Shroud for the Archbishop (21 page)

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Authors: Peter Tremayne

Tags: #_NB_Fixed, #_rt_yes, #Church History, #Clerical Sleuth, #Fiction, #Historical, #Mystery, #tpl, #Medieval Ireland

BOOK: Shroud for the Archbishop
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She stifled an exclamation as she realised that he was beyond all earthly assistance. The sightless eyes, the blackened features and the protruding tongue told their own story. Around his neck was twisted a prayer cord, biting into the flesh of the moon-faced monk and almost breaking the folds of the skin.
With a feeling of frustration she realised that Brother Ronan Ragallach would tell her nothing. He was quite dead.
Fidelma gave a swift glance around and shivered slightly, for his murderer must be close by, as she realised the noise she had heard was Ronan Ragallach’s death fall. Reassuring herself that she was in no immediate danger, she began to examine the body carefully.
Her eyes were drawn to the right hand, still clenched into a tight fist. In it was a torn piece of cloth, of brown sackcloth. No, not torn; but cut from his grasp with a knife which had almost ripped it. Brother Ronan had been carrying something and had been determined not to give it up even in death.
Equally determined to have it, the murderer had used a knife to cut the sack free.
Fidelma shook her head in bewilderment and, taking up the lamp again, held it up to view the body.
Something glinted a short distance away.
She rose and went to it, bending to pick it up, her eyes widening in astonishment.
It was a silver chalice of moderate craftsmanship, slightly bent and grazed by being roughly handled. She knew without thinking that she was probably holding one of the missing cups from Wighard’s hoard. But what did that mean? Thousands of questions came flooding into her mind. Questions but no answers.
If Ronan Ragallach had possession of the missing treasure of Wighard, did it mean that he had stolen it and, if so, was she wrong and was he truly the murderer after all? But no, something was wrong. Why contact her and arrange this meeting, swearing he had nothing to do with Wighard’s death? She paused, perplexed.
Bending down again over the body she went swiftly through the clothing. In Brother Ronan’s leather
crumena
or purse there were several coins and a piece of papyrus. She peered closely. It was covered in the same strange hieroglyphics as the piece she had picked up from the floor of his lodgings at the hostel of Bieda. The writing of the Arabians.
She gave a sharp intake of breath as she realised that a portion of the papyrus had been torn off. It was a portion similar in size and shape to the one she had found. This, then, was the rest of the document. Swiftly, she stuffed the papyrus into her
marsupium.
Then, taking the silver chalice in one hand and the lamp in the other, she rose and began to retrace
her steps into the catacomb of Aurelia Restutus.
She had barely begun to cross it when she heard the sound of voices coming nearer. She hesitated. The voices were low, intense and echoing. A curious-sounding language.
Reason told Fidelma that the owners of the voices could not have been involved in Brother Ronan’s death. Anyone who had just killed the Irish monk would not be returning with raised voices and careless footsteps from the opposite direction to which the killer must surely have fled. Yet some instinct made Fidelma pause. It took her a moment or two to make up her mind. She examined the empty
loculi,
finding one that was near ground level and then, stopping only to extinguish the lamp, she clambered into it, lying in the empty tomb on her back as if she were a corpse.
The voices came nearer.
She could discern two men arguing for even with a lack of knowledge of the language they spoke she could hear the passion in the inflections of their speech. She saw a light bobbing and reflecting against the walls of the catacombs. She lay watching with half-narrowed eyelids, praying that the two were not interested in the corpses which lay in the
loculi
on either side of the chambers through which they were passing.
Two dark figures entered the tomb and, to her horror, halted, looking round with raised candles.
She heard one saying something which incorporated the name ‘Aurelia Restutus’. One of the men mentioned the word
‘kafir’
several times. It seemed as if they were waiting. She bit her lip in thought. Could it be these strangers were waiting for Brother Ronan Ragallach?
One of them, obviously more impatient than his companion, had wandered further on. She lay still knowing, with
a feeling of inevitability, what he would find in the chamber beyond. She heard his sharp cry and something which sounded like
‘Bismillah!’
Then she heard the second man run forward to join his companion and exclaim,
‘Ma’uzbillah!’
As soon as the catacomb darkened, Fidelma slipped out of the tomb, clutching lamp and chalice and moved swiftly and quietly forward in the opposite entrance. She could hear the alarmed voices behind her. She dared not stop to light the lamp but moved hopefully forward into the darkness. She tried to concentrate on reciting the boy Antonio’s directions, this time in reverse, heading up the short stairway, lamp and chalice held in one hand, the other hand now feeling before her. She managed to negotiate the stairs, though grazing a knee against some protruding stone.
At the top of the stairs she paused to catch her breath then made a right turn into the long passageway as she recalled. How long was it? Two hundred yards before it widened out into a large ornate tomb. She paused again, shoulders heaving, and put her head to one side. She could hear no sounds of pursuit behind her.
Fidelma knelt down in the darkness and, in the utter blackness of the catacomb, she placed the lamp and chalice on the floor before her. Then she reached into her
marsupium
for the tinder box. In her nervousness it took a while before she was able to ignite it and light the lamp.
With the warm golden glow spreading through the chamber, she gave a deep sigh of relief and sat back on her heels for a moment. Then, gathering lamp and chalice, she stood up and moved on through the corridor to the next chamber towards the lengthy stairway which led up to the higher level of the catacombs. Quietly she swore to herself that she would never
again venture into this dark labyrinth.
She was now in the last long stretch of corridor, a length of some hundred yards or so. She controlled her inward urge to run and forced herself to walk slowly along its twisting length. She began to feel a little ridiculous. After all, it was obvious that the two strangers had not encompassed Brother Ronan Ragallach’s death, so why should they menace her? She wished she had been more courageous but she could not deny the strange dread which had gripped her in that dark, brooding sepulchre. She wondered if they had gone to meet with Brother Ronan and, if so, who were they?
A chill thought suddenly struck her for the first time. The method by which Brother Ronan Ragallach had met his end was exactly the same as that by which Wighard had been murdered. He had been garrotted. Therefore Ronan had not murdered Wighard. But, and here was the conundrum, if Ronan had not slain Wighard what was Ronan doing with at least part of the treasure taken from Wighard’s chambers?
Ronan had denied his complicity and had called on her to meet him so that he could explain. Explain what?
She remembered the piece of papyrus in her
marsupium
and wondered if that might hold any of the answers. She would have to find the
sub-praetor
of the Foreign Secretariat, Brother Osimo Lando, and ask him to translate it. Here was certainly a mystery indeed.
She came to the juncture of the passageway and turned to the right to ascend the stairs into the brightness of the cemetery.
She was aware of a figure in front of her as she swung the corner. Aware, briefly, that the figure was familiar even though she saw only a momentary glimpse of its outline. Then she
felt a pain against the side of her head and plunged into utter blackness.
 
A voice was calling her name as if it came from a great distance away.
Fidelma blinked and found she felt nauseous and dizzy. She groaned and someone pressed cold water to her mouth. She took a swallow, coughed and gulped and nearly choked. She opened her eyes and found that the light was momentarily blinding. She blinked again and tried to focus. She appeared to be lying on her back with the blue canopy of the sky above and a merciless yellow sun scorching her face. She groaned again and closed her eyes.
‘Sister Fidelma, can you hear me?’
It was a familiar voice and she lay a moment or two trying to recognise it.
Droplets of cold water splashed against her face.
She moaned, wishing whoever it was would go away and leave her to her nausea.
‘Sister Fidelma!’
The voice was more urgent now.
Reluctantly, she opened her eyes and focused on the dark figure above her.
The sallow features of Cornelius of Alexandria swam into focus. The swarthy physician looked worried.
‘Sister Fidelma, do you recognise me?’
Fidelma grimaced.
‘I do. Yet how my head throbs.’
‘You received a blow on the skull, a sharp contusion above the temple but the skin is not split. It will heal after a while.’
‘I feel sick.’
‘That is merely the shock. Lie a while and have some more water.’
Fidelma continued to lie back but let her eyes wander around. Behind the shoulder of the Greek doctor stood the young boy, Antonio, looking scared and anxious. She could hear worried voices. Voices! Was that the sharp, penetrating tone of the Abbess Wulfrun in the background? She tried to raise herself up. She was surely not imagining she could hear the abbess instructing Sister Eafa to follow her?
She struggled to sit up but was gently pushed back by the Alexandrian physician.
‘Where am I?’ she demanded.
‘At the entrance to the catacombs,’ replied Cornelius. ‘You were carried out unconscious.’
Memory came back sharply.
‘Someone knocked me out!’ she asserted, attempting to sit up again but Cornelius held her down.
‘Be careful,’ he warned. ‘You must take things slowly.’ Then he paused, head to one side. ‘Why would anyone knock you out?’ he asked sceptically. ‘Are you sure you did not hit your head on a protruding rock in the dark of the passageway? It has been done before.’
‘No!’ Fidelma suddenly paused and stared at him. ‘What are you doing here?’
The physician shrugged.
‘I happened to be passing the gates of the cemetery when I heard cries for a doctor. I was told that someone had been injured inside the catacomb. I found you at the foot of the steps.’
Fidelma was baffled.
‘Who raised the alarm?’
Cornelius shrugged and helped her into a sitting position once he had assessed that she was fit enough.
‘One of the pilgrims. I have no idea.’
‘That is right, sister.’ She turned to find that the boy, Antonio, was nodding. ‘A person came out of the catacombs and said that someone was badly injured inside. I recognised the physician’s
lecticula
at the gates of the cemetery and asked someone to run and get him to come here.’
‘I came and found you at the bottom of the stairway,’ repeated Cornelius. ‘It looked as if you had hit your head on the side of the passageway. We carried you up.’
Antonio, seeing that Fidelma was not so badly injured, gave an urchin grin. ‘You do not have much luck in this place, sister.’
Fidelma returned a rueful smile.
‘You speak wisdom, young Antonio.’
She was able to stand up now, the dizziness and nausea having abated a little.
‘Where is this person to whom I owe my rescue?’
There were several people standing around but, having ascertained that there was no further drama, they were dispersing on their various errands. She wondered whether she had really heard the Abbess Wulfrun in their midst.
The boy shrugged.
‘They went some time ago.’
‘Who were they? Do you know that I might thank them?’
The boy shook his head.
‘It was just another pilgrim. He wore the garb of the east, I think.’
Fidelma’s eyes widened. She wondered if it could have been one of the swarthy men whom she had seen in the catacomb of Aurelia Restutus.
‘How many foreigners have been in this place, Antonio, since I arrived?’
Again the boy shrugged.
‘Including yourself, several. It is only foreigners that come here to see the dead ones. Also, there are three other entrances such as this one.’
She smiled at her naivete in thinking the boy would differentiate between herself and the two dark-skinned men she had seen in the tomb.
‘How many men from …’
Cornelius interrupted her with a grunt of disapproval.
‘I think you should worry about thanking your rescuers later. My
lecticula
can transport you back to the Lateran Palace where I can dress your wound properly. Then you should rest for the remainder of the day.’

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