There was some more low murmuring and then Emer emerged with Roderic’s arm around her waist. Even by the uncertain light of the candle, Mara could see that her cheeks were flushed very red, her lips the colour of cherries. They did love each other, these two. Perhaps everything would work out now that Turlough has promised to take Roderic on as a musician, she thought. He’ll like to have a pretty girl like Emer around his court, and Daniel will surely allow the match if Turlough asks him. She continued to consider this, forgetting her real purpose for coming. After the disaster with Colman, Daniel will be worried in case Emer would be considered bad luck. And even if he doesn’t think of that for himself, I could perhaps put that idea into his head.
Smiling at the thought of the few well-chosen words that she would implant into Daniel’s slow brain, Mara braced herself ready to move forward, training her eyes to get used to the darkness as, one by one, they blew out the candles and placed them under the stone altar in the centre of the circle.
Mara waited until their footsteps died away and then she moved. Clutching her lantern in one hand and her tinderbox in the other, she made her way carefully towards the cairn. Although the moon still lurked behind the clouds, there was enough watery light to see the white quartz pebbles that covered the cairn, and she was in front of it before she lit the candle inside the lantern and then closed the horn-plated door. She lifted it aloft and directed its light through the broken front of the cairn. She had never looked at the cairn from so near before, and she realized that the narrow crack in the broken eastern side was indeed an entrance. So that was where Nessa had been dragged.
Mara peered in. There was a wedge-shaped chamber within; an ancient burial place, she surmised. There was another opening on the far side of the small chamber and through it she could see an open space, a sort of court with other chambers opening out from it. She squeezed through the gap, crossed into the court and stood there, holding the lantern aloft, turning it from side to side, looking into one chamber after another.
There seemed to be no living person there and for a moment Mara felt a sharp pang of irritation and disappointment. She had looked forward to confronting him, to pinning this crime on him, but it looked as if he had evaded her. She was about to turn away, when she suddenly became aware of a smell. It was not the pervading musty odour of damp earth and dry dusty bones; it was a different smell, sweeter, more cloying and more familiar. Mara realized what it was. He smelled funny: that was what little Nessa had said. The cairn reeked of the heavy, cloying scent of the incense that was liberally sprayed around the church every Sunday. She stepped further across the court until she reached the front of the small chamber at the end. She held her lantern aloft.
‘You can come out from behind that stone, Father Conglach,’ she said coldly. ‘I would like a word with you.’
He emerged from behind one of the upright pillar stones, standing at the entrance to the chamber. At even a distance of two yards the reek from the incense sickened her. It was odd, she thought, how she had never noticed this before from his priestly gown. Perhaps she had always kept her distance from him.
‘You can see for yourself now what goes on here at night, Brehon,’ he said loftily.
Mara had not expected him to face her so boldly. She had expected terror or contrition. One part of her mind realized that she was doing something stupid, but the other part rejoiced in solving the crime. All her life she had been courageous and determined, and so far she had been lucky. She tried to put into her bearing all the authority which had been hers as Brehon of the Burren since she was twenty-one years old.
‘Yes,’ said Mara firmly, ‘terrible things have gone on here at night.’
He seemed disconcerted at her manner and for once words did not come to his ready tongue.
‘Terrible things,’ repeated Mara. She examined him carefully. She was in no doubt that he was guilty and yet his face wore the usual mask of sanctimonious distaste. Suddenly nervous, she took a couple of steps back from him. Why had she done such a stupid thing as to try to tackle this man on her own? Why had she not told someone where she was going? She knew the answer to those questions. It was arrogance, perhaps a too great estimation of her own powers. Still, she thought, I am Brehon of the Burren. I am responsible for the law in this kingdom. I will achieve what I set out to do. The thought steadied her.
‘A child was violently raped here in this very chamber,’ she said coldly. ‘And you, you a priest, were responsible.’
‘What are you saying, you wicked woman?’ He thrust his face into the light of the lantern, but thankfully did not come any nearer. With an effort she prevented herself from flinching.
‘Don’t try to deny it; I know exactly what happened and I know how,’ she said sharply. ‘You watched these two young couples night after night; don’t deny that, either – I have plenty of witnesses who have seen you skulking in the shadows. You watched them, and you watched them, and you roused yourself to such a pitch that you had to have a woman.’
He howled then, and lunged towards her, pulling a knife from his pouch. Swiftly Mara moved aside, keeping one of the upright stones between him and her. She was tempted to turn and flee, but she had to get her evidence. She had to be able to swear before God and before man that this priest was guilty of that heinous crime. She had to goad him until he confessed to the rape of the child, Nessa.
‘You lying bitch, you unclean woman, you filthy …’ His face was distorted with rage, his eyes bulging from his forehead. Then, suddenly, just before he reached her, he collapsed into a sobbing heap on the ground. Behind the light of the lantern Mara felt herself tremble but remained very still, watched him narrowly.
‘You should have gone out and got yourself a prostitute like any decent man,’ she said coolly. ‘Why violate that innocent child?’
‘She was not innocent,’ he screamed. ‘She was a whore like the others. I saw her there. She was watching them. If she were innocent, she would have been at home in her bed.’ Now the saliva was running down his chin and he panted like a man who had been running for a mile. The heavy, scented stench of the incense was in Mara’s nostrils, but she watched him as she would watch a trout nibbling on the bait.
‘So you just did it to teach her a lesson?’ she said softly. The fish had taken the bait; now to reel him in!
‘She deserved it,’ he said with grim satisfaction. He wiped the saliva from his chin and tried to look pious. He seemed to be regaining his composure. He stood up and arranged his black gown with hands that trembled.
‘So you took her. She thought that she knew who it was. She smelled the incense from your clothing. Poor child. She thought you were God.’
He said nothing. She tried again.
‘Why did you do it?’ she asked, her tone flat.
This worked. He suddenly screeched, a shrill, demented sound that raised the hairs on the back of Mara’s neck.
‘Because she has got the devil in her!’ The words seemed to be wrenched from him. ‘She has got the devil in her and I tried to get it out. I lay with her to get the devil out of her. All women have the devil in them. All women …’
Abruptly he stopped. He mopped the side of his mouth with a linen handkerchief from his pouch. ‘And you have the devil in you,’ he said slowly, his eyes suddenly narrowed. ‘You are trying to destroy me … me, the God’s anointed. You will go to the bishop and you will tell your story and you will defame me. So I must cut the evil out of you.’
Quickly he reached forward, and before Mara had a chance to move, he had snatched her left hand and slashed his knife across the vulnerable veins in the wrist.
‘I’ve seen a man die from a wound like that,’ he panted. ‘He did it to himself. It was a sin against the Holy Ghost, the sin of despair: the worst sin of all. I refused to give him extreme unction although he begged me and his wife begged me. I just sat and watched him. He did not take too long to die. You will die soon, just like he did.’
Mara dropped the lan
tern, fighting the feeling of sickness and faintness. The candle went out instantly and they were left in the heavy darkness. She remembered the case, and the anger that came to her from the memory of the poor young wife’s anguish at her husband’s terrible death and lonely burial at the four crossroads lent her strength. With her right hand she fumbled in her pouch and dragged out her linen handkerchief. She knew she had to stop the bleeding as soon as possible. She wedged the soft linen against the wound on her left wrist. She felt it soak instantly, the thick material wet and sticky to her hand, but she kept pressing as hard as she could. If she sat down, she might be able to wind the hem of her léine around it also, but somehow she preferred to confront Father Conglach on her feet. Somehow she had to dominate him.
‘The bishop would be very angry with a priest who committed the deadly sin of murder,’ she said calmly. ‘The Lord God gave that commandment to Moses, didn’t he? Fifth: Thou shalt not kill. You remember that, don’t you?’
She wished that she had not dropped the lantern. She would have liked to be able to see him, to look him in the eye. She would keep talking. Words were always her weapon, her means of control.
‘But, of course,’ she said, ‘you had already tried to murder three boys from my law school. Don’t deny it. You were seen passing by; Shane and Hugh saw you. You heard Enda, Moylan and Aidan down in the cave, didn’t you? So you went down the passageway, took away their ladder, shut them in there and then the caves flooded. It’s by the mercy of God that you don’t have that sin on your soul as well.’
She cast her mind back and shuddered at the tragedy that could have occurred. This man would have had no mercy. He would not have gone back and released them. Why had he done it? There was only one explanation. He was mad; she recognized that. Had he always been mad, or was it just that the sexual frustrations, then the violent rape, and the terrible fear of its discovery had finally tipped his mind into insanity?
She heard him move and smelled him more strongly. ‘Ah, but I am not going to kill you,’ he said. His voice sounded faintly amused. ‘I won’t kill you. I won’t be responsible for your death. You will die if the Lord wills it. It’s in His hands now. I will leave the knife on the ground. You will be found dead, like that devil’s brat, your spawn from your law school. He committed a terrible sin. He accused me of dreadful things. And then he died. He died by the knife. And now you will die, also.’
Mara said nothing. She leaned against one of the upright stones that supported the roof of the cairn. Her handkerchief could hold no more blood; it had reached saturation point and now she felt the blood drip on to the stone floor. She clenched her teeth tightly. I must not, and I will not die, she told herself fiercely. She had too much to live for; too much to do; too much life still to enjoy. If only he would go away, she thought, then she might be able to get out and perhaps crawl the few hundred yards to Caherconnell and get Malachy to attend to her. Was there any way she could get him to leave her? She took a slow, deep breath through her nostrils and tried to imagine that it calmed her and gave her strength.
‘You had better depart now while it is dark,’ she said stonily. ‘If you stay you risk being seen and someone might know that you caused my death.’
He said nothing; in the fetid darkness of the burial tomb she heard his breath come in short, quick pants. He seemed to be stirring, making some kind of movement, and suddenly she was filled with a sick disgust and more fear than she had ever felt before in her life. Why had she not taken Bran with her, at least? He would have defended her against this madman. She took a deep breath. She would fight. He would not do this to her.
But at that moment Father Conglach hissed, ‘The Lord bids me to take the devil out of you, too,’ and launched himself at her, fumbling at her léine. She felt his dry, hard hands on her leg and she smelled the sour smell of his breath in her face.
Mara’s father had trained her voice from a very early age. Even when she was only seven years old he used to take her to Poulnabrone and stand a hundred yards away and get her to practise projecting her voice until the surrounding hills gave back the echo of her words. Time and time again she had gone to practise, and all the years of training now came to her rescue. Her scream came out with such force that it seemed to shake the little cairn. She continued to scream, but she prayed also.
Surely there was a voice, an answer! She stopped screaming and listened. Father Conglach seemed to hear nothing. He still struggled with her clothing and she continued to resist, kicking violently; but she was sure she had heard something. A faint light seemed to fill the empty space of the entrance to the cairn. Perhaps the moon had re-emerged from the clouds, or perhaps, she hoped with desperation, a man with a lantern had approached. She screamed again. And then came a bark that rang like a bell off the limestone. Only one dog barked like that! And then there was a thud of heavy paws and a huge shape blocked the faint misty yellow light at the doorway. The smell of blood, and the smell of mould, and the smell of the man were all overwhelmed by the heart-warming smell of warm dog fur as he hurled himself on the figure beside her.
And then the priest shrieked. The dog was growling now. Growling with the ferocity of his father, the wolf, and holding on with the intensity and tenacity of his mother, the sheepdog. The priest screamed again. Mara struggled to her feet and tried to keep her balance as she shook her clothing into order.
‘Call your dog off, Diarmuid,’ she said. ‘I don’t want this man killed. I want him to stand before the community and confess to his crimes. Good boy, Wolf,’ she added. She was close to tears and she bent down and hid her face for a moment in the soft warm fur and laid her cheek next to the enormous head. ‘You come and see me at the law school, Wolf, and you will have all the sausages that you can eat.’
‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph,’ gasped Diarmuid, holding his lantern up and looking at the frothing, gibbering creature on the ground. ‘The dog’s bitten the priest. Look, he’s bitten him on the arm. He’s bleeding.’
‘He’s a good judge, that dog,’ said Mara, filled with a desire to giggle wildly. ‘He did the right thing. If you and Wolf had not come along at that moment, Diarmuid, I might be dead by now … I hoped you were coming … I kept thinking about Wolf … he’s a good dog, Wolf … Tie him up, Diarmuid … tie him up for heaven’s sake … He tried to murder me … the man, I mean … not the dog … Tie up the man … not the dog … the dog is an honest dog; the king himself said so.’ Suddenly she realized that she was sick and giddy and that an icy coldness was coming over her.
‘You’re bleeding! You’re badly hurt,’ said Diarmuid. He set his lantern on the ground and bent his head over Mara’s wrist.
‘Tie something over it as tightly as you can, Diarmuid,’ said Mara, forcing herself to remain in command of the situation. ‘He tried to murder me by slitting my wrist … he wanted me to bleed to death so that I would not be able to accuse him of the terrible crime of the rape of the young girl, Nessa … I’m telling you this now, Diarmuid, in case anything happens to me … If I die, you must bear witness to my last words … this man … this priest violently raped that child.’ She struggled to sit up, but collapsed back on to the ground. ‘Diarmuid,’ she gasped, ‘you must take this as a sacred trust … you must go to Thomond and tell King Turlough Donn what happened … promise me, Diarmuid … this man must be punished.’
A black mist seemed to be welling up before her eyes and the orange light from the lantern was shifting and spreading out into a strange haze. Her lips were cold and suddenly the pain from her wrist was unbearable. She lay quite still for a moment; it seemed tempting just to let go and slide into the cold darkness. But she couldn’t do that; she had too much to do. Once again she struggled up and this time she placed her head between her knees, and a moment later a rush of hot sweat spread over her. She waited for a moment, but the icy faintness seemed to have passed. She leaned her head upright against the rough stone and tried to breathe deeply and steadily. She felt very ill and she was conscious of
a strange vagueness and remoteness from her present situation. Only Diarmuid’s warm hand on her cheek kept her from losing consciousness completely.
‘The bastard,’ muttered Diarmuid as he tore one of the loose flowing sleeves from his léine and bound her arm tightly. Mara took several more long, deep breaths. She touched her wrist. The blood was not seeping through yet. She allowed herself to hope that all would yet be well. Diarmuid was kneeling beside her, his hand on her wrist, his thumb firmly over the bandage.
‘Mara,’ he said urgently. ‘Are you all right?’
She smiled slightly with cold lips. Although she always called him Diarmuid and had known him since she was a child, Diarmuid had not called her Mara for almost twenty years. She was always Brehon to him. There was a depth of anguish in his voice and somehow it steadied her. She tried to open her eyes and look at him.
‘I’m feeling better now, Diarmuid,’ she said, conscious that her voice still sounded weak and faint. ‘Just tie him up while he is still unconscious. I think he has had some sort of fit.’
Diarmuid lifted his thumb and shone the light from his lantern on to her wrist. She looked down. The rough bandage was still white; no ominous red stain spread over it. The dog, Wolf, ceased his heavy panting and seemed to hold his breath, looking with interest at her wrist. Diarmuid gave a satisfied nod and went over to the unconscious man on the ground. The dog gave a low menacing growl, but then grew quiet when he could see that there was no threat to his master. Diarmuid took off his leather belt and buckled it around the priest’s legs, tying them securely. Then he used the other sleeve of the léine to knot the arms behind the back. The priest muttered and groaned but he still appeared unconscious. Despite his harsh words, Mara noticed that Diarmuid handled him with care. The priests in the community were treated almost as gods – the news of Father Conglach’s crime would be an enormous shock to everyone.
My Lady Judge Page 27
