Laws in Conflict

by Cora Harrison

  However, this time she did not rebuke Fiona, even with a look. She was curious to find Henry Bodkin’s opinion of the judge’s action and looked at him expectantly.

  ‘Difficult to know what else he could do with the evidence,’ remarked Henry Bodkin, with an indulgent smile at Fiona. ‘But I grant you it was a piteous sight.’

  ‘He didn’t have to yield to pressure to hold the trial today, though, did he?’ said Mara smartly, looking an invitation to the boys to join in the discussion. ‘What do you think, Fachtnan?’ she added.

  ‘The law of God should be above the law of man,’ quoted Fachtnan. ‘I think he showed no mercy to Walter. How could he have done that to his own son?’

  ‘You forget Abraham who was willing to sacrifice his son, Isaac,’ said Henry, pulling his beard with an amused smile.

  ‘Abraham! I should hope we are a little more civilized than that these days,’ said Fiona disgustedly. ‘At least we Brehon lawyers are,’ she added with a challenging look.

  ‘Your lawyers are civilized, yes,’ said Henry, with a courteous half-bow to Mara, ‘but can a society be civilized if it allows thieves and murderers to walk free after the payment of a fine?’ His eyes were amused as he watched Fiona’s indignant face, but his words had a heartfelt ring about them.

  ‘That’s an interesting thought,’ said Mara judicially, ‘and yet perhaps if we can move from Abraham to the New Testament, we see that Jesus preaches forgiveness for a sinner who has shown repentance. And,’ she added triumphantly, ‘during all my years as a Brehon I cannot remember an incidence when a murderer, tried and sentenced by me, reoffended. The fine is so heavy that his or her kinsmen become responsible for behaviour in case they should have to pay out again. The person who has killed may walk free; but they are watched by the community in which they live.’

  ‘But—’ began Henry Bodkin, but at that moment there was a loud frenzied attack on the door of the house, the knocker banging against the iron plate in an urgent summons.

  The steward of Henry’s household was already at the door, a drawn dagger in his hand. He peered through the small window to one side and then said with shocked tones, ‘It’s Mistress Lynch.’

  ‘Open up; quickly, man!’ Henry Bodkin himself was at the door and he caught Margaret as she stumbled over the doorstep and slumped into his arms. Her face was streaked with tears, her hair tumbled, her dress stained with streaks of mould and her headdress missing. The well-dressed, well-groomed wife of Mayor Lynch looked like one of the boatwomen from the fish market.

  ‘I tried to get into Blake’s Castle,’ she gasped, ‘but Valentine is not there. He’s out in the streets. I didn’t want to stay with Cecilia. She could not protect me if James came looking for me. He will want me to stay at home, to stay quiet, to do nothing, but I’m not going to do that. I’m not going back to James. I’ve been afraid of him all of my life. I’ve been a coward and I’ve betrayed my son. But I am not going to be like that any more. Now I will rescue my boy if it costs me my life.’

  Her eyes met Mara’s and she held out a hand. ‘Thank God you are still here. You must help me. You must. Walter did not do this thing. He would not. He could not.’

  ‘Come into the parlour,’ said Mara soothingly. It was not polite to take the lead in someone else’s house but the two Bodkins seemed to be frozen. Neither had moved nor said anything.

  ‘I . . . I can’t bear it,’ sobbed Margaret hysterically as Mara put an arm around her waist and half-supported, half-carried her across the hallway and into the warm parlour. ‘My son! My only son! His own father to condemn him to death!’

  ‘Some wine,’ said Mara sharply, aiming the order to a space halfway between Fachtnan and Henry Bodkin, but it was her scholar who poured the wine from its flagon on the fire hob and brought the goblet across to her. Mara held it in her hand and said in a low, soothing voice, ‘Drink this. You must be brave for Walter’s sake. We will talk about it in a minute and will see what there is to be done.’

  Something in those words seemed to quieten Margaret and she made an effort to sip. She tried to speak, but Mara held up an authoritative hand.

  ‘Not yet,’ she said firmly. ‘Drink your wine first. We must be very calm and very practical. Remember that there are five days before the execution. Your son will be safe for those five days. A lot can happen during that time.’

  Margaret gulped at the wine and then seized Mara’s hand. ‘Will you help me?’ she implored. ‘You won’t go back to your own kingdom and leave me, will you? You will be able to prove to James that his son did not do this terrible thing. James will listen to you; he despises me. He thinks that I am silly and hysterical. You’re clever; you will be able to find a solution.’

  Mara’s eyes met Henry’s as he stood on the other side of the sobbing mother. If there is a solution, his eyes seemed to say and she nodded at him. The horror of the trial lay in its indecent haste and in the fact that it was the father of the boy who had pronounced the fatal sentence on his only son; not in the verdict itself. Very few courts in England would have given a different verdict. The evidence against Walter Lynch was overwhelming – even she, in a Brehon law court, might have felt forced to name him as the guilty party if no new evidence came to light after weeks of careful investigation.

  Warm-hearted Fiona, however, had no such hesitations and doubts. She knelt on the floor beside the poor woman and seized the cold hand, rubbing it between her own two warm ones.

  ‘We’ll help,’ she said impulsively. ‘We’ll all put our brains together, won’t we, Brehon? Some of us,’ she went on in her usual airy fashion, with a sidelong glance at Moylan, ‘don’t have many brains, but every little helps.’

  Margaret gave a gulp and half-smile and Fiona went on swiftly, ‘Now tell us why you think that Walter didn’t do it?’

  This direct approach seemed to work with Margaret better than silent sympathy or the shocked exclamations from Jane Bodkin. Her eyes were still brimming with tears, but she tried to sit a little straighter and smiled affectionately at the girl.

  ‘If only he had been with all of you last night!’ she said, gulping back a sob. ‘He liked you so much and he would have been safe and happy with you. I know he didn’t do it. Walter could not kill anything. He was such a gentle boy. He was always concerned and anxious if any person or animal was injured in any way.’

  ‘He said nothing when he was asked if he had done it.’ Fiona’s eyes were sympathetic but her tone was firm. ‘Why do you think he didn’t deny it, if he had not done it?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ wept Margaret. And then she mopped her eyes and tried again. ‘At least I do. The boy is terrified of his father. James has been so strict with him. He loves him, but he thinks that Walter has a weak character and that he needs strong handling.’

  ‘But he was threatened with death, with hanging,’ said Shane in a puzzled way. ‘Surely the fear of that would be worse than the fear of any father.’

  Not necessarily, thought Mara. If Walter had been afraid of his father from the time that he was a little boy then he might have the habit of saying nothing when accused; might even feel that it was useless to defend himself if his father had already made up his mind. Someone like Shane, the greatly loved and much valued son of a wise and benevolent man like the Brehon for the O’Neill of Ulster, would not understand that. Aloud she said, ‘I wondered whether he remembered anything from the night before.’

  ‘You spoke up for him; my maid told me that. James forbade me to go to the trial. He . . . he,’ she gulped again, and then said in a shamefaced way, ‘he locked me into my chamber and took the key away and told the steward not to unlock it until he released me himself. He can’t stand emotion. He’s such a cold man. He doesn’t understand love; he could not understand how I would happily go to the gallows if I could spare my son; how I wanted to stand beside him at that trial. He told me that I shouldn’t go; that it would only upset me. I spoke to my maid through the door and asked her to go.’


  ‘Whaat! He does think he’s a god! He locked his wife in her bedroom!’ Fiona was stunned at that and Mara felt a cold anger come over her. That poor woman married to that cold, hard, domineering man! She had already determined to do her best for Walter, but this story had reinforced her determination.

  ‘How did you get out?’ she asked.

  Margaret gave a half-smile. ‘I climbed from the window. As a girl, Valentine and I often did that and I found that the skill had not deserted me.’

  Mara thought about the case for a moment. How would she approach this if it had happened in her own kingdom? Gather information, was her first instinct always – information about the accused and information about the victim.

  ‘Does Walter get drunk often?’ she asked.

  ‘Sometimes,’ admitted Margaret. ‘I try to keep him away from his father when he is like that.’

  ‘He’s quarrelsome when he’s drunk, then, is he?’ queried Mara, but was not surprised when Margaret shook her head emphatically.

  ‘No, never,’ she said. ‘He just gets silly and very, very sleepy. He would almost fall asleep standing up even if he was talking to you at the time. They say he was fighting with Carlos Gomez, but that Spanish boy was trying to needle Walter, trying to make him small in Catarina’s eyes. You saw that yourself when we were at Valentine’s place. Normally Walter is very good-natured.’

  Mara thought back to that night. Young Walter had been irritated by the Spaniard and annoyed at Catarina’s indifference to him, but it had resulted in rather childish sulks rather than in hot temper. He had left the two together, gone off and got drunk, where another, more mature man would have ignored Carlos, treated him as a guest, but essentially an outsider.

  ‘Let’s go and see Walter tomorrow,’ said Moylan suddenly. He got up from his chair and came to sit beside Fiona on the rug by Margaret’s feet. ‘I think someone should see him,’ he said in a determined way. ‘He might remember something useful. Do they allow visitors to gaols?’ he added.

  ‘I think so,’ said Margaret, ‘but it’s no good; I didn’t see him myself. James would not allow me out of the house, but I managed to get a message to Valentine and he went there. He sent me a note to say that Walter remembered nothing.’

  ‘Yes, but that was the morning after – I’m not surprised at him remembering nothing after the way that he was drinking last night. I remember myself after the Lughnasa festival last summer . . .’ he stopped abruptly and looked at Mara in an embarrassed fashion.

  ‘Go on,’ said Fiona impatiently. ‘We’re not stupid. We know what you are going to say. Last Lughnasa you got drunk when the crops were being cut – that’s right, isn’t it? Did you remember anything the next morning?’

  ‘Not . . . a . . . thing!’ said Moylan with emphasis. ‘But, and this is the important thing, the following day things started to come back to me, one by one – and very embarrassing it was too, I can tell you.’ His lips twitched at the memory and then he grew serious again.

  ‘And you think that Walter might remember something tomorrow that he didn’t remember today!’ Margaret stared at Moylan with dawning hope in her eyes.

  ‘Sure to,’ said Moylan encouragingly. ‘I wouldn’t be surprised if he was to say to us that he remembered one of those Barbary pirates – you know, ma’am, the ones that your brother was telling us about; the ones that came from the Ottoman Empire and attacked his ship. Well, Walter might suddenly remember one of them stealing up on him when he was paralytic drunk and pulling the dagger from his belt and knifing Gomez. These Barbary pirates are fighting the Portuguese and probably the Spanish, too – bound not to like them, anyway. He probably wanted to pay Gomez or his father back for something – perhaps there was a sea battle where his best friend got killed by a Spaniard. Don’t you worry, Mistress; I bet it will turn out to be something to do with the Barbary pirates. We’ll have Walter out of that gaol by hook or by crook.’

  ‘You’re a dear, good boy,’ said Margaret effusively. To his horror she bent down and kissed the top of his head. Fiona smirked at him, carefully keeping her back turned to Margaret, and Aidan choked over a suppressed chuckle. Hugh and Shane exchanged nervous grins.

  ‘We’ll try anyway,’ said Moylan, a tide of embarrassment reddening his face. He leaned over, seized the poker and began to riddle the fire vigorously. A puff of smoke came out and set everyone coughing.

  ‘Open the window, young man; you’ll choke us all,’ said Lawyer Bodkin good-humouredly, and Moylan, with great relief, got up quickly and went to thrust his hot face out into the cool night air.

  But no sooner had he unlatched the window when all thoughts of embarrassment or amusement were forgotten. For sometime Mara had been conscious of some noise in the background but with the window opened everyone could hear the roar of a thousand voices yelling loudly. The shouts did not come from nearby Market Street or Lombard Street – they had a faraway note about them, but they were loud enough for the words to be distinguished by their ears, before Moylan rapidly closed the window again.

  ‘Lynch out! Lynch out! Lynch out!’ There was no doubt that these were the words. The city of Galway was in a state of rebellion against their mayor.

  Mara’s eyes met Henry’s and he nodded.

  ‘Mistress Lynch,’ he said gently, ‘I think that you should stay here tonight. Did you leave word with your maid about where you were going?’

  ‘I said that I was going to my brother’s place.’ Margaret had undoubtedly heard the shouts but she did not appear to be perturbed by them. Her son occupied her thoughts to the exclusion of everything else. She had little pity to spare for her husband who might well be in danger at this moment.

  ‘I’ll send a note across to Blake’s Castle; one of the stable boys can take it.’ Henry left the room and the youngsters went on talking eagerly about Barbary pirates. Margaret’s white face was beginning to get a little tinge of colour into it as she recalled distinctly seeing two dark-skinned men at the fish market early yesterday morning. Alfonso Mercandez, the captain of the Gomez family’s ship, had the reputation of being a hard and ruthless man, according to what she had heard, and between them the scholars managed to concoct an interesting story where the only survivor of a pirate ship had sworn vengeance on the Gomez heir.

  ‘I’ll just go and see about a room for you,’ said Jane trying to sound hospitable, but her face was strained and white and her hands trembled as she took up a candle from the table.

  ‘I’ll go with you,’ said Mara. Margaret would be best with the simple and undemanding company of her scholars for the moment and she was curious about the riot. She did not follow Jane towards the kitchen quarters but crossed the hall and entered the library. Henry was just sealing a note when she entered. He gave it into the hands of a waiting stable boy and when he had gone, said with a grunt, ‘Hot-headed fellow, Valentine Blake. Why did he shout that out in the church? I’d say he’s out there on the streets. Dangerous sort of situation. Glad I don’t have a shop. There’ll be looting tonight.’

  ‘I wondered what we could see from your roof,’ said Mara. The Bodkin tower house, though not big, was tall and thin, one of the highest in the town.

  ‘I was just thinking about that myself,’ said Henry. ‘Wait here for a moment until I get a covered lantern. It’s getting dark outside now. We don’t want to stumble on the roof.’

  When he came back he carried two lanterns, one of which he handed to her. They climbed the flights of stairs side by side without a word, each busy with thoughts, until they came out on to the roof.

  The evening had indeed begun to get dark. As they moved towards the crenellated edge of the roof, the bell from St Nicholas’s sounded the hour of four o’clock. Mara peered out from between the upright shape of two merlons. She could see across the tops of the houses and down into the streets which were already lit with flaming torches of pitch. Lombard Street and Market Street were almost empty but Gaol Street and Courthouse Lane were packed solidly with people. They w
ere mainly men, but Mara glimpsed the linen headdresses of a few women amongst them. All were chanting ‘Lynch out! Lynch out! Lynch out! Out! Out! Out! Hang the mayor himself!’ and several had cudgels which they waved in the air.

  A flash of silver from Gaol Street caught Mara’s eye and she leaned out a little further. Two solid lines of soldiers were drawn up in front of the prison and each soldier had a sword in his hand. The crowd surged forward towards that deadly line, but then drew back. No one wanted to run the risk of a sword in the guts and so they contented themselves with chanting and warlike cries. Mara wondered where was James Lynch while the crowd called for his blood, and then thought that she saw a tall, thin figure standing behind the soldiers. His back was to the door to the gaol.

  Mara’s eyes wandered over the whole city. More soldiers were marching down from the barracks near the Great Gate. For a moment the thought flashed through her mind that if the O’Flahertys or Ulick Burke of Clanrickard, whose ancestors had once owned this place, were to know about the riot, then a raid on this city with its warehouses filled with goods from Spain and from the east would yield rich pickings. To the north, west and south it was protected by water; only on the east was it vulnerable to attack.

  The lights were on in the church of St Nicholas – patron saint of travellers on the sea. As Mara looked down at it, she saw a couple of priests with covered lanterns in their hands come out on to the street and look cautiously up and down. Then one turned back towards the door and made a signal. Four men, dressed as sailors, came out from the church carrying the heavy coffin cautiously down the church steps. Once they got to the bottom they quickened their steps until they reached the corner between Market Street and Lombard Street. Four other sailors waited there and the coffin was transferred to their shoulders. On they went down towards Blake’s Castle and then towards the docks, changing the coffin bearers after every hundred yards or so.