A Secret and Unlawful Killing

by Cora Harrison

  ‘I asked him what Niall felt about this,’ said Ardal in a low voice. He cast a quick glance around. Niall was standing not far away, obviously hoping to speak with either the O’Lochlainn or the Brehon.

  ‘And what did he say?’

  ‘He said Niall had nothing to do with it. He said that Niall was not the son of Aengus, that Aengus had never acknowledged him, that Aengus had no derbhfine left alive, so therefore the mill reverted to being clan property and as such could be sold by the taoiseach. He was very anxious to get the matter settled, but I told him that I would have to speak with you before even thinking about it.’

  ‘But would you like to buy the mill?’ asked Mara.

  ‘I would indeed,’ said Ardal vigorously. ‘It’s great land up there and there are some very good houses left since the time of the monastery. In fact, I thought Garrett was going to do something about those buildings before now – they would be clan land, nothing to do with Aengus, though he was allowed the use of one as a living place. In fact, Garrett himself told me that Slaney had great plans to repair the abbot’s house; she was always going up there, he said.’

  ‘What would he have wanted it for?’

  ‘Well, I think perhaps to have it for the next steward. Ragnall was getting too old for the position and Garrett was thinking of having Maol as steward and leasing him the house and some land. Anyway, the sale, so far as I was concerned, would be for the mill itself and the old abbey lands around it, including the buildings on them. I got the impression that Garrett would like to get rid of them. If Maol marries Ragnall’s daughter, Maeve, then they would occupy the house at Shesmore of course.’

  ‘So you’d like to buy and he’d like to sell,’ mused Mara.

  ‘I think I could do better with the mill,’ said Ardal. ‘Aengus wasn’t a good man as a miller. He liked his own company; he didn’t welcome people. A lot of the farmers took to doing their own grinding. If I had it, I would put in someone friendly and hospitable. I have someone in mind. I would do up the abbot’s house as his ban tighernae planned and then use one of the small buildings as an alehouse. There could be two prosperous businesses there – a mill and an alehouse – and the valley would be a great place for the mares and foals. Even though the MacNamara is asking a high price, it still could be very worth my while.’

  It would be, too, thought Mara. Ardal had brains and he was a hard worker. The O’Lochlainn clan were lucky to have him.

  ‘There’s only one thing that worries me,’ said Ardal, his eyes going to the figure of Niall who still stood silently waiting. ‘I would not like any man to be wronged, even if he is not a member of my own clan.’

  Mara nodded. Now was the moment to ask her question. ‘Do you remember when Aengus bought that small farm from you, here at Noughaval?’

  ‘I do indeed,’ said Ardal readily.

  ‘What was your impression of the relationship between Aengus and Niall, then?’ asked Mara. It was a hard question to ask of a man who had just seen a new and exciting business proposition open up before him, but Ardal was an honest man. She knew that he would give her an honest answer.

  ‘I thought he bought the farm because Niall was his son,’ said Ardal without hesitation and Mara smiled with pleasure. It was good to know that she was not wrong about him: Ardal O’Lochlainn was straight and honourable.

  ‘My memory is that nothing was put down about a relationship in writing, but that was also my impression,’ she said cordially. ‘Could you check the deed, Ardal?’

  ‘I’ve already done so,’ said Ardal. ‘There is nothing about a relationship there.’

  ‘I see,’ said Mara. ‘Well, I have promised Niall that I will hear the case at Poulnabrone. He may wish to call you as a witness. Would you be willing to testify?’

  ‘I would be willing,’ said Ardal firmly.

  ‘I’ll tell him that. I want to have a word with him.’ She cast a quick glance over her shoulder. Turlough was obviously coming to the end of civilities with Father O‘Connor. ‘Go and entertain the king for a few minutes, would you, Ardal. I just want to see Niall.

  ‘Wait for me for a moment, Niall, I must have a quick word with Fintan,’ she said as she passed him. He looked very unwell, she thought. He had the look of a man who had not slept. His skin was pale and puffy and there were black smudges under his eyes. Fintan saw her coming and left his wife and family and joined her. She wondered whether Balor had told him of his confession, but Fintan looked relaxed and happy, pretending to roar at a small daughter that ran after him.

  ‘Balor said you were looking for me yesterday, Brehon,’ he said. ‘Was it about the bench?’

  ‘Oh, I was just passing, Fintan,’ said Mara. ‘I was coming back from the inauguration of the new tánaiste at Carron Castle so I thought I’d stop at the forge. My mare was going lame so I got Balor to have a look to make sure that there was nothing wrong. He said she was fine, and he proved to be right.’

  ‘He’s a great lad with horses,’ said Fintan genially. ‘Well the bench is coming on good, Brehon. I think you’ll be pleased with it. Drop by any day, whenever you have the time and, if you like it, myself and Balor will bring it over in the cart and set it up in your garden.’

  ‘That will be lovely,’ said Mara. ‘Oh, and Fintan, there was something else that I wanted to ask you about. Do you remember when you went back to talk to Ragnall again on Michaelmas Day? Was there anyone with him? He was still in the same place, just near Liam, was he?’

  Fintan was silent for a moment. She could see his mind running through explanations for his return, but then he just said simply: ‘He wasn’t there, Brehon. He was in the churchyard, talking to young Donal O’Brien. I was going to wait, but then I decided to leave the matter. After all I had the …’

  He stopped abruptly and Mara smiled. ‘Yes, you had the candlesticks back by then, didn’t you? So you decided, like a sensible man, to leave matters alone.’

  Fintan looked embarrassed, but relieved. ‘So you’ve heard that,’ he said with resignation. ‘I should have known that Balor wouldn’t have been able to keep a secret for too long. I went back. I was still in a bit of a temper, but then I calmed down. And like you said, I had the candlesticks back, so I just went home again. That was the way of it, Brehon. There were lots of our clan there. They’ll all have seen me. You can ask anyone you like. No one will be able to say that they saw me go into the churchyard.’

  ‘Can you remember what time it was, then, Fintan? Had the bell gone for vespers, yet?’

  ‘No, Brehon, it hadn’t. I heard it just as I was going back in through my own gate.’

  ‘Well, Fintan, that’s all I wanted to know,’ said Mara. ‘I’ll be along one day to see the bench. I’m sure I’ll be very pleased with it.’

  She watched him rejoin his family and swing his little girl onto his immense broad shoulders. Turlough and Ardal were deep in conversation, so she walked over towards Niall.

  ‘Niall,’ she said, ‘on Michaelmas Day was it you that collected the sacks of flour from the mill?’

  He hesitated and then nodded. He looked at her fearfully.

  ‘And Aengus gave them to you?’ No one could be sure, not even she herself, of the time of Aengus’s death, so the question should not strike him as strange.

  ‘No, Brehon, he wasn’t there.’

  ‘So how did you know what to take?’

  His face cleared. ‘I was talking to him at the festival, in the alehouse, the night before. He told me that he might be at Mass at the abbey when we came, but he would leave the sacks by the door.’

  ‘And who took back the damaged sack?’

  He looked surprised, but answered readily. ‘Old Ragnall himself did that, Brehon. He was riding behind the cart and he saw the trail of flour spilling out from the damaged sack. The lane is narrow there, so he told me not to bother trying to turn the cart. We hoisted the sack onto the saddle of Ragnall’s horse and he walked back with it to the mill.’

  ‘I see,’ said Ma
ra. So Ragnall had gone back to the mill alone. Had he seen something there? Was the murderer of Aengus hiding when they arrived with the heavily laden cart creaking up the lane and the sound of men’s voices? And did the murderer then emerge, only to be seen by Ragnall?

  ‘And did Ragnall say anything when he came back?’ she asked, voicing her thoughts.

  Niall thought for a moment. ‘I don’t remember, Brehon,’ he said doubtfully. ‘He might have done.’

  ‘Well, Niall,’ she said briskly. ‘I will be judging your case at Poulnabrone on Saturday. In the meantime, I suggest that you gather as many witnesses as you can who will be able to testify if Aengus ever spoke of you as his son, or ever implied that you were his son. Now I must leave you, Niall. I see the O’Lochlainn steward over there and I want to have a quick word with him.’

  She left him looking rather glum and disheartened. With his mother dead and nothing written down, it was going to be a difficult case, she thought. Generally a taoiseach would be expected to know something like this and his witness would be very important. But in this case the taoiseach was new to the area and was hostile to Niall’s claim. In fact, thought Mara, this taoiseach was desperate for money and would do anything to obtain it. His testimony would not be reliable. His marriage might depend on him getting some extra silver.

  ‘Brehon, you’re looking well,’ said Liam as she joined him.

  ‘What a lovely breezy autumn morning, Liam,’ said Mara. Usually she didn’t bother discussing the weather, but she did not want the O’Lochlainn steward to see anything of significance in her query. He was a great man for collecting gossip from all corners of the kingdom and then airing it in the alehouse. She would talk about the weather and try to find an opening into which she could insert her question.

  ‘Mackerel sky, not long wet, not long dry,’ he said, eyeing the clouds above. ‘You see the look of the sky over there, over the Aran Islands. I wouldn’t be surprised if we have a shower before nightfall.’

  ‘Well, we’ve had all sorts of weather this week,’ said Mara seizing the opportunity. ‘What with the fog on Michaelmas Day, or did that start on Michaelmas Eve? Niall was telling me that it was misty that evening at Noughaval, was that right? I wasn’t at the Michaelmas Eve céilí myself; I was busy preparing the scholars’ work for the Michaelmas term.’

  ‘No, no, it was a lovely evening,’ said Liam. ‘But Niall wasn’t there. I remember noticing that. What with him living so near, I would have expected him to be there. No, we had a good time that evening. After Aengus and Ragnall had the row, you remember I was telling you about that … and it was then I looked to see if Niall was there – I thought he might stand up for his father since Donal O’Brien was standing up for old Ragnall – well after all that comhrac was over and Aengus and Donal had gone, a group of us took our ale outside and it was almost like summer again.’

  ‘It must have been another day he was talking about then,’ said Mara briskly. She had her information now so she might as well depart. ‘Are you waiting for the O’Lochlainn, Liam? King Turlough is coming home with me for dinner so I’d better collect him now, or else Brigid will be complaining.’ Turlough was starting to look bored, she thought. He liked his conversation with a little more savour than the earnest Ardal could provide.

  ‘So tell me all the gossip from Carron Castle,’ she said as they both started to ride along the road from Noughaval to Cahermacnaghten. ‘What was the stately Slaney up to with your son Murrough? Don’t tell me that they were rolling in the hay, or kissing and cuddling in the barn.’

  ‘Well, of course, they were careful in front of me,’ said Turlough with an appreciative chuckle. ‘They wouldn’t want to take any chance that I would carry tales to Murrough’s wife.’

  ‘You wouldn’t do that – about your own son!’

  ‘Serve him right. Still, I don’t suppose that I would. I don’t like her much, Eleanor, I mean. She’s too like her father, Gearoid Mór, the Earl of Kildare, as he calls himself these days. The whole family is in the pocket of the English. He is always popping over to London to see Henry VIII. That son of mine would like an earldom, also. He’ll make sure that no talk of Slaney ever gets to Eleanor’s ears. He will want to keep on the good side of the Earl of Kildare.’

  ‘Slaney would love to be married to an earl,’ said Mara maliciously. ‘I was wondering if she were thinking of divorcing Garrett and marrying Murrough. Well, if Murrough is not for her, I wonder whether she has any hope of getting Garrett to become an earl. Perhaps we’ll see herself and Garrett trotting across to Kildare one of these days.’

  ‘Garrett! That fellow is just a serchéile, a vassal, of mine. I’d stick a sword in him if he betrayed me like that,’ shouted Turlough so loudly that a donkey, which had been enjoying a heap of small red crab apples under the hedge, came running up and stuck his head over the wall with an alarmed hee-haw. Turlough gave a sudden shout of laughter, the donkey tossed his head with an even louder bray and the two bodyguards who were following at a discreet distance came galloping up, full of alarm.

  ‘All right, all right,’ said Turlough, looking slightly embarrassed. ‘Nothing’s wrong. It’s the Brehon’s fault,’ he added. ‘She was making a joke about a donkey and then up comes another donkey to enjoy the fun. Ride ahead, lads. Tell Brigid we are on our way and I am starving.’

  ‘So how’s your murder case going?’ he said as the bodyguards, with a few uneasy glances around, rode on down the road towards the law school.

  ‘Complicated,’ said Mara. ‘You see, if Malachy could even tell me which one was killed first, I would have something to go on. It seems unbelievable that there should be no connection between two deaths within a few hours of each other and each man belonging to the same clan.’

  ‘What could the connection be though?’

  Mara drew her mare to a halt and Turlough did the same, looking at her enquiringly. ‘Let me think,’ she said. ‘Let me draw a picture, that’s the way my mind works best.’ She stopped for a moment, her mind shifting through the confusing facts, placing them in order, discarding some and putting others to one side, for the moment. Turlough watched her affectionately, his green eyes alert and interested.

  ‘Let’s take this for a possible story,’ said Mara slowly. ‘It’s Monday morning, a foggy, cold morning. Aengus is in his mill; the murderer is there also. He wants to murder Aengus. He creeps up on him with his knife, or perhaps it is a heavy stick. He knocks him on the head, or slits his throat - the second I think.

  ‘Why?’ asked Turlough.

  ‘Because that would be a reason to put the gate over the man’s throat – it would hide the wound.’

  ‘Why bother?’

  ‘Wait a minute,’ she said. ‘Don’t interrupt me. I’m just feeling my way in the dark. The murderer kills Aengus, carries his body outside, and places it under the sluice gate in a clumsy attempt to make it look like suicide. The sluice gate falls down on the man’s neck, probably breaking it.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘And then,’ she said triumphantly, ‘Niall comes in, sees the bags of flour for the Michaelmas tribute all lined up by the wall, takes them out one by one and places them in the cart, turns the cart and goes back down the lane.’

  ‘Why was Ragnall murdered then?’

  ‘Well, Ragnall was a mean man and as he followed the cart he saw a tiny trickle of flour coming from a hole in one of the sacks. They could not turn the cart in that lane – it’s only about six foot wide the whole way down the hill, so Ragnall loaded the sack onto his own horse, went back and saw the murderer, perhaps heard a sound, went out and saw him putting the body under the sluice gate.’

  ‘So the murderer murders Ragnall.’

  Mara nodded.

  ‘But not until the evening, not until sundown at the Michaelmas Fair. Why the wait?’ Turlough questioned.

  ‘Well, that makes sense,’ pointed out Mara. ‘After all, Niall was there, with the cart. He couldn’t tackle two men.’

/>   ‘And why did Ragnall say nothing if he did witness a murder? Was he planning blackmail?’

  ‘That I don’t know,’ said Mara. ‘My picture is fading now. You were interrupting too much.’

  ‘Not at all,’ said Turlough with a grin. ‘I’m just teaching you to think sensibly, and not to go off on wild flights of fancy.’

  ‘The other picture, of course,’ said Mara, ignoring this, ‘is that Aengus was actually killed on Sunday night, after the Michaelmas Eve festival. Now that …’

  ‘Brehon.’ Shane was running up the road, his black hair blowing in the fresh wind from the west. He stopped abruptly and gave a quick bow to the king. ‘Tá failte romhat, a thighernae,’ he said quickly and then turned to Mara. ‘Brehon, Brigid sent me to tell you that the Brehon of Corcomroe and his wife are waiting to see you. Oh, and Hugh and me are helping to baste the roast goose while Brigid is making the apple sauce. Brigid says to tell you that the goose will be ready in a wee while,’ he finished, lapsing into his north of Ireland dialect, as he made another quick bow, turned and fled back down the road.

  ‘Roast goose!’ said Turlough reverentially. He was a man who worshipped his food and Brigid always laid her best in front of him.

  ‘Fergus and Siobhan MacClancy,’ said Mara in tones of despair. Fergus was a nice, kind man, who had been very good to Mara, taking on the duties of Brehon of the Burren when her father died and then influencing the king, Turlough’s uncle, to appoint Mara herself as a Brehon. Mara was fond of him, but he was never good company and Siobhan was an immensely boring woman.

  She could see them now. They were standing at the gate of the Brehon’s house, looking eagerly up the road.

  ‘We smelled the goose all the way up the road,’ shrilled Siobhan. And then she saw the king. She bowed reverentially. ‘Dia’s Muire agat, a thighernae,’ she said respectfully and Fergus’s quiet voice echoed his wife’s.