Chain of Evidence, page 6
‘What, the man that Cumhal was telling us about!’ Aidan sounded pleased and excited by this extra spice to the story.
‘Did the O’Lochlainn tell you that, Brehon?’ asked Moylan curiously.
‘Might have been a murder if it had been his neck,’ said Hugh thoughtfully.
‘But just his leg,’ said Aidan with disgust. ‘Perhaps he . . .’ His voice tailed out. Not even Aidan with his fertile imagination could devise a reason for a man to have a piece of chain tied to his leg when chasing cattle raiders.
‘Perhaps he was an escaped lunatic,’ suggested Shane brightly. ‘Some people do tie up lunatics by the leg so that they go a certain distance but can’t stray and cause trouble. What do you think, Brehon?’
‘It’s in our laws,’ explained Fiona to Stephen. ‘We feel that the care of a mad person devolves onto the kin group. They must take it in turn to care for him, or her. They are then responsible for the lunatic’s actions and must tie them up if they can’t supervise them for a short period of time. A person may be excused for being late to a court hearing if he has to delay in order to tie up a lunatic. Let me explain to you the law about lunatics—’
‘I believe,’ said Stephen, clasping his head with mock horror, ‘that I will leave you now.’ He got to his feet after wiping his pen clean and replacing it, his ink horn and his notebook into his satchel. ‘I think that I will ride up to Carron and see what’s going on. I feel that I am suffering from an overload of information about Brehon law and its complexities. My studies of the law at Cambridge never seemed to offer so many difficulties.’
‘That’s a compliment, coming from a race that called Brehon law a set of rules for savages,’ said Mara with a smile and she escorted him to the gate of the enclosure and saw him leave – with a sigh of relief. She would prefer him not to be here when Turlough came back. Turlough was very indiscreet and Mara did not want the remarks that her husband would undoubtedly make about this cattle raid to be carried back to O’Donnell’s ears and to King Henry in England. The English, Mara thought, needed to be dealt with warily, treated with courtesy but kept at arm’s length.
‘What about this death, Brehon? Are we going to discuss this?’ Aidan, despite the fact that he would face his final examinations in June, was eager for a change from routine.
‘Only when we know more,’ said Mara firmly. If it truly were the body of Garrett, she thought as she allocated tasks to her scholars, then why did not Slaney send a message to her – or had she already returned to Galway, perhaps she had planned a flight before her shame of being set aside by her husband could be made public in the Burren.
‘I don’t think that either Maol MacNamara, the steward, or Brennan MacNamara, the cowman, were at the Bealtaine Festival yesterday evening,’ said Aidan addressing his words to the air and then burying his nose in Audacht Morainn, a seventh-century text on kingship. ‘I just thought that you might like to know that, Brehon,’ he added hastily.
‘I think that we will have half an hour of silent study,’ said Mara turning the slimmest of the three sand glasses on its head. She had trained herself not to speculate until facts were before her and she would be doing her scholars an injustice if she encouraged them to conjecture before more was known. She took from the locked wooden press an enormous leather-bound book which contained notes on cases heard on judgement day. This book had been started over fifty years ago by her father who was then Brehon of the Burren and Mara, in her turn, faithfully recorded all her decisions. Now, with a faint sigh, she settled down to write up yesterday’s cases. If it were true that the dead body was that of the chieftain of the MacNamara clan, then the most interesting case, that of Garrett’s recognition of Peadar, his declaration that Rhona was to be his wife of second degree and his possible demand for a divorce from Slaney, would now never be heard.
Rhona, she thought and got to her feet. ‘Fachtnan, I will be back in five minutes,’ she said as she went through the door. How could she have forgotten about her other two guests? Had they heard the news? she wondered, as she hurried across the courtyard to the guesthouse.
Before she reached it Rhona with Peadar behind her came out through the door. One glance at the woman’s face told Mara that the news had reached her.
‘I wonder would you be kind enough to lend me a couple of ponies, Brehon,’ she began as soon as she saw Mara. ‘I must get back up there. I . . .’ She left her sentence unfinished, but Mara understood her concern. The future of her son was at stake. Garrett had failed to turn up to Poulnabrone and now what was to happen to young Peadar. Something I must consider, thought Mara as she cordially invited Rhona to take her pick from the stable and called Cumhal to attend to the pair from Scotland. No word of sorrow was expressed by Rhona and Mara liked her all the more for that and busied herself with practical offers of help when Rhona would have decided what she wanted to do. The woman seemed dazed by the sudden change in her son’s fortune and almost incapable of thinking until she returned to Carron and saw the position for herself. Mara waved a goodbye and then returned to her schoolhouse and her studious scholars.
The half hour had just finished when there was a commotion from outside. Several horses were rode straight onto the cobbled yard outside the schoolhouse, voices were raised. Turlough called to Brigid – something about being as hungry as a lion – his cousin, Teige O’Brien shouted out a joke to Cumhal, Mara’s stablemen exchanged words with men-at-arms – and then the door burst open and in came Turlough.
‘Mara,’ he shouted. ‘You’ll never guess what has happened. Garrett MacNamara is dead.’
‘We’re before you with that news,’ said Mara. ‘Ardal O’Lochlainn dropped in on his way home – he was the one who found the body. It sounds as if it were a terrible accident, but I’ll go up there tomorrow when you are off to Thomond.’ She smiled at her scholars. ‘You have worked well and silently,’ she said always happy to praise when they deserved it. ‘Now why don’t you have a short break?’
When they had gone out, Fachtnan following them, she said to Turlough. ‘Let’s put it from our minds now and enjoy the rest of the day. Come into the house; you can have a rest. I don’t suppose that you had much sleep last night. Brigid will bring the food across when the school is finished. Will you stay, Teige? We can give you a bed if you wish,’ she ended, rather insincerely. She and Turlough had little time together and she did not want that time to be occupied by raucous jokes and reminiscences of the cattle raid. Since her visitors had all left, Mara and Turlough, once school was over, could visit their little son and then have a peaceful meal together. The duck and the special sauces had not been served last night, so no doubt Brigid had reserved them in the underground storeroom until Turlough should be there to appreciate them.
‘No, I’m off home,’ said Teige. ‘They didn’t steal any of my cows – they came across from the west. O’Donnell had the nerve to drop off men secretly at the same time as he dropped off Garrett’s visitors. The plan was to pick up the cows in Galway Bay where he had more ships lying in wait, ready to bring all our good fat cattle back to his own sour land. Well, we foiled them – and they’ve had a few sore heads to take back to Donegal.’
Four
Críth Gablach
(Ranks in Society)
The riches of a man and his status in the kingdom depend on his cattle. For that reason it is illegal:
To drive another’s cattle in a way that causes them injury, even if they are on your land.
To drive another’s cattle into the sea or into a marsh.
To drive another’s cattle into a place frequented by wolves.
To drive another’s cattle into a disease-ridden cow house, unless they came originally from that place.
To drive another’s cattle in a way that would startle them with angry fierceness that would cause bones to be broken.
Anyone who drives another’s cattle without permission must also be liable for any damage that they cause, even after he has left them.
An awkward fact is like a thorn embedded in your finger, thought Mara. Unless you dig it out, it goes on making its presence felt. Garrett’s broken body had been washed and tightly bound with a winding sheet by the time that she and her scholars had arrived at Carron Castle early in the morning. She had commanded that the sheet be undone, and had to force herself to gaze down at the remains of what had once been Garrett MacNamara. The body had been terribly mutilated though it still possessed the remains of its four limbs. But there had been no trace of a piece of chain around what had been a leg. The blood-soaked clothing had been burned or thrown out and presumably the chain had gone with everything else. No one seemed to know anything about it.
Slaney, Mara was interested to see when she arrived at the castle, was playing the part of a grief-stricken wife, sitting over a fire in the hall and sipping mead while various maids hovered around her. She accompanied Mara on her mission to see Garrett’s body, crossing herself and issuing sighs that turned to gulps as she struggled to contain her emotions. Only when Mara mentioned the chain around the leg that Ardal had seen, did Slaney revert to her usual self and she snapped out the words, ‘no such thing’ with such rapidity that it was no wonder that the servants immediately denied having seen any such thing.
And what could be done? Mara asked herself. Nothing for the moment, was the answer. Against that solid bank of women who had cleaned and bound up the remains of the body, it was one man’s word – and the word of a man who, moreover, had just seen the body lying in mounds of filth and dust and blood. And yet, thought Mara, I have known that man for the whole of my life, we were brought up as neighbours, I have never known Ardal to be inaccurate. He was not a talker; he said little, but that which he said was always carefully considered. Mara passed between her fingers the rosary beads which Slaney had handed to her and mechanically made the responses to the prayers while thinking hard.
From a distance she could hear sounds of merriment in the hall. It had been full of silent men and women when she had arrived, but the removal of Slaney’s presence had unlocked tongues and probably the mead had been flowing. There had been no sign of Stephen Gardiner, the Englishman – perhaps he had retired to his room to write up his notes – but Jarlath had been there, moving among the clansmen and women, already, in their eyes, invested with the status of taoiseach. The man Tomás had been whispering in his ear and there was an eagerness on the faces of all as they looked at the handsome, amiable young man. Rhona and Peadar were still outsiders, though. Once again they had withdrawn to the seclusion of a window seat and Peadar’s young face wore an expression of angry embarrassment which made Mara feel rather sorry for him. What would be his position now? The question must be troubling both, but it was not the most urgent problem to be solved at the moment so Mara turned her thoughts back to the terribly mutilated dead body in front of her.
A chain around the leg? Was there any possible reason why Garrett himself should tie a chain around his leg? She could think of none. Garrett was a pompous man, a man who always dressed well for his role as taoiseach of his clan. During his four years of office she had never seen him engage in any work on his land – and even if he were dragging something, surely the chain would have been wound around his shoulders. She dismissed that thought from her mind and went back to Shane’s suggestion. A lunatic, or a fierce dog, might be tied in order to prevent him from escaping. But a man in possession of his senses would not be detained long by a chain around his leg unless his hands also were bound. But Ardal had not mentioned a chain around the wrists – more shocking and more noticeable than one around the leg.
‘The third sorrowful mystery: Jesus is crowned by thorns,’ announced Slaney. ‘Let us consider in silence for a moment the agonies of our saviour.’
Another thirty ‘Hail Marys’, not to mention the ‘Our Fathers’ and ‘Glory be to the Fathers’ and the other prayers that Slaney kept inserting, thought Mara, hearing an impatient sigh from Shane. She rose resolutely to her feet and beckoned to Slaney and withdrew to the window, waiting for the woman to follow. Let her servants go on praying; the Brehon had work to do. The scholars had not hesitated but had immediately got to their feet and clustered around her. She did not wave them away. This was law school business. She waited grimly until the sour-faced Slaney approached.
‘I’m sorry that you cannot spare the time to pray for the soul of—’ she was saying in a furious whisper, but Mara silenced her with an imperative gesture.
‘Make no arrangements for the wake or the burial at the moment, Slaney,’ she said sternly. ‘I am not satisfied that this was an accident. It may be that it was a secret and unlawful killing – one that I and my scholars must investigate. I want this body moved to a small room and the keys of it handed to me until my enquiries have finished.’
‘What!’ Stony-faced, Slaney glared at her, and then gulped and clutched at her heart. Mara ignored her. Maol the steward had just entered the room and she beckoned to him.
‘Have the body of your taoiseach carried to a small wall chamber,’ she said.
He stared at her and she stared back – all the authority of her eighteen years of office in her gaze. The light was poor in this north-facing room, but she had an impression that he had paled.
‘Immediately,’ she said in a peremptory way. ‘This terrible death must be investigated.’
‘I am to be nobody in my own house,’ exclaimed Slaney bitterly.
‘This is now a matter for the king and his officers,’ said Mara. She spoke more gently than she had done to the steward. Though a tall, heavily-built woman Slaney seemed to shrink and there was a look of terror in her very blue eyes. She was clutching the back of a large oak chair for support and Mara thought she saw a slight tremor in the sturdily built piece of furniture.
Garrett’s body lay on a wooden pallet and within minutes it was being carried to one of the small wall chambers that were slotted in, here and there, by the sides of the spiral staircase in the old part of the castle. Its window was not much bigger than a loop hole for an arrow to pass through, but the place was small enough to be well lit by a couple of candles. Once the pallet had been placed on a pair of trestles, Mara ordered a double candlestick and positioned it in the deep sill of the tiny window. There would, she thought, be enough light. She nodded her thanks to the servant and then held out her hand for the key, waiting until Slaney summoned her housekeeper and handed over the second key, also. The room was freezing cold, but so much the better to preserve the corpse.
With a great air of ceremony Mara watched Fachtnan lock the door, melt in the flame of Maol’s candle a piece of sealing wax from his satchel and then paste it over the lock. While it was still warm Mara scratched her initials into the wax with a quill pen from her own satchel. The pen would be ruined, but if anyone in the castle were guilty of having anything to do with Garrett’s death, then these elaborate preparations should alarm them.
‘I shall be back,’ she said to Slaney. ‘Do nothing about this death until I give permission.’
And with those words she went soberly down the wide staircase followed by Fachtnan and her scholars who were exchanging slightly over-awed looks. Mara said nothing to them until they were all outside the iron gates and then she spoke.
‘Fachtnan,’ she said. ‘I want you to ride to Thomond as quickly as you can safely do so. Tell the king about the death of Garrett MacNamara. He will want to attend the burial and conduct the inauguration ceremony for the new taoiseach as soon as possible. Oh, and Fachtnan, I have one other task for you. Bring back Nuala. Tell her I need her urgently. I want her to give an opinion on the cause of death, and on the time of death. Nuala will do that better than any other physician.’ Her mind went with tolerant scorn to the young man at Caherconnell; he would not serve her purpose.
‘Is Nuala a qualified physician now? She’s only about my age, isn’t she, or not much more?’ asked Fiona rather sharply and Mara suppressed a grin as Aidan and Moylan informed her how talented Nuala was and how she had done so well in her final examinations that the king’s own physician, Donogh O’Hickey, had spoken of her in Rome.
Fachtnan said nothing, just looked at Fiona with concern in his dark eyes. What a tangle that was, thought Mara impatiently. Nuala adored Fachtnan and, herself an heiress of valuable property on the Burren, was willing to share her considerable wealth with him in marriage, but Fachtnan worshipped Fiona who thought of him purely as an elder brother and comrade, though she enjoyed his homage. Still they would have to work matters out for themselves so Mara dissipated the slight atmosphere of embarrassment among her scholars by giving some crisp commands to Fachtnan and checking that he had silver with him and instructing him to request a meal when he arrived at Turlough’s main castle in Thomond.
‘Now,’ she said to her scholars as he set off towards the west, ‘I have a task for your young brains.’ She looked around but there was no one on their road back to the law school; she could speak without being overheard. ‘First question is this: why should that chain have been removed from Garrett’s leg? The second question is: why was a chain tied to his leg? No, don’t answer now, wait until we get back to the law school.’
And I must ride over to Baur North to see my little Cormac for a few minutes, she thought as they rode in silence. The next week or so would be busy. The life of a law enforcer and judge for the whole kingdom, as well as being the wife of the king, meant that her moments with this late-born second child of hers were rationed. She was grateful to his foster parents Cliona and Setanta O’Connor, but there were times when, secretly, she felt an angry jealousy rise up within her – especially when she heard Cormac address Cliona as ‘Mam’.
And yet, she knew that she had done the right thing, and that her active, masculine little boy was having a wonderful time playing with his foster brother, only a few months older than he, helping on the farm, driving sheep to new pasture, guarding the newborn lambs with the aid of the long-tailed sheepdogs, scattering straw for beds for the lambing sheep and soon there would be all the excitement of the sheep shearing to look forward to. He was a strong-willed, happy boy and she would not have him different in any way.
