Whispers of the Dead (34 page)

“Caisín… I have heard the story. Caisín was a warrior turned thief! It was ten years ago that he was found guilty of stealing from the church there. He claimed that he had repented and went into the service of the church and disappeared…”

Brehon Tuama’s voice trailed off. His eyes narrowed on the religieux before him.

“Caisín of Inis Geimhleach? Are you saying that you are that man?” Fidelma articulated the conclusion of his thoughts.

The monk bowed his head and nodded.

Brehon Tuama turned to Fidelma with a glance of satisfaction: “Then, Sister, we…”

Fidelma stilled him with a warning glance.

“So, Caisín, why do you confess this now?”

“I have paid penance for my crime and have continued to serve
in the abbey of Cluain. You might discover this and leap to the wrong conclusion.”

“So why did you not reveal this before, when the Brehon questioned you?” she demanded.

Caisín flushed.

“One does not always do the correct thing at the correct time. This last day, I have had a chance to think more carefully. I realized it was foolish not to be completely honest even though it has nothing to do with the current matter.”

Fidelma sighed.

“Well, your honesty does you credit in the circumstances. Tell me, in your own words, what happened when you discovered the body of Muirenn, the wife of the smith.”

Caisín spread his arms in a sort of helpless gesture.

“There is nothing complicated about it. My abbot told me that some time ago he had commissioned a new silver cross for our high altar from Findach the Smith. I was instructed to come to Droim Sorn to collect it.”

“How was payment to be made to Findach?” asked Fidelma.

Caisín looked bewildered.

“The abbot made no reference to payment. He simply asked me to come and collect the cross. As it was for the high altar, I understood it to be heavy, and so I asked permission to take one of the mules from the abbey. I had been to Droim Sorn before and so I knew where to find Findach’s forge.”

Fidelma glanced quickly at him.

“You went to the forge directly?”

“Oh yes. Where else would I go to collect the cross?”

“Where, indeed? What then?”

“Findach was at the forge, and when I arrived he told me that the cross was at his house and I should precede him there. He would join me once he had doused his furnace.”

“Was anyone else at the forge when you arrived?”

“No… well, I did see a man riding away.”

“I don’t suppose you knew who it was?”

Brother Caisín surprised her by an affirmative nod.

“I recognized him later as Odar, the chieftain. He had his hunting dogs with him. I left Findach and went to the house. I arrived at the door. It was slightly ajar. I caught sight of clothing on the floor. I pushed the door open and then I realized the clothing was a body. It was a woman. I was standing there when I heard a noise beyond an interior door. I opened it and found the youth, Braon, hiding there. He had blood on his clothes and instinct made me grasp hold of him. A moment later, Findach, who followed me from the forge, entered and cried out when he recognized the body of his wife. His cry brought someone else who ran to fetch Brehon Tuama. That is all I know.”

Outside, Brehon Tuama looked worried.

“Do you think he is being honest? Once a thief…? Isn’t it said that opportunity makes the thief, and this man had opportunity.”

“Publilius Syrus once wrote that the stolen ox sometimes puts his head out of the stall,” smiled Fidelma, mysteriously.

Brehon Tuama looked bewildered. Fidelma went on without enlightening him: “I am going to ride to Cluain to see the abbot. When I return I hope to have resolved this mystery.”

Brehon Tuama’s eyes lightened.

“Then you think that Caisín is responsible?”

“I did not say that.”

Cluain, the meadow, was the site of an abbey and community founded by Colmán Mac Léníne some sixty years before. It was evening when she reached the abbey and demanded to be announced to the abbot immediately. The abbot received her without demur for he knew that Fidelma was also the sister of the young king of Cashel.

“You have come from Droim Sorn, lady?” asked the elderly abbot when they were seated. “I suppose that you wish to speak with me of Brother Caisín?”

“Why do you suppose that?”

“His background and the circumstances make him suspect in the murder and theft there. I have had word of the event from Brehon Tuama. Caisín is a good man in spite of his history. He came to this abbey ten years ago as a penitent thief. Like the penitent thief of the Bible, he was received with rejoicing and forgiveness and never once has he given us cause to question his redemption.”

“You trusted him to go to Droim Sorn to bring back a valuable cross of silver.”

“It was the new cross for our high altar.”

“But you did not trust him with the money to pay for it, I understand.”

The old man blinked rapidly.

“There was no payment to be made.”

“You mean that Findach undertook to make this cross out of charity for the abbey?” Fidelma was puzzled.

The old abbot laughed, a slightly high-pitched laugh.

“Findach never gave anything out of charity. I should know for I was uncle to his wife Muirenn. He is an impecunious man. He made the cross for us in repayment for this indebtedness to the abbey.”

Fidelma raised an eyebrow in query.

“Findach spent money like water. His wife owned the house in which he dwells and kept her own money as the law allows. In fact, all Findach owns is his forge and tools.”

Fidelma leant forward quickly.

“You mean that Findach will benefit from his wife’s wealth now that she is dead?”

The abbot smiled sadly and shook his head.

“He does not benefit at all. Half of her money is returned to her
own family in accordance with the law. She was an
aire-echta
in her own right.”

Fidelma was surprised, for it was not often that a smith’s wife held an equal honor price to that of her husband.

The abbot continued: “She has bequeathed the residue of her property to this abbey in my name, for she knew how I had helped her husband over the years.”

Fidelma hid her disappointment at being first presented and then deprived of another motive for the murder of Muirenn.

“Findach had been asked to make some artifact for Imleach; and rather than admit to the abbot of Imleach that he had no money to purchase the silver needed to make it, he asked me for a loan. When he later confessed he could not repay it, I offered to provide him with enough silver so that he could construct a cross for our high altar. His craftsmanship was to be the repayment.”

“I am beginning to understand. I am told that Caisín had been to Droim Sorn before?”

“I sent him myself,” agreed the abbot.

“Last month I sent him to see Findach to remind him that the time to deliver the cross was approaching. He returned and told me that Findach had assured him that the cross would be ready at the appropriate time.”

Fidelma, fretting at the delay, had to spend the night at Cluain, and rode back to Droim Sorn the following morning.

She was met by Brehon Tuama, whose face mirrored some degree of excitement.

“It seems that we were both wrong, Sister. The boy, Braon, announced his guilt by attempting to escape.”

Fidelma exhaled sharply in her annoyance.

“The stupid boy! What happened?”

“He climbed out of a window and fled into the forest. He was recaptured early this morning. Odar let loose his hunting dogs after him and it was a wonder that the boy was not ripped apart. We caught
him just in time. Odar has now demanded the imprisonment of his father as an accomplice.”

Fidelma stared at the Brehon.

“And you have agreed to this?”

Brehon Tuama spread his hands in resignation.

“What is there to be done? Whatever doubts I had before are now dispelled by the boy’s own admission of guilt… his attempt to escape.”

“Does it not occur to you that the boy attempted to escape out of fear rather than out of guilt?”

“Fear? What had he to fear if he was innocent?”

“He and his father seemed to fear that, as they are of the class of
bothach
, looked down on and despised by many of the free clansmen of this place, they would not be treated fairly,” she snapped.

“The law is there so that no one should fear any unjust action. I regret that Odar does not appreciate that fact.”

Brehon Tuama sighed.

“Sadly, the law is merely that which is written on paper. It is human beings who interpret and govern the law, and often human beings are frail creatures full of the seven deadly sins that govern their little lives.”

“Are you telling me the boy is again imprisoned at Odar’s
rath
and is unhurt?”

“Bruised a little, but unhurt.”

“
Deo gratias!
And the father?”

“He has been imprisoned in the barn behind the chief’s house.”

“Then let us go to the chief’s house and have all those involved in this matter summoned. If, after hearing what I have to say you feel that there is a necessity for a formal trial, so be it. But the boy is not guilty.”

Half an hour later they were gathered in Odar’s hall. Along with Odar and his tanist were Brehon Tuama, the boy, Braon, and his father, Brocc, with Findach and Brother Caisín.

Fidelma turned to Brocc first. Her voice was brusque.

“Although you are a
bothach,
you have worked hard and gathered enough valuables to soon be able to purchase your place as a full and free clansman here. Is that correct?”

Brocc was bewildered by her question, but gave an affirmative jerk of his head.

“You would be able to pay the honor price for the death of Muirenn, the compensation due for her unlawful killing?”

“If my son were judged guilty, yes.”

“Indeed. For everyone knows that your son is under age. The payment of compensation and fines incurred by his action, if found guilty, falls to you.”

“I understand that.”

“Indeed you do. The law is well known.” Fidelma turned to Find-ach. “Am I right in believing that your wife Muirenn was of the social rank of
aire-echta,
and her honor price was ten
séds
—that is the worth of ten milch cows?”

“That is no secret,” snapped Findach belligerently.

Fidelma swung ’round to Odar.

“And isn’t that the very sum of money that Findach owed you?”

Odar colored a little.

“What of it? I can lend money to my own kinsman if I wish to.”

“You know that Findach is penniless. If Braon was found guilty, Findach would receive the very sum of money in compensation that he owed to you, perhaps more if the claim of theft to the value of twenty-one
séds
is proved as well. Would that have any influence on your insisting on the boy’s prosecution?”

Odar rose to his feet, opening his mouth to protest, but Fidelma silenced him before he could speak.

“Sit down!” Fidelma’s voice was sharp. “I speak here as
dálaigh
and will not be interrupted.”

There was tense silence before she continued.

“This is a sad case. There never was a cross of silver that was stolen, was there, Findach?”

The smith turned abruptly white.

“You are known to be a gambler, often in debt to people such as Odar… and to your wife’s uncle, the abbot of Cluain. You are also lazy. Instead of pursuing the work you have a talent for, you prefer to borrow or steal so that you may gamble. You were in debt to your wife’s uncle, and when he gave you silver to fashion a cross as a means of repaying him you doubtless sold that silver.

“Having sold the silver, you had no cross to give to the abbey of Cluain. You have not used your forge in days, perhaps weeks. Your furnace was as cold as the grave. And speaking of coldness… when Braon touched the body of Muirenn to see if he could help, he remarked the body was cold. Muirenn could not have been killed that morning after you left. She had been dead many hours.”

Findach collapsed suddenly on his chair. He slumped forward, head held in his hands.

“Muirenn…” The word was a piteous groan.

“Why did you kill Muirenn?” pressed Fidelma. “Did she try to stop you from faking the theft of the cross?”

Findach raised his eyes. His expression was pathetic.

“I did not mean to kill her, just silence her nagging. Faking the theft was the only way I could avoid the debts… I hit her. I sat in the kitchen all night by her body wondering what I should do.”

“And the idea came that you could claim that the silver cross, which you had never made, was stolen by the same person who murdered your wife? You knew that Braon was coming that morning and he was a suitable scapegoat.” She turned to Brehon Tuama.
“Res ipsa loquitur,”
she muttered, using the Latin to indicate that the facts spoke for themselves.

When Findach had been taken away and Braon and his father released, Brehon Tuama accompanied Fidelma as she led her horse to the start of the Cashel road.

“A bad business,” muttered the Brehon. “We are all at fault here.”

“I think that Odar’s chiefship is worthy of challenge,” agreed Fidelma. “He is not fit to hold that office.”

“Was it luck that made you suspicious of Findach?” queried Tuama, nodding absently.

Sister Fidelma swung up into the saddle of her horse and glanced down at the Brehon with a smile.

“A good judge must never rely on luck in deduction. Findach tried to scatter thorns across the path of our investigation, hoping that the boy or Caisín would pierce their feet on them and be adjudged guilty. He should have remembered the old proverb: He that scatters thorns must not go barefooted.”