Our Lady of Darkness

Fidelma smiled apologetically. ‘You’ll forgive me, Barrán. It refers to an entertainment I saw on pilgrimage to Rome. I mean one who manipulates others but is unseen. We have the old expression seinm cruitte dara hamarc.’

The ancient proverbial expression she used related to one playing a harp without being seen.

‘How did this … er, puppet-master, know Eadulf had been given sanctuary in my fortress?’ demanded Coba.

‘You told them.’

‘Told them? Me?’

‘You are a careful and moral man, Coba. You obey the Law of the Fénechus. You told me that as soon as you took action and granted Eadulf sanctuary you had sent a messenger to the abbey.’

‘That is correct. He was to tell the abbess that I had granted the Saxon sanctuary.’

‘Lies!’ shouted Abbess Fainder. ‘I received no such message.’

Coba looked at her sorrowfully and shook his head.

‘My messenger returned from the abbey and confirmed that the message had been delivered.’

Every eye in the assembly now turned towards the shaken abbess.

Chapter Twenty-One

‘I knew it,’ stormed Bishop Forbassach, rising in anger from his seat again. ‘This is some plot to attack and slander Abbess Fainder. I will not tolerate it.’

‘I have no plot to involve Abbess Fainder any more than she is involved,’ replied Fidelma quietly. ‘I did have suspicions, especially when I gathered that, since coming to the abbey, Fainder has acquired much wealth.’

‘Barrán! I accuse this woman of persecution!’ cried Abbot Noé, also rising from his seat. ‘We cannot sit by while she criticises Abbess Fainder in this fashion.’

‘I have said that-’ began Fidelma.

‘Deny it!’ screamed the abbess, suddenly losing control of her temper. ‘You are trying to trap me in your web of lies!’ It was some time before she was persuaded to regain her composure. When calm was restored, Barrán addressed himself to Fidelma.

‘It does sound as though you are leading up to an accusation of Abbess Fainder’s guilt. You point out that it was essential that the punishment of death as prescribed by the Penitentials was enacted. You point out that Abbess Fainder insisted on that and for reasons best known to himself the Brehon Forbassach agreed and persuaded the King to give his approval. You keep mentioning this, this puppet-master — as you call him — as being a member of the abbey community. Who better to be at the centre of the terrible web which you describe than the abbess herself? And now you claim, as if with significance, that she has become wealthy since arriving at the abbey?’

‘Lies! Lies! Lies!’ cried the abbess, banging her fist on the wooden arm of her chair. She had to be calmed again by Bishop Forbassach.

‘Abbess Fainder is indirectly responsible for much of what has happened here and we must now deal with that matter. But I have already shown that she did not kill Gabrán.’

A rumble of noise came from those present. Barrán called immediately for silence.

‘In fact,’ went on Fidelma, ‘it could be said that Abbot Noé was more indirectly responsible than anyone else.’

The abbot shot up from his seat in a belligerent posture.

‘Me? You dare accuse me of being involved in murder and this terrible trade in young girls?’

‘I did not say that. I said you were indirectly responsible for what happened here. For some time now you have been converting to the philosophies of Rome. I realised that your conversion must have occurred when you first met with Fainder in Rome.’

‘I’ll not deny my conversion to the Penitentials,’ muttered Noé, reseating himself but placing himself in a defensive posture.

‘Do you deny that Fainder exercised a strong influence over you, persuaded you to bring her back to Laigin and appoint her abbess while you invited Fianamail to make you his spiritual adviser, thereby giving you a power throughout the whole kingdom?’

‘That is your interpretation.’

‘It is the facts of the matter. You went so far as to overrule the system of appointments in the abbey in order that Fainder could be made abbess. You claimed she was a distant cousin; she was not, but no one seemed to challenge the appointment, not even when they knew that Fainder bore no relationship to you. Once Fainder was abbess she ruled the community by the Penitentials. You were besotted by her. You started the process, Noé. The ground on which the laws were changed and these events were able to happen was sown by you through your infatuation with this woman.’

‘How do you know that Fainder is not related to Noé?’ asked Barrán quickly. ‘And where does this question of her new wealth come into the story?’

‘Her sister is Deog, widow of the watchman Daig,’ explained Fidelma. ‘Deog told me about her sister’s new- found wealth. Fainder frequently visited Deog but, alas, it was no sisterly love that caused the abbess to ride to her sister’s cabin so regularly, was it, Forbassach?’

Bishop Forbassach’s face crimsoned under her gaze.

‘You also became a very recent convert to the use of the Penitentials, didn’t you?’ queried Fidelma. ‘Do you want to tell us why?’

For the first time in the proceedings, the Brehon of Laigin was silent before her question.

It was Abbess Fainder who answered. She was broken and trying to suppress her sobs.

‘Forbassach’s love for me had nothing to do with his embracing true Christian law,’ she cried defensively. ‘He became an advocate for the Penitentials based on logic, not on our love for one another.’

A cry of outrage rang out and a woman was led outside from the back of the hall by two other women. Forbassach half-rose but Fidelma gestured for him to reseat himself.

‘That is something you will have to sort out with your wife later, Forbassach,’ she said. Fainder’s eyes were fixed with malignance on her but she met their gaze without rancour.

‘The new wealth was merely an over-abundance of gifts from both Forbassach and Noé, isn’t that so? They were showering you with presents in an effort to court you. Amantes sunt amentes. Lovers are lunatics.’

The look on the face of the abbess was enough to frighten a lesser person. Forbassach was clearly embarrassed by the revelations but was not demonstrating guilt. Abbot Noé sat in silence, completely stunned by these revelations. Even Fidelma felt a pang of remorse that she had revealed Fainder’s duplicity to him. He was obviously so intoxicated by the abbess that the idea that Forbassach was also her lover was like a knife- wound.

‘At least my deduction that you were not guilty, Fainder, was confirmed when you fainted at Cam Eolaing when I pointed out that the person behind this evil was someone with a high rank at the abbey. You fainted because you thought that I was referring to one of your lovers. But which?’

Abbess Fainder’s face was red with mortification.

‘If I follow your reasoning, Fidelma,’ interrupted Barrán, ‘you are saying that Abbess Fainder did not kill Gabrán. Yet you also say that Fial did not kill Gabrán. Who did, then — and was it by Abbess Fainder’s orders?’

‘Let me lead to it in my own way,’ Fidelma pleaded, ‘for I have never come across such a complicated conspiracy. Our puppet-master was beginning to panic at the increasing number of deaths that were occurring following in the wake of Gabrán’s first crime. Things were not working out as expected. Each attempt to cover up the guilty led to an even worse disaster. As I said, it was decided that Gabrán had to be silenced and the trade ended — for a while at least. The person designated to kill Gabrán was due to leave the abbey to visit a relative who lived nearby where Gabrán’s boat had been moored. Gabrán was waiting forhis new cargo. Two girls were to be picked up that morning. The killer set off to find Gabrán’s boat not