‘I presume this stopped when the ruler of the Déisi accused Cathal and Donnchad of plotting against him,’ Fidelma said.
‘Yes,’ said Brother Gáeth with a sigh. ‘They had to leave the community and go into hiding. I did not hear from Donnchad until he passed through the abbey for a single night with his brother en route to Ard Mór and lands beyond the seas. He told me he and his brother were going on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, the very land in which our saviour walked and taught. Ah, but I wanted to go with him. But I was merely a
daer-fudir
, a field worker.’
‘And so you stayed here,’ Fidelma said patiently. ‘When did you next see Donnchad?’
Brother Gáeth smiled at the remembrance. ‘On his return. His return here was triumphant. The community, even the abbot
himself, turned out to welcome him.’ He paused and shook his head sadly. ‘But Donnchad had changed. I went to greet him but it was as if he did not know me. After that first day, I left him alone for awhile, thinking it was just the strangeness of his return that had made him seem preoccupied and distant. After he had had time to settle, I went to see him again. He was no longer preoccupied but he was harsh and cruel to me.’ Brother Gáeth lowered his head, as if trying to conceal his emotion.
‘How was he cruel?’ pressed Fidelma.
‘He told me that he did not want to know me.’
‘Did he explain why?’
Brother Gáeth shook his head. He reminded Fidelma of a dog who had been badly treated for no reason by his master and could not understand it.
‘He gave you no explanation at all?’
‘He said, cast off your robes and escape from this place into the mountains. In the mountains there is solitude and sanity. There is no sanity among men.’
Fidelma sat back, her eyes a little wider than before. ‘Those were his exact words?’
Brother Gáeth nodded. ‘I remember them as if they were spoken but moments ago.’
‘When did this conversation take place?’
‘That was a day or two before his death. He told me that he did not want to see me ever again. He told me to leave this community and seek sanity. I still have no idea what he meant.’
‘You never spoke to him again?’ asked Eadulf.
‘I have said so,’ Brother Gáeth replied.
‘Did you know that just before he was found dead, his mother came to see him?’ asked Eadulf.
‘I saw her riding to the abbey while I was in the fields but I think that was a few days before he was found dead.’
‘Had you met her again since she gave you leave to join the community here?’
‘Not exactly.’ There was bitterness in his tone. ‘She would pass me by on her visits. Whether she even saw me or not, I do not know. That was how it was when I worked on her lands. Perhaps she would not have recognised who I was anyway. I was just another field worker.’
‘Do you know how she felt about her sons?’ asked Fidelma.
‘Oh, she idolised them. She was very proud of them. It is thanks to the Lady Eithne that there is all this building work at the abbey.’
Eadulf’s head came up sharply. ‘Is it?’
Brother Gáeth looked at him as if surprised he did not know. ‘Of course. When word came that her sons, Cathal and Donnchad, had reached the Holy Land, she came to the abbot. The whole community knows that she offered to help fund the replacement of the wooden buildings with great structures of stone that would last forever and help the abbey become one of the great beacons of the new Faith in the west. The condition she made was that the abbey should be a memorial to them.’
‘I see,’ Fidelma said softly. ‘So all this work is not being paid for by the abbey but by Lady Eithne of Dún?’
‘That is so.’
‘What did Donnchad say about it on his return?’ asked Eadulf.
‘He never mentioned it but, as I have said, he hardly spoke to me.’
‘Do you know if he confided in anyone else?’
‘I do not.’
‘But you observed that something was disturbing him. Could it have been connected with this matter?’ asked Eadulf.
‘All I know is that his face was black as a storm from the moment he rode back through the gates.’
‘Do you think that this was because his brother, Cathal, had decided to remain in Tarantum and accept the
pallium
as bishop of that city?’ asked Fidelma. ‘After all, they were close as brothers and had come to this place together to be members of the community. And they had undertaken that arduous pilgrimage to the Holy Land together. That must have affected Donnchad.’
Brother Gáeth thrust out his lower lip for a moment. He appeared to give the question some thought and then shook his head slowly.
‘Among the things that he said when he last spoke to me was to curse his brother, calling him a fool and worse.’
Fidelma could not suppress a look of surprise in Eadulf’s direction.
‘Everyone is calling Cathal blessed, that he is one of the saints. Yet you say his own brother called him a fool and cursed him? Why so?’
‘I can only repeat what Donnchad said,’ Brother Gáeth replied stubbornly. ‘That is what he said.’
Fidelma sat back reflectively. ‘You have been most helpful, Brother Gáeth. Thank you for answering our questions.’
Fidelma and Eadulf sat in silence for a few moments after Brother Gáeth had left the
refectorium
.
‘Well, I had the impression that Brother Gáeth was supposed to be a simpleton,’ Fidelma said. ‘He seems intelligent enough but just constrained by circumstances.’
‘There are a lot of sad people in this world,’ Eadulf commented. ‘Didn’t Horace write,
non licet omnibus adire Corinthum
– not everyone is permitted to go to Corinth?’ In Horace’s day, Corinth was a centre of entertainment and pleasure that not many people could afford. It had come to mean that circumstances deny people certain achievements.
‘But who altered his circumstances?’ Fidelma wondered.
‘What do you mean?’
‘His father is forced to flee from what, most likely, was an unjust death sentence. Such a sentence is only given to the incorrigibles who will not pay compensation or be rehabilitated. So such a sentence is suspect. He flees from his clan territory and ends his life as a
daer-fudir
, which involves two generations of bondage. Why did no one among his people take up his cause? Did he not have a friend in the world?’
‘Apparently not,’ said Eadulf. ‘At least we have found the answer to one mystery.’
‘Which is?’
‘Who is providing the funding for the rebuilding of the abbey.’
‘Lady Eithne is committed to the Faith and proud of her sons and their achievements, so that is natural.’
‘What is our next task?’
‘To go to the
scriptorium
. We must see if we can find out anything more about the missing manuscripts.’
‘So what do we know so far?’ asked Eadulf.
‘Let’s enumerate the facts. You start.’
‘Very well. Brother Donnchad, a well-regarded scholar, returns to this abbey after a pilgrimage, which has made him something of a hero. He starts behaving in a curious manner. He is reported to have some precious manuscripts with him. He becomes reclusive and even tells his soul friend that he does not want to see him. He says he fears that his manuscripts will be stolen and then he fears for his life. He is reported as cursing his brother for a fool and advising his former soul friend to leave the abbey and take to the mountains. A few days later he is found in his cell stabbed to death.’
‘And the curious facts about that are … ?’
‘He is stabbed twice in the back but the body is lain on the bed in a position of repose. The door is locked and there is only one key that locks the door and that is found by the body.
That poses the question of how did the murderer enter and how did they exit taking, we presume, the manuscripts?’
‘That is so,’ agreed Fidelma. ‘Then we have to consider the reason Donnchad gave for requesting a lock on his door with only one key, which you have mentioned. He was fearful someone might rob him of these valuable manuscripts. Yet no one ever saw them …’
‘Except Lady Eithne,’ pointed out Eadulf. ‘Why would she lie?’
‘Therefore we presume that the murderer stole them but how?’
‘And so we shall question the
scriptor
of this abbey as, if anyone in the abbey knows about such things, it would be the librarian.’
Fidelma rose and turned to the door of the
refectorium
with Eadulf following. To their surprise they found Abbot Iarnla waiting outside the door for them. He seemed a little self-conscious.
‘How did you get on with Brother Gáeth?’ he asked anxiously.
‘As you thought, he could tell us little,’ Fidelma answered. ‘It seems he has not been in the position of a soul friend since Brother Donnchad’s return.’
‘I thought he would have little to add,’ said the abbot. He stood awkwardly, looking at the ground, as if he wanted to say something more.
‘Brother Gáeth seems to have led a sad life,’ supplied Eadulf when the silence became awkward.
‘Ah.’ Abbot Iarnla looked up and sighed. ‘He told you he was of the
daer-fudir
?’
‘I was under the impression that once a person passes through the portals of a community, such distinctions no longer existed. A king who abdicates to enter an abbey is regarded as being on the same level as a
céile
, a free clansman, or a
daer-fudir
. There is no difference in class between them.’
‘Not exactly so, Brother Eadulf,’ returned the abbot. ‘Fidelma
will confirm this. An abbey comes under the patronage of nobles and the kings, who present the community with the land on which they build. It cannot be alienated and if the community seek to dispense with it, they can only do so with the permission of the noble or king who granted it to them. In this, as in all things, they are subject to the Law of the Fénechus and the judgement of the Brehons.’
‘Yet there is a new movement developing,’ Fidelma pointed out. ‘The adoption of Roman ideas, where communities take the land in full ownership and are bound by the Penitentials rather than our own law. Abbots often regard themselves as powerful as kings within these communities.’
Abbot Iarnla flushed. ‘My abbey obeys the laws of this kingdom, Sister, in spite of …’ He was obviously about to say ‘Brother Lugna’s rules’ but he stopped himself. ‘You may assure your brother, the King, of that fact. When Brother Gáeth entered this community, he was released into our charge by the Lady Eithne as a
daer-fudir
. She said that the initial judgement came from the Uí Liatháin and it must stand; that was the condition. Only Gáeth’s death will absolve him from the liability that his father placed on him.’
‘Or by dispensation of the abbot,’ pointed out Fidelma.
‘Who can only act with the approval of the lord of the territory. ’
‘Doesn’t Brother Gáeth resent the fact that he continues to be condemned by Lady Eithne and yourself?’ asked Eadulf.
‘He told you that?’ asked the abbot sharply, for the first time showing anger.
Fidelma shook her head. ‘We detected a certain resentment but he did not say so outwardly. I think he may have hoped that his life would change when he entered the abbey, as it has for so many others.’
‘You were told his story? How his father Selbach slew a chief
of the Uí Liatháin and how he fled to Lord Eochaid of An Dún from whom we received this land?’
‘He told us.’
‘The Lady Eithne, the widow of Eochaid, allowed him to come here at the earnest request of her son Donnchad, but the law still applies. I have tried to treat him with understanding as I would any other brother here, but clearly he continues to feel resentful.’
‘Can you expect any other attitude given the circumstances?’ demanded Fidelma.
‘I suppose not,’ Abbot Iarnla reluctantly agreed.
‘And you say you cannot change his status because of Lady Eithne.’
‘She will not discuss it.’
‘Couldn’t a
daer-fudir
be given work other than digging the fields and similar drudgery? He seems sensitive enough.’
‘Sensitivity is not education.’
‘He says that he reads and writes and has some Latin.’
‘We have tested him and, alas, he is not proficient enough to undertake anything more responsible.’
‘Have you given him an opportunity to improve his ability?’
Abbot Iarnla nodded. ‘We are not insensitive ourselves, Fidelma. Indeed, we have tried. He has reached the level that we expect in a young boy. His ability to read is impaired. Beyond a simple level, he does not proceed. He used to get frustrated. Sometimes he threw tantrums like any child would. Brother Donnchad used to be able to calm him.’
‘He did tell us that Brother Donnchad taught him his basic reading and writing,’ said Eadulf.