Writ in Stone

by Cora Harrison

  ‘Who’s we?’ demanded Murrough. ‘You name names, but you know in your heart and soul that these men are forever at odds with each other. This is the way of life over here. There is continual rivalry, continual strife – cattle raids, disputes over territory. This is happening all the time. You are a king, yes, but only king of three small kingdoms. Will the McCarthy, the O’Kelly, the O’Donnell, the O’Malley, will any one of them accept your leadership? No, they will all fight in their own way for their own little kingdoms. And then the English will pick you off, one by one. They will bribe some, crush others; that is the way it will go.’

  ‘We will fight for clan and land,’ repeated Turlough. ‘And we will win. The English came over here four hundred years ago and now look at how little of the country that they own – a few cities, a swathe of land around Dublin and Wexford, that’s the extent of their possessions.’

  ‘You will fight,’ said Murrough, ignoring this. ‘You will stand up there, you and your clansmen. You know how they will all be dressed, in quilted leather – enough to turn an arrow, but not a bullet. They will hold their bows and arrows, they will ride their horses without stirrups, just like they did down through the ages, they will let fly their javelins against men wearing armour, carrying guns and men massed behind cannons. You will all be slaughtered and for what? An earl, in England, would have more power than you do. If you made obeisance to Henry VIII now he would make you an earl – perhaps Earl of Thomond, and your safety and the safety of your territory would be guaranteed.’

  He speaks with utter conviction; he believes this, thought Mara. But does it make it less, or perhaps more, likely that he would attempt to end the life of his father? Murrough was a young man. Young men are impatient. He sees the future; he will not want to wait patiently for it to arrive. He came over perhaps to persuade, but did he, when faced with the physical presence of his father, decide that the easier path would be to simply remove this obstacle to what he sees as progress?

  ‘You can talk all night if you wish,’ said Turlough, rising to his feet and throwing some more charcoal on to the already glowing fire. ‘You can talk all night, and you still will not convince me. I won’t listen to another word.’

  ‘In that case,’ said Murrough, in a low voice, ‘I’ll return to England tomorrow.’

  ‘Not until this murder is solved,’ said Mara tartly. ‘Remember this is still the territory of your father and as his Brehon I say that no one leaves this abbey until the crime is solved and preparations made for it to be admitted and paid for at the judgement place in Poulnabrone.’

  She looked at him keenly, but he said nothing, just bowed his head in a weary way, so she rose to her feet with a quick pat of Turlough’s shoulder. ‘Now I must go to see Brigid to tell her that we will be three for supper and, with your permission, my lord, I think that Fergal should come in here out of the cold. You can tell Fergal about English weaponry, Murrough. He will be keenly interested in that. He is a very intelligent young man.’

  ‘Yes, yes, I guessed that he would stay for supper.’ Brigid eyed her mistress uncertainly. There was an unusual hesitancy about her.

  ‘Is that all right? You have enough food? Has Shane eaten all your stores?’ Mara cast a quick, maternal glance at the black-haired boy sleeping peacefully on a sheepskin rug by the fire, a half-eaten pie still in his hand.

  ‘No, no, God bless him.’ Brigid was immediately reassuring, but there remained a slight hesitancy.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ asked Mara, closing the door and coming right into the kitchen.

  ‘It’s just that Brother Melduin; do you remember me telling you about him?’

  ‘Yes, of course, he’s the lay brother that is one of the O’Brien clan, isn’t he?’

  Brigid nodded. ‘Yes, well, I went over there for some more charcoal and he told me, in confidence, mind you, that he had seen that Father Denis in the stable and from the way that he was checking everything, it looked as if he might be thinking of moving on. He was enquiring about the state of the roads and looking at the horse’s shoes.’

  ‘I see,’ said Mara. Of course, Father Denis was not an inhabitant of the Burren, so in theory she had no jurisdiction over him. However, she hoped to get this case solved before any of the guests at the abbey moved on. Perhaps there was an agreement between the young priest and the abbot that the embarrassing illegitimate son should disappear before the important guest from Tintern Abbey arrived. On the other hand, Mara did not want anyone to leave until the case was solved. She hesitated for a moment, wondering what to say and Brigid gave an understanding nod.

  ‘Don’t worry, Brehon,’ she said. ‘Brother Melduin will keep an eye on him and will be over with a message if there is any sign of him moving.’

  ‘That’s good,’ said Mara sedately, wondering what she would do without Brigid and her love of gossip. Nothing more needed to be said so she turned the conversation. ‘I’m just going across to the abbot’s house. I suppose that Fachtnan and Shane’s father, Patrick, are finished with the questioning, now. I’ll just have a chat with them. Fachtnan will come back with me, but Patrick may well be having supper with the abbot. If he is not, then would it be all right if I bring him back here, also?’

  ‘Plenty for everyone,’ said Brigid, with a quick glance at her pots and pans and at the baskets piled up in the corner of the kitchen. ‘Bring him or don’t bring him, Brehon. There’s no problem either way.’

  As Mara went towards the door, Brigid called out: ‘Wait a moment, Brehon, let me call Cumhal, no sense in taking any risks. He’ll walk across with you. There may be someone out there who wants to get rid of you. That stone would have killed you, you know, if you had been in your usual place, and what would we have said to your father then when we meet him in heaven?’

  ‘Very well, Brigid,’ said Mara meekly. A scolding from Brigid, when she was a child, usually ended with the words, ‘what would your father say to me if he knew about this?’ Obviously, the fact that her father had been dead for twenty years meant little to Brigid.

  There was a murmur of conversation from the warming room as Mara followed Cumhal along the dark path through the cloisters. This was the monks’ one hour in the day of recreation and normal living – a time when they could rub their frozen hands in front of the fire and gossip with each other. A strange life, thought Mara. In the time of her father many of the Cistercian monks had lived in small houses with a wife and family outside the walls of the abbey, but since the arrival of the abbot, Father Donogh O’Brien, this had all ended and now the abbey of Our Lady of the Fertile Rock had become a model of propriety and strict adherence to the laws and rules of the Roman church. No wonder that the abbot wanted all traces of that violent death cleared from the church and the body quietly reposing in the vault before the visitor from Tintern Abbey arrived on his tour of inspection.

  The abbot himself opened the door to them.

  ‘Ah, Brehon,’ he said in a friendly tone, ‘I was just on my way over to the warming room; I like to drop in there every evening, the brothers expect it, but your assistant and the Brehon from Tyrone are by the fire in the parlour.’

  ‘I’ll wait for you in the kitchen, Brehon,’ said Cumhal, as the abbot disappeared with a twirl of his long grey cloak.

  ‘I’d prefer if you went back to the Royal Lodge, Cumhal,’ said Mara. ‘Conall and Fergal are devoted, but they are very young and they might be tricked. Make sure that the king does not leave the lodge for any reason and that no one is admitted without yourself and the bodyguards being present. Don’t worry about me; I have Patrick and Fachtnan.’ It was as far as she could go in saying: Trust no one, not even a close relative; the king may still be in deadly danger, but by the light of the torch in the small hallway she saw Cumhal’s thoughtful face and knew that she had been understood.

  He went with a quick nod, closing the door quietly behind him, and Mara turned into the parlour. Patrick and Fachtnan were at a table by the fire, poring over a piece of vellum, F
achtnan pointing to names with a rather battered-looking quill. Their faces brightened when they saw her.

  ‘You’ve made the list, Fachtnan?’ Mara bent over the vellum. She had trained her students to tabulate the evidence gathered and here it all was: names, times, cross-references: all carefully done.

  ‘We were just seeing whether we could cross anyone off the list on the basis of the evidence,’ observed Patrick.

  ‘The wife of Mahon, Banna, is it? The fat woman.’ Fachtnan pointed with the quill and then took out his knife and sharpened it vigorously, his face thoughtful. ‘I just popped across to the guest house and checked on her evidence and it’s true. So she can be crossed off.’

  ‘And what about the other wife?’

  Patrick chuckled. He took the pen from Fachtnan and drew a neat circle around the name of Frann.

  ‘The little lady’s evidence and Ardal’s didn’t quite tally. Her account said that she met him at the door to the guest house, his that he met her at the door to the church. Which do we believe?’

  Mara smiled. Patrick had not drawn a circle around Ardal’s name; he knew quite well which to believe. She gazed at Frann’s name in an interested fashion. Perhaps the lie was of no consequence. Frann was a storyteller and storytellers had an imperfect relationship with the truth.

  ‘I’d say that she just thought it sounded better,’ observed Fachtnan before she could voice her thoughts. Mara smiled at him. As a student of Latin and of the vast intricacies of Brehon law, Fachtnan had his weaknesses, but when it came to human nature, not a single one of her scholars could exceed him.

  ‘Any other discrepancies, or interesting points?’ she asked, gazing down at the vellum. The roll was being held open by the inkhorn and a heavy silver cross, studded with jewels. The abbot certainly had the best of everything in his house. Even the inkhorn was banded with hoops of silver and held upright by a silver stand. It did not seem to go with the Cistercian ideal of poverty and aestheticism.

  For an answer, Patrick drew another neat circle around the name of Father Denis. ‘His evidence did not agree with the abbot’s,’ he remarked.

  ‘What did you think of him?’ asked Mara. She spoke to Patrick, but her eyes went to Fachtnan’s face.

  ‘Keen to impress,’ said Patrick.

  ‘Lying,’ said Fachtnan bluntly and then added more thoughtfully, ‘but I think the abbot was lying also.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Mara with satisfaction. She beamed from one to the other.

  ‘It’s this matter of accounting for the time between that couple of hours between dinner and vespers,’ said Patrick. ‘The abbot says that he and the king’s son, Murrough, put away the bow, arrows and target in the wooden press and then he left the church.’

  ‘And Murrough?’

  ‘Well, he says that he did the putting away and that the abbot strolled off as soon as they entered the church and he went up to the chancel and had a word with the mason. That was the last he saw of him as he, Murrough, left the church after he had shut the press,’ explained Fachtnan.

  ‘And which did you believe?’

  Fachtnan glanced politely at Patrick, but the latter just pursed his lips and lowered his eyelids, looking enigmatically at the fire, so Fachtnan fixed his honest brown eyes on Mara and said hesitantly:

  ‘I know that Murrough has lied before and that would give a prejudice against him, but do you know, Brehon, I think he might have been speaking the truth here. You see, he didn’t try to say that it was the abbot who had gone up into the bell tower. He just said that the abbot went off to talk with the mason.’

  ‘I see,’ said Mara thoughtfully. ‘And what about Ellice? What did you make of her?’

  ‘Defensive,’ said Patrick unexpectedly. His eyelids snapped open. ‘She has something on her mind, that young woman, don’t you agree, Fachtnan?’

  ‘I agree,’ said Fachtnan. ‘She was wary of every question that we asked her, and yet,’ he hesitated and Mara took up the phrase.

  ‘And yet?’ she queried.

  ‘And yet, I don’t know whether you agree with me, Brehon,’ he looked deferentially at Patrick, ‘somehow I felt that she was not worried about our questions, more about whether she had been with her husband all of the time.’

  ‘I think you may be right,’ said Patrick after a minute. ‘You may be right, but where could she have been? I presume that this Father Denis,’ he turned to Mara, ‘I presume that he was there in church for the service of vespers?’

  Mara thought for a moment. ‘I think it is unlikely that he was missing,’ she said after a minute. ‘Someone would surely have noticed. There are just two rows of choir monks, one on each side of the chancel. If no one else had thought to mention the absence, I’m sure that Father Peter, the prior, would have done so and I had an opportunity of a private talk with him.’

  ‘And he said nothing?’ queried Fachtnan.

  ‘He said some very interesting things,’ said Mara, thinking back to her conversation with Father Peter. ‘In fact, his words pointed me in a new direction, but, no, he did not mention any absence of Father Denis from vespers. Perhaps Ellice went down to see her horse. She’s very fond of the animal, Turlough told me.’

  ‘So that’s it,’ said Patrick. ‘It’s all still wide open. There are still mainly the same suspects: perhaps not Banna, but Frann, Father Abbot, Father Denis for Mahon O’Brien and Murrough, Ellice and perhaps Conor for the failed attempt on the king’s life and any one of them for the failed attempt this afternoon on either your life or the king’s. You are no nearer to a solution than you were earlier this afternoon.’

  ‘I wouldn’t say that,’ said Mara sombrely. ‘I think I might now know who the assassin is, but I must think it over carefully.’

  Both looked at her in startled manner and she added lightly: ‘Let’s go across to the Royal Lodge now; Brigid is ransacking her stores for a worthy supper.’

  She took her mantle from the chair and allowed Patrick to help her into it. It was only after they had closed the abbot’s door and had begun to make their way along the darkened cloister walk under the faint, misty light of the moon, that he spoke.

  ‘Have a care,’ he said. ‘If the assassin suspects that you have guessed, then you are in grave danger.’

  Fifteen

  Brecha Écgib

  (Judgements of Inadvertent Events)

  If a man is killed by going too near a blacksmith’s hammer no blame is attached to the blacksmith. The same applies to a miller or a carpenter at work.

  Anyone travelling in a ship or a boat must accept the risk posed by the ocean or river and no liability is borne by the boatman for any accident.

  ‘Brehon!’ The voice was soft but insistent and Mara woke with a start.

  ‘Brigid! What’s wrong?’

  It was just as well that Turlough slept in his own room, well-guarded by Fergal and Conall, as Brigid had come right into the bed-chamber and was now standing above Mara, candlestick in hand. Brigid still wore her nightgown and her pale sandy hair hung over her shoulders so presumably it was as early as it felt. Mara sat up in bed and tried to collect her thoughts.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ she asked, and the breath caught in her throat at the thought of all that might be wrong.

  ‘It’s happened!’ Brigid’s tone was as gloomily exultant as one who, expecting little of the human race, is pleased to see those expectations fulfilled.

  ‘What’s happened?’ Mara swung her legs over the side of the bed.

  ‘Brother Melduin has just come over. He’s always the first to get up because it is his duty to pump up water for the cooking and washing.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Mara. Now she could guess what was coming next and the hard hammering of her heart slowed down.

  ‘They’ve gone!’ said Brigid.

  ‘Who’s gone?’ said Mara. She might as well play her part now, but she knew who had gone and she looked around for her clothes.

  ‘Father Denis and the wife of the tánaiste,’ said Br
igid. ‘I told you, didn’t I? Mark my words, I said it, didn’t I, Brehon?’

  ‘You did, indeed, Brigid,’ said Mara patiently. ‘I think I’d better talk to the king. Is that water hot?’

  Brigid, recalled to her duties, rushed across to the jug on the hob by the brazier and poured the water into a wooden bowl on the small table against the wall.

  ‘What will you wear, Brehon?’ she asked, going to the chest at the bottom of the bed. ‘I think your woollen purple gown will be the best for riding. It’s good and loose and it’s warm. There’s a cold wind out there, this morning. Yes, the purple will be best.’

  ‘You’re probably right,’ said Mara, trying to conceal a smile. Brigid, as always, had unerringly seen into her mind. Her first thought had been that she would go after the pair. After all, she had stated that no one was to leave the abbey until she had declared the crime solved. Of course, she could send some servants or lay brothers, but, no, she decided, I’ll do this myself.

  ‘Perhaps, you could have a word with one of the bodyguards, just say that I wish to speak with the king, don’t say any more; we’ll try to keep this matter a secret.’

  ‘I’ll get Cumhal to do it,’ decided Brigid. ‘I’ll go back to the kitchen and get you some breakfast. Just a couple of pies and a cup of hot ale: that will keep you going. It’s not raining yet, but that there sky doesn’t look good.’

  Where would they have gone? wondered Mara as she rapidly washed and dressed. She went to the window and unlatched the heavy wooden shutters and then pushed open one of the casements. Brigid was right. Already the trees were bending before the force of the wind. There might even be a storm today. Her window faced east and she could just see the sun rising above the swirling silver terraces of Abbey Hill and the sky was striped with long slanting lines of crimson and purple against a pale yellow background; the sun, itself, perched on the rounded summit of the hill, was like an enormous copper platter.

  ‘Red sky in the morning is the sailors’ warning,’ quoted Mara as she turned away from the window and pulled on an extra pair of footless woollen stockings before picking up her leather boots. A sound of voices outside made her return to the window, boots in hand.