A Secret and Unlawful Killing

by Cora Harrison

  ‘Ah, Diarmuid,’ she said compassionately, ‘I don’t know any woman in the world who would be good enough for someone like you.’

  FIFTEEN

  AN SEANCHAS MóR (THE GREAT ANCIENT TRADITION)

  Iƒ there are no sons to inherit from a father, then a daughter is known as a banchomarbae (female heir) and is entitled to a share in his goods. She inherits all of his personal goods, but only land of the amount suited for an ocaire, or small farmer, and this land reverts to the kin-group after her death. However, iƒ her husband is a landless alien, such as a Briton, then the land passes to her sons.

  ‘CUMHAL, COULD YOU SPARE a man to take a letter to the king at Arra?’ said Mara after breakfast on Tuesday morning.

  ‘Yes, of course, Brehon,’ said Cumhal promptly, putting down the axe with which he was attacking a cord of firewood. Cumhal always chopped wood first thing on autumn and winter mornings. Mara suspected that it was his way of warming himself for the day, and also keeping out of Brigid’s path as she bustled around the kitchen house, cooking breakfast for the scholars and for the farm workers. Brigid’s temper was always fairly lively first thing in the morning.

  ‘The king is not at Arra though, Brehon,’ continued Cumhal, mopping his brow. ‘I think he is at Lemeanah.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Mara. She was surprised. It had certainly been Turlough’s plan to go straight home when he had left her on Sunday afternoon. Perhaps he stopped at Lemeanah to discuss young Donal with Teige and then was persuaded to stay the night. ‘How do you know?’ she asked. It was amazing how Brigid and Cumhal between them always managed to know in minute detail everything that happened on the Burren.

  ‘I met the mac an rí [king’s son] outside the gates at Carron,’ explained Cumhal. ‘He asked how you were, and he told me that he was riding down to join his father at Lemeanah.’

  ‘Well, that’s good, then, if the king’s there; that will only take half an hour,’ said Mara. ‘You might send Sean,’ she suggested as Brigid’s voice rose to a shriek urging Sean to keep out from under her feet.

  The scholars looked rather forlorn when they came into the schoolhouse after breakfast and saw a heap of work awaiting them.

  ‘I’m afraid that I will have to leave you this morning,’ said Mara. ‘Fachtnan, you will be in charge, and, Enda, I know you will give him all your assistance.’ Enda, she was pleased to note, sat up straight and opened his books with a resolute air.

  ‘I will be back around noon, or if not then, well, very soon after. I’ll certainly be back before you finish eating your dinner and then I would like you to help me. I want you to ride around the Burren. I have a list of everyone that I saw at the fair, and Hugh will be able to add to that list. Fachtnan, I will give the list to you, and when all the scholars have finished their work then you and Hugh will be able to go through the names and each scholar can spend the afternoon interviewing these people and getting their memories of the Michaelmas Fair, and in particular,’ here she paused and looked around at the six young faces in front of her, ‘in particular,’ she repeated, ‘you must note their memories of Guaire, the linen merchant from Corcomroe. Liam, the O’Lochlainn steward, thinks that Ragnall had already disappeared from sight before Guaire left. If that is true, then Guaire may not have been responsible for his murder.’

  ‘But could Liam be sure?’ asked Shane shrewdly. ‘After all, the walls of the churchyard are pretty high.’

  ‘Liam was standing on a box,’ said Hugh. As the only member of the law school present at the Michaelmas Fair, he now considered himself as an authority on this murder case. Even the older boys had been cross-questioning him on the details. It had suddenly given him the confidence in himself that he had lacked previously.

  ‘And Ragnall was on a horse, you remember him on his big white horse, Hugh? Well, Liam says that he rode the horse into the churchyard.’

  ‘No horse when we went into the churchyard on Tuesday morning,’ said Aidan alertly. ‘And we were the ones that found the body.’ He gave an aggressive stare at Hugh.

  ‘And we looked all round the churchyard to see if the murderer was hiding behind the gravestones,’ said Moylan, with the nonchalant air of one who would happily capture a few murderers before breakfast.

  ‘We’d definitely have seen the horse.’

  ‘And he wasn’t a quiet horse, either,’ said Hugh judicially. ‘He was always tossing his head and neighing. He even tried to kick at Bran when I passed Ragnall at the Michaelmas Fair. I’m the only one of you that has been near that white horse,’ he said, looking back at Aidan, with innocent blue eyes widely opened.

  ‘Well, where did the horse go then, Brehon?’ said Aidan, turning disdainfully away from his junior.

  ‘I don’t know,’ admitted Mara. ‘I thought I would go down to Shesmore today and see if it had returned home.’

  ‘Wouldn’t Ragnall’s daughter have sent you a message, Brehon?’ queried Fachtnan. ‘I’m sure that she would have done that.’ He blushed slightly as he said the words. He would, perhaps, have seen Maeve with Donal O’Brien. She was a pretty girl. Fachtnan would not like to believe any harm of such a girl.

  ‘Perhaps she and Donal killed her father,’ said Enda enthusiastically. ‘Then they would have hidden the horse, wouldn’t they? Could that be a solution to Ragnall’s murder, Brehon?’

  ‘Perhaps we should come with you to Shesmore, Brehon,’ suggested Moylan hopefully. ‘We could sneak around the stables and see if the horse is there and then confront them with the evidence.’

  ‘It mightn’t be safe for you to go on your own, Brehon. Donal O’Brien might be armed and dangerous,’ said Enda gravely. Normally these days he treated Aidan and Moylan with disdain, but now the hope of solving this murder made him close ranks with them.

  ‘Anyway, no one would notice us poking around in the stables and they’d notice you. You couldn’t make up an excuse to look in the stables, but we could,’ said Aidan, in the tone of voice of one who knows that his argument is irresistible.

  ‘No, I don’t think so,’ began Mara and then she stopped. There was something to be said for Aidan’s idea. ‘I think,’ she continued slowly, ‘that I’ll take Hugh and Shane with me. They are too young to be conducting investigations like the rest of you, so they can work in the afternoon. You are quite right, Aidan, thank you for pointing it out. Two young boys could easily go unnoticed into the stables, where I would be observed. So go and get your cloaks, you two.’

  She ignored the groans from Aidan and Moylan as she went out of the schoolhouse. The scholars had to work hard, especially in their last few years at law school. There was an immense quantity of law texts to be memorized; their Latin had to be as good as their Gaelic; their skills in rhetoric and debating had to be polished and even their handwriting had to be perfect before they could be admitted to the elite body of lawyers, and perhaps, later, become a Brehon. All this could only be accomplished by constant hard work.

  Seán, she noticed, as she crossed the yard to where Cumhal was standing holding her beautifully groomed mare, was only just setting out. It was no wonder that he annoyed Brigid. She saw Cumhal glaring at him and smiled to herself.

  ‘You could keep an eye on the scholars, Cumhal,’ she said in a low voice. ‘I’m taking the two little ones with me, but Aidan and Moylan may give Fachtnan a bit of a hard time and …’ she stopped, hearing Seán’s deep slow voice from the other side of the hedge.

  ‘Why don’t you have a word with the Brehon about this, Niall? She’s in there in the yard at the moment.’

  There was a murmur of voices and then the sound of two horses trotting down the road. Mara took the bridle from Cumhal’s hand and walked her horse across to the gate of the law school enclosure and looked out. Niall and Sean were going down the road towards the crossroads. She could hear the sound of their voices, though not the words, and it seemed as though Niall kept company with Sean and turned right at the crossroads, going towards Carron, or Lemeanah, rather than continuin
g on towards his own farm at Noughaval. Could he want to see the king? she wondered. He had been looking very unhappy every time she had seen him recently. She felt somewhat hurt that he had not confided in her, but it was his right to speak to the king directly and she knew that Turlough would be gentle and kind towards him. In any case, she was certainly not going to chase after him, so she shrugged her shoulders and turned back to smile at her two eager young scholars bursting out of the door of the scholars’ house and leaping onto the backs of their ponies.

  ‘We wore our second-best cloaks, Brehon,’ said Shane as they joined her. ‘I thought it would be a good idea if we are going to be nosing around in the stables.’

  ‘We’ve made a plan,’ said Hugh, as they clattered down the road beside her. ‘We decided that we would ask if there were any puppies or kittens around. Even if Maeve doesn’t know, then we could just go poking around the barns and stables, pretending that we are looking for them.’

  ‘Hugh says he’s sure he’ll recognize the horse,’ said Shane. ‘He says it’s a big white horse with a wall eye.’

  ‘Will we tell you straight out if we see him?’ asked Hugh.

  ‘Better not,’ said Mara.

  ‘We could have a signal,’ said Shane eagerly.

  ‘Wink at you,’ suggested Hugh.

  ‘That’s too obvious,’ argued Shane. ‘I know. We’ll say that we’ve found a baby swallow in the stable, or barn, or wherever the horse has been hidden.’

  ‘It’s too late for baby swallows,’ stated Hugh. ‘I saw all of the swallows flying out to sea from Drumcreehy on the Sunday before we came back to school. We won’t see swallows again until next summer.’

  ‘That’s the point,’ explained Shane. ‘As soon as we say that, the Brehon will tell us that we must be wrong and then we can tell her to come and see and she’ll come and she’ll be surprised to see the horse.’

  ‘That’s a good plan, Shane,’ said Hugh approvingly. ‘What do you think, Brehon?’

  ‘I think you have worked it out very well between you,’ said Mara. They were a sweet pair of children. She felt very maternal towards them. They never fought or challenged or criticized each other in the way that the older boys did. I would miss them all terribly if I gave up the school to become Turlough’s wife, she thought. It was all very well for Turlough to pour scorn on her idea of a marriage of fourth degree, but perhaps that was what would suit her best. A marriage of fourth degree, whereby a man visited a woman but did not have her in his house, would work well for both of them. Turlough, of course, disapproved. This type of marriage normally took place between a man and a woman of much lower status. Ardal O’Lochlainn, so gossiping tongues related, had contracted a marriage of the fourth degree between a fisherman’s daughter in Galway and himself. Ardal visited her from time to time and no doubt they were very happy. There was no real reason why the same arrangement should not work for Turlough and herself. As for status, she cared little about that; the people of the Burren would accept the position once she explained her reasons to them.

  When they arrived at Shesmore, Maeve was there to meet them. The steady clip clop of the horses’ feet, the jingling of the harness and the high-pitched chatter from the two boys may have brought her out of the house, surmised Mara. However, Maeve’s cheeks were red and her breathing was rapid as if she had been running. And the girl’s boots were covered in clay, Mara noticed. She glanced carelessly down the lane that led to Lemeanah. Yes, after the rain of the previous evening, its churned-up surface was glistening with mud and puddles.

  ‘What a lovely morning after the storm yesterday,’ exclaimed Mara as she swung herself from her horse. She looked around, admiring the way the autumn sun lit up the pale yellow of the hazel leaves and the gold of the newly thatched roof of the farmhouse. Hugh slid from his pony and took the reins from her hands and then he and Shane proceeded to tie the ponies and mare to the rail.

  Maeve said nothing, so Mara talked on, giving the girl a few minutes to recover her breath. ‘I had to take refuge at Lissylisheen yesterday evening. Even though I would have been home in ten minutes, the storm was too bad to risk staying out in it.’

  ‘Yes, I heard that you were there,’ murmured Maeve. She pulled at her blue léine from where it had been kilted by her belt and smoothed it down so that it covered her boots.

  ‘There are a few things I would like to talk over with you,’ said Mara, looking around at the empty yard. ‘Shall we go inside? Hugh and Shane, you can go and play in the meadow over there, if you wish.’

  ‘Let’s go and see if there are any puppies around, Hugh,’ said Shane. Mara had to conceal a smile; his voice sounded so natural.

  Maeve hardly seemed to notice his words; she seemed to worry more about trying to conceal how muddy her boots were than about the activities of the two young boys. She led the way into the house and Mara followed her, marvelling at how tiny the girl was: ten-year-old Shane was almost as big as she.

  ‘The king has been discussing your situation with me, Maeve,’ she began as soon as she was seated. ‘I’ll explain a little about the law of inheritance to you first of all and then we’ll discuss your future. The position is that you will retain twenty acres of land for yourself and also the dwelling house. I would advise that you keep the twenty acres nearest the house. If you marry,’ Mara smiled as she saw the quick blush spread over Maeve’s face, and continued, ‘perhaps I should say, when you marry, you could put a tenant into this property if you wished or else, of course, you and your husband could live here. The thing you must remember is that this land is yours for your lifetime only. After your death it goes back to the clan.’ She went on to explain the law of holding land, but she knew that Maeve was not listening.

  ‘Will I be allowed to marry the man I want to marry?’ The voice was sweet and low, but the eyes were determined.

  ‘The king has placed your marriage plans in my hands,’ said Mara. ‘If I approve of your choice then you will be allowed to marry.’

  ‘Oh!’ There was a note of surprise in the girl’s voice. She must have imagined that she would be her own mistress once her father was dead.

  ‘So who do you want to marry?’ asked Mara indulgently.

  ‘Donal O’Brien,’ whispered Maeve, her eyelashes making a fringed crescent of black over her flushed cheeks.

  ‘And does he want to marry you?’

  This time a tiny smile tugged at the corners of Maeve’s red lips. She said nothing and Mara laughed.

  ‘Yes, I’m sure that he does,’ she said. ‘I saw him with you at Noughaval on Michaelmas Day. He’s a handsome fellow, isn’t he? I thought he looked magnificent in that grey mantle.’

  Maeve’s eyelashes flew up and her blue eyes looked startled, even slightly indignant. ‘No, Brehon,’ she said. ‘Don’t you remember? Donal was wearing his best purple mantle.’

  ‘Of course he was,’ said Mara, shaking her head and trying to give the impression of a forgetful old lady. ‘Of course you’re right. He was wearing a purple mantle.’ She wondered whether to ask about a brooch, but then the image of Donal on that afternoon suddenly came to her mind. His purple mantle had been carelessly draped over one shoulder, not pinned tidily with a brooch. There was a moment’s silence as both pictured in their minds that handsome young man at the fair. He had looked as though the weight of the world were on his shoulders, thought Mara. But why? And why was an O’Brien derbhfine brooch, with a piece of torn grey woollen cloth still attached, found on Ragnall’s body?

  ‘Will I be allowed to marry him?’ breathed Maeve.

  ‘That depends on a few things. I will have to talk to the young man’s father. And also I will have to see if he is a fit person to marry you. Just a few enquiries now will save a lot of heartbreak later on. I don’t want to see you married this year and divorced the next.’

  ‘That would never happen,’ said Maeve with a secret smile.

  ‘It happens,’ said Mara bluntly. ‘I was married at fourteen and divorced by
the time that I was seventeen. I thought my husband was perfect, but I was wrong. He turned out to be a lazy, worthless braggart, so I divorced him.’ She smiled at the outraged expression on Maeve’s face and got to her feet saying, ‘Well, I’ll have to take a look at this young man and see whether he is good enough for you. Now I’d better go and find my two young men.’

  Shane and Hugh were emerging from the stables when she came out with Maeve.

  ‘You haven’t got any baby swallows, Maeve,’ said Hugh loudly with a meaningful glance at Mara.

  ‘Swallows?’ queried Maeve, looking puzzled. ‘You don’t get swallows in October,’ she explained with a maternal glance at Hugh. His red curls, his innocent blue eyes and his freckled, small-featured face always seemed to evoke affection in the women of the Burren.

  ‘No, I didn’t suppose you’d find any,’ mused Mara, her eyes on the muddy surface of the lane. ‘Well, we’d better be off, lads. We’re going down to Lemeanah Castle.’

  On the way down, she noticed several horseshoe prints in the wet clay. A big horse had been taken, or ridden, down the lane since last night’s rain. It was a pity that Liam had been there last night when she speculated about the horse. No doubt he had made some sort of excuse to call on Maeve that morning and find out about it. However, if the horse had been moved this seemed to point to some sort of guilt on the part of Maeve and Donal O’Brien, so perhaps it was just as well that Liam was such an inquisitive, gossipy man.

  ‘Whew, what a stink,’ said Shane as they came near to the castle.

  ‘They’re dyeing the wool black in the yard,’ said Mara. She could smell the pungency of the iron and the sharp acridity of the bearberry leaves over the familiar odour of wet wool.