Our Lady of Darkness

‘I was just taken into the court. I was not given the opportunity to ask for some legal representative.’

Fidelma’s face was beginning to take on an expression of hope for the first time.

‘There are many things wrong here, Eadulf. Are you sure that Bishop Forbassach did not ask if you wished to be represented or if you would represent yourself?’

‘I am sure.’

‘What other evidence was offered against you?’

‘A Brother Miach gave evidence. I understand he is the physician here. He came forward to give details of how the girl had been sexually assaulted and strangled. Then I was asked if I still denied the matter and I said I did. It was then that Forbassach said that the matter was being judged under the ecclesiastical code and not the laws of the Brehons of Éireann. I was to be hanged. The sentence would be referred to the King himself to confirm. A few days ago the King’s confirmation came and so, tomorrow, I am to meet Brother Cett on that platform down there.’

‘Not if there is justice, Eadulf,’ replied Fidelma firmly. ‘There are too many questions to be asked based on what you have told me.’

Eadulf pursed his lips ruefully. ‘Perhaps it is a little late to ask them now, Fidelma?’

‘Not so. I will put forward an appeal.’

To her surprise Eadulf shook his head.

‘You don’t know the abbess. She has great influence over Bishop Forbassach. People here walk in fear of her.’

Fidelma looked interested. ‘How do you know this?’

‘Having been incarcerated in here for some weeks, I have become attuned to that communication I do possess. Even that unspeakable Brother Cett can supply me with information in his monosyllabic way. If this abbey is a spider’s web, then the abbess sits at its centre like a hungry black spider.’

Fidelma smiled, for it seemed an apt description of Abbess Fainder.

She rose slowly to her feet and glanced about the cell. It contained nothing apart from a stool and a cot with a straw mattress and a blanket. The only clothes Eadulf had were those which he was wearing.

‘You said that the abbess must have your travelling bag and the wand and letter from Colgú to Theodore?’

‘If they have not been left under the bed in the guests’ hostel.’

Fidelma turned to the door and banged upon it, calling for Sister Étromma. She turned her head to Eadulf and smiled encouragement.

‘Have hope, Eadulf. I will seek out the truth here and try to find justice.’

‘You have my support in that but I have come to expect nothing in this place.’

It was the burly, sinister Brother Cett who opened the door and stood aside to let Fidelma pass into the dark corridor beyond. He slammed the cell door shut and threw the bolts.

‘Where is Sister Étromma?’ demanded Fidelma.

The big man did not answer but simply raised his hand to point along the corridor.

Fidelma followed his directions and found Sister Étromma waiting in a seated recess by a window at the head of the stairway. The window gave a view of the river beyond. Boats were moving on it. It seemed a busy stretch of waterway. So intent was Sister Étromma on examining this vista that Fidelma had to cough to attract her attention.

She turned and came to her feet at once.

‘Your talk with the Saxon was satisfactory?’ the stewardess of the abbey asked brightly.

‘Satisfactory? Hardly. There is much that is unsatisfactory about the proceedings. I hear that you were a witness at the trial?’

Sister Étromma’s features became defensive. ‘I was.’

‘I heard that you also identified the victim, Gormgilla. I had not realised that you knew her.’

‘I did not.’

Fidelma was perplexed. ‘Then how did you identify her?’

‘I told you before, she was a young novitiate in the abbey.’

‘Indeed. So am I to presume that you, as rechtaire of the abbey, greeted her among the novitiates when she arrived at this abbey? When did she join this community?’

There was a look of uncertainty on Sister Étromma’s face.

‘I am not sure exactly …’

‘It is exactness that I am seeking, Sister,’ Fidelma snapped waspishly. ‘Tell me, exactly, when you first met the dead girl, Gormgilla.’

‘I … I only saw her after her body was brought to the abbey mortuary,’ the rechtaire confessed.

Fidelma stared at her for a moment in astonishment. Then she shook her head. Perhaps she should grow used to being astonished in this case.

‘You saw her for the first time only after she was dead? Then how could you identify her as a novitiate at the abbey?’

‘I was told that she was by the abbess.’

‘But you had no right to identify her in evidence before a court if you did not personally know her.’

‘I would not doubt the word of the abbess. Besides, Fial said that she was her companion and came to the abbey with her to be a novitiate.’

Fidelma felt it pointless to lecture the rechtaire on the rules of being a witness.

‘Your testimony is worthless in the court. Who did see this girl before her death? She surely did not simply appear in the abbey?’

Sister Étromma was defiant. ‘The abbess told me and I tell you. Besides, the mistress of the novitiates greets all the newcomers and trains them. She would have seen the girl.’

‘Ah. Now we are getting somewhere. Why didn’t the mistress of the novitiates give evidence? Who is this woman and where do I find her?’

Sister Étromma hesitated. ‘She has gone on a pilgrimage to Iona.’ Fidelma blinked. ‘And when did she do that?’

‘A day or so before the murder of Gormgilla. Therefore it was natural that I, as stewardess of the abbey, came forward to give evidence. It was from the mistress of the novitiates that the abbess probably knew that the girl was one of her charges.’

‘Except that your testimony in law is without any foundation. You are only repeating what you have been told, not what you know.’ Fidelma was angry; angry that normal legal procedures seemed to have been totally disregarded. There were certainly enough discrepancies of legal practice to put forward an appeal.

‘But Fial was also a novitiate and identified her friend,’ protested Sister Étromma.

‘Then we must find Sister Fial, for it seems her testimony is more than crucial to this entire affair. Let us do so now.’

‘Very well.’

‘Also I want to see the other witnesses to this matter. There is a Brother Miach, I believe?’

‘The physician?’

‘The same — but perhaps he, too, has gone on a pilgrimage?’ she added sarcastically.

Sister Étromma did not react to the barb.

‘His apothecary is on the floor below. I will leave you with him while I go to find Sister Fial.’

She turned and made her way down the steps, with Fidelma following.

Fidelma’s mind was racing. Never in her years as a dálaigh had sheencountered such flagrant breaches of legal procedures. She believed that she already had sufficient grounds on which to base an appeal to have the trial re-heard. She could scarcely believe that the Brehon of Laigin could have officiated over this farce. He surely knew the rules of evidence.

Obviously, the main problem was the eye-witness testimony of the young novitiate, Fial. That would be the main obstacle in any move to seek an acquittal for Eadulf. Her eye-witness evidence was disastrous for Eadulf. Yet the saga of events sounded bizarre.