‘Well,’ Sebbi continued, ‘the king was happy with the idea for doubtless he would take a commission from this transaction if completed. Eanred was summoned from the cells and asked to prepare a sleeping potion for the abbot. This he did. The next morning Puttoc came before the king full of enthusiasm. The sleeping potion had worked. The kin of the slain slave-master were summoned and a
wergild
of one hundred shillings was asked for, plus fifty shillings for the person of Eanred.’
Eadulf sat back with a soft whistle.
‘One hundred and fifty shillings is a large sum,’ he observed. ‘Where did the Abbot Puttoc get such a sum?’
Sebbi leant forward with a wink.
‘The church encourages the freeing of slaves and suppressing the trade in them. Slaves are required by the church to be manumitted as an act of charity. That charity was paid for by the abbey and the transaction was duly noted among the manumissions of the abbey.’
‘It is still a large sum.’
‘The sum is that as set forth in law,’ replied Sebbi. ‘Both
wergild
are established.’
‘But a slave has no
wergild,’
Eadulf pointed out.
‘Nevertheless, a slave has his value set.’
‘So Eanred was bought and freed by Puttoc,’ Fidelma summed up. ‘But not because of Christian charity but because of Eanred’s talent as a healer to help the abbot sleep at nights?’
‘You understand it well, sister,’ Sebbi affirmed in a rather patronising tone.
‘When was this?’
‘As I have said, some seven years ago.’
‘So Eanred was freed and was so grateful to Puttoc that he converted and returned to the abbey in Northumbria with you both?’ Fidelma’s voice was cynical.
Again Sebbi grinned in appreciation of her scornful tone.
‘That’s not exactly how it happened, sister. As you know, Eanred is a simple man. He had been a slave since he was a small child. Puttoc did not explain the niceties of freedom to Eanred until after we had returned to the monastery. He made Eanred believe that the price of saving him from the gallows was that he was to serve Puttoc. As for Eanred’s conversion to Christianity, I am not sure that the poor man understands it deeply. For him it may be that Christ is just another deity like Woden, or Thunor or Freya. Who knows what passes in his mind?’
Fidelma tried to keep her bewilderment at Sebbi’s open criticism of Puttoc behind a mask.
‘It would seem that you are no friend of the abbot?’ she observed dryly.
Sebbi threw back his head and roared with laughter.
‘Can you name me one friend of Puttoc?’ he asked. ‘Other than certain women, that is.’
‘Are you saying that the abbot has relationships with women?’ Fidelma tried to encourage directness.
‘Puttoc believes wholly in the kingdom of the spirit but that does not mean that he wishes to reject the kingdom of the flesh. Not for Puttoc the self-denial of the ascetics.’
‘Although an abbot is supposed to remain chaste, are you saying that Puttoc ignores this rule?’ Eadulf was scandalised.
Sebbi chuckled softly.
‘Didn’t the blessed Augustine of Hippo write somewhat
cynically about chastity? I believe the abbot subscribes to that philosophy.’
‘So the abbot enjoys the company of women, even though he would profess the celibacy which Rome requires to ordain him as both abbot and bishop?’
‘Puttoc argues that he is not old. It is easy to be an abbot or a bishop when one is old but too chaste a youth makes for a dissolute old age.’ Sebbi added hurriedly: ‘That, of course is his argument. Not that I would agree with him.’
‘Then why do you follow him?’ demanded Eadulf, the sneer in his voice clearly showing he had no time for Sebbi.
‘One should always follow the rising star,’ grinned Sebbi cynically.
‘And you feel Puttoc is a rising star?’ Fidelma queried with interest. ‘Why so?’
‘Puttoc has his eyes on Canterbury. I have my eyes on Stanggrund Abbey. If he goes to one, I can claim the other.’
Fidelma pursed her lips for a moment at Sebbi’s candour.
‘And how long has Puttoc had his eye on Canterbury?’
‘He has thought of nothing else but the archbishop’s throne at Canterbury since Stanggrund Abbey declared for Rome and allied itself with Wilfrid of Ripon years ago. Puttoc is an ambitious man.’
Fidelma’s eyes narrowed slightly.
‘Are you saying that Puttoc is ambitious enough to remove any obstacle in his path?’
Sebbi gave that curiously knowing smile of his and made no further comment other than a shrug.
‘Very well, Sebbi,’ Fidelma said, after a silence, glancing to Eadulf. ‘Let us return to the other evening. When did you last see Wighard alive?’
‘Shortly after the evening meal which we had together in the main refectory of the guest house. The Bishop Gelasius had joined all those visitors to the Lateran Palace who were being lodged within the palace itself. Everyone then went into the chapel for the evening devotion and then each retired to their own chambers.’
‘Apart from Wighard, who else was there?’
‘Everyone in our party, except Brother Eadulf here.’
‘And you returned to your own room then?’
‘No. It was a hot evening and so I wandered in the gardens. It was in the gardens that I last saw the archbishop-designate.’
Fidelma started forward. This was new information. It began to fill in the gaps of what Wighard had done on his last evening.
‘At what time was this?’
‘An hour after the evening meal, say three hours before midnight.’
‘And we are placing midnight as the time of the discovery of his death,’ interposed Eadulf, speaking to Fidelma.
Fidelma cast him a warning look.
‘Just tell me what you saw,’ she invited Sebbi.
‘I was in one of the larger gardens near the southern wall of the palace, behind the basilica itself. I recognised Wighard, for he had made it a routine to take a walk in the gardens before retiring at night. I believe he hated the heat of the day and would prefer to walk in the evening when the sun had vanished. I was about to go towards him when I saw someone detach themselves from the shadows and accost him.’
‘That is an interesting word – “accost”,’ observed Fidelma.
Sebbi shrugged indifferently.
‘I meant simply that Wighard was walking as if deep in
thought when the person stepped in his path. They started talking. I was going to continue my approach when the person talking to Wighard become angry, the voice rose to a high pitch. Then the person turned and vanished abruptly. I think they must have gone into the cloisters at the back of the basilica.’
‘Did you recognise this person?’
‘No. It was just someone in the clothes of a religious with a hood over their head. I would not recognise them.’
‘In what language did they speak?’ asked Eadulf.
‘Language?’ Sebbi thought a moment. ‘That I cannot say. All I know is that after an exchange or so the voice was raised almost like a dog howling.’
‘Did you go up to Wighard?’
‘After that, no. I did not want to embarrass him in case it was something personal. I turned and left the garden and went to my room. I did not see him again.’
‘Did you speak of this encounter when you heard that Wighard had been killed?’
Sebbi’s eyes widened.
‘Why should I? Wighard was killed later in his own chamber not in the garden. And everyone knows that some mad Irish religieux killed him and stole the precious gifts he was going to present to the Holy Father. Why would this encounter in the garden mean anything?’
‘That is what we are here to decide, Brother Sebbi,’ Fidelma replied gravely.
‘If you had been able to identify the Irish religieux in this encounter in the garden …’ Eadulf begun.
The sharp exhalation of breath from Fidelma halted him and he looked sheepish before her angry gaze of condemnation. It
was not her way to make suggestions to witnesses.
‘Well,’ Sebbi went on, ignoring their by-play, ‘I could not identify the person. And it was only this morning at the breaking of the fast that I heard others speak of this Brother Ronan Ragallach.’
‘Very well,’ Fidelma said, ‘I think that is all for the time being, Sebbi. We may need to speak with you again.’
‘I shall not be far away,’ Sebbi smiled, as he rose and turned towards the door.
He was opening it when Fidelma raised her head as a sudden thought came into it.
‘By the way, as a point of interest, why did Eanred kill his former master?’
Sebbi turned back.
‘Why? As far as I recall Eanred had been sold into slavery by his parents, together with a younger sister. The sister was bought by the same master. It seems that at the time of puberty the master forced the young girl into his bed. It was the day afterwards that Eanred killed him.’
After a moment Fidelma prompted: ‘How did he kill him?’ Sebbi paused a moment as if trying to dredge the memory from his mind.
‘I believe he strangled the man.’ He paused again and then smiled broadly, nodding. ‘Yes, that’s it. He garrotted the man with his own belt.’
‘Well, one thing is clear,’ remarked Brother Eadulf, after Brother Sebbi had left the room.
Fidelma raised her eyes which sparkled in amusement at her companion, for there was humour in his voice.
‘And what is that?’ she asked gravely.
‘Brother Sebbi has no love for Abbot Puttoc. He seemed intent on sewing seeds of suspicion about Puttoc and his servant, Eanred.’
Fidelma inclined her head in thoughtful agreement at this statement of the obvious.
‘Too eagerly intent?’ she queried thoughtfully. ‘Perhaps we should be careful of reading anything into Brother Sebbi’s statements. He is clearly as ambitious as his abbot. Remove Puttoc and he believes that he will be abbot of Stanggrund. Now how much does his own ambition guide his attitudes?’
Eadulf made a small gesture of agreement.
‘Yes, but perhaps we might do well to speak with Brother Eanred again.’
Fidelma grinned mischievously.
‘Aren’t you forgetting about Brother Ronan? Surely you have no doubts about his guilt?’
The Saxon monk stirred and blinked uncomfortably. He realised that he had become so intent on the by-play provided by the questioning of Sebbi that he had forgotten the main purpose of the enquiry.
‘Of course I have no doubt,’ he replied almost defensively. ‘The facts speak for themselves. But it is curious …’
‘Curious?’ prompted Fidelma, after he had paused for some time.
Eadulf gave a soft sigh. He was about to continue but he went no further for Furius Licinius returned carrying, to their surprise, a tray bearing a jug of wine, some bread, cold meats and some fruit. Licinius smiled cheerfully as he set the tray down.
‘All I could forage,’ he announced, as they eyed the contents with hunger. ‘I have already eaten, so go ahead. Oh, and on my way back, I happened to fall in with the very man you seek … the superior of the department of the
Munera Peregrinitatis
in which Ronan Ragallach worked.’
Fidelma turned regretfully to Eadulf.
‘We will eat after we have seen this brother,’ she announced firmly.
Eadulf pulled a face but did not protest otherwise.
Licinius went to the door and ushered in a slender young man. He looked scarcely out of adolescence with pale olive skin, thick red lips and large dark eyes which he had a habit of narrowing as if to focus better. The young man’s head was entirely shaven.
‘This is the sub-praetor of the
Munera Peregrinitatis,’
announced Licinius.
Fidelma was confounded for a moment. She had been expecting an older man to aspire to such an office. This youth was scarcely in his twenties.
The young man stepped forward a pace and halted, peering short-sightedly from Eadulf to Fidelma and back again.
‘What is your name?’ asked Fidelma.
‘Osimo Lando,’ the youth replied, with an odd lisping accent to his voice.
‘You are not a Roman?’ Fidelma asked.
‘I am a Greek, born in Alexandria,’ Osimo Lando replied. ‘Though I was raised in Syracuse.’
‘Be seated, Brother Osimo,’ invited Fidelma. ‘Has the
tesserarius,
Furius Licinius, told you our purpose?’
Brother Osimo moved forward slowly and seated himself before the table, adjusting his robe with an unexpected delicate gesture.
‘He has.’
‘We are told that Brother Ronan Ragallach works in your department?’
The sub-praetor nodded.
‘Perhaps you can tell me what the
Munera Peregrinitatis
does?’ suggested Fidelma.
Brother Osimo’s eyes narrowed a fraction and then he shrugged with an oddly dainty motion.
‘We are the means by which the Holy Father can communicate with all our missions throughout the world.’
‘And Brother Ronan Ragallach works under you?’
‘That is correct. I am the
sub-praetor
in charge of all matters relating to our churches in Africa. There is only Brother Ronan, together with myself, working at this task.’
‘How long has he worked in the secretariat?’
‘He came as a pilgrim to Rome a year ago, to my knowledge, sister. He had a gift for languages and so he remained and for the last nine months or more has worked under my direction.’
‘What kind of man is he, brother?’
Brother Osimo pursed his lips and stared thoughtfully into space. A faint redness spread over the pale cheeks and his expression seemed to be one of embarrassment.
‘A quiet man, not given to displays of irritation or of temper. Placid, I would say. Conscientious in his work. He never expresses any problems.’
‘Does he have strong views?’ interposed Brother Eadulf.
Osimo looked at Eadulf in bewilderment.
‘Strong views? On what subjects?’
‘He is Irish. We are told that he wore the tonsure of the Irish rather than our Roman
corona spinea.
That means that he rejected the Roman rule and maintained that of Colmcille.’
Brother Osimo shook his head vehemently.
‘Brother Ronan is merely a man of habit. He wore his tonsure, like many others from Ireland and from among the Britons because that is their custom. It made little difference to us. It is what is in a man’s heart that matters, not what is on his head.’
Fidelma lowered her face, raising a hand to cover her smile at Eadulf’s flush of mortification.
‘And what is in Ronan’s heart?’ Eadulf demanded, not succeeding in covering his annoyance at being so publicly rebuked on prejudice.
Brother Osimo pouted.
‘As I have told you, brother, he is a man of easy and placid temperament.’
‘You never heard him speak ill of Rome?’
‘Why would he be in Rome if he thought ill of Rome?’
‘You never heard him speak ill of Canterbury? How, for example, did he treat the news of the decision at Witebia, when the Saxon kingdoms opted for the rule of Rome and
rejected that of the Irish monks of Colmcille?’
Osimo’s smile indicated that he thought the question was a silly one.
‘He never uttered an opinion. He was concerned with matters of the African churches rather than those of the extreme west. He is an excellent Greek and Aramaic scholar and so his function was to deal with our missions to north Africa. This task grows hard as the Arabians, with their new fanatical belief in the prophecies of Mahomet, sweep westward along the Africa shore.’
Eadulf suppressed a breath of annoyance.
‘Does it not come as a shock to you, Brother Osimo, that Brother Ronan Ragallach stands accused of the murder of the archbishop-designate of Canterbury and that it has been postulated that the cause of this was because of the news of Witebia?’ he demanded.
To their surprise, Osimo threw back his head and laughed; a gentle soprano laugh.
‘I have heard as much and give no creed to such an argument.’ His face became abruptly serious. ‘When I heard the news of the archbishop-designate’s murder,’ he paused to piously genuflect, ‘and that Brother Ronan had been arrested for it, I could not believe it. I will not believe it. I would look elsewhere if you want to find the real murderer.’
Fidelma examined his intense face with some interest.
‘Why so?’ she demanded. ‘What makes you so sure that Ronan Ragallach did not kill Wighard?’
‘Because …’ Osimo looked around the room as if seeking an answer. ‘Because it is simply not in his character, sister. Tell me that …’ he searched for an analogy, ‘ … that the Holy Father has attended the feast of Bacchanalia and, God forgive
me, danced naked in the Temple of Bacchus on the Sacra Via and I will believe you sooner than I will believe that Brother Ronan is capable of murder.’
Fidelma smiled thinly.
‘That is testimonial, indeed, Brother Osimo.’
‘One not lightly given,’ added the
sub-praetor
firmly.
‘Yet Ronan was arrested fleeing from the archbishop-designate’s chamber at the time the murder was discovered. He tried to give a false name and he later escaped from custody,’ interposed Eadulf, somewhat maliciously. ‘That is hardly the action of an innocent man, is it, Brother Osimo?’
Osimo hung his head unhappily but his voice was full of passionate defence.
‘It may have been the action of a desperate man, a man who sees the world rise up against him in his innocence. Desperate to prove his honesty, he seeks freedom in order to prove that virtue.’
Fidelma gazed at the youth for a moment in silence and then she asked quietly, ‘Has Brother Ronan told you this much?’
Osimo flushed immediately.
‘Of course not.’ His voice trembled with indignation.
Fidelma felt there was little conviction in his voice. She decided to press the matter.
‘So, you have not seen Brother Ronan since his escape? Yet you seem to speak with some authority on his behalf.’
‘I have worked with him closely these last nine months and we have become as … as friends. Close friends.’
Osimo did not meet her eye but stuck out his chin with an unusual expression of stubbornness.
Fidelma leant confidingly forward.
‘You realise that if you see Ronan Ragallach it is your duty,
under law, to advise the
custodes?’
‘I realise it,’ Osimo replied quietly.
Fidelma sat back and examined the young man for a while.
‘So long as you do, Brother Osimo. Believe me, it is my intention to get to the bottom of the murder of the archbishop-designate of Canterbury. If Brother Ronan is innocent, I shall prove it. If he is guilty, then he will not escape.’
Her confident, rather than boastful, tone made Osimo raise his eyes and peer closely at her before he dropped his gaze again.
‘I understand,’ he whispered.
‘For our record,’ Eadulf intervened, ‘when did you last see Brother Ronan?’
‘On the day of Wighard’s murder, Brother Ronan worked until the sounding of the evening Angelus.’
‘Did you ever meet Wighard or any of his entourage?’
Osimo shook his head.
Fidelma turned to Eadulf.
‘I have no further questions unless … ?’
Eadulf made a negative grimace.
‘Then, Brother Osimo … ah, but I nearly forgot.’ She reached into her
marsupium
and pushed the torn piece of papyrus towards the
sub-praetor.
‘Can you tell me what that language is?’
Brother Osimo took up the papyrus and glanced momentarily at Fidelma as if surprised. He recovered his composure within a second, almost before his startled look had registered with her.
‘The hieroglyphics are in the language of the Arabians,’ he replied. ‘Aramaic, it is called.’
‘Do they mean anything?’ she pressed.
‘It is part of some writing. Who knows? Perhaps it is even a letter. Only a few words are decipherable.’
‘What words?’ pressed Fidelma.
‘The language is read from right to left. We have words for “library”, “sacred disease”, and the rendition of a Greek name, something ending in “ophilus” and then the words for “price” and “exchange”. It makes little sense.’
After their frugal evening meal, which left Fidelma suddenly feeling very tired in spite of her afternoon nap, Furius Licinius was sent in search of Abbess Wulfrun or Sister Eafa. Fidelma and Eadulf sat in silence for a while. Fidelma was turning over the statement of Brother Osimo in her mind. She was sure that Osimo’s relationship with Ronan Ragallach was something more than a working one; more than he had admitted and that he had intimate knowledge of Ronan Ragallach. In fact, she felt that she would go so far as to take an oath that Ronan had escaped from the
custodes
and gone to Osimo Lando for help. But it was intuition and not fact that prompted her conclusions.
She became aware of Eadulf’s fingers drumming aimlessly on the table and sniffed in annoyance at the distraction.
‘What are you thinking, Eadulf?’ she demanded as the drumming continued.
Eadulf blinked, paused and realised his unconscious action.
‘I was just thinking about what Osimo said.’
Fidelma raised an eyebrow in surprise.
‘So was I. What were you thinking?’
‘About the Arabian words which he translated.’
Fidelma was disappointed.
‘Oh, that,’ she said, with a shrug. She had thought that
Eadulf might have been paralleling her line of thought about Osimo and Ronan. ‘Well, that means little enough.’
Eadulf shook his head.