“You had no close friends among the other members of the community?”
“I do not get on with the women, if that is what you mean.”
“It isn’t. But it is useful to know. How about male friends?…”
“I’ve told you, I don’t-”
Abbot Laisran coughed in embarrassment. “I had always thought that you and Brother Torchan were friends.”
Sister Slaine blushed. “I get on well with Brother Torchan,” she admitted defensively.
Fidelma suddenly rose and glanced along the wall once more, before turning with a smile to the girl. “You’ve been most helpful,” she said abruptly, turning for the door.
Outside in the corridor, Abbot Laisran was regarding her with a puzzled expression. “What now?” he demanded. “I would have thought that you wanted to develop the question of her relationships?”
“We shall go to see Brother Torchan,” she said firmly.
Brother Torchan was out in the garden and had to be sent for so Fidelma could interview him in his cell. He was a thickset, muscular young man whose being spoke of a life spent in the open air.
“Well, Brother, what do you think of Sister Scathach?”
The burly gardener shook his head sadly. “I grieve for her as I grieve for Brother Sioda. I knew Brother Sioda slightly but the girl not at all. I doubt if I have seen her more than half a dozen times and never spoken to her but once. By all accounts, she was clearly demented.”
“What do you think about her being driven to murder by voices from the Otherworld?”
“It is clear that she must be placed in the care of a combination of priests and physicians to drive away the evilness that has compelled her.”
“So you think that she is guilty of the murder?”
“Can there be any other explanation?” asked the gardener in surprise.
“You know Sister Slaine, of course. I am told she is a special friend of yours.”
“Special? I would like to think so. We often talk together. We came from the same village.”
“Has she ever discussed Sister Scathach with you?”
Brother Torchan shifted uneasily. He looked suspiciously at Fidelma. “Once or twice. When the abbot first asked her to look after Sister Scathach, it was thought that it was simply a case of what the apothecaries call tinnitus. She heard sounds in her ears. But then Slaine said that the girl had become clearly demented, saying that she was being woken up by the sound of voices giving her messages and urging her to do things.”
“Did you know that Slaine was having an affair with Sioda?” Fidelma suddenly said sharply.
Torchan colored and, after a brief hesitation, nodded. “It was deeper than an affair. She told me that they planned to leave the abbey and set up home together. It is not forbidden by rule, you know.”
“How did you feel about that?”
Brother Torchan shrugged. “So long as Sioda treated her right, it had little to do with me.”
“But you were her friend.”
“I was a friend and advised her when she wanted advice. She is the kind of girl who attracts men. Sometimes the wrong men. She attracted Brother Sioda.”
“Was Brother Sioda the wrong man?”
“I thought so.”
“Did she ever repeat to you anything Brother Sioda told her?”
Torchan lowered his eyes. “You mean about Gormflaith and the child? Sister Slaine is not gifted with the wisdom of silence. She told me various pieces of gossip. Oh…” He hesitated. “I have never spoken to Scathach, if that is what you mean.”
“But, if Slaine told you, then she might well have told others?”
“I do not mean to imply that she gossiped to anyone. There was only Brother Cruinn and myself whom she normally confided in.”
“Brother Cruinn, the steward, was also her friend?”
“I think that he would have liked to have been something more until Brother Sioda took her fancy.”
Fidelma smiled tightly. “That will be all, Torchan.”
There was a silence as Abbot Laisran followed Fidelma down the stone steps to the floor below.
Fidelma led the way back to Sister Scathachs cell, paused, and then pointed to the next door. “And this is Brother Cruinn’s cell?”
Abbot Laisran nodded.
Brother Cruinn, the steward of the abbey, was a thin, sallow man in his mid-twenties. He greeted Fidelma with a polite smile of welcome. “A sad business, a sad business,” he said. “The matter of Sister Scathach. I presume that is the reason for your wishing to see me?”
“It is,” agreed Fidelma easily.
“Of course, of course. A poor, demented girl. I have suggested to the abbot here that he should send to Ferna to summon the bishop. I believe that there is some exorcism ritual with which he is acquainted. That may help. We have lost a good man in Brother Sioda.”
Fidelma sat down unbidden in the single chair that occupied the cell. “You were going to lose Brother Sioda anyway,” she said dryly.
Brother Cruinn’s face was an example of perfect self-control. “I do not believe I follow you, Sister,” he said softly.
“You were also losing Sister Slaine. How did you feel about that?”
Brother Cruinn’s eyes narrowed, but he said nothing.
“You loved her. You hated it when she and Brother Sioda became lovers.”
Brother Cruinn was looking appalled at Abbot Laisran, as if appealing for help.
Abbot Laisran wisely made no comment. He had witnessed too many of Fidelma’s interrogations to know when not to interfere.
“It must have been tearing you apart,” went on Fidelma calmly. “But instead, you hid your feelings. You pretended to remain a friend, simply a friend to Sister Slaine. You listened carefully while she gossiped about her lover and especially when she confided what he had told her about his first affair and the baby.”
“This is ridiculous!” snapped Brother Cruinn.
“Is it?” replied Fidelma as if pondering the question. “What a godsend it was when poor Sister Scathach was put into the next cell to you. Sister Scathach was an unfortunate girl who was suffering, not from imagined whispering voices from the Otherworld, but from an advanced case of the sensation of noises in the ears. It is not an uncommon affliction, but some cases are worse than others. As a little child, when it developed, silly folk-her parents-told her that the whistling and hissing sounds were the voices of lost souls in the Otherworld trying to communicate with her and thus she was blessed.
“Her parents brought her here. She probably noticed the affliction more in these conditions than she had when living by the sea, where the whispering was not so intrusive. Worried by the worsening affects, on the advice of the apothecary, Abbot Laisran placed her in the cell with Sister Slaine, who knew something of the condition, to look after her.”
Fidelma paused, eyes suddenly hardening on him.
“That was your opportunity, eh, Brother Cruinn? A chance to be rid of Brother Sioda and with no questions asked. A strangely demented young woman who was compelled by voices from another world to do so would murder him.”
“You are mad,” muttered Brother Cruinn.
Fidelma smiled. “Madness can only be used as an excuse once. This is all logical. It was your voice that kept awakening poor Sister Scathach and giving her these messages that made her behave so. At first you told her to proclaim some general messages. That would cause people to accept her madness, as they saw it. Then, having had her generally accepted as mad, you gave her the message to prepare for Sioda’s death.”
She walked to the head of his bed, her eye having observed what she had been seeking. She reached forward and withdrew from the wall a piece of loose stone. It revealed a small aperture, no more than a few fingers wide and high.
“Abbot Laisran, go into the corridor and unlock Sister Scathach’s door, but do not open it nor enter. Wait outside.”
Puzzled, the abbot obeyed her.
Fidelma waited and then bent down to the hole.
“Scathach! Scathach! Can you hear me, Scathach? All is now well. You will hear the voices no more. Go to the door and open it. Outside you will find Abbot Laisran. Tell him that all is now well. The voices are gone.”