‘I dislike Draigen with an intensity which you would never understand,’ the doorkeeper began. Then she paused and was silent again; this time for so long that Fidelma was about to prompt her when Brónach turned troubled eyes to her. ‘Each day I spend in prayers asking the good God to ease my pain, to stop my hatred. He does not. Is that the will of God that I should retain these feelings?’
‘Why do you stay here?’ Fidelma pressed again.
The woman sounded bitter.
‘That is like asking the ocean why it stays in the same place. There is nowhere else I can go. Perhaps this is the penance for my sins; to serve the person who took the life ofmy mother. But do not misunderstand me. I would do no harm to Draigen. I would not have her dead. I would prefer that she lived and suffered each minute of her life.’
‘Tell me the story.’
‘Draigen was fifteen years old at the time. I was in my mid-thirties. I was already a religieuse here, serving the Abbess Marga in this abbey of The Salmon of the Three Wells. My mother, Suanech, was not of the Faith. She preferred to hold her allegiance to the old gods and goddesses of this land. She was a wise woman. She knew every flower and herb. She knew their names and curative values. She was at one with the forests in which she continued to dwell.’
‘And your father?’ interposed Fidelma.
‘I never knew him. I knew only my mother and her love for me.’
‘Go on.’
‘Near the forest where my mother was dwelling was an óc-aire, a man with a small patch of land which was not enough to keep him and his wife and children. The man was Adnár Mhór, the father of Draigen.’
‘Also the father of Adnár who dwells in the fort across the bay?’
‘The same. My mother sometimes helped young Draigen. When Adnár the son had left to join the army of Gulban the Hawk-Eyed, Adnár the father began to grow ill. My mother felt sorrow for the young girl. When Adnár the father died, my mother offered to foster her. Soon after Draigen’s mother also died. Draigen went to live with my mother.’
‘By this time you were already serving in this abbey?’
Brónach nodded absently.
‘This happened when Draigen was about fourteen, as you may have been told. A year of sorrow that was.’
There were suddenly tears around Sister Brónach’s eyes and somehow Fidelma had the feeling that they were not tears being shed just for her mother.
‘What exactly happened?’
‘Draigen is a self-willed person. She is prone to rages. One day she fell into a rage, took a knife used for skinning rabbits and stabbed my mother, Suanech.’
Fidelma waited for a further explanation and when there was none asked for one.
‘Since the death of her father and mother and what she saw as her abandonment by her brother, Draigen had become very possessive. She was quick to temper and very jealous. She was jealous of me as Suanech’s blood daughter. It was, perhaps, a good thing that I visited my mother infrequently for the duties at the abbey allowed little time for such visits. I am sure that we would have clashed more often and more violently.’
‘But clash you did?’
‘Invariably; every time I went to see my mother. If my mother paid me attention, Draigen was there demanding double that attention be shown to her.’
‘So, at the time of Draigen’s attack on your mother …? What then?’
‘My mother …’ Sister Brónach hesitated, as if trying to find the right words. ‘My mother had taken into care a young baby. It was the child of, of a relative.’
Fidelma noted the awkward pauses.
‘My mother thought that Draigen would help her with the child as it grew. But Draigen felt the same jealousy towards that child as she had shown towards anyone or anything that took my mother’s affections from her.’
‘She attacked your mother because she was paying too much attention to the baby?’ Fidelma felt a surge of cold repulsion.
‘She did. It was an insane attack. She was then fifteen years old. The child my mother was looking after was only three years old. The Brehon who sat in judgment on the matter decreed that Draigen was not responsible in the highest degree of homicide. He ordered that compensation be paid inthat the tiny plot of land which Draigen’s parents had owned should be sold off and the proceeds then given to Suanech’s heir. That was me, of course. And being a member of this community, the money went to the abbey. Now Draigen is abbess here, it seems ironic.’ Brónach laughed dryly. ‘It makes you wonder whether there is a god of justice, doesn’t it?’
‘Was the three-year-old child harmed by Draigen?’
Sister Brónach shook her head.
‘It was returned … to its own mother.’
‘The Brehon must have placed some restraints on Draigen,’ Fidelma observed.
‘Yes. Draigen was ordered to enter a religious community where she would be looked after and devote her life to service of the people. That again is ironic, for she was placed in this abbey. The very abbey where I was.’
‘Ah!’ Fidelma interrupted. ‘I now see the reason why Adnár failed in his claim for part of the land. As it was sold to fulfil a legal fine, Adnár, as Draigen’s brother, had to forfeit his share for the kin must pay the fine of the culprit if that culprit cannot pay it all.’
‘Yes, that is so.’
‘But in law, Sister Brónach, Draigen has made reparation and atoned for this crime.’
‘Yes. I know that the Abbess Marga gave her complete absolution long ago. And now she has grown up. And every day since the day she slaughtered my mother, I have borne her presence as a penance for my sins.’
Fidelma was bewildered.
‘I still do not understand why you have stayed here. Why not depart to some other community where your wound could heal? Or why didn’t you demand that Draigen be sent to some other abbey?’
Sister Brónach gave a long, low sigh.
‘I have given you the reason. I stay here as a penance for my sins.’
‘What are these sins that you are guilty of?’ asked Fidelma. ‘What would cause you to spend your life in the company of one who killed your own flesh and blood?’
Sister Brónach hesitated again and then seemed to straighten herself up a little.
‘I was not there at the time to prevent Draigen’s attack on my mother. It is the sin of absence when I was needed.’
‘That is no cause for self-blame. There is no sin that has been committed.’
‘Yet I feel responsible.’
Fidelma was sceptical. There was something false about Sister Brónach’s explanation.
‘There I cannot help you. Though if you have a soul-friend, perhaps …’
‘I have struggled for twenty years with this problem, Sister Fidelma. It cannot be solved in twenty minutes.’
‘You blame yourself too much, sister,’ Fidelma rebuked. ‘Also, let us try to look on things with some charity. Twenty years ago Draigen was a young girl, an immature young girl, by all that you say. What she did then, is past. The person she is now is probably not the person that she was then.’
‘You are charitable, sister.’
‘You do not agree?’
‘Draigen is still the same character; jealous, unremitting in her ambition and a person who holds grudges.’ The middle-aged religieuse suddenly held up a hand, palm upwards as if to quell any protest. ‘Do not mistake me, sister. I have borne this burden for twenty years and will continue to bear it. I have nowhere in this world to go. At least, when I look up on the mountainside I can see my mother’s grave and sometimes I am able to go up there and sit awhile.’
