‘We’ll take the two bodies on the ferry,’ continued Ardal. ‘That’s the largest boat.’
‘No,’ said Turlough stubbornly. ‘I want to go. You’re welcome to come too, Ardal, if that’s the way that you want it. But I must go myself.’
He glared around as if expecting opposition and then gave a slight start when Mara said firmly, ‘You’re quite right, my lord, you should go yourself. This is an important matter.’ She looked carefully at the two men and then said mildly, ‘On the other hand, Ardal, I don’t think that you should go. You’ve been too connected with this matter. Too many accusations have been made against you. For you to arrive at Aran with two dead bodies, one of a man who claimed to be your son, and the other of a man who accused you of the murder of that man – well, that would be bound to inflame tempers.’ She held up one hand solemnly – although he had said nothing – and continued. ‘No, Ardal. You must not go. It is right and fitting that the king go and it is right and fitting that I, as King’s Brehon and his representative of all matters concerning law and order, here in the Burren, should go.’
Turlough’s craggy face broke into a smile while Ardal looked uncertain and Liam horrified.
‘But, Brehon . . .’ he said, breaking into the conversation and then abruptly ceasing, having decided, no doubt, that it was not his place to interfere.
‘There will be no problems,’ said Mara firmly. ‘I have taken advice about the weather and I have heard from a very reliable source . . .’ Here her eyes slid across the courtyard to where Cumhal had just emerged from the cool cabin with a haunch of venison in his hand. ‘From an extremely reliable source,’ she repeated, ‘that it is promised fine with very little wind for the next few days. The king and I will make the crossing tomorrow morning with the two bodies and his men-at-arms and we will spend the following night on the island and return on Thursday.’
‘Are you sure?’ asked Turlough quietly.
‘Of course I am sure.’ Mara nodded happily. ‘I will enjoy seeing the island again. I’m feeling so well these days,’ she went on. ‘I’m full of energy and I will enjoy a day out. This visit is overdue. The islanders should meet your new wife as soon as possible.’
‘It wouldn’t be wiser to postpone your visit until after the birth?’
Ardal put the question with such deference and such genuine concern on his handsome face that Mara could not feel offended.
‘You forget,’ she said quietly, ‘that I am Brehon of Aran as much as Brehon of the Burren. I owe them my presence now at this time. The king and I must go.’
‘I wish there was something that I could do.’
There was a regretful look in his blue eyes and Mara took pity on him.
‘There is much that you can do,’ she said immediately. ‘We will leave all arrangements for the bodies in your hands and there is also another matter. We have no accommodation here at Cahermacnaghten for the men-at-arms and the night will probably be frosty. If you could take them back to Lissylisheen and put them up for the night in your hall or guardroom then we will be very grateful to you.’
‘If you’re sure that it is no trouble, Ardal.’ Turlough bestowed a warm smile on Ardal who responded immediately with his usual courtesy.
‘It will be a pleasure, my lord. And you can rely on me to make all arrangements. I will send a messenger to Doolin to the ferryman and ask him to have another boat ready for the coffins.’
Mara did not argue. She did not believe the old superstition that it was bad luck to travel across the sea with a dead man, but this would mean that there was plenty of room on board the ferry.
She joined her thanks to Turlough’s and watched Ardal leave, while looking speculatively at her six scholars still clustered around the men-at-arms. Enda had persuaded one to lend him a sword and he was gracefully fighting his own shadow on the whitewashed wall of the enclosure. Shane was holding a shield almost as big as himself and Aidan was running his finger along the blade of the battleaxe slung across the back of a brawny soldier. Turlough followed the direction of her eyes with an amused, indulgent look.
‘I suppose you want those boys of yours to come too.’ He heaved an exaggerated sigh, but she was not deceived. Turlough loved a crowd and he had fun with her scholars.
‘I think it would be good for their legal training, if you have no objection, my lord,’ she said demurely.
‘Oh, well, if it’s a question of their legal training . . .’ Turlough’s light-green eyes were amused. He raised his voice in a bellow that would have done credit to any battlefield.
‘Boys, come over here.’
They came instantly. None looked alarmed. They knew him well.
‘My lord.’ Enda had handed back the sword and crossed the courtyard in the blink of an eye.
‘The Brehon thinks that it is essential for your legal training to cross over to Aran tomorrow. Do you think she’s right? Surely you’d be better off staying here and studying your books – isn’t that right?’
Enda bowed low. ‘My lord, Fithail says “to walk a land is to know that land”.’
Turlough tried to keep a serious face, but the tips of his warlike moustache twitched. Mara cast a sceptical eye in Enda’s direction. Personally she had not heard of that particular saying of Fithail, though the sage had been a very prolific hander-out of pithy axioms a few hundred years previously.
‘Well, in that case,’ said Turlough eventually, ‘since Fithail advises that, perhaps we will take you all.’
‘Thank you, my lord.’ The young voices tumbled over each other.
‘And thank you, Brehon,’ said Fachtnan.
‘Let’s go and tell Brigid,’ suggested Hugh. ‘Shall I ask her to get ready some baskets of food for us for tomorrow, Brehon?’
‘That’s a good idea,’ said Mara approvingly.
There was an inn at Doolin but it probably served more liquid than solid refreshments. The boys would have keen appetites with the sea breeze and Brigid’s food would fill the empty stomachs until they found their night’s lodgings.
‘Let’s hope that they’re not all seasick,’ said Turlough with pretend gloom as the boys ran off towards the kitchen house.
‘No one is seasick if they believe they won’t be,’ said Mara in absent-minded tones. She was thinking about the island people. There had been a secret and unlawful killing there about six years ago, and the O’Brien, a distant relative of Turlough’s, had come to seek her assistance. A body had been washed up on the rocks; an islander and the man had been one of his own workers. No one had admitted to the crime. She had gone across and had done her best to solve the mystery, but she had been met with a blank wall of silence. Neighbour had stood by neighbour; nothing was divulged and nothing could be proved. She had not been summoned since, though it was against reason to suppose that there had been no crimes. It seemed as if the people of the eastern island, the smallest of the Aran Islands, felt able to deal with their own crimes, or else the O’Brien ruled them with fear of his vengeance.
‘Turlough,’ she said hesitantly, ‘were you thinking of staying with the O’Brien of Aran?’
‘Yes, of course,’ he said readily. ‘The man owes me cuid oiche. I haven’t been there for over a year.’
Mara nodded reluctantly. Cuid oiche, a night’s lodging, was owed by all clients to their overlord. Turlough was scrupulously careful to exact this, not from any meanness, or desire to save his silver, but because this was one of the lynchpins in the relationship that a king had with his most noble subjects. A feast would be held, harpers and bards would attend, and entertain the guests, the talk would go on late into the night and relationships would be cemented. It was, she supposed, inevitable that Turlough should stay with his distant cousin. Aran was a poor place and the inn would find it hard to provide more than one bedroom for guests. The O’Brien tower house would be more suitable. And, of course, her boys would thoroughly enjoy the experience – the feasting, the singing, the telling of tales, the wit and boasting. This was what thrilled
adolescent boys. She listened to their excited voices fondly and then thought of another young person on the Burren.
‘Turlough,’ she said thoughtfully, ‘do you think that I should take a physician with me?’
Ardal would have found this alarming, but Turlough, who knew her well, just grinned. ‘You want to take Nuala as well, I suppose,’ he said in tones that he tried to make sound resigned.
‘I thought it might be prudent. Do you want to go over to the Brehon’s house now and I’ll follow you over after a few minutes.’ Mara didn’t wait for an answer, but went across the yard and beckoned her farm manager.
‘Cumhal, could Seán or one of the other men take a note over to Caherconnell?’
‘Seán can go, Brehon,’ said Cumhal firmly.
Seán was presently carrying a basket-load of turf into the kitchen house, dropping some on the path and, judging from the high-pitched scolding way that Brigid had just shouted his name, Seán was also dropping the sods on the freshly washed kitchen-house floor.
‘I’ll just write the note, then.’ Mara repressed a smile.
I really must try to get someone else to help Cumhal, she thought. Seán is just so useless; he’s more trouble than he is worth to poor Cumhal. He would have to be retained, of course; his father and his grandfather before him had been employed at Cahermacnaghten. However, perhaps one of the sons of Daniel O’Connor, an ocaire, of Caheridoola on the High Burren, would be old enough now to be employed as extra help. She would see about this as soon as she came back from Aran. She went into the schoolhouse and took down a piece of vellum, a horn of ink and a pen from the shelf of the press.
Cousin Malachy, she wrote in her square italic hand, ‘I have to take a journey to Aran with my lord, King Turlough. He feels it would be best if I were to be accompanied by Nuala in case I need any attention on the journey and while at the island.
I would be grateful if she could be here at Cahermacnaghten shortly after sunrise.
Your affectionate cousin,
Mara, Brehon of the Burren.
That should do it, she thought. It doesn’t really give him any option of refusing. After all, who could refuse a king’s desire? Not even Caireen with her dislike of Nuala could interfere in this. She rolled up the scroll and went out in high good humour. Seán was taking the cob out of the stables, Brigid was shouting merrily in the kitchen and the boys were responding with guffaws of raucous laughter. Cumhal was smiling to himself as he dipped his bristle brush into a pot of limewash and began the spring work of whitewashing the schoolhouse. He was a quick, neat worker and Mara knew that by the time she came back from Aran each of the five buildings, the schoolhouse, the scholars’ house, the kitchen house, the guesthouse and his own house, as well as all of the small cabins, would be shining an immaculate white.
‘Don’t stop, Cumhal,’ Mara said hastily as she saw him about to put down his brush. ‘I’ll talk while you paint.’ She waited until he resumed his even strokes of the brush before continuing. ‘It was just that I was thinking that perhaps Seán could drive myself and the six scholars, and young Nuala, to Doolin shortly after sunrise tomorrow morning.
‘The king, and the men-at-arms, will have their horses, of course, and these will take up most of the space in the hold of the ferryboat and I don’t want to leave my mare and the boys’ ponies at Doolin.’ She didn’t bother informing Cumhal that she was going to Aran. He would know that already. He would have overheard everything that passed between Ardal, Turlough and herself, though, like a good servant, he would have not appeared to hear.
‘I’d prefer to drive you myself, Brehon,’ he said respectfully but firmly.
‘Whatever you think best, Cumhal,’ said Mara meekly. ‘Could you tell Brigid that I am going over to the Brehon’s house now? There’s no hurry about supper for the king. She can serve it whenever it suits her.’ She would avoid Brigid for the moment, she decided. The surprise announcement that she was going on the sea journey to Aran had momentarily robbed Brigid of speech, but, no doubt, by now she would have recovered. ‘King Turlough and I have matters to discuss,’ she ended grandly, though at the moment her plan was to lie on her bed for a half an hour or so and recover her energies enough to enjoy her meal with Turlough.
‘What are we going to tell the people of Aran?’ asked Turlough, draining his wine and leaning back in his splendid chair. He replaced her precious Venetian glass on the white linen cloth with a slight bang to give his words emphasis.
Mara cast a quick, worried glance at him. Turlough was the soul of honour and he hated the feeling that there would be resentment in Aran, that there would be a feeling that they, his island subjects, were of less importance than the people of Burren, Corcomroe and Thomond.
‘Here comes the venison.’ Mara found that her sense of smell was much stronger since her pregnancy. Turlough turned towards the door with an air of anticipation and then the kitchen door opened and the quick, light footsteps of Brigid came down the passageway followed by the heavier tread of Cumhal.
‘Well, Brigid, a man would die for a meal like that,’ he said enthusiastically, eyeing the slices of venison, crusty on the outside and pink on the inside. Cumhal had two dishes of roasted roots and Turlough made the appreciative noises of a man who had been starving for days.
Mara waited patiently while Brigid heaped up both platters and placed an extra dollop of a cream sauce on hers. Even after Cumhal and Brigid had left the room, she delayed answering until Turlough had almost emptied his plate. She poured herself a very small amount of extra wine into her glass and then passed him the rest of her food.
‘You eat this. I don’t want to get too fat,’ she said. And then while his mouth was full, she said quietly, ‘I don’t think you should say anything. I think we should let the two funerals take place, show the utmost respect during them, have your men-at-arms line the roadway to the graveyard, both of us will attend, walking behind the mourners and then we will ask your relation to call a meeting and I will speak to the people. You say nothing; I will say it all for you.’
Twelve
Críth Gablach
(Ranks in Society)
A king has many clients. These clients hold the land for the king and swear:
to pay rent and tribute to their overlord,
to escort him in public assemblies, to offer hospitality to the king and his household,
to bring his own warriors to each slógad and, in the last hour of the king, to assist in digging the grave mound and to contribute to the death feast.
Cumhal had been right with his weather forecast, thought Mara happily. The sun rose steadily from an azure sky on that Wednesday morning. There was a very slight wind, more a current of air than the usual winds so common here on the western Atlantic coast and the grey-blue smoke from the chimney of the kitchen house drifted gently like a plume from a helmet. Despite the light wind, the air was still crisp with the overnight frost still silvering the new blades of grass.
‘Here come my men,’ said Turlough, joining her at the gate to the law school. His ear was acute; it was only after he had spoken that she heard the clatter of horse hoofs.
‘Have you had breakfast?’ she asked when they arrived and dismounted hastily, bowing to the king and to her.
‘Yes, Brehon,’ said the leader respectfully. ‘The O’Lochlainn gave us a fine breakfast.’
‘Poor Ardal, he would have liked to come. I’d say that he is very disappointed,’ said Turlough, turning to walk by Mara’s side as she made her way towards the kitchen house. ‘He was telling Teige how much he would have liked to come. Liam told me that.’
The scholars were up early, dressed in snowy-white léinte, well-brushed cloaks, each fastened at the neck with a brooch and boots polished to high shine.
‘I wouldn’t eat all that breakfast, if I were you,’ said Turlough, surveying them with a look of mock ferocity. ‘I don’t want to see bowlfuls of porridge and honey and slices of dried apple being vomited over the railings at s
ome stage during the next few hours.’
‘None of my scholars will be seasick,’ said Mara serenely. ‘It is forbidden to any scholar from Cahermacnaghten to suffer from this silly sensation.’
‘I suppose I was about the age of young Moylan when I first went to Aran. Teige and I went over together,’ said Turlough, smiling at the memory as he and Mara strolled across the yard to where Cumhal was checking the seats of the wagon.
It was not often used, but every autumn Cumhal painted it with a dark-red lead paint and now it gleamed in the early spring sunshine. Mara put her hand on it. Although it was only March, the sun had already warmed the timber.
‘I’ve put a cushion on the seat for you, Brehon. I hope it will be comfortable enough for you.’ Cumhal sounded concerned.
Mara hastened to reassure him. However, only half her mind was on the soothing phrases because the other half was busy thinking about what Turlough had said.
Ardal had been disappointed not to be able to accompany his king to Aran, but what about Teige? Why had Teige not offered to be one of the party? He, after all, was Turlough’s cousin.
‘Mara, is there anything you can tell the Aran Islanders about your investigations into these two murders?’ Turlough had waited until Cumhal had gone over to the stables and they were standing outside the gate of the law school. His voice had changed from the playful, light-hearted tones of a few minutes earlier and now there was a deep note of anxiety in it.
Mara made no reply. She stretched up and touched a small bunch of yellow catkins that swung above her head. Her touch was light but a shower of golden dust sprinkled down on to the back of her hand.
‘Brigid would say that is good luck,’ she said lightly, showing him her hand.
‘You haven’t answered my question,’ he said.
‘Only because I was thinking that a belief in good luck is a very useful thing. It can help you to sail through difficult situations when too much thought can weigh you down.’
‘I was thinking –’ Turlough eyed her tentatively – ‘Well, I was just wondering if you could say that you had someone in mind.’
Eye of the Law Page 17
