Act of Mercy (14 page)

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Authors: Peter Tremayne

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BOOK: Act of Mercy

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‘I turned from the cabin and that was when I saw Brother Bairne returning from the head. He went back into our cabin.’

‘Where did you go then?’

‘I checked Sister Crella’s cabin. She was asleep. Then I checked with Sister Ainder and Sister Gormán. Sister Gormán was already awake and dressed.’

‘Did you have an argument with Gormán?’

His features became guarded.

‘Why would I have an argument with her?’

‘Sister Ainder says she was awakened by the sound of it.’

‘Rubbish! Ainder was angry that our voices disturbed her sleep. I then checked the other cabins and everyone was where they should have been, with the exception of Sister Muirgel.’

‘And so?’

‘Then I came to check that you were all right. You were still asleep. Having realised that Sister Muirgel was the only person not in her cabin, I checked the head and the large cabin where we eat. Then I saw the captain, Murchad, and informed him that I could not locate Sister Muirgel. He said that he would search the ship for me and asked the Breton, Gurvan, to do so. When the ship had been searched and Muirgel was found not to be on board, Murchad concluded that she had been swept overboard during the storm. He then asked Gurvan to make a double-check which, as you know, confirmed our worst fears.’

‘And you heard nothing during the night, saw nothing which might provide an explanation of what happened?’

‘It is as I have said, Fidelma.’

She paused thoughtfully.

‘How well did you know Sister Muirgel?’

Cian frowned suspiciously.

‘If you want to know about Sister Muirgel, ask Sister Crella. She was her close friend and they were related.’

‘It is what
you
know that I am keen to discover. You told me that you entered the Abbey of Bangor. I understand that you went to Moville frequently. You would surely have met Muirgel there.’

Cian’s mouth tightened.

‘I ran messages for the Abbot of Bangor and helped in the fruit garden.’

‘Was that how you first met Sister Muirgel, running messages?’

‘As I recall, it was Sister Crella who introduced me.’

‘Did Crella also introduce you to Sister Canair?’

‘Muirgel did. Why?’

‘I merely want to know how you came to be part of this company of pilgrims.’

‘I have already told you.’

‘Tell me again.’

‘I came because I had heard of Mormohec the healer at the Shrine of St James.’

‘So you said. You therefore persuaded Sister Canair to accept you into the pilgrimage which she had organised?’

‘It was hardly organised. This band lacks discipline.’

‘They are pilgrims, Cian, not militia. Yet one thing puzzler me. If Sister Canair was the organiser, why did she fail to come aboard the ship when it set sail?’

‘It is not for me to say. Some people have a habit of lateness. Isn’t there an old proverb that a late man brings trouble on himself? So with women. Perhaps she thought the tides and winds would stop for her.’

‘Are you saying that Sister Canair had a reputation for dilatoriness?’

‘I am not saying that. It is just an observation to explain why she might have missed the sailing.’

‘It is strange, though, that the leader of this party could not even sail with the ship, having led the group all the way from Ulaidh south to Muman.’ Fidelma pressed the point once again.

‘Life is made up of strange occurrences.’

‘Such as poor Sister Muirgel’s untimely demise?’ observed Fidelma softly.

‘I do not see that as strange. Sister Muirgel was a very self-willed woman. Once she had made up her mind to do something, nothing would change it. It was the same when she decided to come on this voyage.’

‘How do you know anyone wanted to change her mind about this voyage?’ Fidelma was interested by his innuendo.

‘After I spoke to her about it and told her that I was going to join Sister Canair’s party,’ replied Cian, unabashed, ‘Sister Muirgel went to see Sister Canair immediately. She persuaded Canair to reject two other Sisters whom she had approved of in order to allow Muirgel and Crella to take their places. Sister Muirgel was very strong in her influence with others.’

Fidelma grew thoughtful.

‘You seem to imply that Sister Muirgel decided to come on this journey only when she knew that
you
were to be part of the company.’

Cian shook his head.

‘I would not say that.’

‘I am now under the impression that Sister Muirgel had more influence in the formation of this pilgrimage than had Sister Canair.’

‘The journey was several weeks in the planning. I suppose Sister Muirgel did attempt to take over the leadership from Sister Canair. She was backed by Sister Crella who always supported her in everything. But Sister Canair was strong also. She was more than a match for the dictates of our missing friend.’

‘You seem to know Sister Muirgel’s faults well.’

‘You learn many things when …’ Cian sought for the right phrase. ‘When travelling with people. You learn about their faults.’

‘You were saying that you did not find her death strange because she was self-willed?’

‘What I meant by that was that she was pig-headed enough to have gone up on deck no matter what advice she had from anyone. Once she made up her mind to do something, she did it.’

Fidelma’s eyes flickered with interest.

‘Did anyone advise her not to go up on deck in the storm?’ she asked quickly.

Cian shook his head.

‘I used that merely as an example. It was what she was like. Now, I have told you all I know on the matter.’

Cian made to turn back along the deck, but Fidelma called him back sharply.

‘One more thing …’

He turned, expectantly.

‘I would like to know more about the circumstances in which your party became separated from Sister Canair. I still can’t quite see how she missed the sailing time and why she did not come on board with the rest of you.’

Cian regarded her uncertainly for a moment.

‘Why are you so interested in Sister Canair when you are investigating how Sister Muirgel came to be swept overboard?’ he countered.

‘Call it my natural curiosity, Cian. You will doubtless remember that, when I was younger, I lacked curiosity until it was awakened in me that I should be more interested in the reasons and motives for people’s behaviour.’

An aggressive expression crossed Cian’s features but it was gone in a second.

‘As I recall, we were separated from Sister Canair before we reached Ardmore,’ he said.

‘Why was that?’

‘We were going to spend the night at St Declan’s Abbey, but Sister Canair left our company about a mile or so from the Abbey.’

‘Why did she leave you?’

‘She told us that she wanted to meet with a friend or relative who lived in that part of the country. She promised that she would join us in the Abbey, where we were to spend the night. She did not join us at the Abbey, however, and when she did not turn up to meet us on the quay at the time appointed for the ship to sail, it was Sister Muirgel
who took charge. She finally achieved what she wanted – control of the group.’

‘Her control did not last long,’ observed Fidelma dryly. ‘Two of your leaders have not enjoyed that office for long. Are you sure that you still want to aspire to such office?’ There was a cynical smile on her lips.

Cian’s features tightened.

‘I don’t know what you mean.’

Fidelma’s smile broadened.

‘Just an observation, that’s all. Thank you for your time and for answering my questions.’

Cian turned to leave again and then hesitated. He raised his good arm in a curiously helpless gesture.

‘Fidelma, we should not be enemies. This bitterness …’

She regarded him disdainfully.

‘I have told you before, Cian, we are not enemies. To be enemies means some feeling remains between us. There is nothing between us now. Not even bitterness.’

Even as she spoke, Fidelma realised that she was lying. Her present contempt for Cian meant that there
was
a feeling there – and she did not like it one bit. If she really had recovered from the hurt he had done to her then, indeed, she would have no feeling at all. That fact worried her more than she cared to admit.

Chapter Eleven

The next person she should question, Fidelma decided, was the Breton mate, Gurvan, who had conducted a thorough search of the ship. She asked Murchad where he might be found, and the captain told her that he was below, ‘caulking’. She did not know what that meant, but Murchad had signalled Wenbrit and instructed the boy to take Fidelma down to where Gurvan was working.

Gurvan was in a forward area of the ship where, it seemed, some stores were kept. It was well forward of the area where the men who formed the crew of
The Barnacle Goose
slung their hammocks, hanging beds of fibre netting suspended by cords at both ends attached to the beams of the ship so that they swung with the motion of the ship. Some of the crew were sleeping, exhausted from having been up most of the night during the storm. Wenbrit wound his way between the hammocks, holding a lantern, and moving into a cabin space filled with boxes and barrels.

Gurvan had shifted some of the boxes in order to get to the side of the ship. He had balanced a lantern on the boxes and was bent with a bucket pushing what looked like mud between the planking. Wenbrit left them, having been assured that Fidelma could find her own way back to the main deck.

Gurvan did not pause in his work and Fidelma crouched down beside him. She noticed that little rivulets of water were streaming here and there through the planking of the vessel and suddenly realised that the sea was on the other side of those planks of wood.

‘Is it dangerous?’ she whispered. ‘Will the sea flood in?’

Gurvan grinned.

‘Bless you, no, lady. Seepage happens to the best of ships, especially after the rough passage we have had. First the storm and then sailing through the Neck back there. It’s a wonder we did not get some of our planks stove in. But this is a good, sturdy vessel. Our planks are fitted carvel style; they’ll hold back most seas.’

‘So what are you doing?’ She did not feel entirely reassured and did not want to admit that she had no clue as to what ‘carvel style’ meant.

‘It’s called caulking, lady.’ He indicated the bucket. ‘Those are hazel leaves. I press them into the joints of the planking and it serves to make the cracks watertight.’

‘It seems so … so flimsy against such turbulent seas.’

‘It’s a tried and trusted method,’ Gurvan assured her. ‘The great ships of our Veneti ancestors went into battle against Julius Caesar similarly caulked. But you did not come down here to ask me about caulking, did you?’

Fidelma reluctantly nodded agreement.

‘No. I just wanted to ask you about your search for Sister Muirgel.’

‘The religieuse who went overboard?’ Gurvan paused and seemed to be examining his work. Then he said: ‘The captain asked me to conduct a search. In a ship twenty-four metres in length there are not too many places where a person can hide, either by accident or intentionally. It soon became apparent that the woman was not on board.’

‘You searched everywhere?’

Gurvan smiled patiently.

‘Everywhere that a person could possibly conceal themselves if they wanted to. I presumed, however, that the woman would not want to, so I did not look in the bilge – that is, the bottom of the ship’s hull, which is usually where the rats, mice and sediments of refuse congregate.’

Fidelma gave an involuntary shiver. Gurvan smiled a little sadistically at her reaction.

‘No, lady, apart from the passenger cabins which had already been searched, I looked everywhere. The only conclusion is that the poor woman went overboard.’

‘Thank you, Gurvan.’ Fidelma rose and made her way back through the ship.

Fidelma had not thought to question Sister Gorman next, but found herself passing the cabin door. She knocked and looked in. Sister Gorman was sitting on her bunk, looking pale and unhappy.

‘Am I disturbing you?’ Fidelma asked as she entered in response to Gormán’s invitation.

‘Sister Fidelma.’ The young girl looked up nervously. ‘I do not mind being disturbed. This voyage is not as I expected it to be.’

‘What did you expect?’ asked Fidelma, taking a seat.

‘Oh.’ The girl paused as if to give the question some thought. ‘I don’t suppose anything is ever as one would expect, but a pilgrimage, a voyage to a shrine wherein lies the body of one who knew the living Christ … surely that should be a momentous journey filled with excitement?’

‘Is this not a journey filled with excitement? I would have thought so, filled as it is with incident.’ Fidelma kept her tone light.

Sister Gorman pursed her lips. Fidelma waited and when there was no response, she altered her tone to one of seriousness, sitting down on a chair near the girl.

‘Obviously, the loss of Sister Muirgel is a sad blow for your party.’

The girl wrinkled her nose distastefully.

‘
Her
!’ she said, summoning in that word an expression of dislike.

Fidelma picked up her tone immediately.

‘I gather that you were not a friend of Sister Muirgel?’

‘I regret that she is dead,’ Sister Gorman responded defensively.

‘But you did not like her?’

‘I do not feel guilty about not liking her.’

‘Has anyone suggested that you should feel guilty?’

‘If someone dies one always feels guilty for harbouring bad thoughts about them.’

‘And have you harboured bad thoughts?’

‘Didn’t everyone?’

‘I do not know as I am a stranger. I thought you were all pilgrims travelling together.’

‘That is so. It does not mean we all liked one another. I have nothing in common with the others in this party except …’ She paused and continued quickly: ‘However, Sister Muirgel was a bully and I – I
hated her!’

The expression was given emphasis by the way that Sister Gorman almost spat it out. Fidelma examined the girl with gravity.

‘So now you believe you should experience guilt for feeling that hate?’

‘But I do not.’

‘What exactly made you hate her, Sister Gormdn?’

The young girl sat, considering carefully.

‘She always picked on me because I am young and came from a poor family. My father was not some chieftain but an hostler. I learned to read a little and went into the Abbey at Moville to continue to study. Muirgel and Crella forced me to become their servant.’

‘
Forced
you?’ Fidelma was not naive enough to think that bullying did not go on behind the walls of abbeys and religious foundations, just as it went on in any other institution. ‘Both Sisters Muirgel and Crella bullied you?’

‘Sister Muirgel led and Sister Crella followed. Muirgel was always the leader in these things.’

‘So you do not feel sorrow for her death?’

‘Doesn’t it say in Paul’s epistle to Romans: “Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them”? If that is so then my soul is doomed. But I do not care.’

Fidelma smiled thinly.

‘Well, in the circumstances, I am sure that you will be forgiven such feelings. One of the hardest things to feel is love for our enemies.’

‘But isn’t forgiveness of our enemies one of the primary acts of Grace which mark us as blessed of God?’ queried the young girl stubbornly.

‘The theme of forgiveness is central to the Gospels,’ agreed Fidelma. ‘The Gospels tell us that Christ’s willingness to forgive us is conditional on our willingness to forgive our enemies. The old self has to be reborn in the new loving person if it is to be accepted into the eternal Kingdom of God.’

Sister Gorman looked pained.

‘Then my doom hangs heavy over my head.’

‘Surely now that Sister Muirgel is dead …’ Fidelma began.

‘I still cannot forgive Sister Muirgel for the suffering she caused me.’

Fidelma sat back thoughtfully.

‘If you hated her, as you say, why did you come on this pilgrimage?’

‘It was Sister Canair who was to be in charge of the pilgrimage. But Canair was a bad person.’

‘In what way?’ Fidelma was surprised. ‘Are you saying that Sister Canair also bullied you?’

‘Oh no.’ The girl shook her head. ‘Sister Canair just ignored me. She did not even know of my existence. How I hated them all! How I wished—’ The girl suddenly paled and looked anxiously at Fidelma. ‘I did not wish Sister Muirgel dead in this manner. I just wanted to punish her.’

‘Punish her? What are you saying?’

Sister Gorman looked anxious.

‘I swear, I did not mean it.’

‘Mean what?’ frowned Fidelma. ‘What did you not mean, Sister? Are you saying that you are involved in Muirgel’s disappearance?’

Wide-eyed, the young girl stared at Fidelma as if horrified by the thoughts that had come to her mind.

‘I ill-wished her. I stood outside her cabin last night at midnight and cursed her.’

Fidelma did not know whether to feel amused by the dramatic revelation or to be shocked by it.

‘You say that you were outside her cabin last night at midnight, during the storm – and that you cursed her? Is that what you are saying?’

Sister Gorman nodded slowly.

‘I was there during the storm.’

‘Did you go into her cabin to see her?’

‘I did not. I stood and I cursed her with the words of the Psalms.’ She began to chant in a wailing voice:

‘May her eyes be darkened so that she does not see,
Let continual agues shake her loins.
Pour out Thine indignation upon her
And let Thy burning anger overtake her
… multiply her torments.
Give her the punishment her sin deserves.
Exclude her from Thy righteous mercy.
Let her be blotted from the Book of Life
And not be enrolled among the righteous!’

Fidelma blinked at the vehemence in the young girl’s voice and then tried to make light of the matter.

‘That is hardly an exact translation of Psalm 69,’ she observed.

‘But it worked, it worked! My curse worked!’ The girl’s voice had an hysterical edge to it. ‘She must have gone up on deck soon afterwards and been swept away by God’s vengeful hand.’

‘I think not,’ replied Fidelma dryly. ‘If there was any hand in it, it was a human hand.’

Sister Gorman regarded her for a moment and then had an abrupt change of emotion. There was suspicion in her eyes.

‘What do you mean? I thought everyone said that she was swept overboard.’

Fidelma realised that she had let slip more than she had intended.

‘I merely meant that your curse and invocation were not responsible.’

Sister Gormán considered that for a moment.

‘But a curse is a terrible thing and I must atone for my sin. Yet I cannot do so by forgiving Sister Muirgel, nor by feeling guilt myself.’

‘Just tell me this, Sister Gormán,’ Fidelma said, beginning to feel irritable at the self-centred attitude of the girl and her attachment to a
belief that one was responsible for Sister Muirgel’s death. ‘You say that you left your cabin about midnight?’

The girl inclined her head in agreement.

‘You share your cabin with Sister Ainder, don’t you?’

‘I do.’

‘Did she see you leave the cabin?’

‘She was fast asleep. She is a heavy sleeper. She did not see me leave.’

‘The storm was in progress?’

‘It was.’

‘Your cabin is by the stairs or whatever they are called. So, you are telling me that you went down that passage to her cabin and neither met nor saw anyone?’

Sister Gormán shook her head.

‘There was no one about at that hour,’ she confirmed, ‘and the storm was very bad.’

‘And, again, from what you tell me, you stood outside her door, did not go in, but just stood there cursing her. No one heard this?’

‘The storm was rising then. I doubt that anyone would have heard me even if they had been standing next to me.’

Fidelma looked at her and found herself struggling to believe her. It seemed so bizarre but then it was often that the incredible was the truth and the plausible was the lie.

‘How long did you stand by her cabin door with your so-called cursing?’ she demanded.

‘I am not sure. A few moments. A quarter of an hour. I don’t know.’

‘What did you do after pronouncing your curse?’

‘I returned to my cabin. Sister Ainder was still asleep and the storm still raging. I lay on my bed but did not sleep until the storm abated.’

‘You heard nothing from outside your cabin?’

‘I think I heard the cabin door opposite bang shut. I was just dozing off when it woke me momentarily.’