A Fatal Inheritance

by Cora Harrison

  ‘Did either of you pick up anything from the conversation in the kitchen?’ She turned to Cormac and Cian who were arguing with each other.

  ‘They were talking about Clodagh, just muttering, you know,’ said Cormac instantly abandoning his disagreement and turning his face towards his mother. ‘It’s funny but they seemed to have got the impression that Clodagh was going around hiring stone workers. What she wanted them for I don’t know.’

  ‘Did Deirdre or Anu know?’

  ‘Not them. They thought that she might be doing up the old house. They kept whispering that Clodagh had said that she was going to make it splendid, but neither of them knew why she should be going to employ stone workers. Deirdre was saying the stone work was the only thing that was good about the house. “If it were a thatcher or a carpenter now …” That’s what she was saying.’

  ‘And Anu?’

  ‘Anu was just agreeing with her. That’s always the way when women are gossiping together,’ said Cormac impatiently. ‘Neither of them could make out why Clodagh would want to hire so many men with sledgehammers.’

  ‘Perhaps she was going to knock down the house,’ suggested Cian.

  ‘No, birdbrain, I said they were talking about her boasting that she was going to make it a splendid place.’

  Mara turned the conversation over in her head. It was odd, she thought. Why would Clodagh want to hire men who could split stone, men with sledgehammers?

  ‘Brehon, do you think that Aengus might have killed Clodagh? Cian thinks he could, but I don’t believe it.’ Cormac and Cian had resumed the argument that had been engaging them during her low-voiced argument with Domhnall and now her son turned back and rode beside her, looking intently into her face as he asked his question. ‘He’s such a terrified little rabbit of a man,’ he added. ‘I just can’t imagine him getting the courage to do something like that. And, I’d say, that Clodagh was definitely bigger than he was.’

  ‘I never really like these sort of discussions, Cormac,’ said Mara. ‘Everything is just guesswork, at this stage. What we need is to gather all the available evidence, to sift the facts, and only then can we arrive at a working hypothesis.’

  It was, she thought, with a moment’s compunction, a scholarly answer, but not a very honest one. Her own mind had been dallying with the same thoughts. Would Aengus kill Clodagh? Could Aengus kill Clodagh? Did he have the strength of mind and body? She was not surprised when Cormac gave a shrug of his shoulders and moved back up to resume his conversation with Cian, leaving Mara to her thoughts as they turned off the road and brought their horses onto the sheep-nibbled grass plateau between the hills.

  The grass was very wet, but sheep were light-footed animals and had not made the ground as boggy as cows would have done. Mara’s horse picked his way with care: stones littered the uneven surface and here and there a puddle formed. Their journey through the mountain pass towards the law school and its nearest neighbour, Ardal O’Lochlainn, would, she reckoned, take about half to three-quarters of an hour. She would stop this useless guessing and employ the time to establish in her mind the facts of the case, she thought repentantly and she allowed her horse to fall back until she was beside Fachtnan.

  ‘I talked with the four brothers: Pat, Gobnait, Finnegas and Dinan, Fachtnan,’ she said. ‘Three of them: Pat, Gobnait and Dinan were all around this morning – so they could have had an opportunity, depending on when she was killed, of course. I think that there were periods of heavy mist during the morning and also there was a time when Gobnait lost his dog and was, as he said, “hollering” for him, and the hills were echoing the sound. And then, of course, in view of what Nuala said, there is a possibility that Clodagh was murdered elsewhere, perhaps within her own house, and that her dead body was dragged out and then bound to the stone pillar.’

  ‘What about the way that the grass was churned up under her feet?’ They had now left the narrow paved road and had turned onto the grass-covered mountain pass where all could ride together. Cormac’s sharp ears had overheard their conversation and now he turned back to face them.

  ‘Could be faked by the murderer,’ put in Cian.

  ‘We have to think why she was left like that,’ said Domhnall. ‘Why put the body almost in the arms of the Fár Breige, why hang the key from her wrist?’

  ‘Because Aengus was mad at her.’ Cian didn’t deal in subtleties.

  ‘Or Pat, or Gobnait, or any of them,’ argued Cormac. ‘Remember the key. The key would be nothing to do with Aengus, but if it was one of them, the key could mean: you have no right to that property.’

  ‘I judged Clodagh to have a right,’ said Mara mildly. She was interested to find out what he would say in answer to that. He came straight back at her, the answer flashing like a drawn sword.

  ‘What if you were wrong, and they knew that you were wrong? They knew that there had been a will locked up safely in Brehon MacClancy’s chest. They were certain of that. You could tell that. They were flabbergasted when their taoiseach said that the will was not there. You’d want to be stupid not to be able to see that in their faces. They weren’t lying. They’re not like that.’

  ‘You don’t think that Ardal O’Lochlainn was lying?’ asked Cian in interested fashion.

  ‘Of course not,’ said Cormac indignantly. ‘He’s a friend of the king’s. He doesn’t lie. Why should he? No, Clodagh took it out of the chest while poor old Brehon MacClancy was—’ he hesitated, and then finished diplomatically – ‘was feeling a bit dazed. The taoiseach couldn’t say that there was a will there when he looked if there wasn’t, but there was probably a will there a few days earlier.’

  ‘You could be right,’ said Mara. ‘We can allow it as a possibility.’

  ‘The whole scene, the body tied to the stone pillar, it was set up like a picture, wasn’t it?’ Domhnall didn’t wait for a comment on that, but continued: ‘And a picture is painted to make you think, isn’t it? The key and the god; it could all be to make you think that Clodagh had been killed by the Fár Breige because she had lied and stolen. But on the other hand, the real murderer might have just wanted to throw suspicion on Pat, or on Gobnait, or on all of them.’

  ‘I can’t see Aengus being as clever as that,’ said Slevin. ‘No, that would be out of the question. And we have no more suspects, have we?’ He looked sideways at Mara and then added diplomatically, ‘But of course, the investigation has not really started. Who knows what we might uncover?’

  ‘I agree with Domhnall about the picture,’ said Mara. ‘After all, if Clodagh was strangled, why not just try to bury her, or throw her body into the sea, or down a hole in one of the caves.’

  ‘Like the Caves of the Bones that Dinan showed us, do you remember, Cormac?’ said Cian. ‘That was full of bones. It was a sacred burial place for the old people, Dinan told us. I saw a hand down there, with long, long fingers and loads of skulls,’ he added with relish.

  ‘That was a great day! Will you ever forget Cael’s face, when he was telling the story about the daughters of Lir and how they turned into swans and had to spend four hundred years buffeted by the storms of the Celtic Sea? She was like in a trance and she slipped over on all that oozy stuff in the Moon Milk Cave.’

  He was an interesting character, Dinan, thought Mara. She remembered that day when he had taken four of her scholars around Oughtdara area and taught them about the old people, the legendary Tuatha Dé. Even years later they remembered in great detail all that he had told them, almost word for word – ‘buffeted by the storms’ was not an expression that Cormac would normally use. Yes, it was intriguing that the murderer had not tried to dispose of the body, but had set up this striking picture, to use Domhnall’s words, something to make everyone think that it had been an intervention by the gods. Reluctantly she had to come to the conclusion that of the three brothers who had an interest in Clodagh’s death, Dinan was the one who was the most likely to have arranged that elaborate scene of the woman apparently in the arms of the sto
ne god and, dangling from her wrist, the key to the ancient fortified place, so connected with all the legends of the Tuatha Dé. He was obsessed with these stories. She could see him reason that Clodagh had offended the old people and that she deserved to die, that she should become a victim of the Fár Breige, himself.

  ‘It seems to me that whoever did the deed was full of hate,’ said Slevin wisely.

  ‘Well, now, that should be easy,’ said Cian. ‘We’ll just look for someone who hated Clodagh and that’s your man, or your woman. Only trouble, Slevin, dear boy, is that every single person who knew her just hated her. She was a foul woman.’

  ‘She wouldn’t even allow poor old Aengus to keep a dog and he loves dogs. He’s the only shepherd in the kingdom that doesn’t have a dog. He’s always exhausted from doing things himself that a dog could do so easily. I offered to lend him Dullahán, but he just looked at me with those poor old sad eyes of his and said, “A dog like that is too noble for the likes of me, my lord.”’

  Since Cormac’s wolfhound, Dullahán, was the wildest and the most untrained dog that you could ever meet and bound to send a flock of sheep flying in all directions, Mara thought that Aengus had got out of that generous offer rather neatly. Her son’s face was pink with emotion, perhaps because of the embarrassment of being addressed as ‘my lord’ – neither she nor Turlough ever wanted to emphasise his noble descent; he was Cormac to every servant and farm worker – or perhaps because he was so sorry for the old man. It gave her an idea, though.

  ‘Cormac, why don’t you and Cian ride on ahead of us? You can get Dullahán out of his kennel and run down the road with him to Lissylisheen. Aengus should be there now and Dullahán is the sort of dog that would cheer anyone up. He’ll make the poor man feel more cheerful.’

  Cormac’s face lit up. He gave her a surprised and almost grateful look. He was devoted to his dog, but was a bit defensive about it in his mother’s presence and she was conscious that she seemed to be forever criticizing the animal. There was no doubt, though, that Dullahán was affectionate and above all very funny. It would be hard to be depressed and silent in his presence. With the wolfhound getting up to mischief and bestowing wet licks and muddy paw shakes upon everyone, it would be impossible for the atmosphere to be tense and Mara wanted Aengus to be relaxed. Ever since Nuala had told her that the victim had been strangled, she had a strong intuition that the husband of the dead woman would be found to be responsible. Some final insult, some terrible words spoken, some deeply unpleasant act, might have driven him in despair to that uncharacteristic act of violence.

  The sooner he told her the better. Brehon law took into account the state of mind of the offender and also laid emphasis on the mitigating effect of a full and early confession. She wanted to handle Aengus carefully, not drive the poor old man to feelings of despair, but to get him to trust her enough to tell the truth. That enormous, ridiculous dog of Cormac’s would lighten the atmosphere and help Aengus to relax.

  Four

  Do Breathaib Gaire

  (Judgements of Maintenance)

  The fine (kin group) is obliged to care for those who are handicapped in their minds or their bodies.

  The guardian of a drúth (mentally retarded person) is responsible for his offences in the alehouse.

  Missiles thrown by a drúth do not require compensation.

  Anyone who incites a drúth to commit a crime must pay the fine himself.

  Lissylisheen, the home of the taoiseach of the O’Lochlainn clan, was only five minutes’ walk away from Cahermacnaghten law school. Despite being the most powerful and the richest man in the kingdom of the Burren, Ardal O’Lochlainn’s home was modest; his tower house was a single-towered building set a short distance from the road with no elaborate gatehouse or gardens to adorn it. It was three stories high with a guardroom at the bottom, a bedroom in the middle storey, some wall chambers leading off the spiral staircase and a magnificent sitting room or hall on the very top floor where Ardal could sit of an evening, looking over his hundreds of well-cared-for acres, at his cows and their calves, his horses with their foals and at the mountains beyond where the O’Lochlainn sheep grew thick wool which was turned into cloth and blankets and exported to England and Spain. Ardal had so many enterprises going that Mara almost lost count: a mill to grind his tenants’ oats and his own corn; a limestone quarry to produce the fertilizer for the fields and the limewash for the stone walls of tower houses, cottages, barns and cowsheds; a ship to export his goods to France, England or Spain; but it was as a breeder of quality horses that he was famous and where, she suspected, the majority of his fortune was earned. A good man, she thought, as they rode up, a man who was kind and caring to his tenants, his workers and his servants. No other clan housed the people so well; no other taoiseach was so tireless in his quest to improve the lives of those that he felt responsible for. He would, she was sure, be kind and caring to Aengus and quick to give him practical help.

  ‘Dullahán is here already; listen to him,’ said Fachtnan with a smile as they rode their horses into the stable yard beside Lissylisheen Castle. Ardal kept a few small hunting dogs that had set up a series of shrill barks as they came in, but there was no mistaking the deep ringing tone of a wolfhound, announcing new arrivals to the world. The door to the steward’s room opened and Ardal came out wearing a slightly harassed expression that Mara recognised. Any sane adult in the company of Cormac’s dog for more than a few minutes normally began to look like that. Still a handsome man, though in his mid-fifties, she thought, as he handed her down from her horse. The red-gold hair of his younger days was now a soft shade of silver, but the blue eyes were as keen as ever, the skin was still a smooth, unlined bronze, summer and winter; and the slim, erect figure was as she remembered it from her own girlhood, when she and Mór, Ardal’s sister, had teased and tormented the reserved young man.

  ‘Oh, no, here comes the monster!’ Domhnall and Slevin groaned in mock despair as the enormous wolfhound burst out through the door, raced towards them, long tail wagging furiously, panting violently with an excess of emotion, jumped up on them and on Fachtnan, leaving the print of his muddy paws on their léinte and then turned to Mara, suddenly stopping as he remembered that this member of the human race had some strange, but very strong objections to being jumped upon. He skidded to a halt and, mid-air, endeavoured to turn a riotous leap into a decorous ‘sit’ and succeeded in producing what looked like an awkward bow. Cormac and his friends screamed with laughter and even Ardal gave a slight smile.

  ‘Take him back inside, Cormac; I want a word with the taoiseach,’ said Mara trying to look sternly at the ridiculous animal who was now capering around the stable yard, much to the astonishment of several horses who leaned well-bred noses out of their stalls and gazed with amazement at this creature that was the size of one of their own docile foals. The dog was a source of huge embarrassment to Mara. For years she had basked in the consciousness of owning extremely well-trained and perfectly obedient wolfhounds, dogs who instantly obeyed her slightest glance – dear irreplaceable Bran, and Bran’s mother, before that. And then she had bought a wolfhound puppy for Cormac, taking him up to Cahercommaun, where Murrough of the Wolfhounds bred his magnificent hounds, and allowing him to pick out his favourite. She should never have agreed to the choice of a nine-year-old child. From the first moment that she had seen the small puppy she had realized that this was a bad idea. She remembered her thoughts clearly. One of these wild dogs, she had said to herself, her heart sinking, a puppy who would undoubtedly be a handful, would need a huge amount of exercise and training, would probably cause trouble with neighbours. And so it had turned out. The dog was wildly excitable from the start and Cormac and his friends, though spasmodically embarking on training sessions, had just made him worse.

  ‘I used to think that he would grow out of it, that it was just puppyhood, but he’s nearly three years old now and he doesn’t seem to be getting much better,’ she said ruefully to Ardal.

/>   ‘You go back in, lads, and he’ll follow,’ said Ardal’s steward, Danann. He was a decisive, quick-thinking young man, but it was, Mara noticed with interest, Aengus, his red-rimmed old eyes looking fondly at the dog, who clicked his tongue, held out his hand, and by some miracle managed to distract Dullahán from a friendly desire to make closer acquaintance with a strawberry roan horse. Cormac grabbed his dog’s collar then and Dullahán was hauled back into the steward’s room.

  ‘Fine dog,’ said Ardal politely. ‘Very large, very …’ His voice tailed away and then he gave a grin.

  ‘Never a dull moment when he’s around,’ agreed Mara.

  ‘You’ll take a cup of wine?’

  ‘Just a few minutes of your time.’ Mara walked across to the well-built wall that enclosed the meadow where the young horses grazed. Despite the drizzle they seemed to be enjoying their freedom, tossing their heads and racing around the lone hawthorn bush that stood in the centre of the field, still winter-dark and hung with grey-green lichen. Even as she watched she saw brown patches appear on the green grass and the burnished legs and flanks were flecked with mud.

  ‘Two hours, and we’ll have to take them back out of there or they’ll plough up the field. What we need now is some hot sun to get the grass growing again. What a terrible March we’ve had, haven’t we? Still, April is on the way.’