This murder, she thought, has almost too many suspects. Each one of the five young men sentenced had a motive perhaps, but Peadar had more reason to kill than had any of the others. So he had to be the prime suspect.
But then Ciaran was the one who had the knife bearing traces of blood.
A knife that, he said, he had picked up from the beach.
A fairly unlikely story. She bent down and took the knife from her satchel. There was no doubt that it had been recently scoured, probably with sand and seawater. But why abandon it?
She compared it with the knife belonging to Boetius and was holding the two, one in each hand, when Cael came in.
‘Brigid said to tell you that there would be a meal ready in about an hour,’ she said. And then: ‘Are you still looking for traces of blood?’
‘That’s right,’ said Mara with a sigh. ‘On this one, anyway. Even I with my old eyes can see the blood on Ciaran’s knife.’
‘Do you believe that Ciaran found it, or do you think that it is really his own knife?’ asked Cael.
Mara grimaced. ‘I just don’t think that this is the sort of knife that Ciaran would have. And I keep thinking that of all of these lads, he was the one that would have suffered least from those punitive verdicts. He and Emer were on the verge of making up, anyway, according to him and since the fine was to be paid to her and her family, the Tuath might have agreed to count it as a wedding present to set up the two young people. Ronan, Seán, Donal the songwriter, and especially Peadar, who was faced with banishment, well, all of these had more reason for revenge and more incentive to remove this Brehon and hope that the next one appointed would not insist on the payment of these huge fines.’
‘So your suspect, your prime suspect, would be Peadar,’ said Cael seriously.
‘Not really. Not at the moment.’ Mara hesitated. She found it hard to talk about this man, but her scholar deserved a frank answer.
‘I’d prefer it to be Brehon Boetius MacClancy,’ she said. ‘And I am busy building up a case against him in my mind and perhaps neglecting other suspicions in the meantime. That’s wrong, I know, but I find it hard to stop myself.’
‘You don’t like him, do you?’ asked Cael. ‘You’ve met him before, is that right?’
Ten years ago, thought Mara, ten years ago Cael was only three years old, then. The story of Boetius and Stephen Gardiner, sent over by his master, Cardinal Wolsey, was now ancient history.
‘A long time ago,’ she said aloud. ‘He was banished from the kingdom of the Burren by the king, banished for ten years. Of course, he has a right to come back now. Brehon law always says that when retribution has been made, then the wrongdoer resumes his place in society. So Boetius has a right to come back here. Presumably, he heard about the senility of his uncle and he came across hoping to gain his place, but was refused.’
‘And so he might have murdered Brehon O’Doran to ensure that he didn’t have a wasted journey. Seems a bit of a chance to take, doesn’t it? After all, if the king had turned him down once …’
She broke off as there was a tap on the door and then Ríanne came in, smiling sweetly at Mara. She left the door open behind her, but otherwise did not acknowledge Niall who followed her.
‘All the pewter is as clean as I could make it,’ she said gaily. ‘Art is putting it on the shelf now.’ She gave a sidelong glance at Cael and a slight giggle and Cael grinned back as she went out of the room. There was no doubt that it was obvious to the sharp-witted Cael that Art was smitten by this pretty girl.
‘Sit down, Ríanne, sit here. Niall, you take this stool. I just wanted the two of you to tell me a little about Brehon O’Doran. Perhaps you could start, Niall.’
‘I don’t know much,’ said Niall. ‘I think that my uncle knows more about him. In fact, I think he was at my uncle’s law school. He became an aigne when he was with my uncle and then he went on to a school in Galway to take his examinations of ollamh and Brehon.’
‘I see,’ said Mara. It was a common practice and a good one, she thought. A young man would gain extra experience by moving to a new school for his higher qualifications. It was good for everyone and kept the links between the schools and helped to ensure that the law remained consistent, no matter which part of Ireland it was practised in. She had recommended that course for many of her scholars.
‘And how did it come about that he came back to Ossory?’
‘He came to marry her,’ said Niall with a slight jerk of his head. ‘If it wasn’t for that he would not have come to the place ever again. My uncle helped to draw up the marriage contract.’
‘Did you know him, Brehon O’Doran, did you know him before then?’ asked Mara turning towards Ríanne.
‘Never saw him before in my life,’ said Ríanne cheerfully.
‘Were you married against your will?’ asked Mara.
Ríanne shrugged her shoulders and grimaced slightly. ‘Not really,’ she said. ‘It was a matter for my parents. My sisters have all been married and I knew that they would find someone for me. I thought he wasn’t too bad when I saw him. My eldest sister was married to an old man with a sore leg. I didn’t want that. Gaibrial wasn’t too bad.’
‘But you didn’t find being married to him was pleasant,’ suggested Mara. ‘Was that because you would have preferred to marry someone else?’ She cast a look at Niall, but he didn’t seem, or perhaps didn’t want to seem, to be interested in the conversation and was engaged in plucking tiny shreds of cobwebs from his rather grubby léine.
‘I certainly did not.’ Ríanne shook her head emphatically and looked around at her audience. ‘I didn’t particularly want to get married, but then I didn’t want to be a nun either and I suppose that you have to do one or the other.’ She sighed heavily and … and dramatically, thought Mara. There was a sense in which this girl seemed almost as though she was playing a part – sweet and affectionate with old Fergus, affable and helpful with Brigid, and now, with Mara, she seemed to be subtly inviting sympathy from a woman who had found a different way, who lived an independent life as Brehon and ollamh of a law school.
‘So you were married, when?’
Ríanne counted on her fingers, her eyes abstracted. ‘Fifteen days ago. Goodness, it seems longer than that,’ she said. ‘It was on Michaelmas Day.’
‘So, on the 29th of September?’
‘That’s right,’ agreed Ríanne. ‘We got married and we came across here and as soon as he saw the house, he wasn’t too pleased. Started wishing himself out of it.’ She hesitated for a moment and then said, tentatively, ‘But then a few days later he cheered up. He told me one night that he had a way of getting rich quick and then as soon as he got the money we would leave this place.’
‘Through the law cases, was that it?’ From the corner of her eye Mara noticed a contemptuous smile on Niall’s face.
‘I don’t think so.’ Ríanne shook her head. ‘He was a very impatient man. When he said “quick”, he meant quick.’ She touched the yellow-brown marks of bruise under her eye and grimaced slightly. There was, thought Mara, something slightly contrived about the gesture.
‘Did he hit you?’ she asked abruptly.
Ríanne flushed. There was a flash of anger in her eyes. She tightened her lips for a second, and then forced a smile.
‘Don’t all men hit their wives?’ she said.
‘Not if they don’t want to be divorced,’ said Mara bluntly and added, ‘I’m surprised that you don’t know the law, or that Niall didn’t tell you.’ Her eyes went to the boy sitting silently gazing at the window. He didn’t move or acknowledge her remark, though, and she decided not to pursue the matter. She turned back to Ríanne.
‘Tell me how you think that Brehon O’Doran planned to get rich quickly,’ she said.
‘I thought that he was going to get a big sum of money from someone,’ she said.
A big sum of money. Mara thought about it. Was it from Fergus? The fact that Gaibrial O’Doran had made that remark after he
had arrived in Corcomroe seemed to point that way. But how? Had Fergus got a store of silver somewhere? No one had investigated that matter. And yet it was possible. Ever since the death of his wife, Siobhán, about ten years ago, Fergus had lived very simply. Perhaps he had accumulated some money and had stored it somewhere. It was, she thought, a possibility. The old man had become distinctly odd during the last few years. He had even avoided replacing his elderly housekeeper when she had retired and made do with a couple of hours’ work a week from Orlaith.
‘He was clever at finding out things about people,’ said Ríanne dispassionately. ‘He would find out secrets and then he would chuckle to himself about it.’
There were, thought Mara, some people who liked secrets for the feeling of power that it gave them. But there were others who used secrets as a means of blackmail. Which one of the two was Gaibrial O’Doran? The latter, she suspected.
‘And do you think that Gaibrial had succeeded in getting that money?’ she asked.
Ríanne shrugged, her eyes raised to the ceiling and her mouth screwed into a grimace.
‘Oh, for goodness sake!’ Mara was beginning to get irritated with this pair of young people. Sighs and shrugs were in the experience of all teachers of adolescent scholars, but that was no reason why they should be encouraged. ‘Come on, Ríanne,’ she said bracingly. ‘A man has been murdered. There’s no doubt about that fact in my mind. No one cuts their own throat. So now my task is to solve that murder and I am asking for your help. Forget that you disliked the man, he’s not going to come back to life now and I am asking you a few simple questions which you don’t seem to be keen to answer. Is there any reason why you should not help me?’
Ríanne looked startled and almost slightly afraid. ‘No, there isn’t,’ she said. ‘But you’re asking me questions that I don’t know the answer to.’
‘Well, then, just say that you don’t know. Stop shrugging your shoulders and sighing. It’s getting on my nerves and I have enough to do,’ said Mara with a smile to take the sting from the words. ‘And, you know, Ríanne, the sooner that this murder is solved, well, the sooner you and Niall can go back to Ossory. I don’t think that I can let you go until I have an answer to the question of who killed Brehon O’Doran. You do see this, don’t you?’
To her relief Ríanne grinned at this plain speaking. ‘No, I don’t think that he had found any money. He was in a really foul mood after the judgement day. I think that he probably noticed the king’s face after he had finished and he was looking very worried and annoyed. I noticed that.’
‘And what was Gaibrial’s reaction to that, do you think?’
‘He came over to me after he had finished and he asked me how it had gone. And I told him that the king didn’t look too happy. The king was looking over at us. He was pretending to smile at me, he was holding my hand, but he whispered: “Wait until I get you home. You’ll suffer for this.” But I ran upstairs and locked my door when we came in and Orlaith was there serving the meal and so he and Niall ate it and didn’t leave anything for me.’ Ríanne turned her head and looked accusingly at Niall who continued to stare at the window.
‘And when the hunters came?’
‘I saw them from my window. There were five of them. I couldn’t see them very well, just the back of their heads. But I was glad to see them. I was saying to myself: “Let him work off his temper on them”, so I came out and went downstairs to see whether there was anything left to eat, but there was hardly a crust left on the table and Orlaith had gone home.’
Now, thought Mara, we come to the interesting bit.
‘So you and Niall sat down by the fire and waited for Brehon O’Doran to come home,’ she suggested.
‘That’s right.’ Niall joined in the conversation.
‘And what did you do? How did you pass the time?’
‘Nothing much,’ said Niall.
‘I asked Niall what he thought of the judgements that day,’ said Ríanne.
‘And what did he reply?’ asked Mara with interest. After all, she thought, these two young people may have listened together to law lectures. Niall had said earlier that Ríanne had lived next to the law school. It was natural that she was interested in the law.
‘He told me to shut up. He was scared of our master.’
‘But he had gone out, had he not?’
‘He had a habit of sneaking back in and listening at doors,’ said Ríanne and there was a note of sincerity in her voice. There was little doubt, thought Mara, that the dead man was very unpleasant. The murder had to be solved and retribution exacted, but she told herself that all of the facts that she was uncovering about the life and character of Brehon O’Doran would have to be taken into account if it proved that one of his victims had killed him.
But Boetius MacClancy will pay the full penalty of the law and will be sentenced to banishment, if I have anything to do with it, she thought fiercely and then softened her voice.
‘You sat there all by yourself while Niall went up to his room to study?’ she queried in sympathetic tones. An assertion, she found from experience, often elicited more of an answer than did a question.
‘No, he didn’t. He had a dice and he was tossing it up and down on the hearth. He was betting his left hand would win against his right hand.’ Ríanne sighed in an exasperated way. ‘He just went on doing it over and over again. Even when I got up to light the candles, he didn’t take any notice of me, just went on throwing the silly things and making notes on the hearth floor with a burnt stick.’
‘So you went off up to your bedroom and left him to it, did you?’ Mara looked swiftly at Niall, but no expression crossed his face. He looked bored.
‘No, I didn’t. I stayed in the parlour. You see there was a fire there, but none upstairs in the bedroom. I was forbidden to light that until just before my master wished to go to bed,’ explained Ríanne and Niall’s face showed no flicker of a change, no glance of query or of disbelief.
‘And this went on until when?’
‘Well, it was getting dark and I said to Niall, “Surely he’s not still out there, chasing after those hunters?”’
‘And what did Niall answer to that?’
‘I don’t think that he said anything,’ said Ríanne, frowning slightly, ‘but then I said, “Niall, you’ll just have to go out. If he’s had a fall or something, he’ll kill us both.”’
‘And so?’
‘So he went.’
‘Just like that. Did he say anything?’
‘No, I don’t think so.’ Ríanne frowned as though searching her memory. ‘He took his cloak down from the nail behind the door,’ she added helpfully.
‘And a lamp.’ Niall spoke for the first time in a slightly husky voice.
‘That’s right,’ agreed Ríanne. ‘He went into the kitchen and came out with a storm lamp.’ She shut her eyes, screwing them up in an effort of concentration. ‘I remember now. He pushed a twig into the fire and when it was burning, he lit the lamp.’
‘All without saying anything?’
‘He doesn’t talk much.’
Mara sat back.
‘And what time was that?’
‘About midnight,’ said Niall, speaking for the first time.
‘As late as that? Have you a clock? How did you know the time?’
‘By the stars,’ said Niall.
‘You did wait for a long time? He must have been gone for hours. It gets dark about eight o’clock.’
‘We were scared of him,’ explained Ríanne. ‘I had been thinking that perhaps he went to the alehouse after he had chased the hunters. He would have been furious if either of us had come looking for him then.’
‘Midnight.’ Mara thought about the matter for a while. The man would have been dead, certainly by then, according to the story told by the five men drinking at the alehouse. ‘Midnight,’ she repeated. ‘And where did you go, Niall?’
‘Out through the gate and into the field. I walked a bit along the edge of t
he field. It had oats in it last summer so I kept to the side by the hedge.’
‘And what did you do, Ríanne?’
‘I stood at the door and watched him.’
‘And then?’ queried Mara.
‘And I couldn’t see any sign of him for a minute. I called out, but there was no answer. And then after a while I saw him. I saw that he was coming back.’
‘After a while? How long?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Ríanne and added, ‘I can’t read the stars, but when he came back he said, “There’s no sign of him. I’m off to bed.” And he pushed past me and he went up to his bedroom.’
‘Didn’t you think to search a little further, Niall, go to the alehouse, or down to the village?’ asked Mara.
‘I didn’t want to,’ said Niall sulkily. ‘I had gone far enough and shouted enough and I tripped over something and the lamp went out. I came back in and went upstairs and went to bed. Why should I go stumbling around on the cliffs at night looking for him? I don’t suppose that he would bother if I went missing? So I came in and I went upstairs and went to bed and to sleep.’
‘And you, Ríanne,’ said Mara, ‘did you go to bed, also?’
‘No, I didn’t,’ said Ríanne. ‘I stayed there in the parlour with the door open to the passage way so that I wouldn’t miss the sound of a bang on the door if I fell asleep.’
‘And did you fall asleep?’
‘No, I stayed awake all night. I was frightened,’ explained Ríanne.
‘And did Niall come downstairs again?’
‘No, he didn’t,’ said Ríanne resentfully. ‘I was left there all alone wondering what had happened to my husband.’
‘Did you sleep, Niall?’ Mara turned quickly, but the boy was just looking at the floor, his eyes hidden and his face blank and without expression.
‘Yes, I did.’ He looked up then and seemed to see a doubt in her face. ‘I sleep very well, Brehon. Nothing ever keeps me awake,’ he said awkwardly.
An Unjust Judge Page 14
