Eye of the Law

by Cora Harrison

  ‘You’re quite right, Fachtnan,’ said Mara enthusiastically. ‘That’s a very good example. I’ve often thought that myself. Nuala has the same way of talking, the same way of moving and even the same way of thinking as her mother had.’

  What a good Brehon that boy could make eventually if he could only pass his examinations, she thought. He had an understanding and an interest in people and this was something which could not be taught.

  ‘It’s not going to work for Iarla though,’ said Enda. ‘Both Étain and Ardal were redheaded. I vote that we stop thinking about Ardal as a possible father.’

  ‘Then it could have been anyone on Aran that Easter,’ said Moylan. ‘You could send us over there, Brehon. We’d like that. We could go around checking for fineguth, finechruth, finebés.’

  ‘I’ll think about it,’ promised Mara. ‘Now, you’d better get out your Latin exercises.’

  Was the father of Iarla to be found on Aran? she wondered as the scholars opened their books. Her mind went to the enchanting picture that Turlough had painted last night of the gorgeous redheaded girl dancing there on the hollow flagstone in front of the fire.

  ‘Visitors,’ said Aidan. He stretched himself, yawned, his hands behind his head, and then rubbed his tired eyes with ink-spattered knuckles.

  ‘Just one visitor,’ said Shane, whose seat was nearer to the window. ‘It’s a girl.’

  ‘Probably Mairéad for Enda,’ said Moylan with a smirk.

  ‘No, it’s the O’Brien girl, the eldest one,’ said Shane.

  ‘Saoirse!’ exclaimed Enda. He looked enquiringly at Mara.

  ‘What time is it?’ asked Aidan fretfully. ‘It must be time for vespers at least.’

  ‘Not yet,’ said Mara with a quick glance at the candle clock. ‘However, it is nearly three o’clock so I think we can stop now. Fachtnan, would you bring our visitor in, please. Off you go, the rest of you. Don’t pester Brigid for food before she is ready for you.’

  ‘We can have a game of hurling.’ Aidan sprang to his feet with all signs of fatigue rapidly vanishing.

  Saoirse came in timidly. It was a pity that Mairéad was not here, thought Mara; that might have given the girl more confidence. Enda, sent by Brigid, followed on Fachtnan’s footsteps with two cups of mild ale and a plate of honey cakes. They were both well-mannered boys, easy in company, but Saoirse seemed strangely shy of them and sat with downcast eyes until they had left the room.

  ‘How are things at home with you?’ asked Mara solicitously.

  Saoirse was paler than usual and Mara noticed the bluish trace of a mark on her face below the left eye.

  ‘All right.’ Saoirse, looking up, saw Mara’s eyes on her cheekbone and then blushed heavily. ‘Nothing has happened since that night,’ she said.

  ‘Your father hit you there?’ Mara laid a light hand on the bruise and Saoirse flinched and then nodded.

  ‘That wasn’t like him,’ said Mara.

  She was astonished. Teige had always seemed such an equable, good-tempered man. Turlough, she remembered, had spoken of his cousin giving young Donal everything that he asked for.

  ‘No, it wasn’t.’ Tears welled up in Saoirse’s eyes. ‘I don’t know what got into him. He’s never like that. He doesn’t even beat the boys no matter what they do. Mother is always complaining about that.’

  ‘Perhaps he didn’t like the thought of you kissing and cuddling with a young man. Was that it, do you think? Perhaps he thinks you’re still a little girl and should be playing with your dolls.’ Mara kept her tone light.

  ‘No, it wasn’t that.’ Saoirse shook her head. She looked a little embarrassed, but then blurted out, ‘At the festival of Imbolc, Donogh Óg and I . . . well, we were hiding in the window embrasure and we were . . . well, Father just pulled the curtain away and laughed and laughed. He just kept on teasing me about Donogh Óg for days after, even though I told him that it wasn’t serious and we had been just playing about. And when we visited the O’Connor once at Ballyganner Castle, Father got up a game of hide-and-seek and he was the one that paired me off with Tomás O’Connor. Well, you know what it’s like with hide-and-seek games . . . we ended up at the top of the hot press in the kitchen. . . .’ She gave a quick giggle at the memory.

  ‘I see,’ said Mara. This was puzzling. Of course, Donogh Óg, the son of one of the wealthiest farmers on the Burren, would be a better match for Saoirse than an unknown from the Aran Islands, as would young Tomás, but on the other hand, by that hour of the night of St Patrick, everyone present, and certainly Teige, at Lemeanah Castle had known that Iarla came with a very good claim to be Ardal O’Lochlainn’s son. Why had Teige been so furious with his daughter’s dalliance with Iarla and yet so amused and easy-going about the same behaviour with Donogh Óg and the O’Connor boy?

  ‘What did he actually say?’ Words spoken in the heat of the moment were often very revealing.

  Saoirse frowned, compressing her lips. ‘He yelled at me,’ she said, tears beginning to well up into her dark eyes.

  ‘About your behaviour? He thought you were the one who led Iarla into making the attack.’ It still didn’t make sense if Teige had been happy to see her kissing and cuddling with Donogh Óg and with the young O’Connor on another occasion.

  ‘No, I don’t think so. I don’t think it was that at all.’ Saoirse’s frown deepened, her very black brows meeting on the top of her rather fleshy nose. She had quite a look of her father, thought Mara. Only youth lent her a certain beauty; Teige would be well advised to allow her to marry as soon as an offer came forward. She would be a heavy, swarthy-looking girl within a few years. ‘He shouted at me to keep away from that fellow from Aran – almost as if he disliked Iarla for some reason, as if he knew something really terrible about him. And yet . . .’

  ‘And yet he had never met him,’ finished Mara. There was no doubt that Teige’s behaviour was quite puzzling. ‘But everything is all right between you and your father now, is it?’ Mara was a little worried. She did not approve of this habit of hitting girls that some fathers indulged in. She would have a firm word with Teige if it continued to happen.

  ‘Oh, yes, Brehon,’ said Saoirse reassuringly. ‘He was very sorry that he did it. He even bought me a present of some lovely thick double-dyed red woollen cloth from Galway. He told me to make a gown for myself out of it.’

  ‘That’s good.’

  Mara waited. Saoirse had not ridden over in order to tell her this. And it probably wasn’t to see any of the boys either. Moylan and Aidan were too young for her; Enda was her friend Mairéad’s property; and the whole of the Burren knew about Nuala’s infatuation for Fachtnan.

  ‘It’s just that I thought you might like to know something that Iarla told me.’ Saoirse hesitated.

  ‘Yes, I would.’ Mara looked at her with interest.

  ‘It was my father that told me to come and tell you about it.’

  Saoirse was still hesitant, not worried in any way, noted Mara, but, like all the young, afraid of making a fool of herself or making too much of some words spoken casually. ‘Father was asking me what Iarla was talking to me about when we were together. He told me to tell him everything that Iarla had said.’

  She would have been frightened by her father’s unaccustomed severity and willing to spill out everything said – apart from words of love, of course, surmised Mara.

  ‘And then today when he came back from Galway and gave me the present, he said that he had been thinking about what Iarla said and he felt that I should come and see you.’

  ‘Your father was quite right,’ Mara assured her. ‘The more I know about Iarla from Aran, the easier it will be for me to solve the problem of his murder.’

  ‘It’s just that when we were dancing together, Becan, his uncle, came up to him and tapped him on the shoulder. Iarla shrugged him off; he didn’t want to go with him. So I said something like: “Go on, he wants you, he’s waiting for you. You’d better go.” And he just shook his head and said: “
Let him wait. I’m tired of him bossing me around, telling me what to do. He’s always like that. He was even bossing my mother on her deathbed.”’

  ‘And that was all?’ asked Mara, looking keenly at the girl.

  ‘No, that wasn’t all. You see it’s difficult to remember exactly because he was drunk and he’d say something and it wouldn’t make sense and then he would finish saying it later on . . . But, anyway, I got the feeling that he was furious with Becan because he felt that Becan was keeping a secret from him and that he was the one that persuaded Iarla’s mother not to tell him the truth.’

  ‘Not to tell him the truth about Ardal O’Lochlainn being Iarla’s father?’

  ‘No, it wasn’t that. I asked about that and he just laughed. I thought,’ said Saoirse, a shrewd expression on her plump face, ‘that he didn’t really believe, himself, that he was the son of the O’Lochlainn. But then he was very drunk.’

  All the more reason for him to tell the truth, thought Mara. As Enda was prone to declaring in a superior manner to the younger boys: ‘in vino veritas’.

  ‘Thank you very much for taking the trouble to come to see me and tell me all of this, Saoirse,’ she said aloud. ‘Would you like me to get one of the boys to escort you back to Lemeanah?’

  Saoirse cast a regretful glance at Enda and Fachtnan vigorously battling on the hurling field, but then shook her head.

  ‘No, I’ll be all right, Brehon. It won’t take me long. My pony is a very fast one.’

  She climbed up on the mounting block, vaulted on to the back of the sleek pony and clattered off down the road at a smart pace. It was only when she had rounded the corner leading to Kilcorney that something just came into Mara’s head. What was it that one of the scholars had remarked when telling her about Mairéad’s dramatic rescue of Saoirse? And then he went off and got himself another girl.

  Who was that other girl? She had a fair idea, but she went over to the edge of the field and called the hurlers so that she could verify her suspicions. How lucky, she thought, as she crossed back the courtyard towards the kitchen house, that on the impulse of the moment, she had ordered those purple baskets from Dalagh the basket maker.

  ‘Now, Brigid, don’t make a fuss,’ she said, peering around the door of the kitchen house. ‘I’m just going for a very quiet slow walk down the road towards Kilcorney. It will do me good; fresh air and moderate exercise are both important when a dog is having puppies and I’m sure that the same thing applies to humans.’

  Brigid looked at her suspiciously. ‘Just a walk?’

  ‘Just a walk,’ repeated Mara. ‘I’ll drop into the basket maker’s cottage and enquire about my lily baskets, have a little rest and then walk back again just in time for supper. The king won’t be coming tonight; he’ll be in Thomond so I’ll just have a light supper and an early bedtime.’

  ‘Well, I suppose that can’t do you too much harm,’ said Brigid grudgingly. ‘Should someone go with you? What about Seán?’

  ‘Brigid, I have another four months to go before this baby is born,’ said Mara in exasperated tones. ‘I can’t wrap myself in sheeps’ wool and sit by the fire for all of that time. I must lead a normal life.’ With that she marched out of the kitchen house. Between Turlough and Brigid she felt like a stalled cow.

  ‘These look lovely, just the right size and shape,’ said Mara with genuine admiration, looking at the four baskets that were already made. ‘Do you think that I could possibly take these with me? I’m longing to start planting my lilies in them.’ She picked up two of the baskets, stacked them together and made a show of slightly sticking out her stomach as one who is bearing too heavy a load.

  ‘No, no, Brehon, one of the boys will carry them for you. Wait a minute and I’ll see if one of them has just finished a task.’ The basket maker’s wife looked horrified, got up and glanced hurriedly out of the open door. Mara came and stood behind her. All boys were busy cutting rods.

  ‘Could Orlaith come with me?’ asked Mara. ‘Would that be all right, Orlaith?’

  By a piece of good luck, Orlaith had just been finishing off the fourth basket when Mara arrived at the door. She looked up now at her mother with an expression of hope on her small-featured face. These children probably led a life of such unremitting toil that even a walk along the road was a treat for them.

  ‘Yes, of course she will. Give them all to her, Brehon. They’ll be nothing to Orlaith. You help the Brehon with her lilies, Orlaith, and then you can come back when she has no further use for you.’

  And then Orlaith was out the door and walking demurely by Mara’s side with no questions asked, no worries, no apprehension on the part of daughter or parents. There is a lot to be said for doing things in a tactful way, thought Mara, feeling rather pleased with herself. If she had followed Brigid’s advice, or her father’s practice, and sent for Orlaith, no doubt both parents would have been counselling her to say nothing, not to interfere in other people’s business and would have given her a hoard of instructions which would probably have resulted in a silence from the girl.

  ‘That was fun at Lemeanah on St Patrick’s Day, wasn’t it?’ said Mara chattily as they turned out of the gate and began to walk along the little lane.

  Orlaith didn’t reply. She was gazing apprehensively over her shoulder. Mara quickly followed her gaze. Orlaith wasn’t looking at the sally garden; that was in the opposite direction and they had not come to it yet; she was gazing back towards Balor’s Cave. The air was full of harsh cawing noises. Great tattered crowds of ravens circled and swooped and then rose again into the air. Mara frowned with puzzlement. What could be there to catch the attention of the birds? She stopped and stood very still looking back. Orlaith took a few steps forward and then she, also, stopped, resting the baskets on the stone wall. The day was breezy and the sudden squalls of wind blew the ravens, scattering them, and then subsiding and allowing them to coalesce again in one black, untidy mass.

  ‘What’s attracting the birds, Dalagh?’ called Mara, seeing that he and his sons had stopped work and were looking at her.

  ‘Just the wind exciting them, Brehon,’ he called back. ‘There’s nothing there for them. They just get wound up when the weather is stormy.’

  Mara raised a hand to show that she understood. The wind was getting up to gale force, bending the bare branches of the trees and almost blowing her off balance. The sooner she and Orlaith got to the sheltered garden of Cahermacnaghten the quicker she would be able to talk to the girl. No conversation could be heard in this wind.

  Once they got out on the Green Valley road, though, the wind did not seem so strong. Mara admired the baskets again, getting Orlaith to explain how they were made and praising the workmanship. And then she turned the conversation.

  ‘I thought that you were very upset about the death of Iarla from Aran when I was in your house the other day. Did you know him well?’ she asked, looking solicitously into the girl’s face.

  ‘No!’ Orlaith’s exclamation sounded startled and almost frightened.

  ‘You see,’ went on Mara, ‘I am anxious to hear anything he said that night, no matter how trivial it might seem. It’s not right that someone should come here as a stranger for a night of fun on St Patrick’s Day and end up dead three days later. I’ve talked to Saoirse O’Brien and she told me what he said to her and then someone told me that Iarla had danced with you, also. Don’t worry,’ she finished hastily as she saw the girl glance anxiously over her shoulder, ‘anything you say to me will be private. I won’t tell your parents.’

  ‘He didn’t say much; we just danced.’ Orlaith’s eyes were cautious. ‘Don’t tell my father. He and my mother and the younger ones had gone home; I was going to stay the night with my aunt. She’s the cook at Lemeanah.’

  ‘Saoirse spoke of a secret,’ said Mara. ‘She said that Becan, Iarla’s uncle, was keeping a secret from him. Did he speak of Becan at all to you?’

  Orlaith stopped in the middle of the road. She looked at Mara solemnly
, almost appraisingly.

  Mara stayed very still, looking back. ‘Trust me,’ she said quietly. ‘I won’t let you down.’

  ‘He did mention him,’ admitted Orlaith. ‘It was just when he saw Becan drinking some uisce beatha, he said: “I hope he doesn’t take too much of that stuff and start spilling secrets. Else we might both end up in the ditch with our throats cut.” That was all he said and I don’t think that he meant to say it – he had been drinking a lot too. The next minute he was just joking and laughing and teasing me.’

  ‘End up in the ditch with our throats cut.’ Mara repeated the words and then she turned swiftly, saying over her shoulder, ‘You carry on, Orlaith. Take the baskets to Cahermacnaghten. You can give them to Brigid, she’ll know what to do with them. I must go back. There’s something that I must see. Don’t worry; I’ll say nothing to your parents about you and Iarla.’

  There was a song that Mara’s father used to sing. She had forgotten most of it. Stanza by stanza, it went through all of the birds and described their sweet singing, but each verse ended with the ominous words: But the raven, the black raven, he sings of naught but death.

  Nine

  Bretha Comaithchesa

  (Judgements of Neighbourhoods)

  A man who preserves the carcass of a dead animal from the depredations of ravens and grey crows is entitled to one quarter of its value. Even though it is the property of another man, his action will have saved the skin and sometimes the meat of the animal.

  Becan was there. Lying in almost the very same spot as his nephew. Stretched out on the damp, pale-brown clay in front of Balor’s Cave. Once again the upturned roots of the willow half concealed the body, but this time the ravens had been bolder. Becan’s face was covered with peck marks where pieces of flesh had been gouged out by sharp beaks. One eye had been removed by the ravens, but only one; the other had been dug out with a sharp knife.