A Fatal Inheritance

by Cora Harrison

  ‘So what time was it that the priest came into you?’ Mara decided to ask the routine question first.

  Deirdre answered that promptly. ‘I’d say that it would have been about a quarter of an hour before the Angelus bell.’

  So Clodagh, according to Nuala’s estimate, would have been dead by that stage.

  ‘Try to remember exactly what the priest said, Deirdre, will you. I know he is an odd man; so don’t worry about me.’

  ‘Well, it’s not something I would like to say to anyone else, Brehon, but he comes in here gabbling about Clodagh and the Fár Breige …’

  ‘Often?’ It was always good to fill an awkward silence with an inserted word or two.

  ‘Once a week, or so.’ Deirdre was more assured now. ‘She was a wicked woman, Brehon. Lord forgive me for speaking ill of the dead, but she tormented him, tried to tempt him, to make him … as if he would … her looking like that … you wouldn’t believe it, but she tried to make him jealous … as if … she nearly drove him mad … saying things … things about the Fár Breige … I just can’t bring myself to repeat it, Brehon.’

  ‘No, no,’ said Mara soothingly. ‘But yesterday morning, when Father O’Lochlainn came into this house to see you, well, things were different, weren’t they? You know that, now, don’t you? Clodagh was not alive, though of course you didn’t know that at the time. So, think hard, Deirdre, what was it that he actually said?’ She forced herself to lift the slice of cake to her mouth in a casual fashion. She nibbled a crumb from the crust, watching Deirdre’s face and wishing that the light were better.

  ‘I believe,’ said Deirdre slowly, ‘that what he said was: “The Fár Breige has a hold of her now!”’

  ‘I see,’ said Mara after waiting a moment to see whether any more was forthcoming. ‘And how did you answer him?’

  ‘I took no notice; I never do. I just gave him a sup of ale and a slice of my bread, and then I told him that poor old Máire had been asking for him. Poor soul, she hasn’t much more days left in her, that’s what I told him, so I got him out the door and then I went back to my work.’

  ‘And you didn’t think of going out of the house and looking up the valley to see the stone pillar?’

  ‘No, I didn’t, Brehon. I had my work to do. The kids are being weaned and the nannies are giving lots of milk. I have the churning to do and the skim milk to bring to the kids – we give them that and they eat the ivy and the other herbs. We try to get them good and fat over the next six months so that they are ready for the winter.’

  ‘So you didn’t take much notice of what Father O’Lochlainn said, did you?’

  ‘I didn’t, and that’s a fact, Brehon. And, to be sure, it wasn’t the first time that I’d heard that kind of ráméish from him, poor man.’ There was a guarded look in Deirdre’s eyes and she turned, rather ostentatiously, back to her cheeses, remodelling their perfectly circular shapes. ‘Of course when Pat came to tell me about her being dead, well, I fetched the priest then. I didn’t think it would do any harm if she was really dead.’

  ‘I’d like to see where you keep the kids, some time when it’s convenient,’ said Mara, rising to her feet and speaking lightly. She thought that she had obtained as much as she was going to get from Deirdre. Whether it was the whole truth, she was unsure, but people have different reasons to lie. Defensiveness and prudery can sometimes be as potent as guilt.

  ‘You’d be very welcome, Brehon. Himself would love to show you them. When the weather takes a turn for the good, perhaps; merciful God; we can’t have rain for ever, can we?’

  There was no doubt that there was a great note of relief in Deirdre’s voice. And yet, anxiety shone from her eyes as she ushered Mara to the door.

  Anxiety for the strange priest?

  Or was it for her husband, Pat?

  As she walked up the road, Mara was conscious that she, also, was feeling anxious.

  There was, she thought, a strong chance that Father O’Lochlainn was the murderer. But there was an even stronger chance that if he were not the murderer himself, he knew the identity of the person who had strangled Clodagh O’Lochlainn. Despite the heavy mist that morning, he surely would have been able to see from his window if someone had dragged the dead body to that place and lashed it to the stone pillar. And, in that case, he could be in grave danger. At the time, he might not have realized what he was seeing, but now; now, strange and all as he was, there could be little doubt in his mind that he had witnessed a murder.

  Seven

  Crith Gablach

  (Ranks in Society)

  If a lord gives to a tenant the gift of a buck goat and a female goat, the tenant must repay him a year later with the gift of a tub, twelve inches high and full of sweet cheese. In the second year he must give the same amount of butter and in the third year he must give two tubs, one five inches high of man-butter and one four inches high of woman-butter.

  Mara’s scholars arrived just as the Angelus bell was sounding for midday. Despite Deirdre’s prediction, the rain still poured down as heavily as ever. Low black clouds still covered the sky and the westerly wind even penetrated the sheltered valley of Oughtdara. Up on the hillside Mara could see Ballinalacken Castle, like a beacon, its windows glowing through the storm. Her six young scholars were dripping and Fachtnan had six-year-old Orla in front of him, swathed in his cloak, but her small nose looked pink and her eyes were miserable. Mara frowned slightly at the appearance of the child. From the time of the birth of her first child, Saoirse, Nuala had employed a woman to care for her children. There was no real need for Fachtnan to take Orla out in the cold and the wet.

  She understood why, though. He was keeping up the pressure on her. He had decided that the best thing for Orla would be to become a law scholar. About a year ago he had, for the first time, asked whether Orla might be admitted to the law school as a scholar and Mara had refused, saying that she had decided not to admit anyone younger than the age of eight years due to the strenuous study required. It was, also, far easier to judge ability at the age of eight than five, she told him, but already she had reckoned that Orla had not inherited her parents’ brains. And in addition, she seemed to have her father’s poor memory, without his intelligence. She was an ordinary, sweet-natured, quite artistic little girl who was finding the task of learning to read and to write was taking all the efforts of which she was capable.

  Fachtnan, though, was quietly persistent and took Orla around with him as often as possible. Mara worried a little about him; worried whether the marriage between him and Nuala was a satisfactory one. From the time when she was thirteen years old, Nuala had worshipped Fachtnan, while he, treating her more like a younger sister, had fallen desperately in love with Fiona, the Scottish law scholar, who had no interest in Fachtnan. Eventually after Fiona had gone back to her native country, Fachtnan had married Nuala in the summer when Cormac was born. Oddly, thought Mara, marriage had made his love grow while Nuala’s seemed to cool. Partly, she guessed, it was due to the intensity that Nuala invested in her profession. Partly, also, perhaps, Fachtnan felt that he was unsuccessful while his wife was immensely successful. Mara sighed. If only she felt that Fachtnan, with the learning-by-rote problems which had plagued his boyhood, and had not got better with age, could take a step forward and at least qualify as a teacher of law and if only she could persuade King Turlough to replace the usual ten-year sentence of banishment of Boetius MacClancy with a permanent one, then Fachtnan might be able to take over the MacClancy law school and Brehon Mara could manage the legal affairs of north-west Corcomroe in addition to Burren. But Fachtnan had grown from a sweet-natured boy to a very reserved man in his thirties, and ultimately only he could solve his problems.

  In the meantime, she had to see to her drenched and probably hungry scholars.

  She had temporarily shunned Ballinalacken Castle as the king’s wife, but it made sense as a place for a busy official of the law to snatch a meal. Breakfast was a few hours past and when Mara saw
how wet and cold her scholars were after their ride, she decided to take the small narrow road which led up to the hilltop where the castle, a wedding gift from King Turlough Donn to Mara, his second wife, reared up against the sky.

  When they arrived, she turned a preoccupied eye and a deaf ear towards the various appeals made to her for decisions, noting that several seemingly important matters had already been determined in her absence and that the urgent questions about how many wall chambers to prepare for use had been solved by the simple solution of crowding into every space as much bedding as it could hold. Already the long table in the Great Hall had been spread with several large linen cloths, the joins neatly hidden by silver bowls and platters borrowed, probably, from Bunratty Castle. The burning question of how to seat everyone had been neatly solved by lining each side of the table with cushioned-adorned short planks, supported by trestles, and reserving the ornate chairs for the top and bottom of the table.

  ‘Let’s go down to the kitchen,’ said Cormac, eyeing the festive room with an air of boredom. Like Turlough, he was immediately at home with the kitchen staff, teasing the girls, joking with the men and contriving to have a taste of everything that was going while the embarrassed steward tried to get them all back upstairs again. However, Cormac had his way and they sat cosily around the kitchen fire and made a hearty meal, sampling all of the dishes being cooked in preparation for the great day.

  The kitchen house at Ballinalacken faced north so when they came out they were astonished for a moment to see how the day had brightened. The strong wind was still gusting in from the Atlantic, but now it was driving the clouds across the sky. Large patches of blue and the bright sunshine of late March had turned raindrops into tiny balls of liquid crystal and the gorse bushes on the hillside blazed bright gold. As they rode down to Oughtdara the catkins from some early flowering hazel branches quivered softly yellow in the sheltered laneway and the wintry blackthorn showed tiny buds of snow-white blossom on the tips of its black branches.

  All three brothers were waiting for them when they reached the church at Oughtdara. Deirdre emerged from her house full of smiles and as pleased as though she had personally cooked the sunny afternoon to serve up to them. Her presence took Mara slightly aback. She had hoped to talk to Pat without his wife’s anxious surveillance. She would prefer to hear his full account of the finding of the body and of Clodagh’s behaviour.

  ‘I wonder could we leave little Orla with you, Deirdre,’ she said, seizing the opportunity to affect the absence of both. She wanted Fachtnan’s whole attention to be on the words that fell from those brothers, all of whom had substantial lands to gain from the death of their cousin. Orla would chatter continuously and distract him.

  ‘I want to see the moon milk,’ whined Orla.

  ‘Another day, perhaps next Saturday afternoon, if you’re good,’ promised Fachtnan hastily. Mara felt a bit sorry to have disappointed her, but Orla was a sweet-natured child and was soon placated by Deirdre’s loud whispers about secretly baking a cake for her father to eat when he came home.

  ‘What would you like to see, Brehon?’ asked Pat. He did not seem in any way worried by her presence, just gravely polite. Gobnait was his usual placid self and Dinan’s eyes were sparkling with pleasure at the prospect of having a new audience for his stories, while Ug the sheepdog herded them all into a tight pack in a professional fashion which excited Cormac’s envy.

  ‘I’d like to see the lands that each of you own; those that you inherited from your father and those that originally belonged to your uncle Danu,’ said Mara, avoiding the mention of Clodagh’s name. There would be time enough for close questioning at the end of the expedition. ‘Shall we leave our horses tied up here?’

  ‘Turn them loose inside the enclosure,’ said Pat. ‘They’ll be quite safe in there. The grass is good and the walls are high, still. We’ll tie up the gate so that anyone who comes will make sure to shut it again.’

  He and his brothers, with averted heads, passed the Fár Breige standing sentinel by the entrance to Dunaunmore and Mara followed with her scholars while Fachtnan hovered by the gate for a moment, staring curiously at the stone pillar and glancing all around at the surrounding hills.

  ‘So this is Dunaunmore,’ said Mara as she watched her fastidious Arab steed tear the lush green grass in greedy mouthfuls. It had been a cold wet February, followed by a wet and blustery March. The grass on most of the fields at Cahermacnaghten and around Ballinalacken had a yellowish tint, but the grass within the high sheltering walls of Dunaunmore appeared as it would appear after a month of summer sun and mist: a deep, fresh shade of green and as thick as the best velvet. Mara bent down and plucked a few rooted pieces. The soil on the roots was dark and rich and held a faint heat from the stone below.

  ‘Just three inches of soil above the limestone, but it’s enough with the rain that we get.’ Gobnait watched her action with a smile. ‘There’s probably been tons of seaweed put on it long before any of us were born, but in my lifetime, I’ve never known it to need anything. It’s always the same, winter and summer. Your horses will enjoy it, Brehon.’

  ‘Do you know, I don’t think that I’ve ever been in here before,’ said Mara. She remembered Clodagh’s words about her fine house. It had been important for the woman to get back this place and she had plans for it, and, of course, with an army of workers, a carpenter, a thatcher, a blacksmith to make a new gate, with all of these, the place, built on a small hill, with its view of the restless Atlantic, could be very beautiful. But where was Clodagh planning to get the money or the goods with which to pay these people? Land by itself would give nothing. Aengus had no stock and Clodagh, herself, had just a couple of sheep and a pair of goats. By law, she would be forbidden to sell the land; it was hers only to care for and to use for the duration of her life, after that it went back to her kin, to her nearest blood relatives, those who had descended from the same grandfather. The house itself would need work and materials.

  It was a fine place, a very large enclosure, built in the old style with massive squared-off stones, each the size of a wooden chest and within the wall there were many buildings: the house, the kitchen house, the place for visitors and a couple of other houses, storage places, perhaps, or a dairy for milk and cheese. Each one of these was built in the same fashion with large, carefully hewn stones, narrow slits for windows; there was no glass anywhere and the shutters were broken and hanging loose. Worst of all, the thatched roofs were ragged and decaying, covered in green moss and several large holes had appeared here and there. Danu, Clodagh’s father, had been a carpenter and the wooden doors were massive and well shaped. But the red lead paint had blistered and fallen to the ground, leaving great stretches of rotting timber and there were marks of rodents’ runs beneath at the thresholds of most entrances. It had been just as well that Deirdre or Pat had salvaged some of the furniture and placed it within their own well-cared-for and well-heated house.

  ‘So this is where it all started, Brehon; this is the place where the first blows were struck in the wars,’ said Dinan.

  Mara controlled the start that she gave. Of course he was going back thousands of years ago, back to the Fír Bolg, back to the arrival of the Tuatha Dé, to the time when gods clashed with men and terrible cruelties and savage punishments were the norm.

  ‘Show me the Cave of the One Cow where you were yesterday morning while the nanny goat gave birth to the twins,’ she said to Pat and as they walked up the steep hill to the north of the enclosure, Mara tried to turn a deaf ear to the tale that Dinan was chanting to the scholars which seemed to involve a man’s intestines being wound around an oak tree. The sea was visible by the time that they got to the top of it and Mara paused for a moment to look down over the shining blue-black slabs heaped one on top of the other, fringed by the blue sea with the white-capped waves and beyond it the misty azure outline of the Aran Islands, and then she turned back to look down at Oughtdara.

  ‘You can see the stone pil
lar and the enclosure of Dunaunmore very well from here,’ she observed to Pat and he looked uncomfortable. He had understood her implication.

  ‘On a clear day, Brehon, you can, but yesterday, even the gods themselves would have been hard put to see anything through the mist. It was only when it cleared a bit that I thought there might be something wrong. I didn’t take any notice for a while, to be honest with you. I thought that it was Clodagh up to tricks again.’

  So Pat also witnessed the tormenting of the priest by Clodagh. Mara raised an eyebrow at him and he nodded mysteriously.

  ‘It’s a terrible thing to say, Brehon, of my own flesh and blood,’ said Dinan breaking off his story and turning from the scholars to her, ‘but I do believe that old queen came back again in her. No mortal could torment the way that she could.’

  ‘The old queen,’ breathed Art. ‘Morrigan, the blood-drenched one.’

  ‘What! Clodagh! Dhera!’ Cormac was thrilled.

  Normally Mara would have been amused by the two of them, but somehow Dinan’s intensity had got under her skin. She felt herself give a slight shiver.

  ‘Let’s walk on,’ she said.

  The cave was large once you were through the ivy-screen door and there appeared to be plenty of air. Once her eyes adjusted, Mara found that she could see everything. It was difficult to see how far back into the hillside it stretched, but she guessed that it might go a considerable distance.