The Sting of Justice

by Cora Harrison

  And then the door opened and in came Sorley’s assistant, Daire, a handsome, tall, silver-blond young man – probably of Viking origin, Mara had often thought in the past. He was carrying a wide, shallow box. Sorley bustled past him, cleared a small, deeply carved table of its silver boxes of sugared comfits, and then placed the table beside Mara’s chair.

  With pride shining from his face, Daire carefully placed the box on the table and took off its lid. It was lined with heavy green velvet and the bottom was a chessboard of dark cherry-tree wood chequered with squares of ivory. Without saying a word, Daire took the white pieces from the carefully carved sections at the right-hand side of the box and set them one by one on the board. Each piece was moulded from shining silver. The castle was a perfect replica of Sorley’s Newtown Castle, the knight pranced on a horse which looked almost alive, its nostrils tiny specks of rubies and the engraved lines in the silver mimicking the white and grey shading of the Connemara ponies. The bishop came next – it was obviously Mauritius, Bishop of Kilfenora; the queen followed, dressed in the traditional léine, showing beneath her gown; and then the king, in the garb of a chieftain, with great wide bristling moustaches. Daire set each piece on its dark square of wood or white square of ivory with the loving care of a creator and then glancing at Mara with a smile touching the corners of his mouth, he produced the first pawn and Mara gave a start of surprise. The pawn was a tiny version of her wolfhound, Bran. There was no mistaking the pose; the little figure sat, head slightly cocked to one side, waiting for a command, just the way that Bran sat day after day at his mistress’s feet. Turlough picked up the king and roared with laughter as he fingered the moustaches.

  ‘You made these, Daire?’ asked Turlough looking at the wolfhound pawn.

  From behind there was a wheezing laugh. ‘No, no,’ said Sorley, ‘Daire is a good apprentice, my lord, but he is not quite ready for work like this yet. He helped, of course, in fact he did quite a lot, but it needed the master-hand to get everything right. Anyway, you like the set? And you, Brehon? Put the rest of them out, boy, show them all to King Turlough and the Brehon.’

  Mara glanced at Daire. All the light seemed to have gone out of his face, even the shining hair seemed to be dimmed, his mouth was set in a hard, straight line and his hand shook slightly as he took out the remainder of the pawns and set them in their row. Then he took the black pieces from the left-hand side and Mara saw that these were made of copper, obviously from the same mould as the silver pieces. Last of all, Daire took out the queen and held it for a moment before placing it on its dark, polished square and Mara smiled slightly to herself. She hadn’t noticed the resemblance with the silver pieces, but now in the dark copper she could see that the queen was herself: the head crowned with coiled braids of dark hair and even, as she looked closely, a tiny scroll in one hand.

  At the same moment, Turlough recognized the likeness. He took the little figure affectionately in his huge hand and held it up to the light.

  ‘I’ve never seen anything so beautiful in my life!’ The words exploded from him. Mara gave him an affectionate glance. Turlough was a man who never could keep his feelings secret. If Sorley had hoped to sell this set to the king, he could probably ask any price for it now.

  Mara looked keenly at Daire; more than ever, she was certain that Daire had made this magnificent chess set, something which any king would be proud to own. She looked at the figures again; the set was obviously inspired by Daire’s visit to Cahermacnaghten a year ago. He had come back with Fachtnan after the festivities of Samhain; she had persuaded him to stay the night in the scholars’ house, as the evening had turned very foggy. Sorley had never seen her wolfhound, Bran, but Daire had; and Bran made great friends with the young silversmith that day. Only Daire could have copied Bran’s characteristic pose with such exactitude. If it were true that Daire had made this chess set, then why was he still an apprentice? However, if the master said that he did not do the work, then matters could be difficult. Mara glanced back at Daire and saw him look covertly at Sorley. There was a look of black despair mingled with hatred in the young man’s eyes.

  ‘This is one of the most beautiful objects that I have ever seen,’ she said with sincerity. ‘The man who made this set is a real artist.’

  The dark look on Daire’s face lightened slightly and he smiled, his hand lightly touching the head of one of the little wolfhound pawns and then his face fell again as he shot another resentful glance at his master. ‘Shall I put them away now before we eat?’ he asked dully.

  ‘No, no, leave them where they are.’

  So that the king will continue to be tempted, thought Mara and then, as she saw the silversmith’s eyes rest appraisingly on her, she changed her mind. I believe they are meant for a bribe for me, she thought, feeling more amused than annoyed.

  ‘Lawyer Bodkin is ready now, Father.’ Una appeared at the door, giving the chess set a quick look of comprehension and then turning back to Sorley.

  ‘Bring him in, my dear,’ he said, and Una left the room without a word returning a few minutes later with the lawyer. She made no effort to introduce him, Mara noticed, but allowed him to make his own way through the room.

  Lawyer Bodkin was a tall, thin, distinguished-looking man, dressed in a black lawyer’s gown. He had a small pointed beard tinged with grey and a pair of intelligent pale blue eyes. He greeted the king with respect and Mara with interest.

  ‘I’ve heard of you,’ he said with a smile. ‘It’s a great privilege to meet you.’

  ‘And a privilege for me, also,’ said Mara with sincerity as the food was carried into the hall and the servants moved around filling plates and replenishing wine from silver flagons. ‘I’m going to pick your brains about English law. I’m ashamed I know so little about it.’ She leaned towards him eagerly as he took his place beside her.

  Ulick began to flirt with Una across the table. However, Una made no response and Ulick turned his attention towards Sorley. He met his match there, thought Mara keeping one amused ear open while listening to Lawyer Bodkin’s long explanation about common law and Roman law and then telling him of her responsibilities for maintaining law and order on the Burren and educating her young law scholars. Sorley seemed to be taunting Ulick with his poverty and Ulick, she noticed, was beginning to lose his temper, clenching his fist and giving short replies.

  ‘Excellent food!’ Lawyer Bodkin placed his fork with mathematical precision in the centre of his empty plate and leaned back.

  ‘And drink,’ said Ulick. He quaffed another goblet, full of wine, saying to the lawyer, ‘do you have any beautiful lady judges like this one in Galway?’

  Too much wine, too much food, too much of everything. Mara sat back in her chair to allow Ulick to converse with the lawyer across her. Her eyes went to Rory who was drinking heavily; he had given up trying to talk to Una and was concentrating on swallowing as much as he could from every dish and every flagon. Obviously he was a visitor in the house; he had come out of one of the guest chambers on the top floor. If he had been merely employed as a bard, he would probably just have bedded down in the guardroom or in one of the many small cabins that lined the courtyard.

  ‘If you’re sure you won’t have anything else to eat, I’d like to discuss this legal matter with you two learned people,’ said Sorley with an unctuous smile across the table at Mara and Lawyer Bodkin. ‘My apprentice has work to do and the young people can go up to the gallery.’ He addressed Una and she got up immediately.

  ‘You must mean me when you speak of young people,’ said Ulick gaily. He got to his feet, seeming quite unaffected by the amount of wine that he had drunk, went around the table and seized Rory by the arm.

  ‘Come on, Master Bard,’ he said. ‘Let me play the zither to you and teach you how it should be done.’ He guided the scowling bard expertly through the door and Daire followed them with a quick bow in Mara’s direction.

  ‘I’ll get the papers.’ Sorley bustled out after them.


  ‘Mara turned to Lawyer Bodkin. ‘This is where we sing for our supper,’ she said lightly.

  ‘Indeed,’ he murmured. ‘It’s going to be interesting to watch you at work.’

  Then he took a seat on the long bench by the fire and said no more. He had a cautious look on his face and Mara approved of that. They were both going to be put into a difficult position by their host of the evening. She left her own seat and went to sit beside him.

  ‘We neither of us want this to be a court, I should imagine.’ She kept her tone low; Una, Rory and Ulick were above their heads in the wooden gallery.

  He bowed, looking amused. ‘Reconciliation?’ he queried.

  ‘And perhaps a little elucidation,’ she suggested, inclining her head.

  He bowed again. ‘I shall follow your lead, my lady judge,’ he said. ‘Judicially speaking,’ and here he tugged at his grey beard, ‘you are the senior here.’

  Mara eyed him curiously. A man with an excellent mind and a sharp wit; how could he believe in such a flawed and unjust legal system as English law, which dealt so savagely with people and punished with the gallows, or worse, minor crimes such as stealing. Over dinner, he had been unable to convince her of its rectitude and she had been unable to shake him in his prejudices against Brehon law. He had been appalled to learn that they had no prisons in these Gaelic kingdoms.

  ‘We must meet again,’ she said and turned as Sorley came back in holding a scroll in his hand.

  ‘The case is quite simple,’ said Sorley standing up before them, dominating the proceedings, thought Mara. ‘This is the list of the valuable silver candlesticks, goblets, plates, brooches, that were lost when Cathal’s boat sank in the storm in Drumcreehy Bay. He managed to get the boat righted, but my silver was left at the bottom of the ocean. I feel that he should pay me what it was worth.’

  ‘And what does Cathal say?’ enquired Mara cautiously.

  ‘Oh, he has some story that his son might be able to recover the casks in midwinter when the tides are low.’

  ‘And would you be happy to wait?’

  ‘Certainly not! I want the value now.’ Sorley shook his head vigorously.

  ‘What does the sea captain say?’ Lawyer Bodkin responded to Sorley’s enquiring look after a minute.

  ‘He’s complaining that he will be ruined, but that’s not my affair,’ said Sorley impatiently.

  ‘And you have always been satisfied about the arrangements that he made in the past? You were happy with the way that he packed it; with the position of the goods within his ship?’ Mara looked keenly at Sorley. Now was the time for a little subtle pressure, a covert hint that things might not go his way if he brought this case to court. In her experience this often helped to make warring parties resolve their differences. Lawyer Bodkin gave a nod.

  ‘He always delivered the goods safely before,’ said Sorley harshly, ‘I had no cause for complaint.’

  ‘Just so,’ returned Mara. ‘However, the law, our law, would say that sending goods by a sea is a perilous undertaking and you would, naturally, be aware of the risks. Do you feel that Cathal could have predicted this wave?’

  ‘That’s his business, not mine.’ Sorley was losing patience.

  ‘Surely,’ murmured Mara, ‘but the question is would you be willing to wait until the tides are lower and his son can make another attempt to retrieve the box of silver?’

  ‘Lawyer Bodkin, what have you to say?’ asked Sorley, turning his head.

  ‘I think,’ said the lawyer speaking slowly and carefully, ‘that everything I’ve heard so far makes excellent sense in both English and Brehon law. This case would not come under the jurisdiction of the Galway court as the goods were lost in the sea adjacent to the Burren and the two people concerned are both inhabitants of the Burren. However, since I am here I will give my advice and that would be to wait and see what the lower tides will reveal.’ He smiled imperturbably into the silver merchant’s angry face.

  ‘I’ll wait no longer,’ said Sorley harshly. ‘I want the value of that silver and I want it now.’

  ‘In that case,’ said Mara regretfully, ‘this is a case that I must deal with at Poulnabrone in front of the people of the kingdom. Shall we appoint Saturday 16 November for the hearing? I would advise both to bring witnesses and this will give you time to find those witnesses. I will send my farm manager to see Cathal and to tell him that he will need to find someone who is expert in tides and sea voyages, and Sorley, you will need to find someone who will testify as to the value of the silver.’

  ‘Easily done,’ said Sorley, sitting down again. ‘In fact, if anything I may have underestimated the value of the goods.’ He smiled the smile of a fat man, his eyes almost disappearing into the mounds of flesh. No doubt, he was running through a mental list of silver merchants who would be happy to oblige him.

  ‘And now, I think I must leave you,’ murmured Mara rising to her feet. ‘I have a busy day tomorrow and will have to rise early. She looked towards Turlough; he had to be back in Thomond that night, but they would ride home together.

  ‘Daire will show you downstairs and make sure that your horse is ready, Brehon,’ said Sorley ringing a silver bell with alacrity. ‘My lord,’ he turned to Turlough, ‘there is just one more little piece of business that I must detain you with. He will be down instantly, Brehon.’

  ‘Daire, why are you still an apprentice? Haven’t you served the full seven years?’ This matter had been puzzling Mara through the evening, and while they waited by the fire in the gatehouse she thought she would bring it up. She knew enough about English law to know that there were strict rules about the length of an apprenticeship.

  ‘I have served my seven years,’ said Daire bitterly, ‘but I can’t become a silversmith until my master says that I am sufficiently skilled.’

  ‘I see.’ It’s none of my business, thought Mara, and then instantly changed her mind. Injustice was her business. ‘You made that chess set, didn’t you?’ She eyed him keenly by the light of the pitch torch and he nodded reluctantly.

  ‘But he wants to retain you?’ This would suit with what she knew of Sorley’s character.

  ‘That and …’ Daire hesitated for a moment, his eyes on the doorway. ‘ … he wanted me to marry his daughter.’ The gatekeeper had gone across to the stableman and was admiring the horses; nevertheless, Daire sunk his voice to a low murmur.

  ‘Why does …’ Mara’s astonished voice died away at the sound of an anguished yell.

  The gates to the roadway had been opened in preparation for the king and Brehon’s departure. A thin ragged figure had stolen in. He was dressed in a torn, stained léine and his hair was ragged and untrimmed and falling over his face. As he turned his face to hers she could see that he was not much more than a boy, about the same age as her eldest scholars, she reckoned or even younger. It looked as if tearstains had run down through the dirt on his cheeks, bristly with adolescent fluff.

  ‘Cuan, it’s no good.’ Daire’s words were compassionate, but the porter who had run over had no compunction.

  ‘Get out of there! Stop hanging around here!’ he said, aiming a kick at the boy.

  ‘Stop!’ the quiet authority in Mara’s voice made the man step back.

  ‘I’m only following orders, Brehon,’ he muttered.

  ‘Who is this?’ asked Mara.

  ‘This is my master’s son, Brehon,’ said Daire quietly. ‘Sorley has banished him.’

  ‘That’s right, Brehon,’ said the porter, eager to justify himself. ‘I’ve been told to drive him away as soon as I see him.’

  ‘I just want to see my father, I just want to talk to him.’ The boy’s voice was broken with sobs.

  ‘How old is he?’ asked Mara in an undertone to Daire.

  ‘About seventeen, I think.’ Daire replied in the same low voice, but there had been no necessity. It was even difficult for Mara to hear his words as now the boy had turned his face towards the windows of the tower house and was shrieking
at the top of his voice: ‘Father, I must see you; I must see you. I’m starving. I must see you; I’m your son.’

  If he were over seventeen, then his father’s legal obligation to care for him had ceased, thought Mara. Nevertheless, it was very harsh to banish your only son, especially for a man of such huge wealth.

  ‘Where do you live, Cuan? I’ll come and see you and we can talk.’ Mara put a hand on the boy’s arm, but he shook it off and with a final despairing cry he ran back into the dark shadows outside the gate. They all looked after him and then turned back to face the tower house. For a moment, Mara thought she saw a face in the upper window, but it vanished in a second leaving nothing but a welcoming yellow glow.

  An impressive house, like a castle in one of those illuminated books, with its conical roof and regular battlements, a fairytale castle, she thought, but what of the man who owned it? Had he no ounce of compunction within him for his unfortunate son whom he had disowned?

  THREE

  BECHBRETHA (BEE JUDGEMENTS)

  Congal Caech (Congal the Blind), King of Ulster, was stung in the eye by a bee and was blinded.

  Evidence was given for Congal that the hives were placed beside a narrow pathway.

  Evidence was given for the beekeeper that the path was on the south-west side of the hives so normally the bees flew in the opposite direction to it as they hate to fly against the wind.

  judgement was given against the beekeeper, King Domhnall of Tara, and he had to supply a hive in compensation.

  AND NOW ZORLEY WAS DEAD, mused Mara; she watched Malachy the physician, accompanied by his fourteen-year-old daughter and apprentice, Nuala, squeeze his way through the door. He nodded to her and knelt down beside the body, putting his finger on the swollen wrist.

  ‘What killed him, Malachy?’ Mara voiced her thoughts aloud.

  Malachy shrugged. He was a dark, sallow-faced man of about forty, a widower with an only child. He turned away from the body, took his medical bag from Nuala and began to riffle through its contents. He was a slow thinker and a slow talker and Mara knew she had to curb her questions until he was ready to give his verdict. She herself bent over the body and looked more carefully. There was a faint smell of something unexpected and she could not think what it was. And something was moving slightly under Sorley’s hair. For a moment she was puzzled; then she realized that it was a dying bee. She could see more bees, all dead, trapped amongst Sorley’s clothing and in his hair. Now Mara knew what the smell was. She had smelled it strongly less than an hour ago from Giolla; the beekeeper’s veil, hat and gloves had that strong odour when he had removed them. What she smelled was venom. As she looked more carefully, she could see that the whole of Sorley’s face was swollen with innumerable bee stings. In the centre of each lump was the dark thread of the sting. She gave a long sigh and straightened herself. Daire was at her side looking over her shoulder with an air of sick horror.