Free Shroud for the Archbishop by Peter Tremayne Page A

where the special guests of the Bishop of Rome were given hospitality. On the third floor Cornelius halted in a corridor. A single custos stood on guard before the door but he deferred to the authority of Cornelius who pushed open the tall, carved door into the rooms beyond.
    There was a pleasant-looking reception room while beyond was the bed chamber of the late archbishop. It was a fine suite of rooms with tall windows opening on to the sun-filled quadrangle.
    Cornelius led the way into the bed chamber.
    Fidelma observed that the room was in keeping with the opulence of the other chambers of the Lateran Palace, hung with rich tapestries and with rugs spread over the tiled floor. These were no mere narrow cubicula of the type she had been used to. The bed was large, of a wooden frame, carefully carved with a myriad of religious symbolism. Apart from a rumpled bed cover, it appeared that the bed had not been slept in nor even prepared for the night. The bed cover was still firmly in place though it looked dishevelled as if someone had lain on the bottom half of the bed.
    Cornelius pointed to the end of the bed.
    ‘Wighard lay face downward across the lower part of the bed.’
    ‘Can you show us exactly his position?’ Fidelma asked.
    Cornelius looked far from happy but he moved forward and
bent across the bed. From the waist upwards he laid his torso on the bed itself but his legs were bent almost in a kneeling position at the side of the bed and on the floor.
    Fidelma stood for a while in thought.
    Eadulf was also examining the position.
    ‘Could it have been that Wighard was kneeling in prayer when his killer entered and garrotted him with his own prayer cord?’
    ‘A possibility,’ mused Fidelma. ‘But, if he knelt at prayer, his prayer cord would be in his hands, and, if not, around his waist. The killer must have struck at once, so swiftly as not to have alarmed Wighard. Therefore, the killer had the prayer cord in his own hands … there could have been no struggle for its possession to alarm the archbishop.’
    Eadulf agreed reluctantly.
    ‘Can I get up now?’ demanded Cornelius almost petulantly from his uncomfortable position.
    ‘Of course,’ Fidelma agreed contritely. ‘You have been most helpful. I do not think we need trouble you further.’
    Cornelius rose with a loud sniff.
    ‘And the body? His Holiness expects to offer a requiem mass in the basilica at midday. After which the body is to be taken to the Metronia Gate of the city and buried in the Christian cemetery outside the Aurelian Wall.’
    ‘A burial so soon?’
    ‘It is the custom in this land.’
    Eadulf said: ‘The heat of the day makes burial at the earliest moment advantageous to public health.’
    Fidelma half nodded absently as she studied the rumpled bed covers. Then she raised her eyes and smiled quickly at Cornelius.

    ‘I have no further need to view the body. Let its disposal be as the Holy Father wishes.’
    Cornelius hesitated at the door, almost reluctant to leave now.
    ‘Is there anything further … ?’
    ‘Nothing,’ Fidelma replied firmly, turning back to the bed.
    The Alexandrian physician sniffed again, then turned and left the apartment.
    Eadulf was watching Fidelma’s examination of the bed with curiosity.
    ‘Have you seen something, Fidelma?’
    Fidelma shook her head.
    ‘But there is something here I do not yet understand. Something which …’ She caught herself and shook her head. ‘My old master, Morann of Tara, used to say, do not speculate before you have acquired as much information as is available.’
    ‘A wise man,’ observed Eadulf.
    ‘It was such that made him chief of the judges of Ireland,’ agreed Fidelma. She pointed to the position which Cornelius had taken at the end of the bed. ‘Here we have Wighard, standing or kneeling by his bed, presumably, in view of the hours, about to prepare for his night’s repose. Was he about to draw off the bed cover and prepare for bed, or was he kneeling