Absolution by Murder

Chapter Nineteen

Sister Fidelma paused before the door of Abbess Hilda’s chambers, glanced at Brother Eadulf and pulled a face.

‘Are you nervous, Fidelma?’ Eadulf whispered in concern.

‘Who would not be nervous in such circumstances?’ she replied quietly. ‘We are dealing with someone strong and cunning. And the evidence I have is somewhat circumstantial. There is only one point of weakness, as I have mentioned, by which I hope to draw a response from the killer. If that fails …’ She shrugged. ‘Our murderer may well escape us.’

‘I am there to back you.’

Eadulf’s reassurance was no boast, just a simple and comforting statement.

For a moment she regarded him with a genuine smile of affection and reached out a hand to touch his. Eadulf placed his hand over Fidelma’s as their gaze held. Then Fidelma lowered her eyes before knocking sharply on the door.

They were all there as she had requested – Abbess Hilda, Bishop Colman, Oswy the king, Abbess Abbe, Sister Athelswith, Agatho the priest, Sister Gwid and Wighard, secretary to the now dead Archbishop of Canterbury. Oswy was sprawled moodily in the chair before the fire usually reserved for Colman. The bishop himself had taken Hilda’s chair behind her table. The rest of the company were standing around the room.

They turned with inquisitive looks as Fidelma and Eadulf entered.

Fidelma inclined her head to the king and looked towards the Abbess Hilda.

‘With your permission, Mother Abbess?’

‘You may proceed at once, sister. We are anxious enough to hear you and I am sure we will all be relieved when this is over.’

‘Very well.’ Fidelma coughed nervously, glanced to Eadulf for support and then began.

‘What has dominated our investigation into the death of the Abbess Etain was the thought, which has become a conviction in the minds of many, that the killing was political.’

Colmán grimaced irritably.

‘That was the obvious conclusion.’

Fidelma was unperturbed.

‘You have all assumed that Etain, as chief counsel for the church of Columba, was killed to silence her voice; that the Roman faction realised that she was their most implacable enemy. Is that not so?’

There was a murmur of assent from those who supported the Columban ranks, but Wighard was shaking his head.

‘It is a scurrilous suggestion.’

Fidelma let her cool gaze fall on the Kentish cenobite.

‘But surely an easy mistake to make given the circumstances?’ she parried.

‘You admit that it was a mistake?’ Wighard seized eagerly on her phraseology.

‘Yes. Abbess Étain was slain for a reason other than that of the religious belief she held.’

Colmán’s eyes narrowed.

‘Are you saying that Athelnoth was the killer after all? That he made improper advances to Étain, was rejected and so slew her? That when he knew he was discovered, he killed himself in remorse?’

Fidelma smiled softly.

‘You race ahead of me, bishop.’

‘That was the rumour whispered in the cloisters of this abbey. Started, I suspect, by the Roman faction.’ Colmán’s voice was full of anger.

The dark-eyed priest Agatho, who had been quiet so far, suddenly broke his silence. He began to sing in a shrill voice:

‘Rumour goes forth at once, Rumour and

No other speedier evil thing exists.’

He dropped his head and was silent as abruptly as he had begun.

All eyes were on him in bewilderment.

Fidelma’s eyes flickered to Eadulf, giving him a warning. Soon now. She would have to display her hand soon. She drew herself up and continued, ignoring Agatho’s interruption.

‘You have the right reason, Bishop of Lindisfarne, but the wrong person.’

Colman snorted in disgust.

‘A crime of passion? Pah! I have always argued that male and female should be separated. In Job it is written: “I made a covenant with mine eyes: how then should I look upon a maid?” We should forbid these double houses as did the blessed Finnian of Clonard who refused to look upon any woman.’

Abbess Abbe was red with indignation.

‘If it were left to you, Colman of Lindisfarne, we would live a joyless life. You would probably applaud Enda who, having taken his vows, refused to speak even with his own sister, Faenche, except when a sheet was hung between them!’

‘Better a joyless life than a life of debauchery and hedonism,’ responded the bishop hotly.

Abbe’s colour increased and she seemed to be choking, for she opened her mouth to speak but no words would come. Fidelma interrupted sharply.

‘Sisters, brothers, are we not forgetting the purpose of this meeting?’

Oswy had been smiling bitterly at the arguing of his clerics.

‘Yes, Fidelma of Kildare,’ he added in agreement. ‘This begins to sound like the assembly in the sacrarium. Tell us, if you can, why we have seen the death of your abbess, why the death of the Archbishop of Canterbury, why the death of Athelnoth, of Seaxwulf and, indeed, the death of even my own first-born son, Alhfrith. Death hangs around Streoneshalh like a plague. Can this be some ill-omened place?’

‘There is nothing ill omened about this matter. And you already have the answer for the death of Alhfrith, Oswy. I know a part of you grieves for a son while a part of you recognises that you have come unscathed from the clutches of a traitorous conspiracy,’ replied Fidelma. ‘And God can answer for the death of Deusdedit of Canterbury, for he died of a plague. But another and a single hand is responsible for the deaths of Étain, of Athelnoth and Seaxwulf.’

There was an expectant silence in the room.

Fidelma gazed at them, each in turn. They stood glaring back defiantly.

‘Then speak. Tell us whose hand?’

Fidelma turned back to Oswy, who had spoken sharply.

‘I will speak, but it will be at my own pace and without interruption.’

Agatho lifted his head and smiled, raising his hand in the sign of the Cross.

‘Amen. The truth will out, Deo volente!’

Abbess Hilda bit her lip.

‘Should Sister Athelswith take Brother Agatho to his cubiculum, sister? I fear the strain of recent weeks has made him unwell.’

‘Unwell? When a man is unwell his very goodness is ill!’ cried Agatho, suddenly smiling. ‘But the sleep of a sick man has keen eyes.’

Fidelma hesitated and then shook her head.

‘It is best if Agatho hears what we have to say.’

Abbess Hilda sniffed her disapproval. Fidelma paused a moment and continued.

‘Étain told me that she intended to resign from being abbess of Kildare as soon as she returned to Ireland following the end of this synod. Étain was a woman of enormous gifts, as you all know for you invited her here to be chief spokesperson of the church of Colmcille, whom you call Columba. Had she not been of the family of Brigit, she might have attained high position on her own merits. She married young but was widowed and followed her family tradition of becoming a religieuse.

‘She excelled in learning and the time came when she was chosen as abbess of Kildare, the abbey founded by her illustrious kinswomen Brigit, the daughter of Dubhtach.’

‘We all know of Étain’s reputation and authority,’ snapped Abbess Hilda impatiently.

Fidelma threw her a withering look. A silence fell.

‘I had scarcely arrived at Streoneshalh,’ went on Fidelma after a few seconds, ‘when I met and spoke with Étain and she told me that she had found a man whom she wanted to be with, to be with so strongly that she had decided that she would give up the position of abbess and go with her love into a double house where men and women and their children can dedicate themselves to God’s work.

‘At first I stupidly and wrongly assumed that Étain’s new love was in Ireland.’

‘It was a natural assumption.’ Eadulf suddenly intervened for the first time. ‘You see, Étain had never left the shores of Ireland.’

Fidelma cast an appreciative look at Eadulf.

‘Brother Eadulf comforts me in my shortcomings,’ she murmured. ‘But one should assume nothing. In fact, Étain had fallen in love with a Saxon and he with her.’

She had their attention now.

‘You see, Étain had met Brother Athelnoth at the abbey of Emly where she instructed in philosophy until last year.’

‘Athelnoth had spent six months in the abbey of Emly in the kingdom of Munster in Ireland,’ explained Eadulf.

Colmán was nodding his head.

‘Indeed. That was why I chose Brother Athelnoth to go to Catraeth to meet the abbess and escort her here to Streoneshalh. He knew Étain.’

‘Of course he did,’ agreed Fidelma. ‘A fact that he denied after Étain’s murder. Why? Simply because he was aggressively in favour of the rule of Rome and his association with Étain would be counted against him? I think not.’

‘Of course, many of the Roman faction were themselves educated or trained in Ireland,’ Oswy pointed out. ‘There are even some Irish brethren here, like Tuda, who side with Rome. No, that is no reason to deny friends among the Columban faction.’

‘Athelnoth denied his relationship because he was the man whom Étain was going to marry,’ Fidelma said quietly.

Abbess Abbe snorted indignantly.

‘How could Étain contemplate a relationship with such a man?’ she enquired indignantly.

Fidelma smiled thinly.

‘You who preach that love is God’s greatest gift to humankind ought to be able to answer that, abbess of Coldingham.’

Abbe brought her chin up, a flush coming to her cheeks.

‘Thinking back over Étain’s conversation with me,’ Fidelma went on, ‘I realise now that she had given me all the answers to her subsequent murder. She told me that she loved a stranger. At least, I interpreted her word as “stranger” and took it for a relative term, meaning a man she had not long known, when I should have taken it to be “foreigner”, for we in Ireland use that same word in both meanings. She told me that she had exchanged betrothal gifts with her lover and he with her. I should have remembered before that there is an Eoghanacht custom of exchanging brooches. Eadulf later found Étain’s brooch in a sacculus on the body of Athelnoth.’

Eadulf nodded eagerly.

‘And Athelnoth’s brooch was found with the body of Seaxwulf,’ he added. ‘And on both bodies there were pages of vellum copied from a book of Greek love poems.’

Oswy was bewildered.

‘Are you now saying that Seaxwulf was the culprit?’

Fidelma shook her head.

‘No. The brooch that Athelnoth had was of Irish craftsmanship. Clearly, this was the betrothal gift Abbess Étain had given him. Now Seaxwulf had a brooch of Saxon workmanship. This was the brooch given in reciprocation by Athelnoth. The murderer had taken Athelnoth’s brooch from Abbess Étain’s body together with the poem found subsequently on Seaxwulf.

‘Seaxwulf had found it after it had been removed and was going to show it to me when he was murdered. He might have named the killer to me but the killer discovered that he had taken these incriminating things and killed him instead. I came too quickly to the rendezvous with Seaxwulf to allow the killer to recover the brooch and the incriminating piece of vellum with the poem on it.’

‘Incriminating?’ demanded Hilda. ‘To whom?’

Eadulf was looking nervous. So far, the person whom Fidelma had confided to him that she suspected was behaving with nerves of steel. There was no panic on the suspect’s placid but watchful features.

‘Let us get this clear,’ interposed Wighard sharply. ‘You are saying that Étain was killed by a jealous lover? Yet you say Athelnoth, who was her real lover, did not kill her. He was killed by the same man who killed Étain? And Seaxwulf was also killed by this same man? Why?’

Eadulf felt he should make some contribution.

‘Athelnoth was killed not only because he was the man whom Étain loved but also because he could point the finger of accusation in the right direction. Seaxwulf learnt who the killer was by discovering the brooch and Greek poem in the murderer’s sacculus. He took them before he realised what they were. When he realised, he asked Fidelma to meet him. That was why he was killed.’

Oswy sighed in exasperation.

‘This seems too complicated. So now you must tell us. Who is the jealous lover of Étain? Name the man!’

Sister Fidelma smiled wistfully.

‘Did I say it was a man?’

She turned slowly to where Sister Gwid stood silently, her face grey, almost stony. The dark eyes stared back at Fidelma with hatred, the teeth clenched. ‘Sister Gwid, would you like to explain how you came by that tear in your tunica which you have sought to mend? Was it when you hid under Athelnoth’s cot to avoid detection by Sister Athelswith?’

Before anyone realised what she was doing, Gwid had seized a knife from her robes and thrown it with all her force at Fidelma.

Everything seemed to happen in slow motion. Fidelma was so surprised by Gwid’s unexpected reaction that she was frozen to the spot. She was aware of a hoarse cry of alarm and then the breath was knocked from her as she was borne to the ground by the weight of a body knocking into her.

There came a shrill scream.

The force of the fall caused her to wince in pain on landing on the stone floor and she found herself entangled with a breathless Eadulf, who had flung himself at her to knock her out of the path of the murderous missile. Fidelma peered up, trying to identify the source of the scream.

It was Agatho, who had been standing just behind her. Gwid’s knife was now embedded in his shoulder with blood pouring across his tunic. He stood staring at the haft in disbelief. Then he began to moan and sob.

Gwid was running for the door but the giant Oswy was there before her. He seized the struggling woman in his arms. Gwid was powerful, so strong that Oswy was beaten back and forced to use his drawn sword to keep the snarling Fury at bay while he called loudly for his guards. It took two of Oswy’s warriors to drag the screaming woman from the room with Oswy’s orders to lock her in a cell and guard it well.

The king stood for a moment gazing ruefully at the red scratches on his forearms where Gwid had rent his flesh. Then Oswy glanced to where Eadulf was helping Fidelma to her feet.

‘This needs a lot of explanation, sister,’ he said. Then, more kindly, ‘Are you hurt?’

Eadulf had taken charge, fussing a little over Fidelma and pouring her a goblet of wine.

She turned it away.

‘Agatho is the one who is hurt.’

They turned to him. Sister Athelswith was hurrying forward to staunch the bleeding.

Agatho was now laughing, in spite of the knife still embedded in his shoulder and the blood soaking his clothes. He was crooning in his shrill voice.

‘Who, except the gods, can live time through forever without pain?’

‘I will take him to Brother Edgar, our physician,’ Sister Athelswith offered.

‘Do so,’ agreed Fidelma with a sad smile. ‘Brother Edgar may well be able to treat the knife wound but I fear there is little he can do to treat this poor man’s mind.’ As the elderly domina escorted Agatho through the door, Fidelma turned back to the others and grimaced.

‘I had forgotten how strong and swift Sister Gwid could be,’ she said almost apologetically. ‘I had no idea that she would react with violence.’

Abbess Abbe looked moodily at her.

‘Truly, are you telling us that these horrendous murders were committed solely by Sister Gwid?’

‘That is what I am telling you,’ affirmed Fidelma. ‘Sister Gwid has now given you proof of her guilt.’

‘Indeed,’ Abbess Hilda agreed, her face still showing the shock of the revelation. ‘But a woman … to be of such strength … !’

Fidelma glanced at Eadulf and smiled. ‘I will have that wine now.’

The anxious brother handed her the goblet. She drained it and handed it back.

‘I knew that Gwid seemed to worship Étain and preened herself whenever she was near. I was in error to think that she had sought Étain’s friendship out of mere respect. We are all wise after the events. Gwid had studied under Étain at Emly. Étain became the object of adulation by Gwid, a lonely, unhappy girl who, incidentally, had spent five years as a slave in this kingdom, having been captured from her own country as a small child.

‘Apparently Gwid was upset when Étain left Emly for Kildare. She could not follow because she was bound in the abbey for another month. When she was free to follow Étain she found that Étain was coming to Northumbria to take part in this debate. She therefore took passage from Ireland to Iona.

‘It was there, at Iona, that I met Gwid and she claimed that she was Étain’s secretary in order that she could journey with us to Streoneshalh.

‘But the indications of what was really happening were before my eyes the whole time. When I saw Étain she seemed hesitant about acknowledging Gwid as her secretary. In fact, Athelnoth indicated that Gwid had followed Étain here not because Étain had sent for her but from her own motivation. He thought Étain had given Gwid the job once she arrived out of pity. Naturally he did not go into detail as to how he knew this because he did not want to reveal his relationship with Étain.

‘But this was confirmed by Seaxwulf, who was Wilfrid’s secretary. He told me quite clearly that Gwid was not really Étain’s confidant nor privy to any of the negotiations Wilfrid was conducting with Étain. We were all so horrified to learn of these negotiations that we forgot this main point.’

Fidelma paused. She poured herself another goblet of wine and sipped it reflectively.

‘Gwid had developed an unnatural adulation for Étain, a passion that Étain could never return. And Étain had told me yet I did not see it. She told me that Gwid, who is a good Greek scholar, spent more time worshipping the poems of Sappho than construing the Gospels. Knowing Greek, I should have known immediately the implications of that remark.’

Oswy interrupted.

‘I do not know Greek. Who is Sappho?’

‘An ancient Greek poetess, surely,’ Eadulf interposed.

‘A lyric poetess born at Eresus on the island of Lesbos. She gathered a circle of women and girls around her and her poems are full of the passionate intensity of her love for them and theirs for her. The poet Anacreon says that it was because of Sappho that the name of the island, Lesbos, connotes female homosexuality.’

Abbess Hilda appeared distressed.

‘Are you telling us that Sister Gwid developed a … an … an unnatural love for Étain?’

‘Yes. Gwid was desperate in her passion. She demonstrated her love by giving Étain copies of two of Sappho’s poems. Étain gave one to her own lover, Athelnoth, presumably to explain to him what was happening. He indicated as much to us. The other she kept. At some stage, just before the opening of the synod, Étain told Gwid that she could not respond to Gwid’s love – that, indeed, she loved Athelnoth and, after the synod, they were going to cohabit in a double house.’

‘Gwid went berserk,’ interposed Eadulf hurriedly. ‘You saw just how quickly she lost her temper? She was a strong woman, physically stronger than a lot of us, I’ll warrant. She attacked Étain, a slightly built woman, and cut her throat. She took Étain’s betrothal brooch, given her by Athelnoth, and tried to take back the two poems that she had given Étain. She could only find one, for the other was already in Athelnoth’s keeping.’

‘I remember that she arrived late in the sacrarium on that first day of the debate,’ Fidelma said. ‘She had been hurrying and was red in the face and breathless. She had just come from killing Étain.’

‘While Étain remained celibate, Gwid was more or less content to remain her doting slave. Just being near her was probably enough. But when Étain told Gwid that she loved Athelnoth—’ Eadulf shrugged.

‘There is no rage so powerful as hate born of scorned love,’ Fidelma commented. ‘Gwid was a powerful young woman but she was intelligent and cunning as well, for she cleverly tried to implicate Athelnoth. Then she realised that Étain must have given him the other poem. And rage again possessed her. That Étain could betray love and hold her up to ridicule before this mere man! Indeed, she even told me that she considered that Étain had found absolution for what Gwid saw as her sin in this murder. Oh, not so directly was this said but I should have interpreted it correctly when it was said.’

Oswy was bemused.

‘So Gwid also felt compelled to kill Athelnoth?’

Fidelma nodded.

‘She was strong enough, after she had knocked him unconscious, to hoist his body on to the hook in his cubiculum to choke him to death and make it seem like suicide.’

‘But,’ interposed Eadulf again, ‘Sister Athelswith heard the sounds of Athelnoth being killed and came to the door. Gwid had time to hide under the bed as the domina came into the cubiculum. She saw Athelnoth at once and ran off to raise the alarm. Gwid was now in a dilemma. She had no time to look for the vellum with her second poem on it.’

‘But how did Seaxwulf come to get the brooch and poem, the other brooch and poem?’ Wighard enquired. ‘You said that Gwid had taken this from Étain’s body.’

Sister Athelswith slid back into the room and motioned Fidelma to continue.

‘Brother Seaxwulf suffered an affliction. He had the mind of a magpie. He loved to pick up pretty things. He was rebuked and chastised for attempting to steal from the brothers’ dormitorium. Wilfrid had him beaten with a birch stick. Later, in spite of this, Seaxwulf must have searched the dormitorium of the anchoresses. He had an eye for pretty jewellery and discovered Étain’s brooch among Gwid’s personal things. He found it wrapped in a Greek poem called “Love’s Attack”. He took them both. The poem intrigued him. He looked it up in the librarium and found that it was a poem by Sappho. He even asked me about the custom of exchanging gifts between lovers. I did not see what he was driving at until too late. Seaxwulf must have suspected Gwid. When he knew Athelnoth had been killed he came to tell me. He found me in the refectory with sisters close by. In his anxiety to be understood he addressed me in Greek to arrange the meeting. But he forgot that Gwid, who was sitting within earshot, knew Greek better than he did. It was a fatal mistake. Gwid had to silence him.

‘She followed him, knocked him on the head and then killed him in the wine cask by holding him under the liquid. I came along too soon for her to search the body. In my surprise at discovering the body I slipped and fell off that stool by accident knocking myself out. My cry brought Eadulf and Sister Athelswith into the apotheca. They took me to my cubiculum. This gave Gwid time to retrieve Seaxwulf’s body and drag it along the passage to the defectorum on the cliff edge and throw it into the sea. Not before she searched it, of course.’

‘So why had she missed the brooch and poem on Seaxwulf’s body?’ demanded Abbess Hilda. ‘She had enough time while she was dragging his body from the cask and transporting it along the tunnel.’

Fidelma smiled wryly.

‘Seaxwulf followed the latest fashion. He had a new-style sacculus sewn into his tunica. This was where he had placed both the poem and the brooch. Poor Gwid did not know of the existence of the sacculus. But she was not worried, having disposed, as she thought, of the body and any evidence it held by throwing it into the sea. She did not realise that the tide would wash the body close inshore along the harbour within six to twelve hours.’

‘You say that Sister Gwid was able to drag the body of Seaxwulf through the tunnel to the sea. Was she really that powerful?’ demanded Hilda. ‘And how did she, a stranger, know of the defectorum’s existence? It is for our male brethren only and usually only male guests are informed of its existence.’

‘Sister Athelswith told me that, to keep male modesty intact, the sisters who worked in the kitchens were told about it so that they would not wander along it by mistake. After Étain’s death, Sister Gwid took to working in the kitchens to occupy her time.’

The elderly domina coloured.

‘It is true,’ she confessed. ‘Sister Gwid came to ask me if she could work in the kitchens while she was here. I felt sorry for her and agreed. The mistress of the kitchens obviously warned her about the male defectorum.’

‘We were distracted, for a while, by the politics of your son Alhfrith,’ Eadulf conceded. ‘We were misled for some time believing that he or Taran or Wulfric might have been involved in the matter.’

Sister Fidelma spread her hands with a gesture of finality.

‘There you have it.’

Eadulf smiled grimly.

‘A woman whose love is scorned is like a stream dammed by a log, deep, muddy and troubled and withal revolving with powerful turbulence. Such was Gwid.’

Colmán sighed.

‘Publicius Syrus said that a woman loves or hates, she knows no other course.’

Abbess Abbe laughed scornfully.

‘Syrus was a fool like most men.’

Oswy rose to his feet.

‘Well, it took a woman to track down this fiend,’ he observed. Then he grimaced. ‘Even so, had not Gwid been of a volatile temper, all you had was circumstantial accusations. True they all fitted into a complete pattern but if Gwid had stood and denied everything could you have convicted her?’

Fidelma smiled thinly.

‘We shall never know that now, Oswy of Northumbria. But I would say yes. Do you know much about the art of calligraphy?’

Oswy made a negative gesture.

‘I have studied this art under Sinlán of Kildare,’ went on Fidelma. ‘It is easy to the trained eye to spot individuality in the penmanship of a scribe, the way the letters are formed, the polished unicals, the cursive script. The poems were clearly, in my opinion, copied by Gwid.’

‘Then we should be grateful to you, Fidelma of Kildare,’ Colmán said solemnly. ‘We owe you much.’

‘Brother Eadulf and I worked as one on this matter,’ replied Fidelma awkwardly. ‘This was a partnership.’

She smiled quickly at Eadulf.

Eadulf returned the smile and shrugged.

‘Sister Fidelma is modest. I did but little.’

‘Enough to make these facts known to the assembly before I give my decision this very morning,’ replied Oswy decisively. ‘Enough to take the sting out of my words, trying to dispel the suspicion and mistrust that pervades the minds of our brethren.’

He paused and laughed ruefully.

‘I feel that some weight has lifted from these shoulders of mine, for the slaying of Abbess Étain of Kildare was done not for Rome or for Columba but in the name of lust, which is the meanest of motives.’