A Secret and Unlawful Killing

by Cora Harrison

  ‘Did you see Niall yesterday?’ she asked.

  ‘Niall?’ replied Turlough. ‘What Niall?’

  ‘Niall MacNamara, Aengus’s son. You know, the young man who was brought up at the mill. He was riding down towards Lemeanah. I thought that he was going to see you?’

  ‘No, he didn’t come to see me.’

  ‘Strange,’ mused Mara. ‘He went in that direction. I assumed that he was going to see you. Still, I suppose he might have turned left at the cross. He could have been going to Caherconnell to see Malachy. He would be unlikely to be going to Carron after the reception that he got there when he showed his face at the inauguration of the new tánaiste. Slaney certainly made her feelings clear on that occasion. Turlough, you don’t think that there is any chance that Garrett has got himself into the hands of money-lenders in Galway, do you?’

  ‘What makes you think that?’ asked Turlough with a quick frown. Mara knew how much he hated English ways. A money-lender, even money itself, was anathema to him. He saw no reason why the old ways, where men bartered their surplus goods, should not continue to prevail.

  ‘It’s just that Garrett seems very desperate for money,’ said Mara. ‘He seems determined to do Niall out of his proper and expected inheritance of the mill and he tried to take Ragnall’s daughter’s rights of property and land away from her. And he even tried to accuse me of taking some silver from old Ragnall’s purse.’ Then she told the whole story of her visit to Garrett and Slaney.

  Turlough looked more cheerful. It had done him good to take his mind off Conor and Murrough. ‘Perhaps you’re right. Perhaps Garrett is desperate for money in order to keep hold of his wife. What did he marry that woman, Slaney, for? I’d have found him a nice little wife who would have kept her mouth shut and done what she was told.’

  ‘So that’s the sort of wife that you would like?’ asked Mara demurely.

  ‘You’d better open that door, or they will be thinking that all sorts of things are going on in here,’ whispered Turlough, his green eyes twinkling with fun. ‘You’re a woman with a reputation, you know.’

  ‘It’s your reputation that you are worrying about,’ whispered back Mara. She allowed another minute to elapse before opening the door, saying at the same time, ‘Well, my lord, as Fíthail says, “A rigne is messu don gaís”, the worst of wisdom is its slowness.’

  ‘I couldn’t agree more,’ said Turlough, after a moment’s startled silence. ‘Good old Fíthail,’ he said warming to the task. ‘You can always rely on him to come up with something useful. I keep a copy of his sayings by my bedside.’

  ‘So do I,’ said Mara gravely. Brigid, she thought, had a sceptical air, though the three men looked impressed.

  The night was startlingly bright when Cumhal, bowing deferentially, opened the front door. All of the clouds were suddenly blown away and in the immense darkness the sky was blazing with stars, the moon lying in the middle of its soft black expanse like a silver platter on the black polished surface of an oaken table.

  ‘I’ll walk over to the guesthouse with you,’ said Mara. ‘I need to fetch something from the schoolhouse.’

  ‘You lads go on ahead,’ said Turlough to the two bodyguards. ‘There’s light enough for us to see by this moon, the Hunter’s Moon we used to call it.’ He waited for a moment until the bodyguards, followed by Brigid and Cumhal, were out of earshot, before continuing in a low voice. ‘I remember, on my eighth birthday, my father took me out hunting at night for the first time and there was a moon like that. And funnily enough, today is my birthday and here’s the same moon again.’ His voice seemed full of emotion.

  ‘You should have told me,’ said Mara. ‘We would have had something special for you this evening.’

  ‘Every hour with you is special,’ he said softly. ‘But that was why I wanted to be with you this evening. Teige wanted me to stay another night, but I told him I needed to talk business with you. I wanted to be with you on my forty-ninth birthday; I’ll be fifty next year. My father died two days after my eighth birthday. He was only twenty-seven years old. You will think about our marriage, won’t you? We would be very happy together. You need give up nothing that is important to you. I have plans about that.’

  She thought he might say more, but he didn’t; just walked by her side, his hand holding hers, his arm pressed against her shoulder. They moved apart at the gate to the law school enclosure and then walked quickly across the yard to the guesthouse, she leading and he following. He kissed her briefly at the door, but did not respond to the traditional blessing.

  When the door had closed behind him, she turned to Brigid and Cumhal.

  ‘Lend me your lantern, Cumhal,’ she said. ‘There are a few things that I need to do in the schoolhouse. The king has given me some ideas about this troublesome affair. Sleep well,’ she added, taking the covered lantern from his hand and noting that there was a new candle inside its little chamber made from translucent horn. ‘And may God and His Blessed Mother and the Blessed St Patrick guard you and keep you safe through the night.’

  The schoolhouse was still warm and a large willow-basket of turf stood beside the fireplace. She threw on a few sods. The night was frosty and once she began to read, she would not notice the cold creeping into the little house.

  Fachtnan, Enda, Moylan and Aidan had done a good day’s work, she thought, lifting, one by one, the neatly written scripts from the pile on her desk. Enda had even tabulated his under the headings of WITNESS, TIME, PLACE, WHO SEEN. She sat for a long time studying the notes and writing other notes on a spare leaf of vellum. She had forgotten about Maol, living there so near to the mill at Oughtmama.

  Everything was beginning to seem clearer to her and she didn’t like what she was discovering. She went to the wooden press where her copies of law manuscripts were kept. Her father had collected many of these and she knew that she was lucky to have them. She lifted one after another until she found the one that she wanted, The Great Book of Duniry. She leafed through the pages until she came to the right place; she made a note and then turned back to the beginning before putting the book away. At the bottom of one page was written, in the same square minuscule script as used by the scholars at the Cahermacnaghten law school almost one hundred and fifty years afterwards:

  One thousand, three hundred, ten and fifty years

  after the birth of Christ to this night and this the

  second year since the coming of the plague to Ireland,

  I have written this in the twentieth year of my life. I

  am Hugh, son of Conor MacEgan, and whoever

  reads this, let him offer a prayer for my soul.

  She never read these lines unmoved. How long had Hugh MacEgan, of that great law family, the MacEgans, survived the plague within the crowded houses of the walled city of Galway? Mara had often breathed a silent prayer for the young man who had written those words on a Christmas night. Tonight the words made her think of the other vulnerable young men whose lives touched hers: of Niall, the illegitimate son, who had expected to inherit a prosperous mill; of the three young O’Briens — Conor, dying of the wasting sickness, Murrough, his brother, who might now never be king, Donal, their cousin, so desperately in love — of her own scholars; of her little grandson in Galway; and perhaps … she allowed herself to dream for a moment … of her own son, yet unborn, who could one day be king of Thomond, Corcomroe and of her beloved Burren …

  SEVENTEEN

  URAICECHT BECC (SMALL PRIMER)

  A physician has an honour price of seven séts. He is expected to apply herbs, to supervise diet and to undertake surgery. There will be no penalty ƒor causing bleeding, but if he cuts a joint or a sinew he has to pay a fine and be will be expected to nurse the patient himself.

  A banlíaíg, woman physician, is a woman oƒ great importance to the kingdom.

  ‘AS SOON AS YOU have finished your breakfast, you’d betted get your ponies.’ I want you all to come with me to Oughtmama,’ said Mara, putting
her head around the kitchen house door early next morning. After reading Enda’s notes last night, she knew that she should visit the place again. She needed to look carefully at the mill and the surrounding buildings, and their young eyes and insatiable curiosity would be a great help to her. In any case, she had promised Fachtnan that they should visit the mill. ‘Brigid, could you …’ She tried to continue but was interrupted by wild cheering, in which even Fachtnan joined. She waited for a moment, smiling. She loved to give them pleasure and they had all worked very well yesterday, without supervision.

  ‘ … put some oat scones and honey cakes and some ale in a basket,’ she finished. But her housekeeper had already gone to the shelves and was taking down some of her stores.

  ‘Shane and Hugh, you butter these scones,’ commanded Brigid. ‘Aidan, get that buttermilk from the scullery. Enda, ask Cumhal for a couple of flagons of ale. Fachtnan, you go and get a pair of leather satchels for everyone. That will be better than a basket, Brehon. They can hang the satchels from the sides of their ponies,’ she explained.

  ‘I’ll leave it to you, Brigid,’ said Mara meekly. ‘Come and tell me when everything is ready, Fachtnan. I’ll be in the schoolhouse.’

  She could still hear the excited voices as she went indoors, but once she had Enda’s script from yesterday in her hand she forgot about them and was startled when Enda himself put his head around the door.

  ‘Fachtnan said to tell you we’re almost ready now, Brehon,’ he said. ‘Fachtnan is just putting a new bit on Shane’s pony. She’s been chewing it and it might break if she starts to run going down that steep hill from Oughtmama. Shane’s not strong enough to hold her if that happens, Fachtnan says.’

  ‘Yes, I’ll be out in a minute,’ she said absent-mindedly. She knew that she could rely on Fachtnan and Cumhal to make sure that the boys were safe on their ponies. ‘Enda, just a minute. You put here that Maol met Niall on Oughtmama hill on Sunday evening and told him that Aengus was not there. You’re sure that he said Sunday?’

  ‘Yes, I am, Brehon,’ said Enda confidently. ‘You’ll see from my notes that I asked everyone about Sunday and Monday. Maol definitely said Michaelmas Eve.’

  Odd, she thought. She distinctly remembered that Niall had spoken of meeting Aengus at the alehouse in Noughaval on Michaelmas Eve and yet Liam, also, had said that he wasn’t there. She had asked Niall how he knew which bags of flour to take for the tribute and he had replied that Aengus told him where to find them when he met him at the alehouse in Noughaval. So why should Niall lie? Surely he could have said that he met Aengus at Oughtmama.

  ‘You say here that Maol mentioned that it was just about the time that the abbey bell rang for vespers?’

  ‘That’s right, Brehon, and I’m sure of that, too. I didn’t write this down, but Maol said that he mentioned to Niall, when he met him, that Aengus had told him that he would miss vespers for once because he was going to Noughaval for the Michaelmas Eve festival. Niall said that it didn’t matter and he continued to go on up the lane.’

  ‘Well, we’d better go,’ said Mara, moving the fact about Niall to one shelf in her mind. ‘I’m sure Shane’s pony is ready by now.’

  ‘May we ride ahead, Brehon?’ asked Aidan when Mara and Enda joined them.

  ‘Sensibly, of course,’ he added hastily, when he saw Mara’s dubious face.

  ‘We’ll wait for you at Caherconnell,’ said Moylan.

  ‘I think,’ said Mara, ‘that we will all ride down to Noughaval first. There are just a few questions that I would like to ask Niall. You can ride on ahead there if you like, though I can’t see that you can go all that much faster than my mare.’

  However, she reined in the mare and allowed them to gallop ahead. There were times when their high spirits needed to be allowed to spurt up and be dissipated in a burst of fun or speed or excitement of some kind. She had plenty to think about anyway, so she went at a slow trot down the lane, her mind busy with questions.

  Had Niall been there at Oughtmama when Aengus came back from the alehouse? Did he meet his father? If so, why did he lie about it when he spoke with her? Had there been any sign of young Donal O’Brien?

  ‘There’s nobody here, Brehon,’ shouted Aidan as she rounded the bend leading to Niall’s farm at Noughaval.

  ‘Are you sure?’ she called back. It would be early in the morning for Niall to have left his farm. It was not long after daybreak and there would surely be a few cows to milk, eggs to gather and barns to be mucked out.

  ‘The dog is locked up,’ called Shane. ‘We could hear him barking the whole way as we came. If Niall was out in the fields, he would take his dog with him.’

  ‘And the cows haven’t been milked yet,’ said Aidan knowledgeably. Aidan was the youngest son of a prosperous farmer in west Thomond.

  ‘He can’t have gone to Kilfenora and left the cows unmilked,’ observed Enda, another farmer’s son.

  ‘Fachtnan, would you ride back and tell Cumhal. He could send one of the men round to make sure that Niall is all right, and perhaps to see to the cows if he can’t find him. Don’t rush, Fachtnan, we’ll ride on and wait for you at Caherconnell, though you’ll probably be there as soon as we if you come by the valley road from Cahermacnaghten.’

  ‘Perhaps you should call in at the forge, and see if Fintan has seen him, Enda,’ said Mara as they trotted along the lane between Noughaval and Caherconnell.

  Enda was only a minute inside the forge before he emerged shaking his head.

  ‘No, neither Fintan nor Balor has seen him since yesterday morning,’ he said as he swung himself with agile grace onto the back of the pony. ‘Fintan said that Niall was on his way to Carron when he met him then. He saw him come back a couple of hours later.’

  Fachtnan was already at Caherconnell when they arrived. He was standing at the gate, chatting to Nuala.

  ‘Where are you all going?’ asked Nuala. There was a trace of wistfulness in her voice. It was a shame, thought Mara, that Malachy didn’t have another few medical scholars. Nuala could do with some company from young people of her own age.

  ‘What are you doing with yourself today?’ asked Mara.

  Nuala sighed heavily. ‘Nothing much,’ she said listlessly. ‘Father has gone to a childbirth case in Carron. It’s Sean Ruadh’s son’s new wife. Father didn’t want me to come. He said that the house was too small. It’s probably because he thinks that the girl is going to die. He doesn’t like me to be around if someone is dying. He thinks I’m still a child.’ And she heaved another sigh.

  ‘Well, you are only fourteen,’ said Fachtnan gently. He was always very kind to Nuala and Nuala worshipped him. Mara had an unspoken hope that one day they might make a match.

  ‘Why don’t you run inside and ask Sadhbh if you can come with us to Oughtmama?’ suggested Mara. ‘We will be back before Malachy comes home probably, but if we’re not, Sadhbh will tell him that you’re with me.’

  Nuala was back in a moment, her eyes shining, accompanied by Malachy’s motherly housekeeper, who was carrying a small linen bag and a flask.

  ‘I’ve got some honey cakes and a flask of buttermilk for her, Brehon,’ she said. ‘She tells me that all the lads have got their dinner with them. Aed is just getting the pony from the stable. He’ll be here in a moment.’

  ‘I’ll put these in my satchel,’ said Fachtnan promptly and Nuala glowed with pleasure, her dark brown eyes blazing with excitement.

  ‘You have a lovely day for your ride,’ said Aed cheerfully, as he brought out the pony. Fachtnan took the reins from him and helped Nuala carefully up onto the saddle. Mara and Sadhbh both beamed. Aidan nudged Moylan and smirked.

  ‘It is a beautiful day, Aed,’ responded Mara. ‘Isn’t it, Aidan?’

  ‘Oh, y … yes,’ stammered Aidan, trying to wipe the grin from his face. He gave a hasty glance around and tried to look appreciative. Mara was always endeavouring to teach her pupils to admire the beauties of the Burren.

  And it was a beau
tiful day. The overnight frost still sparkled on the grass, and scarlet rowanberries and crimson haws glowed in the sunlight, their vivid gloss contrasting with the deep, soft, matt pink of the spindle tree fruits and the powder blue of the blackthorn sloes. The broad clints of limestone paving appeared almost silver and the leaves of the ancient oak tree above their heads were turning from green to a clear bright yellow.

  ‘You and Nuala ride ahead, Fachtnan,’ directed Mara. ‘Enda, you ride in between Shane and Hugh. Moylan and Aidan, you can ride just behind me and keep a look out for carts. You can warn us if anything is coming and then we’ll all pull in onto the grass.’

  The wonderful thing about the Burren, she thought, as they made their way through the valley and then turned up towards Carron, was that the stone was everywhere. Unlike Thomond and Corcomroe, where roads were muddy tracks after every shower of rain, the roads of the Burren were hewed from solid bedrock stone and they made for easy riding. She loved the way that the noise of the hoofs made a merry ringing sound, and the young voices and the laughter were music to her ears. At this moment, she thought happily, I would not exchange my life with anyone in the world, not even with the Queen of England.

  ‘Fachtnan,’ she called out, ‘what is the name of the Queen of England?’

  ‘I don’t know, Brehon,’ he called back. He didn’t sound as if he cared too much. He was pointing out to Nuala some minute red and gold finches flying down the road. The birds almost seemed to be flying wingtip to wingtip, so close were they to each other. Each tiny beak held a fluffy piece of thistledown and the gold on their wings flashed in the sunlight.

  ‘It’s Katherine, isn’t it, Brehon?’ asked Enda. ‘I seem to remember the king telling us that. The Earl of Kildare was going over to London for the young King Henry VIII’s wedding on the eleventh of June, he said. The king was telling us all about it at the end of the Trinity term.’