Writ in Stone

by Cora Harrison

  The thaw was coming fast; the air was softer and the wind had turned to the south-west. The snow’s reign would soon be over. The subtle silver-grey of Gleninagh Mountain showed its curved terraces, clear and sharp, as the rain washed away the whiteness that had blurred and clogged its sculpted outline. Water dripped from the black branches of the nearby ash trees and a blackbird sang melodiously.

  ‘You wouldn’t believe it, but there is not an ounce of ginger in the whole place,’ announced Brigid. She did not sound particularly upset and Mara guessed that Brigid had plenty of spices in those baskets that she had insisted on bringing in the cart.

  ‘I even saw the brother who does the buying from the Galway merchants,’ continued Brigid. ‘He said they had a barrel of wine, but no spices, brought the day before we arrived.’ She lowered her voice and added: ‘He said that same cart brought the pilgrim.’ She eyed her mistress carefully and Mara nodded.

  ‘Did he know who the pilgrim was?’

  ‘He knows now. The story is all over the place. No one can understand it. Why should the king’s son come dressed as a pilgrim? A joke, they say, but if it was a joke, why did he not show himself on that first night?’

  There have been too many jokes during these two days, thought Mara. Yes, indeed, why did Murrough not show himself on the first night? Was he perhaps going to do this until the king had announced that he would be alone in the church for the first hour after dawn on the following morning? And why come dressed as a pilgrim and riding in a cart? This seemed to show that it was not just the impulse of a moment; that the deception had been carefully prepared. Murrough was a young man who had a great regard for appearance and for his dignity. It was not the sort of thing that he would do for a joke.

  ‘Brother Melduin said that the pilgrim spoke to no one except to the mason,’ continued Brigid. ‘He couldn’t understand it, could Brother Melduin. Why would a man want to eat with the servants and passers-by, when he could dine at the king’s table? And why would a man want to be lodged in the cold of the lay dormitories when he could have slept on sheets of linen in warm rooms? That’s what Brother Melduin said.’

  ‘He sounds like a man who thinks about things, this Brother Melduin,’ said Mara thoughtfully.

  ‘Of course, he is an O’Brien, not like that Brother Francis – you know, that tall dark fellow that was reading in the refectory last night. He’s an O’Kelly, Brother Melduin said to be sure to tell you that.’

  ‘I see,’ said Mara. It was true that the O’Kellys of Galway and the O’Briens were enemies. On the other hand, she thought it was unlikely that Brother Francis would suddenly attack the king. Unless, of course, instructions had come from his taoiseach; family bonds were very strong and family loyalties did not cease on initiation into holy orders.

  ‘He wouldn’t want anything to happen to his king, would Brother Melduin,’ added Brigid.

  ‘And he didn’t observe anyone in the cloisters or in the garth around the hour of dawn?’

  Brigid shook her head. ‘I asked him that very question,’ she said, ‘but he said he was busy pumping water at that time. He didn’t hear a thing. He said that the mason might have heard something because he might have been up early to do some extra work in the church. The carpenter’s work is finished, but the mason has still work to do before Christmas comes upon us.’

  Mara sighed. It was unlikely that the mason would have anything to contribute. After all, Murrough had talked about them sharing some brocóit, in the icy cold of the lay dormitory around the hour of dawn. Still it wouldn’t hurt to check.

  ‘And the servants in the guest house?’ she asked.

  Brigid shook her head. ‘They heard some shouting between Mahon O’Brien and his wife, Banna, but then the door slammed and they went to sleep again.’

  ‘Thank you, Brigid.’ Mara hesitated for a moment, but Brigid and Brigid’s husband, Cumhal, had been with her since the time of her birth and had been her father’s servants for years before that. She could trust no one if she could not trust them. ‘Brigid,’ she said in a low voice, ‘I do believe that the king is in grave danger. No one should see him, not even . . . not even a member of his family, unless his bodyguards are there. Tell Cumhal this.’

  Brigid nodded. ‘I know, Brehon, you can trust us. You take care of yourself, too. Who knows, someone who wanted to kill the king might want to kill you too.’

  Nine

  Di Astud Choir

  (On the Binding of Contracts)

  Inherited property must be kept within the fine (kin group) and it is normally inherited by a man’s sons. The man’s wife only has a life interest in a small share of the property: she is not entitled to more than the house in which she lives and land fit to graze seven cows.

  However, a man who has increased the value of his property may bestow that increase on whomsoever he pleases: the Church, a relation, a friend or a wife.

  Once outside, Mara hesitated for a moment. She had to decide between seeing the abbot and going back to question Frann. In the end she decided to do the second; she would have to make sure that her orders were followed and that Frann’s icy room had been warmed. Also, she acknowledged to herself, she was curious. It seemed, perhaps, that she had only heard half the story.

  There was no one around on the garth when Mara crossed it. For a moment she thought she saw a movement from an upper window in the guest house where Conor, Ellice and now Murrough were lodged, but when she looked up sharply the window showed back the reflected bulk of Moneen Hill. The clouds were scudding across the sky and the seagulls were boisterously riding the wind, so either of these could have caused the movement, but somehow Mara did not think so. She had a strong impression that she was being watched from above. She passed the small guest house where Finn O’Connor and his wife had been lodged and then paused outside the door of the large guest house which housed Ardal, Garrett, Teige and his wife and, of course, Mahon and his two wives.

  The door was just latched so Mara opened it quietly and tiptoed up the stairs. There was only the sound of snores from Banna’s room; hopefully Father Peter’s poppy medicine would continue to work for a few hours more.

  She tapped lightly on Frann’s door and a young fresh voice said: ‘Yes?’ on a note of enquiry. There was a sudden creak and Mara quickly opened the door.

  Frann was standing by the hastily opened chest at the end of her bed. In her arms was an untidy bundle of parchments which she seemed to be stuffing into the chest. She stopped when she saw Mara and a lovely smile spread over her beautiful face.

  ‘Oh, good,’ she said with the wholehearted openness of a child. ‘I was just eating these hazelnuts and hoping that they would give me the wisdom to read and now here you are, Brehon, and you can read for me.’

  Mara shut the door and laughed. ‘I remember that old story, too,’ she said good-humouredly. ‘I think I could do with some hazelnuts myself. I need some wisdom.’

  She sat down on the bed beside Frann, helped herself to a nut from the platter and looked around. The room was transformed since the last time she had been in it. One of the abbey servants, or perhaps it was Banna’s maid, had taken pity on the friendless girl. Now a glowing fire warmed the air, there was a richly embroidered cover on the bare-looking bed and a flask of wine stood warming beside the brazier. A platter of oatcakes, as well as the hazelnuts, was placed beside the bed.

  ‘What do you want to read?’ Mara asked, though she guessed the answer to that. The scrolls were obvious. One was half-unrolled and she could see the neat legal hand. She waited, smiling, but now Frann seemed reluctant to let it out of her hand.

  ‘You see we were married in November,’ she said hesitantly.

  Mara nodded encouragingly. ‘But you had known him for a while before, though.’

  ‘About two months,’ said Frann and once again the smile appeared. ‘I had known him since September, but by the beginning of October, I knew . . .’

  ‘Knew?’ Mara asked, though once again she kne
w the answer to her own question.

  ‘I knew that I was pregnant and that I would have a baby in May.’ Frann hugged herself with an expression of delighted glee.

  ‘That’s lovely,’ said Mara warmly. ‘And all is going well?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’ The girl had all the assurance of youth and good health. ‘And it’s a boy,’ she added. ‘My mother is a wise woman and she told me that it would be a boy. We were in my bedchamber, my beautiful bedchamber hung with silken cloths, in the house that Mahon had got for me. It was in the evening and we had finished our supper and I was sitting in front of the fire in my purple nightgown and I was talking about the baby and wondering what the future would hold for us both and then my mother asked Mahon for his ring of gold and she held it on a thread suspended over my stomach.’

  ‘And how did it show that the baby was going to be a boy?’ asked Mara with amusement.

  ‘Don’t you know? The ring turned sunwise and that means the baby is going to be a boy.’

  Fairly easy to manipulate a ring to do that, thought Mara cynically, but in the face of such simple joy and happiness she could do no more than smile warmly.

  ‘So Mahon then promised to marry you?’

  Frann nodded. ‘Yes, we were married. He gave the house to my mother and he took me to his castle at Dunguaire and we were very happy together. And then one night, a few weeks ago, after we had made love, he felt the baby kick; he couldn’t believe it. He had been married for thirty years and had never had a child and now he was going to have a son.’

  ‘I see,’ said Mara.

  ‘And then he got worried,’ confided Frann. ‘He was afraid that something might happen to him before the baby was born. One of his cousins, a man who was five years younger than he, had just died. The next day his Brehon came, he rode on a big white horse and he spent a long time with Mahon while I went walking in the hills. When I came back Mahon was waiting for me with these scrolls in his hand. He told me to keep them safe. When I asked what they were, he would only say that he was going to make sure that this little baby boy was going to have all that a heart could desire.’ Once again the girl’s voice took on a sing-song, storyteller’s rhythm.

  ‘Shall I read this now?’ Mara asked, stretching out her hand towards the scroll of parchment. She did not want to rush the girl and it was lovely to watch such happiness. However, she had to see the abbot, and it would be better for Frann if she were to know the exact truth of the provision that Mahon had made for her and for the unborn baby, whether girl or boy.

  ‘There are three of them,’ said Frann, handing them over while a smile tugged at the corners of the perfectly moulded poppy-red lips.

  Mara scanned the first document rapidly. Her eyes widened in amazement. Yes, it was true that Mahon O’Brien had left the castle of Dunguaire, newly purchased from Mael the silversmith, to Frann, his ‘beloved wife of the second degree’. Mara knew Dunguaire. She had often passed it on her way from the Burren to Galway. It was a large tower house, or castle, perched on a small knoll by the edge of the sea, just past Kinvarra. How would the girl be able to live there, though? A castle of that size would need a considerable income to maintain it, even to heat and light it and servants, workmen would be needed.

  Mara put down the first scroll without speaking and then picked up the second one. She cast a quick glance at Frann, but the girl was just staring into the orange flames of the fire, her lips parted in a slight smile, her green-blue eyes full of dreams. Mara read on rapidly. Mahon had been a rich man; his lands were only a small part of his revenues. He had also owned a limekiln and had obviously drawn a large income in silver, or in cows from the sale of the lime. Much of it was shipped abroad from Galway – used for mortar, guessed Mara – and more was sold as a fertilizer to the owners of the rich grassland in Thomond and in Ossory. This, of course, would be his own property and would be for him to leave where he wished. The law was quite clear on that. He had left that limekiln to Frann, and unlike the castle, this would just be in her hands until the son of their union – obviously Mahon, also, had believed in this gold ring spinning in a sunwise direction – had attained the age of eighteen. The third document came as no surprise. Mahon, like Mara, had known how much it would cost his young wife to keep up the castle at Dunguaire and he had left her the revenues from his three fishing boats for this purpose and for the whole of her lifetime. At her death these also would be the possessions of the unborn child.

  ‘Well, Frann,’ Mara said, carefully rolling up the three parchments into one scroll and taking a piece of pink linen tape from her pouch. She waited until Frann had turned around to face her and then said slowly and meaningfully, ‘Mahon has left you a castle and the silver from his fishing fleet for the whole of your life and the silver from his limekiln until your son is eighteen. This then becomes his property and both the castle and the fishing fleet become his when you die. You will be rich and he will be a rich young man.’

  ‘I know; Mahon promised me,’ Frann smiled as a child smiles with the present of a kitten.

  ‘You must look after these very carefully, Frann,’ said Mara solemnly. ‘After the feast of Christmas you must go and see Mahon’s Brehon and talk to him about this. Say nothing to anyone else. Let him make the announcement.’

  Carefully she handed the scroll into the girl’s hands and watched her stow it away in the leather satchel that lay on top of the chest at the end of the bed before asking:

  ‘Frann, did you see Mahon go to the church this morning, before he was killed?’

  ‘No.’ Frann shook her head carelessly. She made no pretence of shuddering or showing any signs of sorrow, though Mara had deliberately mentioned the word ‘killed’. Her thoughts now were all for the future, were all absorbed by her unborn child and the splendour of her new prospects.

  ‘So the last you saw of him was when he left your bed to go to Banna in the middle of the night.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Frann cheerfully, popping another hazelnut into her mouth, ‘that was the last that I saw of him.’

  When Mara left the room, she closed the door very quietly so as to run no risk of disturbing Banna. For a moment she stood on top of the dark stairs, deep in thought. This disclosure of Frann’s changed matters. Now the girl had a strong motive to kill the elderly man to whom she was married. The will left her goods and riches beyond any fantasy fairytale. Why have the bother of an elderly, if rich husband if the riches have already been given to you? Frann obviously had, probably never had, no affection for Mahon. And yet, why show the scrolls? If I had not seen these, thought Mara, I would have taken no interest in Frann. Perhaps the girl was what she appeared to be: childlike, but with that strong streak of practicality that most children possessed.

  The outer door was unlatched and then shut with great caution. Someone had come in and was stealing past the parlour, up the steps towards Banna’s room. Mara waited quietly. She was curious. At first she presumed that it was Banna’s maid, but those footsteps, quiet though they were, sounded far too heavy for the girl.

  The footsteps passed Banna’s door, stepping gingerly, and then proceeded to steal up the next set of steps. Mara stayed very still, confident that the dark grey of her cloak kept her hidden against Frann’s door. It was a man, and a tall man; she could just see his shape outlined against the dim light. But which man was visiting Frann with such secret care? He came on, right up to the second storey landing, and paused. In the darkness, Mara could hear his breathing.

  And then the outer door was pushed wide open and Murrough entered, shut it behind him and, without a glance upwards, noisily tramped his way into the parlour. That one minute of light had been enough, though. Mara had identified the figure.

  ‘I’m sorry, Ardal,’ she said courteously. ‘You’ve been waiting for me, probably. I just wanted to see Frann for a minute. Shall we go down together?’

  ‘No need to apologise, Brehon; no arrangement had been made. I merely came over to see whether I could assist you in
any way.’ Ardal’s voice, after the first few seconds of silence, sounded unperturbed.

  ‘It’s dark, isn’t it. I was just thinking of going back to borrow a candle from Frann.’ Without waiting for an answer, Mara pushed open the door. Frann was now on her knees before the chest, taking out a gown and spreading it on the bed. Her hand was lovingly stroking the blue-green velvet and she looked up in a startled way. Mara stood slightly to one side to allow the girl to see the figure of Ardal O’Lochlainn.

  ‘Could I just borrow a candle, Frann?’

  Mara’s voice was easy, but her eyes went quickly from the girl’s face to Ardal. There was no doubt in her mind. Frann looked at Ardal in the way that a woman looks at a lover. Ardal had quickly averted his eyes and looked at the floor while Frann, with pretty grace, bent down and lit a spare candle from the brazier and politely turned the handle of the holder towards Mara.

  ‘Thank you, Frann; we’ll leave it on the window ledge by the door.’

  And, yes, indeed, my dear, you will look very sweet in that green gown, she thought, as she went down the stairs, following Ardal who politely held the candle high.

  And there is no doubt that he is a very handsome and desirable man, her thoughts continued as she waited while he opened the door for her. Tall, lean and athletic with those intensely blue eyes and his red-gold crown of hair, Ardal would be attractive to anyone. Lovemaking with him would be rather more fun than with the solid, boring Mahon. You can do what you like, my pretty little Frann, as long as no murder is involved, she thought, waiting while Ardal carefully blew out the candle and placed it on the window ledge.

  ‘You’ve known Frann before, then.’ Mara often found it best to make a quick statement rather than asking a question and it worked this time. Ardal turned a startled face at her, shut the outer door with less care than he had opened it and then after a few seconds for reflection, said guardedly, ‘Well, yes, I met her some months ago, in the summer.’