Fidelma was moving quietly, keeping to the middle of the corridor to avoid the chests and standing vases that fringed the walls. Thus it was that when the figure seemed to leap from nowhere into her path, she had warning enough to move to avoid a collision.
The figure halted a moment and seemed to cower back. It was clear that whoever it was had not seen Fidelma’s approach, but had come rushing from a side door, beyond which a flickering candlelight spread a little illumination.
It was Fidelma who recovered first and recognised the features distorted by the blending of the half- light.
‘Iuna? I am sorry that I gave you a start.’ She then became aware of the strange posture of the girl, her visible trembling. ‘What is the matter?’
The girl did not respond but looked silently back into the room from which she had just come.
At first, Fidelma could see nothing; frowning, she walked into the room. A dancing light emanated from a candle on a table beside a bed. A figure lay on the bed, something projecting from its chest, around which spread a dark, shining substance. It was the handle of a knife.
Fidelma moved forward and looked down.
Abbot Maelcar, of the abbey of the Blessed Gildas, was dead. He had been stabbed through the heart.
Chapter Ten
A group of very worried people were huddled in the great hall as the grey light of dawn crept through the windows. Riwanon, attended by Ceingar, sat moodily before the smouldering wood fire, while a male servant tried to coax it into bright flames. Iuna stood sullenly to one side, still wearing a gown stained with the blood of the Abbot. Fidelma was standing opposite the Queen while Eadulf and Brother Metellus stood nervously by the table. Budic, fully dressed and looking relaxed and refreshed, was perched on the edge of the table, one leg swinging, wearing his perpetual grin. They had been in silence for some time while the male servant was attending to the fire. Finally, Riwanon let out a long sigh of impatience.
‘That’s enough!’ she told him. ‘We can attend to it ourselves. You may go.’
The man bobbed his head in acknowledgement and seemed glad to leave the room.
Riwanon gazed from Fidelma to Iuna and then back again.
‘Well, my sister of Hibernia? What now? You told me yesterday that you were adept at making enquiries into unnatural deaths. I ask for your advice. In fact, I now commission you to investigate this murder and am resolved to abide by your finding. You have my word.’
‘I thank you for the confidence you have shown me, lady,’ Fidelma said. ‘But I am a stranger in a strange land. I do not know your laws nor am I qualified to interpret them.’
‘I do not ask you to do so,’ Riwanon told her. ‘I ask you to find out who is responsible for this crime and then we shall sort out the laws to apply.’
‘Very well. Perhaps you will allow me to begin by ascertaining some facts?’
Riwanon made a quick gesture with her hand that implied consent, and said, ‘It is better than we make ourselves comfortable, so you may all be seated. You as well, Iuna.’
The stewardess started nervously and then sank obediently into the nearest chair.
Everyone turned to look expectantly at Fidelma.
‘Let me start with you, Iuna,’ she began, not unkindly. ‘You told me that you chanced by the Abbot’s room and found him thus. How came you there at such an hour?’
There was a sound from Budic — a curious cynical grunt — and Riwanon glared at him. The warrior grimaced as if in apology and was quiet.
‘It is my task to rise early and ensure that all is prepared for the day in this household,’ Iuna stated. ‘I have to see that the servants have brought water in, that it is ready to heat and that the fires have been rekindled, where they have been allowed to die during the night. I have to see there is enough fuel for the day. There are many things to be done.’
‘That explains why you were up at such an hour, but not how you came to be in the Abbot’s room.’
‘My room is adjacent to the lady Trifina’s room for, when she is staying here, I am appointed her personal attendant and I am so placed that she can call upon my services when she requires.’
‘And Trifina’s room is where?’
‘At the far end of the corridor. I left my room and was making my way along the corridor…’
‘Without a candle?’ Fidelma asked sharply. ‘You did not have one when I came upon you.’
‘The candle in the Abbot’s room was mine.’
‘So what happened? Tell us in your own words. You came along the corridor…’
‘As I was about to pass the Abbot’s room I heard a noise, the sound of a groan. Believing the Abbot might be ill, I paused and knocked on the door. There was no response. I saw that it was slightly ajar and so I pushed it open.’
‘Ajar?’ Fidelma interjected. ‘Not closed?’
‘Ajar,’ confirmed the girl.
‘Continue.’
‘I pushed it open and called to ask the Abbot if he was ailing or required anything. There was no response.’
‘No groan?’
‘No sound at all. I raised my candle and entered the room. I saw the Abbot lying still on the bed. I think I spoke again, asking if he was all right, but there was no reply. I moved across to the bed, put down my candle and bent over him. I felt something hard as I did so…it was the handle of the knife protruding from his chest. I felt blood on my dress. I turned and fled the room in panic…’
‘And nearly collided with me,’ Fidelma ended. ‘Now tell me, you say that you heard him groan before you entered the room?’
‘I did.’
‘Perhaps it was his last dying breath,’ offered Budic. His eyes were focused at some point on the ceiling and he did not see Fidelma’s irritated glance at his interruption.
‘One presumes,’ she continued, ‘with such a wound that it would have been the cause of an almost instantaneous death. However, you heard nothing else — no sound of anyone leaving the room by another exit? For surely the killer must have been in the room.’
‘There is a window,’ the girl replied quietly.
‘So when you entered the room,’ Fidelma went on, ‘did you observe if the window was open?’
‘No, but there is a sheer drop below it.’
‘The door was ajar, you say. Had you seen any movement, anyone coming from the Abbot’s room as you came along the corridor?’
The girl shook her head. ‘I saw nothing else. I saw no one leave the room as I approached along the corridor.’
‘Now this window in the room,’ reflected Fidelma. ‘I examined it. It was closed.’
‘So we have a mystery again,’ Riwanon intervened. ‘How did this killer leave the bedside of the murdered Abbot? Could someone from the outside have entered the fortress?’
Fidelma gave a thin smile.
‘I have already asked Boric, who I took the precaution of summoning through Iuna, to examine the area and grounds adjacent to see if there was any sign of any egress or exit.’
‘And therefore…?’ came Riwanon’s prompt.
‘There is none. Whoever killed the Abbot knew the way in and out of his room. Also, they must have known which bedchamber he had been assigned.’
Iuna shifted nervously in her chair.
‘Which means?’ demanded Riwanon.
‘The conclusion, according to Iuna’s statement,’ Fidelma went on, ‘can only be that the killer left in the
