Writ in Stone

by Cora Harrison

  Mara stopped for a moment on the path and then walked on. She would go back to Frann later on, and ask her what she meant, she thought. Now there were more important matters to see to. Ardal looked at her enquiringly and she said hastily:

  ‘Ardal, I must just see Fergal for a moment.’

  The two bodyguards were standing outside the abbot’s house and Fergal came immediately at her call.

  ‘Fergal, could I just ask you something?’

  He still looked white and shaken, she thought, as he gave an uneasy glance around. That was natural, she supposed. Despite Brigid’s words the chances were still very high that Turlough was the intended victim. Mara laid a comforting hand on his sleeve.

  ‘Fergal,’ she said gently. ‘This must have been a terrible morning for you.’

  He bowed. He did not look directly at her, she noticed. His eyes still scanned the high walls that surrounded the abbey site. She followed the direction of his eyes and looked all around appraisingly. There wasn’t too much to worry about, she thought. The abbey buildings were inside about five acres of grounds. The walls were about twenty feet high and the only way in was through a huge iron gate on the western side. The gate was still locked, she noticed, pulling her hood over her hair. Already her dark mantle was spotted with white flakes of snow.

  ‘I was wondering what happened this morning,’ she said looking at him closely. ‘I know that Cumhal woke the two of you,’ she added. ‘Just tell me everything that happened afterwards – every little thing that you can remember.’

  Fergal’s eyes returned to hers. ‘Well, Cumhal shouted at us that it was dawn and that the king might be on his way to the church and we got up and Conall was saying . . .’ he gave her an apologetic glance and she smiled.

  ‘I suppose you didn’t expect the king to get up so early. To be honest, neither did I. I thought he’d forget all about it and sleep through.’

  He looked relieved at her words and a little colour crept back into his young face.

  ‘Anyway we were getting dressed and Conall opened the shutters of the window and then he shouted out: “Oh, Jesus, Mary and Joseph, he’s gone already!”’

  ‘You saw him!’ exclaimed Mara.

  Fergal shook his head. ‘No, it was the line of footsteps,’ he explained. ‘We could see them leading right across through the snow.’

  ‘I see.’ Mara looked around. The guest houses and the royal lodge lay at about fifty feet to the south of the main abbey buildings. The abbey was built on the four sides of the square cloister garden. The church was to the north, the chapter house, parlour and abbot’s house to the east with the monks’ dormitory above them. To the west were the cellars and storerooms with the lay dormitory above them and to the south were the kitchen and the refectory where they had all dined the night before, but the guest houses were outside this complex of monastic buildings.

  Normally this garth was kept well cropped by some sheep, but now the whole ground was pitted and churned up with the numerous feet that had crisscrossed it during the last hour; at dawn the footprints would have showed up as clearly as a sparrow’s trail across a churn of cream.

  ‘And where did the footprints go? To the cloister?’

  ‘To the west door of the church.’

  ‘And they led from the lodge? Not from the guest house?’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ confessed Fergal. ‘We were in such a rush and a bother and we just went flying out and over to the church.’

  It would have been easy to be confused. The windows were set high up in the walls and they would only have seen the track at about ten feet from the lodge. The footsteps were undoubtedly those of Mahon O’Brien and perhaps another set also. Did the assassin follow Mahon out of the guest house?

  ‘And when you got to the church?’

  ‘Well, we walked up and down for a while and then we looked in to see that he was there all right and then we saw him slumped on the floor.’

  ‘A bad moment for you,’ said Mara sympathetically. The clouds had probably not been there then; they had just been gathering when she had come out, so the opening of the door of the small church would have been enough to flood the place with light.

  ‘And I tried to lift him. I thought he might have passed out. And then I saw the blood.’ He stared at the blood on his own sleeve as if he had only just noticed it.

  ‘I see,’ said Mara. ‘Go and join the king, now, Fergal. And,’ she paused for a moment and then continued, ‘I don’t need to tell you that you must keep a close eye on him.’

  ‘You believe the king to be still in danger, Brehon?’ asked Ardal as Fergal bowed his head silently and hastened back to his position outside the abbot’s house.

  Mara nodded. ‘I do, Ardal. I think that everyone needs to be vigilant. As you said yourself, no one could have got in last night, but that means that no one could have fled, either. The man who committed this murder is still within the abbey grounds – man or woman,’ she added with a quick memory of Brigid’s suspicions. She didn’t altogether believe that the enormously fat Banna would have exerted herself enough to get up at dawn and to hit her straying husband over the head with a mallet, but it amused her to see the look of horror on Ardal’s face at the very idea of a woman committing murder. She was fond of Ardal and admired his handsome good looks, but she couldn’t resist teasing him from time to time.

  ‘I’ve told one of the brothers to keep all of the travellers in the dormitory until you had time to talk to them,’ he said after a short silence when he had obviously reverted to the idea of the threat to the king. ‘There are just five of them so it shouldn’t take you long. The brothers can vouch for two of them and two of them are merchants travelling back from Thomond to Kinvarra who were forced to seek shelter from the storm.’

  ‘And the fifth?’ asked Mara as Ardal held open the door to the cellars.

  ‘The fifth is a pilgrim,’ said Ardal.

  Mara had already begun to climb the stairs to the lay dormitory when something in his tone made her look back at him. There would be nothing unusual about finding a pilgrim in the abbey. These men often wandered right across Europe to Spain and to Rome, and as well, in the opposite direction, came to the west of Ireland in order to visit the sacred shrine of St Eanna on the Aran Islands.

  ‘Yes?’ she questioned.

  ‘I’ll leave you to make up your own mind, Brehon,’ said Ardal firmly. ‘You’ll see him in a minute.’

  There were six men inside the dormitory – Father Peter O’Lochlainn, Mara already knew. He was a small, thin, toothless man dwarfed by the grey Cistercian robes – a distant relation of Ardal. He was the prior of the abbey as well as the herbalist.

  ‘God bless you, Brehon,’ he said. His smile was engaging, just like a child’s, but his eyes were sharp and intelligent.

  Mara greeted him, looking around the dormitory. The two small, high-up windows faced west, out to the valley, and the light was very poor. The five men were sitting silently on their beds, obviously waiting for her.

  ‘They haven’t had their breakfast, yet, poor souls,’ said Father Peter, ‘so perhaps they could go down to the refectory, Brehon, as soon as you finish with each.’

  ‘Possibly the two that you can vouch for first, Peter,’ suggested Ardal.

  ‘Well these two here have been working for us for the past three weeks repairing our beautiful church. Master Mason and Master Carpenter, will you come forward?’

  The two men rose from their beds; the carpenter came quickly, but the mason slowly and reluctantly.

  ‘This poor soul is worried about leaving his hammer there in the church,’ said the Cistercian indicating the mason.

  ‘Where do you come from?’ asked Mara.

  ‘We come from Galway, Brehon,’ said the carpenter.

  ‘Both of you?’

  ‘Yes, Brehon,’ said the carpenter. He had the ease of a man who is highly skilled and highly respected for his skill. ‘We are brothers,’ he added.

  Mara lo
oked at the mason. He was a broad-shouldered man, not tall like the carpenter, but immensely strong, she thought. He had white hair and a white beard and looked very much older than the other. There seemed little resemblance between them, but probably the carpenter did not mean blood brothers. Travelling masons and carpenters often worked as a pair, repairing churches and tower houses all over the country. Galway, with its fine stone-built houses and its many churches would give work to a couple like this for most of the months of the year.

  ‘Did you leave your hammer in the church, Master Mason?’ she asked.

  He bowed nervously. He thrust his shaking hands beneath his mason’s apron.

  ‘I did, my lady,’ he said in a deep husky voice. ‘I’m very sorry for it. I was working late and I was tired and the light was going before I finished. I didn’t make sure that I had all of my tools before I left the church.’

  ‘Don’t worry about it,’ said Mara gently. ‘Only the person whose hand struck the blow needs to worry. Now go and have your breakfast, both of you.’

  As he passed her she smelled a strong odour of brocóit, that very intoxicating drink made from a mixture of beer and mead. It was unlikely that he had got that from the brothers, she thought. The ale that they were serving last night seemed to be very small beer, indeed. He was not as old as she had thought initially; the light from the opened door showed younger hands, smoother skin than she had expected. Perhaps he and the carpenter were blood brothers after all.

  ‘I’ll see the two merchants next, Father Peter,’ she said aloud, resolving to interview the pilgrim in the abbot’s parlour, or out of doors. Ardal was sharp and clever and if he had noticed something suspect about the pilgrim, then she would make sure that he was who he said he was.

  The merchants were voluble in their account of their journey and their reasons for stopping off at the abbey. They had been to a fair at Coad in Corcomroe; Mara idly mentioned a few names and the descriptions came flowing back. She dismissed them quickly and then turned to Father Peter.

  ‘Do you think that Father Abbot would mind if I used the parlour to talk to the last man, and of course, other people?’ she asked. ‘It’s a bit chilly here. Perhaps you would be kind enough to ask him?’

  ‘Lord love you, of course I will,’ he said quickly. ‘It’s cold in here for a lady like yourself. I should have thought of that. I’m used to the cold; we’re half-perished most of the time, but you’d be used to better. I’ll go straight down and see about it. I’ll make sure that there is a good fire there also. Give me two minutes and then I’ll be back for you.’

  After he had gone, Mara sat quietly and said nothing. Ardal, a man of great stillness, stood by her side and made no move. Mara kept her eyes fixed on the pilgrim. He had turned slightly away from her and sat with his head bowed, his brown hood well pulled over his face. He wore sandals, she saw, and also the regulation pilgrim’s badge. She stood up and walked towards the window and looked out.

  ‘It’s snowing hard, now,’ she announced to Ardal, and then came back and stood by the doorway. She had seen what she had gone to see. For a pilgrim, tramping over stony, rough roads in mid winter, his feet were surprisingly clean and well cared for.

  ‘Bring the pilgrim down to the parlour in a few minutes,’ she murmured to Ardal as she went out the door and followed Father Peter down the stairs and across the trampled snow of the cloister. She had little fear that the abbot would refuse her the use of the parlour; like every other inhabitant of the Burren he was under the jurisdiction of the Brehon and was bound to assist her in every way.

  The parlour was a warm, comfortable room with windows facing east and a small fireplace filled with brightly burning ash logs. Mara refused all offers of hospitality in the form of mead and honey cakes from Father Peter, but begged him to stay. She was fond of the little man. He would not often get the chance to toast his feet in front of a fire and, in any case, he might be useful for cross-questioning this pilgrim on religious matters.

  Ardal, to her satisfaction, allowed quite an interval to elapse before escorting the pilgrim into her presence. That was good, she thought. The man could be perfectly innocent, but if he were, then no harm would be done. However, if there was something wrong about him – and her own intuition, as well as Ardal’s hesitancy, made her feel that there was – then this delay before questioning would make the pilgrim feel more on edge. Carefully she placed a chair in front of the fire. It would be kind to the pilgrim, but it would also mean that his face could be studied in good light from the east-facing window, by both herself and Father Peter.

  The pilgrim came in quietly, politely ushered in by Ardal, head bowed, hood well pulled forward. Nevertheless, he was assured in his bearing. He bowed to Mara and then, uninvited, took a seat in a dark corner, leaving empty the chair in front of the fire.

  ‘Sit here.’ Mara’s voice was quiet but it held a note of command. She got up and pulled the chair a little nearer to the fire so that it looked like a courtesy to the man. She stayed standing until he had obeyed and then she resumed her own seat.

  ‘Please remove your hood,’ she said.

  For a moment he made no move, but then he bent his head even lower so that the hood completely covered his face and shook his head violently from side to side.

  ‘What do you mean?’ said Mara impatiently. ‘Please do as I ask.’

  The pilgrim lifted his left hand, drawing the loose folds of the hood even more completely over his face and with his right hand made a motion as if to mimic writing.

  Mara turned to Father Peter, but he was already on his feet crossing the room to the abbot’s desk. The pilgrim was as quick as he; he followed the priest over and took the quill from his hand and bent over the piece of vellum. She watched him narrowly; there was no doubt that he was a most unusual pilgrim. There seemed to be quite an air of arrogance in the way that he taken the quill and then selected the vellum. She rose to her feet and quietly walked across, looking over his shoulder. His hands, she noticed, like his feet, were clean and well cared-for, not the hands of a man who had spent months on the pilgrim path.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said, taking the piece of vellum from his hand and glancing through it. ‘“I have made a sacred vow not to reveal my face or to speak until I reach the shrine of the Eanna on Aran of the Saints,”’ she read aloud. The words were in Latin but she read them out in Gaelic; she was unsure of how schooled Ardal had been. The handwriting was educated, she decided; though there was an elementary blunder in the words ‘sacred vow’ of the type that not even ten-year-old Shane, the youngest scholar at her law school, would make. Still that would not condemn a man. She passed the piece of vellum to Father Peter, and saw his eyes flicker over it rapidly. He, too, had spotted the error, she noticed. He lifted his head and looked across at the pilgrim.

  ‘But no vow of temperance,’ he said mildly, smiling his toothless smile.

  The pilgrim’s head jerked up and, for a moment, Mara thought that he would speak, or, at least, reveal his face. Quickly he lowered it again and preserved his silence.

  ‘You see,’ said Father Peter apologetically, ‘I was keeping a bit of an eye on our Master Mason as he is inclined to indulge himself too much on occasion and I noticed that he was sharing a flask of brocóit with you and you did not refuse it.’

  ‘Unusual for a pilgrim to drink anything other than small beer,’ commented Mara. She watched the man carefully, but this time he was on his guard and made no move. It was unlikely that he would now reveal himself, unless force was used. Mara shot a quick glance at Father Peter. Though not a naturally pious person, still she always felt it was her duty to keep on good terms with the church. Perhaps this unwillingness to show a face or to allow a voice to be heard was the latest fashion for pilgrims. Perhaps she might be greatly offending religious sensitivities if she ordered the man to be forcibly unhooded.

  However, Father Peter’s eyes, like her own, were full of suspicion. He compressed his toothless mouth and shook his he
ad slightly. It was impossible to mistake his meaning; he, like she, did not believe that this was a true pilgrim.

  She would summon the king’s bodyguards, she thought. This man was on her territory and therefore under her jurisdiction. It was indeed possible that he was one of the O’Kelly clan. The disguise of a pilgrim would be an easy way of ensuring a night’s lodging at an abbey. The largest of the Aran Islands, just off the coast of the Burren, was a magnet for pilgrims, many of them making their way across Ireland from the east, and stopping at the cathedral of Kilfenora, then on to Kilinaboy with its relic of the true cross, then a night at the abbey and finally a perilous sea crossing the following morning.

  At that moment, as if in answer to her thoughts, Fergal, the king’s bodyguard, put his head around the door.

  ‘Brehon, the king . . .’ he began, but in mid-sentence, he was hastily plucked back and the tall figure of Turlough filled the doorway. He had to bend his head to fit under the low sill, but Mara could see enough of his face to register that he was in a flaming temper.

  ‘Mara,’ he said and his voice was choked with anger, ‘you won’t believe what that sanctimonious prig . . .’

  Mara acted quickly. Turlough had no discretion. When angered he trumpeted forth his feelings to the world.

  ‘Ardal,’ she said quickly, ‘would you take this man outside? Fergal and Conall will help you to guard him. Father Peter, will you excuse me for a moment. I need to confer with the king.’

  The quick-witted Ardal had them all on their feet and was ushering them through the door almost before she had finished speaking. The pilgrim, she noticed, passed the king with his back towards him and his head bowed deeply upon his chest. Then she dismissed him from her mind as the door closed behind them all and she took Turlough by hand and led him over by the fire.

  ‘What’s the matter, my love,’ she said, smoothing the snowflakes from his heavy glib and then parting the rough hair and pressing a kiss on his forehead. ‘Who’s a sanctimonious prig?’

  ‘That cursed abbot, that . . .’

  ‘Shh,’ she said, placing her mouth over his for a moment. ‘Walls have ears.’