Peter Tremayne - Act of Mercy

‘I make no effort to disguise it.’

‘Very well. Apart from her being, in your eyes, prone to indiscriminate sexual liaisons, I am at a loss to understand the depth of your dislike.’

‘She seduced and perverted young men.’

‘Can you give me an example?’

‘Brother Guss, for example.’

‘So you knew that Brother Guss claims to have been in love with Sister Muirgel?’

‘She ensnared him with her wiles, as I have been trying to tell you.’

‘A harsh thing to say. Had Brother Guss no free will?’

‘I warned the boy,’ went on Brother Tola. He screwed up his eyes as he sought to recite another passage from memory.

‘ … My son, listen to me,

Attend to what I say.

Do not let your heart entice you into her ways,

Do not stray down her paths;

Many has she pierced and laid low,

And her victims are without number.

Her house is the entrance to Sheol,

Which leads down to the halls of death.’

‘You seem attracted by Proverbs, seven,’ remarked Fidelma mockingly. ‘Do you often quote it?’

‘I did my best to warn poor Brother Guss.’ Tola ignored her tone. ‘I praise the Hand of God which swept the harlot overboard.’

Fidelma did not say anything for a moment or two. It had become clear to her that Brother Tola was a man of strong religious conviction, to the point of extreme intolerance. She had known men to kill for religious intolerance before.

‘When did you learn that Sister Muirgel had been swept overboard?’ Fidelma queried.

‘At the same time that everyone else did,’ he replied. ‘This morning.’

‘When did you last see Sister Muirgel?’

‘When we came aboard. I think she was ill almost from the time we rowed out to the ship. No, that is not so. She was all right until after we came aboard. In the absence of Sister Canair, another one who was loose with her sexual favours, Muirgel took charge and allocated the cabins. We all went to these cabins and most of us remained below until after we had set sail. I never saw her afterwards and word came she was suffering from the motion sickness. Perhaps that was a warning of God’s punishment to come.’

‘Did you sleep during the storm?’

‘Last night? How would one sleep? It was not the best of experiences. I did manage to get some sleep after a while, though. A sleep of exhaustion.’

‘I presume Brother Guss was also disturbed?’

‘I suppose he was. But you can ask him.’

‘Were you awake when he left the cabin?’

Brother Tola frowned as he reflected on her question.

‘Did he leave the cabin?’ he countered.

‘So he says.’

‘Then it must be so. Ah, now I recall, he went out. But not for long.’

‘Do you know where he went?’

‘I presume he went to the privy. Where else would one vanish to on board this ship?’

Fidelma stared at him for a moment, knowing full well that Brother Tola must be aware that Guss had gone to see Sister Muirgel before midnight. Was Tola simply trying to protect Guss, or was there some other reason why he should attempt to cover up for the young man?

Inwardly she sighed, for she knew that she was not going to get anything further out of Brother Tola. She rose carefully to her feet.

‘One point I would like clarification on,’ she said. ‘You obviously have strong feelings on female religieuses who fall in love or have affairs. Harlots and prostitutes, I hear you call them. I have heard no condemnation of any male religieux who often seduce these same young women. Do you not consider your judgement flawed?’

Brother Tola was in no way abashed.

‘Was it not a woman who first succumbed to temptation, eating of the forbidden fruit and seducing man, for which we were all driven from the Garden of Eden? Women are responsible for all our suffering. Remember what Paul wrote to the Corinthians — “I am jealous for you, with a divine jealousy; for I betrothed you to Christ, thinking to present you as a chaste virgin to her true and only husband. But as the serpent in his cunning seduced Eve, I am afraid that your thoughts may be corrupted and you may lose your single-hearted devotion to Christ”.’

‘I know the passage,’ replied Fidelma. ‘But as the serpent in his cunning seduced Eve, it seems that the sex of the serpent was male. I will leave you to your contemplations then, Brother Tola. I thank you for taking the time to answer my questions. You have been most helpful.’

Brother Tola’s eyes narrowed in suspicion as Fidelma deliberately added her last sentence. She had some uncanny feeling that the last thing Brother Tola wanted to be was helpful in the matter of Sister Muirgel’s disappearance.

She was turning away from him when a further cry from the masthead above caused her to look up.

There it was, the mysterious vessel, clearly visible now! She had been so engrossed with Brother Tola that she had not noticed how close it had approached.

In the afternoon sunlight she could make out several details on the approaching ship: the low, square sail with some design on it, like a lightning flash; a bank of oars that rose and fell rhythmically; and the sun sparkling on objects on the side of the vessel that was turned towards her.

She hurried back to Murchad who was observing the vessel with a grim face.

‘I’d get yourself and the pilgrim below decks, lady,’ he greeted her as she came up.

‘What is it?’

‘A Saxon, by the cut of her. See the lightning flash design on her mainsail?’

Fidelma nodded briefly.

‘Pagans, no doubt,’ continued Murchad. ‘That’s the symbol of their god of thunder, Thunor.’

‘Do they mean us harm?’ Fidelma asked.

‘They mean us no good,’ replied Murchad grimly. ‘See the bank of shields above the oars, and the sun glinting on their weapons? I believe that they mean to take us as a prize and those they don’t kill will be sold as slaves.’

Fidelma felt her mouth suddenly go dry.

She knew that some of the Saxon kingdoms were still pagan in spite of the efforts of missionaries both from the Five Kingdoms of Eireann and from Rome. The South Saxons particularly were clinging to their ancient gods and goddesses even against missionaries from their fellow Saxons of the Eastern and Northern kingdoms. She swallowed hard in an attempt to dispel the sandy texture of her mouth.

‘Go below, lady,’ Murchad insisted again. ‘You’ll be safer there if they board us.’

‘I’ll stay and watch,’ she replied firmly. She could think of nothing worse than being in darkness below and not knowing what was taking place.

Murchad was about to protest but he saw the resolution around her mouth, the slightly jutting jaw.

‘Very well, but stay out of harm’s way and if that ship closes on us, get below without me telling you again. When they first attack, the bloodlust obscures their vision. Man or woman, it is all the same.’

He turned to Gurvan, without wasting his time in further pleading, and glanced up at the sail.

‘We’ll hold our course until I say.’

Gurvan acknowledged this with only a slight forward jerk of his head.

Fidelma backed to the far corner of the stern deck and watched the unfolding drama.

‘Deck there!’ came the cry from the masthead. ‘She’s beginning to close.’

The approaching ship was turning bow towards them. The bow was high and cleaving through the waters which seemed to spray out on either side of it. The oars were rising and dipping, the water sparkling like silver as it dripped from them. She could hear the beat of something that sounded like a drum. She knew, from her previous experience of travelling to Rome, that galleys sometimes employed a man to beat time to keep the rowers synchronised.