My Lady Judge

by Cora Harrison

  A woman takes the honour price of her father and later of her husband, unless she is a member of the nemed, professional, class: a poet, a Brehon, a physician or a female wright. In these cases, she has her own honour price.

  The honour price of a Brehon, whether male or female, is fifteen séts.

  KING TURLOUGH DONN WAS waiting at the gate of the law school when Mara arrived back. She had asked the men to wait at the Kilcorney crossroads so that she could explain their presence to the king and not alarm the bodyguards. As she rode up towards him her mind was busy with arranging the details of her encounter so as to cause the least anxiety. However, at the sight of him her heartbeat quickened slightly and she felt the muscles of her face relax into a broad smile. It had been a hard day and now she could enjoy a relaxed evening.

  ‘You didn’t bring the girl back with you,’ he said as he held out his arms and swung her down to the ground. Not many kings would be so unconscious of their own dignity, she thought. This was the strength of the man. He needed no outward trappings of royalty; he was royalty itself, bred right back to seed of the High King, Brian Boru, five hundred years ago.

  ‘No,’ she said, ‘I dropped her off at Caherconnell. Her father would be anxious about her.’ Nuala and she had agreed to make no mention of the near encounter with the O’Kellys on the lonely mountain pass to anyone other than the king. If at all possible, Ardal O’Lochlainn was to hear nothing.

  ‘We wouldn’t like to cause him any worry,’ Nuala had said, her virtuous tone spoiled by a quick giggle.

  ‘You should have brought her back. She would have had a better time here with your lively lads,’ said the king, gesturing towards the noisy crowd playing hurling in the field behind the law school. ‘That father of hers is a sullen, dull sort of man. I don’t know why Ardal O’Lochlainn’s sister married him. She can’t have much fun, that child, Nuala. She’s too serious for her age.’

  ‘We’ve had a bit of an adventure on the way back,’ said Mara. ‘We almost ran into the O’Kellys on Clerics’ Pass.’

  King Turlough raised his eyebrows. ‘Really,’ he said with amusement. ‘And what did you do? Take them all prisoner?’ His words were light, but his eyes were anxious.

  ‘No, we didn’t,’ said Mara. ‘We went down to the abbey and I got the abbot to send for ten men from Mahon O’Lochlainn. I brought them back with me. I think you should keep them with you until you get back to Thomond. Mahon knows you will be keeping them for a few days. Will you send your two bodyguards down to the crossroads to collect them?’

  ‘My lord, there are a pack of gallóglaich down there at the crossroads,’ said Cumhal, coming panting up at that moment.

  ‘I hate those gallóglaich,’ grumbled Turlough. ‘Our own clansmen were good enough for us until recently. It was the O’Donnells of the north who brought in this idea of using mercenaries. They brought the Scots over.’

  Mara did not answer. She was busy looking over at the field behind the law school and counting heads like any cattle farmer. Yes, they were all there and all looked to be having a good time. The two bodyguards were playing hurling also. Fergal, the heftier of the two, was standing in goal and Hugh was vainly trying to get past his bulk, shouting vigorously.

  ‘Fergal, Conall,’ shouted the king and Hugh scored a goal quickly as the bodyguard looked across at his master. Hugh seemed to be himself again, thought Mara, as a yell of triumph split the air. She sighed with relief. It was amazing how children shrugged off unpleasant events that would keep their elders awake at night.

  ‘Has Brigid fed you yet?’ she asked Turlough Donn after the bodyguards had been sent down the road to fetch the gallóglaich.

  ‘She fed me a great dinner six hours ago and now I’m ready for a great supper,’ he said happily. ‘The pot is boiling and there is a flagon of good wine on the table. I’ve been down to your cellar and I must say that you have good taste in wine. Some wonderful barrels down there, all beautifully labelled in your lovely handwriting. What are we going to do with those fellows now?’ he asked plaintively as the gallóglaich trotted into view.

  ‘They’ve got leather tents,’ said Mara calmly. ‘They can camp around the walls of the enclosure and then we’ll all sleep more soundly.’

  ‘Your supper will be ready in half an hour,’ said Brigid, emerging from the kitchen house. ‘I’ll feed the lads first, if that’s all right, and then I’ll come over to your house, Brehon. Glory be to God,’ she said, staring open-mouthed at the gallóglaich. ‘It’s just as well I made a huge pot of soup and a new batch of loaves today. I’d better feed that lot first as well.’

  ‘You do that, Brigid,’ said Mara. ‘I’ll just go and get myself tidy enough to have supper with a king.’

  ‘I could do with a change myself,’ said Turlough Donn. ‘I must confess, I’ve been enjoying a game of hurling, also.’

  ‘At your age!’ mocked Mara. ‘I’m only forty-eight,’ he said with dignity and strode off towards the guest house, holding himself very upright and keeping his stomach well tucked in.

  Back at her own house, Mara was tempted, as always, to linger a while in the garden; it was looking particularly beautiful with the setting sun slanting its rays across the blue gentians and drawing the scent from the purple lavender by the gate. However, she resisted and went upstairs to take an armful of clothing from the chest at the foot of her bed. Then she ran down the stairs again and into the small room at the back of the house. There was a big pump there and she rapidly filled the wooden bath tub with icy water from the hundred-foot-deep well. It was her father who had the well dug and she blessed his memory every time she used it. It had never gone dry – in some way that she did not quite understand, the streams that flowed down from the mountains seemed to fill a vast underground lake beneath the limestone of the Burren. In the wintertime she would light the charcoal in the iron brazier and add a large pot of boiling water to the cold water, but now she felt warm and stimulated by the thoughts of the evening ahead and the icy shock of the water on her bare skin was a tingling pleasure to her. Slowly she washed all of her body, using the lavender-scented soap that Brigid made from soap plant and distilled lavender water. She sat for a while and soaked and then climbed out and stood dripping on the flagstones. Slowly and meditatively, she dried herself on the white linen towel and then dressed in a fresh clean léine, adding a loose gown of rose-coloured wool over it and fastening the flowing sleeves to the shoulders with two small gold brooches. Her feet she left bare of stockings, but she discarded the heavy boots that she normally wore and slipped on a pair of light leather shoes. Her long hair was still soaking wet so she draped a towel around her shoulders and went out to comb it in the warmth of the sun.

  ‘No grey hairs yet,’ she said as she ran the ivory comb through the long strands and then smiled mockingly to herself. Quickly she plaited her hair and coiled the long braids behind her head. Everything was quiet at the law school – presumably Brigid was feeding the hungry scholars and the gallóglaich together – but there had been a sudden abrupt slam of the heavy guest-house door. The king was coming. She bent down and selected a perfect pale pink rosebud, held it for a moment, wondered whether to give it to him, then tucked it inside one of her own gold brooches and went to meet him at the gate. He had changed also, she noticed, and she looked admiringly at him. The royal saffron léine suited him, the yellow colour making his tanned skin glow, and over it he wore a fashionable padded doublet of purple velvet. His hair and his long curved moustaches were still damp and showed the grooves of the comb.

  ‘Very fine!’ she said with affectionate mockery and he grinned. ‘A merchant from Limerick gave me this,’ he said, looking down at himself appreciatively. ‘He gave me this gold-embroidered pouch, also. One of my ships saved him from being robbed by the O’Malley from Clew Bay.’ He stood for a moment surveying her and she smiled at him, enjoying the admiration in his eyes. ‘You’re looking very beautiful,’ he said in a lower voice.

  ‘Sit here a
nd I’ll bring you a cup of wine,’ said Mara, directing him to her chamomile bench. She walked indoors, deep in thought. At that moment when the king spoke of his pouch she remembered the knife that had been drawn out from Colman’s neck. The king had handed it to one of his bodyguards; she remembered that. The bodyguard had placed it in his own pouch. She had deliberately not taken it with her to Galway to give to the Lynch family, as Malachy had suggested. It was, of course, Hugh’s knife. But should she give it back to the child? Perhaps she would suggest that it be given to the monks at the abbey to sell for charity.

  She poured the two cups of wine, tasted one, rolling it appreciatively on her tongue and around the back of her throat. Yes, it was perfect. She had kept it for five years in the dark damp cellar below the Brehon’s house and now it was ready for drinking. She topped up her own cup and carried them both outside, joining him on the bench.

  ‘I made this bench last summer,’ she said, passing her hand over the fragrant foliage and releasing an intense sweet perfume. ‘The chamomile will be in flower soon, but the perfume is in the leaves. Your weight is just right for it,’ she teased. ‘It applies just the correct pressure to bring out all the sweetness.’

  He didn’t reply to that, just smiled with amusement.

  ‘You’re a popular woman, you know,’ he said quietly after a while. ‘When you were in Galway this afternoon there were all sorts of people came looking for you, hundreds of them.’

  She considered this for a moment, sipping her wine and appreciating its full rounded fruity flavour.

  ‘Hundreds?’ she queried, raising an eyebrow at him.

  ‘Well, dozens,’ he amended. ‘For one, there was the man with the fierce dog …’

  ‘Diarmuid?’ she asked.

  ‘That was him, yes,’ he said, taking a swallow of the wine.

  He drinks too fast, she thought absent-mindedly; he should savour it more.

  ‘What did Diarmuid say?’ she asked.

  ‘Nothing, nothing – not to me, nor to Brigid, nor to Cumhal. He wondered where you were, and then came to the right conclusion himself, nodded his head a few times, muttered a few words about Galway and ambled away. He looked as though he wanted to say something, though.’

  ‘And who else came?’

  ‘Well, that shifty individual, Lorcan, and also the father of the pretty girl.’

  ‘Which pretty girl, Emer or Aoife?’

  ‘At my age,’ said King Turlough, draining his cup and rising to his feet, ‘the name doesn’t matter. The face is all that counts. Would you like another cup of wine?’

  ‘I’ll wait for the food,’ said Mara. ‘Wine always means more to me with food.’ Was it Daniel or Muiris who had come to see her? she wondered. Had Colman been blackmailing Muiris as well as Lorcan? Or was Daniel worried about Emer’s marriage prospects? And what about the other cases on that list she had picked up from Colman’s clothes chest? Were these possible prospects for blackmail? After all, her own divorce case was there. She laughed suddenly. It was just like Colman to think he might blackmail her about this. Respect for her position would have meant that no one on the Burren would have mentioned her past to him, even if they still whispered about it among themselves. Suddenly her mind became very alert. She had a task ahead of her that would demand all of her energies. She would enjoy this evening with Turlough and then, next morning, she would begin work.

  ‘Let’s eat out here,’ she said. ‘It’s a glorious evening and it may be raining in a few days. I’ll go and get Cumhal to bring out the trestle table.’

  There would be no talk of love and marriage tonight; she needed to keep her mind clear, she decided, as she went off to find Cumhal. Time enough to make a decision after she had solved this murder. They would have supper out there in the garden, with the lads in the field next to them playing hurling or throwing sticks for Bran. They would talk about the affairs of the kingdom, the affairs of the country of Ireland, and of its near neighbour, England.

  ‘I’ll tell the bodyguards,’ said Cumhal when she found him digging in the bed of leeks, but there was a note of hesitancy in his voice and there was a small worried frown between his brows. ‘The bodyguards were probably hoping that he would eat in the guest house,’ he said quickly as he saw her look at him with surprise. ‘They are worried about the threat from the O’Kellys. It would be easy for them to land at Fanore and come through the pass or over Slieve Elva. The gallóglaich have been talking about it in the kitchen house. They reckon that the O’Kellys might be over here when darkness comes.’

  ‘We won’t be late,’ she said soothingly. She was not deceived, however, by his voiced concern for the king. There had been only about ten or fifteen of the O’Kelly clan there on the mountain pass, and these gallóglaich were trained soldiers. They would be more than able to handle any O’Kellys that arrived. No, there were other matters on Cumhal’s mind. He had been her father’s servant and then hers. There was little she did not know about him and she guessed that there was little he did not know about her. Cumhal and Brigid had noticed something about the king’s attentions to her, and had probably even seen the bodyguard slip out with the letter. They would have talked it over in whispers last night. This would be what was worrying Cumhal, not any threat to the king. Cumhal and Brigid did not want any romantic tête-à-tête suppers. They would not want any change. They would not want their mistress to leave her school and go to Thomond, even to be queen.

  ‘Set up another trestle table for the bodyguards over there by the wall so that they can be near to the king and can keep checking the road,’ she said after a moment’s thought. ‘The gallóglaich could put up their tents around the law school first and then check the road while the bodyguards eat.’ The bodyguards would be just out of earshot over there next to the wall, but their presence would inhibit any lovemaking and would reassure Cumhal and Brigid.

  ‘So what’s the trouble with the O’Kellys, then?’ she asked when she returned to the king. She sat down beside him on the bench and did not draw back when he moved a little closer. There was no point in pretending that she did not take pleasure from his affection for her. She did not stir, either, when Cumhal arrived a few minutes later with a small stool as well as the trestle table. When he came back with the stiff bleached linen cloth and the flagon of wine he removed the unused stool without comment. She allowed the corners of her mouth to twitch slightly.

  ‘Tell Brigid we are ready when she is,’ she said, calmly pouring some more wine into her cup and pushing the flagon towards the king.

  ‘These are nice,’ said the king, holding up the slender goblet.

  ‘Cumhal carved them from the apple tree that used to stand over there by the gable end of the house,’ she said. ‘I used to eat apples from that tree when I was a child and it’s nice to have these cups as a memory of it. We should be using my Venetian wine glasses in your honour, but I am terrified of dropping one or having the breeze tip one over out here in the garden.’

  ‘I prefer these,’ said Turlough. ‘Good, honest Irish-made wine cups – we are having too much contact with the foreign places now, especially England. Look at Galway – all English dress, English laws! Do you know that they even have a law there that says if your name begins with an “O” or a “Mac” you may not strut or swagger in the streets of Galway.’

  ‘I know,’ said Mara. It always amused her to picture these clansmen, with ‘O’ or ‘Mac’ in their names, with their huge moustaches and their fringes hanging down to their eyes, dressed in their long, shaggy Irish mantles, strutting and swaggering through the crowds of scented, curled citizens of Galway with their padded doublets, hip-length cloaks, their tight hose and their neat, pointed beards. ‘You haven’t explained to me about the O’Kellys,’ she added as he gave her hand a quick squeeze.

  ‘Well, it all started about five years ago with that battle at Knockdoe, do you remember that?’

  Mara nodded – Knockdoe was about eight miles north-east of Galway city. The place h
ad been called something different before that battle, but afterwards it was always known as Knockdoe, the hill of the battleaxes.

  ‘Well, myself and MacWilliam were against the army gathered by the Earl of Kildare, and Red Hugh, the O’Donnell; and the other northern chiefs and the O‘Kellys from Ui Maine. The O’Kellys lost a lot of men,’ he boasted, taking a gulp of wine, ‘and they’ve never forgotten it and they keep swiping away at me.’

  ‘Why just you?’ asked Mara. ‘I would have thought MacWilliam would have been nearer to him. He’s up there in Connaught, just beside him.’

  Turlough looked all around him carefully and moved his head closer to her cheek. ‘To be honest,’ he said in a low voice, ‘I wouldn’t be surprised if young Garrett MacNamara had something to do with it. We took quite a bit of territory from the MacNamaras around Caisin, to the east of here. It’s now part of Thomond, of course, but the MacNamaras would like it back, I suppose. Could be the O’Connor of Doolin, as well, perhaps. You never know. The earl, Gearóid Mór, is in the pocket of the English, of course. His second wife is related to the Tudors. You should have seen Gearóid when he came back from young Prince Arthur’s funeral. He was all decked out in silks and velvets like any popinjay. Anyway, let’s not worry about him; here comes Brigid with my supper.’

  ‘Here’s a lovely loin of venison, my lord,’ said Brigid, coming out from the house bearing two small iron pots and accompanied by Cumhal, carrying the large iron pot that held the venison.

  ‘Put it on the stone there, Cumhal,’ she said with a quick peremptory gesture of her head. ‘I hope you like the venison, my lord. I cooked it with plenty of butter and a few sprigs of rosemary, Brehon.’ She turned to Mara.

  ‘It smells unbelievably good,’ said Turlough, leaning over like a greedy boy as Cumhal took the lid off the pot. ‘And two sauces! What are they?’

  ‘This one is a wine and cream sauce; I think myself that is the best flavour with venison, but the Brehon likes that other one best. That’s made from bearberries. I got the lads to pick me a basketful in the bog last year and I dried them and kept them for sauces.’ Lovingly, Brigid placed the two pots next to the large one on the stone beside the table, and then she bustled back into the house again, coming back with two wooden platters piled high with watercress and tiny crisp spears of celery.