The Subtle Serpent by Peter Tremayne Page A

At each corner of the bier a candle fluttered in the slight morning breeze.
    The Abbess Draigen stood up and slowly began to clap her hands in the traditional lámh-comairt which signified the lamentation for the dead. Then the sisters began to start a soft wailing cry — the caoine, the sorrowing. It was a chilling sound in the half light of early morning and caused Fidelma’s neck to tingle although she had heard it so many times before. The lament to the dead was a custom which went back to the time before the new Faith had displaced that of the old gods and goddesses.
    After ten minutes the caoine stopped.
    Abbess Draigen stepped forward. At this point in the ritual it was customary for the amra, or elegy, to be given.
    It was then that there came a strange noise, seeming to well up from beneath the stone floor of the chapel. It was not particularly loud. It was an odd scraping sound, a deep, hollow scuffling sound as when two wooden boats bump against one another, bobbing on the waves of the sea. The members of the community peered fearfully at one another.
    Abbess Draigen raised a slim hand for silence.
    ‘Sisters, you forget yourselves,’ she admonished.
    Then she bent her head to continue the service.
    ‘Sisters, we are mourning one who is unknown to us and therefore no elegy can mark her passing. A unknown soul has sped to God’s holy embrace. Yet she is known to God and that is enough. That the hand that cut short this life is also known to God may also be accepted. We lament the passing
of this soul but rejoice in the knowledge that it has passed to God’s good keeping.’
    Six of the sisters of the community moved forward, at a signal from the abbess, and lifted the bier to their shoulders and then, led by the abbess, they moved out of the chapel followed by the rest of the community, forming a double line in the wake of the bier.
    Fidelma held back to follow at the rear of this column and, as she did so, she saw that another of the religieuses was also holding back for the same purpose. She noticed this as Sister Brónach seemed to remain in her place for the specific purpose of walking with the other anchoress. At first, Fidelma thought the woman was extremely short in height but then she realised that the anchoress clutched a stick and moved in a curious waddling posture. It was clear that her legs were deformed although her upper body was well shaped. With sadness, Fidelma saw that she was young, with a broad, perhaps rather plain face, and watery blue eyes. She swung from side to side, heaving herself forward with the aid of her blackthorn stick, keeping well up with the procession. Fidelma felt a compassion for the misfortune of the young sister and wondered what mischance had caused her debility.
    The sky had already lightened and it was now bright enough for the procession to wind its way through the buildings towards the forest that grew around the abbey. One of the sisters, with a soft soprano voice, began to intone in Latin, the chorus being taken up by the other sisters:

    Cantemus in omni die
concinentes uarie,
conclamantes Deo dignum
hymnum sanctae Mariae

    Fidelma whispered the translation to herself as they
proceeded onwards: ‘Let us sing each day, chanting together in varied harmonies, declaiming to God a worthy hymn for holy Mary’.
    They paused in a little clearing where, it seemed, a burial place for the community had been prepared, judging by the memorial stones and crosses that stood in abundance. A light dusting of flaky snow covered the ground. The abbess had conducted the bier to an isolated corner of the cemetery. Here the sisters, carrying the bier expertly, as if they had much practice, took the body from it and lowered it into the grave which had apparently been dug the day before in readiness.
    Fidelma was prepared for what came next. It was an ancient custom. The wooden bier on which the body had been carried was smashed into little pieces by two sisters wielding hammers.