Deed of Murder

by Cora Harrison

  But who was the man? Not one of the hunters, thought Mara, reassuring herself. Turlough could stir nowhere without his two bodyguards at his back and the other men-at-arms were never far behind. The threat from the O’Kelly on the other side of the hill towards Galway was too real for any let-up in the blanket of safety which surrounded her husband at all times; and where Turlough went, his son, son-in-law and friend would not be far away. Turlough had been lecturing them on that the other night at suppertime, pointing out forcibly the dangers of one man going off on his own and meeting with an accident.

  Nuala was already mounted on her horse, her face calm, her brown eyes focussed. ‘Which way, Seamus?’ she called. There was no hint of impatience in her voice, now, unlike the boys who were shouting queries into the poet’s dazed ears.

  Seamus MacCraith raised his head, but that was a mistake. The setting sun shone into his dazed eyes. He blinked, staggered and would have fallen except for Aidan’s grip.

  ‘Let’s get you up on your horse, then you’ll feel better.’ Owney, with the strength of a young giant, heaved him up on to the horse. For a moment it looked as though he were a little better, but then he leaned over and spewed up all of the water that Moylan had been pouring down his throat.

  Hugh and Aidan jumped aside neatly, uttering sounds of disgust, and a few expletives, but Owney, more compassionate, kept a tight grip on the poet’s cloak until he ceased to vomit.

  ‘Better now,’ he said, slapping him heartily on the back. ‘Come on, now, tell us where this man is lying.’

  ‘Give him a chance,’ said Gobnait tranquilly. ‘He’ll feel better in a few minutes.’

  ‘And a man can die in a few minutes,’ exploded Nuala. ‘Come on, Seamus, which way?’

  ‘Which way, Seamus?’ Mara put an authoritative note into her voice. Nuala was right – the injured person could die while they waited. What a self-indulgent young man this poet was.

  He responded to the whiplash of authority. ‘In the quarry, down there,’ he muttered, pointing to the south of the flax garden.

  In a second Nuala was off her horse, hitching up her long gown and léine, allowing them to overflow her leather belt until they were just knee-length. The boys were beside her, Moylan grabbing the heavy medical bag. All of them ran until they reached the steep slope beside the winding path. Without hesitation Nuala scrambled down the steep, rocky incline and the four boys followed her. Owney abandoned the poet and went thundering down behind them.

  Mara wavered wondering whether she was too old for scrambles like that.

  ‘Come this way, Brehon,’ shrieked one of the spinning women. ‘There’s a path to the quarry over here.’

  Behind the scutching shed there was a narrow path of well-trodden limestone. It was steep but the surface was good and had been used regularly. A few bushes of juniper and of blackthorn grew beside it, well sheltered by the towering walls of stone on either side. From behind her Mara could hear O’Brien telling Cathal how this path had been cut through solid rock in order to drag building stone to the flat land above.

  ‘Used wooden sledges and ropes to drag them up, my father used to tell me. I remember him saying that they watered the surface until the limestone on the path was as smooth as a frozen lake. Tons of stone were carried up, built all of the sheds, and the workers’ houses, too. It was a great job, a great piece of property.’

  ‘It was, indeed, my lord.’ Cathal’s voice was soothing, the voice of one who had got what he wanted and was willing now to make any concessions.

  It was strange, though, thought Mara, that neither man seemed to be speculating on the identity of the person who was lying injured in the quarry. She would have thought that at the news, both Cathal and Gobnait would have checked their own workers, but they had shown no sign of doing that – where a few simple queries could have elicited the information.

  The path was deeply shaded by the overhanging bushes, so when Mara stepped out into the quarry the setting sun, shining on the limestone, almost blinded her for a moment. She stepped forward and scanned the scene. The stones from this quarry had been hacked out carefully leaving large, solid sections of rock protruding at twenty-foot intervals in order to support the towering cliffs behind. The effect was to create a series of alcoves on the eastern wall of the quarry.

  The four boys and Nuala were in one of those alcoves, kneeling down and bending over something. As Mara arrived, Hugh looked over his shoulder and then got to his feet, moving aside to allow her to see.

  There, lying on the ground, his head broken, with flies buzzing around the thick clots of blood, was Muiris O’Hynes, the man who wanted to bid for the flax garden.

  Fifteen

  Cis Lire Fodra Tire

  (How Many Kinds of Land Are There?)

  Land is valued according to type, not area. The value of a ‘cumal’ of land, that is about 34 acres, varies. The very best land, land fit for arable crops, is valued at twenty-four milch cows, or twenty-four ounces of silver for a cumal. The worst land, bogland, is only worth eight dry heifers or two milch cows or two ounces of silver for this amount of land.

  ‘Is he dead?’ Mara knelt on the hard ground beside Nuala whose hand was on the man’s wrist.

  Nuala took a long moment before answering but then shook her head. Mara asked no more questions. Nuala must be allowed to do her work unhindered. The four boys, used to Nuala and her physician’s work from their earliest years, stood ready to help. The life of Muiris would now be in her hands and could be safely left to her.

  Mara got to her feet and waited until O’Brien of Arra and Cathal O’Halloran arrived. Nuala had her task, but so had Mara. This had to stop. Murder stalked the land like a ball among a set of ninepins. First Eamon, then Fachtnan’s disappearance, and now Muiris. The suspects were ranged in her mind. The most obvious had to be either Cathal or Gobnait, or even Owney. Muiris had not been able to take possession of the flax garden even though he had successfully topped Cathal’s bid because the first deed, the signed deed of lease, had been wrestled from Eamon, his throat punched so that he died instantly.

  And now it looked as if once again Muiris had been foiled – perhaps this time at the expense of his life.

  ‘What a terrible thing!’ The O’Brien stared at the bloody mass which had once been a head with a look of sick horror on his face.

  ‘Terrible!’ echoed Cathal.

  ‘Dreadful, indeed,’ said Mara quietly. She beckoned to Shane. ‘Go and fetch Fiona. I want the two of you to go down to Poulnabrucky and fetch Áine. Break the news to her. Say that he is alive, but don’t hold out any false hopes. Tell her that Nuala is with him.’

  The wife of Muiris had the right to be with him if he died here on the mountainside, she thought, and then turned her mind back to other matters, scrutinizing Cathal’s face carefully. This valuable land of sixteen acres had been a means of livelihood for him and for his clan for many years. This year, his possession of it had been threatened and now the man who had made that threat was lying, almost dead, in the quarry literally within a stone’s throw of the precious land.

  ‘Let’s see if we can help in any way.’ Mara beckoned to the two men and urged them forward watching carefully. Now they were so close that they could smell the black clotted blood and hear the buzz of the greedy flies. Aidan was on his knees ineffectually swotting at them but every time that the insects were dislodged they came back again.

  ‘I’ll see whether I can make contact with the king. We might need those men-at-arms to help move him.’ O’Brien of Arra was restless. The warrior breed found it hard to remain still. Mara gave him a nod. There was nothing that he could do and she had no suspicions of him. Why should he try to kill Muiris? He might have been able to double the yearly rent for the flax garden if Muiris had been at the bidding. In any case, she had watched him come up the mountain towards the valley.

  ‘Will he live?’ asked Cathal in an undertone when O’Brien had strode towards the entrance to the quarry.

/>   ‘Nuala is very skilful,’ Mara assured him, looking closely into the man’s face. What could she read there? Concern, horror, fear – yes there was fear, but was that surprising? Everyone feared death; saw in it their own vulnerable mortality.

  Nuala said nothing, just worked steadily, feeling around the broken skull with sure, sensitive fingers and from time to time laying her hand on the neck of the dreadfully injured man. Feeling for a pulse, thought Mara, and she hoped that Muiris’s struggle for life would last at least until his wife of over twenty years could be by his side. She held out a hand and immediately Moylan came forward with the medical bag and held it open while Nuala rummaged within and then took out a phial and a tiny spoon. Carefully and steadily she dripped three large drops on to the spoon. Moylan seemed to guess what she wanted as he quickly inserted a finger into the man’s mouth, pulled down the slack jaw. Deftly Nuala poured the dose deep into the throat.

  White lips, white gums, white tongue, thought Mara. Could this man live? She looked again at Cathal. He was looking back over his shoulder. Gobnait had just appeared. Mara looked back at Nuala, but she was on the alert, every nerve strained to hear what husband and wife said to each other.

  And they said nothing. Nothing. That was strange, thought Mara. It was odd that no question was asked by that vociferous woman, odd that no information was offered by the man. Perhaps a long look had been exchanged between them. Mara remained on the alert, but turned her thoughts back to the terribly injured man.

  ‘Nuala, will he be fit to be moved?’ she asked so quietly that Nuala could ignore the question if other matters needed her attention. A cluster of flax workers were coming into the quarry by the main entrance, Owney and another man carrying a large board between them. As they came nearer, Mara could see what had delayed them. They had used some strips of wood to nail two boards together and now the improvised litter was as wide as a single bed.

  Nuala nodded approval of the litter to Owney as he placed it carefully beside the injured man. He kept his eyes on Nuala, Mara noticed, and did not glance even once at the injured man. Of course, hurling could be a violent game with that rock-hard leather ball and those heavy ash hurleys continually swinging at head height as the teams strove against each other. Perhaps Owney had often seen a man with his head broken like this.

  ‘I’ll get some sheepskins to pad it and some strips of linen to tie him securely. We don’t want to risk a fall on the mountain ground.’ Gobnait went bustling off at a surprisingly rapid pace for such a big heavy woman. These were the first words that she had spoken and they were practical and more to the point than lamentations and exclamations of horror. However, Mara still felt that there was something odd in the reaction of the whole O’Halloran family. She had been Brehon of the kingdom of the Burren for almost eighteen years now and had found that most crimes stemmed from greed and insecurity.

  Moylan had moved away from the body and was prowling around restlessly. Then he stopped and stood staring fixedly at something, reminding Mara of her dog Bran searching for a buried bone and then suddenly discovering it. Moylan was looking across at her so she rose from her knees and went quietly across to him.

  ‘Look at that stone,’ he whispered when she came near. Mara looked around. Owney was looking at Nuala, waiting for a command, Cathal’s eyes were on the fast-disappearing form of his wife and the flax workers were looking across to the north of the mountain where shouts and excited barking showed that the hunters were descending towards the valley.

  The stone was a large one. It had been roughly squared and still bore the marks of a chisel. It was undoubtedly the murder weapon; there was blood on one side of it and, as Mara could see when she bent down over it, there were a few splinters of bone and a couple of iron-grey hairs.

  Nuala turned her head and Mara moved back beside her. ‘I think that we’ll have to move him,’ she said in a whisper. ‘I can’t really be sure whether it’s the right thing to do but we can’t leave him out on the hillside on an April night and it would be best to get him home where Áine can nurse him.’

  ‘I should have told Shane to have her come with a cart,’ said Mara, vexed with herself. ‘Hugh, go after him, go as quickly as you can.’

  By the time that Áine, Fiona and the two young boys arrived back the four men-at-arms from the hunting party had come on the scene, accompanied by O’Brien of Arra.

  ‘The king sent you a message, Brehon, to say that he would take the guests straight back to Ballinalacken. He did ask whether any had seen the injured man, but none had. They had mostly hunted to the south side of Aillwee and above Glenisheen.’

  Mara nodded her thanks. She could interview the hunting party herself back at Ballinalacken. Now she would concentrate on the flax garden workers. She looked across at Nuala, thinking that the girl was looking a little happier. Muiris was breathing better and now only time would tell whether he would make a recovery or would die. The third possibility, that this hard-working, ambitious farmer would be nothing but a living vegetable for the rest of his life was one that she preferred not to consider.

  ‘How long ago was the blow struck, Nuala?’ she asked in an undertone. ‘Would you have any idea?’

  ‘A couple of hours, perhaps,’ said Nuala doubtfully. ‘Not less, I would think. Look how the blood has clotted and turned black in colour.’

  Mara nodded. A few hours would make sense. Even longer perhaps. Muiris had been missing from his house from morning. The quarry would have been an obvious place for him to visit if he had plans to expand the business, build more sheds, take on more workers. Perhaps he had even planned to purchase the land outright from O’Brien of Arra. Muiris was a man whose ambition was limitless. He and Áine would have discussed their plans thoroughly, and they would have costed everything.

  Áine was wonderfully brave. She uttered no exclamations, no cries, shed not a tear, but helped with moving her husband on to the wide litter. Although Owney’s face was running with sweat by the time that the move had been accomplished – more from anxiety and tension than from the weight, as Muiris was a small man – Áine remained calm and practical throughout. Four men-at-arms who had returned with O’Brien of Arra straightened their backs and sighed with relief as the move was accomplished.

  ‘We’ll go down the mountain with them and hold on to the four corners of the cart, Brehon,’ the leader of the four told Mara. ‘We’ll take the strain if there are any jolts. It’s not a bad road, though.’

  ‘I’ll come with you, if you like, I’m quite strong,’ said Owney eagerly.

  ‘I think we’ll leave it to these four trained men, Owney,’ said Mara mildly. ‘I would like to talk to you, so I would prefer you to remain.’

  ‘I’ll walk down with you, Áine; try not to worry too much. He is alive and we’ll keep him alive between us,’ said Nuala, with that calm, compassionate demeanour which had made her so beloved in the kingdom of the Burren from the time that she was a child. She had always been trusted by the sick and the injured and great tales had been told by the old people of the kingdom of how her grandfather’s spirit had come back to inhabit the young girl and imbue her with his skill and knowledge.

  Now to solve the puzzle. There must be no more murders or attempted murders, said Mara to herself and aloud she said sternly to Cathal, ‘I will need to see every one of your workers immediately, Cathal. Could you please gather everyone into one of your sheds so that I can talk to them?’

  He bowed his head, touched Gobnait on the arm and started to go back up the narrow path leading to the flax garden. O’Brien of Arra gave her an uncertain look and then followed the flax master. As they went, Mara said in her clear, carrying voice, ‘Moylan, pick up that stone, be very careful with it. Avoid touching the blood and other evidence. Can you manage it?’

  Moylan, she noticed, had no problems at all with the stone. He swung it up lightly and carried it without the slightest strain. Even a woman without particular strength would have been able to handle it, would have
been able to lift it and throw it over the cliff of the quarry, down on to a man standing or sitting below.

  Moylan walked respectfully a few feet behind her and Fiona and Aidan flanked him on either side. Hugh and Shane brought up the rear. None spoke. There was a feeling of tension in the air. Seamus MacCraith was sitting on a stone just inside the gateway when they arrived at the flax garden. Mara sent Shane over to ask him to wait for the moment and she would speak to him soon when he was feeling a little better.

  It did not take Cathal long to assemble his workers in the baling shed. They stood around the walls with the children in front, clustered around the table with its candle and its blackened wick still standing in the centre of it and beside it the pen case and ink pot.

  And that was all that was on the table. The deed had disappeared. Mara looked around in bewilderment. For a moment she fumbled in her satchel, thinking that she may have put it away there without thinking, but it was not there.

  ‘Here’s the deed, Brehon, I have signed it.’ To her surprise O’Brien of Arra handed her the scroll, before taking himself off. With relief she tucked it into her satchel and then turned to the waiting men and women and nodded as he explained that he would now ride back to Ballinalacken.

  ‘Last week a man was murdered just outside of this flax garden,’ she began. ‘I questioned you all on that occasion and none knew anything. Now, once again, just outside this place, another man has been brought to near death, or to death itself. Only God himself knows what the outcome will be. I ask you all now that you will let me have any piece of information, however small, which will lead to the uncovering of this murderer. If you hold anything back, there may be another death, and this time –’ she allowed her eyes to dwell for a moment on the small faces near to her before resuming in a grave voice – ‘this time, it may be someone very near and very dear to you, someone perhaps whom the murderer fears may have seen the killing last week or the attempted killing today. I want to know whether any person was missing from their place of work during the last three hours. Most of the reasons will be innocent, of course, but we must know who had the opportunity to kill or try to kill Muiris O’Hynes.’