The Sting of Justice

by Cora Harrison

  ‘It’s a couple of juniper berries,’ announced Brigid triumphantly.

  ‘I’d never have guessed it,’ said Mara, popping some beef in her mouth and trying not to giggle at Turlough’s face. She felt a great love for him; he was like a child. Anything that he may have done was done as a child does things — the generous impulse of the moment, immediately acceded to without the weighing of consequences that she would have done. His upbringing would have been very different to the hard, disciplined study, which had formed her mind and character when she was a child. She would have to talk to him tonight and she knew that it would deeply wound him. Not yet, though, she thought, watching him enjoy his meal. Let him have a happy couple of hours with her first of all.

  ‘Cumhal’s bringing in some roasted roots,’ said Brigid, watching with satisfaction the way that the Turlough’s plate was being cleared. ‘Would you like another slice of loin, my lord? It would only take me a minute to do one for you?’

  ‘No, no,’ said Turlough shaking his head vigorously. ‘Ah Cumhal, yes, I’ll have some of these. They look tasty.’

  ‘Have some more wine,’ said Mara pouring it from the flagon with a generous hand.

  ‘Young Enda left this for you, Brehon,’ said Cumhal. He put the small iron pot on the skillet by the fire and produced a scroll from his pouch.

  ‘You don’t want to be bothering with that tonight. You rest yourself. You’ve been working morning, noon and night this week,’ scolded Brigid, so Mara, to please her, put the scroll in her pouch and continued with her meal.

  ‘What is it?’ asked Turlough. As soon as Brigid and Cumhal had disappeared, Mara had taken the scroll out and was unrolling it. She smiled as she scanned down the neatly written lines.

  ‘Enda has made a case,’ she said with amusement.

  ‘Has he solved the murder, then?’ said Turlough helping himself to some more mushroom sauce.

  ‘He’s a clever boy,’ said Mara proudly, as she skimmed down through the list. ‘He’s arranged this very well; everything is very logical and very well set out. I’m lucky with my two eldest scholars. Enda has a mind as sharp as a well-honed knife and Fachtnan is a boy of great humanity with something very rare in a boy of his age: he has a sort of intuitive understanding of people.’

  ‘How are he and little Nuala getting on?’ asked Turlough, going across to the hob by the fire and scraping the rest of the roasted parsnips on to his platter.

  Mara smiled. ‘I think they are still at the stage where he is very fond of her as a pretty child and she hero-worships him. The younger boys try to make more of it, but I’d say that is all there is to the affair at the moment. But Brigid and I are sure that there will be a wedding in the end.’ Her mind went to Enda and the red-headed Mairéad once again. With luck, that would not be a match, at least until Enda was qualified and had a position. Mairéad, as the daughter of one of richest farmers on the Burren, would be considered a good match for Enda. However, at the moment, she appeared too empty-headed to make a suitable wife for a lawyer.

  ‘Anything else, my lord?’ Brigid stuck her head around the door after a perfunctory knock. ‘Or for you, Brehon?’

  ‘I think we have both had enough,’ said Mara, ‘thank you, Brigid, that was a wonderful meal.’

  ‘I’ll be dreaming of it when I go back to Thomond,’ said Turlough heartily.

  Brigid beamed. She would store up these words and everyone in the kitchen, every one of the farm workers and, within a few days, every one of the neighbours, would hear them.

  ‘Well, what does the lad say, then?’ asked Turlough, with a nod towards the scroll in her hand after Brigid and Cumhal had left.

  ‘I can’t fault his logic.’ Mara read through the case notes again. ‘Funnily enough a piece of evidence that I found out today and have not shared with the boys confirms what he says.’ Her mind went briefly to the conversation with the porter at Newtown Castle and then she continued. ‘Enda thinks that the murder was committed by Rory and Una, acting in unison. Una planned it; Rory executed. She could not have risked the verdict of fingal for herself, so she made sure to go into church in the company of her maidservant. She probably assured Rory that she would pay any fine if he were found out. He could always have pleaded that it was an accident, a prank that went wrong. Enda thinks that once the will was signed, then Una would have wanted to get rid of Sorley as soon as possible.’

  ‘I guessed it,’ said Turlough enthusiastically. ‘I always did think that it was a woman’s crime. I think …’ There was the clang of the metal gate outside, the neigh of a horse, a loud knock at the door and then a quick rush of heavy, nailed boots outside in the passageway as Turlough’s two bodyguards followed Brigid to the front door.

  There was no alarm, though, no angry shouts, no clash of weapons, just a few words quietly spoken and then Brigid was at the door.

  ‘It’s a shame to trouble you, Brehon,’ she said. ‘But that’s the manservant, Tomas, from Toin the briuga.’

  ‘Send him in, Brigid,’ said Mara quietly. She put aside an untouched glass of wine.

  Tomas was pale with heavy dark circles around his eyes.

  ‘He’s not well, your master?’ Turlough looked at the man with anxious concern.

  ‘He’s dying,’ said Tomas. Suddenly his eyes filled with tears, but he blinked them away. ‘The physician is with him and he says that he can’t last more than a couple of hours. He wants to see the Brehon. He asked for you. I know it’s late, Brehon, but would you be able to come?’ Tomás’s voice was full of appeal.

  ‘I’ll come at once,’ said Mara. This summons had come earlier than she had expected, but she was prepared for it.

  TWENTY-ONE

  GUTHBRETHA CARATNIAD (THE FALSE JUDGEMENTS OF CARATNIA)

  There are seven witnesses whose testimony is always to be believed:

  1. The evidence of a bishop given between the host and the chalice

  2. The evidence o f a woman in childbirth

  3. The evidence of a man who walks seven times around the altar

  4. The evidence of an honest person who has no interest in the case

  5. The evidence of a person who swears an oath in three cemeteries

  6. The evidence of a child who has not learned to lie

  7. The evidence of a man on his deathbed

  NUALA WAS THERE in the bedroom when Tomas brought in Mara. The fourteen-year-old’s face was very white beneath her tanned skin, but she was holding Toin’s wrist and counting his heartbeats with the assurance of a qualified physician.

  ‘No more of that syrup for the moment,’ she scolded, her tone of voice light-hearted and teasing. ‘You’re a terrible man for getting addicted to these drugs. First it was the poppy syrup and now it’s that ivy berry mixture.’

  ‘Just one sip,’ said Toin with a smile. ‘I want to be in good form to chat to the Brehon. I might even have another game of chess,’ he added.

  ‘No, you shouldn’t,’ said Nuala seriously. ‘That last dose made your heart thud very fast. I could hear it. I don’t think you should play chess, either. Just try to keep quiet and still.’

  There would be no more chess for Toin; Mara could see that at a glance. The old man’s face was livid and his lips were a strangely blue colour. Her own father had died when his heart failed and Toin resembled him at that moment.

  ‘Just a chat, I think,’ she said copying his own tone as she took a seat by the bed. ‘I daren’t play chess with you. You’re too much of an expert for me.’

  ‘Now, why don’t you be a good girl, Nuala, and go and take a rest by the fire downstairs.’ Toin’s voice was quite strong; he almost seemed to have rallied since this afternoon, but the lips and the skin told its own story.

  ‘You want to get rid of me.’ Nuala smiled affectionately at her invalid. ‘Do you want father to come? He’s just gone for … gone for a little while,’ she amended.

  ‘Gone to fetch the priest,’ said Toin. ‘I asked him to do that. You go down and e
ntertain them both. The Brehon will come for you once I have finished talking to her.’

  ‘I’ll look after him, Nuala,’ said Mara. Toin’s strength was limited. Those few surges of power would be paid for with extreme weakness later on. She walked to the door with the girl, shut it carefully, drawing the heavy curtain across it and then returned to the bedside.

  ‘I want you to write my will for me,’ said Toin. ‘I tried to do it myself but I was too weak to hold the quill. Will you do it?’

  ‘Yes, of course, I have some vellum and a pen here in my satchel,’ she added as she saw his eyes look fretfully around the room as if in search of writing materials.

  ‘Just put down the usual stuff in the beginning,’ he said.

  So Mara dipped her quill in the ink horn and began to write, reading aloud as she formed the words on the vellum:

  ‘I, Toin the briuga, sometime physician, of Rathborney in the kingdom of the Burren, being of sound mind, though weak in body, do hereby bequeath …’ she stopped and looked enquiringly at him.

  ‘to my dear lord and king, Turlough Donn, Mac Teige, … you can put the rest of it,’ he broke off to say impatiently and she nodded, writing down Turlough’s sonorous lineage.

  ‘ … the sum of six hundred ounces of silver,’ he went on and her voice murmured the words after him and then she put down her pen and looked at him with astonishment. This was a huge sum.

  ‘Go on,’ he said with smile. ‘You’re just the scribe you know.’

  And so she took up her pen again.

  ‘ … in token of the very great favour that his patronage and friendship have paid to me during the years when I have been a briuga in this kingdom,’ he went on, his voice fluent and easy, and somehow regaining some of its former melodious power.

  ‘And I bequeath to Nuala, daughter of Malachy O’Davoren, physician in the kingdom of the Burren, my house at Rathborney and all the revenues from the farm situated in this place.’ A huge amount of pleasure now infused his voice and Mara wrote on, determined to say nothing. She was, as he said, just the scribe, taking his instructions.

  ‘This gift,’ continued Toin, ‘is for her to have and to hold without conditions. However, this testator would like to express a hope that the gift will enable the said Nuala, daughter of Malachy O’Davoren, to fulfil her ambition to have a school of medicine and also to enable her to pursue her studies in that subject.’

  Mara found her eyes wet. It was an unbelievably kind and thoughtful gift.

  ‘I should like,’ continued Toin, but now his voice was weak and long gasps for breath punctuated every pause. There followed the usual simple bequests to faithful servants, money for Masses to be said for the eternal repose of the soul, so that Toin, the hospitaller, should find equal hospitality in the mansions of heaven.

  And then with a slight smile on his face, Toin ended his last will and testament: ‘I should like to leave to Mara, Brehon of the Burren, my silver and copper chess set and all of the Dutch bulbs in my garden and whatever flower or fruit bush or tree that she might wish to have.’

  Mara smiled. ‘What a lovely gift,’ she said appreciatively. But there was one more thing to be said and it had to be said. The truth had to be known.

  ‘You leave nothing to your son,’ she said mildly.

  There was a silence for a minute and then, quite unexpectedly, he laughed, a full robust sound. ‘How did you know?’ he asked, and then stirring restlessly in the bed, he demanded, ‘Give me some more of that potion of Malachy’s. What does an hour more or less of life mean to me now?’

  Without demur, Mara poured some of the inky black liquid from the phial into his open mouth. He gulped it down eagerly, shut his eyes and there seemed to be a sort of shudder that shook his whole body and lasted for a minute. For a moment Mara feared that she had killed him, but then his eyes opened again and she saw that the blue colour of his lips had softened to a light purple.

  ‘I should have known you’d guess,’ he said with amusement. ‘I should have known once I had played a game of chess with you. You have that sort of mind. You make a quick leap of imagination; confirm the position and then move. I suppose this is checkmate to me. How did you guess that Cuan was my son? What led you to it?’ He was alert and interested, his eyes shining with intelligence, his face was a better colour and Mara thought that she could proceed. She smiled at him and settled his pillow into a more comfortable position.

  ‘You see,’ said Mara, ‘from the beginning this divorce puzzled me. When you told me the story first, I imagined Deirdre as a gentle, sweet-natured woman who could not stand up to her husband, but when I met her I found her to be tough, astute, intelligent; it seemed unlikely that a woman like that would be unaware of her rights, that she would allow herself to be divorced without a word in her defence, without an appeal to her powerful relations in Galway. But what if it was true? What if she had strayed from the marriage bed? Of course, you yourself made the point that there was no appearance of a lover afterwards, but that would not rule out a lover beforehand. If that were the case, she might have had a guilty conscience — you said that she was a very religious woman — so she might have felt that the divorce was a judgement on her. She might even have feared that her sin would be uncovered and her son’s paternity questioned. By saying nothing, she left Cuan in his place as Sorley’s son, and, under English law, his sole heir. And, of course, this is the reason why you have not left him anything in your will; you, no more than she, don’t wish for any questions to be asked about the boy’s parentage.’

  She looked at him carefully, but he said nothing. His eyes betrayed interest, but nothing else, so she continued, ‘And another thing also, Cuan did not look like either of his supposed parents. He is brown-eyed with good features. He probably looks quite like you when you were young.’

  Toin smiled. ‘I hope so,’ he said. ‘It would be good to think that something of me, though unacknowledged, lives on. I still wonder how you guessed.’

  ‘The other thing was that the boy is musical. Sorley disliked music, according to you, yourself; and Deirdre, I noticed, seemed indifferent to it,’ she continued. ‘I knew that your father was a noted harpist in the service of Turlough’s father and of his uncles and I wondered about why you didn’t become a harp player; these positions are usually passed from father to son.’

  ‘Not everyone inherits a talent,’ said Toin drily.

  ‘Ah, but you did inherit the talent.’ Mara’s reply was quick. ‘The king has spoken of your beautiful singing voice and even to hear you speak is enough to tell that the talent is there. Turlough said something else too; he said that a physician cured you of some illness when you were young and then took you as an apprentice. Thinking of inheritance, I wondered if Cuan’s problem with his hand had been inherited from you; that would explain why you could not become a harp player, with all the prestige and the high honour price that goes with the position. There is no deformity to be seen now, but I remember that you spoke of your mentor’s cleverness as a surgeon.’

  In answer, Toin stretched out his hand to her, turning it over so that she could examine it. The skin was sear, almost transparent, an old man’s hand and there across the palm was a faint white scar, the track of a sixty-year-old knife incision.

  ‘And what else brought you along the trail?’ Toin seemed to be enjoying the talk. His brown eyes were alert and amused and his voice was strong with no trace of the breathlessness. In any case, Mara knew that she had to go on. The truth had to be established.

  ‘Cuan’s eyes were another clue.’ Mara returned his smile. ‘I’ve often noticed that a brown-eyed child always seems to have a brown-eyed parent, yet neither Deirdre nor Sorley had brown eyes. His were a light bright green and hers a blue grey. Cuan has your eyes.’

  And then she was silent for a moment, thinking of Sorley’s eyes swollen and protruding as she had seen them last. Had his murder been justified? Could anything justify murder? The deed was evil.

  ‘I suppose,�
�� she said aloud ‘that you could not bring yourself to acknowledge the deed in case you shamed Deirdre and her son.’ Mara’s voice was gentle, but she knew that she had to establish the truth now. Toin had not much longer to live, she guessed. ‘You were the last person into the church that morning,’ she said aloud. ‘You were sitting on a bench quite near the bees and you had a stick in your hand.’

  ‘And you wove your case around these points? You couldn’t prove anything from that in a law court, could you?’ He sounded amused, almost as if she were the scholar and he the ollamh.

  ‘I kept thinking that the person who has benefited from Sorley’s death was Cuan,’ Mara replied steadily and confidently, ‘and yet, it was fairly obvious that he did not have the courage or the initiative for a quick spur-of-the-moment killing like that. But what if someone, someone else with a strong bond to Cuan, did it on his behalf? I thought of Deirdre, but nothing seemed to fit. And, of course, you, yourself, gave her an alibi; you said you saw her go into the church behind Cathal and that Sorley was still alive at that stage. This absolved both. In any case, I thought she was too cautious, too wary to do something like that. It was only when it flashed on me that Cuan was your son that everything fell into place.’

  ‘Women’s thinking!’ There was a teasing smile on his face.

  ‘That’s the way I work; the solution comes and then I go step-by-step through the evidence. But I make no move until the logic is overwhelming.’

  ‘Still no proof.’ She hadn’t seen Toin look so well for weeks. It was almost as if all of his energy had come back to him. Could that potion of ivy berries have had that effect? And, if so, how long would the over-stimulated heart keep beating?

  ‘That’s not quite right,’ said Mara slowly, looking at him carefully. ‘Yes, there was a piece of evidence which connects you, and you only, to the crime — not directly, perhaps, but certainly indicative of guilt.’

  Toin surveyed her, a mixture of surprise and curiosity in his eyes.