Condemned to Death

by Cora Harrison

  ‘So that’s what he was doing the other night – must have been Monday night,’ muttered Brendan. ‘I heard him at something, heard a thud.’

  Mara stiffened slightly, but she tried not to let her reaction be noticed. Monday night or early Tuesday morning had probably been the time when Niall Martin had been killed. A thud, Brendan had said. That could have been a tree trunk falling to the ground, or it could have been a man’s skull struck hard enough to cause death. In either case, it was time that she had another word with the farmer.

  ‘I’ll leave you in peace, Brendan,’ she said. He had, she thought, been honest with her, apparently, anyway; while still distancing himself from any involvement in gold or in knowledge of the man who dealt in gold.

  Michelóg, also, she thought as she made her way back to where the thud of an axe still sounded, had, in the same way, appeared to be honest, but people, she knew from long experience, did not always tell all of the truth, even when they appeared frank and open.

  ‘Just wanted to check on something, Michelóg,’ she said when he paused with uplifted axe at the sight of her, ‘You were heard out on Monday night dragging that tree back to your yard. I wondered whether you saw any activity on the beach that night.’ It must have been quite a task for one man to have dragged that back from the waves, she thought, looking at the coil of extremely thick rope lying beside the tree. Michelóg had left it propped up on its branches and the ground beneath it was red and rusty-looking from the salt water that had dripped from it and scorched the grass. Even bone dry the tree would be an immense weight, but saturated with sea water it would have slow and difficult task to drag it over the sand. Mara could see how the marram grass had been uprooted and a track scored into the sand. Not an undertaking that would have been quickly achieved.

  ‘It must have taken you at least an hour to haul that up from the beach on Monday night,’ she said. ‘You would surely have noticed if there had been anyone around.’

  He gave a short laugh. ‘I don’t suppose that there would have been anyone out on a night like that, Brehon. You must sleep very sound if you did not hear the thunder and the lightning.’

  He had not denied that it had been Monday night when he was out, noticed Mara, and she just smiled a response.

  ‘Indeed,’ she said. ‘It took a brave man to go for a walk on that night with the lightning flaring and the roar of the thunder, though I think it all died down by dawn. I woke once in the darkness of the night and was glad to be in my warm bed and under a good roof.’ She had lain awake for a while, she remembered, thinking of her scholars and had hoped that Fernandez was trustworthy.

  ‘God bless you,’ he said and she could see that he bit back the words: Isn’t it fine for you. ‘Of course, for a poor man like myself, the chance of getting a tree like that was too good to pass up on. I’ll tell you how it was, Brehon,’ he said, suddenly becoming so loquacious that she grew suspicious as he related how he had been sitting up late with a cow and it had been a hard calving and then when eventually the little heifer had been born he had walked down to the sea to wash the muck from himself and then he had seen the wave throw something long and dark up onto the sand and with another flash of lightning he had seen that it was a tree.

  ‘Well, I said to myself, Brehon, if I don’t take it now there won’t be a splinter left in it by dawn, so back I went to the house and got that rope there,’ he pointed to the evidence of the rope, adding the usual ‘and that’s the God’s honest truth,’ just in case the rope denied the matter.

  ‘How long did it take you to bring it back?’ asked Mara and then knew that was a stupid question, addressed to a man who ruled his day by the sun and not by sand clocks or new-fangled timepieces.

  ‘About the time that it would take to milk a cow,’ he said, unexpectedly cooperative.

  ‘Pretty tough going, I’d say – and no one to help you, was there?’ To milk a cow would take about fifteen to twenty minutes, she reckoned. He gave a flicker of a grin at her question about assistance. Nothing, she reckoned, would have persuaded him to share his booty with another. It was, she thought, fairly unlikely that anyone else would have been out walking the strand on a night like that one. Michelóg’s story made sense. Why use well water, very precious in this sandy part of the country, for cleansing purposes when salt water in abundance was available only a couple of hundred yards away?

  While she was deciding whether to leave him or to try another few questions, he suddenly went off into a small stone shed beside his house and came out with a heavy hammer, its head swathed in a piece of an old woollen cloak. Working delicately and methodically, he tapped the bark of the tree, moving up and down the length of it, muttering something about loosening the bark, and then he straightened his back and looked at her.

  ‘Gold doesn’t mean much to me, Brehon,’ he said unexpectedly. ‘I’m getting old and I have neither wife nor child. I don’t want any more cows – the land wouldn’t bear them – and I wouldn’t fancy, at my time of life, to move somewhere else, even if the taoiseach would find me something else. You’re wasting your time with me. Why don’t you go and talk to the man on the hill up there.’ He jerked his head towards where the white rounded shape of Cathair Róis was beginning to materialize through the mist. ‘Now that’s a man,’ he said with emphasis, ‘who could make good use of a pot of gold.’

  Thirteen

  Bretha Comaithchesa

  (Laws of the Neighbourhood)

  Failure to maintain a field-boundary can be punished by the imposition of a fine of one of the tools used for that purpose. Any one of the following tools can be taken from the offender and given to the man who has suffered a loss because of his carelessness:

  1. The spade used for the trench-and-bank.

  2. The iron spar-pin for the stone wall.

  3. The mallet for the breaking of the stones.

  Brigid’s food was much appreciated and Séanín was given many compliments for the way it was heated up and served. Mara noticed that despite a lack of success, her scholars seemed to be in good humour. Smiles and giggles came from the younger ones and Mara was glad to see that Cael was once more one of the gang and that they were all sharing jokes as usual. The two eldest boys were deep in discussion and when it finished, with a nod of understanding from Slevin, they turned their attention to their food. Domhnall, in particular, seemed to be anxious for the meal to be over and swallowed his pasty with great rapidity. Mara surveyed the crowd. Etain was not there, nor was her brother Brendan, nor, indeed, Michelóg, but the fishermen were all present, discussing the next venture, and Fernandez was the centre of attention, directing the next location to be fished, and helping to spread out the large net to make sure that there had been no holes torn in it during the last outing, discussing how they would go in a large bunch and rent a stall at the fish market in Galway next week when they had plenty of barrels of smoked fish to sell. He was generating a huge excitement and, young, clever, good-looking and full of ideas, was demonstrating to the clan that he could be an ideal leader of the O’Connors when the present taoiseach passed on, or gave up the post. Yes, Fernandez would make a good tánaiste, he would be an heir who consolidated his position while he was in waiting, rather than wasting his time in drinking and pleasure-seeking like Tomás O’Connor, who showed no interest in the lowly members of the clan. Fernandez would be a change for the better and as the descendant from the same grandfather had equal rights to the position.

  But not, thought Mara firmly, if he was guilty of the crime of murder just in order to get hold of the treasure which would finance all his projected enterprises. If that were true she would never consent to his election and would make the King understand the impossibility of a man who committed a secret and unlawful killing and who frustrated the cause of justice should hold such a position. She watched Fernandez carefully but he showed no signs of guilt or even seemed aware of her steady gaze.

  When the meal was over Mara went up to tell Séanín about his jo
urney to Cahermacnaghten.

  ‘Bring back the cart so that you don’t overburden your pony. Brigid will know what I want,’ she told him and then called her scholars to see whether they needed anything other than fresh linen. Cormac wanted his throwing knives, but when she said no to that the younger ones compromised on their hurleys and a ball. Domhnall wanted his copy of the Iliad and told Séanín that he would find it on the shelf above his bed, describing it so carefully that Mara reckoned he must have other books there. She half-thought of persuading him to enjoy the holiday without adding extra study, but she understood that he now wanted to look up the reference about gold.

  Séanín was a bit downcast about the journey back to Cahermacnaghten and to cheer him she told him that when he returned he could stay overnight at Fanore in one of the tents and how she had arranged for him to spend tomorrow helping Brendan with building a stone path. To her surprise he did not seem enthusiastic and she caught him exchanging glances with Cormac, which showed that he had planned to spend the afternoon with the scholars on the treasure hunt, which was still filling them all with excitement. Cormac, also, looked rather thwarted and she saw him eyeing Séanín with disappointment as he reluctantly retreated at her gesture of dismissal.

  ‘You’ll enjoy helping Brendan,’ she said bracingly to Séanín when Cormac had gone down towards the beach. ‘And then when you have learned the skill you might build me a path through my woodland garden when we all return home.’

  ‘But Cormac promised that I would help to find the treasure this afternoon,’ he muttered. ‘We were going to be partners and help solve the murder case for you.’

  Mara grimaced slightly. She was pleased that Cormac was so open and friendly with everyone – like his father in that, she thought. Turlough made friends wherever he went and it mattered very little to him whether a man was an innkeeper, a shepherd or a taoiseach. On the other hand, she would have preferred this search to stay as confidential law-school business. Still, common sense told her that every fisherman, wives, children, all knew that they were looking for gold – though she herself was fairly convinced that the gold had been removed when the man had been murdered.

  ‘I’ll see you later on, Séanín,’ she said briskly and left him to mount his pony and set off back to Cahermacnaghten. She hoped that, in the midst of his disappointment, he would not forget all of his instructions.

  When she went back to her scholars they told her, as she had guessed, that they had discovered nothing during the morning, but that it had been decided that the areas allocated to each would be swapped and that they would commence a more thorough search during the afternoon.

  ‘The mist was terrible this morning,’ said Cormac. ‘It was like trying to find a mouse in a pile of sheep’s wool. It’s lifted now and so this afternoon it will be better. But it’s boring searching the same places over and over again. Why don’t we go higher up towards the mountain?’

  From Domhnall’s dubious-looking face it appeared as though that was not a good idea and she agreed. If the treasure trove was further up the mountain it was unlikely that the articles ended up in the places that the goldsmith had marked on the map. However, it was her policy to allow the head scholar of the school to sort out tasks like this. She decided to leave them to it and go in search of Fernandez.

  He was down at the pier with the others when she found him – not a good place for questioning him in private, so she just stood and watched. He was, she thought, a natural leader. The fishermen, all experienced at their craft since babyhood, were listening to him with the greatest respect. They would follow him through thick and thin and that was what made a good leader. Her husband, King Turlough Donn O’Brien, was a man like that. A man who was quite unassuming, a man who had no pretensions to scholarship, or to any particular outstanding skill, but nevertheless a man to whom all turned when danger threatened; and a man who had never let down his followers. Turlough would like Fernandez, but did that mean that Fernandez was to be trusted? That was something which she did not know yet, and until she was certain of that she would not mention his name with approbation to her kingly husband, she thought as she waited patiently for him to finish his instructions. It was difficult to make time to have an uninterrupted chat with him as his opinion and his decisions were being constantly sought by the fishermen.

  ‘Brehon, did you want me for something?’ Fernandez broke into her thoughts, coming across the rocks to where she stood.

  ‘Yes,’ she said gravely eyeing him to see whether he showed any signs of guilt, but he rushed on, repeating his Etain’s invitation to stay the night in his castle and telling her that it would give her time to question everyone, and certainly himself, as they would all be back by sundown. It was so apposite that for a moment she could only stare at him and he said quickly, ‘You’ll be worn out riding back and forth every day. We can send your young lad, Séanín, back to the farm with a message to say that you will be here and then no one will worry about you. We have a comfortable bedroom for you, and your scholars will be glad to have you within reach. They were worried about you when you went off to Galway.’

  Mara doubted that, but assured him that she had already accepted his hospitality. There would be a good opportunity for an uninterrupted talk with him as Etain would no doubt be late home from Galway.

  When she went back up the beach she found that her scholars had already worked out their afternoon tasks.

  ‘Cormac suggested that we swap maps so that a different pair searches the area for a second time and I thought that was a very good idea,’ said Domhnall, as always willing to give credit to a younger member of the school. ‘So Slevin and I are going to search the area where Cormac, Cian and Art searched this morning, just north of that circle on the map. We’ve found it that it is called Lios na hAbha …’ He went on detailing the new groupings and the various places but Mara’s attention was caught by the name that he had mentioned – it meant the fortified place by the river. She had not known that there was an ancient enclosure there where the river made a slight turn. She was glad that Domhnall was going to search that place now. Cormac got bored easily and he would be very much the leader of Art; and Cian was definitely the more idle and less intelligent of the MacMahon twins. Domhnall and Slevin would make a thorough exploration.

  These old enclosures, she thought with a sudden feeling of excitement, often had underground rooms and passageways – whether for shelter from enemies or purely as cold-storage areas – but, also, an underground room could have been a place where treasure trove was hidden. When she thought of that she decided to join her eldest scholars by the easier route, crossing the sand dunes, she thought, and then coming out beside the river at the spot where they had climbed up.

  She had only gone about halfway across when she saw the figure of Cormac running and jumping from sand hill to sand hill with the exuberance shown by her younger scholars when they were allowed out of the school house for a break.

  ‘It’s definitely an old house, Brehon,’ he said breathlessly when he came up to her. ‘Come and look at it.’ He did not wait for an answer but went flying down to the spot where Cael stood beckoning to her.

  ‘Look what I found, Brehon!’ The girl was bursting with excitement. They had shifted a slab – Mara could see that all the blobs of dark brown sea creatures that had been firmly glued to the underside of the slab were now squirming with distaste at their exposure to the upper air.

  But sunk into the ground was an ancient iron pot, its bottom dissolved by rust, but the curved sides and even the handles still intact. It was just the sort of pot that Brigid kept hanging over the fire in the kitchen with bones simmering in it and handfuls of vegetables thrown in from time to time so that there was always hot soup available for any of the scholars who wanted a quick snack, or who were, in Brigid’s opinion, looking a little pasty-faced.

  ‘I’d say you’re right, Cormac,’ said Mara, glad to see that he and Cael were so friendly again. ‘It just goes to show that
the sea at some stage was a long way further out than it is nowadays. This was undoubtedly a house at one time.’

  ‘We were wondering whether the treasure could have been hidden in this pot,’ said Cael excitedly. ‘That’s what we think.’

  ‘Do you reckon that slab has been lifted off recently?’ Mara watched the squirming blobs. One of them was already moving, seeking the underside of the stone. Instinct was a wonderful thing, she thought, once again. Although the mist had lifted, it was not a sunny day and yet the sea creatures knew that they dare not remain in the open.

  ‘Could be,’ he said. ‘It came away very easily.’

  ‘Do you know what you should do now, my two investigators, you should take out that pot and go through the sand under it very, very carefully. You see gold does not rust, so when the bottom of the container rusted, then something very small, like a finger ring, might have sunk into the sand beneath. If you could find that, it would prove the matter.’

  She left them at work, assuring Cael that she would tell no one else of the discovery, but allow them to work in peace.

  Mara suspected that this was an unlikely place, out in the open beach, for the murder to have taken place. Despite Cormac’s optimism she doubted whether that slab had been moved and then replaced. Although all was possible it seemed to her that it might be more likely that a treasure would be concealed within one of those ancient fortified circular enclosures.

  However, as soon as she arrived there she realized that it was too far from the river for a flood to have swept through it, no matter how much of a storm occurred. Domhnall and Slevin, however, emerged from the underground passage with triumphant faces. In Slevin’s hand was an expensive-looking tassel of purple silk. He held it aloft and blew a triumphant whistle and the other scholars came tumbling up.