The Subtle Serpent

‘Why did you say that Sister Brónach has had her time?’ she asked sharply. ‘What did you mean by that?’

Sister Lerben looked up from where she had resumed her polishing of the gold icons of the chapel. For a moment it seemed that she had not understood Fidelma, then her expression lightened.

‘Because she is old. Draigen says that she has had her man, her child, and there is nothing else in life for her. Draigen says …’

Fidelma had already passed on thoughtfully.

She was still deep in thought when Adnár’s boatman reported to the abbey guest hostel that he had come to row her across to the bó-aire’s fortress. It was already dark but the boat had lanterns set fore and aft and there were two men who bent their backs into the oars so that the craft cleaved through the dark waters and made the crossing, so it seemed, within moments. Fidelma was handed up on to the dark quay andthe boatman, bearing one of the lamps, lighted her way up the steps into the fortress.

Once through the granite walls the fortress was brightly lit with burning torches and the sounds of music came drifting from the main buildings. Warriors patrolled here and there but otherwise it seemed a peaceful enough citadel.

Adnár was coming down the stairs, hands held out in greeting.

‘Welcome, Sister Fidelma. Welcome. I am glad that you have come.’

He led the way back up the wooden stairs and into the large feasting room where she had breakfasted on the previous morning. The furnishings had not changed but the great table was piled with mountains of food and a fire roared in the hearth sending out a tremendous heat. A musician sat in the corner, playing unobtrusively on a stringed instrument.

Adnár himself helped her to remove her cloak and conducted her to the circular table. Here an attendant bent to remove her shoes. It was the custom, both in secular communities as well as ecclesiastical life, to remove the shoes and sandals before sitting down to an evening feast.

Olcán was there; so was Torcán. Both young men greeted her with such an effusion of spirit that they seemed to be trying to outdo each other in manners. Only Brother Febal stood quietly, his eyes lowered, his manner almost surly. Fidelma tried not to show her distaste for him. She must keep an open mind. Yet if the claims of Sister Lerben were true then he was a bitter and evil man.

It was Olcán who opened up the conversation.

‘How goes your investigation? I was given to understand that you have interrogated Brother Febal here? Is he the dread killer and decapitator of women?’

Brother Febal did not join in their humour.

Fidelma answered them gravely.

‘We shall have to wait until the investigation is complete in order to make a judgment.’

Adnár raised his eyebrows in mock surprise.

‘May the sky fall on us! I do believe that she does suspect you, Febal.’

Brother Febal shrugged. His handsome face was bland.

‘I have nothing to fear from the truth.’

Olcán’s sallow features were split by a grin and he pointed to the table.

‘Well, I fear starvation unless this meal begins. Sister Fidelma, will you do us the honour of saying the Gratias as is the custom?’

Fidelma bowed her head.

‘Benedic nobis, Domine Deus, et omnibus donis Tuis quae ex lorgia …’

She intoned the ritual and they set to the meal. Servants now came forward to pour the wine and hand round the plates. Fidelma was slightly surprised to see that Adnár not only supplied a knife for each person, for one ate with a knife in the right hand and used the fingers of the left hand only, but each diner was given a clean lámhbrat, or hand-cloth, which was usually placed over the knees when eating and, at the end of the meal, used to clean one’s hands. Generally such refinement was found only at the tables of the kings and bishops. It was clear that Adnár had social pretensions in the setting of his feasting table.

‘Please begin, Fidelma. Would you prefer wine or mead?’

Silver goblets were filled with imported red wine but jugs of local mead were also placed on the table. She saw that brother Febal selected this rather than wine. There was a choice of dishes: ox-meat, mutton and venison. There were fish dishes, goose eggs and a dish even of rón or seal meat. It was a dish that was once popular but now few people ate it. A story told that a family in the west of the country was once metamorphosed into seals by a druid and now no one would eat seal meat in case they were eating their own relatives.

Fidelma helped herself to some venison cooked with wild garlic, some barley cakes and parsnip.

‘Seriously,’ Adnár was saying, ‘how is your investigation? Have you discovered the identity of the headless body?’

‘Not for sure,’ replied Fidelma, sipping at her wine.

Torcán’s glance was searching.

‘That means that you have some suspicion as to who it is?’

Fidelma pretended her mouth was too full of food to answer.

‘Well, I know who I believe did it,’ muttered Brother Febal.

The sallow-faced Olcán waved his knife towards Febal.

‘You have already made that clear to Sister Fidelma. Certainly the Abbess Draigen is not a person who has inspired your affection.’

‘She inspires it in her daughter,’ Fidelma observed quietly.

Brother Febal immediately caught the inflection.

‘So you have been talking to Lerben?’ He seemed unperturbed. ‘Well, she is but hewn of the same tree as her mother. Liars, both of them!’

‘Is she not also hewn of the same tree as her father?’ Fidelma asked with an innocent expression.

Brother Febal was about to retort, then seemed to catch himself. He tried to interpret Fidelma’s implacable expression.

‘If she has been accusing me …’ he began and his face flushed angrily.

‘Of what would she accuse you?’.

Brother Febal shook his head negatively.

‘Nothing. Nothing. The girl is simply a compulsive liar. That is all.’

‘And you still say that her mother prefers women to men? You stand by that accusation? And the accusation of an unnatural relationship between mother and daughter?’

‘Have I not said so?’

‘No one else in the abbey would agree with you. Not even Sister Brónach whose name you conjured as your witness.’

‘None of those at the abbey have any guts to go against Draigen, especially Brónach. She is a self- made martyr!’

Fidelma noticed that Torcán was regarding Brother Febal with a curious expression. It was Olcán who lightened the sudden tense turn of the conversation.

‘Personally, and by the sound of it, I believe the killer is some madman. They are many tales of strange mountainy men who waylay and slaughter people. What sane person would decapitate a head from the body?’

‘Then you must believe our forefathers were insane.’ Torcán’s tone was serious but he was smiling as he spoke. ‘Years and years ago it was considered essential to take the head from a slain enemy.’

‘I have heard of that ancient custom,’ Fidelma observed. ‘Do you know much about it?’

The son of the prince of the Ui Fidgenti selected another piece of meat with his knife and gave an affirmative gesture.

‘It was once a warrior code. Great warriors, in the aftermath of a battle, would remove the heads of their slain enemies to hang them from their chariots and drive triumphantly back to their fortresses. Didn’t the hero