“Knowing this, why did you remain in the abbey?”
The girl shrugged.
“One day, so I hoped, I would find the guilty one. Someone in this abbey killed Sister Una and was also responsible for my father’s death.”
“So you wished your father’s name to be cleared?”
Muiríol grimaced.
“That was my original purpose. Twenty years have passed. Is anyone still interested?”
“Justice is always interested in justice.”
“Isn’t there a saying that there is little difference between justice and injustice?”
“If I believed that I would not be an advocate of the courts,” Fidelma returned.
Fidelma was irritated. She could not sleep. Her mind was filled with the thoughts of young Sister Una’s death. She turned and twisted for an age, but sleep would not come to her. She sat up and judged it was long past midnight.
Finally, she rose from her bed, put on her robe, and decided to go down to the abbey gardens to walk in the cool of the summer night. The only way to the garden that she knew of led through the chapel.
She heard the sound almost immediately as she opened the door into the chapel-a low groaning sound followed by a thwack as if of leather on a soft substance. The groan rose in a new note of pain.
Then she heard a voice: “Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa!”
Her eyes narrowed at the familiarity of the masculine voice. She peered into the gloom to seek out the penitent.
A figure was kneeling before the marble statuette of Sister Una, head almost to the ground. The back was bare where the robe was stripped down to the waist. In one hand was a broad leather belt that, every so often, the figure would strike his back with, drawing blood, as she saw by the candlelight. Then the groan would issue a second or so after the impact of the leather on the flesh. The words of contrition were mumbled in Latin.
Fidelma strode forward.
“Explain this, Abbot Ogán!” she demanded coldly.
The abbot froze for a moment and then slowly straightened himself up, still kneeling on the chapel floor.
“This is a private penitence,” he replied harshly, trying to summon anger to disguise his shock at being thus discovered. “You have no right to be here.”
“On the contrary. As a dálaigh of the Brehon courts, no doors are barred to me, Abbot Ogán, especially when it is deemed that a crime has been committed.”
The abbot rose from his knees, pulling his robe around his shoulders. Fidelma had noticed that his back was scarred. It was of no concern to her that the abbot practiced flagellation: many mystics of the Church did, although she found such practices distasteful in the extreme. The scars, obvious even in the candlelight, indicated that the abbot had practiced the self-abuse for many years.
Ogán was defensive before her hard scrutiny.
“What crime?” he blustered.
With a slight forward motion of her head, Fidelma indicated the statuette of Sister Una.
“You seem to be expressing some guilt for her death. Were you guilty of it?”
The last sentence was suddenly sharp.
Abbot Ogán blinked rapidly at the tone.
“I was responsible, for had I been in the chapel at that time she would not have been alone to confront Tanaí.”
Fidelma’s brows came together.
“I do not follow.”
“It was my task on the day she was killed to clean the chapel. I had delayed my task out of simple sloth and indolence.”
“I see. So you were not here when you should have been. If you feel guilt then that is within you. So when did you become involved in leading the hue and cry after Tanaí?”
A frown passed the abbot’s face.
“Who said I did?” he asked cautiously.
“Are you saying that you did not?”
“I. . I came on the crowd as he escaped across the garden. Everyone was shouting. They caught and hanged Tanaí from the tree outside the old abbot’s quarters. That was when I first knew about her death and realized my guilt, for if I had been here. .”
“An ‘if’ will empty the oceans,” Fidelma snapped. “So you did not witness the event? You did not identify Tanaí as the murderer and would-be thief?”
Abbot Ogán shook his head.
“Everyone was proclaiming that Tanaí was the guilty one.”
“But someone must have done so first. Who first identified Tanaí as the culprit?”
The abbot again shook his head in bewilderment.
“Perhaps a few of those who were there that day and who have remained in the abbey might recall more than I do.”
“Who might they be?”
“Brother Liag, Brother Librén, Brother Duarcán, and Brother Donngal. Everyone else who was here at the time has either died or moved on.”
“You have neglected to mention Tanaí’s daughter, Sister Muiríol,” observed Fidelma.
The abbot shrugged.
“And Sister Muiríol. But she was only twelve years old at the time. No one took any notice of her, for like any loyal daughter, she swore her father was innocent.”
Fidelma paused for a moment and looked once again at the vibrant features on the statuette. An idea suddenly occurred to her.
“Tell me, Ogán, were any of the community in love with Una?” The abbot looked bewildered and then pursed his lips sourly.
“I suppose that we all were,” he said shortly.
“I think you know what I mean.”
Celibacy was not required among the religious of the Church in Ireland. Most houses, like this abbey, were often mixed communities in which the religious, male and female, lived and brought up their children in the service of the new religion.
Fidelma noted that Ogán’s chin jutted out a little more.
“I believe that some of the brethren were emotionally and physically enamored of her. She was a very attractive woman, as you may have noticed, because this statuette is an excellent likeness.”
“Were you, yourself, in love with her?”
The abbot scowled.
“I was not alone in my feelings.”
“That was not my question.”
“I admit it. There was a time when I thought we could have been together under God’s holy ordinances. Why are you asking such questions? It has nothing to do with her murder.”
“Does it not?”
Abbot Ogán’s eyes narrowed at her tone.
“What are you accusing me of?”
“You will know when I am accusing you. At the moment I am simply asking questions.”
“Una was killed protecting the holy reliquary when Tanaí attempted to steal it. There is nothing else to consider.”
“How can you be so sure? There were no witnesses. The reliquary was not even stolen.”
“I do not understand,” frowned the abbot.
“You mentioned that you were not alone in your love for Una,” she went on, ignoring his implied question. “Is there anyone else in the abbey today who fell into that category?”
The abbot thought for a moment.
“Liag, of course. And Duarcán.”
“Did Una show particular affection for any one person?”
Ogán scowled for a moment, and then he shrugged in dismissive fashion.
“It was rumored that she and Liag would be married. I thought they were going to leave the abbey and set up a school together.”
“And you mentioned Brother Duarcán. Is that the same Duarcán who sculpted this statuette? You mentioned that name when I asked you earlier who the artist was.”
The abbot nodded reluctantly.
“It is the same man,” he confirmed. “I think he was very jealous of Liag. After he sculpted the statuette, he refused to undertake any more work of a similar nature. A waste of a great talent.”