Brother Dathal, eager and ferret-like, asked, ‘Why, surely you were not Cian’s lover, Sister?’
Fidelma grimaced resignedly.
‘Oh yes. I, too, came under Cian’s spell ten years ago when I was a young student at the college of Brehon Morann at Tara.’ She gazed thoughtfully at Cian. ‘It was a youthful, immature affair on both sides,’ she added with a maliciousness she did not realise that she possessed. ‘I grew up. Cian didn’t.’
‘Well, how would this insane lover realise that?’ asked Brother Dathal intrigued. ‘If your affair happened ten years ago, it was before Cian joined the religieux at Bangor and doubtless long before any of us knew him.’
Fidelma shot him a glance of appreciation.
‘You ask a good question, Brother Dathal. You all became aware when I first came aboard that I had known Cian before. One personwas very interested in that fact. That same person overheard Cian and me discussing our sad little affair.’
She swung round abruptly to Cian.
‘I am sure that you can work things out for yourself. You admitted to me that you had affairs with Canair, Muirgel and Crella.’
Before she had finished speaking, Brother Bairne had leapt from his seat opposite Cian and flung himself across the table. He was brandishing a knife.
‘Bastard!’ he cried, grabbing Cian by the throat and raising the weapon.
Gurvan had reached forward in front of Cian and grabbed Bairne’s s wrist with the weapon in it in a vice-like grip, thrusting the wrist back in a painful bend. With a scream Brother Bairne’s fingers let the knife drop through onto the table. It fell with a clatter and Brother Tola had the presence of mind to scoop it up and hand it to Murchad.
Brother Bairne was no match for the stocky and muscular Breton seaman. Even as they struggled, while Cian slipped back out of the way, Gurvan hauled the flushed-faced, frenzied young man across the table and twisted his arm behind his back. The young monk went suddenly limp; all the fight seemed to have left him.
Fidelma regarded him with disapproval.
‘That was a silly thing to do, Brother Bairne, wasn’t it?’
‘I hate him!’ the young man whimpered.
‘Hated but lusted for him?’ Sister Ainder was aghast. ‘I don’t understand!’
‘Brother Bairne, explain why you hated Cian,’ Fidelma invited patiently.
‘I hated Cian for taking Muirgel from me.’
Cian laughed harshly.
‘Madness! Muirgel was never yours to take from you, you stupid child.’
‘Bastard!’ cried Bairne again, but was still firmly held in the grip of Gurvan.
Sister Crella had recovered some of her spirits now.
‘Cian is telling the truth. Muirgel wanted nothing to do with Bairne. She thought he was weird, an effeminate dreamer. And she did have an affair with Cian.’
Cian nodded agreement.
‘But Muirgel and I ended that relationship just before we set out from Moville. Muirgel had found another lover and I had found Canair. It was as simple as that. Muirgel told me that, against all the odds, she was in love with Guss.’
‘Guss?’ Crella stared at him confounded. ‘Is it true? It can’t be.’ She raised a hand to her cheek as the horror of her denial of her friend’s involvement with the young man grew.
‘It is true,’ Fidelma told her. ‘Muirgel really did love him and only your dislike of Guss kept you from believing it. Your refusal to believe that Muirgel was in love with him, made me suspect Guss for a while but, at the same time, your dislike of him, which seemed like jealousy in his eyes, caused Guss to believe that you were the killer — hence his great fear of you, which led to him falling overboard.’
Brother Tola was shaking his head in perplexity.
‘I still cannot see why Brother Bairne would kill Toca Nia if, as he says, he hated Cian. Surely the arrival of Toca Nia was the answer to Bairne’s dreams — the best way to get rid of Cian?’
Fidelma was impatient.
‘You have missed the point. Bairne did not kill anyone. He was not competent enough. Look at the feeble attempt he made just now! Let me get back to what I was saying before he made that stupid display. I was suggesting that Cian was well able to work things out for himself. He had admitted to affairs with Canair and Muirgel. He even admitted to a brief affair with Crella. But there was still one more person on this ship with whom he had an affair, the only person who overheard us arguing about our youth.’
Sister Gorman had risen from the table, for already a look of horror had spread over Cian’s face and he had turned to her, memories flooding back. Gorman’s features were not reflective of guilt but defiant, and there was a curious glint in her eyes. Her jaw stuck out aggressively. The laugh she gave sounded slightly hysterical, a high-pitched chortling sound, the tone close to malignant triumph. As Fidelma gazed on her face, she was completely confirmed in her estimation that Gorman was, indeed, insane.
The young girl glowered in defiance at all of them.
‘I have committed no crime,’ she spoke scornfully. ‘Does not the Book of Genesis say:
‘I kill a man for wounding me,
A young man for a blow.
Cain may be avenged seven times
But I seventy-seven!’
Fidelma corrected her gently.
‘You are quoting from the Song of Lamech, son of Methushael, whose endless desire for vengeance was transformed by the words ofthe Christ. Remember what Christ told Peter according to the Gospel of Matthew? “Then Peter came up and asked him, ‘Lord, how often am I to forgive my brother if he goes on wronging me? As many as seven times?’ Jesus replied, ‘I do not say seven times; I say seventy times seven.’” Let Lamech’s shade die with his vengeance, Gorman.’
The girl turned furiously towards her.
‘Do not be clever with me, whore of Babylon! I would have killed you too but you were able to thwart me twice. You will be punished yet. “ … I saw a woman mounted on a scarlet beast which was covered with blasphemous names and had seven heads and ten horns. The woman was clothed in purple and scarlet and bedecked with gold and jewels and pearls. In her hand she held a gold cup, full of obscenities and the foulness of her fornication; and written on her forehead was a name with a secret meaning: Babylon the great, the mother of whores and of every obscenity on earth. The woman I saw was drunk with the blood of God’s people and the blood of those who had borne their testimony to Jesus”.’
‘The girl is raving!’ Sister Ainder muttered uneasily, rising and edging away from her.
Murchad glanced towards Fidelma as if to ask what he should do.
Cian had relaxed now and was sitting with his hands resting on the table. He regarded the girl with complete indifference.
‘Thank God this matter is resolved,’ he said to no one in particular. ‘This insanity has nothing to do with me. I am not responsible for the madness of this girl. Dominus illuminatio … Why, I only ever slept with her once.’
Sister Gorman wheeled round on him, eyes blazing.
‘But it was for you I did it, for you — don’t you understand? I did it to save you! So that we could be together!’
Cian smirked.
‘For me?’ he sneered. ‘You are crazy. What gave you the idea that I wanted anything more to do with you after that night? You women always want to turn everything into permanent ownership.’
Sister Gorman jerked back as if he had struck her across the face. A bewildered expression crossed her features.
‘You can’t mean that. You said that night that you loved me.’ Her voice became a soft wailing sound.