Chain of Evidence, page 8
And the trick of slipping the body onto the path of the marauders driving the herds of stolen cattle was a clever one.
Five
Maccslecheta
(Son Sections)
A son by a woman other than the chief wife has full rights of inheritance as long as his father recognises him in public. If the father disputes the claim, then such matters as family appearance, voice and way of behaviour, as well as the sworn oath of the wife, is taken into account by the judge of the case.
Ardal was already in the law school enclosure by the time that Mara came out of the kitchen house. He was tenderly helping Fiona onto her pony, and enquiring whether her cloak was warm enough for the cold wind. Mara surveyed the two with interest. Ardal had reduced to despair all of the mothers and their daughters of the Burren and of the surrounding territories. He was immensely rich, not just from his lands and rental on the Burren, but from the successful business which he ran, selling beautiful and well-bred horses to the whole of Ireland and to many people in England, including King Henry VIII himself. He would be a splendid match for Fiona, but did seventeen and forty-two go together? Still, thought Mara, I married at fourteen and I married a selfish, untalented and loud-mouthed schoolboy and after the first few ecstatic months was extremely unhappy with him. She smiled to herself, remembering how shocked the people of the Burren had been when she had successfully conducted her own divorce using a little-known Brehon law that a wife may divorce a husband, who, in a public ale house, discusses details of their love-making. Ardal would make Fiona a wonderful husband, and with his copper-coloured hair and blue eyes and tall, broad-shouldered figure, he was a handsome man still. But, apart from the age difference, would it be right for a clever girl, like Fiona, to give up her studies and her chance to become a Brehon like her father? And if she wanted to continue on her path to become a Brehon, would Ardal be happy to allow her? With a sigh, Mara shook her head and urged her mare Brig to go faster. I have enough to do without matchmaking, she told herself severely, and turned her mind away from Ardal and Fiona.
This murder, if it were a murder – and Mara had a strong feeling that it was an intentional killing – had to be solved quickly before there were any repercussions from the MacNamara clan. The peace of the kingdom, and the peace of mind of her husband, Turlough Donn, depended now on her ability to solve this secret and unlawful killing as soon as possible. The people of the Burren and its four main clans, the O’Briens, the O’Lochlainns, the O’Connors, as well as the MacNamaras, depended upon her tact, her brains and her ability to unravel clues. And all of these abilities had to be brought into play in order to solve this secret and unlawful killing of Garrett MacNamara.
‘Cold weather for the time of year.’ Ardal had moved up beside her and was surveying the fields, dotted with cowslips and pale mauve cuckoo flowers. ‘Very little growth in the grass, yet,’ he said gloomily. ‘Hard to realise that it is May. Not a butterfly to be seen. Usually those cuckoo flowers are covered in those orange-tipped butterflies at this time of year. And I’ve only heard the cuckoo once or twice. It’s more like winter than late spring.’
‘It will come in a rush when it does come,’ prophesied Mara. Cumhal had made that remark this morning and Cumhal was a good weather prophet and Mara often found that repeating his forecasts gave her an undeserved reputation of knowing about the land and the problems of those who farmed it. While trotting out a few more of Cumhal’s sayings her mind went back to that chain around Garrett’s leg and she interrupted Ardal’s account of a late spring when he was a young man to ask him about the length of the chain.
‘How long, Brehon?’ He was taken aback by her question.
‘Yes,’ said Mara. ‘A foot, a yard, three yards . . .? What would your memory of it be, Ardal?’ Her scholars, she noticed, had stopped chattering and teasing each other and had moved up close to them and were obviously listening to the conversation.
Ardal took his time before answering. It was one of the things that she liked about him. She could not have asked for a more accurate and careful witness.
‘The foot was broken in half, twisted, but the upper half remained,’ he said speaking slowly. ‘And, of course, most of the flesh from the leg was gone, trampled. Just the bone, quite dislocated from the knee, but still attached by some sinews, I’d say. I would reckon that the chain had been originally tied to the poor man’s ankle. It was quite a slender piece of chain,’ he went on, his blue eyes not looking at her, but staring straight ahead. ‘In fact, now that I come to recollect, it may well have been one of those short lengths of chain that are used to lead a bull, to tie through the ring at the end of his nose, these ones with long, flat links which can be threaded through to form a noose – so, to answer your question, Brehon, altogether about three feet.’
‘Thank you, Ardal.’ Mara’s voice was sincere – certainly he was a good and careful witness, but inwardly she felt dismayed, and she heard a low murmur from the scholars behind them. There seemed to be no sensible explanation for a three-foot long piece of chain to be tied to a man’s ankle. She stared ahead, noting the black cloud in the distance and calculating how long it would be before one of those downpours of sleety rain would occur. Three feet of chain – that did not seem enough to tie an unconscious man to a rock by the side of the road. She thought of something then and turned towards him.
‘This is a lot to ask of your memory, Ardal,’ she said, ‘but did the end of the chain look broken, look as though it had been snapped?’
He answered her very readily. ‘No, Brehon, I could almost swear that it had not. That was probably why I thought of it as a bull chain – these chains, though short, are always strongly made to make sure that they will not break with the weight of the animal.’
Moylan, from behind them, cleared his throat in a diplomatic manner and Mara looked back.
‘Yes, Moylan,’ she said gravely, suppressing a grin at his tact and good manners. A year ago he would have impetuously joined into the conversation.
‘Fintan MacNamara at the smithy makes chains like that, Brehon,’ he said. ‘I’ve seen them on the shelves up there – and they would be about a yard long.’
‘That’s right, Moylan.’ Ardal nodded his approval. ‘And these bull chains are always made from slender flat links because it is much easier to slot them through than if they are thick.’
‘So a chain like this would be possessed by many people on the Burren,’ put in Fiona and Ardal gave her a tender smile.
‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘I would say that there wouldn’t be a cabin or a barn in the whole of the kingdom that would not have some of those chains stored in them. We’re just coming near to the spot, now,’ he added. With an air of relief, he said, ‘It looks as though an effort has been made to clean the place up.’
Bother, thought Mara, feeling annoyed with herself. I should have sent orders for the place to be left alone. It had, of course, at first seemed not to be a crime, but an unfortunate accident – in fact, it might still turn out to be that, but the more she thought of Ardal’s strange story about a chain around the leg of the dead man, the more she felt that this death would turn out to be a secret and unlawful killing, something that she, as Brehon of the Burren, would have to investigate and allocate a punishment to the guilty person.
‘Just about here,’ said Ardal, checking his beautiful mare with a gentle shake of the reins. ‘Yes, I remember that gorse bush was just in line with the body. You can see it is broken on the hillside edge of it. I reckoned that the herd of cows did that.’ He jumped lightly from the back of his horse, looped her reins over a stump of a willow bush and went to the head of Mara’s horse.
‘There’s a good stone here, Brehon,’ he said leading her towards a large flat boulder by the side of the road and helping her to dismount and then carefully performing the same service for Fiona while the boys leaped athletically from their ponies and stood looking in dismayed silence at the spot where Garrett’s body had lain.
About ten yards of roadway had been shovelled clean – had probably even been swabbed down with buckets of water from the nearby river – as the road seemed extraordinarily clean in comparison with the rest of the route. Mara compressed her lips, angry with herself for not being on the spot earlier, or at least not to have sent an urgent message.
‘We’ll search the sweepings, Brehon.’ Fachtnan was at her side and seemed to know her thoughts. He spoke consolingly and then ordered Shane and Hugh to use their knives to cut some strong twigs from the goat willow bush so that the scholars could rake through the debris at the side of the road.
Mara looked around her. The spot where Garrett’s body had lain was well chosen. It was on a small road that ran through a valley between the mountain sides. Looking around she realised that it would be completely hidden from the castle itself. Nothing but a small cabin could be glimpsed from that spot and on a day when most of the inhabitants of the Burren were up on the mountain getting ready to celebrate the festival of Bealtaine, there would be no one in the fields or attending to the calving cows.
‘Search carefully for the chain,’ she said coming over to her scholars and looking down at the cowpats that they were forking through with their sticks.
‘At least the wind has dried them out,’ said Ardal in a low voice. ‘The stench was terrible when I came upon the body. I had just called in at the castle and was taking this route as a short cut back when I saw all the crows pecking at something. I thought it was some unfortunate cow or a calf and then realised . . .’
‘A leather pouch with a broken strap, Brehon,’ shouted Fiona, unconcernedly picking it out from the mess with her dainty fingers.
‘The strap’s broken,’ said Shane. ‘I’d say that once the man was down and lying on the ground, a cow probably caught its leg in it and then broke the strap loose.’
‘A cow weighs about six hundredweight – that’s what my father says – think of that; they’re massive animals – about six times heavier than Fiona – well, they are massive!’ said Moylan, and the other scholars, by their thoughtful faces, were picturing the scene when the cows swept over and across the prostrate body of Garrett MacNamara.
‘Let’s look in the pouch,’ said Aidan impatiently and Fiona opened it.
‘There’s just this, Brehon,’ she said and handed to Mara a folded and sealed roll of vellum. Her eyes widened as she read the inscription. ‘It’s to Cardinal Wolsey,’ Fiona said. ‘Perhaps it belongs to Stephen Gardiner, what do you think, Brehon?’
‘He would just be the messenger, I believe,’ said Mara examining the small neat letters. ‘This is Garrett’s handwriting,’ she added as she broke the seal and unfolded the vellum. It only took her a minute to scan the words and then she rolled it up again and placed it within her own pouch. She would have read it aloud if only her scholars were present, but in front of Ardal, although he was discreet, she felt that she could not betray Garrett’s secrets to him. Back at the law school they would discuss the implications. For now she would keep in mind that Garrett had been a traitor to his king and to his clan; that he was planning to do service to King Henry VIII in return for the title of earl; that he would follow English customs, would wear English clothing and that his eldest and only son Peadar would be given the title of Lord Mount Carron and would, without any election, succeed his father to the title of earl and to the extensive property formerly belonging to the MacNamara clan and ruled over by an elected taoiseach. No mention, thought Mara, that this son had only just been discovered and that he was not the son of Garrett’s lawfully wedded wife, Slaney. The English minded about things like that, mused Mara, but Garrett had probably decided that nothing should be said on that score, and Stephen Gardiner had been too pleased at securing a convert to the English way of life to bother about a small matter like that. That would be Stephen. An ambitious man, a man with a twinkle in his eye and probably his feet set firmly on the first rung of the ladder to success.
‘I think, Brehon, if you have no further tasks for me, I will leave you now. I must have a word with my steward.’ Ardal’s voice broke into Mara’s thoughts and she smiled gratefully at him. He was such a well-mannered, sensitive man; he had immediately picked up on her slight hesitation and was now making haste to remove himself from the scene and leave her to consult with her scholars on business, which, for the moment, would have to be private. Mara thanked him warmly for giving up his time and when he was gone turned to her scholars who were looking at her expectantly. Briefly she summarized Garrett’s letter to Cardinal Wolsey, chief advisor to the English king, Henry VIII.
‘What would that have meant for the kingdom, Brehon?’ asked Moylan after a minute of stunned silence when the scholars looked at each other with horror. It was one thing to hear that the O’Donnell of Donegal had bent the knee to the king of England, but another that one of the four chieftains in the kingdom of the Burren was proposing to do the same thing.
‘It’s a very good question, Moylan, and I’m not sure of the answer,’ she said honestly. ‘However,’ she went on slowly and with a feeling of pain in her heart, ‘it may have caused war and many deaths. I don’t think that the MacNamara clan would have been happy to give up all their ancient rights and to become mere peasants and slaves to their overlord.’ As she spoke, Mara was aware of the many tangled threads that might have led to the possible killing of Garrett MacNamara, the man who was willing to betray his clan for the position of earl and for the heritage of his recently acknowledged heir.
‘It was, perhaps, a sad thing for Peadar, that he was killed before Garrett had formally recognised him at Poulnabrone—’ began Moylan and then he was interrupted by Fiona.
‘But a good thing for Jarlath,’ she said quickly. ‘If Garrett had lived, and had surrendered his birthright to Henry VIII, then Jarlath would have had no place on the Burren and would have had to go back to his life as a merchant.’
‘Stephen Gardiner told me that under the English system the position of tánaiste does not exist – the inheritance goes purely by primogeniture,’ said Moylan. ‘That means that the eldest son inherits,’ he added to the two younger boys with a trace of condescension.
‘We know that,’ said Shane impatiently. ‘We know Latin, you know, Moylan – first born . . . And that’s interesting, isn’t it, Brehon? Jarlath’s position as tánaiste would have had no relevance, whereas now—’
‘Whereas now, and as I was about to say before I was rudely interrupted, he is the heir and will, I suppose, definitely be elected as taoiseach.’ Fiona looked sternly at Moylan and he threw up his hand in apology.
The scholars looked at each other and heads were nodded in acknowledgement of Fiona’s assessment.
‘Perhaps,’ said Mara with a look of approbation at Fiona, ‘we should now speculate on whether Garrett could, somehow or other, have been placed in the path of the marauding cattle, without danger to the murderer. In other words, was Garrett murdered by someone—’
‘OM,’ reminded Hugh.
‘OM,’ corrected Mara. This was a good approach for the scholars to take to a murder. There was no point in trying to put a name to the criminal too early. The facts had to be gathered and the motives explored before they moved forward in this investigation.
‘No way could it have been seen from the castle,’ said Aidan, looking back up the hill.
It was true. There was a sharp, small hill in front of them and nothing to be seen there, except a small cattle cabin and the remains of an old mill. They would have to go about another five hundred yards, decided Mara, before they reached a spot which would have been visible from the castle. Was this spot chosen for that reason? Did the murderer – OM, amended Mara – drag the unconscious Garrett to this spot because it was shielded from the view of the castle by the intervening hill, or was this just a fortunate occurrence, an accident? Would, she speculated, Jarlath have had time to do something like this before the cattle arrived at Carron? Perhaps it was the impulse of a moment, a crime born of impatience. Perhaps he struck his brother and then left the body in the path of the marauders?
But that did not explain the chain.
‘There’s no sign of the other end of the chain, Brehon,’ said Aidan. While busy with her thoughts, Mara had been conscious that he and Moylan had walked the length of the road, checking each roadside rock.
‘You’ve checked thoroughly, haven’t you?’ she asked. It was strange, she thought, not to find the other end of the chain. Or was it, as Ardal had surmised, just a short chain for leading a bull in safety? In which case it would not have been long enough to be tied to a rock.
‘There are no fence posts on this stretch of the road, Brehon,’ said Hugh breaking into her thoughts.
‘Perhaps the O’Lochlainn made a mistake,’ said Shane, scanning the roadside.
‘I doubt it,’ said Moylan fervently.
‘Is it important?’ asked Fiona and Mara was not sure how to answer her.
It was a good question. What role had the chain around Garrett’s leg played? Or was it possible that Ardal O’Lochlainn had made a mistake? Mara looked up the hill and then began to walk up the steep road until she was far up enough to see the tall, grey limestone tower house. ‘We saw the cows running down the road from the south of the kingdom,’ she said, recollecting the scene. ‘They had a few steep hills to scale which would have slowed them down after that . . .’
‘There would still have been an unbelievable amount of noise, though, and Garrett’s own cattle would have been running to join – cows do that,’ said Moylan, a farmer’s son.
‘And Garrett came running out to stop them,’ supplemented Hugh with a note of doubt in his voice.
‘Doesn’t sound like him,’ said Moylan dismissively.
