Fidelma led the way through the market area, pushing through the disinterested crowds, followed by Eadulf and
Licinius. She paused on the steps of the building to gather herself.
‘We will head straight to the room in which we saw the abbot. With luck we might find ourselves solving this mystery now.’
She turned and pushed into the building. For a moment she paused to cough in the musty, stygian gloom. With the windows shuttered, the large hall in which they found themselves was dark and only a solitary candle burning on a centre table gave a flickering light. Around the room incense burners smoked, giving an overpowering smell of some fragrance which she could not identify. The odour was quite overwhelming.
There came a squeak of a floorboard and Fidelma turned quickly as through a doorway a large, round-faced woman emerged, rubbing her hands on her short apron. The woman wore a coarse dress and her hair was awry and clearly not combed or dressed. She halted and her eyes widened in momentary astonishment as she saw them and recognised their calling. Her tone when she spoke was belligerent.
‘What the devil do you want?’ she demanded in a high-pitched voice full of the slang of the Roman streets. ‘We do not welcome people of your cloth in here.’
‘We want to come in,’ replied Fidelma calmly moving forward.
To her surprise, the woman let out a raucous screech and, with hands flailing before her, she launched herself at Fidelma. Fidelma’s surprise only lasted a moment. Ignoring Licinius’ warning cry to stand aside, she balanced herself on her feet and reached out to meet the woman’s tearing claws. Licinius and Eadulf stared in amazement as, without seeming to move
at all, Fidelma pulled the woman past her, using her assailant’s own momentum, and threw her stumbling against the wall behind.
The collision was a resounding noise of flesh and bone meeting wood at a high velocity.
Even so, the big woman kept her balance and turned with a puzzled expression on her fleshy features. Then she shook her head and snarled.
‘Bitch!’ she swore with deep vehemence.
Licinius again went to move forward, his
gladius
now drawn, but Fidelma waved him aside and stood ready to meet the charging woman. Again it seemed as if she merely reached out, caught the flailing arms and heaved her assailant into the air, over her hip and sent her cannoning into the wall on the other side of the room. This time the head met a thick wooden post and, with a grunt, the woman slid to the floor unconscious.
Fidelma turned and bent over her, her slender fingers feeling for the pulse and checking the woman’s wound.
She stood up without expression.
‘She’ll be all right,’ she announced in relief.
Furius Licinius was gazing at her with open admiration.
‘Truly, I have never seen Roman soldiers do better in combat,’ he said. ‘How could you do such a thing?’
‘It is of no importance,’ Fidelma was dismissive of her prowess. ‘In my country there were once learned men who taught the ancient philosophies of our people. They journeyed far and wide and were subject to attack by thieves and bandits. But, as they believed it was wrong to carry arms to protect themselves, they were forced to develop a technique called
troid-sciathaigid –
battle through defence. I was taught the
method of defending myself without the use of weapons when I was young as, indeed, many of our religious missionaries are so taught.’
She pushed through the door leaving them to follow her.
There was a staircase beyond. She paused on the bottom step and listened. She could hear voices; oddly, she thought that she heard the sound of young girls’ laughter. But there were no sounds of an alarm being raised. No one had heard the commotion of their entry. She turned and whispered: ‘The end room to the right of the building. Come.’
She ascended the stairs rapidly. At the top was a long corridor. There were no difficulties in identifying the door which would give entrance on to the room they sought.
Outside she paused again and listened. Again she thought she heard young girls’ laughter from beyond. She glanced at her companions, they nodded that they were ready and she let her hand drop to the handle of the door, turning it slowly and silently pushing the door open.
The scene beyond startled even her.
The room was light for, as they had seen from below, Abbot Puttoc had opened one of the shutters causing the light of the day to stream in. In one corner there was a bed on which were stretched stained but freshly laundered linen sheets. There were a few chairs but the only other piece of furniture was a large wooden tub alongside which were several empty pails. The hot water they had once held was now steaming in the tub.
In the tub sat a surprised Abbot Puttoc, naked so far as she could tell. Seated crossways, on his lap, was an equally surprised and naked girl of no more than sixteen years. They were frozen in an embrace which left nothing to the imagination. Behind them, pail of steaming water in her hand, frozen
in the action of pouring it over the occupants of the large tub, was another naked young girl.
Fidelma surveyed the scene with a grim countenance. She took a step forward into the chamber and glanced about to assure herself that the sight which met her eyes was not encumbered by any other interpretation. The abbot’s robes lay stretched on the chair at the end of the bed. Other robes, which obviously belonged to the young girls, lay nearby.
She turned back to the still startled abbot with a sarcastic raised eyebrow.
‘Well, Abbot Puttoc?’ She could not keep the bleak humour out of her voice.
The girl seated in the tub moved first. She clambered out letting water cascade all over the place. Not that she acted with modesty for she now stood, hands on hips, letting forth a voluble stream of abuse at Fidelma. Her companion, dropping her bucket, joined in, moving forward threateningly.
It was Furius Licinius, finally, who silenced them by shouting over them and reinforcing his argument with the jabbing point of his sword. Muttering under their breath the girls backed off gazing at the newcomers with hatred.
Puttoc sat still, with taut, whitened features, his ice-blue eyes staring with an incredible malignancy from Fidelma to Eadulf.
Furius Licinius continued to exchange a few words with the girls in the harsh accents of the Roman streets. Then he turned to Fidelma with a look of embarrassment.
‘This place is a
bordellum,
sister, a place where …’
Fidelma decided to put the young man out of his confusion.
‘I am perfectly aware of what happens in a brothel, Licinius,’ she said solemnly. ‘What I want to know is what an abbot of the holy church is doing here?’
Abbot Puttoc sat in the tub with an almost resigned expression on his handsome features.
‘I doubt that I have to explain it in detail, Fidelma of Kildare,’ he replied sourly.
She grimaced.
‘Perhaps you are right.’
‘I presume that you will report this matter to Bishop Gelasius, Eadulf of Canterbury?’ Puttoc directed his next question to the Saxon brother.
Eadulf was totally disapproving.
‘I would not have expected you to have raised such a question,’ he replied dryly. ‘You know the rules by which we live. You will doubtless be expected to resign your office. Penance must follow.’
Puttoc took a deep, noisy breath through his nostrils. He gazed speculatively from Licinius to Fidelma and then to Eadulf.
‘Can’t we discuss this matter in more conducive surroundings?’
‘Conducive to what end, Puttoc?’ queried Fidelma. ‘No, I think there is little we can discuss about this matter that might alter our attitudes and intentions. But you could tell me this, did you come here merely to pursue your carnal inclinations or to meet someone as well?’
Puttoc did not understand.
‘Meet someone? Whom do you mean?’
‘You have no liaison with any Arabian merchants?’
She could not doubt the genuine look of bewilderment that came into his face.
‘I do not understand you, sister?’
Fidelma did not attempt to explain further. Her shoulders slumped a little as she realised that her intuition had failed
her and that she had led her companions on a wild goose chase. Puttoc was guilty, but not, apparently, of anything more damning to his soul than attempting to satiate his lascivious passions.
‘We’ll leave you to your desires, Puttoc,’ she said. ‘And to the price which you must pay for them.’
The abbot reached forward a hand as if he would stay her.
Eadulf gave him a withering glance before he followed Fidelma out of the room while Furius Licinius, sheathing his
gladius,
allowed himself to grin lewdly at the prelate before he trailed after them.
In the hallway below the big, fleshy woman was groaning and coming to.
Fidelma paused and sighed. She fished into her
marsupium
and extracted a small coin which she placed on the table.
‘I am sorry for your injury,’ she said simply to the still stupefied woman.
Outside Nabor, the ugly-faced man, stood by the carriage and watched their approach with interest.
‘A
sestertius,
young
custos,’
he grunted, and then with a lecherous grin, he added: ‘If I’d known it was that building which you wanted to visit, I could have recommended several better establishments …’
Colouring, Furius Licinius threw him the coin, which Nabor caught deftly. Without a word the young officer climbed into the carriage.
No one said anything as Licinius drove them back alongside the Tiber, turning through the Valle Murcia and eastward towards the Lateran Palace.
The
decurion
Marcus Narses was waiting on the steps of the palace as Licinius halted. He came running down to the carriage.
‘Sister, I have news of the Brother Osimo Lando,’ he gasped.
‘Good,’ Fidelma replied as she climbed out. At least she could now pursue a more positive lead about Ronan Ragallach’s connections. ‘Why was Osimo Lando absent from his work this afternoon? Is he ill?’
Marcus Narses shook his head, his expression serious. She knew what he was going to say even before he uttered the words.
‘I regret, sister, Brother Osimo is dead.’
‘Dead?’ The word shot from Eadulf’s mouth in a sharp exclamation of surprise.
‘Garrotted?’ Fidelma inquired calmly.
‘No, sister. A short while ago he leapt from the aqueduct, the Aqua Claudia, and fell into the stone street below. He was killed outright.’
‘Suicide?’ Fidelma was gazing with a dubious expression at the young Furius Licinius. ‘Are you sure?’
‘There is no doubt,’ affirmed Licinius. ‘Osimo Lando was seen by several people as he climbed along the aqueduct and was then seen to cast himself down into the street below.’
Fidelma sat for a moment, her head bowed in thought. Rather than clarify anything, Brother Osimo Lando’s death only obscured it.
She and Eadulf were seated in the offices of the
Munera Peregrinitatis
of the Lateran Palace where Osimo and Ronan had worked. Licinius had been despatched to gather details of Osimo’s death while Fidelma and Eadulf had searched the office. There was nothing that gave any indication of Ronan Ragallach’s links to Arabians. In fact, at his desk, there were only some odd notes and an ancient Greek book which was a medical tract. The work was obviously valuable for Ronan had carefully wrapped it in sacking and placed it at the bottom of a stack of papers so that it would not be disturbed. But apart from that there was little else except ledgers of correspondence from the many churches among the North Africans which looked to Rome for guidance.
Eadulf looked gloomy.
‘Could Osimo Lando have killed himself in a fit of remorse for slaying Ronan?’ There was no conviction in his voice as he put forward the proposal.
Fidelma did not even bother to answer. ‘We should examine Brother Osimo Lando’s lodgings. Did he live within the palace?’
Licinius shook his head.
‘He stayed in the same lodging house as Ronan Ragallach. In the hostel of the deacon Bieda.’
‘Ah, of course,’ Fidelma sighed. ‘I should have guessed. Let us go then. Perhaps we may find some clue to this mystery there.’
Furius Licinius took them by a short cut through the Lateran buildings this time. The offices of the
Munera Peregrinitatis
were on the top floor of a two-storey building and, instead of making his way down the marble stairs into the courtyard, Licinius led them through a door on to a wooden walkway which led from one building to another. The walkway spanned a courtyard to the edifice which Licinius had previously pointed out as the
Scala Santa,
housing the reconstruction of the holy staircase where Christ had descended from the judgment seat of Pilate.
It was Fidelma who found time from her cogitation to pause and ask about it, to the surprise of her companions. Eadulf sometimes found Fidelma’s attitude to timekeeping curious. But many of her countrymen seemed to set little store by the urgency of time.
‘The actual
Sancta Sanctorum
is in the centre of the building,’ replied Licinius, as they paused on the walkway to look at it. ‘The way is barred against us by a gate. I am taking
you via another walkway from that building into the chapel devoted to the Blessed Helena and from the chapel we can go directly out of the palace grounds near to the Aqueduct of Claudia. It is a quick route to Bieda’s hostel.’
Fidelma gazed thoughtfully at the building.
‘Why is this holy place barred to us?’ she asked.
‘It contains a dark room with one iron grating for a window. But no women,’ he laid emphasis on the word, ‘are ever admitted to it. There is a holy altar there where not even the Holy Father may perform the mass.’ Fidelma smiled thinly.
‘Indeed? Then such an altar can serve no purpose.’
Furius Licinius looked outraged for a moment. Then he found himself shrugging in agreement. An altar where not even His Holiness could perform a mass was logically useless. He continued to conduct them in silence along the wooden walkway which turned at right angles from the building holding the
Sancta Sanctorum
and crossed another courtyard one storey above the ground into a small chapel.
‘Here is the chapel of the Blessed Helena, mother of Constantine, who collected the holy relics which are displayed here for the veneration of pilgrims,’ Furius Licinius explained.
The walkway ended at a door which was secured on the outside by a bored-looking member of the palace
custodes.
He respectfully saluted Licinius and bent to unlock the door and let them inside.
They entered the chapel on to a wooden gallery, high above the mosaic floor of the circular building. The sound of whispering echoed around its dark, vault-like interior. It was an intense sound which caused Fidelma to reach forward and grip Furius Licinius’ arm to halt him. She gestured him and Eadulf to silence. Frowning, she went to the edge of the wooden
gallery rail overlooking the main floor of the chapel and the tables displaying the holy relics for the examination of pilgrims.
Almost immediately below them stood two figures. A slightly stooping religieuse but with the appearance of no great age and the upright figure of a cenobite. They seemed locked in an intense and intimate conversation. The woman was doing most of the talking while the man stood merely nodding. Fidelma did not know what had made her signal to her companions to remain quiet and not reveal their presence in the chapel. There was something familiar in the whispering voices and now that familiarity was endorsed by the figures themselves. She stared down quizzically, trying to pick up the words but the whispering echoes distorted them and rendered them unintelligible.
Then, to her surprise, the religieuse suddenly reached up and embraced the man, kissing him on the cheek before leaving hurriedly.
Fidelma’s eyes widened abruptly.
The light now fell on the man. It was the softly spoken and ingenuous Brother Eanred.
After the chapel door had closed on them, Licinius turned to Fidelma. His smile was slightly cynical.
‘Liaison between religious, while not encouraged, is still not forbidden here, sister,’ he observed.
Fidelma did not say anything. Licinius was already leading the way down a short spiral staircase from the wooden gallery into the main chapel. It was now deserted. Licinius proudly pointed to the relics as they passed by. Most of the items were laid out in reliquary boxes. Some of them were closed. Licinius began a commentary as they passed between the tables containing the boxes.
‘In there is a lock of the Virgin Mary’s hair and a piece of her petticoat. That is a robe of Jesus sprinkled with his blood. That phial there has drops of his blood in it and in the other is some of the water which flowed from the wound in his side.’
Fidelma cast a distrustful glance at them.
‘And that old piece of sponge?’ She nodded to an opened reliquary whose only content seemed a disintegrating piece of fibrous material which Fidelma identified as porous aquatic growth used for swabbing liquids.
‘The very sponge which was soaked in vinegar and given to Him on the cross,’ replied Licinius reverently. ‘And here is the table at which our Saviour ate the last supper …’
Fidelma smiled cynically.
‘Then it was more miracle than I had allowed for only two people could sit at this table let alone twelve apostles and the Christ.’
Licinius was oblivious to her doubt.
‘And what are those stones?’ inquired Fidelma, pointing to the small altar which was flanked by some rock-hewn pieces.
Encouraged, Licinius said: ‘The left one is a piece of stone of the holy sepulchre while the other is the identical porphyry pillar on which the cock was perched when it crowed after Peter had denied Christ.’
‘And all these things the blessed Helena collected and brought back to Rome?’ asked Fidelma doubtfully.
Licinius nodded, pointing, ‘These towels she found here in the city; the very towels with which the angels wiped the face of the blessed martyr Lawrence when he was boiling on the gridiron. And those are the rods of Moses and of Aaron …’
‘How did Helena know these relics were genuine?’ Fidelma interrupted, irritated by the idea that these objections of veneration, which attracted adoring pilgrims from the four
corners of the world, were nothing more than a clever confidence trick by an adroit merchant.
Licinius gaped at her. No one had dared to ask such a question before.
‘It strikes me,’ went on Fidelma, ‘that Helena was a pilgrim in a strange land and when the merchants of that land heard that she was looking for holy relics they found things for her, having first ascertained that she was willing to pay, of course.’
‘That is a sacrilege!’ Licinius protested indignantly. ‘Christ was with her to protect the blessed Helena against such charlatans! Are you saying that Helena was tricked and deceived by cunning merchants and these are worthless?’
‘I have been in Rome just over a week and I have seen similar relics being sold to credulous pilgrims by the score, all willing to part with money for a piece of the genuine chain worn by St Peter! And all these relics, we are told, are genuine. I tell you, Licinius, if all the wood of the true cross now being sold in Rome were put together it would form the most miraculous and largest cross you ever saw.’
Eadulf caught her by the sleeve and cautioned her with his eyes to be more prudent with her scepticism.
Licinius continued to be outraged.
‘All these items were authenticated by the blessed Helena,’ he protested.
‘I do not doubt it,’ replied Fidelma confidently.
‘We have little time to dwell on these matters at the moment,’ interrupted Eadulf with concern. ‘We can return here another time and debate the journey of Helena to the Holy Land.’
The young
tesserarius
bit his lip and then suppressed his annoyance with a single great intake of breath, continuing to
lead the way through the chapel to the side gate in the wall surrounding the Lateran Palace. It brought them out directly opposite to the great aqueduct of Claudia.
The same sluttish woman met them at the entrance of the dingy hostel owned by the deacon Bieda, near the Aqua Claudia and, again, a torrent of abuse sprang from her lips.
‘How is one to live when you are causing all my lodgers to be killed off and when you then forbid me to let their rooms? Where is my rent, where is my living?’
Furius Licinius replied roughly to her and the woman disappeared with a muttered curse into a side room, having yielded to Licinius’ order to point the way to Osimo Lando’s room. Fidelma was not surprised to see that it was opposite Ronan’s room but kept with more neatness than the Irish brother’s dwelling. Though it was as dark and as dingy, Osimo Lando had tried to make the best of it. There was even a vase of dying flowers in a corner of the room and, framed above the bed, were some Greek words which brought a smile to Fidelma’s lips. Obviously, Brother Osimo Lando had possessed a sense of humour. The lines were from Psalm 84, verse 4: ‘Blessed are they that dwell in thy house: they will be still praising thee.’
She wondered what praise the tenants of this hostel could have for the terrible conditions and the manner of the slatternly woman who ran it.
‘What are we looking for?’ demanded Licinius, as he stood by the door watching her.
‘I am not quite sure,’ Fidelma admitted.
‘Osimo was well read,’ grunted Eadulf, opening a cupboard. ‘Look here.’
Fidelma’s eyes widened a little as she saw two books on the shelf with some written papers.
‘They are old texts,’ she said, taking one of the books and peering at its title. ‘Look at this,
De Acerba Tuens.
This is a study by Erasistratus of Ceos.’
‘I have heard briefly of it,’ Eadulf confessed with some surprise. ‘But it was supposed to have been lost during the great destruction of the library of Alexandria in the time of Julius Caesar.’
‘These books ought to be removed to a place of safekeeping,’ Fidelma suggested.
‘I will see to it,’ Licinius said stiffly. He was obviously still thinking about the slight to the memory of the blessed Helena.
Fidelma continued to shuffle through the papers. It was obvious that Osimo and Ronan had formed a close relationship. The writings were poetry, concerned with love and fealty mostly written by Osimo and dedicated to Ronan. There was little reason to question that Osimo, hearing of Ronan’s death, could not bear to be in this world without him. Fidelma felt sad for them both.
‘Let everything you do be done in love,’ she whispered, gazing at the sheets of poetry.
Eadulf frowned.
‘What did you say?’
Fidelma smiled and shook her head. ‘I was just thinking of a line from Paul’s epistle to the Corinthians.’
Eadulf gazed at her a moment more in bemusement then, understanding, he resumed his examination of the room.
‘There is little more here, Fidelma,’ he said. ‘Nothing to throw any light on our mystery.’
‘Could Osimo have been involved in the death of Ronan?’ Licinius asked mystified.
‘Not as a culprit,’ Fidelma assured him. She was about
to say that they could do no more when something caught her eye.
‘What is that, Eadulf?’ she asked, pointing.
The Saxon looked in the direction to which she indicated. It was an object on the floor half hidden by the rough wooden cot. He bent to retrieve it.