"Did you not question Assid later about his relationship with Dacán?"
Rumann looked pained and shook his head.
"Why should his relationship to Dacán be of interest to me?"
"But you said they greeted one another in friendship, implying that they knew one another and not by reputation."
"I saw no reason to ask whether Assi'd was a friend of Dacán."
"How else would you find the killer than by asking such questions?" Fidelma demanded sourly.
"I am not a dalaigh" retorted Rumann, indignantly. "I was asked to make an inquiry how Dacán came to be killed in our hostel, not to conduct a legal investigation."
There was some truth to this. Rumann was not trained to investigate. Fidelma was contrite.
"I am sorry," she apologized. "Just tell me as much as you know with regard to this man, Assi'd."
"He arrived on the day before Dacán was killed and left as I have told you, on that day. He sought lodging for the night. His barc anchored in the inlet and was presumably engaged in trading. This is all I know."
"Very well. And there was no one else in the hostel at the time?"
"No."
"Is access to the hostel easy from any part of the abbey buildings?"
"As you have seen, sister, there are no restrictions within the abbey walls."
"So any one of the many hundreds of students as well as the religious here could have entered and killed Dacán?"
"They could," Rumann admitted without hesitation.
"Was anyone particularly close to Dacán during his stay here? Did he have particular friends either among the religious or students?"
"No one was really friendly to him. Not even the abbot. The Venerable Dacán was a man who kept everyone at a distance. Not friendly, at all. Ascetic and indifferent to worldly values. I like to relax some evenings with a board game, brandubh or fidchell. I invited him to engage in a game or two and was dismissed as if I had suggested indulgence in a blasphemous thing."
This, at least, Fidelma thought, was a common point of agreement among those she had questioned about the Venerable Dacán. He was not a friendly soul.
"There was no one at all with whom he spoke more than any other person in the abbey?"
Rumann shrugged eloquently.
"Unless you count our librarian, Sister Grella. That, I presume, was because he did much research in the library."
Fidelma nodded thoughtfully.
"Ah yes, I have heard that he was at Ros Ailithir to study certain texts. I will see this Sister Grella later."
"Of course, he also taught," Rumann added. "He taught history."
"Can you tell me who were his students?"
"No. You would have to speak to our fer-leginn, our chief professor, Brother Ségán. Brother Ségán has control of all matters pertaining to the studies here. That is, under Abbot Brocc, of course."
"Presumably, in pursuit of his studies, the Venerable Dacán must have written considerably?"
"I would presume so," Rumann replied diffidently. "I often saw him carrying manuscripts and, of course, his wax writing tablets. He was never without the latter."
"Then." Fidelma paused to lend emphasis to her question, "why are there no manuscripts nor used tablets in his chamber?"
Brother Rumann gazed blankly at her.
"Are there not?" he asked in bewilderment.
"No. There are tablets which have been smoothed clean and vellum which has not been used."
The house steward shrugged again. The gesture seemed to come naturally to him.
"It is of surprise to me. Perhaps he stored whatever he wrote in our library. However, I fail to see what this has to do with his death."
"And you had no knowledge of what Dacán was studying?" Fidelma did not bother to reply to his implied question. "Did anyone know why he had come in particular to Ros Ailithir?"
"It is not my business to pry into the affairs of others. Sufficient that Dacán came with the recommendation of the king of Cashel and his presence was approved of by my abbot. I tried, like others here, to be friendly with him but, as I have said, he was not a friendly man. In truth, sister, perhaps I should confess that there was no mourning in the abbey when Dacán passed into the Otherworld."
Fidelma leaned forward with interest.
"I was led to believe, in spite of the fact that he was considered austere, that Dacán was widely beloved by the people and revered as a man of great sanctity."
Brother Rumann pursed his lips cynically.
"I have heard that this is so—and perhaps it is… in Laigin. All I can say is that he was welcomed here at Ros Ailithir but did not reciprocate the warmth of our welcome. So he was generally left to his own devices. Why, even little Sister Necht went in fear of him."
"She did? Why so?"
"Presumably because he was a man whose coldness inspired apprehension."
"I thought his saintly reputation went further than Laigin. In most places, he and his brother Noé are spoken of as one would speak of Colmcille, of Brendan or of Enda."
"One may only speak as one finds, sister. Sometimes reputations are not deserved."
"Tell me, this dislike of Dacén…"
Brother Rumann shook his head in interruption.
"Indifference, sister. Indifference, not dislike, for there were no grounds to promote such a positive response as dislike."
Fidelma bowed her head in acknowledgment of the point.
"Very well. Indifference, if you like. In your estimation you do not think it was enough to promote a feeling in someone here to kill him?"
The eyes of the steward narrowed in his fleshy face.
"Someone here? Are you suggesting that one of our brethren in Ros Ailithir killed him?"
"Perhaps even one of his students who disliked his manner? That has been known."
"Well, I have never heard of such a thing. A student respects his master."
"In ordinary circumstances," she agreed. "Yet we are investigating an extraordinary circumstance. Murder, for that is what we have established, is a most unnatural crime. Whatever path we follow we have to agree that someone in this community must have perpetrated this act. Someone in this community," she repeated with emphasis.
Brother Rumann regarded her with a solemn face and tight mouth.
"I cannot say further than I have. All I was asked to do, all I did, was investigate the circumstance of his death. What else could I have done? I have not the skills of a dalaigh."
Fidelma spread her hands in a pacifying gesture.
"I imply no criticism, Brother Rumann. You have your office and I have mine. We are faced with a delicate situation, not merely in terms of solving this crime but in seeking to prevent a war."
Brother Rumann sniffed loudly.
"If you ask my opinion, I would not put it past Laigin to have engineered this whole matter. They have appealed time and time again to the High King's assembly at Tara for the return of Osraige. Each time, it has been ruled that Osraige was lawfully part of Muman. Now this." He stabbed with his hand into the air.
Fidelma examined the steward with interest.
"Just when did you come to such an opinion, Brother Rumann?" she questioned gently.
"I am of the Corco Lofgde, a man of Muman. When I heard of the honor price that young Fianamail of Laigin was demanding for Dacán's death, I suspected a plot. You were right in the first place."
Fidelma raised an eyebrow at Rumann's angry features.
"Right? In what respect?"
"That I should have been suspicious of the merchant, Assi'd. He was probably the assassin and I let him go!"
She gazed at him for a moment then said: "One thing more, brother. How did you come to know what the demands of Laigin are?"