She began to flip through the pages seeking the half forgotten reference.
Finally, she found the passage and read it through. The passage contained what she expected it would.
She glanced quickly ’round the room and then went to the bed. She climbed on it and stood at the edge, reaching her hands up toward the beam above. It was, for her, within easy arm’s length. She stepped down again to the floor. Then she made her way to the chapel and stood inside the door as she had done a short time before.
Her gaze swept around the chapel and then, making up her mind on some intuition, she walked to the altar and went down on her hands and knees but it was not to pray. She bent forward and lifted an edge of the drape across the altar.
Beneath the altar stood a silver crucifix and two golden chalices. In one of them was a rosary of green stone beads. Fidelma reached forward and took them out. She regarded them for a moment or two and then heaved a deep sigh.
Gathering them in her arms she retraced her steps to Father Máilín’s chamber. He was still seated at his desk. He began to rise when she entered, and then his eyes fell to the trophies she carried. He turned pale and slumped back in his seat.
“Where did you. .” he began, trying to summon up some residue of sharpness by which he hoped to control the situation.
“Listen to me,” she interrupted harshly. “I have told you that it is impossible to accept your story that thieves broke in, killed Connla and left him in a room secured from the inside. I then find that you disapproved of the work which Connla was doing and after his death destroyed it. Tell me how these matters add up to a reasonable explanation?”
Father Máilín was shaking his head.
“It was wrong to blame the itinerants. I realize that It seemed that it was the only excuse I could make. As soon as I realized the situation, I distracted the brethren and quickly went into the chapel and removed the first things that came to hand. The crucifix and the cups. These I placed under the altar where you doubtless discovered them. I returned to Connla’s room and seized the opportunity to take his rosary from the drawer. Then it was easy. I could now claim that we had been robbed.”
“And you destroyed Connla’s work?”
“I only collected the text that Connla had been working on at the time and destroyed it lest it corrupt the minds of the faithful. Surely it was better to remember Connla in the vigor of his youth when he took up the banner of the Faith against all comers and destroyed the idols of the past? Why remember him as he was in his dotage, in his senility-an old embittered man filled with self-doubts?”
“Is that how you saw him?”
“That is how he became, and this I say even though he had been a father to me. He taught us to overthrow the idols of the pagans, to recant the sins of our fathers who lived in heathendom. .”
“By despising, denigrating and destroying all that has preceded us, we will simply teach this and future generations to despise our beliefs.Veritas vos liberabit!”
Father Máilín stared at her quizzically.
“How do you know that?”
“You did not destroy all Connla’s notes. Connla toward the end of his life, suddenly began to realize the cultural wealth he had been instrumental in destroying. It began to prey on his mind that instead of bringing civilization and knowledge to this land, he was destroying thousands of years of learning. Benignus writes that the Blessed Patrick himself, in his missionary zeal, burnt one hundred and eighty books of the Druids. Imagine the loss to learning!”
“It was right that such books of pagan impropriety be destroyed,” protested the Father Superior.
“To a true scholar it was a sacrilege that should never have happened.”
“Connla was wrong.”
“The burning of books, the destruction of knowledge, is a great crime against humanity. No matter in whose name it is done,” replied Fidelma. “Connla saw that. He knew he was partially responsible for a crime which he had committed against his own culture as well as the learning of the world.”
Father Máilín was silent for a moment and then he said: “I did not kill him. He took his own life. That was why I tried to blame the itinerants.”
“Connla was murdered,” Fidelma said. “But not by the itinerants. He was murdered by a member of this community.”
Father Máilín was pale and shocked.
“You cannot believe that I. . I only meant to cover up his own suicide and hide the nature of his work. I did not kill him.”
“I realize that. . now. The thing that had misled me was the fact that you and the real killer both shared a fear of the nature of Connla’s work. But you each took different ways of dealing with it. When the killer struck, he wanted to make it appear that Connla committed suicide and so discredit him. However, you, believing that Connla’s suicide was genuine and would bring discredit on the Faith, tried to disguise what you thought was a suicide and blamed itinerants for the murder.”
“Who killed the Venerable Connla, then?” demanded Father Máilín. “And how? There was only one key and you say that you found it in the room.”
“Let me first explain why I did not think Connla took his own life. The obvious point was that it was physically impossible for him to do so. He was old and frail. I stood on the bed and reached to the roof beam. I am tall and therefore could reach it. But for an elderly and frail man, and one of short stature, it was impossible for him to stand on the bed, tie the rope, and hang himself.
“Yet one of your brethren went to considerable lengths to draw attention to the nature of the work that Connla was doing, pretending to express approval for it but, at the same time, hinting that Connla was so overawed by his revelations that he could not face the fact of his complicity in the destruction of our ancient beliefs and rituals. He even said that Connla had approved of a quotation by Pliny which, cunningly, he left for me to find, having whetted my curiosity. It was the passage where Pliny wrote that, ‘amid the suffering of life, suicide is the gods’ best gift to men’. The murderer was Brother Ledbán.”
“Ledbán?” Father Máilín looked at her in amazement. “The Delbatóir? But he worked closely with the Venerable Connla. .”
“And so knew all about his work. And one of the mistakes Ledbán made was in pretending he had no knowledge of Ogham when, as you yourself testify, he knew enough to accuse Connla of wrong interpretation.”
“But there is one thing you cannot explain,” Father Máilín pointed out, “and in this your whole argument falls apart. There was only one key and that you confess you found inside Connla’s room.”
Fidelma smiled knowingly.
“I think you will find a second key. What is the task of Brother Ledbán?”
“He’s the Delbatóir. . why?”
“He makes the metal book plates and book shrines, casting them from molds in gold or silver. It is not beyond his capability to cast a second key, having made a mold from the first. You simply take the key and press it into wax to form the mold from which you will make your cast. You will note, as I did, the key I found-Connla’s own key-was covered in grease. A search of Ledbán’s chamber or his forge should bring the second key to light if he does not confess when faced with the rest of the evidence.”
“I see.”
“However, it was wrong of you, Father Máilín, to try to disguise the manner of Connla’s death.”
“You must understand my position. I did believe Connla had committed suicide. If so, the nature of his work would be revealed. Would you rather Christendom knew that one of its great theologians committed suicide in protest of being responsible for the destruction of a few pagan books?”
“I would rather Christendom might learn from such an act. However, it was a greater guilt to fabricate the false evidence.”