Peter Tremayne - Absolution by Murder

The shouting continued outside the wooden door of the chamber and so, suppressing a sigh of annoyance, she rose. Although she was of average height, there was something about her carriage that gave her a commanding appearance. Anger now intensified her features.

There came an abrupt banging on the oak door and it swung open almost immediately, before she had time to respond.

A woman in the brown homespun of a sister of the order stood nervously on the threshold.

Behind her a man in beggar’s clothes struggled in the grip of two muscular brothers. The sister’s posture and flushed face betrayed her nervousness and she seemed at a loss to frame the words that she so obviously sought.

‘What does this mean?’

The abbess spoke softly, yet there was steel in her tone.

‘Mother Abbess,’ began the sister apprehensively but before she had time to finish her sentence the beggar shouted again, incoherently.

‘Speak!’ demanded the abbess impatiently. ‘What is the meaning of this outrageous disturbance?’

‘Mother Abbess, this beggar demanded to see you, and when we tried to turn him away from the abbey he started to shout and attack the brethren.’ The words came out in a breathless gallop.

The abbess compressed her lips grimly.

‘Bring him forward,’ she ordered.

The sister turned and gestured to the brothers to bring the beggar forward. The man had ceased to struggle.

He was a thin man, so thin he looked more like a skeleton than a man of flesh. His eyes were grey, almost colourless, and his head was a thatch of dirty brown hair. The skin stretched tautly over his emaciated form was yellow and parchment-like. He was dressed in tattered clothing. It was obvious that the man was a foreigner in the kingdom of Northumbria.

‘What do you want?’ demanded the abbess, regarding him in distaste. ‘Why do you cause such a commotion in this house of contemplation?’

‘Want?’ The beggar repeated the word slowly. Then he broke into another language, a staccato of sound so fast that the abbess bent her head slightly forward as she tried to follow him.

‘Do you speak my language, the language of the children of Éireann?’

She nodded as she translated his words in her mind. For thirty years now the kingdom of Northumbria had been taught Christianity, learning and literacy by the Irish monks from the Holy Island of Iona.

‘I speak your language well enough,’ she conceded.

The beggar paused and bobbed his head several times in quick succession as if nodding agreement.

‘Are you the Abbess Hilda of Streoneshalh?’

The abbess sniffed impatiently.

‘I am Hilda.’

‘Then hear me, Hilda of Streoneshalh! There is doom in the air. Blood will flow at Streoneshalh before this week is over.’

Abbess Hilda stared at the beggar in surprise. It took her a moment or two to recover from the shock of his statement, delivered in a flat, matter-of-fact tone. His agitation had departed from him. He stood calmly, staring at her with eyes like the opaque grey of a muggy winter’s sky.

‘Who are you?’ she demanded, recovering herself. ‘And how do you dare prophesy in this house of God?’

The beggar’s thin lips cracked into a smile.

‘I am Canna, the son of Canna, and I have read these things in the skies at night. There will soon descend on this abbey many of the great and learned, from Ireland in the west, Dál Riada in the north, Canterbury to the south and Rome in the east. Each will come to debate on the merits of their respective paths to an understanding of the One True God.’

Abbess Hilda made an impatient gesture with a thin hand.

‘This much even a house-churl would know, soothsayer,’ she responded in annoyance. ‘Everyone knows that Oswy, the king, has summoned the leading scholars of the Church to debate whether the teachings of Rome or those of Columba of Iona should be followed in this kingdom. Why bother us with this kitchen prattle?’

The begger grinned viciously. ‘But what they do not know is that there is death in the air. Mark me, Abbess Hilda, before the week is out blood will flow under the roof of this great abbey. Blood will stain the cold stone of its floor.’

Abbess Hilda allowed herself to sneer.

‘And I suppose, for a price, you will avert the course of this evil?’

To her surprise, the beggar shook his head.

‘You must know, daughter of Hereri of Deira, that there is no averting the course of the stars in the sky. There is no way, once their path is discerned, that the path can be altered. On the day the sun is blotted from the sky, blood will flow! I came to warn you, that is all. I have fulfilled my obligation to the Son of God. Take heed of my warning.’

Abbess Hilda stared at the beggar as he closed his mouth firmly and thrust his chin out in defiance. She bit her lip for a moment, disturbed by the man’s manner as much as by his message, but then her features re-formed in an expression of annoyance. She glanced towards the sister who had disturbed her.

‘Take this insolent churl and have him whipped,’ she said curtly.

The two brothers tightened their hold on the beggar’s arms and dragged him, struggling, from the chamber.

As the sister turned to leave, Abbess Hilda raised a hand as if to stay her. The sister turned expectantly. The abbess bent forward and lowered her voice.

‘Tell them not to whip him too hard and, when they have done, give him a piece of bread from the kitchens, then let him depart in peace.’

The sister raised her eyebrows, hesitated as if to dispute her orders and then nodded hurriedly and withdrew without another word.

From behind the closed doors, the Abbess Hilda could hear the strident voice of the son of Canna still crying:

‘Beware, Abbess! On the day the sun is blotted from the sky, blood shall flow in your abbey!’

The man strained forward into the cutting wind, leaning against the dark oak of the ship’s high prow, his narrowed eyes searching the distant coastline. The wind moaned softly as it ruffled his dark hair, causing his cheeks to redden and tugging at his brown, homespun woollen habit. The man clutched at the rail with both hands, even though the rise and fall of the deck beneath his feet was gentle over waves made restless by the wailing coastal wind. The seas were choppy, with little white feathers seeming to dance across the grey seascape.

‘Is that it, captain?’

He raised his voice to call to the muscular and elderly seaman who stood just behind him.

The man, bright eyed with gnarled features, his skin tanned almost mahogany by a lifetime of exposure to the sea winds, grimaced.

‘That it is, Brother Eadulf. That is your destination. The coast of the kingdom of Oswy.’

The young man addressed as Brother Eadulf turned back to examine the coastline with enthusiasm animating his features.

The vessel had been hugging the coastline now for two days, moving slowly northward and trying to avoid the more tempestuous waves of the North Sea plains. Its captain had been content to steer for the more sheltered bays and coves as he sought a safer haven in the calmer inshore waters. Now he had been forced to head seaward to circumvent a great headland whose long coastline faced out towards the north-east and the open blustery sea.

The captain of the vessel, Stuf by name, from the kingdom of the South Saxons, moved closer to the young monk and pointed.

‘Do you see those cliffs there?’

Brother Eadulf ran his curious eyes along the dark sandstone cliffs, which averaged three to four hundred feet in height and gave an impression of formidable steepness. They were guarded by a narrow belt of sand or a scar of rugged rock at their base.

‘I do.’

‘There now, do you see the black outline on the top of those cliffs? Well, that is the abbey of Hilda, the abbey called Streoneshalh.’