The Sting of Justice

by Cora Harrison

  ‘None.’ Mara nodded.

  ‘So she was convicted on his word.’ Enda looked thoughtful.

  ‘Perhaps she had a baby and he wasn’t around to … well, you know …’ said Aidan.

  ‘I wish you’d learn to put matters into words, Aidan,’ said Mara crisply. ‘Words are the tools of a lawyer, just as a chisel is the tool of a stonemason.’

  ‘He was absent at the time of conception,’ said Enda primly and Mara nodded gravely in acknowledgement.

  ‘I don’t know whether he was absent, or not,’ she said, ‘but there was no baby. Deirdre had two children, only two. One, Una, was born, I think, shortly after the marriage. The other, Cuan, that lad we met on Saturday, Fachtnan; well he was born about nine years before the divorce. There were no more children and according to Toin, Deirdre has lived alone, ever since.’

  ‘So why were you saying about English law and Brehon law being so different?’ asked Shane.

  ‘Well, I was thinking that Brehon law allows for a wife to divorce her husband and to retain her bride-price and a share of his property. It will not allow a husband to put aside his wife for no reason.’

  ‘But it did in this case, is that right?’ queried Shane.

  Mara shook her head. ‘The law didn’t; the man who administered the law was at fault. The law is quite clear. Deirdre should have had a chance to bring her own evidence, to make a protest.’

  ‘So it’s better for a woman to live under Brehon law than under English law,’ said Hugh thoughtfully.

  ‘And of course, Brehon law also allows for women to have a profession such as being a lawyer or a physician,’ Mara agreed. ‘Can anyone remember what Fithail says on this subject?’

  ‘A woman physician is a glory to the kingdom,’ Fachtnan recited with a quiet smile.

  ‘Nuala keeps telling him that,’ Aidan smirked.

  ‘But English law allows a girl to inherit if she has no brothers, and Brehon law doesn’t,’ said Fachtnan hurriedly, propping his chin in his hands to hide his burning cheeks.

  ‘Well, yes, and no,’ said Mara. ‘You see it’s a question of clan territory.’

  ‘So if Mairead O’Lochlainn didn’t have any brothers and Donogh, her father died, then she would only get land fit for seven cows,’ said Aidan with a quick glance at Enda.

  ‘And her house,’ replied Enda, calmly ignoring the jibe.

  ‘But,’ said Mara, ‘if it’s not a question of clan territory, and the wealth has been earned by the individual, then he or she can make a will leaving it to anyone. Sorley, the silversmith, mine owner and merchant, made, according to his daughter Una, a will leaving all his possessions to her and excluding his divorced wife, Deirdre, and his repudiated son, Cuan.’

  ‘Well, lucky old Rory,’ said Moylan enthusiastically. ‘I was wondering why he gave Aoife the push for the sake of Una who’s got a face like a mountain goat.’

  Mara raised her eyebrows admonishingly, but stifled a laugh. Moylan, it was to be hoped, would learn some diplomacy before he was released to the world as a Brehon.

  ‘Ah, but the will can’t be found,’ said Fachtnan. ‘When the Brehon and I were there on Saturday, Una searched everywhere and so did Rory. There was no will, so now the wealth goes to the son.’

  ‘So Una will have nothing and Rory will have nothing, either …’ Moylan broke off with a glance at Bran who had stood up, his long thin tail wagging.

  ‘There’s Rory now,’ said Aidan, standing up and peering out of the window. ‘He probably wants to talk to you privately, Brehon, about the will. I think I smell dinner, would it be all right if we went to eat now and that would leave you in peace?’ he finished helpfully.

  ‘Well, don’t get in Brigid’s way if she’s still preparing the meal,’ Mara warned them tolerantly.

  ‘We can play hurley if the field has dried a little,’ said Moylan joyfully.

  ‘If I may, I’ll just borrow Cáin Lánamna about the laws of marriage, Brehon. This is an interesting case about Sorley and his wife, Deirdre,’ Enda said. He returned Aidan’s stare of amazement with a superior look as they strolled outside.

  ‘Shall I tell Rory to come in, Brehon?’ asked Fachtnan.

  ‘Yes, please, Fachtnan.’ What did the young bard want? she thought. Her mind went to the discovery she had made in the graveyard yesterday.

  Rory looked troubled and hesitant when he came in. He made a few uneasy remarks about the weather and enquiries about her journey yesterday and fidgeted with his fingers until Mara, worried that he would never get to the point, asked him bluntly: ‘Well, what brings you over here, Rory?’

  ‘I wanted to talk to you, Brehon,’ his voice was hesitant, but his eyes were assessing her.

  ‘Yes, Rory.’ He was a handsome boy with some musical ability, she thought. It was a pity that he had not stayed longer at bard school and qualified as a file (poet). As it was, he had left once he had attained the lowest qualification and had spent a couple of years idling, living in an old house in Dooneyvardan, the fort or dún of the bard, selling songs or his services as musician at fairs and festivals, dining with whosoever would give him a meal, and perhaps a bed for the night. He had little prospects ahead of him; it was no wonder that he had succumbed to Sorley’s offer. The sight of all that ostentatious wealth would have seduced a stronger character than his.

  ‘You see I am a bit worried about something that I saw on Thursday, the day of Father David’s burial.’ His tone had a rehearsed sound; the words, even the slight hesitation after the word ‘worried’ flowed like the words of a well-practised tale.

  Her interest sharpened. She had thought he was about to talk of Aoife.

  ‘Go on,’ she said.

  ‘Well, I walked across from Newtown Castle with Sorley on that morning,’ he said. ‘He wanted to go early, wanted to see the bishop. He tried to hurry Una but she wouldn’t be rushed so I said I would go with him. I was fond of him, really. I liked to please him.’

  Making sure to ingratiate himself, Mara thought cynically. Or had he some other idea in his head? In any case, he was trying to convince her that an affection existed between himself and his future father-in-law, looking at her appraisingly, trying to see how his words impressed her. She said nothing, looked back at him with a blank, though interested, face, so he continued.

  ‘We walked across and then he delayed a bit so that he was waiting at the gate when the bishop arrived on his horse. Sorley made a big thing of helping the bishop off his horse. He handed the reins to me as if I were a servant.’ Now there was a genuine sound of indignation in his voice. She believed that; he had probably been made to suffer many humiliations during his stay at Newtown Castle. Sorley would take the view that he had bought Rory and he would extract due payment from him.

  ‘So what happened then?’

  ‘Oh, Sorley was just chatting to the bishop, introducing himself, telling the bishop about the communion cup that King Turlough Donn had purchased for him as a gift to the abbey. Described what it looked like and the jewels in it: he did that sort of thing very well,’ said Rory, a certain note of admiration creeping into his voice. ‘I could see the bishop wondering whether to order an even more splendid one for the cathedral at Kilfenora.’

  ‘And then he left the bishop?’ queried Mara. It occurred to her that no one yet had given a detailed account of the movements of the murdered man on that Thursday morning so she sat down on her chair and prepared to listen patiently.

  Rory perched on Enda’s desk and shook his head. ‘No. Well, I don’t know, really. The horse was getting restless, tossing his head and sweating, Bishop Mauritius told me to take him over to the stable at Father David’s house. He even told me to rub the horse down and give him a good drink. He just waved his hand at me.’

  ‘And did you do that?’

  ‘No,’ said Rory indignantly. ‘I’m not a groom. I met Toin’s servant and he pointed out Father David’s man to me so I handed the horse over to him.’

  ‘And when yo
u returned, did you go back to Sorley and the bishop?’

  ‘I’d had enough of that,’ said Rory resentfully. ‘I just waited at a distance until they finished talking. The bishop went to the vestry to robe for the service so I joined Sorley.’

  ‘And stayed with him.’ Mara allowed a note of puzzlement to enter her voice.

  ‘I talked with him for a while, but then he seemed restless. He got out his wax tablets and started sketching a communion cup – I suppose he thought that if he had a design ready for the bishop when he met him after the service, then he might get an order there and then. Anyway, he said that Una would be coming and that I should escort her into the church. Sorley was always very anxious that I did everything for Una, not that she ever seemed to notice or bother doing anything to please me.’ A note of resentment had crept back into Rory’s voice and Mara suppressed a smile. As she thought, this proposed marriage was more Sorley’s idea than Una’s.

  ‘Well, this is what I wanted to tell you about, Brehon,’ said Rory. His eyes were a very dark blue, now, very focused as if they followed some inward script. ‘When I turned to go I thought I saw a head over the ruined wall of the old church. Do you know the one that I mean?’

  ‘I do,’ said Mara. ‘It’s not very high, is it?’ She pictured the two heads, one black and one red, of ten-year-old Shane and twelve-year-old Hugh, appearing over the top of it.

  ‘That’s right,’ said Rory eagerly. ‘That’s what caught my attention. It wasn’t someone just strolling along the pathway in the way that the people were doing, going into the church for the service. It looked like someone was ducking down behind the wall, trying not to be seen.’

  ‘So you were curious.’ Mara always found it best to keep these confidences flowing by interjecting little remarks.

  ‘Well, I just went to the end of the wall and had a look,’ said Rory. He sounded more confident now. His voice was fluent and assured. ‘I must say that I wasn’t surprised when I saw who it was; poor fellow he’s always hanging around trying to have a word with his father.’

  ‘Was it Cuan, then?’

  Rory nodded, ‘Yes, it was.’

  ‘Did you speak to him?’

  Rory shook his head. ‘No, I didn’t,’ he said. He made his voice sound low and miserable – a fine performance, thought Mara. ‘I keep thinking that I wished I had. I could just have gone over to Cuan and shook his hand, chatted with him, taken him into the church, but you know it’s stupid, but I got the feeling that he resented me. There I was, a stranger, living in his father’s house while he was stuck out on that terrible little farm on the mountainside. I suppose it wasn’t very fair on him, though Sorley was always full of complaints of him, and I think that, to give the old man due credit, he did try to teach Cuan something of the silversmith’s trade and then when he couldn’t master that, he tried him in the mine, but nothing worked.’

  ‘So you didn’t say anything to him?’ Rory was building a case rather cleverly and certainly artistically against Cuan. He had obviously decided to give up casting suspicion on Daire. But why try to cast suspicion on anyone? After the accusation that Muiris made at Poulnabrone, it was understandable that Rory would feel threatened but could there be a more sinister reason?

  ‘No, I didn’t. I was pretty sure that he hadn’t noticed me as he was concentrating on peeping at his father, so I just crept away.’

  ‘And went straight into the church.’ Mara watched Rory carefully as she said this. Muiris, after all, had given public testimony to the late arrival of Rory in the church.

  ‘No, I didn’t.’The answer came quickly. Obviously Rory expected this question. ‘You see,’ he said with a charming smile, ‘I just got a bit worried about the bishop’s horse. The manservant, that I handed him over to, seemed in a bit of a state, what with it being the burial of his master and everything, so I thought I’d just quickly nip around and check on the horse.’

  ‘And he was all right?’

  ‘Yes, he was, I even checked that the water in front of him was fresh and that there was hay in the net before him.’ Rory’s eyes went to the elaborate silver bracelet on his wrist and he added, ‘and got bitten by a horsefly for my pains.’

  ‘I see,’ said Mara rising to her feet. ‘Well, thank you, Rory, that was very interesting and valuable evidence for me. The more I know about everyone’s movements on that morning, the quicker I will be able to solve this crime. Have you mentioned this to anyone else?’

  ‘I did speak of it to Toin the briuga,’ said Rory. A slight flush came over his face. ‘He advised me to forget about it. He seemed to think it was not of any interest to say any more. However, I felt that you should know, Brehon. You should be the one to decide whether it is of any importance.’ His tone was filled with the self-importance of one who will always do the right thing.

  Mara imagined that Toin had probably felt that Rory was motivated by a desire to save his own skin. His steward would have carried the news of Muiris’s dramatic accusation of Rory at Poulnabrone to the old man.

  She led the way to the door and he followed meekly, politely reaching around her to lift the heavy wooden latch.

  ‘There’s just one other thing, Brehon,’ he said holding the latch in his hand, but not pulling the door open.

  Mara turned to look at him curiously and he met her eyes with that frank open look, which he could assume at will.

  ‘Cuan was carrying a stick,’ he said.

  Once Rory left, Mara went around to the kitchen house to find the boys sitting around the big table, eating their substantial midday meal of salted beef and leeks. She herself seldom ate dinner, preferring to have a tasty supper and a cup of wine when the day’s work was finished.

  ‘Just give me a couple of oatcakes, Brigid,’ she said, swallowing some ice-cold buttermilk which Brigid normally kept stored in a cool damp cabin next to the kitchen house. ‘I think I’ll take Bran and go for a walk. We can’t expect to have this weather for long. Back to work at two o’clock, boys,’ she said indicating the candle clock which Brigid kept meticulously synchronized with the church bells.

  Bran was sitting on the wall above the piggery, absorbed in watching the long line of fat piglets feeding from the mother sow. For some reason pigs endlessly fascinated the dog and he was always to be found at the pigsty when nothing else was happening. He jumped down as soon as he saw her, his tail wagging.

  ‘Let’s go across the fields, boy,’ she said, sharing an oatcake with him. He was a meat eater, but any food from his beloved mistress tasted wonderful to him.

  The fields that stretched east across to Baur North from Cahermacnaghten were named the High Burren, a flat table land, high above the valleys and reaching over to the spiralling heights of Mullaghmore Mountain, that lay in the centre of the kingdom. Today, though it was already the sixth of November, the midday sun was warm enough to heat the rounded lichen-spotted stones of the wall beneath her hand. It was strange, thought Mara, as she threw a stick for Bran, how autumn and summer seemed to mix in this landscape. The small, stunted, twisted hawthorn trees, that grew in grykes, between the clints, were already bare of leaves, their clusters of crimson berries glowing in the sunlight. But the limestone still held the heat of summer preserved in its crystals, so the grykes were also filled with pale yellow foam of lady’s bedstraw, tiny blue and white eyebright flowers, and here and there that special flower, called virgin of the grasses by the country people, reared up on its tall stem high above the arrow-shaped leaves. Its five white petals, faintly veined with green, and arranged around a centre of tiny cream and green antlers, were as cool and smooth to the touch as satin. Mara bent down to touch the flower and then straightened. Bran had stopped, stiff-legged, pointing in the classic pose of a hunting dog. This would be no prey, though; Bran was not a killer by nature. This meant that someone Bran loved was nearby. Quickly Mara slipped a leash over his head. Bran loved everyone, but farmers, kneeling down mending walls or tending an animal, were often not very appreciative
when a huge dog, the size of a man, hurled himself on their backs and licked their ears.

  ‘Wait.’ Mara had spoken the word when she caught a flash of red-gold hair from behind one of the upright stones of an ancient circle. She relaxed: it was only Rory. She could let Bran go; Rory and Bran were great friends. She was just about to take the leash off when she heard the sound of voices, a man’s voice and a girl’s. Rory was not alone, a flaxen plait tossed suddenly and she heard a voice. Yes, it was Aoife with Rory. Well, he had not wasted much time. Was it he, or was it Una who had decided to end the betrothal, wondered Mara. She hoped it was Una, though it was a fine point of law as to whether she had the right to do this if a betrothal contract had been drawn up. Una was a strong-minded girl, though, and who knows whether, having heard of the accusation that Muiris had made, she had used this to get rid of an unwanted suitor.

  ‘You weren’t saying that last week,’ Aoife’s voice rose suddenly. No tears now, Mara noted with pleasure. Reluctantly she turned to go back. Really she had no business listening in to a private conversation; she could not even tell herself that it might have something to do with the killing of Sorley. This was just an everyday story of an ambitious, fairly callous young man doing the best possible for himself all the time and caring little for the hurt that he caused to an unsophisticated girl who had fallen for a handsome face and a melodious voice.

  But when Mara turned around, she saw that Aoife’s father, Muiris, was driving a large herd of cows up from the small valley of Poulnabrucky onto the High Burren. No doubt more rain was on its way. Traditionally the farmers of the Burren kept their cattle on the dry uplands and mountain slopes during the winter months. There would be great movements of herds from now on.

  Mara stayed very still. At the front of this herd was a large, brown bull, walking with confident step, leading his cows and their calves. Mara was wary of bulls and it would be folly to proceed, especially with a dog that might arouse the animal’s protective instincts.

  ‘Quiet. Lie down,’ she whispered to Bran and seated herself on a low stone by his side. Here she would be well out of the way of the path being taken by the herd, and while she was there she might as well listen so she told herself, anyway.