‘I have every right. So you had affairs with Muirgel and Canair? I suppose, knowing your character, you dallied with most of the young women at Moville.’
‘Jealous, are we?’ Cian sneered. ‘You were always possessive and jealous, Fidelma of Cashel. Don’t disguise your prying as being part of your duty. I had enough of your sulky ways when you were younger.’
‘I am not interested in your foolish pride, Cian. I am only interested in knowledge. I need to find Muirgel’s killer.’
She had become aware that their voices were raised and they had been shouting at each other. Luckily the sound of the wind and sea seemed to have disguised their words, although Murchad, standing nearby at the steering oar, looked studiously out to sea as if embarrassed. He must have heard their exchange.
Fidelma suddenly noticed that the young, naive Sister Gorman had come unnoticed on deck and was standing nearby, watching them with an expression of intense curiosity. She was picking at a shawl that she had draped over her shoulders to protect her from the chilly winds. When Fidelma caught her eye, she giggled and began to chant.
‘My beloved is fair and ruddy
A paragon among ten thousand.
His head is gold, finest gold,
His locks are like palm fronds.
His eyes are like doves beside brooks of water,
Splashed by the milky water
As they sit where it is drawn …’
Cian uttered a suppressed exclamation of disgust and turned down the companionway, brushing by the girl as he left Fidelma. Sister Gorman uttered a shrill laugh.
Gorman was a strange little thing, Fidelma thought. She seemed able to quote entire sections of Holy Scripture effortlessly. What was it that she had been quoting just then, something from the Song of Solomon? Sister Gorman glanced up and her eyes met Fidelma’s once more. She smiled again — a curious smile that had no humour to it, only a movement of the facial muscles. Then she turned and moved away.
‘Sister Gorman!’ Fidelma had promised herself to spend some time with the young girl for she was clearly highly-strung and no one seemed to be concerned for her. The girl watched suspiciously as Fidelma came up. ‘I hope you are not still blaming yourself for what has happened to Sister Muirgel?’
The girl’s apprehensive expression deepened.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, you did tell me, when we thought she had fallen overboard, that you felt guilty because you cursed her.’
‘That!’ Gorman pouted in a gesture of dismissal. ‘I was just being silly. Of course my curse did not kill her. That’s been proved by her death now. If my curse had killed her, she would not have been alive these past two days.’
Fidelma raised her eyes a little at the apparent callousness of the girl’s tone. But then Gorman displayed curious swings of temperament.
‘As you know,’ Fidelma passed on hurriedly, ‘I was asking where everyone was immediately before sitting down to breakfast. I think you said you were in your cabin?’
‘I was.’ The reply came curtly.
‘And you were there with Sister Ainder who shares that cabin?’
‘She went out for a while.’
‘Ah yes; so she said.’
‘Muirgel is dead. You are wasting your time asking these questions,’ snapped Gorman.
Fidelma blinked at her rude tone.
‘It is my duty to do so,’ she ventured, and then tried to change the conversation to put the young girl at her ease. ‘I notice you like chanting songs from the Scriptures.’
‘Everything is contained in the holy words,’ replied Gorman,almost arrogantly. ‘Everything.’ She suddenly stared unblinkingly into Fidelma’s eyes and her features formed once more into that eerie smile.
‘There can be no remedy for your sore,
The new skin cannot grow.
All your lovers have forgotten you;
They look for you no longer.
I have struck you down.’
Fidelma shivered in spite of herself.
‘I don’t understand …’
Gorman actually stamped a foot.
‘Jeremiah. Surely you know the Scriptures? It is a suitable epitaph for Muirgel.’
At that, she turned away and hurried past the tall figure of Sister Ainder. The latter moved towards her as if to speak with her, but the girl pushed by her, causing the sharp-faced woman to give an exclamation of annoyance as the girl almost made her lose her balance.
‘Is there anything wrong with Sister Gorman?’ she called to Fidelma.
‘I think she is in need of a friend to counsel her,’ replied Fidelma.
Sister Ainder actually smiled.
‘You do not have to tell me that. She has always kept to herself, even talking to herself at times as though she needs no other companion. But then, they say that true saints see and speak to angels. I would not condemn her for she might have more of the Faith then the rest of us put together.’
Fidelma was sceptical.
‘I think she is just a troubled soul.’
‘Yet madness can be a gift from God, so perhaps she is to be blessed.’
‘Do you think that she is mad?’
‘If not mad, then a little eccentric, eh? Look, there she is again, muttering her imprecations and curses.’
Sister Ainder pursed her lips and apparently did not wish to pursue the topic of conversation, for she changed the subject, remarking: ‘It seems that for a pilgrimage of religieux on our way to a Holy Shrine there is one thing missing on this voyage.’
‘Which is?’ asked Fidelma cautiously.
‘Religion itself. I fear that apart from a few exceptions, God is not with those on this voyage.’
‘How do you judge that?’
Sister Ainder’s bright eyes bore into Fidelma.
‘There was certainly no religion in the hand that killed Sister Muirgel and she, in turn, was certainly no religieuse. That young woman would have been better off in a bawdy house.’
‘So you disliked Muirgel?’
‘As I have told you before, I really did not know her enough to dislike her. I only disapproved of her loose ways with men. But, as I say, she does not appear to be outrageous company among our band of so-called pilgrims.’
‘I presume you don’t include yourself in the “outrageous company”? Are there any other exceptions?’
‘Brother Tola, of course.’
‘But not me?’ Fidelma smiled.
Sister Ainder looked at her pityingly.
‘You are not a religieuse. Your concern is the law and you are simply a Sister of the Faith by accident.’
Fidelma fought to keep her face impassive. She had not thought it was so obvious. First Brother Tola, and now Sister Ainder felt able to take her to task on her religiosity. Fidelma decided to move the conversation onwards.
‘What of the others of your party then? You don’t consider they should be in religious Orders?’
‘Certainly not. Cian, for instance, is a womaniser, a man without morals or thought for others. There is no caring in him. With his vanity, it would not occur to him that he was hurting anyone. As a warrior he was probably in the right occupation. Fate caused him to seek security in a religious house. It was the wrong decision.’
Then Sister Ainder gestured across the deck of the ship to Dathal and Adamrae.
‘Those young men should be … well!’ Her face was twisted in disapproval.
‘You would condemn them?’ asked Fidelma.
‘Our religion condemns them. Remember the words of Paul to Romans: “Their men in turn, giving up natural relations with women, burnt with lust for one another; males behave indecently with males, and are paid in their own persons the fitting wage of such perversion … Thus, because they have not seen fit to acknowledge God, He has given them up to their own depraved reason”.’