Hemlock At Vespers (3 page)

“What if the Abbess refuses to pay the
eric
fine … ?” whispered Fergal, his breath becoming laboured again.

“It would be unusual for her to refuse,” Fidelma assured him. “In some exceptional circumstances she can do so. It is the right of the Abbess to renounce you if your crime is so heinous. You can be expelled from the Abbey. If so, you can be handed over by the Brehon to the victim’s family to be disposed of, to treat as a slave or punish in any way thought fitting to compensate them. That is the law. But it will not come to that. The Abbess cannot believe that you killed this girl.”

“Before God, I am innocent!” sobbed the young man.

Fidelma strode with the Brehon up the winding path to the tree-sheltered nook on Cnoc-gorm where Fergal had refurbished an old
bothán
for use as his cell. The Brehon led the way to the building which was constructed of inter-laid stones without mortar.

“This is where you found Brother Fergal and the dead girl, Barrdub?” asked Fidelma, as they paused outside the door.

“It is,” acknowledged the Brehon. “Though the girl’s body has been removed. I cannot see what use it will be to your advocacy to view this place.”

Fidelma simply smiled and went in under the lintel.

The room was small and dark, almost like the cell in which she had left Fergal, except that the
bothán
was dry whereas the cell was damp. There was a wooden cot, a table and chair, a crucifix and some other items of furnishing. Fidelma sniffed, catching a bittersweet aromatic smell which permeated from the small hearth. The smell was of burnt leaves of
stramóiniam.

The Brehon had entered behind her.

“Has anything been removed apart from the girl’s body and the person of Brother Fergal?” Fidelma asked as her eye traveled to a wooden vessel on the table.

“As you see, nothing has been touched. Brother Fergal was in the bed, there, and the girl lay by the hearth. Only the girl’s body and the person of Brother Fergal have been removed. Nothing else has been removed as nothing else was of consequence.”

“No other objects?”

“None.”

Fidelma went to the table, took up the wooden vessel and sniffed at it. There was a trace of liquid left and she dipped her finger in it and placed it, sniffing as she did so, against her lips. She grimaced at the taste and frowned.

“As Brehon, how do you account for the fact that, if Brother Fergal is guilty, it would follow he killed Barrdub and then went to bed, leaving her body here, and slept peacefully until morning? Surely a person who killed killer would have first done their best to hide the body and remove all trace of the crime lest anyone arrive and discover it?”

The round-faced Brehon nodded and smiled.

“That had already occurred to me, Sister Fidelma. But I am a simple judge. I have to deal with the facts. My concern is the evidence. It is not in my training to consider why a man should behave in the way he does. My interest is only to know that he does behave in such a manner.”

Fidelma sighed, set down the vessel and looked round again before leaving the cell.

Outside she paused, noticing a dark smear on one of the upright stone pillars framing the doorway. It was a little over shoulder height.

“Barrdub’s blood, I presume?”

“Perhaps made as my men were carrying the body out,” agreed the Brehon uninterestedly.

Fidelma gazed at the smear a moment more before turning to examine the surroundings of the
bothán
which was protected by a bank of trees to one side, bending before the winds which whipped across the hill, while bracken grew thickly all around. The main path to the
bothán,
which led down to the village, was narrow and well trodden. An even narrower path ascended farther up the hill behind the building while a third track meandered away to the right across the hillside. The paths were certainly used more than occasionally.

“Where do they lead?”

The Brehon frowned, slightly surprised at her question.

“The way up the hill will eventually bring you to the dwelling of the hermit, Erca. The path across the hillside is one of many that goes wherever you will. It is even an alternative route to the village. ”

“I would see this Erca,” Fidelma decided.

The Brehon frowned, went to say something and then shrugged.

Erca was everything Fidelma had expected.

A thin, dirty man, clad in a single threadbare woollen cloak; he had wild, matted hair and staring eyes, and he showered abuse on them as they approached his smoking fire.

“Christians!” he spat. “Out of my sight with your foreign god. Would you profane the sacred territory of The Dagda, father of all gods?”

The Brehon frowned angrily but Fidelma smiled gently and continued to approach.

“Peace to you, brother.”

“I am not your brother!” snarled the man.

“We are all brothers and sisters, Erca, under the one God who is above us all, whichever name we call Him by. I mean you no harm.”

“Harm, is it? I would see the gods of the Dé Danaan rise up from the
sidhe
and drive all followers of the foreign god out of this land as they did with the evil Fomorii in the times of the great mists.”

“So you hate Christians?”

“I hate Christians.”

“You hate Brother Fergal?”

“This land could not set boundaries to my hatred of all Christians.”

“You would harm Brother Fergal, if you could?”

The man cracked his thumb at her.

“That to Fergal and all his kind!”

Fidelma seemed unperturbed. She nodded toward the cooking pot which sat atop the man’s smoking fire.

“You are boiling herbs. You must be knowledgeable of the local herbs.”

Erca sneered.

“I am trained in the ancient ways. When your mad Patrick drove our priests from the Hill of Slane and forced our people to turn to his Christ, he could not destroy our knowledge.”

“I see you have a pile of pale brown roots, there. What herb is that?”

Erca frowned curiously at her a moment.

“That is
lus mór na coille.”

“Ah, deadly nightshade,” Fidelma acknowledged. “And those leaves with the white points next to them?”

“Those of the leaves of the
muing,
or poison hemlock.”

“And they grow on this hill?”

Erca made an impatient gesture of affirmation.

“Peace to you, then, brother Erca,” Fidelma ended the conversation abruptly, and she turned away down the hill leaving the bewildered Erca behind. The perplexed Brehon trotted after her.

“No peace to you, Christian,” came Erca’s wild call behind them as the hermit collected his thoughts. “No peace until all worshippers of foreign gods are driven from the land of Éireann!”

Fidelma said nothing as she made her way down the hillside back to Fergal’s
bothán.
As she reached it, she darted inside and then reemerged a moment or two later carrying the wooden vessel.

“I shall need this in my presentation. Will you take it into your custody?”

“What line are you following, Sister?” frowned the Brehon as he accepted the vessel and they continued on to the village. “For a moment I thought you might be suggesting that Erca is somehow involved in this matter.”

Fidelma smiled but did not answer the question.

“I would now like to see the brother of Barrdub. What was his name? Congal?”

They found the brother of Barrdub in a poor dwelling by the river bank, a
bothán
of rotting wood. The Brehon had made some preparation as they walked to Congal’s cabin.

“Congal’s father was once the hostel keeper for the Eóghanacht of Cashel, a man held in high honor, and a spokesman at the clan assembly. Congal was not the man his father was. Congal was always a dreamer. When his father died, he squandered away what could have been his so that he and his sister were reduced to living in this
bothán
and Congal forced to hire himself to work for other members of the clan rather than run his own cattle.”

Congal was a dark, brooding person with fathomless grey eyes as deep and angry as the sea on a stormy winter’s day.

“If you have come to defend the murderer of my sister, I will answer no questions!” he told Fidelma belligerently, his thin, bloodless lips set firm.

The Brehon sighed in annoyance.

“Congal, you will obey the law. It is the right of the
dálaigh,
the advocate, to ask you questions and your duty to reply truthfully.”

Sister Fidelma motioned the man to be seated but he would not.

“Did you ever take
stramóiniam
to Brother Fergae?” she opened.

Congal blinked at the unexpectedness of her question.

“No,” he replied. “He purchased his asthma medication from Iland the herbalist.”

“Good. Now I have heard how you discovered the body of your sister. Before you confirm the Brehon’s account of that discovery, I want you to tell me what made you seek your sister in Brother Fergal’s
bothán
when you knew her to be missing?”

Congal grimaced.

“Because Barrdub was enamored of the man. He mesmerized her and used her.”

“Mesmerized? Why do you say this?”

Congal’s voice was harsh.

“I knew my sister, did I not? Since Fergal came to this village, Barrdub mooned after the man like a sick cow after a farmer, always making excuses to go to visit him and help him rebuild the priest’s
bothán.
It was disgusting.”

“Why disgusting?” the Brehon chimed in, suddenly interested. “If she would have Fergal, or he would have her, there was nothing to prevent her save she have your consent or had reached the age of choice. You know as well as I do that all servants of Christ have the ancient right to marry the partner of their choice, even to an abbot or abbess?”

“It was disgusting because she was betrothed to Rimid,” Congal insisted.

“Yet before Fergal arrived here,” the Brehon observed wryly, “you objected to Rimid as husband for Barrdub.”

Congal flushed.

“Why did you object to Rimid?” interposed Fidelma.

“Because …”

“Because he could not afford the full bride-price,” offered the Brehon before the man could reply. “Isn’t that so?”

“The
tinnscra
is as old as Éireann. No one marries without an offering of dowry to compensate the family of the bride,” Congal said stubbornly.

“And you were Barrdub’s only family?” asked Fidelma.

“She kept my house. With her gone, I have no one else. It is right that I be compensated according to our ancient law.”

“Presumably, you raised this same objection over her liaison with Fergal? As a religieux he was not able to supply a
tinnscra.”

Congal said sullenly: “There was no question of that. He had no thought of marriage. He was using my sister and when she went to him seeking marriage, he killed her.”

“That remains to be proved,” Fidelma responded. “Who else knew about the affair between your sister and Fergal?”

“No one,” Congal said promptly. “My sister only admitted it to me with great unwillingness.”

“So you kept it to yourself? Are you sure no one else knew? What of Rimid?”

Congal hesitated, his eyes downcast.

“Yes,” he answered reluctantly. “Rimid knew.”

“I will see this Rimid next,” Fidelma told the Brehon. She turned to leave and then hesitated, pausing to examine bunches of dried flowers and plants hung on the wall by the fireplace.

“What herb is this?”

Congal frowned at her for a moment.

“I have no knowledge of such things. Barrdub gathered all our herbs for cooking.”

Outside the Brehon cast a long puzzled look at Fidelma.

“You are greatly interested in herbs, Sister,” he observed.

Fidelma nodded.

“Did you know that Brother Fergal suffers from asthma and that he is in the habit of inhaling the fumes of the burning leaves of
stramóiniam
or drinking an infusion of similar herbs each night to ease his chest?”

The Brehon shrugged.

“Some people are so afflicted,” he conceded, perplexed at her comment. “Is it important?”

“Where will we find Rimid?”

“He may be at his work at this hour,” the Brehon sighed.

Fidelma raised an eyebrow.

“I was under the impression that Rimid did not work because Congal intimated that he was in no position to pay the
tinnscra.”

The Brehon smiled broadly.

“Congal objected to the fact that Rimid could not pay the
full
bride-price. Rimid is not a man of wealth but he is a freeman of the clan and, unlike Congal, can sit in the clan assembly.”

“Congal cannot? He is so poor?”

“As you saw. A self-inflicted poverty. He has great schemes but they all come to nothing for he dreams of marvelous ways to gain respect and advancement in the clan but his expectations always exceed his means. He often has to rely on the generosity of the clan to feed himself. It makes him bitter.”

“And Barrdub? Was she bitter also?”

“No. Her hope was to escape her brother’s poverty through marriage.”

“She must have been disappointed when Congal refused Rimid’s offer of marriage.”

“This was so. I thought she might wait until she reached the
aimsir togu,
the age of consent, when she would be a woman and with full right of choice. Then I thought she would marry with Rimid. When she reached the age where she could decide, there would be no question of Congal being able to demand a bride-price. I think Rimid shared that belief. He was bitter when he learnt that Barrdub was throwing herself at Brother Fergal.”

“Was he now?” mused Fidelma. “Well, let us go and speak with this Rimid. You say he might be at his work? Where would that be?”

The Brehon sighed.

“He might be at the
bothán
of Hand, the herbalist.”

Fidelma halted and stared at the Brehon in astonishment.

“Is Rimid a herbalist?”

The Brehon shook his head.

“No, no. He is not a professional man. He is employed by the herbalist to go abroad each day and gather the herbs and flowers wanted for the preparations.”