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Aróc was no more than twenty years old. She was not particularly attractive; in fact, rather plain-featured. A country girl with large-boned hands whose skin was rough and callused. They lay in a curious clawlike attitude at her sides, as if the fingers should be grasping something. Her hair was mouse-colored, an indiscernible gray-brown.
    As Fidelma had previously noticed, there was one wound on the body. There was no need to ask what had caused it. A thin knife blade with its rough worked handle still protruded from it. Her habit was ripped just under the left breast where the knife had entered and doubtless immediately penetrated her heart. The blood had soaked her clothing. It had not dried and that indicated death had not occurred long before. In fact, she thought the time could probably be measured in minutes rather than hours.
    A thought had occurred to Fidelma and she examined the floor of the chapel, tracing her way carefully back to the door and outside. She was looking for blood specks but something else caught her eye—droplets of wax near the sarcophagus. The fact alone was not surprising. She would imagine that many people over the years had entered with candles and bent to examine the stone that had covered the relics of the saint. What was surprising was the fact that the tallow grease lay in profusion over the edge of the sepulcher on which the flat covering stone would have swung shut.
    Fidelma, frowning, seized the end of the flat stone and exerted her strength. It swung. It was not easy to push it but, nevertheless, it could be moved with a rasping sound back into place across the tomb. Thoughtfully, she returned it to the position in which she had found it.
    She let her gaze wander back to the body to examine the knife again. It was a poor country person’s knife, a general implement used for a variety of purposes.
    She made no effort to extract it.
    She turned her attention to the accoutrements worn by the girl. A rough, wooden crucifix hung around her neck on a leather thong. It was crudely carved but Fidelma had seen many like it among the poorer religious. Her eyes wandered down to the worn leather
marsupium
that hung at the girl’s waist.
    She opened it. There was a comb inside. Every Irish girl carried a comb. This one was made of bone of the same poor quality as her other ornaments. Long hair being admired in Ireland, it was essential that all men and women carry a
cior
or comb. She also found, rather to her surprise, there were half a dozen coins in the
marsupium
. They were not of great value but valuable enough to suggest that robbery was no motive in this killing even if the thought had occurred to Fidelma. It had not.
    The more Fidelma looked at the corpse, at the position of it, the more she realized that there was something bizarre about this killing; more peculiar than even the usual aberrant fact of violent death. She could not quite put her finger on it. It was true that the corpse’s facial muscles seemed slightly distorted in death as if there was a smile on its features. But that was not what bothered her.
    By the time she left the oratory, three senior religious were entering the low gate to the oratory grounds. Fidelma immediately recognized the pale, worried features of Rian, the Abbot of Ardmore. With him there was a tall woman, whose features were set and grim, and a moon-faced man, whose features looked permanently bewildered, whom she also recognized as the steward of the abbey. What was his name? Brother Echen.
    “Is it true, Fidelma?” greeted the abbot. He was a distant cousin and greeted her familiarly.
    “True enough, Rian,” she replied.
    “I knew it would happen sooner or later,” snapped the tall sister with him.
    Fidelma turned inquiring eyes on her.
    “This is Sister Corb,” Abbot Rian explained nervously.
    “She is the mistress of the novices in our community. Sister Aróc was a novitiate under her charge.”
    “Perhaps you would be good enough to