A Secret and Unlawful Killing

by Cora Harrison

  ‘The brooch belonged to young Donal O’Brien and I think the hunting knife might also,’ she said quietly. ‘It has the O‘Brien crest set into the knife and you know that crest may only be used by the derbhfine.’

  Turlough whistled. ‘Teige’s boy?’ he asked.

  Mara nodded. Teige O’Brien was Turlough’s first cousin and therefore part of the derbhfine. The derbhfine was the family group descended from the same great-grandfather. Anyone within the derbhfine could become taoiseach or king of the clan. Mara had known that Turlough would not like this news about his cousin’s son. There was a family connection and also bonds of friendship and liking on both sides. Teige was a very loyal supporter of his king.

  ‘What could the connection be between young Donal and two of the MacNamara clan?’ Turlough asked, his face serious and concerned.

  ‘Brigid is in a state,’ said Mara, avoiding the question, and looking down the road where her housekeeper was bursting out of the gate. Brigid always walked quickly but this time she almost flew, her lips were compressed and the linen covering that she wore over her sandy-coloured hair was all askew.

  ‘My lord,’ she said shrilly, when she had come within shouting distance. ‘My lord, I did not know that you were coming and I have nothing fit for you to eat in the place at all.’

  ‘What had you planned to give to the lads and myself, Brigid?’ asked Mara soothingly. She didn’t care; let the king eat what they were going to eat. He should have let them know that he was going to come.

  ‘I was going to do the usual Michaelmas supper for them, Brehon,’ said Brigid, turning her distraught gaze on her mistress. ‘Since the lads were not here on Michaelmas Day I thought I would leave it until Friday. Cumhal has lit the fire in the yard and there is a small pig roasting.’

  ‘I knew I smelled something good,’ said Turlough heartily. ‘One of my favourite meals! Nothing like roast pork at this time of year with the nights turning frosty.’

  ‘I could make you a good wine sauce and perhaps an apple sauce as well and then there are some roots,’ said Brigid, mentally turning over the contents of her larder. Her face was beginning to lose its worried lines.

  ‘And I can find a good flagon of wine,’ said Mara. Personally, as long as the food was acceptable, she thought that wine was the most important part of the evening meal. ‘We’ll have a cup of wine in my house, Brigid, while we’re waiting. Send one of the boys for us when you are ready.’ She wanted to discuss the two killings with Turlough and also to find out what he thought of Garrett MacNamara’s new heir. In the house they would be private; in the yard of the enclosure there might be a dozen ears listening in to the conversation.

  ‘Anyway, how are your family?’ asked Turlough, as together they strolled down the road towards the Brehon’s house. ‘How’s your lovely daughter Sorcha? Is she well? And her husband? And the grandchildren?’ He, like she, seemed to decide that it was best to postpone the discussion of the serious affairs of the kingdom until they were in the privacy of her home. If it were indeed young Donal O’Brien who was responsible for one, or both, of the murders, then the affair would be very grave.

  ‘They’re very well,’ said Mara lightly. ‘I spent a fortnight with them in Galway in August. It was lovely being there with them all. Domhnall and little Aisling seem to grow every time I see them. Domhnall is reading very well now,’ she boasted.

  ‘I suppose that you will be having Domhnall at the law school soon,’ said Turlough, opening the gate and standing back to allow her to walk up the flagstoned path towards the front door.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ said Mara, casting a quick glance towards her new flowerbed with the jewelled shades of pink, purple, blue and magenta blending together in a rainbow of colour. She stopped for a moment, ready to show it to him, and then, with a glance at his worried, preoccupied face, she walked on. Now was not the moment, she thought. ‘Sorcha would like to keep him with her until he is eight,’ she continued, ‘and I think she is right. Some of these children come here too early. Brigid and I do our best, but most of them would be better off with their mothers until they are a bit older. Enda, now, he came when he was eight and yet after a year or so he was as good as Fachtnan in almost every subject, and Fachtnan had been studying since he was five. If they have the ability, they learn quickly.’

  The east-facing room in the Brehon’s house was dim and shadowy after the bright slanting brilliance of the sunset outside. Mara lifted down the tinder box from the shelf above the fireplace, struck a light and lit a couple of candles. They blazed up quickly, filling the room with the honeyed smell of warm beeswax. She took one candle and held it to the pile of dry pine cones in the fireplace and within seconds their warm spicy scent dominated the smell of wax. This room was always at its best in the evening: the heavy oak bench, stools and table gleamed with the splendour of dark gold, and the fire brought out the rich lights from the depths of the red velvet cushions and curtains. Mara looked around her with satisfaction, but the king’s face was still full of gloom as he sank down heavily on the cushioned bench by the fireplace.

  ‘What on earth would possess that boy to do a thing like that?’ he muttered. ‘He has everything in front of him. Teige wanted to make him his tánaiste; I was happy, there’s no one else, really, that is fit. The fine would have gone along with it, and so would the sept and the clan.’

  ‘I think that he is in love with Ragnall’s daughter,’ said Mara. Just as well to let him talk out the whole business now, she thought. He’ll enjoy his dinner better then. ‘But the father was against any talk of marriage.’

  ‘The father was against the marriage? The girl’s father! Never! That would have been a wonderful match for the girl. You don’t mean Teige, do you? Teige is completely besotted by that boy. He would have refused him nothing.’

  ‘But Ragnall did,’ said Mara dryly. ‘Apparently, he said no. The O’Lochlainn steward, Liam, said that Ragnall was too mean to supply sufficient cows with his daughter, but it may have been something else.’

  ‘Brehon!’ came Shane’s high, excited voice. There was a thud of flying sandals on the flagstoned path and then a loud hammering on the door. ‘Brehon, Brigid says that the meat is ready now. We are going to give the champion’s portion to King Turlough. We all agreed.’

  Mara got to her feet with a smile. ‘You are highly honoured,’ she said, hastening to open the door before it was battered down. ‘Every Michaelmas the scholars vote for who is to get the champion’s portion.’

  ‘The shoulder, my favourite part of roast pork,’ said Turlough beaming. Shane and Hugh were waiting at the door and he playfully tried to knock their heads together.

  ‘Quick, run,’ he said. ‘Don’t let Fergal or Conall take it before I get there.’

  ‘It was Fachtnan’s idea,’ shouted back Shane, as they scampered down the stony road ahead of them.

  ‘I am very worried about this, Mara,’ said Turlough in a low, confidential tone as they followed the two young boys down the road. ‘Teige is a great supporter of mine, one of the best within the fine, apart from my boys, of course. I wouldn’t like any trouble to come to him. In fact, if anything were to happen to Conor, my eldest — and you never know, he gets these fevers, my physician is worried that it is the wasting sickness — if anything were to happen to him, then Teige would be the choice of the clan for tánaiste. Murrough doesn’t seem to take their fancy, as I told you, and I’m not sure that I blame them. However, if there was some disgrace to his son, if he were shown to have murdered an old man like Aengus, or even the two of them, miller and steward, Aengus and Ragnall …’

  Turlough stopped and kicked a wayside stone with such force that it flew over the wall and startled a few sheep, which bleated indignantly and moved away into the centre of the field.

  Turlough gave a short laugh and then continued. ‘They might just look to appoint another of my cousins, Mahon O’Brien, the brother of the abbot, and I can’t stand that sanctimonious idiot.’
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  ‘But why not Murrough?’ asked Mara. ‘I can’t believe that wearing English clothes and a few jaunts to London makes that great difference to a man. He would continue to uphold our way of life, wouldn’t he? I’ve never heard him say anything against Brehon law, have you? He wouldn’t want to replace that with English law, would he?’

  ‘I don’t think I’ve heard him express an opinion,’ said Turlough impatiently, ‘but that’s not the point …’

  ‘That is the point, though,’ said Mara quickly. ‘If Murrough will rule his kingdom by our ancient laws, then he will be a good king.’

  ‘It’s not just that. Even though he’s my own son, and he’s a great fellow, I must say that Murrough is too much in the pocket of the Great Earl, too keen on English ways. Perhaps the derbhfine is correct. Teige, and possibly his son after him, would be more likely to keep the kingdoms in their Gaelic ways. But not Mahon! I couldn’t stand that.’

  He glanced at her keenly, but she did not respond. Justice was her affair; let the king order his political power base as he wished. It was her task to find the murderer of those two men and to apportion the fine. She might have been appointed by the king; but she was appointed to administer the kingdom according to her own judgement and according to the laws that had been laid down over hundreds of years, rather than be influenced by clan politics. The law had to be above all of that.

  Turlough looked at her again and there was a measure of amusement as well as impatience in his glance. He understood her well and he knew that she would be inflexible in all matters to do with the law. If Donal O’Brien were guilty of murder, he would have to confess his deed to the people of the kingdom at Poulnabrone and pay the fine.

  ‘I know what,’ said Turlough so loudly that the heads of the two bodyguards swivelled around and they both moved to join them at the gate. He waved them back impatiently and then continued in a penetrating whisper.

  ‘This is the most likely way it happened. Aengus murdered Ragnall and then got sorry and committed suicide. That’s it. The case is solved. You need do no more.’

  ‘Perhaps you’re right,’ murmured Mara with a slight smile lifting the corners of her lips. ‘Now come and have your champion’s portion.’

  The sun had set by the time the supper was ready and the ancient enclosure within the ten-foot-wide walls of Cahermacnaghten was full of leaping shadows. The fire burned brightly and the whitewashed walls of the schoolhouse, the guesthouse, the scholars’ house and the kitchen house gleamed orange in the light from the flames of the bonfire. Cumhal had stoked it with great ragged branches of sweet-smelling pine and the scent almost overpowered the savour of the succulent roast pork stuffed with branches of rosemary from Mara’s garden.

  When King Turlough appeared there was a loud cheer from all of the scholars and from his own two bodyguards and amid cries of ‘the champion’s portion’ he was ushered to the front while his platter was ceremoniously filled with a huge hunk of shoulder meat and liberal helpings of roast parsnips.

  Mara watched and was surprised to find that her eyes filled with tears. Turlough was so at home here amongst her boys. If only he had been a humble farmer, and not the king of three kingdoms, they could perhaps have settled down happily together. But the facts could not be changed. He was King Turlough Donn, descendant of the High King, Brian Boru, ruler of Thomond, Corcomroe and Burren. As his wife, she would have to be by his side at his table, would have to journey around with him; the duties of a queen would occupy hours of every day. How could she give care to her scholars, teach them, manage the affairs of the Burren if she had to spend most of her time in Thomond? Unfortunately, each had too much to lose: he, his kingship, and she, the position of Brehon of the Burren. And, perhaps, my hard-won independence, as well, she thought wryly, thinking of her first marriage to the unworthy Dualta.

  ‘Go and collect the flagon of wine and the two wine cups from the table of my room,’ she said, having beckoned over Fachtnan. He sped off instantly without a backward glance at the fun and she looked after him gratefully. He was such a nice boy. That was certainly a diplomatic idea of his to have the king take the champion’s portion. From the time of Mara’s own youth the champion’s portion had been awarded to the scholar who had achieved the most during the past year, and it had often caused much heart-burning and jealousy.

  ‘Here’s your platter, Brehon.’ Enda smoothed his blond fringe from his eyes and presented her dish of roast pork with the air of a man of the court. She accepted it with a smile. It seemed only yesterday when he had been a charming, blue-eyed eight-year-old and then a gawky, troublesome adolescent and now he was beginning to seem like an adult. Time passed so quickly these days, she thought with a pang. Before she knew it she would be old. Should she accept the king’s offer, be his wife, and have companionship into her old age or carry on here as Brehon of the Burren and ollamh to the law school of Cahermacnaghten?

  The scholars were lining up for their food now that the bodyguards had received their portion. Mara took the wine from Fachtnan and joined Turlough, who was perched on Cumhal’s chopping block gnawing happily on an immense bone.

  ‘You don’t have to finish all of that. You could always slip it to Bran when no one is looking.’ Surreptitiously she dropped some of her own pork on the ground by the great wolfhound that lay patiently beside her.

  ‘What!’ He was outraged. ‘I’ve never left anything unfinished in the course of my life: not an enemy nor a bone. This is delicious. Oh good, they’ve brought my wine, though I suppose I should be drinking mead with this, shouldn’t I?’

  ‘You can drink mead, if you wish, but you’ll drink on your own,’ she said, handing him his cup and savouring her own wine contentedly. It was an excellent wine from Bordeaux. Sorcha’s husband, Óisín, imported barrels of wine and sold it to the rich merchant families of Galway. Two or three times a year he brought a barrel over for her. Mead was homemade from fermented honey and too sweet for her taste.

  ‘The MacNamara may, in fact probably will, be consulting you about the mill, tomorrow,’ she said quietly. The boys were making an immense amount of noise, all shouting and laughing and poking new branches into the bonfire. They could talk with as much privacy here as in her sitting room.

  ‘What about the mill?’ he asked, his mouth full of roast pork.

  ‘Well, the mill was the property of Aengus. His grandfather purchased it after years of successful farming. It’s not the property of the taoiseach.

  ‘Nothing to do with Garrett, then.’

  ‘No,’ she said hesitantly.

  ‘But?’ he queried.

  ‘Aengus wasn’t married and there was no near relative,’ she said evenly.

  Turlough swallowed a mouthful and then whistled.

  ‘Well, you know the law better than I do, but I would say that if Aengus had no family, then the mill reverts to Garrett as clan property. Lucky!’ He whistled again, sounding like one of the teenage lads.

  ‘I didn’t say he had no family,’ said Mara quietly. ‘He was reputed to have two sons.’

  ‘Acknowledged?’

  ‘Well, yes and no,’ said Mara hesitantly.

  The king smiled. ‘That doesn’t sound like you. You’re always so sure.’

  ‘It’s not a matter that anyone, except the man himself, and his God, could be sure about. The law is, of course, as always, quite plain and simple on this matter. If the son is acknowledged by the father then his rights of inheritance are as solid as if the parents had married.’

  ‘And did Aengus not acknowledge these two sons?’

  ‘Not in so many words,’ said Mara thoughtfully. ‘The youngest, Balor, is extremely like the father in appearance, but he is classified as a druth and as such would have no rights to an inheritance even if he were the son of a legitimate marriage. The elder, Niall, is quite unlike the father in appearance and I have heard it said that he is unlike the mother also. The mother is dead, and I didn’t really know her, not to remember, so I couldn’t
say for sure.’

  ‘And Aengus denied paternity?’

  ‘Not to me,’ said Mara, ‘but again, I have heard that he expressed doubts. The mother was a servant working at the mill.’ She chewed a piece of roast pork thoughtfully. It was beautifully cooked with crisp crackling on the outside and the pale meat succulent, but her taste was more for beef. She swallowed some more wine and nodded in appreciation. Generally, she preferred the wines of Burgundy, but this really was excellent.

  ‘So the fellow himself, this Niall, he claimed to be the son, although Aengus denied it, is that it?’

  ‘It’s not as straightforward as that,’ said Mara, putting down her cup and taking a piece of linen from her pouch to wipe her hands. ‘It — ’ she stopped as a tall figure came running over from the bonfire.

  ‘Would you like some more, my lord?’ asked Enda respectfully. ‘And, what about you, Brehon?’

  ‘No, thank you, Enda.’

  ‘Yes, please, and tell Brigid it’s delicious,’ said Turlough at the same moment.

  Mara waited until Enda had gone back to the bonfire carrying the two empty platters before continuing. ‘It was always assumed on the Burren that both Niall and Balor were the sons of Aengus. It was an open secret that he was sleeping with his servant. Aengus bought a piece of land for Niall near Noughaval and gave it to him as a present. I am certain of that. I myself drew up the lease. It was enough land to give Niall the status of an ocaire, small farmer, though previously he had been described as a servant boy. I think that if I were to judge the case at Poulnabrone I would give the verdict that Aengus had never publicly contradicted the widespread assumption that Niall was his son and that his purchase of the land went far beyond anything that a master would do for a young servant. No, I think that Niall was the son of Aengus, and I think that Aengus did believe him to be his son.’

  ‘So now Niall inherits the mill?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Mara. ‘At the moment, that is the way that I am thinking. Whether Garrett likes it or not, Niall inherits the mill.’