the ship.

Fidelma had not thought to question Sister Gorman next, but found herself passing the cabin door. She knocked and looked in. Sister Gorman was sitting on her bunk, looking pale and unhappy.

‘Am I disturbing you?’ Fidelma asked as she entered in response to Gorman’s invitation.

‘Sister Fidelma.’ The young girl looked up nervously. ‘I do not mind being disturbed. This voyage is not as I expected it to be.’

‘What did you expect?’ asked Fidelma, taking a seat.

‘Oh.’ The girl paused as if to give the question some thought. ‘I don’t suppose anything is ever as one would expect, but a pilgrimage, a voyage to a shrine wherein lies the body of one who knew the living Christ … surely that should be a momentous journey filled with excitement?’

‘Is this not a journey filled with excitement? I would have thought so, filled as it is with incident.’ Fidelma kept her tone light.

Sister Gorman pursed her lips. Fidelma waited and when there was no response, she altered her tone to one of seriousness, sitting down on a chair near the girl.

‘Obviously, the loss of Sister Muirgel is a sad blow for your party.’

The girl wrinkled her nose distastefully.

‘ Her !’ she said, summoning in that word an expression of dislike.

Fidelma picked up her tone immediately.

‘I gather that you were not a friend of Sister Muirgel?’

‘I regret that she is dead,’ Sister Gorman responded defensively.

‘But you did not like her?’

‘I do not feel guilty about not liking her.’

‘Has anyone suggested that you should feel guilty?’

‘If someone dies one always feels guilty for harbouring bad thoughts about them.’

‘And have you harboured bad thoughts?’

‘Didn’t everyone?’

‘I do not know as I am a stranger. I thought you were all pilgrims travelling together.’

‘That is so. It does not mean we all liked one another. I have nothing in common with the others in this party except …’ She paused and continued quickly: ‘However, Sister Muirgel was a bully and I–I hated her!’

The expression was given emphasis by the way that Sister Gorman almost spat it out. Fidelma examined the girl with gravity.

‘So now you believe you should experience guilt for feeling that hate?’

‘But I do not.’

‘What exactly made you hate her, Sister Gormdn?’

The young girl sat, considering carefully.

‘She always picked on me because I am young and came from a poor family. My father was not some chieftain but an hostler. I learned to read a little and went into the Abbey at Moville to continue to study. Muirgel and Crella forced me to become their servant.’

‘ Forced you?’ Fidelma was not naive enough to think that bullying did not go on behind the walls of abbeys and religious foundations, just as it went on in any other institution. ‘Both Sisters Muirgel and Crella bullied you?’

‘Sister Muirgel led and Sister Crella followed. Muirgel was always the leader in these things.’

‘So you do not feel sorrow for her death?’

‘Doesn’t it say in Paul’s epistle to Romans: “Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them”? If that is so then my soul is doomed. But I do not care.’

Fidelma smiled thinly.

‘Well, in the circumstances, I am sure that you will be forgiven such feelings. One of the hardest things to feel is love for our enemies.’

‘But isn’t forgiveness of our enemies one of the primary acts of Grace which mark us as blessed of God?’ queried the young girl stubbornly.

‘The theme of forgiveness is central to the Gospels,’ agreed Fidelma. ‘The Gospels tell us that Christ’s willingness to forgive us is conditional on our willingness to forgive our enemies. The old self has to be reborn in the new loving person if it is to be accepted into the eternal Kingdom of God.’

Sister Gorman looked pained.

‘Then my doom hangs heavy over my head.’

‘Surely now that Sister Muirgel is dead …’ Fidelma began.

‘I still cannot forgive Sister Muirgel for the suffering she caused me.’

Fidelma sat back thoughtfully.

‘If you hated her, as you say, why did you come on this pilgrimage?’

‘It was Sister Canair who was to be in charge of the pilgrimage. But Canair was a bad person.’

‘In what way?’ Fidelma was surprised. ‘Are you saying that Sister Canair also bullied you?’

‘Oh no.’ The girl shook her head. ‘Sister Canair just ignored me. She did not even know of my existence. How I hated them all! How I wished-’ The girl suddenly paled and looked anxiously at Fidelma. ‘I did not wish Sister Muirgel dead in this manner. I just wanted to punish her.’

‘Punish her? What are you saying?’

Sister Gorman looked anxious.

‘I swear, I did not mean it.’

‘Mean what?’ frowned Fidelma. ‘What did you not mean, Sister? Are you saying that you are involved in Muirgel’s disappearance?’

Wide-eyed, the young girl stared at Fidelma as if horrified by the thoughts that had come to her mind.

‘I ill-wished her. I stood outside her cabin last night at midnight and cursed her.’

Fidelma did not know whether to feel amused by the dramatic revelation or to be shocked by it.

‘You say that you were outside her cabin last night at midnight, during the storm — and that you cursed her? Is that what you are saying?’

Sister Gorman nodded slowly.

‘I was there during the storm.’

‘Did you go into her cabin to see her?’

‘I did not. I stood and I cursed her with the words of the Psalms.’ She began to chant in a wailing voice:

‘May her eyes be darkened so that she does not see,

Let continual agues shake her loins.

Pour out Thine indignation upon her

And let Thy burning anger overtake her

… multiply her torments.

Give her the punishment her sin deserves.

Exclude her from Thy righteous mercy.

Let her be blotted from the Book of Life

And not be enrolled among the righteous!’

Fidelma blinked at the vehemence in the young girl’s voice and then tried to make light of the matter.

‘That is hardly an exact translation of Psalm 69,’ she observed.

‘But it worked, it worked! My curse worked!’ The girl’s voice had an hysterical edge to it. ‘She must have gone up on deck soon afterwards and been swept away by God’s vengeful hand.’

‘I think not,’ replied Fidelma dryly. ‘If there was any hand in it, it was a human hand.’

Sister Gorman regarded her for a moment and then had an abrupt change of emotion. There was suspicion in her eyes.

‘What do you mean? I thought everyone said that she was swept overboard.’

Fidelma realised that she had let slip more than she had intended.

‘I merely meant that your curse and invocation were not responsible.’

Sister Gorman considered that for a moment.

‘But a curse is a terrible thing and I must atone for my sin. Yet I cannot do so by forgiving Sister Muirgel, nor by feeling guilt myself.’

‘Just tell me this, Sister Gorman,’ Fidelma said, beginning to feel irritable at the self-centred attitude of the girl and her attachment to abelief that one was responsible for Sister Muirgel’s death. ‘You say that you left your cabin about midnight?’

The girl inclined her head in agreement.

‘You share your cabin with Sister Ainder, don’t you?’