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