The Subtle Serpent

‘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?’