Hemlock at Vespers

“Quite so. You slept unusually soundly. So soundly that someone could enter your bothán without disturbing you? As, indeed, did the Brehon and Congal. You had to be shaken awake by both of them or you would not have known of their presence.”

The court was quiet and the Brehon was looking at her with curiosity.

“What are you suggesting, Sister Fidelma?”

“I suggest nothing. I present evidence. I took a wooden vessel from Brother Fergal’s bothan in your presence and gave it to you as evidence.”

The Brehon nodded and indicated the wooden vessel on the table before him.

“This is so. There is the bowl.”

“Is this the vessel from which you drank, Fergal?”

The monk examined the vessel and nodded.

“It is mine. There is my name scratched on its surface. It is the vessel from which I drank.”

“There remains some liquid at the bottom of the vessel and I tasted it. It was not an infusion of stramóiniam.”

“What then?” demanded the Brehon.

“To please the court, we could call Hand, the herbalist, to examine it and give his opinion. But the court knows that I am an Anruth and qualified in the knowledge of herbs.”

“The court accepts your knowledge, Sister Fidelma,” replied the Brehon impatiently.

Fidelma bowed her head.

“It contains the remains of an infusion of lus mor na coille together with muing.”

“For those not acquainted with herbs, explain what these are,” instructed the Brehon, frowning.

“Certainly. The lus mór na coille, which we call deadly nightshade, is a powerful sedative inducing sleep, while muing, or poison hemlock, if taken in large doses can produce paralysis. Any person knowledgeable about herbs will tell you this. By drinking this infusion, Brother Fergal was effectively drugged. He slept the sleep of one dead and was oblivious to everything. It was lucky that he was aroused at all. It may well be that whoever provided him with the potion did not expect him to ever awake. Brother Fergal would simply have been found dead, next to Barrdub. The conclusion would have been that he killed her and then took this poisonous mixture in an act of remorse.”

She paused at the disturbance which her words provoked. Brother Fergal stood staring at her with a shocked, pale face.

The Brehon, calling for silence, then addressed himself to Fidelma.

“Are you saying that Barrdub was killed in Fergal’s bothán while he slept and he did not know it?”

“No. I am saying that the person who drugged Fergal killed Barrdub elsewhere and carried her body to the bothán, leaving it inside. That person then rubbed some of her blood on Fergal’s hands and clothes while he lay in his drugged slumber. Having created the scene, that person then departed. The murderer made several errors. He left the tell-tale evidence of the drinking vessel in which were the remains of the drugs. And he left Barrdub’s blood smeared on the side of the door when he carried her body into the bothán.”

“I recall you showing me that stain,” the Brehon intervened. “At the time I pointed out that it was probably caused when we removed the body.”

“Not so. The stain was at shoulder height. When you removed the body, it is reported that your men placed it on a litter. Two men would have carried the litter.”

The Brehon nodded confirmation.

“The highest the litter, with the body, could be carried in comfort would be at waist height. But the stain was at shoulder height. Therefore, the stain was not caused when the body was removed from the bothán but when it was carried in. The murderer, being one person, had to carry the body on his own. The easiest method to carry such a dead weight is on the shoulders. The stain was made at shoulder height when the body was carried inside by the murderer.”

“Your argument is plausible,” conceded the Brehon. “But not conclusive.”

“Then let me put this before the court. Your argument is that Brother Fergal stabbed Barrdub to death in a mad frenzy. Then, exhausted, too exhausted to take the body out of his bothán to conceal the murder, he fell asleep on his bed and was found the next morning.”

“That is as the prosecution contends.”

“Where then is the weapon?”

“What?” The word came slowly from the mouth of the Brehon, a growing doubt appearing in his eyes.

“You made no mention of a weapon, the knife by which Barrdub was stabbed to death. If you did not take it when you found Fergal that morning, it must have still been there. I searched the bothán. I found no weapon. Brother Fergal carries no such knife.”

The Brehon bit his lip.

“It is true, no weapon was found.”

“Yet a weapon must exist with Barrdub’s blood upon it.”

“Fergal could have hidden it,” countered the Brehon, realizing his fault for not instigating the search before.

“Why? Why hide the weapon when he was too exhausted to hide the body?”

“Your arguments are possible explanations. Yet if Fergal did not murder Barrdub, who did?” Before she could answer, the Bre-hon’s eyes lit up. “Ah, so that is why you were interested in the hermit Erca’s herbs? Do you contend that he did this? That he did it to harm Fergal? We all know that he hates every Christian.”

Fidelma shook her head emphatically.

“Erca hates all Christians, but he did not do this. He simply confirmed my suspicion that I had tasted two powerful drugs which could be easily obtained in the vicinity. A deeper motive lies behind this murder than simply a hatred of Christians.”

She turned and caught Rimid’s pale face. The man’s lips were trembling.

“She is trying to lay the blame on me!” he cried.

The Brehon also was looking at Rimid with deep suspicion. He demanded: “Was not your hatred of Fergal great? You said as much to us yesterday.”

“I did not do it. I loved Barrdub … I…” Rimid sprang to his feet and began to fight his way out of the great hall.

“Seize him!” cried the Brehon. Two clansmen moved forward.

But Fidelma had turned to the Brehon with shaking head.

“No, let him go. It was not Rimid.”

The Brehon frowned. Rimid, caught between the two clansmen, halted his struggles and glanced back in bewilderment.

“Who then?” the Brehon demanded in exasperation.

“Barrdub was murdered by Congal.”

There was a gasp.

“A lie! The bitch lies!” Congal had leapt to his feet in the great hall, his face pale, his hands clasped into fists.

“Congal murdered his own sister?” The Brehon was incredulous. “But why?”

“For one of the oldest motives of all. For gain.”

“But, Barrdub had no property. What gain is in this deed?”

Sister Fidelma sighed sadly.

“Congal was an impecunious man. His father had held a good position within the clan and Congal, if all went well, could have expected no less. But things were never well for Congal. He was capricious, undependable. He preferred to dream and make great plans which always went awry. He was reduced, with his sister, to living in a poor wood and mud bothán, hiring out his labor to his neighbors who were better off than he was. They pitied him. That made him bitter. All this was common knowledge. You, Bre-hon, told me as much.