Hemlock At Vespers (15 page)

When they arrived back at the community, having completed their task, Maenach greeted them in the quadrangle with a look of relief.

“Brother Spelán is coming round. The young Sister is nursing him.”

Fidelma answered with a grim smile.

“Now perhaps we may learn some answers to this mystery.”

Inside the cell, the brother was lying against a pillow. He looked very drowsy and blinked several times as his dark, black eyes tried to focus on Fidelma.

She motioned Sister Sárnat to move aside and sat on the edge of the cot by Spelán.

“I have given him water only, Sister,” the girl said eagerly, as if expecting her approval. “The boatman,” she gestured toward Maenach, who stood at the doorway with Lorcán, “bathed and dressed the wound.”

Fidelma smiled encouragingly at the Brother.

“Are you Brother Spelán?”

The man closed his eyes for a moment, his voice sounded weak.

“I am Spelán. Who are you and what are you doing here?”

“I am Fidelma of Kildare. I am come here to bring the Abbot Selbach a letter from Ultan of Armagh.”

Spelán stared at her.

“A letter from Ultan?” He sounded confused.

“Yes. That is why we landed on the island. What has happened here? Who hit you on the head?”

Spelán groaned and raised a hand to his forehead.

“I recall.” His voice grew strong and commanding. “The abbot is dead, Sister. Return to Dun na Séad and ask that a Brehon be sent here for there has been a great crime committed.”

“I will take charge of the matter, Spelán,” Fidelma said confidently.

“You?” Spelán stared at her in bewilderment. “You don’t understand. It is a Brehon that is needed.”

“I am a
dálaigh
of the court qualified to the level of
Anruth.”

Spelán’s eyes widened a fraction for he realized that the qualification of
Anruth
allowed the young religieuse to sit in judgment with kings and even with the High King himself.

“Tell me what took place here,” Fidelma prompted.

Spelán’s dark eyes found Sister Sárnat and motioned for her to hand him the cup of water from which he took several swallows.

“There was evil here, Sister. An evil which grew unnoticed by me until it burst forth and enveloped us all in its maw.”

Fidelma waited without saying anything.

Spelán seemed to gather his thoughts for a moment or two.

“I will start from the beginning.”

“Always a good place for starting a tale,” Fidelma affirmed solemnly.

“Two years ago I met Selbach who persuaded me to join him here in order to build a community which would be dedicated to isolation and meditative contemplation of the works of the Creator. I was the apothecary at an abbey on the mainland which was a sinful place-piide, gluttony and other vices were freely practiced there. In Selbach I believed that I had found a kindred spirit who shared my own views. We searched together for a while and eventually came across eleven young souls who wanted to devote themselves to our purpose.”

“Why so young?” demanded Fidelma.

Spelán blinked.

“We needed youth to help our community flourish for in youth lies strength against the hardships of this place.”

“Go on,” pressed Fidelma when the man paused.

“With the blessing of Ultan of Armagh and the permission of the local chieftain, The Ó hEidersceoil, we came to this isolated place.”

He paused to take another sip of water.

“And what of this evil that grew in your midst?” encouraged Fidelma.

“I am coming to that. There is a philosophy among some of the ascetics of the faith that physical pain, even as the Son of the Living God had to endure, pain such as the tortures of the flesh, is the way to man’s redemption, a way to salvation. Mortification and suffering are seen as the paths to spiritual salvation.”

Fidelma sniffed in disapproval.

“I have heard that there are such misguided fools among us.”

Spelán blinked.

“Not fools, Sister, not fools,” he corrected softly. “Many of our blessed saints believed in the efficacy of mortification. They held genuine belief that they must emulate the pain of Christ if they, too, would seek eternal paradise. There are many who will still wear crowns of thorns, who flagellate themselves, drive nails into their hands or pierce their sides so that they might share the suffering of Christ. No, you are too harsh, sister. They are not fools; visionaries—yes; and, perhaps, misguided in their path.”

“Very well. We will not argue the matter at this stage, Spelán. What is this to do with what has happened here?”

“Do not mistake my meaning, Sister,” replied Selbach contritely. “I am not an advocate for the
gortaigid,
those who seek the infliction of such pain. I, too, condemn them as you do. But I accept that their desire to experience pain is a genuine desire to share the pain of the Messiah through which he sought man’s redemption. I would not call them fools. However, let me continue. For a while we were a happy community. It did not cross my mind that one among us felt that pain was his path to salvation.”

“There was a
gortaigid
among you?”

The
dominus
nodded.

“I will spare the events that led to it but will simply reveal that it was none other than the venerable Abbot Selbach himself. But Selbach was not of those who simply inflicted pain and punishment upon himself. He persuaded the youthful brothers we had gathered here to submit to scourgings and whippings in order to satiate his desire to inflict pain and injury so that, he argued, they might approach a sharing of Christ’s great suffering. He practiced these abominations in secret and swore others to keep that secret on pain of their immortal souls.”

“When was this discovered?” demanded Fidelma, slightly horrified.

Spelán bit his lip a moment.

“For certain? Only this morning. I knew nothing. I swear it. It was early this morning that the body of our youngest neophyte, Sacán, was found. He was fourteen years old. The Brothers found him and it was known that Selbach had taken him to a special place at the far end of the island last night to ritually scourge the boy. So fierce did he lash the youth that he died of shock and pain.”

The
dominus
genuflected.

Fidelma’s mouth tightened.

“Go on. How were you, the
dominus
of this community, unaware of the abbot’s actions before this morning?”

“He was cunning,” replied Spelán immediately. “He made the young brothers take oath each time not to reveal the ritual scourgings to anyone else. He took one young brother at a time to the far end of the island. A shroud of silence enveloped the community. I dwelt in blissful ignorance.”

“Go on.”

“Selbach had tried to hide his guilt by throwing the poor boy’s body over the cliffs last night but the tide washed the body along the rocky barrier that is our shore. It washed ashore early this morning at a point where two of our brethren were fishing for our daily meal.”

He paused and sought another sip of water.

Behind her Lorcán said quietly: “Indeed, the tide from the headland would wash the body along to the pebble beach.”

“I was asleep when I heard the noise. When I left my cell the Brothers’ anger had erupted and they had seized Selbach and lashed him to the quadrangle tree. One of the Brothers was flogging him with his own whip, tearing at his flesh…”

The
dominus
paused again before continuing.

“And did you attempt to stop them?” inquired Fidelma.

“Of course I tried to stop them,” Spelán replied indignantly. “I tried to remonstrate, as did another young Brother, Snagaide, who told them they could not take the law into their own hands nor punish Selbach. They must take their complaint to Dun na Séad and place it before the Brehon of the Ó hEidersceoil. But the young Brothers were so enraged that they would not listen. Instead, they seized Snagaide and myself and held us, ignoring our pleas, while they flogged Selbach. Their rage was great. And then, before I knew it, someone had thrust his knife into the back of Selbach. I did not see who it was.

“I cried to them that not only a crime had been done but now great sacrilege. I demanded that they surrender themselves to me and to Brother Snagaide. I promised that I would take them to Dun na Séad where they must answer for their deed but I would speak on their behalf.”

Spelán paused and touched the wound on the side of his head once more with a grimace of pain.

“They argued among themselves then but, God forgive them, they found a determined spokesman in a Brother named Fogach who said that they should not be punished for doing what was right and just in the eyes of God. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, they argued. It was right for Selbach to have met his death in compensation for the death of young Brother Sacán. He demanded that I should swear an oath not to betray the events on the island, recording the deaths as accidents. If I protested then they would take the currach and seek a place where they could live in peace and freedom, leaving me and Snagaide on the island until visited by Lorcán or some other boatman from the mainland.”

“Then what happened?” urged Fidelma after the
dominus
paused.

“Then? As you might expect, I could not make such an oath. Their anger spilt over while I remonstrated with them. More for the fear of the consequences than anger, I would say. One of their number knocked me on the head. I knew nothing else until I came to with the young Sister and the boatman bending over me.”

Fidelma was quiet for a while.

“Tell me, Spelán, what happened to your companion, Brother Snagaide?”

Spelán frowned, looking around as if he expected to find the Brother in a corner of the cell.

“Snagaide? I do not know, Sister. There was a great deal of shouting and arguing. Then everything went black for me.”

“Was Brother Snagaide young?”

“Most of the brethren, apart from myself and Selbach, were but youths.”

“Did he have fair hair?”

Spelán shook his head to her surprise. Then it was not Snagaide who lay dead on the strand.

“No,” Spelán repeated. “He had black hair.”

“One thing that still puzzles me, Spelán. This is a small island, with a small community. For two years you have lived here in close confines. Yet you say that you did not know about the sadistic tendencies of Abbot Selbach; that each night he took young members of the community to some remote part of the island and inflicted pain on them, yet you did not know? I find this strange.”

Spelán grimaced dourly.

“Strange though it is, Sister, it is the truth. The rest of the community were young. Selbach dominated them. They thought that pain brought them nearer salvation. Being sworn by the Holy Cross never to speak of the whipping given them by the abbot, they remained in silence. Probably they thought that I approved of the whippings. Ah, those poor boys, they suffered in silence until the death of gentle, little Sacán… poor boy, poor boy.”

Tears welled in the
dominus’s
eyes.

Sister Sárnat reached forward and handed him the cup of water.

Fidelma rose silently and left the cell.

Lorcán followed after her as she went to the quadrangle and stood for a moment in silent reflection.

“A terrible tale, and no mistake,” he commented, his eyes raised absently to the sky. “The Brother is better now, however, and we can leave as soon as you like.”

Fidelma ignored him. Her hands were clasped before her and she was gazing at the ground without focusing on it.

“Sister?” prompted Lorcán.

Fidelma raised her head, suddenly becoming aware of him.

“Sorry, you were saying something?”

The boatman shrugged.

“Only that we should be on our way soon. The poor Brother needs to be taken to Chléire as soon as we can do so.”

Fidelma breathed out slowly.

“I think that the poor Brother…” she paused and grimaced. “I think there is still a mystery here which needs to be resolved.”

Lorcán stared at her.

“But the explanation of Brother Spelán… ?”

Fidelma returned his gaze calmly.

“I will walk awhile in contemplation.”

The boatman spread his hands in despair.

“But, Sister, the coming weather…”

“If the storm comes then we will remain here until it passes.” And, as Lorcán opened his mouth to protest, she added: “I state this as a
dálaigh
of the court and you will observe that authority.”

Lorcán’s mouth drooped and, with a shrug of resignation, he turned away.

Fidelma began to follow the path behind the community, among the rocks to the more remote area of the island. She realized that this would have been the path which, according to Spelán, Abbot Selbach took his victims. She felt a revulsion at what had been revealed by Spelán, although she had expected some such explanation from the evidence of the lacerated backs of the two young Brothers she had seen. She felt loathing for the ascetics who called themselves
gortaigid,
those who sought salvation by bestowing pain on themselves and others. Abbots and bishops condemned them and they were usually driven out into isolated communities.

Here, it seemed that one evil man had exerted his will on a bunch of youths scarcely out of boyhood who had sought the religious life and knew no better than submit to his will until one of their number died. Now those youths had fled the island, frightened, demoralized and probably lost to the truth of Christ’s message of love and peace.

In spite of general condemnation she knew that in many abbeys and monasteries some abbots and abbesses ordered strict rules of intolerable numbers of genuflections, prostrations and fasts. She knew that Erc, the bishop of Slane, who had been patron of the blessed Brendan of Clonfert, would take his acolytes to cold mountain streams, summer and winter, to immerse themselves in the icy waters four times a day to say their prayers and psalms. There was the ascetic, Mac Tulchan, who bred fleas on his body and, so that his pain might be the greater, he never scratched himself. Didn’t Finnian of Clonard purposely set out to catch a virulent disease from a dying child that he might obtain salvation through suffering?