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

by Cora Harrison

  Fifteen

  Míadshlechta

  (sections on rank)

  The King’s justice is the most important thing in each kingdom. If the King is just, his reign will be peaceful and prosperous, whereas if he is guilty of injustice, the soil and the elements will rebel against him. There will be infertility of women and cattle, crop-failures, dearth of fish, defeat in battle, plagues and lightning storms throughout the land.

  And then, suddenly, it appeared as though something cracked within the immobile figure standing by the rampart, his hands bound and the rope slung around his neck. He turned his head and looked into the eyes of his King.

  ‘Spare me, Turlough,’ he pleaded. ‘I will never do such a thing again. It was just concern for my daughter. She wished so much for this match with the son of the Knight of Glin. I could not bear to deny her, to ignore her pleadings, her tears. If you pardon me this one time, then I will be your most fervent follower and most faithful servant for the rest of my life.’

  He paused and began to sob brokenly. Mara looked around at the faces on the castle roof. Not one of them showed any sign of being moved by the appeal. Most looked contemptuous. Turlough’s face looked like an effigy from the tomb of one of his ancestors – colourless, carved from limestone. There was a dead silence. Mara could hear the pulse of blood in her ears, her hands clenched and unclenched. She moved a little closer to her husband and murmured his name.

  ‘Turlough,’ she said and then when he made no response she touched his hand. ‘Turlough, you cannot do this,’ she said quietly. ‘The law does not permit the taking of the life of a clan member for any reason. The final judgement is God’s, but the law …’

  And then Turlough moved. He walked away from her and towards the edge of the rampart so that he took his place beside the condemned man.

  ‘No!’ he said loudly and vehemently, and she did not know whether he spoke to her or to Maccon MacMahon. The man turned his face away from his King in a gesture of despair and Mara could see that tears now coursed down his cheeks. She followed her husband to the rampart.

  ‘Turlough, I beg you,’ she said, but she had the feeling that her words were wasted.

  ‘Let me at least have a priest.’ Maccon’s voice was high and almost unrecognizable – its pitch shrill as that of a child in pain.

  ‘I’ve no priest for you,’ growled Turlough. ‘I’ve a basement filled with bodies of the dead and a hall of wounded men where many may still die. If there was a priest available I would not want a single word to be omitted, a single prayer from the sacred anointing to be hurried through for these loyal friends of mine, just because there is a traitor on the roof here who is afraid to face the death that his sins merit. Say a paternoster if you wish to make your peace with God. You can say nothing to me that will influence me one jot.’

  No word came from the condemned man, just a torrent of helpless sobs, so Mara stepped forward and in a steady voice recited the prayer. She was not particularly religious herself – at the one time of her life when she had thought her life was in danger, as she gave birth to Cormac, she had not even thought about a priest, or even a prayer, but now she felt that she would do anything to delay matters. Perhaps in the course of the paternoster Turlough would relent. He and the rest of the men were stony faced and pitiless in appearance, but she had noticed that Rosta the cook had suddenly left the rooftop, as though he could not bear to watch the scene.

  ‘Knight of Glin,’ shouted Turlough, his loud voice causing a flock of rooks to rise up suddenly in alarm and fly over the heads of the enemy. There was a small, brave cheer from Turlough’s men. Rooks were considered to be birds of evil omen and it boded death for those whom they overflew.

  ‘I am here,’ said the Knight of Glin, still resolutely speaking in English. He gave some order in a lower voice to the man at his elbow. There was a hurried movement towards the trebuchet and Mara saw how they bent back the sling and piled on the rocks, getting ready for the next deadly assault on the castle.

  ‘You will not murder your own countryman!’ The Knight of Glin inserted an ironical, mocking note into the English words, but the man translating rendered his words in an assertive and challenging fashion.

  ‘Turlough, you cannot do this,’ said Mara in despair.

  ‘On my head be it,’ roared Turlough

  ‘Surrender or die, Turlough O’Brien!’ called the Knight of Glin without waiting for a translation.

  ‘Knight of Glin, you and your men must start to withdraw before a minute is up or this man dies, and then you’ll see whether I am in earnest,’ shouted Turlough and without waiting for an answer he began to count slowly and loudly, his voice completely steady.

  Mara drew closer until she was standing against the stone of the merlon. There was no more that she could say to persuade Turlough; she knew that his mind was made up, but she had a feeling that this man should not die without a touch on the hand from someone who, though she hated his sin, sympathized with his plight. She reached out and squeezed Maccon’s bound hand and then noticed something down on the ground to the front of the castle, a man moving cautiously, bent double over something, something that he was carrying hugged tightly to his chest.

  With a shock she looked towards the Knight of Glin wondering whether he had seen the figure. But just now there was no indication that he had. He, and the men who stood beside him, were all looking upwards at the miserable figure with the noose around his neck. Even the men beside the trebuchet were looking in that direction as the numbers, intoned by Turlough, went on inexorably. The thirties had now all been enumerated and the forties seemed to flash past, though Turlough’s voice was measured and unhurried.

  ‘Fifty-one … fifty-two … fifty-three,’ said Turlough and Mara caught her breath.

  She wondered whether Turlough had seen that there was someone down there stealing through the marshy land – just one man, but she guessed that he carried death and destruction in his hands. There was only one reason to carry a cauldron out to a battlefield. Perhaps, after all, Turlough might be bluffing, might have sent a man on a mission and was keeping all eyes averted from him.

  For a moment Mara feared that it might be Enda, but it was too small, too square a figure. And then something about the way that he moved struck her with its familiarity. The man limped slightly, she noticed, and she realized that it was Rosta, the cook.

  For a couple of seconds Mara had lost sight of Rosta, but now she saw him again and he had broken into a trot, still carrying his dangerous burden. Both hands were needed to carry the enormous iron cauldron, filled to the brim with something liquid, something black – tar, as she had guessed. He had no throwing spear with him, though, and she could not see a glint of knives at his waist.

  Turlough, also, Mara guessed, was watching Rosta, watching him intently. The last five numbers came out slowly and singly. No one on the ground had seen him, not one of the Knight of Glin’s men had spotted him, no one realized what he was doing. But what was he doing? He could not get near enough to harm the boats, they were all moored out on the river, beyond the useless chain – the men had just climbed over it and waded into the bank.

  And then Mara realized where Rosta was going. He was headed straight for the fearsome trebuchet. He limped along resolutely, carrying a weight that few men could have managed without help. A moment earlier he had seemed to stumble over one of those uneven patches of marsh, and then she had lost sight of him. When she saw him again he was going faster. He had diverted to the horse track along which Mara and her scholars had come on the day before Christmas. The ground here was solid and smooth and was enclosed by hedges. He did not look back but Mara had an impression that he was listening to the King’s words, to that measured counting away the seconds of a man’s life. Now he was within a few yards of the trebuchet, but the hedge was still between him and the attackers.

  And then he came to his destination. How he managed it, she did not know, but he had hoisted the cauldron up and then clam
bered onto the top of a large block made from an immense slab of limestone, probably placed there as convenience for the hunters of the marsh birds. He crouched, hidden from the attackers by the hedge, bending over the cauldron of tar, doing something. There was a long moment and then flames rose up from the cauldron – the black, sticky, liquid tar had been ignited and was now blazing up, shooting out orange tongues of fire.

  ‘Fifty-seven, fifty-eight, fifty-nine …’ Still the words were measured evenly, but the pace had quickened. The men on the ground had reacted to the increased urgency of Turlough’s voice. Even those loading the stones onto the trebuchet ceased their labours, turned their backs on the instrument and with heads tilted back watched the drama being enacted on the roof of the castle. This was the second time this morning that time had been counted out and Mara prayed that this was just a subterfuge and that Turlough might spare the life of Maccon MacMahon.

  ‘Sixty,’ said Turlough and he roared out the word with huge emphasis. He lifted his right arm, stared down, not looking towards Rosta, this time, but turning his head towards the Knight of Glin. He waited a long moment and then with a swift and decisive action, lowered the arm.

  And then everything happened all at once. Without a moment’s hesitation the men standing at the parapet pushed Maccon MacMahon off from the precarious perch where they had held him during all of the negotiations. The rope had been coiled, but now all of the loops unravelled quickly and Mara could see that it was an immensely long rope.

  And it was a long moment before they heard the sickening crack. Mara hoped that meant the neck of the man had been broken … Or perhaps it was the sound of his feet striking the castle wall. That noise came again and again until she felt that she could hardly bear it. She hoped fervently that he was dead, but her imagination clearly pictured MacMahon dangling there from the castle rampart, frantically kicking with his feet and slowly strangling to death.

  Everything was confused and jumbled. So much is happening! she thought. Just as the bound man with the noose around his neck had been pushed from the parapet, down below, on the small narrow road, there was another man who was lifting his mighty arms with the flaming cauldron held aloft within them. The orange light was on his face, or perhaps it was not his face, perhaps it was the hair that burst into bright flames; then the clothes were on fire, the arms still holding the burning mass. Then the man was finding that last ounce of strength to hurl the cauldron down from his height, and down from where he stood. For a moment it looked as if it would be an impossibility for any man, no matter how powerful, to bridge that gap with the weight of a blazing cauldron of tar.

  But over it went, the cauldron curving through the space in a slight arc. The men standing by the trebuchet, looking up, were frozen for an instant, then began to move, trying to run, but too late. The deadly contents, the flaming pitch, spilled out looking like scarlet syrup: syrup that was coating and burning all that it touched; burning wood and flesh and even stone.

  It took a moment to realize that there were terrible sounds as well as terrible sights. Dreadful screams, awful, ear-splitting screams. A nauseating smell of burning flesh came upwards to them on the mist-laden air. Where the trebuchet had stood, there was now a huge fire blazing up in its place. The flaming tar had coated it and the wood was burning like tinder.

  But not just the wood was burning. The liquid burning mass had splashed over the men also. Mara was tempted to stick her fingers in her ears, but stood there stoically feeling that to do so was the act of a coward, was to deny and to denigrate human suffering. The screams seemed to go on for ever. She narrowed her eyes to try to pierce the smoke, to endeavour to see if there were any humans left alive near to that terrible fire. The flames crackled and now there were no more screams. A couple of the men who had stood at a distance from the trebuchet had dived into the river to soothe their hurts, but the majority must have burned to death. The stench was terrible. The fire roared. Not just human flesh, now, but a strong smell of timber burning. Some of the limestone rocks already loaded onto the sling exploded with a noise that sounded like cannon fire.

  The party on the roof waited in dead silence. A slight ripple of a breeze was coming from the river and the smoke wavered in the current of air and then began to dissipate. Mara found herself desperately holding on to the parapet as her legs trembled beneath her. Turlough, she saw with amazement, looked quite unmoved. His head was slightly angled and she could not tell whether he was looking at the Knight of Glin or at the trebuchet and then she realized that his eyes were further over, fixed on the spot behind the hedge of the roadway. The pyre of flames had ignited the thickly interwoven twigs of blackthorn and ivy and the fire burned intensely. No man could be alive within it.

  There was now a movement from the survivors. The man standing beside the Knight of Glin had blown a shrill whistle. The unharmed men and those slightly burned scrambled for the boats, leaving behind the dead and the dying

  Poor Rosta was now undoubtedly dead, thought Mara, burning inside his pyre like a Viking in one of the old tales that she had read from the books that her father had collected.

  The boats were not allowed to depart unscathed. Throwing knives were hurled after the attackers from the small loophole windows low down in the castle and a few from the roof of the building. There were a few screams and cries of pain but the boats were now well afloat and the men of Glin seized the oars to take them away as quickly as possible from an expedition which had turned out so badly for them.

  ‘Let them take their carrion with them,’ yelled Turlough. Mara had never heard him sound so savage. For a moment she thought he meant that they should take their own dead, but after a gesture from his king, the captain of the guard had seized the rope that still dangled over the rampart. Another man sliced through it and with all his strength the captain endeavoured to hurl it towards the boat where the Knight of Glin was being pushed out into deeper water.

  The corpse fell short, of course. It fell into the river. The outgoing tide would probably take it downstream, down past the lands of Corcabascin that Maccon MacMahon had ruled over as taoiseach of his clan, past the castle of Clonderaw, his birthplace and the birthplace of his children, and then on and into the Atlantic. A Christian burial had been denied to him, but on the whole, Mara felt that, for the sake of the twins, it might be best to allow the river to take the body and its noose. It gave the possibility to allow his death to be categorized as ‘killed in action’. Shona, of course, would have to know the truth.

  ‘Come on,’ said Turlough abruptly to his captain. ‘Let’s find something to put the remains of poor Rosta in. We’ll let him burn cleanly and then bury his bones when the fire cools.’ He stopped at the door leading from the roof to the steps and then said in a broken voice: ‘Poor brave fellow. He gave his life to save us all.’

  Sixteen

  An Seanchas Mór

  (The Great Ancient Tradition)

  The King is bound by law to do justice to his meanest subject.

  A king carrying building material to his castle has only the same claim for right of way as the miller carrying material to build his mill.

  The poorest man in the land can compel payment of a debt from the King himself;

  On the Eve of the Epiphany, January 1520, Mara took her place as judge in the great hall of Bunratty Castle. She sat in the chair of state placed behind the middle point of the long table on the dais and looked around. Her husband, King Turlough Donn O’Brien, sat at the end of the table with Enda, as lawyer, sitting beside him. There were a number of people present to hear her give judgement, members of the garrison, people from the village and some of the guests that had been staying in the castle for the celebration of Turlough Donn’s twentieth anniversary of his accession to the leadership of the O’Brien clan and to the kingship of Thomond, Corcomroe and Burren.

  Mara looked around and felt wrong and out of place. She was accustomed to giving judgement in the open air and beside the ancient dolmen of Poulna
brone. Hundreds of people usually thronged into the field to hear her judgements. She was used to a crowd, used to pitching her voice to dominate wind and rain, and to reach to the furthermost corner and above all she was used to the large mass of her own people. This small audience and the indoor location in the warmth and luxury of the great hall of the castle seemed an alien environment to her at this moment. The chair, also, did not suit her. It had been the custom of Brehon MacClancy to sit there and she felt that she should follow custom for this first occasion on which she would have to give judgement at Bunratty. And yet it felt wrong, made her feel as though she were not in command but was a part of the onlookers.

  And she did not like to have a table between herself and them.

  Resolutely she rose to her feet, stepped to one side of the long table and looked down at the sparse number of people scattered throughout the hall, and greeted them in a voice which she strove to make sound normal and unaffected by any doubts.

  ‘There have been many deaths here at Bunratty during the last week,’ she said, pitching her voice to the end of the hall, but making sure that it did not ring out in its usual carrying tones. Shona had undertaken to keep the twins out of the way, but Mara was conscious of the various entrances and exits of this hall and did not wish her voice to carry beyond it. ‘Most,’ she continued, ‘were by the act of war and could not be helped. The community here at Bunratty was attacked and it had to defend itself. The law permits this; warfare between clans and divisions has, unfortunately, always been a part of our history. And, on this occasion, I can verify that the amount of violence used was in accordance with necessity.’

  Mara paused and looked around. There was a slight stir of interest at her words. They were unexpected and not according to the usual protocol of judgement days at Bunratty.

  ‘However, a murder of a member of the clan or the kingdom is a different matter,’ she continued. ‘The first case that I have to deal with is the secret and unlawful killing of the Brehon of Thomond, Brehon Tomás MacClancy. Brehon MacClancy was killed soon after midnight while sitting at a table at the end of this hall during the festivities of Christmas Night. He was not taking part in the dancing, but was drinking fairly heavily and was possibly fast asleep – certainly he was lying sprawled across the table when the blow was struck. He was killed by means of a knife which lodged in his back, just below the shoulder blade.’