“It is well known that Brother Ross desired the girl,” she replied defensively.
“Desired?”
“Lusted for her.”
Brother Echen snorted with derision.
“That is, with all respect, only Sister Corb’s interpretation. Her jaundiced view of the intentions of men in any situation leads her to make leaps of imagination.”
Fidelma swung ’round to him.
“You do not share Sister Corb’s view?”
“Ask Brother Ross himself.” the steward replied casually.
“He liked the girl’s company. They were often together and he did not ridicule her, as some did. But he had no lecherous intentions.”
“How do you know this?”
“As steward of the community, it is my job to know things, especially to keep a watch for anything which might lead to a disturbance among the brethren.”
“What, in this matter, might have led to a disturbance?”
Brother Echen glanced at Sister Corb meaningfully.
Fidelma turned and smiled at the abbot.
“Father Abbot, if you and Sister Corb will wait with Brother Ross. .?”
She waited until they had moved out of earshot before turning back to Brother Echen.
“Well?” she prompted.
“Sister Corb was creating trouble for Brother Ross. She was jealous.”
“Jealous?”
Brother Echen shrugged eloquently.
“You know. .”
“I don’t know. Tell me.”
“Corb was jealous of Ross because she wanted Aróc for herself. Sister Corb is. . well, that is why she has a peculiar attitude to men and ascribes lust as their only motive.”
“Did Aróc respond to Corb’s advances, if that is what she made?”
“No. Aróc was otherworldly, as I have said. She did not care for any physical contact. She was one of the aesthetes sworn to a life of celibacy. She rejected Corb even as she would have rejected Ross had he thrust his attentions on her.”
“What makes you sure that he did not?”
“He told me that he did not. He enjoyed her company and speaking to her of the saints and of the Faith. He respected her too much.”
“How well did you know Sister Aróc?”
Brother Echen shrugged.
“Not well at all. She had been six months with the community. She was still technically under the instruction of the mistress of the novitiates-Sister Corb. Truth to say that I spoke only once to her and that was when her case had come up before the council.”
“Her case?”
“Corb had been asked to report on her novitiates by the abbot when we sat in council to discuss the affairs of the community. That was when Corb talked of Sister Aróc’s eccentric behavior. It was decided that I should question her about the voices she claimed to hear.”
“And what did you decide?”
Brother Echen shrugged.
“She was not mad in any dangerous sense, if that is what you mean. However, her mind was not sound. She was ‘otherworldly,’ as have said. I have met one or two religious who claim to have spoken with Christ and his Holy Saints, and known many who have claimed as much, and more who have become saints themselves.”
“Just one point more, where were you during the last hour?”
Brother Echen grinned broadly.
“With ten witnesses who will account for my presence, Sister. I was giving a class in calligraphy to our scribes for I am considered to have a good, firm hand.”
“Ask Sister Corb to come to me,” Fidelma dismissed him.
Sister Corb came but was still belligerent.
“Why haven’t you spoken to Ross?” she demanded without preamble. “There is some way he must have killed her. .”
“Sister Corb!” Fidelma’s sharp tone quelled her. “We will speak of matters of which you are competent to give evidence. Firstly, where were you during this last hour?”
Sister Corb blinked.
“I was in the abbey.”
“And you can prove this fact?”
The mistress of the novitiates frowned for a moment.
“Most of the time I was instructing the novitiates this morning.”
Fidelma picked up her hesitation.
“During this last hour?”
“Are you accusing me. .?”
“I am asking where you were and whether you can prove it.”
“After instructing the novitiates I spent some time in the abbey gardens. I do not know whether anyone saw me there or not. I was just returning when I heard the pilgrims coming to tell the abbot what had happened here and so I joined him and Brother Echen.”
“Very well. How long did it take you to climb the hill to this chapel?”
Sister Corb looked surprised.
“How long. .?”
“Approximately.”
“Ten minutes, I suppose, why. .?”
“That is most helpful,” Fidelma replied, cutting the woman short. She left Sister Corb, ignoring the look of anger on her angular features, and walked across to Brother Ross.
“Death is not a pleasant thing to look on, is it, Brother?” she opened.
The young man raised his light blue eyes and stared at her for a moment.
“It was gloomy in the oratory. I did not see too well. I thought I saw. .”
Fidelma smiled reassuringly.
“You made it plain what you thought you saw.”
“I feel stupid.”
“I understand that you knew Sister Aróc quite well?”
The youth flushed.
“Well enough. We. . we were friends. I could say that. . that I was her only friend in the abbey.”
“Her behavior was described as a little eccentric. She heard voices. Didn’t that bother you?”
“She was not mad,” Brother Ross replied defensively. “If she believed it then I saw no cause to question her belief.”
“But the others thought that she was insane.”
“They did not know her well enough.”
“What do you think she was doing up here in the oratory?”
“She often came to the oratory to be near to the Blessed Declan. It was his voice that she claimed that she heard.”
“Did she tell you what this voice told her?”
Brother Ross gave the question consideration.
“Aróc believed that she was being chosen by the saint as his handmaiden.”
“How did she interpret that?”
Brother Ross grimaced.
“I don’t think that even she knew what she was talking about. She thought she was being told to obey the will of someone two centuries dead.”
“And what was that will?”
“Celibacy and service,” replied Brother Ross. “At least, that is what she said.”
“You say that she liked to come to the oratory to be close to Saint Declan. Did you help her remove the lid of the sarcophagus and then grease it with tallow candle wax to allow her to swing it to and fro at will?”
Brother Ross raised a startled face to meet her cool gaze.
Fidelma went on rapidly.
“Do not ask me how I know. That is obvious. I presume that you did help her for there was no one else to do so.”
“It was not an act of sacrilege. She just wanted to look on the bones of the Blessed Declan and touch them so that she could be in direct contact with him.”
“Did you know that Sister Aróc would be here this morning?”
Brother Ross quickly shook his head.
“I had told her that the pilgrims would be coming to see the oratory this morning-it being the Holy Day.”
“It sounds as though she was strong-willed. Maybe she did not care. After all, today would be a day of special significance for her. As the feast of Saint Declan, the day on which he departed life, it would be obvious that she would come here.”
“Truly, I did not know.”
“What I find curious is, knowing her so well as you did, even knowing her habit to open the tomb and gaze on the relics of the saint, why you came rushing out crying the saint’s body was uncorrupted. Had you not known what the relics were like, had you not known what Aróc looked like, it might have been explicable. .”
“I told you, it was dark in the oratory and I truly thought. .”