Sacrifice (2 page)

He began to pray.

“Master of the Universe, Creator of us all, grant us your grace—”

“Father Ailbe! Father Ailbe!”

A young girl was shouting in the distance. We could hear her running up the path from the monastery. We rushed out the door together and met her in the yard as she burst through the trees. It was Neala, a slender girl of about eight who was a student at our monastery. She was the fastest runner at Kildare and always beat the boys in the races we held at school contests. She was frantic as she ran to us and fell into Dari's arms.

“Neala, what's wrong?” Dari asked as we knelt beside her.

Her chest was heaving as she tried to breathe. Father Ailbe urged her to sit quietly and catch her breath, but the girl kept trying, unsuccessfully, to talk. At last she grabbed Father Ailbe's hand and began to pull him back down the road.

“Neala, child, what's wrong? Tell us,” he said.

“Father—you—must—come—now,” she managed at last.

“Why, Neala? What's happened? Is someone hurt?” he asked.

She shook her head.

“No—not hurt—Sister Grainne—in bog.”

“Sister Grainne is in a bog? That doesn't make sense. Does she need help?”

The poor girl burst into tears as Dari held her.

“No—she—has been—murdered.”

Chapter Two

S
ister Grainne was from one of the eastern clans of our tribe along the River Liffey, like many of the nuns at our monastery. She was a lovely, gentle woman about seventy years old and a devout Christian who lived as a solitary in a small hermitage just beyond the Red Hills northwest of the monastery. Like the dozen or so other solitaries associated with Brigid's church at Kildare, she practiced a quiet life of prayer and contemplation. She would come to the monastery about once a month for Sunday services and to bring us some of the excellent cheeses she made from the milk of her single dairy cow. Like most of the solitaries, she had no possessions of value in her small hut. I had known Grainne for years and couldn't believe anyone would want to hurt her.

When Neala had finally calmed down, she told us that a passing farmer had found Grainne's body in a bog next to her hermitage early that same morning. She appeared to have wounds from three crushing blows to the back of her head. The farmer had wrapped her in a blanket and gently loaded her into his cart. Her cow was still in her barn, lowing from a full udder, so the farmer milked it quickly, tied it to his cart, and came straight to the monastery. Sister Anna, our abbess, ordered the body taken to the infirmary and sent Neala to find Father Ailbe.

We left dinner on the table and rushed as fast as we could back to the monastery. Everyone went, including my grandmother, Cáma, and Sinann, none of whom could believe such a thing had happened at Kildare. Death from disease, hunger, and war was common enough in our land, but murder was a rare event. The hurried walk back to the monastery was hard on Father Ailbe, but he insisted that he could keep up with the rest of us. As we entered the gate, I saw a small crowd of monks and nuns gathered outside the infirmary, some praying, some weeping, but most just looking confused and frightened. Sister Anna met us at the door.

“Father Ailbe, we have placed the body on the table for you to examine. The farmer who brought her is waiting in the church if you wish to speak with him.”

Sister Anna was the only member of the monastery who appeared unemotional in the face of this shocking event. She was the most stern and unbending person I had ever known, but also one of the most intelligent, and I knew she was deeply devoted to the people under her care. I also realized her self-control was dictated by the need for calm leadership in this moment of crisis.

“Let's leave the farmer there for now,” said Father Ailbe. “I want to see the body first. Deirdre, I may need your assistance.”

“Of course, Abba.”

“I would like to be present as well,” said Sister Anna.

“Certainly.”

“Ailbe, may I come with you too?” asked my grandmother.

I wasn't surprised at this request. Grandmother had been Grainne's friend for many years. She would visit her hermitage whenever she passed that way, and Grainne was a frequent guest at her home as well.

“Yes, please join us,” he said.

The four of us stooped to enter the infirmary door. It was a small round hut of woven branches joined tightly with clay and mud like most of the monastery buildings. And like our other buildings, it had an overhanging thatched roof and a warm central heath fire. A colorful curtain separated the examination room on the right of the hut from the beds for the sick and injured on the left, though there were no patients in residence at the moment. Father Ailbe always kept both rooms cozy and cheerful for the sake of those who came to him. He said a physician's first task was to put a patient at ease. Dried medicinal herbs were hanging from the wooden rafters, while the shelves on the walls were lined with jars of powders and potions. I knew that in chests out of sight were the less-agreeable tools of medicine, like a jagged-toothed bone saw for amputations and a set of finely sharpened steel knives for surgery. In the middle of the room was a large sturdy wooden table. On top of this table, surrounded by candles, lay the body of Sister Grainne.

She was curled up in a fetal position as she had been found, with a wool blanket draped over her body except for her head. Aside from the pallor of death, she looked as if she were sleeping, with a face as calm as I had ever seen. My grandmother softly placed her hand on Grainne's shoulder and whispered a prayer to the gods. There were tears in her
eyes as she gazed at her friend. I placed my own hand on my grandmother's arm to steady her.

“Grandmother, can you see anything? Any image of who might have done this?”

My grandmother, as a druid seer, could often sense images from touching an object or a person.

“No. Murder is too evil an act to leave a clear impression. It clouds everything with darkness.”

“Aoife, you don't need to stay if you don't want to,” Father Ailbe said. “This may not be easy to watch.”

My grandmother shook her head.

“No, I'll be all right. I don't want to leave her.”

Father Ailbe asked me to light several more candles and place them along the sides of the table. Then he carefully pulled back the blanket to expose the body.

Grainne was wearing a homespun tunic of coarse wool that reached from high on her neck to just above her ankles and was tied around her waist with a cloth belt. Her well-worn leather sandals were still on her feet. Her body and clothes smelled strongly of dampness from the bog water, but there were no signs of decomposition.

Father Ailbe began his examination with her head as I took notes for him on a wax tablet. He was the very soul of compassion, but he conducted the autopsy with composed professionalism.

Grainne's mouth was closed and there were no bruises or contusions on her face. Her eyes were shut as if they had been closed gently after death. Her expression was peaceful and serene.

Moving behind her, we could see her white hair matted with blood.

“Three wounds to the top rear of the skull,” observed Father Ailbe. “A heavy blunt instrument, probably some sort of iron
pole or the back of an axe. The assailant struck the victim from above and behind, as if Grainne were lying on the ground. The wounds are deep enough to have fractured the skull in three places, but not severe enough to have caused immediate death. The edges of the wounds on the scalp show swelling, confirming that they were inflicted on a living body.”

I shivered at the thought of someone doing this horrible deed to Grainne.

“Abba, how could she look so peaceful if she was struck by a heavy instrument while still alive?”

“I don't know, Deirdre. There is something very strange about this death.”

He returned to the examination as I helped him position Grainne on her back. With a knife, he cut the high neck at the front of her robe down to the waist to expose the top of her body.

“No visible lacerations or bruises to the chest or upper abdomen. The arms are similarly undamaged. The hands show no wounds to suggest that she fought off the assailants or resisted any blows. Her lanyard and cross are missing.”

He put his ear to her skin and thumped her chest several times with his hand.

“The lungs are dry. No water inhalation, so she didn't drown. She was dead before she went into the water.”

He looked at her neck again and stopped.

“Abba, what's wrong?”

“Look at this,” he said.

Sister Anna, my grandmother, and I all leaned in as he tilted back her head to expose her neck.

“Her leather lanyard and cross are still here, but they're sunk so deeply into her flesh that I didn't see them at first,” he said.

Around our necks, all the sisters of holy Brigid wore a simple leather cord from which hung a small wooden cross. It was what marked us to the world as nuns.

“I can't even get my fingers underneath. Deirdre, hand me the small knife from the box.”

I passed it to him and he carefully cut the leather, easing it and the cross out of her skin. He placed them on the table beside her.

“Someone has tied knots in the cord—three knots—all in front above the windpipe next to the cross. But the only way I can think to get the cord this tight would be twisting it with a stick from behind.”

“You mean she was garroted?” Sister Anna asked.

“Yes, I believe so. When the stick on the lanyard was rotated, it would have exerted tremendous force on the windpipe, cutting off her air supply. Then with continued turning, it would act as a tourniquet to the jugular vein, finally snapping her spinal column if tightened far enough. The force of the cross against her flesh aided in the deed. It also left a deep mark in her neck, like a brand. Help me turn her on her side.”

He probed deeply into the back of her neck with his fingers.

“Yes, her spinal column has been fractured just below the fourth cervical vertebra.”

“But Abba, wouldn't it have taken a very strong man to do that? It would narrow down our list of suspects.”

“No, unfortunately it doesn't help. Even a child could garrote someone effectively if that person was taken unaware or didn't resist. It was a favorite form of murder among the street gangs of Alexandria when I was young because it could be used with such deadly force by anyone.”

Grandmother was shaking. I put my arm around her to comfort her. It must have been terrible to see her friend's body like this. But she pushed me away.

“No, Deirdre, you don't understand. Ailbe, please look closely at her neck above the right jugular vein.”

He stared at her for a moment, then turned Grainne's head to the left and probed the skin beneath where the garrote had been.

“There's an incision here, deep and expertly done, directly into the jugular vein. There's some swelling around the wound, again indicating that Grainne was alive when this cut was made, at least at first. But this doesn't make sense!”

Father Ailbe looked both surprised and sickened, emotions I rarely saw on his face since he had been through so much in his long life.

“Abba, why doesn't it make sense?”

“Because it means someone struck three blows to her head to render her unconscious, then took her lanyard off, tied knots in it, put it back on her neck, and began to garrote her. But before the garrote was tightened very far, probably just enough to cut off her air supply, someone made an incision into her jugular. The result would have been a rapid emptying of her entire blood supply before the assailant finished tightening the garrote.”

Grandmother looked as white as a sheet. She sat down in a chair next to the table.

“Aoife, how did you know?” asked Sister Anna.

Grandmother didn't answer. I started to feel queasy myself as I realized what she suspected.

Father Ailbe completed his examination of the body. He said the time of death was hard to determine with certainty, but since Grainne had visited the monastery only a week earlier, we knew she had been murdered within the last seven days.

When Father Ailbe was finished, he sat beside my grandmother and held her hand.

“Aoife, what is it? How did you know about the wound to her neck?”

My grandmother shook her head before she spoke.

“Ailbe, I'm sorry to ask you to do this, but would you examine the contents of her stomach?”

“Is that really necessary?” asked Sister Anna. “I would prefer not to do any more damage to this poor woman's body.”

“Please, Anna,” said my grandmother. “It's important.”

Father Ailbe rose silently and went back to the table. He took a larger knife from the box, along with a pair of clamps.

“Deirdre, I'm going to need your help.”

I had butchered many animals in my life and had helped Father Ailbe perform surgery on numerous patients. I was not a squeamish person, but I had never been part of an autopsy like this. I forced myself to calm down and tried very hard not to throw up.