The Monk Who Vanished

it. It was still damp. He took his fingertip away and peered at it in the flickering candlelight.

‘Deus misereatur …,’ he whispered. ‘This is blood.’

Brother Madagan did not hide the shiver that passed abruptly through his body.

Abbot Ségdae stood frozen for several moments. It seemed a long time before he stirred himself.

‘Brother Mochta is not here,’ he said, stating the obvious. ‘Go, Brother Madagan, arouse the abbey. We must start a search immediately. There is blood on his mattress, his cell is in disorder and the Holy Relics of Blessed Ailbe are missing. Go, ring the alarm bell for there is evil stalking this abbey this night!’

Chapter Two

The figure of the religieuse paused on the last step, before ascending to the walkway behind the battlements of the fortress, and peered up at the morning sky in disapproval. Her young, attractive features with the rebellious strands of red hair blowing across her forehead, the bright eyes which now mirrored the sombreness of the grey skies, were drawn in an expression of censure as she viewed the morning weather. Then with an almost imperceptible shrug, she took the final step onto the stone walkway which surrounded the interior of the towering walls of the fortress that was also the palace of the Kings of Muman, the largest and most south- westerly kingdom of Eireann.

Cashel rose, almost threateningly, some two hundred feet on a great limestone peak which dominated the plains around it. The only approach to it was by a steep road from the market town which had grown up in its shadow. There were many buildings on the rock as well as the palace of the Kings of Muman. Sharing the rock was a great church, the cathedra or seat of the bishop of Cashel, a tall circular building, for most churches were built in such a fashion, with its connecting corridors to the palace. There was a system of stables, outhouses, hostels for visitors and quarters for the bodyguard of the King as well as a monastic cloister for the religious who served the cathedral.

Sister Fidelma moved with a youthful agility that seemed at odds with her calling in life. Her religious habit did nothing to conceal her tall but well proportioned figure. With an easy gait she moved to the battlement, leaning against it, and continued her study of the skies. She felt a slight shiver catch her as a cold wind gusted across the buildings. It was obvious that it had rained sometime during the night for there was an atmosphere of dampness in the air and there was a slight silver sheen across the more shaded fields below which showed the early morning light sparkling on droplets of water.

The weather was unusual. St Matthew’s Day, which heralded the autumn equinox by the first morning frosts and a drop in night temperature, had not yet arrived. The usually fine daytime weather of the month was chill. The sky was covered in a uniform grey layerof cloud and there was only a faint brightness as, now and then, the sun tried to penetrate it. It was a troubled sky. The clouds lay thick across the tops of the mountains to the south-west, on the far side of the interceding valley where the broad ribbon of the River Suir twisted its way from north to south.

Fidelma turned from her examination and, as she did so, espied an elderly man standing a short distance from her. He, too, was apparently meditating on the morning sky. With a smile of greeting, she walked to where the old man stood.

‘Brother Conchobar! You wear a mournful look this day,’ she exclaimed brightly, for Fidelma was not one to let the weather dictate her moods.

The old religieux raised his long face to Fidelma and grimaced sadly.

‘Well I might. It is not an auspicious day today.’

‘A cold one, I grant you, Brother,’ she replied. ‘Yet the clouds may clear for there is a south-westerly wind, albeit a chill one.’

The old man shook his head, not responding to her bright tone.

‘It is not the clouds that tell me that we should beware this day.’

‘Have you been examining your charts of the heavens, Conchobar?’ chided Fidelma, for she knew that Brother Conchobar was not only the physician at Cashel, whose apothecary stood in the shadow of the royal chapel, he was also an adept at making speculations from the patterns of the stars and spent long, lonely hours in contemplation of the heavens. Indeed, medicine and astrology were often twins in the practice of the physician’s art.

‘Don’t I examine the charts each day?’ replied the old man, his voice still kept to a mournful monotone.

‘As I do recall even from my childhood,’ affirmed Fidelma solemnly.

‘Indeed. I once tried to teach you the art of charting the heavens,’ sighed the old man. ‘You would have made an excellent interpreter of the portents.’

Fidelma grimaced good-naturedly. ‘I doubt it, Conchobar.’

‘Trust me. Did I not study under Mo Chuaróc mac Neth Sémon, the greatest astrologer that Cashel has ever produced?’

‘So you have told me many times, Conchobar. Tell me now, why is this day not an auspicious one?’

‘I fear that evil is abroad this day, Fidelma of Cashel.’

The old man never addressed her by her religious style but always referred to her in the manner denoting that she was the daughter of a king and the sister of a king.

‘Can you identify the evil, Conchobar?’ asked Fidelma with suddeninterest. While she placed no great reliance on astrologers, for it was a science which seemed to rely solely on the ability of the individual, she accepted that much might be learnt from the wisest of them. The study of the heavens, nemgnacht, was an ancient art and most who could afford to do so, had a chart cast for the moment of their children’s birth which was called nemindithib, a horoscope.

‘I cannot be specific, alas. Do you know where the moon is today?’

In a society living so close to nature it would be an ignorant person or a complete fool who did not know the position of the moon.

‘We are on a waning moon, Conchobar. She stands in the house of The Goat.’

‘Indeed, for the moon squares Mercury, conjuncts Saturn and sextiles Jupiter. And where is the sun?’

‘Easy enough, the sun’s in the house of The Virgin.’

‘And is opposed by the moon’s north node. The sun is squared by Mars. And while Saturn is conjunct the moon in Capricorn it is squared by Mercury. And while Jupiter is conjunct the midheaven, Jupiter is squared by Venus.’

‘But what does this mean?’ pressed Fidelma, intrigued, and trying to follow what he was saying from her meagre knowledge of the art.

‘It means that no good will come of this day.’

‘For whom?’

‘Has your brother, Colgú, left the castle yet?’

‘My brother?’ frowned Fidelma in surprise. ‘He left before first light to meet the Prince of the Uí Fidgente, at the Well of Ara as arranged, in order to escort him here. Do you see danger for my brother?’ She was suddenly anxious.

‘I cannot say.’ The old man spread his arms in a negative gesture.

‘I am not sure. The danger may apply to your brother, although, if this be so, and harm approaches him, whoever causes that harm will not be triumphant in the end. That is all I can say.’

Fidelma looked at him in disapproval.

‘You say too much or too little, Brother. It is wrong to stir up someone’s anxieties but not tell them sufficient in order to act to dispel that anxiety.’

‘Ah, Fidelma, isn’t there a saying that a silent mouth is most melodious? It is easier for me not to say anything and let the stars follow their courses rather than try to wrest their secrets from them.’

‘You have vexed me, Brother Conchobar. Now I shall worry until my brother’s safe return.’

‘I am sorry that I have put this worry before you, Fidelma of Cashel. I pray that I am entirely wrong.’

‘Time will tell us that, Brother.’