The Sting of Justice

by Cora Harrison

  ‘Yes,’ said Mara dismissively. ‘I suppose that was the way that Sorley conducted his affairs. Not a very admirable character.’

  There was a silence for a few moments. She could see the king turning matters over in his mind. He had flushed quickly at her last words, and then gnawed a finger for a minute.

  Mara watched him carefully. ‘Once when Enda was at his most rebellious he said to me that he thought there were far too many Brehon laws. He said that people should make up their own minds about what to do and not always be thinking of what the law says and what the law allows.’

  He said nothing in reply so she said quietly, ‘Do you want to know what I replied?’

  ‘Something wise no doubt.’ He tried to smile but his eyes did not meet hers.

  ‘I said that men could not always be clear-minded about decision when their own personal affairs were involved. I told him that I found the wisdom of the past to be a great help to me in deciding what is the right course of action to take.’

  ‘And what would the law say about this silver mine, then?’ Turlough asked the question with resignation.

  ‘I think that the law would say that the mine was built with the wealth of the owner and that this was personal wealth and therefore he had a right to will it where he pleased, whether to a daughter or to the church.’

  Turlough smiled. ‘I should have known that you would have an answer.’ And then with a quick change of mood, he said hastily, ‘In any case, I don’t suppose really I wanted to do all this. It’s just that Ulick thought …’

  ‘I don’t think that it would be worthy of you,’ said Mara decisively. She decided not to talk about Sorley’s son, though she had been about to. Let Turlough forget this idea. He would never be a man to make personal wealth and possessions his god. He was happiest as he was, following the way of life of his noble ancestors. Ulick was a poor model for him to take.

  The courtyard in front of Newtown Castle was full of people when Mara arrived. It was a pretty castle, she thought, as she dismounted and gave her mare into the hands of the porter at the gate and then looked around her. It had been built in the latest style, not rectangular and forbidding like most of the tower houses in the Burren, but rounded with a neat turret of well-cut stone slates capping it. The buildings around the courtyard, workshops, kitchen, stables, were well built also.

  A long line of the Welsh workers at the mine was filing out of the main entrance; no doubt they had already been to see the body and were now sent out to leave room for others. A fire had been lit in the courtyard, and the appetizing smell of stewed meats rose in the air as the workers gathered around and accepted wooden trenchers piled high with food and horns brimming with ale.

  It was all very well organized, thought Mara as she entered through the huge, heavily studded main door. Sorley’s body had been laid out on an elaborately draped trestle in the exact centre of the guardroom on the ground floor. Those who came to view it were efficiently organized to move in a sunwise direction around the corpse and then, as they came to the doorway again, were, according to their status, either sent upstairs to the great hall or outside to the courtyard.

  Mara viewed the corpse: it had been competently cared for, richly dressed, and the terrible congestion partially smoothed out from the face and the neck, the staring eyes closed, the hands folded on the breast. She murmured a prayer and then passed on. Her business now was with the living, not the dead. Outside the dividing of the sheep from the goats continued; Mara did not wait for an invitation, but mounted the steeply circling stairway right up to the third floor. The door to the great hall stood wide open, a fire was burning in the chimney and glowing braziers of charcoal stood at the other end of the room and along the passageway of the gallery overhead. The table was spread with wooden platters loaded with food and flagons of mead, wine and ale stood dotted around the central table and on small tables at the side of the room. Everything had been organized with a lavish hand.

  The two women of the castle stood, side by side, at the top of the room, near the glowing fireplace. They looked so alike, thought Mara, both heavily built, the same sallow skin and hooked nose, the same lank dark hair. They might have been sisters. In fact, Deirdre, according to Toin, had been only sixteen years old when Una was born. With those features she would have been a plain girl even then, so why had Sorley married her? Perhaps he had made her pregnant and, like all ambitious men, he wanted a son.

  ‘Let me get you something to eat and drink, Brehon,’ said a quiet voice at her elbow and she turned and looked up into Daire’s light blue eyes. He was looking better, she thought instantly. There was a hint of colour in his cheek and a softness around the mouth that had looked so grim before.

  ‘I won’t, Daire,’ she said. ‘I eat too much and I will get fat if I’m not careful.’

  He laughed then, quite at ease with himself and with her.

  ‘Did you enjoy last night at the Samhain celebrations?’ she asked and was pleased to see his eyes gleam. ‘And you got on well with Aoife, I noticed,’ she said teasingly.

  He turned abruptly so that his back was to the room. ‘Is it true about her and that Rory? One of your boys was telling me …’

  ‘You’ll suit her better,’ said Mara with a determined nod and was pleased to see the white teeth flash in a delighted grin. ‘So Deirdre came back,’ she added in a low voice.

  ‘Yes, she turned up a few hours ago,’ he murmured, with a cautious glance over his shoulder.

  ‘Tell me what happened.’ Mara moved a little back and sat on the window seat, patting an invitation to Daire to sit beside her. Now they were partially screened by a velvet curtain.

  ‘Well, she arrived and Una just looked at her. The two of them, they just looked at each other. And then Una asked her whether she would be staying and Deirdre said that she would.’

  I wish I had been there, thought Mara, and aloud she said: ‘And what happened next?’

  ‘She sent for the sewing maid and I think she borrowed a gown from Una, anyway she was soon all dressed up and enjoying herself, even giving a few orders. All this,’ he glanced around at the luxurious arrangements, ‘all this, of course, was organized by Una, but Deirdre is the one who ordered the food for the miners – first thing they’ve ever got from here that they didn’t pay for in sweat and blood.’

  ‘That was kind.’ Mara gave a nod of approval.

  ‘She is kind. She has certainly been kind to me. I think the fact that I tried to stand up for Cuan has made her friendly towards me.’ Daire hesitated for a moment and then he said, the smile pricking at the corners of his mouth again, ‘she even made time to have a talk with me about my prospects. Did you know that she is the sister of a silversmith?’

  ‘No, I didn’t. I know very little about her,’ confessed Mara. That was surprising, she thought. Surely this man should have stood up for his sister when she was pushed aside by her husband.

  ‘Yes, she was the daughter of a silversmith, but her father died just about the time that she was divorced. This brother was apprenticed to a silversmith in London, but he has recently come back to Galway. She told me all this, just a couple of hours ago. She said that she was going to get her brother to be my guarantor if he was happy with my work and then I could be a master smith and my indentures be cancelled.’

  ‘That’s wonderful news, Daire,’ said Mara warmly. He would make a very good match for Aoife, she thought jubilantly, congratulating herself on having asked him to the Samhain party.

  ‘And Cuan?’ Mara looked around the room but there was no sign of the young man. ‘Where is Cuan? I expected to see him here as well.’

  ‘He’s up in my room. Deirdre asked me to find him something to wear, but he didn’t want any of my clothes; they are all much too big, anyway, so he refused to come down. I left him up there. He seems terribly changed. He’s quite half-witted at the moment.’

  ‘Rory’s clothes would have been a better fit,’ said Mara with a glance across the room at
the slightly built young bard. He was standing at a distance from his bride-to-be, scowling heavily.

  ‘He didn’t offer,’ said Daire curtly.

  ‘How did Rory react to the arrival of Una’s mother and her brother?’

  ‘Not happy,’ said Daire with a slight grin. ‘In fact, he is not happy at all at the moment. Una is pretty rude to him. I wonder why he stands for it, unless there is some reason. What do you think?’

  He looked at her enquiringly, but she did not respond. It was time to offer her condolences to the newly bereaved wife and daughter. They were sitting now, still side by side, near to the fireplace – an outward sign of unity, but there did not seem to be any warmth or closeness in the glances that they exchanged with each other. Rather, thought Mara, studying them with interest, there seemed to be a wariness, a suspicion, rather like the furtive looks between two hooded crows each watching the dying agonies of a wounded fox.

  However, they had a dignity about them, both of them. They accepted her murmured words of sympathy and made suitable comments. It was as if they were speaking of a well-loved husband and father. As so often at these affairs, the conventions were what mattered, not the truth.

  ‘Could you spare me a moment of your time?’ Mara was conscious of a tremor of surprise that seemed to pass from mother to daughter. Both sets of grey-blue eyes were suddenly fixed intently upon her. ‘I would like, also, if Sorley’s son could be present.’

  They glanced at each other. There was almost a wordless communication between them.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Deirdre, ‘my son is not well at the moment. But of course, anything you say to us will be communicated to him.’

  Una nodded solemnly as if they were talking about the head of the family rather than a distraught, handicapped boy. Mother and daughter, though probably for very different reasons, were as one about handling this affair without reference to Cuan.

  ‘Perhaps there is somewhere that we can go?’ suggested Mara.

  Una was the one to lead the way to a small chamber just off the stairway below the great hall. She brought forward the chair and did the honours of the small room as the mistress of the house. Deirdre seated herself on a comfortable chair, but said nothing. There was a wary, watchful look on her face.

  ‘You see,’ said Mara, ‘I’m not happy about Sorley’s death.’ Both women were looking at her with expressionless eyes. ‘It looks like an accident,’ she went on firmly, ‘however, from the evidence given to me by the beekeeper, Giolla, I don’t think it was an accident. He has shown me the place where a stone was dislodged, obviously recently, and how the straw hive was poked by a stick and thrust forward so as to end on the ground to the tomb where Sorley was sitting.’

  She waited for a moment, but no glance passed between the two women this time. Now they had themselves strictly under control.

  ‘I think,’ went on Mara, ‘that this was a deliberate attempt to kill Sorley. Any man might die if a whole hive full of bees stung him, but it seems that this man was unusually susceptible to bee stings so the chances of his dying were higher than normal.’

  They did not question this, she noticed with interest. Obviously Sorley’s problem with bee stings was known to both.

  ‘So I am going to announce this as a duinetháide, a secret and unlawful murder, at Poulnabrone tomorrow,’ she concluded firmly. ‘I shall, of course, ask if anyone wishes to admit to this crime, and whether anyone knows any of any evidence as to the culprit.’

  ‘Is this necessary?’ A look had passed between mother and daughter, but it was Una who spoke. Her grey eyes, sharp and intelligent, were fixed intently on Mara.

  ‘The murderer must be given the chance to confess to the crime, to express penitence and to pay restitution.’ Mara’s voice was matter-of-fact, almost as if she were explaining the law to a young scholar at her school.

  ‘And if no one confesses?’ This was Una again – almost a note of aggression in her voice now.

  ‘In that case,’ Mara met the challenge in her eyes with a firm look, ‘in that case,’ she repeated, ‘I continue my investigations until I have solved the crime and brought the murderer to justice.’

  ‘We understand, Brehon,’ said Deirdre. Una did not speak further but led the way with dignity, back into the great hall.

  It suited Deirdre to be back in this affluence, Mara thought a while later as she made conversation with a farmer’s wife from Earthbound. The woman almost seemed to have put on some weight since the morning. Her cheeks were faintly flushed and she nibbled continuously on the sweetmeats from the silver dishes. From time to time she surveyed the rich hangings, the velvet cushions, the gleaming silver and the rich food with the air of one who had been starving and is now offered a banquet.

  Mara moved among the crowd greeting the people from the Burren and looking with interest on the prosperous-looking men and women, speaking English and dressed in the English style, the men wearing short jackets, tight hose and thigh-high cloaks, the women in elaborate full-skirted dresses and steepled headdresses heavily encrusted with embroidery. They were undoubtedly silversmiths and their wives who had come out from Galway to attend the obsequies of one of their brotherhood. Una must have sent a messenger to Galway yesterday morning. An efficient pair, mother and daughter, she mused, watching Ulick in animated conversation with a well-dressed, grey-haired silversmith. She paused for a moment, her eyes on the little man. Normally she avoided him, if possible, but now there was a piece of information that she needed and he would be one to give it to her.

  ‘You know these people well, Ulick,’ she said with a smile as he joined her.

  ‘Rich, my dear Brehon, rich,’ he said with satisfaction. ‘We always have to pay homage to the rich.’

  ‘Why?’ asked Mara with raised eyebrows, but Ulick was not disconcerted.

  ‘Take advice from an old man,’ he said paternally, ‘I always take people at their own valuation; it saves a lot of trouble. Go where the riches are, that’s my motto.’

  ‘So you’ve met most of these people before?’ Best to go directly to the point. It was never difficult to get Ulick to talk.

  ‘Yes, indeed.’ He gave a satisfied glance around.

  ‘Were you at his big hunting party three weeks ago?’

  ‘At the party, my dear Brehon, not at the hunt.’ Ulick laughed merrily. ‘I came for the food, not the exercise.’

  ‘Good party?’ Mara kept her tone light and did not allow her satisfaction to show. This must have been the occasion when Giolla arrived with his swarm of bees.

  ‘Exciting, we nearly had roasted bees for supper!’

  ‘Oh, I’ve heard of that. Why did he do it?’

  ‘I’ve no idea.’ Ulick’s tone was dismissive. Strange, thought Mara. If the porter had told Giolla about Sorley’s susceptibility to bee stings, she would have expected Ulick to mention this. However, basically he was interested only in himself.

  ‘So was Rory there?’ she asked with a quick glance over at the young bard.

  ‘He was indeed, and very sympathetic, too. Everyone else was too busy laughing. I didn’t know what he was up to then, of course. I hadn’t known that the daughter was up for grabs at that stage. Ah well, we live and learn!’

  ‘I’m sure I do,’ she said with a smile and moved away quickly before he thought of an answer.

  ‘You haven’t seen Cuan, Rory, have you?’ she paused in front of the young bard.

  ‘No, Brehon, I haven’t,’ he was making an effort to be polite, but his eyes were dark with anger. Una was completely ignoring him and so was Deirdre. He had not been introduced to any of these affluent people; even the servants with platters of food and flagons of drink were starting to pass him by while they were doing their rounds. This is interesting, thought Mara. If Una does inherit vast wealth, then perhaps she will change her mind. Ulick had spoken of the contract of betrothal. It had been signed and sealed. If Una now did not want the marriage to go ahead it might be expensive for her to extricate he
rself from it since Rory would have a right to compensation, but she might consider that worthwhile. There were obviously no feelings of affection or even of friendship on her part. However, she might wish for a husband at all costs and could make up her own mind now as to whether this reluctant lover, ten years younger than herself, was worth it.

  ‘I’m afraid that I have no idea where he is, Brehon.’ Rory’s voice was emphatic, the tone slightly over-loud and slightly slurred. Mara turned her attention back to him.

  ‘So you are getting married, Rory,’ she said chattily. ‘Has a date been set for the wedding?’

  He didn’t seem surprised that she knew, just shook his head, eyeing Una gloomily. Mara wondered whether he was comparing in his mind this plain, heavily built, indifferent woman with the beautiful, affectionate Aoife. Aoife would only have brought him a couple of cows, perhaps, but she was young, pretty, full of high spirits and she adored him. Was this bargain ever worth it?

  ‘I suppose it will be a union of man upon a woman’s property,’ she said sweetly. That would be Brehon law and would give Rory very few rights. The ownership of the wealth would still be Una’s. He would not be able to incur a debt or to sign a contract without the permission of his wife.

  Rory flushed angrily. ‘No, indeed,’ he said stiffly. ‘I’ve insisted that the marriage will be according to English law. I will be master in my own house and I will make provision for my wife.’

  ‘I see.’ Mara tightened her lips. He had told her what she had wanted to know. If this were true, and if Sorley had legally disinherited young Cuan, Rory would move from being a penniless bard, literally singing for his supper on many occasions, to being one of the richest men on the Burren. What had he felt like, she wondered, if he had overheard Ulick’s offer to make Una a countess?