Verdict of the Court: A mystery set in sixteenth-century Ireland (A Burren Mystery)

by Cora Harrison

  Shona looked apprehensive and guilty when she followed Enda down the stairs, but Mara smiled at her reassuringly. ‘I’d like to get those youngsters back indoors, Shona, and I wonder could I rely on you to keep an eye on them once we get them there,’ she confided and saw the girl look a little more relaxed. She cast a quick glance back up at the landing where the man guarding her father paced up and down impatiently and then looked at Enda.

  ‘Let’s go,’ he said in a confident way and took the girl’s hand.

  The drawbridge was still down and the three of them crossed over it, Enda leading the way through the village street and down towards the marshland, close to the riverbank.

  ‘They could be anywhere, but it’s most likely that they went to the cannon so we’ll try this first,’ she told him, taking pleasure in the feeling that she could rely on one of her senior scholars once again. Domhnall was very promising, very well behaved and she could see a good future in front of him, but he lacked the sparkle and the sheer brain power of Enda, and the maturity – he was after all only thirteen years old – of Fachtnan who had been at her law school for so long. Mara missed Fachtnan, but it was good to have Enda at her side.

  ‘The cannon is over here, just beyond the moat,’ said Enda as they approached the bridge.

  ‘How did they get past the guard on the gate?’ Mara felt annoyed. How could any man have permitted these – these children – to leave the castle grounds when a state of high alert had swung into place? There were no guards there now – all of the men seemed to be down by the river’s edge.

  ‘Perhaps they got out by the passage way from the main guard hall – it goes under the moat and out by a bank,’ said Enda. ‘There’s a big willow bush beside it and no intruder could ever guess what is hidden.’

  ‘That will be it.’ Mara’s annoyance turned on herself. She had seen the rope and had seen the exit. She should have followed it through. But at that stage the possibility of an invasion had seemed to be more unlikely. Now, she knew that the enemy had already arrived. She quickened her step to keep up with Enda’s long legs, thoughts running through her head. There had been talk of erecting a chain across the river, she remembered. Cormac was very attached to Rosta and she hoped that he had not joined the cook on this probably fruitless effort. The enemy had arrived too quickly and there could be grave danger involved for those struggling to put a chain across the width of the river.

  The children by the barrel were filthy, their clothes and skin were covered in wet mud, their skin was smirched with it, their fingernails were filled with it and their faces bore a look of desperation. They flicked glances at Mara, Shona and Enda without saying anything, but kept working steadily, trying desperately to scoop the wet mud from out of the touch hole and from out of the barrel of the slender cannon.

  ‘It’s no good,’ said Enda, looking down into the muzzle of the cannon. ‘It will never be dry enough to fire. Don’t worry,’ he added as the twins looked up at him with mute despair.

  But the MacMahon twins did worry, thought Mara, feeling intensely sorry for the two. Cian’s eyes had filled with tears and Cael swallowed hard. Shona’s attempt at an embrace was elbowed away as the twins returned to their work. Perhaps it wasn’t a bad thing to take the consequences for your actions. However, the place was too dangerous. Afterwards, if there was an afterwards, if there was a good ending to this tense day, then Mara decided that she would encourage them to try to undo what havoc they had wreaked. She watched them for a moment, admiring their tenacity. And then she realized that two of her scholars were missing.

  ‘Where are Domhnall and Slevin?’ she asked sharply.

  ‘They’ve gone to tell the King that we can’t get it clean,’ said Art while Cormac muttered furiously and went on scooping at the wet mud.

  ‘Leave it, Cormac,’ commanded Mara. ‘Don’t worry; the King will manage without the cannon.’ She endeavoured to make her voice sound resolute.

  ‘You’re just so stupid, you two,’ muttered Cormac, taking no notice of his mother. ‘What did you do a brainless thing like this for?’

  ‘And you’re brainless,’ retorted Cian. ‘We keep telling you. We were forced on pain of death to do the deed.’

  ‘Pain of death,’ snorted Cormac. ‘You were afraid that you would get a slap; that’s what scared you.’

  ‘We were fighting on the opposite side, then, birdbrain,’ said Cael, disdaining the refuge of coercion.

  ‘Well, you shouldn’t have been,’ retorted Cormac. ‘You deserve to be hanged from the battlements for your treachery.’

  ‘So what!’ sneered Cael with a shrug. ‘Who cares about hanging?’ She deliberately wiped her muddy hands on Cormac’s cloak, which had been discarded on one of the bushes and then turned back to him with insolent grin pinned to her muddy face. ‘So, what are you doing, hanging around here? Shouldn’t you be fighting shoulder to shoulder with your marvellous father, the King?’

  ‘Stop it,’ said Mara firmly with one hand gripping Cormac’s shoulder. ‘None of you is to speak to each other for the next five minutes.’ She looked sternly at the twins and dared them to say anything. ‘Now go back immediately to the castle and stay with Shona until I come.’ Then she had an inspiration and said: ‘As soon as you are clean then go into the kitchen and make a cold meal for the King and his men when they come back from the river. Spread the food out on the table in the great hall and make sure that it is something that they can eat quickly and easily. Nothing hot – just bread rolls filled with meat – anything like that.’

  They went off sulkily, but without further complaint. Enda walked with Cormac and she could see Cormac’s face turned up towards him. Mara guessed that Cormac rather liked the prospect of providing food for the soldiers and hoped that he would forget the jeer. She made her way towards the edge of the river. From time to time, she glanced hastily over her shoulder wondering whether she was being followed. She was half-sorry that she had sent Enda back to the castle. She would have welcomed his presence and try as she would to shrug the memory aside, there was no doubt that someone had tried to kill her this morning. Her head still ached from the blow and her legs and arms felt heavy and weary.

  It was not, she thought, an easy thing to feel that someone wanted to kill you. If she could put a face to the hand that had struck her down and locked her out to drown in the river, then she could have faced up to the person boldly.

  But it was a hard thing to look at the faces around her and to try to distinguish the murderer from amongst the friends and relations of Turlough.

  Thirteen

  Brehon law treats all crimes as wrongs for which the law will prescribe compensation in the form of damages. The law is not primarily used to deter would-be wrongdoers or to reform such wrongdoers. The victim of the crime is the first consideration for each Brehon.

  A Brehon has no role to play in crimes against society as such; only injuries done by individuals to other individuals.

  Mara had to force herself to approach the riverbank. The fog was so thick that she did not even see the boathouse and it was only when she was within yards of the Shannon that she could see the entire garrison were collected here. It was a strange scene. The fog hung in wisps around the figures and no one spoke. The hush was eerie – so much activity and all of it carried out in almost complete silence. Some men were pacing up and down, some were standing knee-deep in the water holding a length of chain in their hands, others had climbed the sparse willows that grew on the bank and perched there like birds looking out towards the river and the incoming tide. The men in the water moved with such care that the slushing sound they made could almost be that of the incoming tide. Turlough was surrounded by a group with swords in their hands. She was thankful to see that he was dressed in his leather tunic now and that it had a piece of metal sewn over the vulnerable area in front of the heart.

  Mara did not approach him. Now was not the time to trouble him. The reliance of his men on his whispered orders and nods was
complete and she did not want to disturb his concentration in any way. He would immediately want her to return to the safety of the castle and that she thought was probably the sensible thing to do. There was nothing that she could contribute. She had never been involved in any warlike proceedings before.

  And yet she felt that she wanted to stay. Turlough and she led lives that were so apart for large portions of the year that they had got into the habit of being very involved with each other once they were together. And this was the first time that she had shared this warlike, dangerous part of his existence as a king of imperilled territories. She watched him as he moved about. Such a big, noisy man – she had never seen him move so quietly and speak so low. Her heart went out in love towards him and she wished that she could help but had the sense to know that, just now, she could only hinder.

  Everything, she gathered, was centred on the manoeuvre with the chain. It must be immensely long because the men carrying it were already three-quarters of the way right across the inlet and there appeared to be almost the same length again being unwound by the men on the bank. They had talked of a boat when Rosta brought up the idea, but no boat could have been as noiseless as these men.

  Rosta himself was standing on the side of the bank, propping himself up with the aid of a severely pollarded willow stump. Mara spared a moment of compassion for him. He had been, according to Turlough, one of the best and bravest of his fighters. Was he content now with his frying pans and his fish kettles, or did he yearn for the old days of the sword and the throwing spears? The latter, she thought watching the tautness of his figure and the way he turned towards the fighting men.

  Still that was none of her business; her responsibility was towards her young scholars and she was glad to see Enda approach and nod in a reassuring way as soon as he glimpsed her.

  ‘I’ve left them with Shona – she’s promised to teach them how to bind up wounds,’ said Enda in her ear. ‘Don’t worry. They’ve all promised not to leave the castle without permission.’

  ‘Have you seen any sign of the other two, Enda?’ Mara whispered back and then, almost as soon as the words left her mouth, she saw them. Domhnall had approached Turlough, and Slevin was just behind him. Mara moved nearer, treading cautiously and finding a safe resting place for each foot before she moved the other forward to join it. The ground was uneven marsh land pockmarked with the tracks of cattle hoofs. She marvelled how the men could move so silently and then through the fog she heard the noise of oars once again. The sound seeped out through the fog and instantly ceased. She could almost sense how breaths were held. Turlough’s men froze into immobility. They had heard the sound as well as she. The men carrying the chain stopped abruptly. There was no doubt that this time the sound of an oar seemed to be very near. Did the enemy know how close they were? The question in Mara’s mind was suddenly answered. A slight but unmistakable series of clicks was heard.

  And then no more!

  Mara looked over her shoulder at the six-storey-high castle behind her. Surely the men would be safer behind its immensely thick stone walls. She crept a little closer to Turlough. He knows what he is doing, she told herself, but habit, the habit of being in charge, being the one who knew the best thing to do, was too strong within her. I’ll just suggest it to him, she thought, though she knew that he was a man who had been fighting battles for nearly half a century. In any case, she had to get Domhnall and Slevin away from this dangerous situation and sent them back to join the younger boys.

  And then, just when she was within a few feet of him, Turlough raised his arm, sweeping it along in a left to right gesture as a signal to the men with the chain. Once again they began the tortuously slow business of inching their way through the water, avoiding stones underfoot and carrying the chain with such immense care that not a clink was heard. The men on the side banks and the men beside Turlough at the head of the inlet seemed to move silently and Mara saw how the ones near to her put their hands to their belts and withdrew a throwing knife.

  That was the strategy and perhaps it would work, though Mara wondered why it was that Turlough’s men could do it in complete silence while that series of clicks had sounded from the boats. She could not imagine what made that sound, unless it was some new sort of throwing knife. After all, the men from the Earl of Desmond, like those from his cousin, the Earl of Kildare, would be supplied from England with the latest weapons.

  And then at the word weapon, her heart abruptly stopped its beat for a long second. She felt her hands suddenly wet as the sweat broke out all over her body. She had guessed what those clicks might be.

  Guns were a rarity in this part of Ireland but Mara knew that they had been used in the famous battle that the kingdom of Thomond had fought against the Earl of Kildare at O’Brien’s Bridge. It had been the time of Cormac’s birth and Turlough had returned in great triumph. He had captured one of the English cannons – and it had been his pride and joy and had guaranteed the safety of Bunratty Castle until sabotaged by the treachery of one of his best friends. He had also captured many hand guns – had fired one off in her garden much to the alarm of all about – it had even caused a herd of cows in the field across the road to stampede. However, noisy and effective as the guns had been in that hot June, they had proved unreliable in the wet climate and they had rusted away, unused.

  But they had made a click when loaded and ready for use.

  ‘Turlough,’ she said in a very low voice in his ear, ‘Could these clicks have been guns?’

  He showed no surprise at her presence. His whole attention was concentrated on the slow movement of the chain across the inlet. He just nodded acquiescence and then whispered back: ‘Don’t worry. In this fog, they’ll never get those things to fire. The ones that I had were useless.’

  It is nine years since Turlough captured these guns, thought Mara stepping back. In nine years something like a gun could have been improved. Perhaps it had been made more weather-proof. She was so tense that the sudden explosion of light and sound from beyond the bank of fog almost came as a relief. Yes, it must have been guns and they were firing. But could the shots reach to the men in the water?

  This time, she reckoned, the boats had managed to get quite near. There was a sudden yell, startling through all the silence that had previously held everyone whispering and moving on tiptoes. Then a heavy splash came, another scream and then another and another. The men holding the chain were right in the line of fire. Screams of agony seemed to splinter the density of the fog. Mara winced. This was warfare, something that, until now, she had only known as a story told after victory. Now every nerve in her body strained to know the fate of these men who were loyal to her husband. Their enemy was better armed – would courage and audacity serve to balance the two.

  A shower of throwing knives had answered the gunfire, but no responding cries were heard. These throwing knives, so deadly accurate when an experienced man could pin-point his enemy, were of little use thrown into the dense yellow fog.

  ‘Get back, back to the castle,’ shouted Turlough. ‘Bring the wounded.’

  Mara grabbed her two scholars by the arms. Enda had left her and was plunging recklessly in the water. The guns rang out again and she felt sickened by the answering screams from Turlough’s men. There was nothing that she could do, though. Her duty was to her two scholars and to the others, including her son, who might be tempted out of the castle.

  ‘Back!’ she shrieked and with such emphasis that Domhnall started to run and he and Slevin now appeared to be dragging her from the place of danger. In a moment they were surrounded and overtaken by men running, swords clapping uselessly by their sides, but each with a throwing knife grasped in his hand.

  ‘First forty men up on the roof – ten to each tower,’ shouted the captain. ‘Two men go to the drawbridge! The rest stay near the gate. Wounded men should be taken to the main guard hall.’

  Mara was soaked in sweat and stumbling by the time they reached the castle. There was a st
ench of smoke in the air that she had not been conscious of before and still the guns cracked out, almost stunning the ears with their explosive sound. She looked up and saw faces peering down through the murder hole above. Oil, by now, would be being heated on the fire in the kitchen; she shuddered at the injuries that it would cause when poured on the heads of intruders.

  The women and children from the small village were crowding the pathway and she was glad to see that the sturdy walls of the castle could give them refuge. They were white-faced and tense, the women drawing the children back so that they did not get in the way of the flying feet of the men-at-arms who thundered past without glancing from right to left, each determined to get a favoured place on the roof of one of the four towers.

  Once inside the castle Mara went straight to the main guard hall. Pallets of straw were piled in orderly neatness against the wall and she sent Domhnall and Slevin to pull them out and arrange them in rows. In a minute they were joined by her other scholars and by the twins and they all worked, white-faced and silent.

  ‘Fetch the physician!’ Mara felt the words almost spit from her as she saw one of the castle servants appear around the door. Why was the man not here already? Donogh O’Hickey must have a store of medicines and bandages and these would be needed soon. The screams of the wounded still rang in her ears and there would have been more since she had left the riverbank. The guns had cracked again and again; firing blind, but finding their mark since less than a hundred men had been crowded into the small space, each believing that a sword and a quiver of throwing knives would be enough to protect him.

  Only when the physician had arrived in the hall, accompanied by two servants carrying a small wooden chest, did Mara feel that she could leave the place. Donogh O’Hickey looked perfectly well, she was glad to see, and she welcomed him effusively before leaving. She did not care whether he had feigned illness previously, the important matter now was to see to the wounded men. A trestle table had been set up for him, and Shona, with the twins and the younger scholars, joined him, each of them bearing leather buckets of water and small baskets filled with strips of linen. Shona, thought Mara, had been well trained, perhaps by the Brehon’s sister. She seemed to be competent and efficient, sending Art flying for linen sheets to place over the straw pallets, and Cian to fetch some lengths of kindling wood from the kitchen to act as splints for arms and legs.