Whispers of the Dead

“Is the Father Superior a sound sleeper?”

Brother Firgil frowned.

“I do not understand.”

“No matter. When was it discovered that the artifacts had been stolen?”

“Brother Gormgilla discovered the body of Connla and raised the alarm. A search was made and the crucifix, cups and rosary were found missing.”

“And no physical damage was done in the chapel nor to this room before Brother Gormgilla had to break in?”

“None, so far as I am aware. Had there been, it might have aroused the community and we might have saved Connla.”

“Was Connla an exceptionally tidy person?”

Brother Firgil blinked at the abrupt change of question.

“He was not especially so.”

Fidelma gestured to the chamber.

“Was this how the room was when he was found?”

“I think it had been tidied up after his body was removed. I think that his papers were tidied and his clothes put away until it was decided what should be done with them.”

“Who did the tidying?”

“Father Máilín himself.”

Fidelma sighed softly.

“That is all, Brother Firgil.”

She hesitated a moment, after he had left, and looked at the area where Connla would have been working, examining the books and papers carefully.

She left Connla’s chamber and went into the chapel. It was small and with few icons. Two candles burnt on the altar. A rough-hewn, wooden crucifix had been positioned in obvious replacement of the stolen one. She examined the interior of the chapel for a few minutes before deciding that it would tell her nothing more.

She left the chapel and paused for a moment in the central courtyard looking at the buildings and judging their position to the chapel. Again, it merely confirmed what Brother Firgil had said. Connla’s chamber was the closest to the chamber.

She felt frustrated. There was something that was not right at all.

Members of the brethren of the community went about their daily tasks, either avoiding her eyes or nodding a greeting to her, each according to their characters. There was no wall around the community and, in that, there was nothing to contradict the idea that a band of thieves could easily have infiltrated the community and entered the chapel.

Half a mile away, crossing a small hill was a wood and this wood was where Brother Firgil had indicated that the itinerants had encamped.

Fidelma began to walk in that direction. Her movement toward the woods was purely automatic. She felt the compulsion to walk and think matters over and the wood was as good a direction as any in which to do so. It was not as though she expected to find any evidence among the remains of the itinerant camp.

She had barely gone a few hundred yards when she noticed the figure a short distance behind her. It was moving surreptitiously: a figure of one of the brothers following her from the buildings of the community.

She imperceptibly increased her pace up the rising path toward the woods and entered it quickly. The path immediately led into a clearing where it was obvious that there had been an encampment not so long ago. There were signs of a fire, the gray ashes spread in a circle. Some of the ground had been turned by the hooves of horses and a wagon.

“You won’t find anything here, Sister.”

Fidelma turned and regarded the figure of the brother who had now entered the clearing behind her.

“Good day, Brother,” she replied solemnly. He was a young man, with bright ginger red hair and dark blue eyes. He was young, no more than twenty, but wore the tonsure of St. John. “Brother. .?” she paused inviting him to supply his name.

“My name is Brother Ledbán.”

“You have followed me, Brother Ledbán. Do you wish to talk with me?”

“I want you to know that the Venerable Connla was a brilliant man.”

“I think most of Christendom knows that,” she replied solemnly.

“Most of Christendom does not know that the Venerable Connla hungered for truth no matter if the truth was unpalatable to them.”

“Veritas vos liberabit. The truth shall make you free,” Fidelma quoted from the vellum in her marsupium.

“That was his very motto,” Brother Ledbán agreed. “He should have remembered the corollary to that-veritas odium parit.”

Fidelma’s eyes narrowed slightly.

“I have heard that said. Truth breeds hatred. Was Connla getting near a truth that caused hatred?”

“I think so.”

“Among the brethren?”

“Among certain of our community at St. Martin’s,” agreed Brother Ledbán.

“Perhaps you should tell me what you know.”

“I know little but what little I know, I shall impart to you.”

Fidelma sat down on a fallen tree trunk and motioned Brother Ledbán to sit next to her.

“I understand that the Venerable Connla must have been working on a new text of philosophy?”

“He was. Why I know it is because I am a scribe and the Delbatóir of the community. I would often sharpen Connla’s quills for him or seek out new ones. I would mix his inks. As Delbatóir it was my task to make the metal covers that would enshrine and protect the books.”

Fidelma nodded. Many books considered worthy of note were either enshrined in metal boxes or had finely covered plates of gold or silver, some encrusted with jewels, sewn on to their leather covers. This was a special art, the casting of such plates called a cumtach, and the task fell to the one appointed a Delbatóir, which meant a framer or fashioner.

“We sometimes worked closely and Connla would often say to me that truth was the philosopher’s food but was often bitter to the taste. Most people preferred the savory lie.”

“Who was he annoying by his truth?”

“To be frank, Sister, he was annoying himself. I went into his chamber once, where he had been poring over some texts in the old writing. .”

“In Ogham?”

“In Ogham. Alas, I have not the knowledge of it to be able to decipher the ancient alphabet. But he suddenly threw the text from him and exclaimed: ‘Alas! The value of the well is not known until it has dried up!’ Then he saw me and smiled and apologized for his temper. But temper was not really part of that wise old man, Sister. It was more a sadness than a temper.”

“A sadness at what he was reading?”

“A sadness at what he was realizing through his great knowledge.”

“I take it that you do not believe in Father Máilín’s story of the itinerant thieves?” she suddenly asked.

He glanced swiftly at her.

“I am not one to point a finger of accusation at any one individual. The bird has little affection that deserts its own brood.”

“There is also an old saying, that one bird flies away from every brood. However, I am not asking you to desert your own brood but I am asking you to help in tracking down the person responsible for the Venerable Connla’s death.”

“I cannot betray that person.”

“Then you do know who it was?”