Act of Mercy (34 page)

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Authors: Peter Tremayne

Tags: #_NB_Fixed, #_rt_yes, #blt, #Clerical Sleuth, #Fiction, #Historical, #Mystery, #Medieval Ireland

BOOK: Act of Mercy
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‘I have to confess that when I was eighteen I might have become a victim of that same insanity,’ she admitted to them all. ‘Youth intensifies such emotions, and sometimes we are not mature enough to control them. Yes, it is to the instability of youth that we must look in this matter. But you delude yourself, Cian, if you think that you still have any ability to rouse such emotions in me. You don’t even arouse my pity.’
Brother Dathal, eager and ferret-like, asked, ‘Why, surely
you
were not Cian’s lover, Sister?’
Fidelma grimaced resignedly.
‘Oh yes. I, too, came under Cian’s spell ten years ago when I was a young student at the college of Brehon Morann at Tara.’ She gazed thoughtfully at Cian. ‘It was a youthful, immature affair on both sides,’ she added with a maliciousness she did not realise that she possessed. ‘I grew up. Cian didn’t.’
‘Well, how would this insane lover realise that?’ asked Brother Dathal intrigued. ‘If your affair happened ten years ago, it was before Cian joined the religieux at Bangor and doubtless long before any of us knew him.’
Fidelma shot him a glance of appreciation.
‘You ask a good question, Brother Dathal. You all became aware when I first came aboard that I had known Cian before. One person
was very interested in that fact. That same person overheard Cian and me discussing our sad little affair.’
She swung round abruptly to Cian.
‘I am sure that you can work things out for yourself. You admitted to me that you had affairs with Canair, Muirgel and Crella.’
Before she had finished speaking, Brother Bairne had leapt from his seat opposite Cian and flung himself across the table. He was brandishing a knife.
‘Bastard!’ he cried, grabbing Cian by the throat and raising the weapon.
Gurvan had reached forward in front of Cian and grabbed Bairne’s s wrist with the weapon in it in a vice-like grip, thrusting the wrist back in a painful bend. With a scream Brother Bairne’s fingers let the knife drop through onto the table. It fell with a clatter and Brother Tola had the presence of mind to scoop it up and hand it to Murchad.
Brother Bairne was no match for the stocky and muscular Breton seaman. Even as they struggled, while Cian slipped back out of the way, Gurvan hauled the flushed-faced, frenzied young man across the table and twisted his arm behind his back. The young monk went suddenly limp; all the fight seemed to have left him.
Fidelma regarded him with disapproval.
‘That was a silly thing to do, Brother Bairne, wasn’t it?’
‘I hate him!’ the young man whimpered.
‘Hated but lusted for him?’ Sister Ainder was aghast. ‘I don’t understand!’
‘Brother Bairne, explain why you hated Cian,’ Fidelma invited patiently.
‘I hated Cian for taking Muirgel from me.’
Cian laughed harshly.
‘Madness! Muirgel was never yours to take from you, you stupid child.’
‘Bastard!’ cried Bairne again, but was still firmly held in the grip of Gurvan.
Sister Crella had recovered some of her spirits now.
‘Cian is telling the truth. Muirgel wanted nothing to do with Bairne. She thought he was weird, an effeminate dreamer. And she
did
have an affair with Cian.’
Cian nodded agreement.
‘But Muirgel and I ended that relationship just before we set out from Moville. Muirgel had found another lover and I had found Canair. It was as simple as that. Muirgel told me that, against all the odds, she was in love with Guss.’
‘Guss?’ Crella stared at him confounded. ‘Is it true? It can’t be.’ She raised a hand to her cheek as the horror of her denial of her friend’s involvement with the young man grew.
‘It is true,’ Fidelma told her. ‘Muirgel really did love him and only your dislike of Guss kept you from believing it. Your refusal to believe that Muirgel was in love with him, made me suspect Guss for a while but, at the same time, your dislike of him, which seemed like jealousy in his eyes, caused Guss to believe that you were the killer – hence his great fear of you, which led to him falling overboard.’
Brother Tola was shaking his head in perplexity.
‘I still cannot see why Brother Bairne would kill Toca Nia if, as he says, he hated Cian. Surely the arrival of Toca Nia was the answer to Bairne’s dreams – the best way to get rid of Cian?’
Fidelma was impatient.
‘You have missed the point. Bairne did not kill anyone. He was not competent enough. Look at the feeble attempt he made just now! Let me get back to what I was saying before he made that stupid display. I was suggesting that Cian was well able to work things out for himself. He had admitted to affairs with Canair and Muirgel. He even admitted to a brief affair with Crella. But there was still one more person on this ship with whom he had an affair, the only person who overheard us arguing about our youth.’
Sister Gormán had risen from the table, for already a look of horror had spread over Cian’s face and he had turned to her, memories flooding back. Gormán’s features were not reflective of guilt but defiant, and there was a curious glint in her eyes. Her jaw stuck out aggressively. The laugh she gave sounded slightly hysterical, a high-pitched chortling sound, the tone close to malignant triumph. As Fidelma gazed on her face, she was completely confirmed in her estimation that Gormán was, indeed, insane.
The young girl glowered in defiance at all of them.
‘I have committed no crime,’ she spoke scornfully. ‘Does not the Book of Genesis say:
‘I kill a man for wounding me,
A young man for a blow.
Cain may be avenged seven times
But I seventy-seven!’
Fidelma corrected her gently.
‘You are quoting from the Song of Lamech, son of Methushael, whose endless desire for vengeance was transformed by the words of
the Christ. Remember what Christ told Peter according to the Gospel of Matthew? “Then Peter came up and asked him, ‘Lord, how often am I to forgive my brother if he goes on wronging me? As many as seven times?’ Jesus replied, ‘I do not say seven times; I say seventy times seven.’” Let Lamech’s shade die with his vengeance, Gormán.’
The girl turned furiously towards her.
‘Do not be clever with me, whore of Babylon! I would have killed you too but you were able to thwart me twice. You will be punished yet. “ … I saw a woman mounted on a scarlet beast which was covered with blasphemous names and had seven heads and ten horns. The woman was clothed in purple and scarlet and bedecked with gold and jewels and pearls. In her hand she held a gold cup, full of obscenities and the foulness of her fornication; and written on her forehead was a name with a secret meaning:
Babylon the great, the mother of whores and of every obscenity on earth
. The woman I saw was drunk with the blood of God’s people and the blood of those who had borne their testimony to Jesus”.’
‘The girl is raving!’ Sister Ainder muttered uneasily, rising and edging away from her.
Murchad glanced towards Fidelma as if to ask what he should do.
Cian had relaxed now and was sitting with his hands resting on the table. He regarded the girl with complete indifference.
‘Thank God this matter is resolved,’ he said to no one in particular. ‘This insanity has nothing to do with me. I am not responsible for the madness of this girl.
Dominus illuminatio
… Why, I only ever slept with her once.’
Sister Gormán wheeled round on him, eyes blazing.
‘But it was for you I did it, for
you –
don’t you understand? I did it to save you! So that we could be together!’
Cian smirked.
‘For me?’ he sneered. ‘You are crazy. What gave you the idea that I wanted anything more to do with you after that night? You women always want to turn everything into permanent ownership.’
Sister Gormán jerked back as if he had struck her across the face. A bewildered expression crossed her features.
‘You can’t mean that. You said that night that you loved me.’ Her voice became a soft wailing sound.
Fidelma found compassion welling for the young woman as the memories of her own youth drifted through her mind again.
‘Cian loves only Cian, Gormán,’ she said sternly. ‘He is incapable of loving anyone else. As for you, Cian, you may claim that you are not responsible for these atrocities, and you are correct so far
as the law goes. However, the law is not always justice. You cannot neglect that moral responsibility which you bear. Your selfishness, your manipulation of people’s emotions, especially the emotions of young women, are your responsibility. You must answer for it eventually, if not soon then at some later stage in your life.’
Cian flushed in annoyance.
‘What is wrong with grasping at pleasure in this life? Have we all to become Roman ascetics and go into the desert as hermits? Why can’t we continue to live our lives filled with enjoyment?’
Brother Tola’s face mirrored his anger.
‘Thou shalt not kill, is the Commandment of the Lord. The woman is condemned but you, Cian, you have been the cause of this madness and you must stand condemned alongside her.’
Cian turned to him with derision.
‘Under whose law? Don’t dictate your narrow morals to me. They do not apply.’
Gormán stood with hunched shoulders, like a whipped dog; her arms wrapped round her body as if they gave her some comfort. She was rocking back and forth on her heels, sobbing.
‘I did this for you, Cian,’ she crooned softly. ‘Muirgel … Canair … I even killed Toca Nia to protect you from his wicked accusations. I would have killed her – Fidelma – and then Crella. They both meant you harm. You had to be protected. Without them we could have been together. They interfered with our happiness.’
Fidelma spoke softly, almost kindly, to her.
‘Perhaps you will tell us how you killed Sister Canair. I know part of the story from Guss; I would like to know the other part. Can you tell us?’
Gorman giggled. It was a chilling sound for it was the giggle of an innocent young girl.
‘He loved me. Cian loved me – I know it. “I will betroth you to me for ever; I will betroth you to me in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love, and in mercy. I will betroth you to me in faithfulness …”!’
Fidelma dimly recalled the words. She thought they came from the Book of Hosea. There had been many quotations from Hosea.
‘Even if he denies it now, he loved me as I loved him. We would have married if … if these others had not ensnared him with their lust, and … and …’
Cian shrugged diffidently.
‘She is clearly demented,’ he muttered. ‘I wash my hands of this matter.’
‘Gormán!’ Fidelma turned sharply to the girl. ‘Tell us of the fate of Canair. When did you kill her?’
Somehow Fidelma’s coaxing tone pulled Gormán back from whatever darkness she was descending into and there came a few moments approaching sanity.
‘The night before we sailed, I killed her in the tavern at Ardmore.’
She gave the statement coldly, without emotion now, standing quite still, her eyes suddenly devoid of feeling as they stared at Cian.
‘All because Canair was having an affair with Cian?’ interposed Brother Tola.
The girl had a curious smile on her face.
‘Persuasively she led him on,
She pressed him with seductive words.
Like a simple fool he followed her,
Like an ox on its way to the slaughterhouse,
Like an antelope bounding into the noose,
Like a bird hurrying into the trap,
He did not know that he was risking his life …’
‘Stop that rubbish!’ Cian cried. ‘I have had enough of these nonsensical ramblings.’
Sister Ainder bent forward and chided him with a frosty look.
‘The Book of Proverbs is not rubbish, Brother Cian. You are unworthy to hear those words and not fit to wear the habit of a religieux.’
‘Do you think I ever wanted to wear these stupid rags?’ Cian shot back at her.
‘What I have heard today is disgusting,’ replied Sister Ainder. ‘If nothing else, I shall give all the details to the Abbot of Bangor. When you return to your Abbey, you will suffer by bell, book and candle, if I have anything to do with it.’
‘If I ever return to Bangor,’ sneered Cian.
Sister Gormán, in the meantime, was continuing to speak as if she had become oblivious to her surroundings.
Fidelma bent forward and spoke to her slowly and clearly.
‘Why did you kill Sister Canair?’ she demanded.
‘Canair seduced him, lured him away from me,’ she replied diffidently. ‘She had to die.’
Cian opened his mouth to protest but Fidelma waved him to silence and addressed the girl.
‘How did it happen? From what I know, Canair had left your
company before you reached Ardmore. The group all went on to the Abbey of St Declan to stay the night. You went with them, didn’t you?’

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