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in irritation.
    “You are not making sense.”
    The young man swallowed and breathed deeply for a moment as if to gather his composure.
    “The sarcophagus! The stone has been swung aside… the body of the blessed Declan lies there… the flesh is uncorrupted… truly… a miracle… a miracle! Go and spread the news…”
    Fidelma did not waste time on trying to make further sense of the young man’s incoherent claims.
    She strode quickly by him, shaking aside his restraining hand, and went into the oratory, crouching a little to pass under the lintel. There was only one small window to give natural light and she paused, blinked, and waited a moment for her eyes to adjust. Two tall candles on an altar at the end of the small chapel were unlit but, surprisingly, a small stub of candle stood splattering on the tomb slab.
    This stone slab had been pushed at an angle from the recess in the ground revealing the contents of the shallow grave. She strode forward and peered down. Brother Ross had been right in so far that a body lay there. But it was not the body of someone who had been interred two centuries before. She bent down to examine it. Two things she noticed: the blood was still glistening and wet, and when she touched the forehead, the flesh was still warm.
    When she emerged, she found Brother Ross still lyrical with excitement. The pilgrims were gathered excitedly around him.
    “Brethren, this day you have witnessed one of the great miracles of Declan. The saint’s body has not corrupted and decayed. Go down to the abbey and tell them and I will stay here and watch until you return with the abbot…”
    He hesitated as the eyes of the pilgrims turned expectantly as one to where Fidelma exited from the oratory with a grim face.
    “You saw it, didn’t you, Sister?” demanded Brother Ross. “I told no lie. The body is uncorrupted. A miracle!”
    “No one is to enter the chapel,” Fidelma replied coldly.
    Brother Ross drew his brows together in anger.
    “I am in charge of the pilgrims. Who are you to give orders, Sister?”
    “I am a
dálaigh.
My name is Fidelma of Cashel.”
    The young man blinked at her brusque tone. Then he recovered almost immediately.
    “Lawyer or not, these pilgrims should be sent to tell the abbot. I will wait here… . This is truly a miracle!”
    Fidelma turned to him cynically.
    “You who know so much about the Blessed Declan may provide the answers to these questions. Was Declan stabbed through the heart before being laid to rest?”
    Brother Ross did not understand.
    “Was the Blessed Declan, in reality, a young woman?” went on Fidelma, ruthlessly.
    Brother Ross was outraged and said so.
    Fidelma smiled thinly.
    “Then I suggest you examine your uncorrupted body a little further. The body in the grave is that of a young woman who has recently been stabbed in the heart. It has been placed in the grave on top of old bones which presumably are the skeleton of Declan.”
    Brother Ross stared at her for a moment in horror and then hurried back into the oratory.
    Fidelma instructed the pilgrims to wait outside and then hurried after the young man, pausing just inside the door.
    Brother Ross, kneeling by the tomb, turned and glanced up toward her. His face, even in the semigloom, was white.
    “It is Sister Aróc, a member of the community of Ard mór.”
    Fidelma nodded grimly.
    “Then I think we should dispatch the pilgrims back to Ard mór and ask them to inform the abbot of what has been found here.”
    The band of pilgrims were spending the night in the hostel at Ard mór anyway.
    “Shouldn’t we go… ?”
    Fidelma shook her head.
    “I will stay and you may stay to assist me.”
    Brother Ross looked bewildered.
    “Assist you?”
    “As a
dálaigh,
I am taking charge of the investigation into how Sister Aróc met her death,” she replied.
    When the pilgrims had been dispatched down the hill toward the monastery, Fidelma returned into the chapel and knelt by the tomb. Sister