An Unjust Judge

by Cora Harrison

  He looked uncomfortable. ‘Well, it was both of us, really, I suppose,’ he muttered. ‘But when he didn’t come back that night we started to make plans. We were just fooling, really. We hoped that he might have had a heart attack, or that the fellows with the bows and arrows might have shot him, or that pirates had snatched him. And if that happened, if he really did disappear, well Ríanne agreed to take one of the pouches. I persuaded her that the old man wouldn’t miss one of them. And then we would go back to Ossory and say that Brehon O’Doran had disappeared. So then,’ concluded Niall, ‘I went out and found him dead. And we were very frightened.’

  ‘Found him dead, or decided to finish him off, which was it?’

  ‘I found him dead,’ said Niall steadily.

  ‘Show me your knife, again,’ said Mara. It had been, she thought with compunction, remiss of her not to have double-checked it after her preliminary glance. Somehow, though, she had never truly, even after Fergus’s accusation, believed Niall to be guilty, or even to be capable of this deliberate and decisive murder. The motive seemed weak. After all, if he were unhappy, he could write to his father and complain. He had the look of a well-cared for boy; his mantle was made from thick wool of the finest quality and dyed a deep soft black. The discovery of the nine pouches filled with silver, had, however, changed matters. No, he did have a strong motive.

  He produced his knife readily and instantly. And that impressed her. During his time as a law scholar in the MacEgan Law School, he would have known of the importance of knives as evidence to a crime. She took it and examined it carefully. It was a very old knife, she thought, the hilt of it had been worn very smooth. It was ingrained with the dirt of many years and as she turned it over in her hands, holding it carefully by the tip of the handle, she could see no traces of blood, and what was even more heartening, there were no traces of recent cleaning. The knife, she thought, was really quite filthy.

  ‘It was my grandfather’s knife,’ said Niall. There was a note of slight anxiety in his voice, but it was, she thought, brought on more by a worry that she might retain it, rather than a fear about what she might discover from an examination of it. Not just the hilt was uncared for; the blade itself was dull, and the point had been broken at some stage, though not recently, she thought. She ran a finger tentatively down the blade and then pressed a little more heavily. The knife, she thought, could not be used to sever tissue and sinew. It was far too blunt.

  There was a clamour of voices outside. And then the door was pushed open. Ríanne appeared at the doorway, swathed warmly in her fur-lined mantle.

  ‘Oh, Brehon, what are you doing with Niall’s knife?’ she cried. ‘He didn’t kill Brehon O’Doran; I’d swear to that.’

  ‘No,’ said Mara. ‘I don’t suppose that he did.’ The knife, she thought, would not have killed a mouse, not to mind a grown man. She thought of the little house by the sea and sighed unhappily.

  ‘You all go and have your meal in the kitchen,’ she said as Cael, Art and Cian appeared behind Ríanne’s shoulder. ‘You go too, Niall. Here’s your knife. Cael, tell Brigid that I will have just a bowl of soup and some bread. In here, please. I want to sit and think quietly.’

  Sixteen

  Bretha im Gata

  (Judgements of Theft)

  The penalty for theft is greater if an object is stolen from a house or yard, than if it is stolen from a deserted place or a seashore.

  It was three days before Mara went to see Gobnait. The reports of the injured woman had been good. The physician had stitched the wound on her leg and the bleeding had not reoccurred. She had regained consciousness on her journey back to her house and was said to have asked for food when she arrived. There had been some fear of an infection setting in on the leg, but that had not yet happened.

  ‘It’s the carrageen moss,’ said Fergus earnestly when she met him on the hillside. ‘Conn and I go out every day and gather some. They don’t allow me to go too near to the fire, but Conn is a good lad and he boils it up for me and we make a poultice with it mixed in with some old stale bread. It’s saved her life,’ he said proudly.

  Conn Bacach, thought Mara, was proving to be a great success. She did not know what Pat would have done with a senile man while he was nursing his sick wife, but Conn had taken to spending the whole day with Fergus and not going home until his charge was safely tucked into his bed. Ríanne and Cael went to the village every day to enquire after the invalid and to help Conn to entertain the fidgety old man. Cian and Art, somewhat disgruntled at Mara’s refusal to discuss the case with them, had developed an obsession with fishing, going down every morning to the little beach, keeping a sharp look-out for the chance to kill another conger eel. Niall, still tight-lipped and unhappy-looking, took it upon himself to build a proper stack from the sods of turf that had been tumbled on the ground behind the house just before Turlough had moved Fergus into the care of Gobnait and her husband Pat, and he laboured on it from dawn to dusk, refusing any help or advice from Cumhal or from any of the boys.

  Boetius arrived unexpectedly one afternoon.

  ‘I’m thinking of going back to England, back to London,’ he said abruptly as soon as Brigid had ushered him into the parlour where Mara sat thinking. ‘Have you any objection?’ he added.

  Mara thought about the matter and then shook her head. ‘No,’ she said. ‘No objection. You are free to go.’

  ‘And yet you have not solved the case,’ he said with a look of malicious enquiry in his light green eyes. ‘I’m surprised at you, Brehon. I would have thought that you had your pick of suspects. Perhaps you could have done with some help after all.’

  She ignored that. ‘And your claim to the Tuath Clae lands?’ she queried.

  He shrugged. ‘I’ve decided to leave it until the old man dies,’ he said. ‘He can’t last too much longer. To be honest, caring for him is something that I don’t wish to take on. I’ve looked into the matter. The seven acres, without the post of Brehon, are not worth the trouble. And I don’t suppose that I will be allowed to have that. You are too prejudiced against me. So I am returning to London and will claim the acres and the house when the old man dies.’

  ‘As you will,’ she said indifferently. She was relieved to be rid of him. He, in his turn, she thought, was looking forward to going back to London. This wild and desolate Atlantic coast, living among simple fishing and farming people, was not to his taste. He probably missed the sharp wits and the gaiety of King Henry’s court in London.

  And when he had gone, she went into the kitchen to get directions to where Orlaith lived. It had been on her conscience that the woman might be owed some wage. She had been summarily sent home by Brigid, appalled by the state of the house, but that had not been altogether fair. In all probability, Fergus neither cared nor even noticed what sort of state the house was in. Gobnait had, apparently, found her willing and obliging and eager to tell her everything about the likes and dislikes of Brehon MacClancy. Orlaith had worked for Fergus for about ten years, had arrived soon after the death of Siobhan and, after the departure of the housekeeper soon after that event, she had never had anyone, except a single man, to cater for. Fergus would not have cared or noticed any such details as unwashed floors and cobweb festooned ceilings. And, of course, once he was removed into Gobnait’s care, she would have fallen into even more idle ways. The new Brehon, Gaibrial O’Doran, would probably have soon got rid of her.

  Mara set off, not bothering to take her horse from his stable, but tucking the knife into her satchel. Orlaith, she thought, should have been questioned before now. No doubt the piece of silver that she intended to present to the woman in return for her services would erase the memory of a casual question.

  And then, she thought, once she had an answer to that question, she would go down towards the harbour and pay a visit to Gobnait. Brigid had donated for the invalid one of her delicious calf’s foot jellies, her sovereign remedy for all ills and Mara consented to carry a small woven basket to keep
this safe from harm. The knife, that good knife, with its handle carved from alder wood, the blood-tinged knife that she had taken from Ciaran, the knife which he had declared he found on the beach; that knife reposed in the bottom of her satchel. And her satchel, still weighed down with the nine canvas pouches, was in her right hand.

  ‘So, how are you, Gobnait?’ she asked again once they were alone. Fergus was missing, out walking with Conn Bacach when she arrived at the little square house by the sea. Pat had been easily persuaded to take a half an hour rest from the nursing and go down to the beach to see to his lobster pots while the Brehon talked with his wife.

  And so she and Gobnait were alone. There was a slight unease about the woman as she eyed Mara and Mara waited to see what would be said. Gobnait was looking well, still pale from the loss of blood, but her eyes were bright and keen.

  ‘Never seen such a beautiful jelly in my life,’ said Gobnait, eyeing the wobbling shape. ‘Look at the colour of it! Look at the way the light shines through it. I’ve never seen such a beautiful red.’

  Her voice was nervous and Mara knew from the sound of it that Gobnait guessed why she had come and that she had guessed why Pat had been sent off to the beach. There was no time to be wasted. The jelly had already been admired. Mara reached down into the depths of her leather satchel and fished out one of the canvas pouches. It had been carefully dried by her bedroom fire, but the seawater stains still showed streaks of white salt.

  ‘One of the ones that you dropped into the puddle of seawater,’ she explained and watched the woman’s face.

  Guilt crimsoned the white cheeks, but that was understandable.

  ‘I found it,’ said Gobnait after a minute. She sat up very straight and there was energy in her voice. ‘I found it, I found the two of them in one of caves down there by the shore. I was going to try to find out who they belonged to.’

  It was a brave try, but Mara greeted it with silence and Gobnait sank back onto her pillow and looked at her.

  ‘I think,’ said Mara, ‘that you knew very well who it belonged to. I think that you followed Brehon MacClancy and you saw him going into that cave. Perhaps two or three times,’ she added. Fergus would, of course, have a dim notion in his head that he had to check on the safety of his treasure and it was probably a daily routine for him.

  ‘I don’t suppose that you meant any harm to him,’ she said aloud. ‘You were probably worried about his safety when you had him first, before you realized how sure-footed and agile he still is, even when climbing rocks, even those big boulders up on the Pooka Road. You probably followed him, in the first place, to make sure that he did not fall, or get trapped by the tide.’

  She waited for a moment, but Gobnait said nothing and so Mara continued.

  ‘So you followed him and peeped in and then you saw him reach up and take down one of the pouches. You may have even seen a glint of silver. The sunlight in the evening at this time of the year would shine right into that cave. And when he had replaced the pouch, you probably withdrew behind one of the rocks.’

  Fergus, thought Mara, was never a very observant man, even at his best. He tended to be lost in his thoughts and the people around him were never as much of interest to him as were the texts that he read.

  ‘And then,’ continued Mara, ‘you went in and you saw all of the pouches. You reached up and took one down and counted the silver.’

  The woman stared at her in a horrified way. Mara began to feel sorry. After all, this was a woman who had been at death’s door only a few days ago. The confession had to be made, but she should get the business over and done with as quickly as possible.

  ‘Just tell me the truth, Gobnait,’ she said making her voice as gentle as she could. ‘You were tempted and you fell. It happens to all of us.’

  Gobnait gave her a startled glance of disbelief.

  ‘Let’s get this over and done with before Pat returns,’ said Mara a little more sternly and Gobnait instantly responded.

  ‘He knows nothing about this,’ she said hastily. ‘God help him, he has no mas on anything except those old fish that he catches. He did ask about that silver cup, but I told him that the king sent it down for the Brehon to feel at home and he never looked at the things that I bought at the fair again.’

  ‘You took one of the pouches,’ suggested Mara.

  ‘No, I wouldn’t do that,’ said Gobnait indignantly. ‘I just took a piece of silver from one of them, and then a piece from another, just so as himself wouldn’t miss anything. They were a consolation to him, poor misfortunate man. I’d say he went into that cave every single one of the days that he was with me. I used to be wondering what he was doing scrambling around the rocks. First I just put it down to him being in his second childhood, so as to speak, but then I got myself a bit bothered about him. And that was how I found the silver,’ she ended.

  ‘But Brehon O’Doran saw you one day. The day before he was murdered.’

  She was startled, visibly startled. ‘I never saw him!’ Her tone was slightly alarmed, but the alarm subsided after a moment.

  ‘Well, I never!’ She thought for a moment and looked at Mara with a tinge of curiosity. ‘He never said a word to me.’ Her face darkened. ‘I suppose that he was going to bring me up before the next court. He wouldn’t be a man that would hesitate to disgrace a poor woman. Thank God that he is dead.’

  ‘Did you have any hand in that death?’ Mara asked the question for form’s sake. She was by now fairly sure of the murderer’s identity and Gobnait, she thought, was guilty of no more than theft. The answer came back readily.

  ‘No, I didn’t, Brehon. I didn’t even know that he saw me. And I wouldn’t have killed him for that. I’d have sworn blind that I never saw no bags, no silver. He’d have found it hard to prove anything against me. I’ve always been a respectable woman. Ask the priest.’

  Mara concealed a smile. The woman, she felt, was probably telling the truth. Long experience had made her very aware of lies, and of unease. Gobnait was almost cheerful now. She bore the look of a woman who had got something off her mind.

  ‘Just one more question, Gobnait,’ she said gently. ‘Why did you take two pouches this time? You told me that on other occasions you just took a little silver from each of the bags?’

  ‘I thought you might be going to take Brehon MacClancy away from me; I thought we might lose the house and all,’ said Gobnait frankly. ‘You’d been asking questions about him being out at night and I thought someone had been telling tales. It’s true, of course. He had taken to going out in the evening and there was no stopping him. He’d fidget and get in a bad mood. Pat thought that I should stop him. We had an argument about it that evening, the evening when that Brehon O’Doran was killed, not that we knew anything about it at the time. Pat wanted me to stop him going out, but I said that there was a good moon, and that he would come to no harm. But then when I heard about the killing, when I heard about that next day, well I swore I wouldn’t let him out again after sunset. I’d lock the door and hide the key and let him fuss all he wanted. But, you know, Brehon, with all those walks that he takes these days, he’s ready for his bed as soon as he has finished his supper. And that’s a fact,’ finished Gobnait, eyeing Mara’s stern face a little uncertainly. Her face had whitened again. And then, after a minute, she asked in a low voice, ‘What’s going to happen to me? Pat will die of shame.’

  It was a bleak little cry for mercy and Mara melted. After all, the woman was doing good service in caring for Fergus. No one had been hurt by her small pilfering. It might very slightly lessen the inheritance which would inevitably soon come to Boetius, but on the other hand, the king was now maintaining Fergus and would have a right to take a fee for that service. In any case, her bravery when she jumped into the water to rescue Niall from the conger eel went a long way towards atoning for her crime.

  ‘I’ll speak to the king about it, but I’m sure that he would want you to keep what you have. But if you want anything more,’ s
he said, hastily thinking that she should not be seen to endorse theft, ‘if you want anything else, please ask for it. The king is very grateful for your care of his valued friend and would want to give you anything which you felt was necessary for the comfort of the home he has provided.’

  Fergus, she thought, would not have the slightest interest in a buffet piled high with silver plates, nevertheless, it was important to keep Gobnait happy. She had no easy task and it would get worse.

  ‘There’s just one more thing that I need to say to you, Gobnait, and I will say it to Pat, also. Brehon MacClancy must not be left alone. You must always know where he is and there must always be someone with him. Will you promise me that? If it gets too much for you, or for Conn Bacach, then the king will hire someone else, but he must not be allowed to wander around alone. It could be dangerous.’

  ‘Yes, of course, Brehon. I was thinking that myself. I’d never forgive myself if anything happened to him. Poor misfortunate man. And him such a good kind creature. And nowhere is safe nowadays, is it? To think of a secret killing happening in a place like this, well, I never thought that I would see the day.’

  Seventeen

  Gúbretha Caratniad

  (The False Judgements of Caratniad)

  A just king will have frequent conference with his Brehon and must be prepared to inforce a fair judgement by means of force, if necessary. If there is disagreement about a verdict, the matter is referred to the king and the Brehon must be prepared to defend the ruling.

  Turlough arrived on the following afternoon. Mara had thought of sending for him, but then had hesitated. She knew that he had urgent business in his chief and largest kingdom, that of Thomond which during his reign had extended east, almost as far as Ossory. There was, she thought, no great urgency about this affair. Brehon Gaibrial O’Doran had no sorrowing relatives thirsting for vengeance or demanding solutions. His widow seemed very happy, her laugh rang out through the house as she and Cael teased the boys and mocked at their fishing exploits.