"About three days after the other ship left for Fearna with the body of Dacán."
"Then obviously both ships were sent by Laigin within a few days after Dacán's murder. The Laigin king must have known what he was going to do almost as soon as he received word that Dacán had been murdered." She was speaking half to herself, as if clarifying a thought.
Tola did not feel that he was required to make any comment.
Fidelma gave a long sigh as she pondered the difficulties of the case. Finally, she said: "When you examined the body of Dacán, did any other matters strike your eye?"
"Such as?"
"I do not know," Fidelma confessed. "Was there anything unusual?"
Tola gestured negatively.
"There were just the stab wounds that caused his death, that is all."
"But there were no bruises, no signs of a struggle prior to his being bound? No marks of his being held down by force in order to bind him? No mark of his being knocked unconscious in order that he could be bound?"
Tola's expression changed as he saw what she was driving at.
"You mean, how could his enemy bind him without a struggle?"
Fidelma smiled tightly.
"That is exactly what I mean, Tola. Did he calmly let his attackers bind his hands and feet without a struggle?"
Tola looked serious for the first time during their conversation.
"There were no bruises that I saw. It did not occur to me…"
He paused and grimaced in annoyance.
"What?" demanded Fidelma.
"I am incompetent," sighed Tola.
"Why so?"
"I should have asked this very question at the time but I did not. I am sure, however, that there were no bruises on the body and, while the bonds on the wrists and ankles were tight, there was no bruising to show how they had been administered."
"What were the bonds made of?" Fidelma asked, wishing to check what she had learnt already.
"Torn pieces of cloth. As I recall they were pieces of linen and dyed."
"Can you recall the dyes?"
"Blue and red, I believe."
Fidelma nodded. The evidence concurred with that given by Brother Conghus.
"I suppose that they were thrown away?" Fidelma queried, presuming the worst.
She was surprised when Tola shook his head.
"As a matter of fact, no. Our enterprising apothecary, Brother Martan, has a morbid taste for relics and decided that the bonds of Dacán might one day become a much-sought-after and valuable relic, especially if the Faith recognizes him as a man of great sanctity."
"So this Brother…?"
"Martan," supplied Tola.
"So this Brother Martan has kept the material?"
"Exactly so."
"Well," Fidelma smiled in relief, "that is excellent. However, I will have to take temporary charge of them as being evidence pertinent to my inquiry. You may tell Brother Martan that he will get them returned as soon as I have done."
Tola nodded thoughtfully.
"But how did Dacán get himself bound by his enemies without a struggle?"
Fidelma pulled a face.
"Maybe he did not suspect that they were his enemies until later. Just one more point of clarification, though, and then I think we are done. You said that the body was cold and implied that it had been a long time dead. How long?"
"It is hard to judge. Several hours at least. I do not know when Dacán was last seen but he may well have been killed around midnight. Certainly the death occurred during the night and not later."
Fidelma found herself focusing on the oil lamp which stood on the table by the cot.
"Dacán was killed sometime about midnight," she said reflectively. "Yet when he was found the oil lamp was burning."
Cass, who had been more or less a silent spectator to Fidelma's questioning of Brother Tola, was watching her with interest.
"Why do you remark on that, sister?" he queried.
Fidelma went once more to the lamp and picked it up carefully so as not to spill any oil from it. Silently, she handed it to him with equal care. He took it, the bewilderment on his face increasing.
"I do not understand," he said.
"Do you notice anything odd about the lamp?"
He shook his head.
"It is still filled with oil. If this is the same lamp, then it could not have been burning more than an hour from the time Brother Conghus discovered the body."
Sister Fidelma sat on the cot in her chamber, hands linked together at the back of her head, staring upwards into the gloom. She had decided to call a halt to the investigation for that evening. She had thanked Brother Tola for his help and reminded him once more that, on the following morning, Brother Martan must hand over to her the strips of cloth that had bound Dacán. Then she had bade the young, enthusiastic Sister Necht a "good night's repose" and told her to report to her again with Brother Rumann the next morning.
She and Cass had retired to their respective rooms and now, instead of falling immediately to sleep, she sat, leaning back on her cot, with the lamp still burning wastefully while she considered the information she had gathered so far.
One thing she now realized was that her cousin, the Abbot Brocc, was being a little selective with the information he had given her. Why had he asked Brother Conghus to keep a watchful eye on Dacán only a week before Dacán was killed? Well, that was something which she would have to sort out with Brocc.
There was a soft tap on the door of her chamber.
Frowning, she swung off her cot and opened it.
Cass was standing outside.
"I saw your light still on. I hope I am not disturbing you, sister?"
Fidelma shook her head, bade him enter and take the only chair that there was in the chamber while she returned to her seat on the bed. For propriety's sake, she left the door open. In some communities, the new moral codes were changing the older foundations. Many leaders of the Faith, like Ultan of Armagh, were arguing against the continued existence of mixed communities and even putting forward the unpopular concept of celibacy among leading religions.
She was aware that an encyclical attributed to Patrick was being circulated giving thirty-five rules for the followers of the Faith. The ninth rule ordered that an unmarried monk and anchoress, each from a different place, should not stay in the same hostel or house, nor travel together in one chariot from house to house nor converse freely together. And according to the seventeenth rule, a woman who took a vow of chastity and then married was to be excommunicated unless she deserted her husband and did a penance. Fidelma had been enraged by the circulation of the document in the name of Patrick and his fellow bishops, Auxilius and Iserninus, because it was so contrary to the laws of the five kingdoms. Indeed, what had made her actually suspicious of the authenticity of the document was that the first rule decreed that any member of the religious who appealed to the secular laws merited excommunication. After all, two hundred years ago Patrick himself was one of the nine-man commission which had been established by the High King, Laoghaire, to put all the civil and criminal laws of the five kingdoms in the new writing.
To Fidelma, the circulation of the "rules of the first council of Patrick," as they were being called, was another piece of propaganda from the camp of the pro-Roman faction which wished the Faith in the five kingdoms of Eireann to be governed entirely from Rome.
She caught herself as she became aware that Cass had been saying something.
"I am sorry," she said awkwardly, "my mind was drifting miles away. What were you saying?"
The young warrior stretched his legs in the cramped chair.
"I was saying that I had an idea about the lamp."
"Oh?"
"It is obvious that someone refilled it when Dacán's body was discovered."