Hemlock At Vespers Read Online Free PDF

had not considered the matter before.
    “Unusual. My chest often troubles me so that I wake in the early hours and must ease it with more of the infusion.”
    “Quite so. You slept unusually soundly. So soundly that someone could enter your bothán without disturbing you? As, indeed, did the Brehon and Congal. You had to be shaken awake by both of them or you would not have known of their presence.”
    The court was quiet and the Brehon was looking at her with curiosity.
    “What are you suggesting, Sister Fidelma?”
    “I suggest nothing. I present evidence. I took a wooden vessel from Brother Fergal’s bothán in your presence and gave it to you as evidence.”
    The Brehon nodded and indicated the wooden vessel on the table before him.
    “This is so. There is the bowl.”
    “Is this the vessel from which you drank, Fergal?”
    The monk examined the vessel and nodded.
    “It is mine. There is my name scratched on its surface. It is the vessel from which I drank.”
    “There remains some liquid at the bottom of the vessel and I tasted it. It was not an infusion of stramóiniam.”
    “What then?” demanded the Brehon.
    “To please the court, we could call Hand, the herbalist, to examine it and give his opinion. But the court knows that I am an Anruth and qualified in the knowledge of herbs.”
    “The court accepts your knowledge, Sister Fidelma,” replied the Brehon impatiently.
    Fidehna bowed her head.
    “It contains the remains of an infusion of lus mór na coille together with muing.”
    “For those not acquainted with herbs, explain what these are,” instructed the Brehon, frowning.
    “Certainly. The lus mór na coille, which we call deadly nightshade, is a powerful sedative inducing sleep, while muing, or poison hemlock, if taken in large doses can produce paralysis. Any person knowledgeable about herbs will tell you this. By drinking this infusion, Brother Fergal was effectively drugged. He slept the sleep of one dead and was oblivious to everything. It was lucky that he was aroused at all. It may well be that whoever provided him with the potion did not expect him to ever awake. Brother Fergal would simply have been found dead, next to Barrdub. The conclusion would have been that he killed her and then took this poisonous mixture in an act of remorse.”
    She paused at the disturbance which her words provoked. Brother Fergal stood staring at her with a shocked, pale face.
    The Brehon, calling for silence, then addressed himself to Fidelma.
    “Are you saying that Barrdub was killed in Fergal’s bothán while he slept and he did not know it?”
    “No. I am saying that the person who drugged Fergal killed Barrdub elsewhere and carried her body to the bothán, leaving it inside. That person then rubbed some of her blood on Fergal’s hands and clothes while he lay in his drugged slumber. Having created the scene, that person then departed. The murderer made several errors. He left the tell-tale evidence of the drinking vessel in which were the remains of the drugs. And he left Barrdub’s blood smeared on the side of the door when he carried her body into the bothán.”
    “I recall you showing me that stain,” the Brehon intervened. “At the time I pointed out that it was probably caused when we removed the body.”
    “Not so. The stain was at shoulder height. When you removed the body, it is reported that your men placed it on a litter. Two men would have carried the litter.”
    The Brehon nodded confirmation.
    “The highest the litter, with the body, could be carried in comfort would be at waist height. But the stain was at shoulder height. Therefore, the stain was not caused when the body was removed from the bothán but when it was carried in. The murderer, being one person, had to carry the body on his own. The easiest method to carry such a dead weight is on the shoulders. The stain was made at shoulder height when the body was carried inside by the murderer.”
    “Your argument is