Chalice of Blood

identified it as Brother Donnchad’s, but was also able to prove this by the particular way letters were formed, by showing us writings received from Brother Donnchad as example.

‘Donnchad wrote an entreaty that the chalice be removed from him. What chalice? The chalice of his knowledge. Brother Donnchad had also written Deicide several times; he was not referring to the Jews killing the Christ but to himself, to his own research, which was killing his Faith. He knew what was happening and he used the words written in the gospel of Luke when even Jesus doubted: “Father, if you be willing, remove this chalice from me …’ It was to be a bitter chalice for Brother Donnchad.

‘Brother Donnán also tried to lead us away from the books Donnchad was researching. Then he discovered that the original book by Celsus was in Fhear Maighe. By coincidence, theabbey of Ard Mór had asked and paid for a copy of it, having read Origenes’ answer to it, which this abbey had lent them after Brother Donnchad had read it. A messenger arrived at the library with the news that the copy was ready and that it would be sent by barge. As the physician, Brother Seachlann, was going to Ard Mór, he volunteered to take the message. Brother Donnán overheard this and even wrote down the titles of the books. However, he thought it was the original that Fhear Maighe was sending. He passed that information on to someone on the barge, who arranged for it to be attacked and the copy stolen.’

There was a deathly hush in the great room. Everyone was sitting spellbound.

‘The attack on the barge was made to appear as if men from the Uí Liatháin carried it out. I will explain why, in a moment.’

Uallachán and Cumscrad stirred uneasily in their seats but they made no comment.

‘Brother Donnán’s accomplice, or should I say the person who was the main instigator of all these events, then learned that Fhear Maighe still had the original of Celsus’s work. An attack on the library to destroy this copy and, indeed, to kill the librarian who might have read the work was arranged.

‘Why were you involved, Brother Donnán?’ Fidelma asked the scriptor. ‘You have been at this abbey a long time. I suppose you have pride in your library, your scriptorium, and pride in the abbey which you hoped would become one of the great teaching abbeys of Christendom. Did you fear that if a scholar of Brother Donnchad’s merit declared his doubts, it would destroy your ambitions for the abbey and tarnish the reputation you took such pride in?’

Brother Donnán resumed his seat and folded his hands before him. He was shaking his head. His face was set, his mouthcompressed into a firm line.

‘You will not tell us who the instigator was in all this?’ Fidelma shrugged and turned towards Abbot Iarnla. ‘Who, more than most, wanted to protect the reputation of this abbey and make it, as I have said, renowned for its Faith and learning throughout Christendom? Who wanted this abbey to rise as a great monument to the Faith that would last forever?’

Many in the refectorium were now looking with open hostility at Brother Lugna, while a few were casting suspicious glances at Abbot Iarnla.

‘Who,’ declared Fidelma, speaking in a slow, deliberate tone, ‘has the ultimate power here?’

The eyes of all the brethren now focused on the abbot. Abbot Iarnla stared at her for a moment, and then his eyes suddenly widened. An expression of horror crossed his face and he turned to look at Lady Eithne. Everyone followed his gaze.

‘This is a scandalous accusation!’ she declared, immobile in her seat. ‘Am I being accused of killing my own son? I cannot and will not stand for it.’

‘Did you kill your son, Lady Eithne?’ asked Fidelma coldly.

‘I loved my son. Anyway, it would have been physically impossible for me to do what is claimed here. There was only one key to the cell, which was found by my son’s body in the locked cell after I had left him on that final visit when Brother Lugna called me to the abbey.’

‘You had another key made,’ Fidelma asserted flatly.

‘How could I have done that?’

‘Simple. I had overlooked that you made two visits to his cell. Brother Lugna told us about the day.’ She turned to Brehon Aillín. ‘Brother Donnchad disappeared for a day but came back in the evening and locked himself in his chamber. That was four days before his death. Brother Lugna told me that he sent for Lady Eithne the next day and she came and saw him. Thatwas three days before his death, and later that same day Donnchad went to the scriptorium. Brother Máel Eoin remembered that he was upset because he had mislaid his pólaire, the wax tablet for making notes. He had not mislaid it, Lady Eithne had taken it during her visit.’

‘Why would I take his notebook?’

‘You pressed the key into it so that the shape of it was made in the wax. Donnchad was too preoccupied to notice your actions, or maybe you distracted him somehow. You took the tablet out concealed in your robes. I saw that you had your own smith at your fortress. It was easy to get him to make a key from the impression. The original key never left the cell. When I handled it later, when Brother Gilla-na-Naomh showed it to me, it was still slippery with wax.’

‘That is true,’ declared Brother Gilla-na-Naomh.

Lady Eithne’s mouth thinned.

‘You returned to see Donnchad on the day of his death. You returned specifically to kill him. After you had killed him, thrown the papers and books through the window to your accomplice, Brother Donnán, you were able to exit his chamber, leaving his key by his body. You locked the door with your newly made key. It was realising that you made two visits that put everything in perspective for me.’

In the brief moment of silence that followed, Brother Lugna cried out, ‘I was not involved in any of this!’

‘In a way, you are the person mainly responsible for this,’ Fidelma replied harshly. ‘Oh, you will not be found guilty of the killing nor of conspiracy to kill, but you were the malign influence over that woman,’ she indicated Lady Eithne. Then she turned back to the Brehon. ‘She had developed a fierce pride in the Faith. That pride increased when she encountered Brother Lugna and she saw in him the means to build up this abbey as a shrine to her sons Donnchad and Cathal. But Cathalchose to remain in Tarentum as its Bishop. Only Brother Donnchad had returned here. So this was to be his shrine, a beacon for the Faith, as she called it. But, to her horror, her son was having doubts about the very fundamentals of the Faith. He was even researching and writing an essay on the matter. That could not be allowed.’

Fidelma addressed Lady Eithne again. ‘Who could you turn to to stop your son ruining your great plans for the abbey and, by association, your self-aggrandisement? Brother Lugna was actually too pious. I suspect he also thought he was making a shrine for himself. But you knew the scriptor was proud of the abbey, proud of the library that he had built up, and proud of its reputation. So you drew him into the plan, the plan to take the documents your son had gathered and to destroy them and any trace of writings that questioned the Faith.’

‘I was not told that she was going to kill Brother Donnchad,’ Brother Donnán suddenly said, loudly and clearly. ‘I would not have agreed to that.’

‘Shut up, you fool!’ cried Lady Eithne.

‘By the time Brother Donnán knew Donnchad had been killed, he was too involved and too frightened to do anything but continue as Lady Eithne’s accomplice.’ Fidelma looked at the librarian. ‘What did you do with the books and papers Lady Eithne threw from the chamber?’

‘As you said, I gathered them up and later took them to Lady Eithne’s fortress.’

‘You met Brother Gáeth along the way and said you were simply taking books from the library to her. But how were you able to alert her about the copy of Celsus’s book at Fhear Maighe just as we were setting off there?’

‘I was on the road outside the abbey, on my way to see Lady Eithne, when I saw Glassán riding off on some errand. Hepaused long enough to tell me that Brother Lugna had just seen Cumscrad and was in a rage, for he had learned that the library at Fhear Maighe held the Celsus book. I knew Lady Eithne would be interested.’

‘Interested to send her warriors to Fhear Maighe. So all Brother Donnchad’s papers are now destroyed?’

Brother Donnán shrugged.

‘One thing that Lady Eithne and Brother Donnán did not know,’ Fidelma said to Brehon Aillín,