The Subtle Serpent

‘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.’