“We must continue to listen. Perhaps she will tell us. As she tells us other things.”
“Such as?”
“She is married.”
Abbot Laisran snorted with cynicism.
“How could you possibly know that?”
Fidelma simply pointed to the left hand of the corpse.
“There are marks around the third finger. They are faint, I grant you, but tiny marks nevertheless which show the recent removal of a ring that has been worn there. There is also some discoloration on her left arm. What do you make of that, Brother Donngal?”
The apothecary shrugged.
“Do you mean the marks of blue dye? It is of little importance.”
“Why?”
“Because it is a common thing among the villages. Women dye clothes and materials. The blue is merely a dye caused by the extract of a cruciferous plant
“It is not. But women of rank would hardly be involved in dyeing their own materials and this dye stain seems fairly recent.”
“Is that important?” asked the abbot.
“Perhaps. It depends on how we view the most important of all the facts this poor corpse whispers to us.”
“Which is?” demanded Brother Donngal.
“That this girl was murdered.”
Abbot Laisran’s eyebrows shot up.
“Come, come, now. Our apothecary has found no evidence of foul play; no wounds, no bruising, no abrasions. The face is relaxed as if she simply passed on in her sleep. Anyone can see that.”
Fidelma moved forward and lifted the girl’s head, bringing the single braid of hair forward in order to expose the nape of the neck. She had done this earlier during her examination as Brother Donngal and Abbot Laisran watched with faint curiosity.
“Come here and look, both of you. What, Brother Donngal, was your explanation of this?”
Brother Donngal looked slightly embarrassed as he peered forward.
“I did not examine her neck under the braid,” he admitted.
“Well, now that you are examining it, what do you see?”
“There is a small discolored patch like a tiny bruise,” replied the apothecary after a moment or two. “It is not more than a fingernail in width. There is a little blood spot in the center. It’s rather like an insect bite that has drawn blood or as if someone has pricked the skin with a needle.”
“Do you see it also, Laisran?” demanded Fidelma.
The abbot leaned forward and then nodded.
Fidelma gently lowered the girl’s head back onto the table.
“I believe that this was a wound caused by an incision. You are right, Brother Donngal, in saying it is like a needle point. The incision was created by something long and thin, like a needle. It was inserted into the nape of the neck and pushed up hard so that it penetrated into the head. It was swift. Deadly. Evil. The girl probably died before she knew that she was being attacked.”
Abbot Laisran was staring at Fidelma in bewilderment.
“Let me get this straight, Fidelma. Are you saying that the corpse found near this abbey this morning is a woman of rank who has been murdered? Is that right?”
“And, after her death, her clothes were taken from her and she was hurriedly dressed in poor peasant garb to disguise her origin. The murderer thought to remove all means of identification from her.”
“Even if this is true,” interrupted Brother Donngal, “how might we discover who she was and who perpetrated this crime?”
“The fact that she was not long dead when Brother Torcan found her makes our task more simple. She was killed in this vicinity. A woman of rank would surely be visiting a place of substance. She had not been walking any distance. Observe the soles of her feet. I would presume that she either rode or came in a carriage to her final destination.”
“But what destination?” demanded Brother Donngal.
“If she came to Durrow, she would have come to the abbey,” Laisran pointed out. “She did not.”
“True enough. We are left with two types of places she might have gone. The house of a noble, a chieftain, or, perhaps, a
“What makes you say that?”
“A deduction. The corpse newly dead and the murderer wanting to dispose of it as quickly as possible. Whoever killed her reclothed her body and transported it to the spot where it was found. They could not have traveled far.”
Abbot Laisran rubbed his chin.
“Whoever it was, they took a risk in disposing of it in the woods so near this abbey.”
“Perhaps not. If memory serves me right, those woods are the thickest stretch of forest in this area even though they are close to the abbey. Are they that frequented?”
Abbot Laisran shrugged.
“It is true that Brother Torcan does not often venture so far into the woods in search of fungi,” he admitted. “He came on the corpse purely by chance.”
“So the proximity of the abbey was not necessarily a caution to our murderer. Well, are there such places as I described within the distance I have estimated?”
“An inn or a chieftain’s house? North of here is Ballacolla, where there is an inn. South of here is Ballyconra where the Lord of Conra lives.”
“Who is he? Describe him?”
“A young man, newly come to office there. I know little about him, although he came here to pay his respects to me when he took office. When I came to Durrow as abbot the young man’s father was lord of Ballyconra but his son was away serving in the army of the High King. He is a bachelor newly returned from the wars against the Uí Néill.”
“Then we shall have to learn more,” observed Fidelma dryly. She glanced through the window at the cloudy sky.
“There is still an hour before sunset,” she reflected. “Have Brother Torcan meet me at the gates so that he may conduct me to the spot where he found the body.”
“What use would that be?” demanded the abbot. “There was nothing in the clearing apart from the body.”
Fidelma did not answer.
With a sigh, the abbot went off to find the religieux.
Half an hour later Brother Torcan was showing her the small clearing. Behind her, Abbot Laisran fretted with impatience. Fidelma was looking at a pathway which led into it. It was just wide enough to take a small cart. She noticed some indentations of hooves and ruts, undoubtedly caused by the passage of wheels.
“Where does that track lead?” she asked, for they had entered the clearing by a different single path.
It was the abbot who answered.
“Eventually it would link to the main road south. South to Ballyconra,” he added significantly.
The sky was darkening now and Fidelma sighed.
“In the morning I shall want to see this young Lord of Conra. But it is pointless continuing on tonight. We’d best go back to the abbey.”
The next morning, accompanied by the abbot, Fidelma rode south. Ballyconra itself was a large settlement. There were small farm-steads and a collection of dwellings for workers. In one nearby field, a root crop was being harvested and workers were loading the crop onto small carts pulled by single asses. The track twisted through the village and passed a stream where women were laying out clothes to dry on the banks while others stirred
