Fidelma expressed her disagreement with his advice but, as she began to walk, another wave of dizziness washed over her and she realised that the physician was probably right. She sat down promptly on a nearby stone and groaned slightly at the ringing in her head.
She was aware that Cornelius had raised his hand in a signal and through the cemetery trotted two burly men bearing a curiously shaped chair which they carried, one at the back and one at the front, on long poles. Fidelma had seen several of these about the streets of Rome and ascertained they were called
lecticula.
Of the modes of transport used in her own country, Fidelma had never seen anything to compare with these strange chair-like contraptions in which people had themselves carried on the shoulders of slaves or servants.
She was about to protest but realised that, as she felt at the moment, she would be unable to walk back to the Lateran
Palace. So she accepted the transport with a small sigh of resignation. It was when she was clambering into the chair that she realised what she had forgotten.
‘Your lamp must still be down at the foot of the stairs where I fell, Antonio,’ she called to the boy.
The boy simply grinned and shook his head, picking up the lamp from his side and showing her.
‘When we carried you up here, I brought it with me,’ he assured her.
‘And the silver chalice that I was carrying?’
Antonio looked at her in genuine bewilderment.
‘I saw no silver chalice, sister. Nor did you take one down there, that I saw.’
In a sudden panic Fidelma grabbed at her
marsupium.
Her tinder box and coinage were still there but there was no sign of the papyrus she had taken from Brother Ronan. However, the severed piece of sackcloth remained.
She saw Cornelius gazing at her in suspicion.
‘One moment,’ she said, climbing out of the
lecticula
and walking unsteadily towards the boy. She knelt down by his side and lowered her voice. ‘Antonio, in the catacomb of Aurelia Restutus is a body. No,’ she saw him start to smile at the idea of a body being found in a tomb. ‘I mean someone who has just been slain. I discovered the body. As soon as I return to the Lateran Palace, I shall send the authorities to recover it …’
Antonio stared at her with wide, solemn eyes.
‘The matter should be reported to the office of the praetor urbanis,’ he advised.
Fidelma nodded agreement.
‘Don’t worry. The proper authorities will be notified. But I
want you to keep an eye on whoever comes and goes. You see, I did find a silver chalice and a papyrus which, when I was knocked unconscious, I believe were taken from me. So if you see anyone behaving in a suspicious manner, in particular, two men, eastern in appearance and speaking a strange language, I want you to take a careful note of them and where they go.’
‘I will, sister,’ the boy vowed. ‘But there are many other entrances and exits to these catacombs.’
Fidelma groaned inwardly at the news. However, she reached in her
marsupium
and dropped some coins into the boy’s basket.
She turned back to where Cornelius was standing fretting at the delay and clambered back into the lecticula. The two men gave a heave and a grunt as they lifted it up and began to trot forward along the path to the gate, with Cornelius pacing rapidly alongside.
It was an odd sensation to be carried in such a manner but Fidelma was thankful for the mode of transport. Her head was aching and her forehead was throbbing and tender. She closed her eyes, oblivious of the stares of curiosity that passers-by gave her, for while the
lecticula
were common enough in Rome it was uncommon to see a religieuse being transported.
Fidelma sat back and relaxed her mind, turning over the events of the last hour.
It was only after they had re-entered the city through the Metronia Gate and turned under the shadow of the Caelius Hill that the thought struck her. In her dizziness she had not realised it. She had been convinced that one or other of the two strangers must have followed her, struck her and taken the chalice and papyrus from her. But she had left them behind her in the catacombs. The memory flashed back. It was
only when she had turned the corner at the foot of the stairs leading out of the catacomb that she had seen the figure, the familiar figure, obviously waiting for her. A single person had struck her down. A person she knew. But who?
Fidelma sat in the
officium
set aside for the use of Brother Eadulf and herself in the Lateran Palace still nursing her throbbing head. The dizziness and nausea had left her but the soreness remained. It was Eadulf, with his knowledge of medicines, who had insisted on taking over from Cornelius of Alexandria. Cornelius did not seem troubled that the Saxon monk wished to encroach on his role as physician. In fact, he seemed grateful to be able to hurry away on his own business. Brother Eadulf, since his training at Tuaim Brecain, always carried a
pera
, or
lés
as the Irish physicians called their medical bags, full of medicinal herbs. He dressed her wound and prepared a drink made from an infusion of dried flower heads of red clover which, he assured her, would gradually ease her aching head.
Fidelma had absolute faith in Eadulf as she sipped his noxious potion, for he had similarly come to her aid twice before at Hilda’s abbey at Witebia in Northumbria. In fact, he had cured her of a throbbing headache with a similar mixture when she had fallen and knocked herself unconscious at the abbey.
As he fussed about her, she explained to him and to Furius
Licinius about her morning’s adventure. On learning the basic facts, the young
tesserarius
summoned a
decuria
of the
custodes
and set off for the Christian cemetery at Metrona. Fidelma put up with Eadulf’s chiding for a little longer as she sat casting her mind over the events and trying to establish some pattern to them but she realised that for as much information as she had there was still no framework for it. Without a framework none of it seemed to make any sense.
‘We must send for Brother Osimo Lando,’ she said, suddenly interrupting Eadulf in mid-stream. He had been gently chastising her for going to the catacombs alone without first warning him or letting anyone know where she was going. He blinked.
‘Osimo Lando?’ he frowned.
‘He admitted that he knew Ronan well. I feel he knows much more than he is telling us. With Ronan dead he may now find himself able to tell more.’
The door abruptly opened and Marinus, the military governor, entered with a worried look on his features. He addressed himself directly to Fidelma.
‘Is it true? Is it true what I hear … that Brother Ronan Ragallach is dead?’
Fidelma gave an affirmative nod.
The expression of the
Superista
of the
custodes
abruptly softened into a smile and he made a sound of emphatic satisfaction: ‘Then the matter of the death of Wighard is finally brought to an end.’
Fidelma exchanged a bemused glance with Eadulf.
‘I do not follow your logic,’ she said coldly.
Marinus spread his hands as if the reason were plain to see.
‘The murderer has been caught and killed. No need to spend further time on the matter.’
Fidelma shook her head slowly.
‘I can only believe that you are not aware of all the facts, Marinus. Brother Ronan Ragnallach was found garrotted while he was on his way to meet me. He had sent me a message to tell me that he was not the murderer of Wighard and wanted a chance to explain. He was garrotted in the same manner as Wighard. Whoever killed Wighard also killed Ronan Ragallach. The matter, you see, is far from over.’
The military governor blinked rapidly in bewilderment.
‘I was simply told that he was dead,’ he replied, his face changing to an almost woebegone expression. ‘I presumed that he had been killed or killed himself because he realised that he could not escape us forever.’
‘Fidelma was right, and we were wrong,’ Eadulf entered the conversation. Fidelma stared at him in surprise, somewhat amused by the unexpected respect in his voice, as though he delighted in being proved wrong by her. ‘She said all along that she suspected that Ronan Ragalach was not the killer.’
Marinus set his jaw firmly.
‘Then we must discover the truth as soon as possible. Only this morning the Holy Father’s
scriba aedilicius
contacted me to say that the Holy Father is chiding at the lack of resolution to this matter.’
‘He is no more anxious than we are,’ replied Fidelma in annoyance at the implication. ‘It will be resolved when we have a solution. And now,’ she rose, ‘we have much work to do. Could you send someone to bring Brother Osimo Lando here? We require his advice.’
Marinus started at being so peremptorily dismissed. He opened his mouth to say something in protest, but snapped it shut again and grimaced his acceptance of the order.
Eadulf grinned slyly at Fidelma.
‘I swear you will treat the Holy Father with as much disdain.’
‘Disdain?’ Fidelma shook her head. ‘I do not hold Marinus in contempt. But we are each supposed to be competent in our arts and authority and each should fill his or her office with the qualities we expect in others. Pride in office without competence is as much a sin as competence without confidence.’
Eadulf’s eyes grew serious.
‘With Ronan Ragallach dead, I can see no leads into this maze, Fidelma.’
She inclined her head slightly.
‘Ronan Ragallach, while he denied that he had killed Wighard in his message to me, and which claim I believe to be the truth, nevertheless had some of Wighard’s valuables with him when he was killed.’ She explained how she had found a chalice and the piece of sack still gripped firmly into his dead hand. She paused and then shrugged. ‘Although, of course, I cannot prove that now.’
‘Who do you think hit you on the head and stole the chalice and piece of papyrus?’
‘I don’t know.’ Fidelma gave a long sigh. ‘I saw his outline for a moment in the darkness, and in that moment thought the figure was familiar, and then …’ She ended with a shrug.
‘But it was definitely a male?’ pressed Eadulf.
Fidelma frowned again. She had used the masculine form without thinking. Now, as she analysed her memory, she was uncertain.
‘I don’t even know that for sure.’
Eadulf scratched the end of his nose in thought.
‘Well, I cannot see what step forward we can take. Our chief
suspect is dead, and, as you say, murdered in the same manner as Wighard …’
‘Who were the foreigners I saw in the sepulchre?’ Fidelma interposed. ‘That is surely the next step. Ronan Ragallach had the rest of the papyrus Brother Osimo Lando has identified as written in the tongue of the Arabians. I heard a few words spoken by those foreigners which I think I can imitate. Perhaps Osimo Lando can identify them, for I believe they were Arabians who spoke them.’
‘But why would Brother Ronan Ragallach be meeting with Arabians?’
‘If I can find the answer to that question, I think we would be very near the answer to this entire mystery,’ Fidelma said confidently.
There was a knock on the door and a member of the
custodes
entered. He bore himself stiffly, eyes straight ahead, as he halted and threw up a salute.
‘I am ordered to report that Brother Osimo Lando is not in his place of work. He is not in the palace at this time.’
‘Can someone be sent to his lodging to see what ails him?’ The young man came smartly to attention so abruptly that Fidelma was startled for a moment.
‘It shall be done!’ the young guard intoned solemnly and swung on his heel.
Eadulf looked troubled.
‘Nothing is ever smooth.’
‘Well, there must be someone else in this palace who speaks the language of these Arabians.’
Eadulf rose and started to the door.
‘I can soon find out. In the meantime,’ he half turned at the door with a concerned expression, ‘you rest a while and recover.’
Fidelma gestured absently. In fact her headache was almost gone and only the tender area of bruising remained to irritate her. More than anything, however, she was distracted by the countless swimming questions and thoughts in her mind. After Eadulf departed she stretched comfortably in her chair, hands folded in her lap before her and lowered her eyes. She concentrated on breathing deeply and regularly and, one by one, consciously relaxed her muscles.
When she was young and started her education, her ‘fosterage’ as it was called, one of the first things she had been taught was the art of the
dercad,
the act of meditation, by which countless generations of Irish mystics had achieved the state of
sitcháin
or peace. Fidelma had regularly practised this art of meditation in times of stress and found it very useful. It was an art that had been practised even before the Faith had reached the shores of Ireland just two centuries earlier by the pagan Druids. The Druid mystics had not disappeared from her homeland entirely. They could still be found as solitary ascetics living in remote fastnesses and wastes. But they were a vanishing people.
When she had been old enough, Fidelma had gone regularly to the
tigh n’ alluis,
the sweat house, which was an integral part of the
dercad
ceremony. In a small house of stones, a great fire was lit until the structure became like an oven. Then the person seeking the state of
sitcháin
would enter naked and the door would be sealed. They would sit on a bench perspiring and sweating until an appointed time when the door would be opened and they would come out and plunge into an icy pool. It was merely a step nearer the
dercad
process. Many of the ascetic religious followed this old Druidic practice
although, Fidelma knew, several of the younger religious were rejecting many things simply because they were associated with Druids.
Even the Blessed Patrick himself, a Briton who had been prominent in establishing the Faith in Ireland, had expressly forbade the practise of the
teinm laegda
and the
imbas forosnai,
the meditative means of enlightenment. Fidelma felt sad that ancient rituals of self-awareness were being discarded simply because they were ancient and practised long before the Faith arrived in Ireland.
However, the
dercad
was not yet forbidden and she felt that there would be protest among the religious of Ireland if it was. It was a means of relaxing and of calming the riot of thoughts within a troubled mind.
‘Sister!’
Fidelma blinked and felt as if she was emerging from a deep, restful sleep.
She was aware of the
tesserarius
Furius Licinius, examining her face with a troubled gaze.
‘Sister Fidelma?’ His voice was slightly worried. ‘Are you all right?’
Fidelma blinked again and allowed a smile to spread over her features.
‘Yes, Licinius. I am fine.’
‘You did not seem to hear me, I thought you were asleep but your eyes were open.’
‘I was merely meditating, Licinius,’ smiled Fidelma, standing up and stretching a little.
Furius Licinius took the exact meaning of the Latin word
meditari
rather than the intent of
dercad.
‘Day dreaming more than thinking,’ he observed sceptically.
‘Though, I grant, that there is much to meditate about in this matter.’
Fidelma did not bother to enlighten him.
‘What is your news?’ she asked.
Furius Licinius gestured, a brief rise and fall of his shoulder.
‘We have recovered the body of Brother Ronan Ragallach from the catacomb. It is now in the
mortuarium
of Cornelius. But there is little else we could find, certainly not a papyrus or chalice.’
Fidelma sighed.
‘As I thought. Whoever has done this thing is clever.’
‘We searched further on in the catacomb and found another exit or entrance which comes out by the Aurelian Wall. That is where our murderers entered and left. They did not have to follow you into the cemetery.’
Fidelma nodded slowly.
‘And there was no sign of anything which might indicate a culprit?’
‘Only, as you said, Brother Ronan Ragallach was strangled by a prayer cord in the same manner as Wighard.’
‘Well,’ Fidelma smiled wanly, ‘one thing I realised my attacker didn’t make off with is this …’
Fidelma reached into her
marsupium
and drew forth the piece of sackcloth which had been clutched in Ronan Ragallach’s hand.
Furius Licinius examined it in bewilderment.
‘What does it prove? It is only ordinary sackcloth.’
‘Indeed,’ Fidelma agreed. ‘Similar to this piece of ordinary sackcloth.’
She placed on the table the tiny piece which she had detached from the splinter in the door of Brother Eanred’s room.
‘Are you saying that this is one and the same?’
‘The odds are that it is.’
‘But supposition is not proof.’
‘You are becoming wise in law, Furius Licinius,’ agreed Fidelma solemnly. ‘But there is enough here to question Eanred again.’