Whispers of the Dead

“Does it?”

“The motive, the opportunity, the means, and the supporting evidence, it is all there. Finn must have killed her.”

“You sound as if you have been reading law books, Laisran,” she parried.

“I have followed your successes.”

“Then, tell me, how did you work this out?”

“The biorracha, a long sharp needle of the type which you say must have caused the girl’s mortal wound.”

“Go on.”

“He uses blue dye to identify his sheep. Hence the stain on the corpse.”

“Go on.”

“He also knew Segnat and was apparently jealous of her marriage to Conri. Jealousy is often the motive for murder.”

“Anything else?”

“He met the girl on the road on the very night of her death. And he drives a small donkey cart to transport the body.”

“He did not meet her at night,” corrected Fidelma pedantically.

“It was some hours before sunset.”

Abbot Laisran made a cutting motion with his hand.

“It is as I say. Motive, opportunity, and means. Finn is the murderer.”

“You are wrong, Laisran. You have not listened to the whispers of the dead. But Finn does know the murderer.”

Abbot Laisran’s eyes widened.

“I fail to understand. . ”

“I told you that you must listen to the dead. Finn was right. It was Conri, Lord of Ballyconra, who murdered his wife. I think the motive will be found to be even as Finn said. . financial gain from his dead wife’s estate. He probably knew that Segnat’s father was dying when he married her. When we get back to the abbey, I will send for the local bó-aire, the magistrate, to take some warriors to search Conri’s farmstead. With luck he will not have destroyed her clothing and personal belongings. I think we will also find that the very black mare he was riding was the same the poor girl rode on her fatal journey. Hopefully, Echen will be able to identify it.”

Abbot Laisran stared at her blankly, bewildered by her calmness.

“How can you possibly know that? It must be guesswork. Finn could have just as easily killed her as Conri.”

Fidelma shook her head.

“Consider the death wound. A needle inserted at the base of the neck under her braid.”

“So?”

“Certainly, a long sharp needle, like a biorracha, could, and probably did, cause that wound. However, how could a perfect stranger, or even an acquaintance such as Finn, inflict such a wound? How could someone persuade the girl to relax unsuspecting while they lifted her braid and then, suddenly, insert that needle? Who but a lover? Someone she trusted. Someone whose intimate touch would arouse no suspicion. We are left with Segnat’s lover-her husband.”

Abbot Laisran heaved a sigh.

Fidelma added, “She arrived at Ballyconra expecting to find a loving husband, but found her murderer who had already planned her death to claim her inheritance.”

“After he killed her, Conri stripped her of her clothes and jewels, dressed her in peasants’ clothes and placed her in a cart that had been used by his workers to transport dyed clothing. Then he took her to the woods where he hoped the body would lie unseen until it rotted or, even if it was discovered, might never be identified.”

“He forgot that the dead can still tell us many things,” Fidelma agreed sadly.

“They whisper to us and we must listen.”

CORPSE ON A HOLY DAY

The day was hot in spite of the breeze blowing off the sea from the south. The procession of pilgrims had left the sandy beach and was beginning to climb the steep green hill toward the distant oratory. They had stood in reverent silence before the ancient granite stone of St. Declan, a stone that, it was said, had floated to the spot across the sea bearing on it vestments and a tiny silver bell. It had floated ashore on this isolated part of the Irish coast and was found by a warrior prince named Declan who knew it was God’s way of ordaining him to preach the New Faith. So he began his mission among his own people, the Déices of the kingdom of Muman.

There the stone had stood since the moment it had landed bearing its miraculous gifts. The young brother who was conducting the pilgrims around the sites sacred to Declan had informed his charges that if they were able to crawl under the stone then they would be cured of rheumatism but only if they were already free from sin. None of the band of pilgrims had ventured to seek proof of the stone’s miraculous property.

Now they followed him slowly up the steep hill above the beach, straggling in a long line, passing the gray abbey walls, and moving toward the small chapel perched on the hilltop. This was the final site of the pilgrimage. It was the chapel that St. Declan had built two centuries before and in which his relics now reposed.

Sister Fidelma wondered, and not for the first time, why she had bothered to join this pilgrimage on this stifling summer’s day. Her thought was immediately followed by a twinge of guilt, as it had been before. She felt an inner voice reprimanding her and pointing out that it was her duty as a religieuse to revere the life and works of those great men and women who had brought the Faith to the shores of Ireland.

Her peripatetic journey, fulfilling her main duty as a dálaigh, or advocate, of the law courts of the five kingdoms of Ireland, had brought her to the subkingdom of the Déices on the south coast of Muman. When she had realized that she was staying a few days at the great abbey of Ard Mór, which St. Declan had founded, coinciding with the Holy Day set aside for his veneration, she had attached herself to the band of pilgrims being conducted around the principal sites associated with his life and work. Fidelma was always keen to acquire knowledge. She pressed her lips in a cynical grimace as she realized that she had answered her own question as to why she was part of this pilgrim group.

Brother Ross, the young man in charge, had been prattling on about the life of Declan as he preceded them up the hill. He was an intense young man, scarcely more than the “age of choice,” hardly out of his teenage. Even the steep climb did not seem to make him breathless or cause him to pause in his enthusiastic monologue.

“He was one of the four great saints who preached in the five kingdoms of Ireland before the coming of the Blessed Patrick. They were Ailbe, the patron saint of our kingdom of Muman, Ciarán also of Muman, Ibar of Laigin, and Declan of the Déices of Muman. So we may boast that this kingdom of Muman was the first to convert to the New Faith. .”

Brother Ross was naively passionate as he began to enumerate the miracles of the saint, of how he raised people who died of the Yellow Plague. The pilgrims listened in a respectful and awed silence. Fidelma had assessed the dozen or so men and women who were trudging up the hill and came to the conclusion that she appeared to have nothing in common with them except a membership of the religious.

They were now approaching the brow of the bare hill where the small oratory of gray granite stood. It was perched on the top of the round hump, surrounded by a low stone wall. From a distance, it had appeared a small speck of a building. As they drew nearer Fidelma could make out its rectangular dry-stone walls. It was scarcely thirteen feet by nine feet in dimensions and its steep sloping roof was in proportion.

“This is where the earthly remains of the blessed saint repose,” announced Brother Ross, halting and allowing the pilgrims to gather around him by the gate of the low wall. “After the end of his arduous mission through the countryside he returned to his beloved settlement of Ard Mór. He knew he was not long for this world and so he gathered the people and the clergy around him and counseled them to follow in his footsteps in