A MASS FOR THE DEAD (6 page)

“There, that will be fine then, Muirteach,” said my uncle. “You can take the small boat, it is easy enough for one person to row, and you can just be dropping Mariota off near Sheena’s on your way to the Priory. It would be best to leave early,” he added, “with the tides as they are tomorrow.”

For myself, I was wishing the Beaton had never brought his daughter with him, for all the opinions she had and all the complications she was causing. I had been hoping to sleep well into the morning the next day.

“Aye,” I agreed, my mood and my exhaustion showing on my face. I wanted sleep badly. In fact, I was feeling too tired to walk down the hill to my own house, and intended to spend the night in my uncle’s hall. “I will drop you near her dwelling—you can see the way to it easy enough from the shore. You’ll not be worried to walk back from there? I‘ve no way of knowing how long I’ll be at the Priory.”

Mariota gave me a scathing look, but said only that that would suit. My uncle took the Beaton towards the byre, where the horses were stabled, wanting his advice on a sickly colt. I left them and returned to the Hall, where I lay down on one of the benches and promptly fell fast asleep.

* * * * *

Early enough the next morning I watched Mariota gather her satchel together, full of jars of salves and small bottles of tinctures, and we left Dun Evin, heading towards the bay at Scalasaig, before the sun had risen high in the east.

I missed my footing on the way down, the path slippery with mud and dew. Mariota glanced at me, but did not speak of my infirmity, for which I found myself to be thankful. I can just remember running as a small boy, before the wasting fever that came and then left me with the twisted leg, a cripple. Now I only run in my dreams.

“There is a well up that way,” I said, nodding towards the path that led northward. “A healing well, of Brigit’s.” It was a poor effort at conversation, but was all I could think of to say to her. Perhaps she did not know of it.

It seemed she knew of it, for she replied, “I have heard of it. I shall visit it, before we leave.”

We walked a bit further in silence. She matched her stride to mine, without comment, although I am sure she could have walked a bit faster on her own. She had that scent of elderflower about her again, that same perfume I had noticed yesterday morning on Islay. It was some feminine potion or cream she used, I guessed.

“You grew up in Islay?” I finally asked, feeling tongue tied and awkward.

“Aye.” Her voice sounded like nothing so much as the silver bells the old stories say tinkled in Rhiannon’s hair. “We live most of the time in Balinaby, but have a house at Finlaggan where we stay when His Lordship is wanting us.”

“And your mother?”

“She died in the plague.”

We had something in common then, for my own mother had died in the plague as well, when I was but five, but for some reason I did not tell Mariota this. Conversation faltered as we approached the harbor and I readied the boat.

The sun was just rising over Jura, across the waters. The day would soon be growing warmer, and as I began to row us around the island and towards the south end of Colonsay, the water and the islands looked all silver and shimmer in the light, what with the sun shining through the clouds. I heard the splash of seals diving into the water as we neared the beach by the path leading to Sheena’s, but more seals lay idly on the black rocks and stared curiously at us. I wondered if they were selkies but, whatever, they had their sealskins on this day.

We did not talk much as I rowed. For myself, I was enjoying the morning, although I felt unaccountably shy around Mariota. For some reason I resented this a bit, while at the same time I did not want the trip to end. All too soon we rounded the point and neared the channel to Oronsay.

I had brought the boat into the shallow water, pointed out the path up the rocks and was getting ready to beach the craft, but Mariota stopped me, saying there was no need. She hiked up her skirts, showing a fair bit of lovely white legs as she did so, then disembarked, wading the short distance through the shallow water into the shore. I watched her until she gained the shore, waved, and started up the track, her yellow hair glinting pale gold in the morning sun, and the linen of her shift clinging against her wet legs.

* * * * *

I beached the boat near the Priory and shuddered. It was the thought of my father’s corpse, lying in state in the Chapel, I supposed. Although, truth to tell, I had never liked the Priory, the noise of the constant construction and the feeling I always had of my father looking over my shoulder, judging me, and finding me wanting. I was glad to have left it seven years ago, when it had become apparent I would never make a monk. But the brothers had taught me reading and writing, and I was grateful enough to them for that. The letters I wrote now for Uncle Gillespic earned me a few coins.

And where should I be starting here, then? Columbanus, Sheena’s brother, might be the most obvious person to speak with first. At this time of day I guessed he would be tending to his duties in the bake-house, so I headed there. But before I reached it Brother Gillecristus, the sub-prior, saw me, as he left the chapel and headed towards the cloisters.

“Och, Muirteach, it is yourself. And have you come to pay your respects to your poor father?”

Gillecristus’s eyes and his long nose were red. He was closer to my father’s age than mine, and had been at the Priory as long as I could remember. He was a MacNeill, from Barra. My father’s close friend, he stood fair to become the next Prior.

“I did so yesterday,” I said, somewhat curtly. “But His Lordship himself is wanting to know who has done this thing, and has appointed me to find out—“

“And surely that is most proper,” Gillecristus interjected piously, “you being his son and all that.”

I tried to ignore him, and continued on, “I will be needing a chamber, someplace quiet, where I can be speaking with the brothers privately.”

“But you are surely not thinking that someone from our community—“

His smugness irritated me. “And whyever not, Brother?” I asked. “I know well enough how holy you all are here. But His Lordship has requested it, for he must have something to tell the King and the Holy Father, and so…”

Brother Gillecristus paled, then his nose reddened. His Lordship, John of the Isles, had founded the Priory some twenty years ago here on Oronsay, where before there had only been a small community of culdees. In addition His Lordship funded all the new construction here, which was extensive. It would not do to be angering him, at all.

Gillecristus snapped his mouth tight shut a moment before he answered.

“Very well,” he finally agreed, without any more argument. “I shall see what we can be finding you. Perhaps the chapter house, or that old hut to the east…”

I let him deal with it, and it was soon enough that I was ensconced in the chapter house, with pen, parchment, and even a candle, although the room was bright enough from the sunbeams, which found their way in through the slit windows. A young novice was assigned to be my messenger and I asked him to fetch me Columbanus. He arrived soon enough, dusting flour off of his habit as he entered the doorway, blinking as his eyes adjusted to the dimmer light inside.

Columbanus looked little enough like his sister, his eyes a paler and more watery blue than hers, and his hair, where his tonsure had grown out a little, a sandy color. His face was softer and rounder than his brothers’ or his sister’s, and I guessed that he sampled a bit too much of his own baking.

He had been sent to the Priory as a young boy, and had been there when I had arrived as a child. His age was a few years older than mine. It had never occurred to me to wonder about where he had come from, or what his family had been; Columbanus had simply been part of the priory life, a fixture of it.

An image came to me suddenly, of the young Columbanus crying, sniffling in the dormitory when he thought no one could see him. His tears had bothered me, and I had never liked him much, for all that I had often felt like crying myself there. He had seemed to be a great favorite of my father’s, when he was younger, and perhaps that was why I had not liked him. For truth to tell, with both of us being young and miserable, you would think that we would have enjoyed each other’s company.

But that had all been long ago, and now Columbanus was still a monk, while I was here to question him.

He said little but stood by the doorway, still brushing the flour off his clothing in a nervous way, although I could not see that much of it remained. I felt awkward but, as he did not speak, eventually I did.

“I have been to see your sister.”

He started at that, and glanced at me with his watery blue eyes.

“Sheena?”

“Aye, unless you’ve another I am not knowing of.”

“No. She is the only one.”

“And with a nasty bruise on her cheek as well. Would you be knowing anything about that?”

“She had it when I went to see her, the morning after—the morning after the Prior was found.”

I heard the hesitation in his voice and wondered what it meant. Why did he hesitate to speak of it? Because the Prior was my father? Simply because the dead man had been the leader of this priory? Or some other reason?

“So you are not knowing how she was hurt?”

“Ask her yourself.”

“I did. But she was not telling me.”

“Mayhap she walked into a post. Sheena was always clumsy, even as a young lass.”

I let that pass, although I was not thinking that she had gotten that bruise by anything other than a fist.

“And so, whatever, that was not my reason for coming here, to ask about your sister and her bruises,” I lied. “I must be finding out where everyone was the night Prior Crispinus was murdered. Sheena was saying you were bringing her the news of it aye early that next day. Where were you that night?”

“Where I always am, Muirteach, at Compline and Matins and Lauds. And asleep in the dormitory in between hours. You can ask the others.”

“And you are knowing nothing of why anyone would want the Prior dead?”

A shadow passed over Columbanus’s face, tightening the softness of his features and twisting them for a moment. “No more than you do yourself,” he replied.

“You were not hearing anyone leave the dormitory that night?”

“No.”

“And how was it you were getting permission to see Sheena the next morning?”

“I did not ask. I just left.”

I nodded to that. A much simpler way, all told, with the Priory in chaos with the murder. No doubt his dough had risen well enough without him there to watch it, for the time it took him to go see his sister and return.

“Did you see the body before you left?”

“Aye.”

“And who would be hating him enough to do that?”

“I am not knowing, Muirteach,” he said, and I could hear the anger rising in his voice. “Are you? For sure it is you never liked him much, yourself, nor did he treat you so kindly.”

My own anger rose to meet his, but I bit my tongue, trying to keep it in check. The quill of my pen splintered against the parchment and it took me some time to sharpen another, while Columbanus remained standing.

“I had not seen my father much lately, Columbanus,” I said finally, when I could speak. “Although true enough it is that we did not get on well together. I have been gone from here for some long time, and things may have changed somewhat, in seven years. So it was just wondering, I was, if you knew of any with reason to want him dead.”

“Rather ask who did not have reason,” muttered Columbanus, under his breath, but I heard him.

“What are you meaning by that?”

“I meant nothing by it,” he denied, “just that he was strict here at the monastery.”

Despite further questioning Columbanus refused to say more on it and eventually, stymied, I sent him back to his bake-house.

I had no notion whom to speak with next, but then I thought of Brother Donal. I had been close to him in my years here; he was blessed with a heart warm enough for even an angry lad, and a tongue that was difficult to stop, once he started talking. I asked my novice to fetch him for me, from his work in the library.

Donal looked the much same, the hair of his tonsure sticking up in that same disorderly fashion I remembered. His dark, lean face lit with pleasure when he saw me. “Och Muirteach,” he exclaimed, “it is yourself then. I was hearing that His Lordship wanted you to find out who has done this thing.”

I wondered again at the speed with which news travels on these islands.

He paused and looked at me closely a moment before his next words. “It’s right sorry I am about your father, Muirteach, for all I am knowing he was none so close to you.“

“Aye, we were not close, Donal. But I thank you.”

“And a sore loss it will be to our community, as well. He gave good enough guidance throughout these years. Although, like all of us, he must have had his sins. Blessed be his soul,” he added, crossing himself.

Donal’s way of seeing the good in everyone did not blind him to their faults, and to my thinking he would have made a good prior himself. A better one, perhaps, than my father, but Donal preferred his work among the parchment and the books and had no higher ambitions. Donal had taught me my letters, my reading and my writing, and we had grown close in the years I had lived at the Priory.

I let Donal talk, and it was soon enough that I had found out the latest news of the Priory. It always surprises me what a bunch of gossiping fools an isolated community of canons can be. The sacristan, Brother Aidan, had been chastised at a recent chapter meeting for neglecting his duties, as he had fallen asleep and neglected to set out the vestments for Matins. Brother Moloug, who ran the brew-house, had had a disagreement with Brother Padraic, who kept the bees, and one of the masons had gotten into a shouting match with Gillecristus, who had accused them of shoddy and careless work on the new addition to the west range. But at first thought of it, all seemed much as usual, nothing so extreme as would occasion the murder of the Prior.

“Although there was one thing,” Donal added. “Gillecristus and your father argued the day before your father died, something over the construction on the new range. I am thinking it was that Gillecristus wanted the head mason removed, saying the man’s work was slip-shod, and your father did not, seeing as the man was his kin. It is that Calum Glas, from over near Loch Fada, that was who the man was. And then shortly after that one of the scaffolds collapsed and young Tormod was injured. A sad thing, and now they are saying that he will not be holding a hammer or a chisel again soon, as he was badly bruised and some bones in his hand are broken.