The Subtle Serpent

Chapter Four

‘And now, sister, I presume that you would like to inspect the corpse?’

Sister Fidelma started in surprise at Abbess Draigen’s suggestion. They were emerging from the abbey’s refectory in which most of the community of The Salmon of the Three Wells had taken the evening meal together.

Night had already settled over the tiny community and the buildings were shrouded in gloom although lamps had been lit in strategic places among the buildings to aid the sisters. It was another cold night and already a frost lay white over the ground, almost like a covering of snow. The wood fires were smoking among the abbey buildings. So far as Fidelma had been able to discern, there were a dozen buildings centred around a granite paved courtyard, in which a high cross had been erected. On one side of the courtyard was a cloister which fronted a tall wooden building, the duirthech or oak house, which was the abbey chapel. In fact, the majority of the buildings were wooden constructions, mainly built of oak timbers. The surrounding countryside was replete with oaks. There were also a few buildings of stone. Fidelma presumed these to be store rooms. Dominating all these buildings, and situated at one end of the duirthech, was a squat tower with stone foundations but wooden upper floors.

The abbey of The Salmon of the Three Wells was not unusual from many that Fidelma had seen in the length and breadth of the five kingdoms. There were, however, no outerwalls such as at the main abbey complexes like Ros Ailithir. She had gathered, during the meal at which some conversation was allowed, unlike other houses where a lector usually intoned passages from the Gospels, that only fifty sisters constituted the community. Under the direction of the Abbess Draigen, one of the main devotions of the community was the keeping of a water-clock and the recording of the passing of time. The abbey, it seemed, was also proud of its library and some of the sisters spent their time in copying books for other communities. It was a quiet backwater, engaged in no more controversial work than study and contemplation.

‘Well, sister,’ inquired the abbess again, ‘do you want to see the corpse?’

‘I do,’ Fidelma agreed. ‘Though I am surprised that you have not yet buried it. How many days is it since it was discovered?’

The abbess turned from the door of the refectory and led the way across the courtyard towards the wooden chapel.

‘Six days have passed since the unfortunate was taken out of our well. Had you been longer in your arrival then we would, of course, have had to bury the corpse. However, as it is winter, the weather has been cold enough to retain the body for a while and we have a cold place for food storage under the chapel, a subterraneus, where we have placed the body. There are reputed to be several caves under the abbey buildings. But, even in these conditions, we could not have kept it forever. We have arranged to bury the body in our abbey cemetery tomorrow morning.’

‘Have you discovered the identity of the unfortunate?’

‘I am hoping that you will solve that matter.’

The abbess led the way through the cloisters, along the stone-paved corridor, passing the chapel doors, to the entrance of a small building made of rough-hewn granite blocks whose walls were built in the dry stone method, simply laid one on top of another. It was an appendage builton the side of the wooden tower. This stone building, which also connected with the tower, was apparently a store room and the pungent aroma of stored herbs and spices caught at Fidelma’s senses making her momentarily breathless. However, it was a pleasing, refreshing odour.

Abbess Draigen crossed to a shelf and took up a jar. She then took, from a pile, two squares of linen and soaked them with the liquid from the vessel. Fidelma inhaled the piquant odour of lavender. Solemnly, Abbess Draigen handed her the impregnated square of cloth.

‘You will need this, sister,’ she advised.

She led the way to a corner of the room where a flight of stone steps descended. They wound down into a cave which stretched about thirty feet in length, was twenty feet wide and whose naturally arched ceiling rose ten feet or more. Fidelma noticed what at first seemed to be some scratch marks on the entrance arch and then realised that it was the etched outlines of a bull; no, not a bull. It was more like a calf. The Abbess Draigen noticed her examination.

‘This place was once used in pagan worship, so we are told. The well which Necht blessed, for instance. There are a few remains from ancient times such as this scratching of a cow or some such animal.’

Fidelma silently acknowledged the reception of this information. She noticed another series of stairs ascending into the darkness just beyond the arched entrance.

‘Those lead directly up to the tower of the abbey,’ explained the abbess before Fidelma could frame the obvious question. ‘It is where we house our modest library and, at the top of the tower, our pride … a water-clock.’

They passed on into the cave itself. It was deathly cold. Fidelma reasoned that the subterraneus must be below sea level at this point. The cave was lit. She saw at once that the flickering light came from four tall candles at the far end.

Fidelma did not need to be told what it was that was lying under the shroud of linen on what appeared to be a table whose four corners were marked by the candles. The outline was easily recognisable except that the body seemed foreshortened. She approached cautiously. There was not much else in the cave. Some boxes were stacked against one wall and nearby were rows of amphorae and earthen containers, whose faint odours identified them as being used for storing wine and spirits.

In spite of the cold, Abbess Draigen was right. She did need the piece of lavender-impregnated cloth. While herbs and other scented plants had been strategically placed around the body, there was no mistaking the bitter stench that rose from the already decomposing corpse. Fidelma involuntarily caught her breath and raised the linen to her nostrils. Winter chill or not, the corpse was reeking with putrefaction.

Abbess Draigen, standing on the other side of the corpse, smiled thinly, her face half hidden by her own lavender-impregnated cloth.

‘The burial service will be performed at first light tomorrow, sister, that is if you do not require the corpse further for your investigation. The sooner it is done, the better.’ It was a statement rather than a question.

Fidelma did not answer but, bracing herself, she drew back the cloth from the body.

No matter how many times Fidelma encountered death, and violent death was no stranger td her, she always felt an abhorrence at the savagery of it. She always tried to look at corpses as an abstract, tried not to think of them as once living, sentient beings who had loved, laughed and enjoyed life. She compressed her lips firmly and forced herself to look down at the white rotting flesh.

‘As you will see, sister,’ the abbess pointed out unnecessarily, ‘the head has been hacked off. Thus we have no means of identifying the unfortunate.’

Fidelma’s eyes had immediately gone to the wound above the heart.

‘Stabbed first,’ she said, half to herself. ‘The slight bruising shows that the wound was not made after death. Stabbed in the heart and then decapitated afterwards.’

Abbess Draigen watched the young dálaigh with an impassive expression.

Fidelma forced herself to examine the severed flesh around the neck. Then she pulled back and looked at the body as a whole.

‘A young woman. Scarcely beyond the age of choice. I would hazard that she was no more than eighteen. Perhaps younger.’

Her eye caught a discolouration of the flesh around the right ankle. She frowned and examined it more closely.

‘Was this where she was tied to the well rope?’ she demanded.

Abbess Draigen shook her head.

‘The sisters who found the corpse said it was hanging by the left ankle and tied with rope.’

Fidelma turned her attention to the left ankle and saw faint marks and indentations on it. Indeed, such marks looked more consistent with rope burn and there was no bruising, showing that the rope had undoubtedly been placed after death. She turned her attention back to the right ankle again. No, this mark had been made during life. And it did not look as though a rope or cord had made such a mark. It was a regular circle around the leg, a band of discolouration of two inches in depth. The skin had clearly been marked while it was still living flesh.

She turned her attention to the feet. The soles were padded with hardened skin and there were innumerable cuts and sores on them showing that the owner, in life, had not led a pampered existence and probably had not worn shoes much. The toenails were unkempt and several of them were cracked and broken. And curiously, under the nails, there were dirtdeposits. There had been an attempt to clean the body but this dirt seemed ingrained and was curiously red in texture, like a deep red clay that permeated into the very skin of the toes themselves.

‘I presume that the body has been washed since it was removed from the well?’ Fidelma asked, glancing up.

‘Of course.’ The abbess seemed irritated by the question. It was the custom to wash the body of the dead while waiting burial.

Fidelma made no further comment but turned her attention to the legs and the torso. These could tell her nothing except that, in life, the girl had a well-proportioned body and limbs. She next turned her attention to the hands. Fidelma controlled her surprise for the hands did not seem to balance the image of the feet. They were soft, without callouses, the fingernails were clean and manicured. She saw that the right hand had a strange blue stain on it covering the side of the little finger and the edge of the hand. The stain also occurred on the thumb and forefinger. She examined the other hand but there was no such identical staining there. The hands were not the hands of someone accustomed to manual work. Yet this seemed to contrast totally with the feet.

‘I was told that the corpse was clutching some items. Where are they?’ Fidelma inquired after a while.

The abbess shifted her weight from one foot to another.

‘When the sisters washed the body and prepared it, the items were removed. I have them in my chamber.’

Fidelma controlled the disapproving response that came to her tongue. What was the point of her examination if vital evidence had been removed? She checked herself and said: ‘Be so good as to tell me where these items were placed on the corpse.’

Abbess Draigen sniffed dangerously. She was obviously unused to being ordered to do anything, especially by a young religieuse.

‘Sister Síomha and Sister Brónach, who found the corpse, will be able to inform you of this matter.’

‘I will speak with them later,’ Fidelma replied patiently. ‘As of this moment, I would like to know where the items were found.’

The abbess’s mouth tightened and then she relaxed a little yet her voice was stiff.

‘There was a copper crucifix, with a leather thong, poorly made, gripped in the right hand of the corpse. The thong was wrapped around the wrist.’

‘Did it seem to have been placed there?’

‘No; the fingers of the hand were clasped tightly around it. In fact, the sisters had to break the bones of two fingers to extract it.’

Fidelma forced herself to examine the hand in order to verify it.

‘And apart from the breaking of the fingers, when the body was washed, was any particular attention given to the hands? Were they specifically manicured?’

‘I do not know. The body was washed and cleaned in accordance with custom.’

‘Can you speculate on the blue stain?’

‘Not I.’

‘And what was the other item which was found?’

‘There was a wooden wand inscribed in Ogham on the left arm,’ continued the abbess. ‘This was tied on to the forearm and more easily removed.’

‘Tied on? And you have this still? You have it together with the binding?’ pressed Fidelma.

‘Of course,’ replied the abbess.

Fidelma stood back and surveyed the corpse.

Now came the most distasteful part of the task.

‘I need help to turn the corpse over, Abbess Draigen,’ she said. ‘Would you assist me?’

‘Is it necessary?’ demanded the abbess.

‘It is. You may send for another sister, if you so wish.’

The abbess shook her head. Sniffing at her piece of cloth to inhale the odour of lavender, before thrusting it into her sleeves, the abbess moved forward and helped Fidelma manipulate the corpse, firstly moving it on to its side and then over so that the back was exposed. The blemishes were immediately apparent. The marks of recent welts crisscrossed the white flesh as if this body had been scourged before death. In life, some of those abrasions had broken the skin and caused bleeding.

Fidelma breathed in deeply and promptly regretted doing so for the stench of decay caused her to retch and cough, scrabbling for her lavender cloth.

‘Have you seen enough?’ demanded the abbess, coldly.

Fidelma nodded between coughs.

Together, they returned the corpse to its former position.

‘I presume that you now want to see the items found on the corpse?’ asked the abbess, as she conducted Fidelma from the cave into the main store room.

‘What I want first, mother abbess,’ Fidelma replied carefully, ‘is to wash.’

Abbess Draigen’s lips thinned, almost in a malicious expression.

‘Naturally. Then come this way, sister. Our guests’ hostel has a bath-tub and it is the hour when our sisters usually bathe so the water will be heated.’

Fidelma had already been shown the tech-óired, the guests’ hostel of the abbey, where she would be staying during the time she was with the community. It was a long, low wooden building divided into half a dozen rooms with a central room for a bathing chamber. Here there was a bronze container in which water was heated by a wood fire and then poured into a wooden dabach or bath-tub.

The abbey apparently followed the general fashion of bathing in the five kingdoms. People usually had a full bath every evening, the fothrucud which took place after the evening meal, while first thing in the morning people washedtheir face, hands and feet, which process was called the indlut. Daily bathing was more than just a custom among the people of the five kingdoms, it had grown almost into a religious ritual. Every hostel in the five kingdoms had its bath-house.

The abbess left Fidelma at the door of the guests’ hostel and agreed to meet her an hour later in her own chamber. There was no one else staying in the tech-óired and so Fidelma had the place to herself. She was about to move into her own chamber when she heard sounds coming from the central bathing room.

Frowning, she moved along the darkened corridor and pushed open the door.

A middle-aged sister was straightening up after stoking the fire beneath the bronze container in which water was already steaming. She caught sight of Fidelma and hastily dropped her eyes, folding her hands under her robes and bowing her head obsequiously.

‘Bene vobis,’ she greeted softly.

Fidelma entered the room.

‘Deus vobiscum,’ she replied, returning the Latin formula. ‘I did not realise there were other guests here.’

‘Oh, there are not. I am the doirseór of the abbey but I also look after the guests’ hostel. I have been preparing your bath.’

Fidelma’s eyes widened slightly.

‘It is kind of you, sister.’

‘It is my duty,’ replied the middle-aged religieuse without raising her eyes.

Fidelma gave a glancing examination to the scrupulously clean bathing chamber, the wooden tub standing ready almost filled with hot water, the room heated by the warmth of the fire. Pleasant smelling herbs permeated the atmosphere of the room. A linen cloth was laid ready with a tablet of sléic, a fragrant soap. Nearby was a mirror and a combtogether with cloths for drying the body. Everything was neat and orderly. Fidelma smiled.

‘You do your duty well, sister. What is your name?’

‘I am Sister Brónach,’ replied the other.

‘Brónach? You were one of the two sisters who found the corpse.’

The religieuse shivered slightly. Her eyes did not meet Fidelma’s.

‘It is true, sister. I and Sister Síomha found the body.’ She genuflected quickly.

‘Then it will save me some time, sister, if, while I bathe, you tell me of that event.’

‘While you bathe, sister?’ There was a tone of disapproval in the other’s voice.

Fidelma was curious.

‘Do you object?’

‘I …? No.’

The woman turned and, with surprising strength, lifted the heated water in the bronze container from the fire and tipped it into the wooden dabach, already partly filled with steaming water.

‘Your bath is ready now, sister.’

‘Very well. I have clean garments with me and my own cíorbholg.’ The cíorbholg was, literally a comb-bag, which was indispensable to all women in Ireland for in this little bag they carried not only combs but articles for their toilet. The old laws of the Book of Acaill even laid down that, in certain cases of a quarrel, a woman could be exempted from liability if she showed her ‘comb-bag’ and distaff, the cleft stick three feet in length from which wool or flax was wound. These were the symbols of womanhood.

Fidelma went to get a change of clothing from her bag. She was fastidious about personal cleanliness and like to keep her clothing washed regularly. There had been few opportunities to wash or change clothing on Ross’s small ship and so shenow took the occasion to change. When she returned, Sister Brónach was heating more water on the fire.

‘If you hand me your dirty clothes, sister,’ she greeted as Fidelma reentered the room, ‘I will launder them while you bathe. They can be hung before the fire to dry.’

Fidelma thanked her but again she could not make eye contact with the doleful religieuse. She removed her clothes, shivering in the cold in spite of the fire, and swiftly slid into the luxuriously warm waters of the bath tub, letting out a deep sigh of contentment.

She reached for the sléic and began to work it into a lather against her body while Sister Brónach gathered her discarded dirty clothes and placed them into the bronze container.

‘So,’ Fidelma began, as she luxuriated in the foam of the perfumed soap, ‘you were saying that you and Sister Síomha found the body?’

‘That is so, sister.’

‘And who is Sister Siomha?’

‘She is the steward of the abbey, the rechtaire or, as some of the largest abbeys in this land call it by the Latin term, the dispensator.’

‘Tell me when and how you found the body?’

‘The sisters were at midday prayers and the gong sounded the start of the third cadar of the day.’

The third quarter of the day began at noon.

‘My task at that time was to ensure the abbess’s personal bath-tub was filled ready. She prefers to bathe at that time. The water is drawn from the main well.’

Fidelma lay back in the tub.

‘Main well?’ she frowned slightly. ‘There is more than one well here?’

Brónach nodded gloomily.

‘Are we not the community of Eo na dTri dTobar?’ she asked.

‘The Salmon of the Three Wells,’ repeated Fidelma,inquisitively. ‘Yet this is but a metaphor by which the Christ is named.’

‘Even so, sister, there are three wells at this spot. The holy well of the Blessed Necht, who founded this community, and two smaller springs that lie in the woods behind the abbey. At the moment, all water is brought from the springs in the wood, for the Abbess Draigen has not fully performed the purification rituals for the main well.’

Fidelma was at least happy to learn that, for she had a horror of drinking water in which the headless corpse had reposed.

‘So you went out to draw water from the well?’

‘I did but could not easily work the winding mechanism. It was hard to turn. Later I realised that it was the weight of the body. As I was trying my best to wind up the pail of water, Sister Síomha came out to rebuke me for my tardiness. I do not think that she believed that I was having difficulty.’

‘Why was that?’ asked Fidelma from the tub.

The middle-aged nun ceased stirring the cauldron with Fidelma’s clothes in it and reflected.

‘She said that she had recently drawn water from the well and there was nothing wrong with the mechanism.’

‘Had anyone else used the well that morning — either before Sister Síomha or before the time that you went to draw water there?’

‘No, I do not think so. There was no need to draw fresh water until midday.’

‘Go on.’

‘Well, we both hauled away at the mechanism until the corpse appeared.’

‘You were both shocked, of course?’

‘Of course. The thing was without a head. We were afraid.’

‘Did you notice anything else about the corpse?’

‘The crucifix? Yes. And, of course, the aspen wand.’

‘The aspen wand?’

‘Tied on the left forearm was a stick of aspen wood on which Ogham characters were cut.’

‘And what did you make of it?’

‘Make of it?’

‘What did the characters say? You clearly recognised what it was.’

Brónach shrugged eloquently.

‘Alas, I can recognise Ogham characters when I see them written, sister, but I have no knowledge of their meaning.’

‘Did Sister Síomha read it?’

Brónach shook her head and lifted the bronze vessel from the fire, removing the items of clothing with a stick and putting them into a tub of cold water.

‘So neither of you were able to read the Ogham or recognise its purpose?’

‘I told the abbess at the time that I thought it was some pagan symbol. Didn’t the old ones tie twigs on a corpse to protect against the vengeful souls of the dead?’

Fidelma stared carefully at the middle-aged sister but she had her back turned as she bent to her task beating the clothes to take the water out of them.

‘I have not heard that, Sister Brónach. What was the abbess’s response to your idea?’

‘Abbess Draigen keeps her own counsel.’

Was there an angry tone to her voice?

Fidelma rose from the tub and reached for the drying cloth before scrambling out. She rubbed herself energetically, rejoicing in the invigoration of her limbs. She felt fresh and relaxed as she put on her clean clothing. Since her return from Rome she had indulged herself by using undershirts of white sída or silk, which she had brought back with her. She noticed Sister Brónach casting a look at the garments, an almost envious look which was the first emotion Fidelma had witnessed on her generally mournful countenance. On top of her underwear, Fidelma drew on her brown inar or tunic which came down nearly to her feet and was tied with atasselled cord at her waist. She slipped her feet into her well-shaped, narrow-toed leather shoes, cuaran, which were seamed down along the instep and were fitted without the necessity of thongs to fasten them.

She turned to the mirror and completed her toilet by setting her long, rebellious red hair in place.

She was aware that Sister Brónach had fallen silent now, as she finished laundering Fidelma’s dirty clothes.

Fidelma rewarded her with a smile.

‘There now, sister. I feel human again.’

Sister Brónach was contented to nod without any comment.

‘Is there anything else to tell me?’ Fidelma pressed. ‘For example, what happened after you and Sister Síomha pulled the body from the well?’

Sister Brónach kept her head lowered.

‘We said a prayer for the dead and then I went to fetch the abbess while Sister Síomha stayed with the body.’

‘And you returned directly with Abbess Draigen?’

‘As soon as I had found her.’

‘And the Abbess Draigen took charge?’

‘Surely so.’

Fidelma picked up her bag, turning for the door but then pausing a moment by it to glance back.

‘I am grateful to you, Sister Brónach. You keep your guests’ hostel well.’

Sister Brónach did not raise her eyes.

‘It is my duty,’ she said shortly.

‘Yet for duty to have meaning you must be content in its performance,’ Fidelma replied. ‘My mentor, the Brehon Morann of Tara, once said — when duty is but law then enjoyment ends for the greater duty is the duty of being happy. Good night, Sister Brónach.’

In the Abbess Draigen’s chamber, the abbess regarded the flushed-faced Fidelma — her flesh still tingling after thewarmth of her bath — with begrudging approval. The abbess was seated at her table on which a leather-bound Gospel was open at a page she had been contemplating.

‘Sit down, sister,’ she instructed. ‘Will you join me in a glass of mulled wine to keep out the evening chill?’

Fidelma hesitated only a moment.

‘Thank you, mother abbess,’ she said. As she had been conducted across the abbey courtyard by a young novice, who introduced herself as Sister Lerben, personal attendant to the abbess, she had felt a soft flurry of snow and knew that the evening would become more icy.

The abbess rose and went to a jug standing on a shelf. An iron bar was already heating in the fire and the abbess, wrapping a leather cloth around it, drew it out of the fire and plunged its red hot point in the jug. She then poured the warm liquid into two pottery goblets and handed one to Fidelma.

‘Now, sister,’ she said, as each had taken some appreciative sips at the liquid, ‘I have those objects which you wanted to see.’

She took something wrapped in cloth and placed it on the table, then sat opposite and began to sip her wine again while watching Fidelma above the rim.

Fidelma set down her goblet and unwrapped the cloth. It revealed a small copper crucifix and its leather thong.

She stared at the burnished object for a long time before she suddenly remembered her mulled wine and took a hurried sip at it.

‘Well, sister,’ asked the abbess, ‘and what do you make of it?’

‘Little of the crucifix,’ Fidelma replied. ‘It is common enough. Poor craftsmanship and the sort that many of the sisterhood have access to. It could well be of local craftsmanship. It is a crucifix that an average religieuse might possess. If this belonged to the girl whose body you found then it denotes that she was an anchoress.’

‘In that, I concur. Most of our community have similarly worked copper crucifixes. We have an abundance of copper in this area and local craftsmen produced many such as that. The girl does not appear to be local, though. A farmer from nearby thought it might have been his missing daughter. He came to see the body but that turned out not to be the case. His daughter had a scar which the body did not possess.’

Fidelma raised her head from contemplation of the crucifix.

‘Oh? When was this farmer come here?’

‘He came to the abbey on the day after we found the body. He was named Barr.’

‘How did he know the body had been found?’

‘News travels rapidly in this part of the world. Anyway, Barr spent a long time examining the body, he obviously wanted to make sure. The corpse may be that of a religieuse from some other district.’

Indeed, thought Fidelma, it would fit in with the condition of the corpse’s hands if she was a member of a religious house. The women who did not labour in the fields, indeed the men also, prided themselves on having well manicured hands. Fingernails were always kept carefully cut and rounded and it was considered shameful for either men or women to have unkempt nails. One of the great terms of abuse was to call someone créhtingnech or ‘ragged nails’.

Yet it did not fit with the coarsely-kept feet, the mark of an ankle manacle, and the signs of scourging on the girl’s back.

The abbess had picked up another piece of cloth and laid it carefully on the table.

‘This is the aspen wand which was found tied on the left forearm,’ she announced, carefully throwing back the cloth.

Fidelma was gazing at a wand of aspen some eighteen inches in length. The first thing that she noticed was that it was notched in regular measurements and then, to one side,was a line of Ogham, the ancient Irish form of writing. The characters were more newly cut than the measurements on the other side of the stick. She looked closely at them, her lips forming the words.

‘Bury her well. The Mórrígu has awakened!’

Her face whitened. She sat up stiffly and found the abbess’s eye quizzically regarding her.

‘You recognise what that is?’ Abbess Draigen asked softly.

Fidelma nodded slowly: ‘It is a fé.’

A fé, or rod of aspen, usually with an Ogham inscription, was the measurement by which corpses and graves were calibrated. The fé was the tool of a mortician and was regarded with utmost horror so that no one, on any consideration, would take it in their hand or touch it, except, of course, the person whose business it was to measure corpses and graves. A fé had been the symbol of death and ill-luck since the days of the old gods. Still, the worst imprecation that could be uttered at any person was ‘may the fé be soon measuring you’.

There was a silence as Fidelma sat for a long time staring down at the aspen wood.

It was only when she heard a soft but exasperated sigh that she stirred herself and raised her eyes to meet those of the Abbess Draigen.

It was clear that the abbess knew well what the rod symbolised for her face was troubled.

‘You see, now, Fidelma of Kildare, why I could not allow the local bó-aire to assume his magisterial powers on this matter? You see now why I sent a message to Abbot Brocc to dispatch a dálaigh of the Brehon courts who was answerable to none save the king of Cashel?’

Fidelma returned her gaze with serious eyes.

‘I understand, mother abbess,’ she said quitely. ‘There is much evil here. Much evil.’

It took Fidelma some time to fall asleep. Snow was fallingheavily now but it was not the chill air permeating her cell which caused her to have difficulty in sleeping. Neither was it the conundrum of the headless body that stirred her thoughts and kept her awake as she tried to quell the anxiety that they produced. Twice she took the small Missal from her side table and turned it over and over in her hands, peering at it as if it would produce an answer to her questions.

What had happened to Eadulf of Seaxmund’s Ham?

Twelve months ago or more she had parted from Eadulf on the wooden quay near the Bridge of Probi in Rome and had handed him this little Mass Book as a gift. There was her inscription on its first page.

Twice she and Eadulf had been thrown together to investigate deaths of members of their respective churches and found that, while opposite in character, they found mutual attraction and complementary talents in their pursuit of solutions to the problems they had been set. Then the time came for them to go their different ways. She had to return to her homeland and he had been appointed scriptor and advisor to Theodore, of Tarsus, the newly appointed archbishop of Canterbury, Rome’s chief apostle to the Saxon kingdoms. Theodore, being a Greek, and only a recent convert to the Church of Rome, required someone to instruct him in the ways of his new spiritual charges. Even though Fidelma had thought, at the time, that she would never see Eadulf again, she had found her thoughts gravitating more and more to memories of the Saxon monk. She had been experiencing feelings of isolation and had only recently come to admit to herself that she missed the companionship of Eadulf.

Now she was faced with a mystery that was more aggravating to her mind than any of the riddles she had been called to solve before.

Why was this small Missal, her parting gift to Eadulf in Rome, on a deserted Gaulish merchant ship, an entire world away, off the coast of south-west Ireland? Had Eadulf been a passenger on that vessel? If so, where was he? If he had not,who had possessed the book? And why would Eadulf have parted company with her gift?

Eventually, despite the throbbing questions in her head, sleep caught her unawares.