Hemlock at Vespers

head. I knew nothing else until I came to with the young Sister and the boatman bending over me.”

Fidelma was quiet for a while.

“Tell me, Spelán, what happened to your companion, Brother Snagaide?”

Spelán frowned, looking around as if he expected to find the Brother in a coiner of the cell.

“Snagaide? I do not know, Sister. There was a great deal of shouting and arguing. Then everything went black for me.”

“Was Brother Snagaide young?”

“Most of the brethren, apart from myself and Selbach, were but youths.”

“Did he have fair hair?”

Spelán shook his head to her surprise. Then it was not Snagaide who lay dead on the strand.

“No,” Spelán repeated. “He had black hair.”

“One thing that still puzzles me, Spelán. This is a small island, with a small community. For two years you have lived here in close confines. Yet you say that you did not know about the sadistic tendencies of Abbot Selbach; that each night he took young members of the community to some remote part of the island and inflicted pain on them, yet you did not know? I find this strange.”

Spelán grimaced dourly.

“Strange though it is, Sister, it is the truth. The rest of the community were young. Selbach dominated them. They thought that pain brought them nearer salvation. Being sworn by the Holy Cross never to speak of the whipping given them by the abbot, they remained in silence. Probably they thought that I approved of the whippings. Ah, those poor boys, they suffered in silence until the death of gentle, little Sacán… poor boy, poor boy.”

Tears welled in the dominus’s eyes.

Sister Sárnat reached forward and handed him the cup of water.

Fidelma rose silently and left the cell.

Lorcán followed after her as she went to the quadrangle and stood for a moment in silent reflection.

“A terrible tale, and no mistake,” he commented, his eyes raised absently to the sky. “The Brother is better now, however, and we can leave as soon as you like.”

Fidelma ignored him. Her hands were clasped before her and she was gazing at the ground without focusing on it.

“Sister?” prompted Lorcán.

Fidelma raised her head, suddenly becoming aware of him.

“Sorry, you were saying something?”

The boatman shrugged.

“Only that we should be on our way soon. The poor Brother needs to be taken to Chléire as soon as we can do so.”

Fidelma breathed out slowly.

“I think that the poor Brother…” she paused and grimaced. “I think there is still a mystery here which needs to be resolved.”

Lorcán stared at her.

“But the explanation of Brother Spelán…?”

Fidelma returned his gaze calmly.

“I will walk awhile in contemplation.”

The boatman spread his hands in despair.

“But, Sister, the coming weather…”

“If the storm comes then we will remain here until it passes.” And, as Lorcán opened his mouth to protest, she added: “I state this as a dálaigh of the court and you will observe that authority.”

Lorcán’s mouth drooped and, with a shrug of resignation, he turned away.

Fidelma began to follow the path behind the community, among the rocks to the more remote area of the island. She realized that this would have been the path which, according to Spelán, Abbot Selbach took his victims. She felt a revulsion at what had been revealed by Spelán, although she had expected some such explanation from the evidence of the lacerated backs of the two young Brothers she had seen. She felt loathing for the ascetics who called themselves gortaigid, those who sought salvation by bestowing pain on themselves and others. Abbots and bishops condemned them and they were usually driven out into isolated communities.

Here, it seemed that one evil man had exerted his will on a bunch of youths scarcely out of boyhood who had sought the religious life and knew no better than submit to his will until one of their number died. Now those youths had fled the island, frightened, demoralized and probably lost to the truth of Christ’s message of love and peace.

In spite of general condemnation she knew that in many abbeys and monasteries some abbots and abbesses ordered strict rules of intolerable numbers of genuflections, prostrations and fasts. She knew that Erc, the bishop of Slane, who had been patron of the blessed Brendan of Clonfert, would take his acolytes to cold mountain streams, summer and winter, to immerse themselves in the icy waters four times a day to say their prayers and psalms. There was the ascetic, Mac Tulchan, who bred fleas on his body and, so that his pain might be the greater, he never scratched himself. Didn’t Finnian of Clonard purposely set out to catch a virulent disease from a dying child that he might obtain salvation through suffering?

Mortification and suffering. Ultan of Armagh was one of the school preaching moderation to those who were becoming indulgently masochistic, ascetics who were becoming fanatical torturers of the body, wrenching salvation through unnatural wants, strain or physical suffering.

She paused in her striding and sat down on a rock, her hands demurely folded in front of her, as she let her mind dwell on the evidence. It certainly appeared that everything fitted in with Spe-lán’s explanation. Why did she feel that there was something wrong? She opened her marsupium and drew out the piece of cloth she had found ensnared on the belt hook of the youthful Sacán. It had obviously been torn away from something and not from the boy’s habit. And there was the wooden cup, which had dried out now, which she had found on the floor of the oratory. It had obviously been used for an infusion of herbs.

She suddenly saw a movement out of the corner of her eye, among the rocks. She swung round very fast. For a moment her eyes locked into the dark eyes of a startled youth, the cowl of his habit drawn over his head. Then the youth darted away among the rocks.

“Stop!” Fidelma came to her feet, thrusting the cup and cloth into her marsupium. “Stop, Brother, I mean you no harm.”

But the youth was gone, bounding away through the rocky terrain.

With an exasperated sigh, Fidelma began to follow, when the sound of her name being called halted her.

Sister Sárnat came panting along the path.

“I have been sent by Brother Spelán and Lorcán,” she said. “Lor-cán entreats you to have a care of the approaching storm, Sister.”

Fidelma was about to say something sarcastic about Lorcán’s concern but Sárnat continued.

“Brother Spelán agrees we should leave the island immediately and report the events here to the Abbot of Chléire. The Brother is fully recovered now and he is taking charge of things. He says that he recalls your purpose here was to bring a letter from Ultan to the Abbot Selbach. Since Selbach is dead and he is dominus he asks that you give him the letter in case anything is required to be done about it before we leave the island.”

Fidelma forgot about the youth she was about to pursue.

She stared hard at Sister Sárnat.

The young novitiate waited nervously, wondering what Fidelma was staring at.

“Sister…” she began nervously.

Fidelma sat down on the nearest rock abruptly.