Chain of Evidence, page 5
‘It seems to me,’ said Mara evenly, ‘and I can only speak of my own part of the country, but I think that law and order is well-maintained here.’
He laughed aloud at that. ‘And in the middle of your festival – rather a pagan festival, you must admit, but let that pass; in the middle of the festivities suddenly there is this cattle raid, and all, from the highest to the lowest in the land, rush off waving knives and swords.’
‘Ah,’ said Mara, ‘but this cattle raid was instigated by one who had the privilege of being ennobled by King Henry himself. And I suspect that you had prior knowledge. Now, admit, you came down just to see a cattle raid in progress! You knew what was going to happen, didn’t you? You knew that O’Donnell planned this.’
He said nothing, but a grin plucked at the corners of his well-cut mouth and his dark-brown eyes glinted with amusement.
‘You couldn’t resist the thought of what a great document you could write about the “wild Irish” could you,’ she teased and he laughed good-humouredly as she went on, ‘I can just imagine it – “Neighbour steals from neighbour” Good title, isn’t it?’
‘As long as no one is hurt; and they are all enjoying themselves,’ he said lightly and she looked at him with interest. When he wrote about the cattle raid, he would suppress the information that it was the Earl O’Donnell who had instigated the raid, she guessed. It would not fit with the image of Ireland which would be portrayed in his master’s book about the reformation of Ireland, where there would be a great distinction between the Irish who clung to their native ways and those who were loyal to the English crown and adopted English language, ways of dress and laws – like O’Donnell of Donegal and like the citizens of Galway city.
‘Cows are very important to us,’ she said gravely. ‘It’s a serious matter to steal cows – they are the wealth of the kingdom. It’s one of our great laws.’
‘Persons who steal cows must be killed,’ called back Cormac in war-like tones and the scholars all laughed and Aidan clapped applause.
‘There you are now,’ said Mara sweetly. ‘Three-year-old small boys agree with your English laws. Punish wrongdoers with death, says my little Cormac. You will have to tell Cardinal Wolsey that there is hope for Ireland, after all.’
She shivered a little in the icy wind and pulled the fur-lined hood of her cloak well over her head. The sun had been once more covered with clouds and rain threatened again. Despite her light tone she felt apprehensive about the future. She had spoken in jest, but would the new generation, would her grandson, Domhnall, now aged eight and due to start at the law school next September, would he keep faith with Brehon law, or would he bow the knee to the English king just as O’Donnell of Donegal did?
And what about her warlike little Cormac O’Brien? How would he grow up?
Three
MacSlechta
(son sections)
There are nine categories of sons who cannot inherit. These are known as ‘sons of darkness’.
The son who is conceived ‘in the bushes’ because there will always be doubt as to his paternity.
The son of a prostitute.
‘The son of the road’, an abandoned child who was found on the roadside and cared for.
The son of a woman who was having sexual relationships with many men at the time of his conception.
A late-discovered son who does not have the family voice, appearance and in behaviour and is not accepted as a son by the putative father.
The son of a ‘girl in plaits’, because the union was unlawful and without the permission of her family.
A son who has been outlawed from the kingdom and from his clan has no inheritance rights.
A son who neglects his ill or aged father and causes his death by lack of care.
A son who becomes a cleric after the Roman rule and will not have sons of his own.
‘“That all things may be fair and just in the inheritance of land, the division is the work of the youngest inheritor and then the shares are picked in order of age with the oldest choosing first and the youngest last.” This ensures that the property has been divided into sections of equal worth.’ Hugh recited the words in fluent English and Mara gave him a nod and a smile. He had grown in confidence since their stay in the city of Galway, she thought. She eyed Stephen Gardiner and saw his black eyebrows shoot up before he made a quick note on the page before him. The Scottish woman Rhona and her son Peadar had returned to Carron after spending the night at the law school’s guest house, but Stephen Gardiner had requested to be allowed to remain for a while in the morning and watch a Brehon law school in progress so that he could write about it for his master in London, Cardinal Wolsey.
‘Good,’ she said aloud. ‘Now, Shane, how does Hugh know this law?’
‘Because he’s learned off by heart “Macslecta”,’ said Shane with a grin. ‘That means “son sections”,’ he added to Stephen.
‘Who is counted as a son for the purpose of inheritance, Aidan?’ asked Mara.
‘For the purposes of inheritance all sons are equal,’ replied Aidan, rising to his feet politely. ‘A son born of a wife of the second degree is of equal status to the son born of the chief wife and so is the son of a betrothed concubine.’ His eyes slid over to meet Moylan’s and then he hastily added, ‘All sons who are publically recognised by their father are deemed to be entitled to their share in his wealth.’
‘Goodness! Even when born out of wedlock; is that right?’ muttered Stephen scribbling furiously. He had already filled pages, describing the Cahermacnaghten law school and how it was housed within an ancient circle of ten-foot thick walls enclosing a scholars’ house, a girl scholar house, a kitchen house, the farm manager’s house, a schoolhouse and a guesthouse; of how the scholars often began there at the age of five and studied for up to fifteen years, learning languages and poetry as well as the law; of their studies of the Latin and Greek languages, as well as English and some Spanish and French. Mara eyed him maliciously. She was not impressed by his air of piety. Why was it so outrageous to allow a son born out of wedlock, as he put it, to inherit when innocent small children could be hanged for stealing a loaf of bread or a pie? A nation that could justify to itself such laws, had, she reckoned, no grounds to turn up their noses at the laws of other countries.
‘But there are nine categories of sons who cannot inherit,’ Fiona informed him kindly. ‘Shall I recite them for you? “The son conceived in the bushes,” – that’s Aidan’s favourite one—’
‘Fiona,’ interrupted Mara and then she stopped. She knew the sound of the heavy step at the doorway. It was Cumhal, her farm manager, and he would not interrupt the morning school unless there was an emergency. He opened the door without knocking and thrust his head inside. Mara’s heart stopped for an instant. Had anything happened to Turlough? She had not expected him back last night. Ardal O’Lochlainn had a secondary castle near to the border and she had guessed that he would have invited Turlough and Teige O’Brien to spend what remained of the night there in comfort. The morning was well-advanced, though, and she had anticipated his arrival at every minute, so she turned a worried face towards Cumhal.
‘Brehon,’ he said. ‘There’s news from Carron Castle. A body has been found. Someone has been found on the road below the castle.’
‘Trampled to death,’ said his wife, Brigid, from behind him. Her voice was shocked, but excited by the news. ‘They do say that whoever it is – the word is that it might be Brennan the cattleman – they do say that he is ground to pulp like as though he had been under a mill stone.’
Mara shuddered. The image was too real. ‘The poor man!’ she exclaimed.
‘There’s a horse coming down the road,’ said Aidan, alive with interest at the dramatic turn taken by the morning schooling. ‘Coming fast, too; by the sound of it.’
Mara moved to the door of the schoolhouse. There was certainly the sound of rapid horse hoofs ringing out on the limestone-paved road and she went to stand by the great iron gates that led into the law school enclosure. A minute later a beautiful strawberry mare came into sight and her heart rose up thankfully. This was Ardal O’Lochlainn, taoiseach of the O’Lochlainn clan. If he were safe, then Turlough and Teige were probably safe, also. Nevertheless, she held her breath until she saw his face and saw him nod reassuringly.
‘I’m the first with the tale,’ he said, ‘but most of the cattle have been recovered and the King, thank God, is well. He and Teige will soon follow me.’
‘He hasn’t been injured?’ she asked, but she knew the answer. Ardal did not waste words. He would have told her the truth instantly.
‘No,’ he replied. A smile lit up his blue eyes and spread over his handsome face. ‘A bit disgusted that most of the action was over before he arrived, but otherwise unhurt. Muiris O’Hynes and his men managed very efficiently. They got to the peak of abbey hill well ahead of the herds. First of all they opened a gate to a meadow with a few cows belonging to the monks grazing and then they set up a road block right across the road with carts and such-like from the abbey. So when the herd came up the hill, going slowly now because of the steepness of it, the men from the Burren were behind the barrier waving sticks and shouting – O’Donnell’s men were behind the herd, so the cows had no choice but to turn into the field. And glad they were, poor animals, to get in there and to drink from the trough and snatch a few mouthfuls of clean grass. And Muiris had the good sense to let the Donegal men go. All over safely, thank God.’
‘Thank God,’ said Mara, echoing his own words, but then waited. He had more to say, she knew the slight hesitancy with which he was now eyeing her.
‘What is it?’ she asked.
‘I stopped at Carron Castle to tell them the cattle were on the way back,’ said Ardal slowly. ‘There’s been an accident,’ he added. ‘A trampling . . .’
‘I know – we heard,’ said Mara, conscious that Stephen Gardiner was by her side, that her flush-leftly well-run school had dissolved into chaos and her scholars were all out on the road drinking in the news avidly, ready for any more horrifying details.
‘Brennan, the cowman, that was the word,’ said Brigid, giving a toss of her ginger hair. She liked to be the one who was always first with the news.
‘Crushed to death by the stampeding cows,’ said Aidan.
Mara looked severely at him. ‘A terrible death for a man, a man who was doing his duty and probably trying to save his cows from being stolen,’ she reminded him and then frowned. What was it that Maol, Garrett’s steward, had said to her two nights ago when she was up at Carron Castle attending the wake of the tánaiste? Something about Garrett having dismissed his cowman . . . Yes, the name had been Brennan. Surely, if he had already been dismissed, this man, Brennan, would not interpose his body between the raiders and the marauding cow thieves.
‘It’s impossible to recognise a face,’ said Ardal quietly. ‘Even the clothing is . . .’ He stopped with an eye on Fiona. Ardal was a very chivalrous man and he felt, thought Mara, that the small, sweet-looking Fiona with her primrose curls and large blue eyes looked too fragile to hear what he had been about to say.
‘Unrecognisable with blood and dust and cattle droppings, I suppose,’ finished Mara briskly. She had few worries about Fiona’s toughness; Hugh, perhaps, but then her scholars were training to be law enforcers and she could not shield them from the harsh realities of life.
‘That’s it,’ said Ardal, giving Fiona an uneasy glance. She stared back at him with her innocent blue eyes agog for more details.
‘So no one knows whose body it is,’ said Mara thoughtfully.
‘And I don’t suppose that we will know until all that slógad are back with the cattle,’ said Brigid briskly.
‘Is there anyone supposed to be missing from Carron Castle, my lord?’ Moylan asked the question respectfully. Horses were an obsession with him and he was a great admirer of Ardal who bred several very successful strains of horse and was a great buyer and seller of racehorses as well as of trotting horses.
‘Well, yes,’ said Ardal reluctantly. ‘There is, indeed, someone missing.’ He looked at Mara and she moved back inside to within the enclosure but did not offer to him the privacy of the schoolhouse. Whoever was killed, there was no doubt that the news would be all over the Burren soon and she did not want to deny Brigid the chance to be one of the first to have the story.
‘Who is missing, then?’ she asked and then, from his appalled expression, guessed the answer.
‘Garrett?’ she asked and he nodded.
‘It’s still very unsure,’ he said hastily. Ardal always liked to be certain of his facts. ‘No one seems to know whether he was in the castle when the cattle stampeded past, not even the taoiseach’s wife knows that.’
‘Which one of them?’ Mara heard Aidan’s mutter, but ignored him. Her mind was busy. Her eyes met Ardal’s and saw her puzzlement reflected in his. Garrett MacNamara, she would have thought, was the last man in the kingdom to rush out in front of a herd of stampeding cows. It was one of the complaints about him that he had no interest in cattle, no knowledge of them and seemed to be only concerned with how much money he could wring from the clan in the way of rent. He would never have hazarded his life like that. Not even Muiris O’Heynes, the greatest cattle expert on the Burren, would have tried to do something of that nature.
‘In God’s name, what was he doing out on the road in the first place?’ asked Brigid. ‘We heard them over here. We heard them coming from Noughaval, heard them galloping down the road. Cumhal says to me, didn’t you, Cumhal? – “that’s a cattle raid if I’m a Christian” and out he goes and calls the cows into the barn and keeps them shut in there until the noise was well past.’
‘I can always rely on Cumhal,’ said Mara to Ardal, noticing that Stephen had gone back into the schoolhouse. No doubt he was filling another page on cattle raids among the ‘wild Irish’.
‘I guessed they were on their way to the border point at Abbey Hill, and that they wouldn’t come so far out of their way,’ muttered Cumhal, looking embarrassed at her praise. And then he added, ‘But Brigid is right, Brehon. It would be surprising that the MacNamara would go walking down the road with that noise approaching. As for trying to stop them, well . . .’
‘He was a terrible coward, anyway,’ said Aidan candidly. ‘Do you remember him when that bull got loose at the fair?’ He whistled loudly to express his disgust at Garrett’s lack of courage when faced with something as ordinary as a bull.
Mara looked at Ardal’s still hesitant face. ‘Go back inside all of you, I’ll be in within a few minutes. Aidan, while you are waiting for me, perhaps you could explain to our visitor the importance of cows and how various fines can be paid in either silver or using a milch cow for each ounce of silver.’
They all disappeared instantly. Stephen would be bombarded with information, she guessed. Cumhal went back to his work of mending a fence on a roadside field and Brigid, after a second’s hesitation, retired to the kitchen. Mara faced Ardal, looking keenly at his handsome face.
‘There is something that worries you about this terrible accident, is that right?’ she asked.
Ardal ran a hand through his copper-coloured hair and grimaced. ‘It’s probably nothing,’ he said. ‘The body is unrecognisable, but I suppose with washing we might be able to identify the clothes, but there is something else . . .’ He hesitated.
Mara waited. It was never any good to try to rush Ardal.
‘The body had a length of chain tied to its leg,’ he said eventually.
Mara stared at him. ‘Tied to his leg? His leg, is that right, Ardal? Well, that’s an interesting piece of information.’ She turned it over within her mind but could make nothing of it. The information that Garrett was missing was probably of more importance at the moment. If the tragic death by trampling was that of farm worker or cowman, well that was just a matter for the man’s own family, but if it happened that the mutilated and unrecognisable body lying in the dust and filth of the road below the castle chanced to be that of the clan’s chieftain, Garrett, then this matter concerned the Brehon and the king. A new taoiseach would have to be sworn in – young Jarlath would come to power more quickly than anyone could have foreseen – and a grand funeral would have to be arranged, the three other chieftains on the Burren, the O’Brien, the O’Connor and the O’Lochlainn all would have to be informed – as would, indeed, the whole of the MacNamara clan, many of whom lived outside the Burren in Thomond.
Thoughtfully Mara took leave of Ardal and went back into the schoolroom where Moylan, with a hint of condescension in his voice, was explaining the difference between cattle and milch cows to a rather bemused Stephen. She waited and he quickly finished and they all looked at her expectantly while Stephen made more notes in his book. Mara looked around at her scholars.
‘Can any of you think of a reason why the dead man on the road below Carron might have a chain tied around his leg?’ she asked. Her eyes were on Stephen when she said that. He looked at her wide-eyed, but then he seemed to have perfected that expression of astonishment at all of the strange goings-on in this western kingdom.
