Suffer Little Children

Chapter Six

Brother Tóla, the abbey’s assistant physician, was a man with silvery grey hair and soft and pleasant features, continually smiling as though laughing at life. Fidelma reflected that most of the physicians whom she had encountered had been men and women with a joy for life and who regarded all its tragedies with a wry humour. Perhaps, she reasoned, this was a defence against their continual relationship with death or perhaps the very experience of death and human tragedy had conditioned them to accepting that while one had life, had reasonable health, then that life should be enjoyed as much as possible.

‘There are just a few questions that I would like to ask,’ Fidelma began, after the introductions were over. They were still standing outside the door of the chamber which had once been occupied by Dacán.

‘Anything that I can do, sister.’ Tóla smiled, his eyes twinkling with laughter as he spoke. ‘I fear it will not be much, but ask your questions.’

‘I am told that shortly after Brother Conghus found the dead body of the Venerable Dacán, the Abbot Brocc summoned you to examine the body?’

‘This is so.’

‘You are the assistant physician of the abbey?’

‘That is so. Brother Midach is our chief physician.’

‘Forgive me, but why did the abbot summon you and not Brother Midach?’

She had already heard the answer but Fidelma wanted to make sure.

‘Brother Midach was not in the abbey. He had left the previous evening on a journey and did not return for six days. As physicians, our services are often in demand in many neighbouring villages.’

‘Very well. Can you tell me the details of your findings?’

‘Of course. It was just after tierce and Brother Martan, who is the apothecary, had remarked that the bell had not rung the hour …’

Fidelma was interested.

‘The bell had not rung? How then did the apothecary know it was after tierce?’

Tóla chuckled dryly.

‘No mystery there. Martan is not only the apothecary but he is interested in the measurement of time. We have, within the community, a clepsydra, a plan for which one of our brethren brought back from a pilgrimage to the Holy Land many years ago. A clepsydra is …’

Fidelma held up her hand in interruption.

‘I know what it is. So the apothecary had checked this water-clock …?’

‘Actually, no. Martan frequently compares the clepsydra — or water-clock, as you call it — against a more ancient engine of measurement in his dispensary. It is old-fashioned but workable. He has a mechanism which discharges sand from one part to another, the sand is measured so that it falls in a precise time.’

‘An hour glass?’ smiled Cass complacently. ‘I have seen them.’

‘The same basis,’ Brother Tóla agreed easily. ‘But Martan’s mechanism was constructed fifty years ago by an artisan of this abbey. The mechanism is of larger proportions than an hour glass and the sand does not complete its fall from one compartment to another for one full cadar.’

Fidelma raised her eyebrows in astonishment. A cadar was the measure of one quarter of the day.

‘I would like to see this wondrous machine sometime,’ she confessed. ‘However, we are straying from your story.’

‘Brother Martan had informed me that it was well after the time for tierce and, just then, Abbot Brocc summoned me. I went to his chambers and he told me that the Venerable Dacán had been found dead. He wanted me to examine the body.’

‘And had you known Dacán?’

Tóla nodded thoughtfully.

‘We are a large community here, sister, but not so large that a man of distinguished ability goes unnoticed in our midst.’

‘I mean, had you personal contact with him?’

‘I shared his table during meals but, apart from a few words, had little to do with him. He was not a man who encouraged friendship, he was cold and … well, cold and …’

‘Austere?’ supplied Fidelma grimly.

‘Just so,’ Tóla agreed readily.

‘So you came to the hostel?’ prompted Fidelma again. ‘Can you describe what you found?’

‘Surely. Dacán was lying on the bed. He was lying on his back. His hands were tied behind him and his feet were bound at the ankles. There was a gag in his mouth. There was blood on his chest and it was obvious, to me at least, that it was the result of several stab wounds.’

‘Ah? How many stab wounds?’

‘Seven, though I could not tell at first.’

‘You say that he was lying on his back? Can you remember the position of the blanket? Had the blanket been thrown over him or was he lying on top of it?’

Tóla shook his head, a little bewildered by the question.

‘He lay fully clad on top of the blanket.’

‘Had the blood spurted from the body onto the blanket, staining it?’

‘No; such wounds bleed profusely but because the man was on his back the blood had congealed mainly on his chest.’

‘The blanket, then, was not used to carry the body nor wipe the blood?’

‘Not to my knowledge. Why are you concerned with this blanket?’

Fidelma ignored his question and motioned him to continue.

‘When I had the body removed to the mortuary and had it washed, I was able to confirm my initial findings. There were seven stab wounds in the chest, around the heart and into the heart itself. Four of them were mortal blows.’

‘Does that speak to you of a frenzied attack?’ mused Fidelma.

Tóla looked at her appreciatively.

‘It seems to indicate an attack in hot blood. In cold blood, the attacker had only need to strike one blow into the heart. After all, the old man’s hands and feet were bound.’

Fidelma pursed her lips thoughtfully and nodded.

‘Continue. Was there any indication when this deed was done?’

‘I can only say that, when I examined the body, the attack had not been a recent one. The body was almost cold to the touch.’

‘There was no sign of the weapon?’

‘None.’

‘Now, can you show me exactly how the body was lying on the cot? Would you mind?’

Tóla cast a glance of curiosity at her and then shrugged. He entered the chamber while she stood at the door, holding the lamp high so that she could see everything. He placed himself in a reclining position on the cot. Fidelma noticed, with interest, that he did not lie fully on the cot but only from his waist; he hung the lower part of his body over the edge of the bed so that the feet were touching the floor. The upper partwas therefore at an angle. He had placed his arms behind him to suggest them being bound. The head was well back and the eyes were shut. The position suggested that Dacán had been attacked while standing and had simply fallen back on the bed behind him.

‘I am grateful, Tóla,’ Fidelma said. ‘You are an excellent witness.’

Tóla raised himself from the bed and his voice was dry and expressionless.

‘I have worked with a dálaigh before, sister.’

‘So, when you came in here, did you notice the state of the chamber?’

‘Not specifically,’ he confessed. ‘My eyes were for the corpse of Dacán and what had caused his death.’

‘Try to remember, if you can. Was the room tidy or was it disturbed?’

Tóla gazed around him, as if trying to recall.

‘Tidy, I would say. The lamp on the table was still burning. Yes, tidy as you see the room now. I believe, from the gossip I have heard, that the venerable Dacán was an extremely fastidious man, tidy to the point of being obsessive.’

‘Who told you this?’ queried Fidelma.

Tóla shrugged.

‘Brother Rumann, I believe. He had charge of the investigation afterwards.’

‘There is now little else that I need trouble you with,’ Fidelma said. ‘You had the body removed and examined it. Did you touch the lamp at all? For example, did you refill it with oil?’

‘The only time I touched the lamp was to extinguish it when we took Dacán’s body from this chamber.’

‘Presumably, Dacán was buried here in the abbey?’

To her surprise, Tóla shook his head.

‘No, the body was transported to the abbey of Fearna at the request of Dacán’s brother, Abbot Noé.’

Fidelma took a moment or two to gather her thoughts.

‘I thought that Abbot Brocc had refused to send any of the property of Dacán back to Laigin, knowing it would be the subject of investigation?’ she said sharply. ‘This seems a contrary thing — that he kept the possessions of Dacán but sent the body to Laigin.’

Tóla shrugged diffidently.

‘Perhaps the reason lies in the fact that one cannot preserve a corpse,’ he replied with a grim smile. ‘Anyway, by that time, Brother Midach, our chief physician, had arrived back at the abbey and took over the arrangements. He was the one who authorised the removal of the body.’

‘You said that was almost six days later?’

‘That’s right. A Laigin ship had arrived to demand the body. Of course, by that time, we had already placed the body in our own crypt, a cave in the hill behind us where the abbots of this monastery are interred. We had the corpse placed aboard the vessel from Laigin and presumably the Venerable Dacán’s relics will now reside in Fearna.’

Fidelma shook her head in bewilderment.

‘Does it not seem curious that Laigin was so quick to learn about the death of Dacán and so quick to demand the return of his body? You say that the Laigin ship arrived here six days after the killing?’

Tóla shrugged expressively.

‘We are a coastal settlement here, sister. We are constantly in touch with many parts of the country and, indeed, our ships sail to Gaul with whom we regularly trade. The wine in this abbey, for example, is imported directly from Gaul. With a good tide and wind, one of the fast barca could leave here and be at the mouth of the River Breacán within two days. Fearna is only a few hours’ ride from the river’s mouth. I have sailed there myself several times. I know the waters along this southern coast well.’

Fidelma knew the capabilities of the barca, the lightly builtcoastal vessels which traded around the shores of the five kingdoms.

‘That is, as you say, with ideal conditions, Tóla,’ she agreed. ‘It still seems to me to show that Abbot Noé learnt very quickly of his brother’s death. But, I’ll grant you, it could be done. So Dacán’s body was returned to Fearna?’

‘It was.’

‘When did the warship of Laigin arrive here? The one that still is at anchor in the inlet.’

‘About three days after the other ship left for Fearna with the body of Dacán.’

‘Then obviously both ships were sent by Laigin within a few days after Dacán’s murder. The Laigin king must have known what he was going to do almost as soon as he received word that Dacán had been murdered.’ She was speaking half to herself, as if clarifying a thought.

Tóla did not feel that he was required to make any comment.

Fidelma gave a long sigh as she pondered the difficulties of the case. Finally, she said: ‘When you examined the body of Dacán, did any other matters strike your eye?’

‘Such as?’

‘I do not know,’ Fidelma confessed. ‘Was there anything unusual?’

Tóla gestured negatively.

‘There were just the stab wounds that caused his death, that is all.’

‘But there were no bruises, no signs of a struggle prior to his being bound? No marks of his being held down by force in order to bind him? No mark of his being knocked unconscious in order that he could be bound?’

Tóla’s expression changed as he saw what she was driving at.

‘You mean, how could his enemy bind him without a struggle?’

Fidelma smiled tightly.

‘That is exactly what I mean, Tóla. Did he calmly let his attackers bind his hands and feet without a struggle?’

Tóla looked serious for the first time during their conversation.

‘There were no bruises that I saw. It did not occur to me …’

He paused and grimaced in annoyance.

‘What?’ demanded Fidelma.

‘I am incompetent,’ sighed Tóla.

‘Why so?’

‘I should have asked this very question at the time but I did not. I am sure, however, that there were no bruises on the body and, while the bonds on the wrists and ankles were tight, there was no bruising to show how they had been administered.’

‘What were the bonds made of?’ Fidelma asked, wishing to check what she had learnt already.

‘Torn pieces of cloth. As I recall they were pieces of linen and dyed.’

‘Can you recall the dyes?’

‘Blue and red, I believe.’

Fidelma nodded. The evidence concurred with that given by Brother Conghus.

‘I suppose that they were thrown away?’ Fidelma queried, presuming the worst.

She was surprised when Tóla shook his head.

‘As a matter of fact, no. Our enterprising apothecary, Brother Martan, has a morbid taste for relics and decided that the bonds of Dacán might one day become a much-sought-after and valuable relic, especially if the Faith recognises him as a man of great sanctity.’

‘So this Brother …?’

‘Martan,’ supplied Tóla.

‘So this Brother Martan has kept the material?’

‘Exactly so.’

‘Well,’ Fidelma smiled in relief, ‘that is excellent. However, I will have to take temporary charge of them as being evidence pertinent to my inquiry. You may tell Brother Martan that he will get them returned as soon as I have done.’

Tóla nodded thoughtfully.

‘But how did Dacán get himself bound by his enemies without a struggle?’

Fidelma pulled a face.

‘Maybe he did not suspect that they were his enemies until later. Just one more point of clarification, though, and then I think we are done. You said that the body was cold and implied that it had been a long time dead. How long?’

‘It is hard to judge. Several hours at least. I do not know when Dacán was last seen but he may well have been killed around midnight. Certainly the death occurred during the night and not later.’

Fidelma found herself focusing on the oil lamp which stood on the table by the cot.

‘Dacán was killed sometime about midnight,’ she said reflectively. ‘Yet when he was found the oil lamp was burning.’

Cass, who had been more or less a silent spectator to Fidelma’s questioning of Brother Tóla, was watching her with interest.

‘Why do you remark on that, sister?’ he queried.

Fidelma went once more to the lamp and picked it up carefully so as not to spill any oil from it. Silently, she handed it to him with equal care. He took it, the bewilderment on his face increasing.

‘I do not understand,’ he said.

‘Do you notice anything odd about the lamp?’

He shook his head.

‘It is still filled with oil. If this is the same lamp, then it could not have been burning more than an hour from the time Brother Conghus discovered the body.’

Sister Fidelma sat on the cot in her chamber, hands linked together at the back of her head, staring upwards into the gloom. She had decided to call a halt to the investigation for that evening. She had thanked Brother Tóla for his help and reminded him once more that, on the following morning, Brother Martan must hand over to her the strips of cloth that had bound Dacán. Then she had bade the young, enthusiastic Sister Necht a ‘good night’s repose’ and told her to report to her again with Brother Rumann the next morning.

She and Cass had retired to their respective rooms and now, instead of falling immediately to sleep, she sat, leaning back on her cot, with the lamp still burning wastefully while she considered the information she had gathered so far.

One thing she now realised was that her cousin, the Abbot Brocc, was being a little selective with the information he had given her. Why had he asked Brother Conghus to keep a watchful eye on Dacán only a week before Dacán was killed? Well, that was something which she would have to sort out with Brocc.

There was a soft tap on the door of her chamber.

Frowning, she swung off her cot and opened it.

Cass was standing outside.

‘I saw your light still on. I hope I am not disturbing you, sister?’

Fidelma shook her head, bade him enter and take the only chair that there was in the chamber while she returned to her seat on the bed. For propriety’s sake, she left the door open. In some communities, the new moral codes were changing the older foundations. Many leaders of the Faith, like Ultan of Armagh, were arguing against the continued existence of mixed communities and even putting forward the unpopular concept of celibacy among leading religions.

She was aware that an encyclical attributed to Patrick was being circulated giving thirty-five rules for the followers of the Faith. The ninth rule ordered that an unmarried monk or anchoress, each from a different place, should not stay in the same hostel or house, nor travel together in one chariot from house to house nor converse freely together. And according to the seventeenth rule, a woman who took a vow of chastity and then married was to be excommunicated unless she deserted her husband and did a penance. Fidelma had been enraged by the circulation of the document in the name of Patrick and his fellow bishops, Auxilius and Iserninus, because it was so contrary to the laws of the five kingdoms. Indeed, what had made her actually suspicious of the authenticity of the document was that the first rule decreed that any member of the religious who appealed to the secular laws merited excommunication. After all, two hundred years ago Patrick himself was one of the nine-man commission which had been established by the High King, Laoghaire, to put all the civil and criminal laws of the five kingdoms in the new writing.

To Fidelma, the circulation of the ‘rules of the first council of Patrick’, as they were being called, was another piece of propaganda from the camp of the pro-Roman faction which wished the Faith in the five kingdoms of Éireann to be governed entirely from Rome.

She caught herself as she became aware that Cass had been saying something.

‘I am sorry,’ she said awkwardly, ‘my mind was drifting miles away. What were you saying?’

The young warrior stretched his legs in the cramped chair.

‘I was saying that I had an idea about the lamp.’

‘Oh?’

‘It is obvious that someone refilled it when Dacán’s body was discovered.’

Fidelma examined his guileless eyes solemnly.

‘It is certainly obvious that the lamp could not have beenburning all through the night, if Dacán was killed at midnight or soon after … that is,’ she gave a mischievous grin, ‘unless we are witnesses to a miracle; the miracle of the self-refilling lamp.’

Cass frowned, not sure how to take her levity.

‘Then it is as I say,’ he insisted.

‘Perhaps. Yet we are told that Brother Conghus discovered the body and found the lamp burning. He did not refill it. It was still burning when Brother Tóla went to examine the body and he swears that he did not refill it. He further told us, when I raised that very point, that he had extinguished the light when he and his assistant, Brother Martan, carried the body to his mortuary for examination. Who then refilled it?’

Cass thought for a moment.

‘Then it must have been refilled just before the body was discovered or after the body was carried away,’ he said triumphantly. ‘After all, you judged for yourself that the lamp could only have burning no more than an hour by the amount of oil still left in it. So someone must have refilled it.’

Fidelma regarded Cass with a sudden amusement.

‘You know, Cass, you are beginning to display the mind of a dálaigh.’

Cass returned her look with a frown, unsure whether Fidelma was mocking him or not.

‘Well …’ he began, starting to rise with a petulant expression.

She held up a hand and motioned for him to remain.

‘I am not being flippant, Cass. Seriously, you have a made point which I have neglected to see. The lamp was certainly refilled just before Conghus discovered the body.’

Cass sat back with a smile of satisfaction.

‘There! I hope I have contributed to solving a minor mystery.’

‘Minor?’ There was a sharp note of admonishment in Fidelma’s voice.

‘What matter whether a lamp is filled or unfilled?’ Cass asked, spreading his hands in emphasis. ‘The main problem is to find who killed Dacán.’

Fidelma shook her head sadly.

‘There is no item too unimportant to be discarded when searching for a truth. What did I say about gathering the pieces of a puzzle? Gather each fragment, even if they do not seem to be connected. Gather and store them. This applies especially to those pieces which seem odd, which seem inexplicable.’

‘But what would a lamp matter in this affair?’ demanded Cass.

‘We will only know that when we find out. We cannot find out unless we start to ask questions.’

‘Your art seems a complicated one, sister.’

Fidelma shook her head.

‘Not really. I would think that your art is even more complicated than mine in terms of making judgments.’

‘My art?’ Cass drew himself up. ‘I am a simple warrior in the service of my king. I adhere to the code of honour that each warrior has. What judgments do I have to make?’

‘The judgment of when to kill, when to maim and when not. Above all, your task is to kill while our Faith forbids us to do so. Have you ever solved that conundrum?’

Cass flushed in annoyance.

‘I am a warrior. I kill only the wicked — the enemies of my people.’

Fidelma smiled thinly.

‘It sounds as if you believe them to be one and the same. Yet the Faith says, do not kill. Surely if we kill, if only to stop the wicked and evil, then the very act makes us as guilty as those we kill?’

Cass sniffed disdainfully.

‘You would rather that they killed you instead?’ he asked cynically.

‘If we believe in the teachings of our Faith, then we must believe this was the example Christ left us. As Matthew records the Saviour’s words, “those who live by the sword shall die by the sword”.’

‘Well, you cannot believe in that example,’ scoffed Cass.

Fidelma was interested by his reaction, for she had long struggled with some of the theology of the Faith and had still not found a firm enough ground to argue many of its basic tenants. She often expressed her doubts in argument by taking the part of a devil’s advocate and through that means she clarified her own attitudes.

‘Why so?’ she demanded.

‘Because you are a dálaigh. You believe in the law. You specialise in seeking out killers and bringing them to justice. You believe in punishing those who kill, even to the point of raising the sword against them. You do not stand aside and say this is God’s will. I have heard a man of the Faith denouncing the Brehons also in the words of Matthew. “Judge not or you will be judge”, he said. You advocates of the law ignore Matthew’s words on that so do I ignore Matthew’s words against the profession of the sword.’

Fidelma sighed contritely.

‘You are right. It is hard to “turn the other cheek” in all things. We are only human.’

Somehow she had never felt comfortable with Luke’s record of Jesus’ teaching that if someone steals a person’s cloak, then that person should give the thief his shirt also. Surely if one courted such oppression, such as turning the other cheek, it meant one was equally as guilty for it gave actual invitation to further theft and injury at the hands of the wrongdoer. Yet according to Matthew, Jesus said: “Think not that I am come to send peace on earth; I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law, and a man’sfoes, they shall be of his own household”. It was confusing. And long had Fidelma troubled over it.

‘Perhaps the Faith expects too much from us?’ Cass interrupted her thoughts.

‘Perhaps. But the expectation of humankind should always exceed their grasp otherwise there would be no progress in life.’

Fidelma’s features suddenly dissolved into an urchin grin.

‘You must forgive me, Cass, for at times I do but try to test my attitudes against the Faith.’

The young warrior was indifferent.

‘I have no such need,’ he replied.

‘Then your faith is great.’ Fidelma was unable to keep a note of sarcasm from her voice.

‘Why should I doubt what the prelates preach?’ inquired Cass. ‘I am a simple person. They have considered these matters for centuries and if they say this is so, then so it must be.’

Fidelma shook her head, sorrowfully. It was at times like these that she missed the stormy arguments that she had experienced with Brother Eadulf of Seaxmund’s Ham.

‘Christ is God’s son,’ she said firmly. ‘Therefore He would approve of the homage of reason, for if there is no doubt there can be no faith.’

‘You are a philosopher, Fidelma of Kildare. But I did not expect a religieuse to question her Faith.’

‘I have lived too long not to be a sceptic, Cass of Cashel. One should go through life being sceptical of all things and particularly of oneself. But now, we have exhausted the subject and should retire. We have much to do in the morning.’

She rose and Cass reluctantly followed her example.

After he had left her chamber, she lay back on her cot and this time she doused the lamp.

She tried hard to conjure what facts she had learnt about theVenerable Dacán’s death to her mind. However, she found other thoughts now dominating her senses. They concerned Eadulf of Seaxmund’s Ham. As she thought of him, she had a curious feeling of loneliness again, as if of home-sickness.

She missed their debates. She missed the way she could tease Eadulf over their conflicting opinions and philosophies; the way he would always rise good-naturedly to the bait. Their arguments would rage but there was no enmity between them. They would learn together as they examined their interpretations and debated their ideas.

She missed Eadulf. She could not deny that.

Cass was a simple man. He was agreeable enough; congenial company; a man who held a good moral code. But, for her, he was without the sharp humour which she needed; without a broad perspective of knowledge with which her own knowledge could contest. Now that she considered it, Cass reminded her a little of someone responsible for an unpleasant episode in her early life. When she was seventeen she had fallen in love with a young warrior named Cian. He had been in the élite bodyguard of the High King, who was Cellach at that time. She had been young and carefree but in love. Cian had not cared for her intellectual pursuits and had eventually left her for another. His rejection of her had left her disillusioned. She felt bitter, although the years had tempered her attitude. But she had never forgotten her experience, nor really recovered from it. Perhaps she had never allowed herself to do so.

Eadulf of Seaxmund’s Ham had been the only man of her own age in whose company she had felt really at ease and able to express herself.

Perhaps she had started the argument on Faith as a means of testing Cass.

Then, why should she want to test Cass? For what purpose? Because she wanted Eadulf’s company and was looking for a surrogate?

She gave a hiss of breath in the darkness, scandalised by the idea. A ridiculous idea.

After all, she had spent several days in Cass’s company on the journey here and there had been no problem.

Perhaps the key to the situation lay in the fact that she was, indeed, trying to recreate Eadulf and that recreation had been prompted by the fact that she was investigating a murder with Cass as her companion whereas, before, it was Eadulf who had been her comrade, the sounding board against which she could bounce her ideas.

But why should she want to recreate Eadulf?

She exhaled again sharply as if to expel the very thoughts from her mind. Then she turned over and buried her face angrily into the pillow.