The Council of the Cursed

Chapter Eleven

They entered the scriptorium to find Brother Sigeric ready and waiting for them in the darkness. They stood together without speaking for a long while, listening until they were assured that slumber had overtaken the brethren of the abbey and all was quiet. Then Brother Sigeric lit a lantern.

‘Do you have the plan of the Domus Femini?’ Fidelma asked, keeping her voice to a whisper.

The young scribe nodded and produced the piece of papyrus, which he spread on the table. He quickly explained to Fidelma how to follow the route to what had been Sister Valretrade’s quarters.

‘The plan is as accurate as I can make it,’ Brother Sigeric went on. ‘I told you that Valretrade’s chamber was across the courtyard almost opposite mine and we used to signal one another by candlelight. In order to help you, I have left a candle alight in my window. You can check that, and when you are directly opposite then you should be in Valretrade’s chamber. Now, come with me and I will show you the entrance to the Domus Femini.’

‘A moment, Brother,’ intervened Eadulf as a thought occurred to him. ‘You say this passage is used by the members of the women’s community to come to the chapel?’

‘Don’t worry.’ Brother Sigeric understood what was on his mind. ‘No one will be about now. Anyway, it is not really a passage, as you shall see. It is a way through a maze of underground vaults. There are plenty of areas where one could hide if anyone did come along unexpectedly.’

‘It is too late to start worrying about discovery now,’ Fidelma told Eadulf. ‘Let us go.’

Brother Sigeric extinguished his lantern. From the scriptorium they went out into the moonlit courtyard which separated the main abbey building from the chapel. Crossing the courtyard, the moon was bright enough to guide them. It was obvious that Brother Sigeric knew the way and at one stage Fidelma whispered to him not to proceed so quickly. Inside the chapel, he paused. There was a small light burning by the door which was always left alight as a symbol of the eternal spirit. Brother Sigeric simply took the candle from his lantern and lit it again before proceeding to a door at the rear of the chapel. He pulled back a bolt, swiftly and silently. The door opened onto a flight of wooden steps, which plunged into utter blackness below. Here he bade Fidelma and Eadulf halt while he moved down into the darkness. They could hear him descend until they saw only a wisp of light. A few moments later, he returned with the comforting glow of the lantern.

‘All is clear-come on.’ Holding the lantern high, Brother Sigeric motioned them to follow him downwards but not before asking Eadulf to draw the door closed behind him.

At the foot of the stairs they paused.

The smell was of that curious mixture of earth and decay that Fidelma associated with the catacombs of Rome where she had been lucky to survive. It was very cold and damp.

‘They say that before the abbey was built, this was an old necropolis of Augustodunum, the burial place of the Romans,’ explained Brother Sigeric in a whisper.

The area was not completely dark. In the gloom they could see arches and pillars spreading every few metres, supporting the vaulted roof above them. Among these were tombs, some made of marble and others of stone.

‘How far does this underground world spread?’ asked Eadulf with a shiver.

‘It seems to spread under the whole abbey,’ replied Brother Sigeric. ‘Come, follow me.’

He set off through the maze of arches and tombs, moving with confidence, having trodden the path many times, and appeared unconcerned at the various deceptive side turns and byways. Fidelma quickly realised that if they did not have a guide, they would be hopelessly lost in moments.

‘Are there only two entrances and exits from this dark maze?’ she asked. ‘I have never seen the like of this outside the catacombs of Rome.’

‘There is a third exit, but that is all,’ Brother Sigeric said.

‘Where does that lead? Is it still part of the abbey?’

‘It leads to a small tunnel under the walls of the city itself; an exit to the south west. In the old days, when all the nobles lived in the city, it used to be an escape route south to the great forests if the city was under attack.’

‘Is it still used?’

‘Not since I have been in the abbey. I have seen it, of course. All the bolts are on the inner side of the doors so that no one can enter without having someone with foreknowledge on this side of the door.’

Eadulf looked apprehensively around into the gloom. There seemed a faint light emanating from somewhere but he could not locate it. Brother Sigeric saw his wandering gaze and realised what he was looking for.

‘There is a faint light that issues through the vaults. It seems to come from some of the rocks that were in the roof of the original caverns. A sort of phosphorus, I think.’

‘And was Sister Valretrade ever concerned about coming alone to a place such as this to meet with you?’ Eadulf demanded, awe-struck at the magnitude of the vast vaults.

‘She knew the route well, so she was not worried. However, it was simpler for me to meet with her on the far side, which I will show you shortly.’

‘I was thinking,’ begun Eadulf, ‘as you were not there to meet her, that night when Dabhóc was killed, was there a possibility that she could have set off to come into the chapel, but that her candle blew out and she lost her way in the darkness?’

It was a grim thought but he felt it had to be voiced. However, Brother Sigeric dismissed it immediately.

‘There is no way. She knew the place too well. Also, we met by a special spot. If either of us went to that spot and the other did not turn up, then we moved a particular stone ornament so that the other might know we had been there. Then we returned to our chambers to rearrange our meeting. We had agreed never to go beyond that point.’

They had reached an area in which there seemed a series of small side rooms; in each of them was some sort of very ornate sarcophagus: Brother Sigeric halted before one of the rooms and motioned them inside.

‘This is where we met, and you see that little statuette there?’ He pointed to a miniature statuette of a little man with the legs of a goat and horns on his head, holding a set of pipes. Fidelma thought she had seen something similar before in Rome. ‘We used to place that on one side of the sarcophagus or the other to indicate that we had come here but not found the other. Of course, that did not happen often.’

He led them from the mausoleum and a short distance to where another flight of stone stairs ascended.

‘The doorway at the top leads directly into the Domus Femini,’ he told Fidelma, taking from his pocket a candle, which he handed to her. ‘You should not need this but if you do, use it only in an emergency. Valretrade told me that Abbess Audofleda allows the corridors to be lit with lanterns here and there. That can be a good thing or a bad thing. If you meet anyone…well, let us hope that they are all asleep.’

Fidelma silently admitted that she shared that hope.

‘I wish you’d let me come with you,’ Eadulf urged.

She shook her head immediately. ‘Don’t be silly. If I did run into anyone, it would be hopeless to disguise you as one of the Sisters. I will try to bluff them and hope that that works.’

Eadulf did not look convinced.

Fidelma drew out Brother Sigeric’s plan and studied it again.

‘The door above is not locked?’

‘Never to my knowledge,’ Brother Sigeric replied.

‘And it enters at this point, between the storeroom and the kitchen of the Domus Femini?’

‘It does.’

‘Then I shall delay no longer.’

‘We will wait for you here,’ Eadulf assured her.

Brother Sigeric pointed back to the meeting place that he had shown them.

‘We will make ourselves comfortable there until your return. It should not take you long to find the chamber of Inginde and Valretrade.’