The Subtle Serpent

‘Time for me to go to the abbey.’ Fidelma moved forward to the rail of the ship. She paused and glanced quickly across her shoulder at Ross. ‘God watch over your voyage, Ross.’ Her expression was serious. ‘I do fear that there is some evil human agency at work here. I would not want to lose you.’

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.