Condemned to Death

by Cora Harrison

  Mara left a few moments of silence after she had finished her quotation. ‘And these rights have pertained to your family’s land since time immemorial, have they not, Brendan?’ she enquired in a matter-of-fact way.

  ‘That’s right, Brehon,’ he said eagerly. ‘I even remember my old grandfather talking about that. He used to tell me to keep an eye open for anything that we could find.’

  ‘And then there were all those rumours of finds – the sloping place of gold – that was right, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Over the past few years,’ said Brendan, his face darkening. ‘I think I know who it was, too, but nothing would make them admit it. I found something myself, but I thought least said …’

  Mara nodded. That had been enough to enable Brendan to buy his big new boat. It had been a lucky find for him, but she wished that he had come to her and shown her the gold and asked for a judgement. She had got a little out of touch with these people on the western fringes of the kingdom, she thought, but there was no good in regretting the past. The whole matter had now to be regulated and the facts laid in front of the people of the Burren. But first she had to settle the events of that night.

  ‘And then the gold merchant started to come here,’ she reminded him. ‘You and Michelóg talked it over, you decided to allow him to stay overnight in this place, and, of course, you, with your regular journeys to and from Galway, were the obvious person to bring him. How many times was it?’

  ‘This was the fourth time,’ said Brendan. ‘I watched him like a hawk the first time, but then I thought that he didn’t know what he was doing, didn’t know any more than the rest of us. I didn’t think he had much of a hope, to be honest; people have been searching Fanore for gold ever since I was a child. No one knew who the gold belonged to and no one wanted to ask. There were rumours that it was the property of the man who owned Cathair Róis, that would be Fernandez’s cousin – people used to say that it had been left to him in a will that had been stolen. There were all sorts of stories about this gold so when I found that arm ring, then I decided to say nothing and just to sell it off for as much as I could get for it.’

  ‘You sold it to Niall Martin?’

  Brendan nodded. ‘And very inquisitive, he was, too.’ His eyes had gone to the gold and then back again to Mara’s. His face had the look of man who wanted to appear cooperative.

  ‘And then when you ferried him over on that day, that Monday after the storm, you decided to wait the night out of doors, you worked out that something might have been washed out the dunes, or out of the hillside after that terrible rainstorm on the Sunday. I suppose you noticed that the gold merchant usually came after a storm. So you dropped him off in this little harbour and you were there in the shadows, waiting to see what he would do.’ Mara stopped and looked across at Brendan. She could see very well how it all occurred and a man like Brendan would be quick to seize an opportunity.

  ‘That’s right, Brehon, I thought that it was my rights that he was trying to make himself master of.’ He sounded surer of himself now.

  ‘So you kept an eye on him,’ said Mara mildly.

  Brendan shook his head in a display of self-disgust. ‘I should have done. If God is my judge, that’s what I should have been doing. I had it all planned. But you know what it’s like, Brehon. I was up early in the morning, I’d been to Galway, had ferried Etain back, listened to all the grand talk about pie shops and delivery of samphire and the prospect for oysters in the future, all the plans for me to hire staff and perhaps two boats going, morning and evening – had gone back with the second load, well after all of that once I had dropped the gold merchant off in that little place, well, I took the boat over to the pier, moored it and then sat down to give him a bit of a start so that he wouldn’t see me spying on him. And, you won’t believe it, but I was so tired that once I sat down I went off to sleep – didn’t mean to – I had resolved that I would keep an eye on him all night.’

  ‘But you fell asleep,’ said Mara, less by way of reproach than a means of getting back onto the story.

  ‘That’s right,’ he said eagerly. ‘I fell asleep and no one could have been more shocked than I was when I woke up and saw that dawn had come and realized that I might have wasted my chance.’

  ‘And what did you do then?’ Mara knew that he would have been immediately galvanized into action.

  ‘Well, I went looking for him.’ Brendan’s face bore the look of one who is reliving the past.

  ‘And you found him.’

  Brendan made an impatient motion with his hand and Mara said no more. She guessed what had happened. She waited until he spoke again.

  ‘There was no sign of him on the beach. The tide had turned, it was coming in, but the sands were still mostly uncovered. There was a gannet diving and feeding from the edge of the beach, the place where the river met the sea. He flew away when I came near so that I knew there had been no one else near – they scare easily, these birds.’ He stopped and eyed Mara with a look of apprehension and she understood that the next part of his story was difficult for him to tell.

  ‘Go on,’ she said, trying to sound encouraging and not betraying her anxiety to hear what had happened next.

  ‘Well, the morning that I found the gold – last winter – I reckoned then that it had been washed out of some place alongside the river – that made sense. I didn’t think it had come in on the waves.’

  Mara nodded. Brendan had thought like she had done.

  ‘So I followed the river back up towards the mountain. I kept going until I came to that place where those pink flowers grow.’

  ‘And you found him?’

  ‘I found him, so as to speak,’ said Brendan, his expression grim. ‘But he was gone from this world. He was dead.’

  Mara said nothing and he misread her silence. ‘I know, I know! You don’t believe me! No one would believe a story like that!’ he said. He went and sat down on the wooden bench without a glance at the gold in the basket beside him. He buried his head in his hands.

  ‘You’re sure that he was dead; did you see blood?’

  ‘No, no blood, but he was cooling. Not long dead, I’d say. For all I knew, he died because his heart stopped. There wasn’t a mark on him.’

  ‘You touched him?’

  ‘Just to see if there was life in him; I’d have got help if there was any chance for him,’ said Brendan piously.

  ‘And what did you do then?’

  Brendan inclined his head towards the basket beside him.

  ‘I took the gold.’

  ‘He was the one who had discovered the gold, you think?’

  ‘Yes, he had it all piled up there. Piled up on the rock,’ said Brendan.

  ‘But not in a bag?’ put in Mara.

  ‘A bag?’ He stared at her in a puzzled way and she thought she would leave that point. The bag, she thought, had been small enough to be unnoticed, might even, when folded, have been carried in the man’s pouch.

  ‘So what did you do next?’ asked Mara.

  ‘I didn’t touch him again, just left him lying there and I put my jacket into my basket, and wrapped my gold in it and went off.’ There had been a slight emphasis on the words my gold and Brendan looked at her hopefully.

  ‘Had there been a fight?’

  ‘Not with me, Brehon. I tell you that I didn’t touch him. He was as dead as any stone when I came up to him. That’s God’s own truth.’

  ‘So it wasn’t you who killed him, was it?’

  ‘That’s right, Brehon. Not me. I swear it.’ Brendan’s tone was uneasy, but she felt that there was a note of truth in it.

  ‘And you have no idea of who killed him?’

  She thought that he hesitated for a second, but then he shook his head.

  ‘No, Brehon,’ he said firmly. ‘I do not know who killed him or what happened to his body afterwards or how he came in on the tide three days later. Gave me a terrible shock, that. I couldn’t understand the whole thing. How did the body disappe
ar and then turn up again, that’s what I was asking myself.’

  Mara rose to her feet. ‘I’ll borrow your basket and your wrapping, Brendan,’ she said. ‘You’ll get them back as soon as I have summoned my farm manager and some men to escort me back to Cahermacnaghten. This gold will be brought to Poulnabrone on one week from today and in that place of justice I will give the court’s verdict on what happened to Niall Martin, the goldsmith from Galway, and also on who is the owner of the gold which he discovered.’

  Seventeen

  Bretha Crólinge

  (Judgements of Blood-Letting)

  A criminal who slays a man should not be fed or be protected. A law-abiding man must not give him any assistance to hide his crime or to evade justice.

  On her return to the castle Mara went straight up to the room which had been allotted to her. She emptied her satchel of all that it contained and then placed the gold from Brendan’s basket within it and turned the key on both locks. Etain was in the kitchen when she went down. She looked at Mara defensively and Mara looked sternly back, guessing that Etain’s eyes had followed her when she had gone in search of Brendan. No doubt she was aware of all that had happened on that night.

  ‘Could you fetch Setanta for me, Etain,’ she said, coldly. She gave no reasons – she need not give any. As Brehon she was the King’s representative and any command that she gave in the course of her duties was as binding on the members of the king-dom as if it had been given by the King himself.

  Etain threw her a startled glance and slid out of the kitchen, immediately followed by Síle, who had stuck her thumb into her mouth. Neither returned and Mara went to wake up Domhnall and Slevin. They were old enough, trustworthy enough to do her bidding, and were both strong and well-grown for their age. Nevertheless, she was glad that she had thought of Setanta as an escort. When they came, she gave them her instructions, and handed the key to the enormous safe at the law school to Slevin, while Domhnall was entrusted with her leather satchel. When they came out of the castle enclosure Mara could see that her five younger scholars had come up from the beach and were standing beside Setanta, looking rather worried. Even Dullahán was quiet, for once, and stood panting with his tail drooping slightly. A few of the fishermen who had already secured their boats had followed them up and stood at some distance, as if anticipating an announcement. Etain was white-faced and held Síle’s hand after making a vain effort to pull the thumb from the child’s mouth.

  ‘And, Domhnall, ask Cumhal to bring the cart and sufficient manpower back with him; he will know what to bring,’ she said clearly and loudly, pitching her voice so that it would carry to the furthermost person in the little crowd around the enclosure wall. It would be just as well, if the story about the gold had got around, that they should suppose that she still had it with her in her room in the castle. In any case it would be handy to have the cart, as the scholars had accumulated a lot of belongings. Despite the lingering calm the weather was definitely going to break and she had a feeling that they would not be sorry to sleep in their own beds tonight. Perhaps, she thought to herself, she also would be glad to leave this place. The unravelling of the whole story could perhaps be left until the morning, until after their return, she told herself, but knew that was not satisfactory. She still might need to check on some details with Brendan. The matter had to be faced up to and dealt with now.

  ‘Come inside, all of you, but first of all, Cormac, please shut Dullahán into one of the empty stables,’ she said, knowing that her voice sounded grave. This matter was deadly serious and they all had to understand that. She didn’t want any comic intervals with the unruly dog and so waited until that had been accomplished before leading the way back into the castle. She could hear the slap of the bare feet on the stone flags behind her, but she did not look back, just led the way in silence up into the room and sat down on the solitary chair while they ranged themselves on the floor before her.

  ‘Where’s Finbar?’ she asked, looking around. He had, she knew, been with them up to the moment that they had gone indoors.

  They looked surprised, looking over shoulders and Cormac, she noticed, looked concerned and began to get to his feet.

  ‘Sit down, Cormac,’ she said sternly and waited until he had obeyed. It was, she thought, just as well that Finbar had absented himself for the moment. She could manage better without his presence initially.

  ‘Let me talk to you about this murder,’ she said looking down at them very directly. ‘I want to go back to that Sunday night of the storm. We came across to here on Monday morning and the sea was still very choppy, but Monday itself was fine and sunny. Brendan and Etain went across to Galway with their baskets of samphire and Etain went into Blake’s Pie Shop to get an order for a daily delivery of samphire. By a coincidence – a coincidence pure and simple, I should say – by coincidence, Niall Martin was there and he was talking with a Greek sailor. I know,’ said Mara looking steadily at them, ‘from Nuala’s examination of the body that the dead man ate apricots on that last day of his life and these were obtained from a pie in Blake’s shop.’ She saw Art wince and hurried on. She would not, she thought, mention the deliberate pulling out of the dead man’s tongue. That would have been either Cian or Cormac, she thought, both of them a lot tougher than the sensitive Art.

  ‘You all were invited to spend the night in this castle, Cael slept in one of the small wall chambers to keep Síle company and you boys were given mattresses on the floor in the hall. I believe that you three, and Finbar, decided initially to spend the night in the dungeon, but Domhnall and Slevin, sensibly, decided that the hall in front of the fire was more comfortable, that’s true, isn’t it?’ She waited for the nods before she went on.

  ‘So to go back to the story of Niall Martin, well he came over from Galway to Fanore on that same Monday and he went to sleep at Michelóg’s house, got up at dawn on the Tuesday morning, went out, up along the bank of the Caher River, and, I believe, found the right place where the treasure had been buried but he found that someone else had been before him.’ Mara heard her own voice recounting these much thought-over details and knew that it sounded dead and dull. She forced herself to be more brisk and continued: ‘Someone was before him and that someone had found the treasure by accident – perhaps he got up at sunrise because he couldn’t sleep, because, perhaps,’ said Mara with regret, ‘because he was deeply worried about something. He walked on the mountainside, looked down and saw a gleam of gold lit by the first rays of the sun. He went down hurriedly, and started to uncover the precious things, heaping them up on the rock face. He was,’ and Mara’s voice slowed again and she purposely deepened it, to avoid a quaver in it, ‘he was,’ she continued, ‘a person who was needy, who perhaps suddenly saw these gold articles as a way out of a situation in which he should never have been placed.’

  Mara looked around. Cael was looking interested, involved, the girl was pleased, perhaps, that a solution was in sight, but also a little puzzled by the atmosphere and the way that the other scholars were reacting. Cian, her twin, was wearing his tough face, Art looked miserable and Cormac stared at his mother through narrow eyes that challenged her to solve the mystery.

  And Mara stopped and thought again. There was, she felt, no reason now why she should go into the matter of the death. That was for another hour, for another audience. Now there were other matters to clear up. There were words that had to be said to these law scholars, these lawyers and Brehons of the future.

  ‘No one,’ she began with solemnity, hoping to get through to them the seriousness of the matter, ‘no one should interfere with the due processes of the law. In some this might be considered as ignorance, though ignorance is never a true excuse, but in this case, it certainly cannot be a plea. There was, in this case, a deliberate effort to mislead the King’s representative, the Brehon. Not only was the body moved from the site of the murder, but it was stripped of its outer clothing, placed in a boat, a boat that had no oars, then launched on the ri
ver that took it down to the sea. I imagine that the perpetrators of this fraud waded in with it as far as they could go. And I’m afraid,’ she added, looking straight ahead and not catching any eye, ‘I’m afraid that they hoped never to see it again, but as we all know now, the body came ashore and the attempt to have it immediately buried, something that instinctively the fishing community here, who recognized this boat, wanted to do, something that almost all wanted done with no fuss; this was foiled by my two scholars, Domhnall and Slevin, who proved themselves worthy members of the Cahermacnaghten Law School and came to summon me.’ She looked blandly at the faces below her, noted that Art crimsoned, that Cian looked uneasily at his twin sister and Cormac set his lips firmly together as if no form of torture was going to make him say a word.

  ‘And that, of course, was not all,’ said Mara gravely. ‘There were more deliberate attempts to deceive me. First of all, it was important, once it was realized that the body had unexpectedly come ashore on the beach from where it was launched, that its presence was discovered by someone who would and could have had nothing to do with the killing or the concealment of the crime; the person chosen was eight-year-old Síle, younger sister of Etain and Brendan.’ She thought back to Cormac’s supposed kindness to the eight-year-old and told herself that she should have become suspicious sooner. ‘And then,’ she went on, ‘there was the false trail, made by the boots of the dead man, leading to his clothes buried outside the outer wall of Michelóg’s farm, and then the discovery by a dog …’ Mara paused, wondered briefly where the clothes had been kept, remembered the underground room where the purple tassel from the dead man’s hat had been found, then continued steadily, ‘that discovery by the dog from Cahermacnaghten Law School of a map with perhaps the Greek work for “gold”, no doubt you copied the letter “xhee” from Domhnall’s Iliad – all of these were, I fear, all attempts to mislead the Brehon who was dealing with this case – to spread the suspicion far and wide so that eventually the case became unsolvable.’ Her mention of the Greek sailor in the pie shop in Galway had been a stroke of luck for the conspirators, she thought, remembering the satchels, pens, inkhorns and vellum with which her scholars were provided in order to take down details from the fisherfolk. They would have had fun in doing a treasure map in Greek, she thought, repressing a feeling of amusement, and determining to bring home to them that evidence is sacred and must never be tampered with.