‘As if he would confess that he had murdered the archbishop-designate!’
‘But did you ask?’ pressed Fidelma.
‘I told him that I had seen him fleeing from the chambers where the archbishop-designate had been murdered. He denied having anything to do with the murder. I marched him off to the cells in the guard house and reported the matter immediately to Marinus, the military governor. Marinus came and questioned Brother Ronan who simply denied everything. That is all I have to say.’
Fidelma rubbed the bridge of her nose thoughtfully with her slender finger.
‘Yet what you told him was inaccurate, wasn’t it?’ she asked almost sweetly.
The
decurion
frowned.
‘I mean,’ went on Fidelma, ‘that you had not seen him fleeing from the archbishop-designate’s chamber. You say that you first saw him only at the end of the corridor in which the archbishop-designate’s chambers were situated. Is that not so?’
‘If one wishes to be precise, but it is obvious …’
‘A witness must be precise and not draw conclusions. That is the task of the judge,’ Fidelma admonished. ‘Now, you say your men arrested him as he ran out of the
domus hospitale?’
‘That is correct,’ Marcus Narses replied with pique in his voice.
‘And was he carrying anything?’
‘No, he was not carrying anything.’
‘Has a search been instigated for the missing items from Wighard’s trunk? We know that many precious items have been stolen from these chambers. The supposition is that
whoever killed the archbishop-designate stole these items. But you did not observe Brother Ronan Ragallach carrying anything in the corridor and now you confirm that he was not carrying anything when he was arrested.’
Fidelma smiled thinly at the
decurion.
‘So has a search been made for the lost treasures?’ she spelt out her question carefully and with patience.
‘A search was made, of course,’ replied Marcus Narses. ‘A search of the vicinity; anywhere that he might have dumped them during his flight.’
‘But nothing was found?’
‘Nothing. Marinus ordered that we search Brother Ronan’s chambers at the
Munera Peregrinitatis
and also his lodgings.’
‘And still nothing was found, of course?’ Fidelma asked, assuming the answer.
‘Nothing,’ confirmed Marcus Narses, with growing irritation at Fidelma’s prescience.
‘And was this chamber searched?’ Fidelma asked innocently.
Both Licinius and Marcus Narses exchanged a derisive grin with each other.
‘If the treasures were stolen from here then the thief would hardly be likely to hide them in the very room he was taking them from,’ the
decurion
sneered.
Without a word, Fidelma crossed to the bed and knelt down to where she had seen Marcus Narses’ sword scabbard drag the coverlet away. She reached forward before their astounded gaze and drew forth a stick and a pair of leather sandals, together with a heavy leather-bound book. Beyond these was a rolled up tapestry which she also dragged out. Then she rose turning a bland gaze on them.
Eadulf was smiling broadly behind his hand at their sudden chagrin.
‘I would presume that these are some of the missing items. The staff and sandals of Augustine and the book from Lindisfarne and the tapestry made by the ladies attending the Queen of Kent.’
Eadulf moved forward and eagerly examined them.
‘There is no doubt that these are the items from the treasure,’ he confirmed.
Licinius was shaking his head like a pugilist recovering from a blow.
‘How …?’ he began.
‘Because no one searched thoroughly,’ Fidelma replied evenly, enjoying their discomfiture. ‘It seems whoever took the treasure was only interested in the items of immediate mercenary value. The thief wanted nothing that could not be quickly converted into exchangeable currency.’ Fidelma could not help a sly dig at Eadulf. ‘It somehow weakens the point you made that these artifacts were what the thief wanted as a means of hurting the authority of Canterbury.’
Eadulf pulled a face. He was far from convinced. Instead he turned to Marcus Narses and asked in tones of innocence: ‘Perhaps, the
decurion
Marcus Narses should make another and more thorough search of all the chambers on this floor?’
Marcus Narses mumbled something which Fidelma was charitable enough to accept as assent.
‘Good. Now while you do that, Furius Licinius can conduct us to see Brother Ronan Ragallach.’
‘I think it would be the next logical step,’ Eadulf agreed solemnly.
‘And at least,’ Fidelma smiled mischievously, ‘we can report
to the Bishop Gelasius that not all of Wighard’s treasures have been stolen.’
They were turning towards the door when it burst abruptly open. The agitated figure of the
Superista,
Marinus, stood framed in the portal. His face was flushed and his breath came quickly from the exertion of running. His eyes moved rapidly over the group until they came to rest on Sister Fidelma.
‘I have just heard from the guard house … Brother Ronan Ragallach has escaped from his cell and is nowhere to be found. He has vanished.’
The last notes of the chant echoed into silence against the great vaulted roof of the austere round basilica of St. John of Lateran. Massive oriental granite columns towered upwards on either side of the short nave, above which brightly coloured frescoes depicted scenes from both Old and New Testaments. The smell of incense and the fragrance of beeswax candles, in their opulent gold and silver stands, mixed into a heavily scented aroma which created a stifling atmosphere. Marble was omnipresent, blending in with the stones and granite which supported a tower above the ostentatious high altar approached by a variegated pavement of semi-precious stones inserted into mosaic form. Little chapels led off from the main domed area of the basilica; unobtrusive little chapels compared with the splendour of the area of the high altar. Here were some of the remarkably modest sarcophagi of the Holy Fathers of the Roman Church, although the custom now was, whenever possible, to have their remains interred in the basilica of St Peter to the north-west of the city.
Before the richly endowed high altar, resting on trestles, was the opened wooden coffin of Wighard, the late archbishop-designate of Canterbury. A dozen bishops and their
attendants sat to one side and behind them a score or more of abbots and abbesses, while on the other side of the altar sat the official mourners from the band of Saxon religious, who had followed the Kentish priest to Rome for his ordination. Now they were witnesses to his funeral rites.
Sister Fidelma had positioned herself behind Brother Eadulf who had taken a prominent place as the
scriba
of Wighard. Next to Eadulf sat an austere-looking abbot whose features were remarkably handsome, she thought, although they seemed to lack something. Compassion, perhaps? There was something callous about the set of his mouth and expression in his pale eyes. She wondered who this abbot was as he sat in a place of prominence among the mourners. She would ask Eadulf later, but she could not help notice the side glances the man kept giving towards the prim-featured Abbess Wulfrun sitting at his side. The dowdy figure of Sister Eafa sat next to her while two more brothers were ranged at Eafa’s other side.
From her position Fidelma could also see across the apse and down into the short darkened nave of the crowded basilica. The vast throng of people, people of all the Christian nations, judging by the variety of their styles of dress, filled the nave and clustered between the niches of the massive columns which supported the roof. Fidelma knew well that it was not the requiem mass for the Saxon archbishop-designate which had brought the vast concourse crowding into the church. The attendance was due only to the fact that the Holy Father himself was conducting the mass for the departed soul of Wighard. It was Vitalian, incumbent of the throne of St Peter, whom they thronged to see.
She glanced across to the high altar where the Bishop of
Rome, supported by his attendant, was rising from his ornately worked throne.
Vitalian, the 76th successor to the throne of Peter the Apostle – according to the chroniclers – was tall with a large but flat nose and strands of long, wiry black hair spilling from under his tall white
phrygium,
a tiara-like crown of his office. His lips were thin, almost cruel, observed Fidelma, and the eyes black and impenetrable. Although he was a native of Segni, not far south of Rome, it was said that his ancestry was Greek and Fidelma had already heard talk in Rome that Vitalian had, in contrast to his papal predecessors, embarked on a policy of the restoration of religious unity, openly wooing the patriarchs of the eastern churches to repair the break with Rome which had begun two centuries before.
As the voices of the choristers fell silent, the Bishop of Rome stood with raised hand for the blessing. There was a shuffle as everyone knelt before him. At his side, his
mansionarius,
the head verger, presented the thurible, containing the incense, to the acolyte whose duty it was to dispense the perfume around the coffin.
After the blessing was intoned, the pall bearers, with bowed heads, moved slowly forward to transport the earthly remains of Wighard to the cart that waited outside the basilica. Wighard would begin his last journey from the basilica to the Gate of Metronia and thence to the Christian cemetery under the bleak southern city wall of Aurelian.
The Bishop of Rome followed the coffin first. But before the funeral cart itself went a detachment of the
custodes
of the Lateran Palace with the
primicerius,
or papal chancellor, and his deacons. After His Holiness came Gelasius, as
nomenclator,
together with the other two main dignitaries, the
vestararius,
in charge of the papal household, and the
sacellarius,
the papal treasurer.
The chief mourners were marshalled by an officious young cenobite, in charge of ceremonies, to a position immediately behind the bishops.
After them would come the rest of the congregation, walking solemnly in procession to the place of burial. As the cortège began to move slowly away from the basilica, the choristers began a hearty chant.
Benedic nobis, Domine, et omnibus donis Tuis
…
Bless us, O Lord, and all thy gifts …
It was said that Vitalian was vigorous in encouraging the use of music in all aspects of religious worship, contrary to the policy of his predecessors in office.
Unlike the others in the procession, Fidelma did not walk with head bowed. She was too busy gazing around her, taking in the sights and sounds of the ceremony and especially the faces of those accompanying the funeral. Somewhere, she reasoned, in those solemn faces might be the murderer of Wighard.
As she examined her fellow mourners she contemplated the facts of Wighard’s death as she saw them. There was something about them that did not seem right; in spite of Brother Ronan Ragallach’s curious, and seemingly guilty, behaviour. In fact, she suddenly realised, it was because of that behaviour. No murderer would draw such attention to himself as the Irishman had done. And the exact manner of Wighard’s death, the missing gold and silver artifacts, did not seem to fit to the pattern which Bishop Gelasius and the
military governor, Marinus, offered as a solution.
As the procession wound its way under the shadow of Mons Caelius and the remnants of the ancient Tullian Wall of Rome, the choristers started a new chant, a soft sorrowful dirge.
Nos miseri homines et egeni …
We miserable men and needy …
They turned through the impressive portals of the Gate of Metronia, outside the ancient city.
The Christian cemetery, in the shadow of the remains of the third-century Aurelian walls which encircled the seven hills of Rome, was surprisingly large, with its monuments and mausoleums, crypts and cenotaphs. Fidelma was amazed by the vastly differing styles of entombment.
Noticing her surprise, Eadulf unbent a little from his grim-faced mourning.
‘The ancient law of Rome prohibited burials taking place within the city, within the confines set up by Servius Tullius, the sixth king of Rome. As the population increased, the boundary was extended for a mile. Thus, sister, you will find many cemeteries outside the city limits, such as this one.’
‘But I have heard that because of persecution, those of the Faith in Rome would bury their dead in vast subterranean caverns,’ Fidelma said with a frown.
Eadulf shook his head and smiled.
‘Not because of persecution. It was simply that the early members of the Faith followed their own customs. Mostly, Greeks, Jews and Romans, the earliest members of the Faith, would either burn or bury their dead. The remains would be put into urns or laid in sarcophagi and, in turn, these would
be located in chambers under the ground. The practice to open up these chambers grew from the second century after Christ’s birth and only just ended during the last century. It was more custom than persecution.’
The final blessing had been given and the procession reformed to be led away by the choristers with a dramatic paen of triumph, the
Gloria Patri,
Glory be to the Father, symbolising thanks for the passing of Wighard’s soul into heavenly repose. It was appropriate, thought Fidelma. The lament to the grave and the rejoicing at the return.
She moved closer to Eadulf.
‘We must discuss the case,’ she insisted.
‘There is plenty of time, surely, especially now we know that Ronan Ragallach is guilty,’ Eadulf replied easily.
‘We know nothing of the sort,’ snapped Fidelma, annoyed by Eadulf’s presumption.
Heads turned from the departing mourners in surprise at her sharp tone.
She coloured and lowered her gaze.
‘We know nothing of the sort,’ she repeated in a whisper.
‘But it is obvious,’ Eadulf responded, with a frown of equal annoyance. ‘What other evidence do you want than Ronan’s flight? His escape from custody is an admission of his guilt by itself.’
Fidelma shook her head vigorously.
‘Not so.’
‘Well, so far as I am concerned, Ronan is clearly guilty,’ replied Eadulf stubbornly.
Fidelma’s lips compressed. A dangerous sign.
‘Let me remind you of our agreement; the decision on this matter of culpability was to be unanimous. I will continue my
investigation … alone, if need be.’
Eadulf’s face was a mask of frustration. The matter seemed clear to him. But he knew that Bishop Gelasius would find a divided opinion worse than no opinion at all. At the same time he felt disquiet. There was no denying that Sister Fidelma had shown a remarkable aptitude at delving into a puzzle and reaching a solution where he thought there was none. He had been more than impressed by the affair at Witebia, in Northumbria. But surely this case was so simple. Why didn’t she see that?
‘Very well, Fidelma. I believe Ronan is guilty. His actions proclaimed it. I am prepared to report as much to Gelasius. However, I am willing to listen to any arguments you may have against that conclusion …’
He became aware of some of the lingering mourners examining them curiously, watching the animated faces of their disagreement.
Brother Eadulf took Fidelma’s arm and guided her through the cemetery towards a tall mausoleum with a marble edifice.
‘I know a place where we may get some peace to exchange our views on the matter,’ he grunted.
To her surprise, Fidelma saw a young boy squatting outside the entrance to the mausoleum with a basket of candles before him. Eadulf placed a coin into the bowl which the lad held out and selected a candle. The boy had flint and tinder and struck a light for the candle.
Without a word, Eadulf led Fidelma inside. She found herself in a small stairwell in the crypt leading down into the darkness.
‘What is this place, Eadulf?’ Fidelma asked, as the Saxon monk began to descend a series of carved stone stairs.
‘This is one of the catacombs where the early members of the Faith were buried,’ he explained, holding the candle aloft as he guided her downward some twenty feet or more into a large corridor which had been carved through the stone. ‘There are sixty of these cemeteries within the immediate vicinity of Rome which were used until the end of the last century. It is said that some six million Christians were buried in these places during the last four or five centuries.’
The tunnel, Fidelma could see, led into a network of subterranean galleries, generally intersecting each other at right angles, though sometimes taking on a very sinuous course. They were six feet wide and rose sometimes as high as ten feet.
‘These tunnels seem to be cut through solid rock,’ she observed, pausing to run her hand over the walls.
Eadulf smiled and nodded assent.
‘The countryside about Rome consists of volcanic rocks, sometimes used as building stone. The stone is dry and porous and can be easily worked. The galleries which our brethren made were not unsuitable for living in and were often used as retreats during the great persecutions.’
‘But how could people breathe underground?’
Eadulf pointed to a small aperture above their heads.
‘See? The builders ensured that openings were made at distances of two or three hundred feet.’
‘They must be immense constructions if this is but one of sixty.’
‘Indeed,’ Eadulf agreed. ‘They were greatly extended during the reigns of the emperors Aurelius Antoninus and Alexander Severus.’
They suddenly came upon a wider space with long recesses cut into the walls. Several were empty but more than a few were blocked in by carved stone.
‘Here we have the vaults of the dead ones,’ Eadulf explained. ‘The niche is called a
loculus
in which the body is placed. Each family had such a chamber called an
arcosolia
where they buried their dead.’
Fidelma gazed with some admiration at the beautifully coloured frescoes that were painted on the outside of some of the tombs. There was some writing on the archway above.
‘Hic congesta jacet quaeris si turba Piorum,
‘Corpora Sanctorum retinent venereanda sepulcra …’