The Sting of Justice

by Cora Harrison

  ‘What happened to him, Brehon?’ he asked huskily.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Mara honestly. ‘What do you think, Malachy?’

  ‘It looks as if he were attacked by some bees and perhaps died from a seizure.’ There was a note of uncertainty in Malachy’s voice as he joined her and leaned over the body. ‘A terrible accident.’

  ‘I suppose so,’ said Mara, but within her there was a doubt. Her eyes went to the east wall of the ruins where the straw bee skeps were placed, each in a stone niche which had formerly housed the statue of a saint. There were ten niches there, but only nine of them showed the curved shape of the hive. The tenth was empty; the skep had been knocked on the ground and thousands of bees clustered over the honey that spilled out over the ancient slabs of stone. What was it that Ulick Burke had said to her the previous night when they dined at Newtown Castle? Something about Sorley and his terrible fear of bees, something about bee stings affecting him, that was it. Her eyes went again to the straw skep lying on the ground with the bees clustered over the sticky honey and then back to the events of the night before. She would have to see Giolla – but first Sorley’s family would need to be told.

  ‘Daire, would you go and get Una, Sorley’s daughter,’ she said quietly. ‘Don’t interrupt the burial service – just get her back through here as unobtrusively as you can. And see if the young son is here, also. I thought I saw him at the back of the church.’

  ‘Sorley must have died from bee stings, mustn’t he?’ asked Nuala as Daire slipped out through the empty door archway and walked down the path towards the graveyard.

  Malachy frowned. ‘Yes, but if he were stung, wouldn’t he have called out? It’s more likely that he was gripped by a sudden seizure after the first few stings.’

  ‘His throat is almost closed up!’ exclaimed Nuala peering around her father’s elbow. ‘He wouldn’t have been able to call out. He couldn’t draw breath with a throat like that. Surely that’s enough to kill him. Look at the colour that he is – of course that is the poison from the bees’ venom.’

  Mara gave her a quick glance of appreciation – she had always thought that Nuala was brighter than her father – but she waited silently for a comment from him before asking her question:

  ‘What did kill him then, in your opinion, Malachy?’

  ‘Well, his neck is not broken, anyway. There is no sign of anything like that.’

  ‘What could it have been, then?’

  Malachy shook his head in a puzzled way. ‘I’m not sure,’ he said. ‘It could have been bee stings. It is possible, you know. There are some people who swell up very badly after bee stings and he could have been one of them, his throat could have been swollen enough to stop his breathing, but it could also have been a seizure.’

  ‘Did he ever have trouble with seizures?’ asked Mara.

  ‘I wouldn’t know. He never came to me. He probably had a physician in Kinvarra or in Galway, As far as I know he wasn’t here a lot, not during the last eight or ten years, anyway. Toin might know; he’s known the family for a long time as they lived so close to each other.’

  ‘I’d say that he died from bee stings,’ said Nuala decisively.

  ‘You may be right,’ said Malachy indifferently. ‘It doesn’t make much difference one way or the other. The fact is that the man is dead. Go and see if the burial service has ended yet, Nuala, the bishop will probably wish to give him the last rites.’

  Father David was being buried on the north side of the new church so Mara could hear enough to know that the burial service was not yet over. When it was she would have to post someone at the entrance to stop curious bystanders coming in. She regretted not having her six law school pupils with her. Perhaps when Daire came back he and Malachy could carry the body through into the church, or at least place it on the stone tomb near to the west doorway. Mara got to her feet and walked over to look at it. The stone slab on top was certainly large enough to hold the body, she thought and then a flash of silver caught her eye. She bent down to examine it. It was a silver stylus, its pointed edge gleaming in the sunshine and lying beside it was a set of wax tablets. She picked them up and saw a well-drawn sketch of a communion cup with the O’Brien arms as prominent as the figure of Christ. This explained why Sorley did not come into the church as the bell rang. The silversmith had probably delayed to make sure that he had a finished sketch of the communion cup to show the bishop after the Mass and burial of Father David was over. This also explained why he had come into the ruins; he was probably looking for a flat surface on which to lay his tablets.

  ‘Here comes Daire and the daughter,’ said Malachy. The noise of several footsteps sounded on the limestone flagstones outside. The first to appear was Una, closely followed by her maidservant; behind her was Daire, and then, to Mara’s annoyance, came Ulick Burke, his small-featured face alight with curiosity. There was no sign of Cuan.

  Una was the first to speak. ‘He’s really dead, then,’ she stated. There was no emotion in her voice as she surveyed the body of her father on the ground.

  ‘Yes,’ said Mara simply. She made a consoling gesture, putting out her two hands towards the woman, but Una stepped back and turned her face towards the body. Mara did not know whether to offer comfort or to say nothing. Una just stood looking at her father. Perhaps she was in shock. Mara had seen violent death often enough to know that the nearest relations can often be numb with disbelief and will show no emotion while mere strangers weep. The woman’s colour was unchanged so she was not about to faint. Mara wondered what she was thinking about as she looked down at her father’s distorted face, but when Una spoke it was not to her, but to her maidservant.

  ‘There will have to be a wake back at the castle tonight,’ she said. ‘We’d better get back and see to the food. Will you stay here, Daire, and see that the body is taken back to the house when the burial is over? There are plenty of our men here. I’ll send a cart and some more men. We’d better go now; these things take longer than you think.’

  Then she stopped and stood very still. Perhaps full realization that her father was dead had dawned, thought Mara, but Una’s face bore a look of exasperated annoyance and when she spoke her tone was irritated. ‘What am I thinking of,’ she said. ‘Of course, it’s Samhain tonight. No one would come. They’ll all be going to the bonfire. In any case, I’ll have to send someone over to Galway to give the news to the silversmiths and silver merchants there. The wake will have to be tomorrow night.’ Shaking her head at her own forgetfulness, she gave the corpse a glance of indifference and then turned to Malachy.

  ‘So, it was the bees that killed him?’ she queried and then as Malachy nodded hesitantly, she said reflectively, ‘It was an accident, then.’ There was a faint note of query in her voice and this time she looked straight at Mara.

  ‘Perhaps,’ said Mara, her tone non-committal.

  ‘Well, that’s something, anyway,’ said Una. Her grey eyes explored Mara’s shrewdly. There was a sharp intelligence in her gaze. ‘When Daire told me that he was dead, then I was afraid that madman, Sheedy, had done what he threatened.’ With that she made a signal to her maidservant, turned on her heel and strode back down the path and out of the doorway.

  ‘Sheedy?’ queried Mara with a lift of an eyebrow towards Daire, but it was Ulick who answered her.

  ‘One of our late, lamented friend’s admirers,’ he said lightly. ‘A farmer from Cappanabhaile Mountain: he appeared at the castle the other day ranting and raving about his cattle being poisoned by Sorley’s mine. I must say that I was sorry for the fellow, but …’ He stopped as if he had been about to say something, but decided to reconsider; his green eyes were shining with mischief as he watched to see what the effect of his words would be on her.

  ‘Perhaps you three would carry the body into the church now,’ suggested Mara. Daire and Malachy, both powerful men, could probably manage this on their own, but she wanted to get rid of Ulick for the moment. Nevertheless, he had given her s
ome useful information. As the three men carried the body carefully into the church her eyes went to the silver heights of Cappanabhaile Mountain. Where exactly was Sheedy’s farm, and why did the mine affect him? Mara narrowed her eyes, noting the scar on the mountain face, just above Newtown Castle and then looked back at the south doorway as brisk footsteps stopped there.

  Standing at the entrance to the ruined church was Giolla. He gave an exclamation and hurried forward looking at the mess of honey and the angrily buzzing bees.

  Mara looked at him keenly. It was obvious that Giolla was upset and angry, but from his face Mara could not tell whether the beekeeper realized what had happened to Sorley.

  ‘I was coming to find you, Giolla,’ she said quietly.

  Giolla looked a little surprised. Either he did not know what had happened to Sorley, thought Mara, or else he was very good at hiding his feelings.

  ‘That will be that young fool, Marcan, who did that,’ said Giolla roughly. ‘Do you know the lad? He is a big. gawky-looking fellow. The son of Fionnuala, that rich widow who owns the land over there. His mother doesn’t give him enough to do and he is forever poking around my bees and trying to annoy them. I am sure that it was he. How did he knock it over without being badly stung himself?’ he muttered to himself and moved off abruptly.

  A minute later, Mara saw his head above the ruins of the eastern wall of the little ruined church. ‘Look, Brehon!’ he called. ‘Will you come out, come here and I’ll show you.’

  Mara followed out through the remains of the ancient south door and around the east side of the ruined church. She could see that no one walked there as a rule. The grasses and nettles were almost waist high, but through the middle of them a path was trampled, quite recently, judging by the smell of bruised nettles in the air, and in the wall there was a small space, a space from which a stone had been removed. It was obvious now what had happened. From behind the shelter of the wall, in that quiet secluded spot, someone had taken out a stone, thrust a stick through and knocked the hive to the ground, driving the bees to a frenzy of anger. But was it an accident, the mischievous trick of an idle boy, or was it a cold, clever, calculated murder? Mara did not know. Her intuition said ‘murder’ while her logical brain said ‘not enough evidence, yet’.

  She turned to Giolla. ‘Have you heard what has happened? Did you hear that Sorley the silversmith is dead?’

  Giolla nodded. ‘The steward from Newtown Castle told me …’ he began and then a look of horror crossed his face. ‘You mean it was the bees were after him and made him drop dead from a seizure?’ he asked, aghast.

  ‘I’m not sure yet,’ replied Mara. ‘I think that the first thing we had better do is to see that young lad, what is his name? Marcan, is it? We’ll have to find out first if he did anything. Was he at the burial service?’

  ‘Yes, I saw him there with his mother. Look there he is, over there. Marcan, come over here. I want a word with you.’

  Marcan did look uneasy as they approached, Mara noticed, but then he had probably had many an unpleasant encounter with Giolla in the past. His mother, too, looked defensive. He was quite a good-looking boy, about thirteen, Mara judged, dressed very richly, wearing a saffron tunic. Giolla addressed him harshly:

  ‘Have you been meddling with my bees again?’

  The boy’s eyes widened with a look of innocence, though there was a spark of mischief in his virtuous gaze. ‘No,’ he said, ‘I haven’t been near them, not for a long time.’

  ‘Well, someone has,’ said Giolla. ‘It must have been in the last hour too. I looked at them just before the service, and all was well with them, then.’

  ‘It wasn’t Marcan, then,’ said his mother decisively. ‘I had to call and call to get him out of bed this morning and get him dressed in time for the service. You know what boys of that age are like,’ she added, turning to Mara as a more sympathetic audience than Giolla. ‘He was with me from the moment he dressed until this very minute, so don’t you go accusing him of something that he could not have done, Giolla. You shouldn’t have those bees so near the church anyway. Poor Marcan came home with quite a bad sting on his forehead one day. I don’t know why Father David, Lord have mercy on him, gave you permission to keep those bees there.’

  ‘The bees won’t sting Marcan if he leaves them alone,’ said Giolla shortly. ‘Are you certain that you did not go near them, today, Marcan?’

  ‘Certain,’ said Marcan, with wide-eyed innocence. ‘Why, what is wrong?’

  ‘Sorley the silversmith has died from bee stings.’ Giolla looked rather pale and worried-looking now. He ignored the exclamations of horror from Marcan’s mother and went back into the ruined church. Mara followed him, looking at him keenly. The anger had faded out from his face and was replaced with a look of anxiety. He made no attempt to regret the death of Sorley, but it was obvious that he was concerned on his own behalf.

  ‘You will be seeing me again, I suppose,’ he said.

  Mara nodded. ‘I suppose I will,’ she said. For a moment she hesitated. Her warm heart was moved by the obvious apprehension on his face. ‘Don’t worry too much,’ she said as she left him.

  She would not go straight back to the church, she decided. A quick walk around the graveyard and a few glances at those who were still standing chatting outside one or other of the gates would give her a fair idea of who was present. She kept her face preoccupied and her gaze aloof; no one would dare question her unless she spoke to them first. There was a very high respect in the kingdom of the Burren for the office of Brehon, and for her personally.

  Yes, she thought, Cathal the sea captain was there. He was outside the Rathborney gate talking in a low tone to what looked, from the resemblance, like his son. He stopped when he saw her and looked keenly at her, but she did not respond. No doubt, Marcan and his mother had spread the news.

  Where was Sheedy, she wondered? There seemed to be no sign of him in the graveyard and he was not amongst those outside the gates. She walked to the upper gate and gazed up the lane leading up the river valley between the two mountains. There were a couple of figures going up there, a middle-aged woman and a young man, perhaps the unfortunate banished son of Sorley’s – it did look like him. Ahead of this couple was another man; he was climbing the steep path at a fast pace. He was too far away for her to see his face; in any case, she did not know Sheedy very well, but she guessed that it was he.

  By the time she returned to church, Sorley’s body was being carried out of the west door to a cart. It was just an ordinary farm cart with no attempt at softening it with branches of laurel or flowers, Mara noted with interest. The bishop was standing beside it, talking gravely to Malachy, and the remaining people lined the pathway. The sun was warm and everyone lingered. No one seemed to know what to do or say. No members of Sorley’s family were present so there could be none of the usual condolences. The bishop began to recite the rosary and everyone responded with relief. The ritual murmuring of the phrases gave them an excuse to remain and perhaps hear more of this unexpected death.

  The Welsh mineworkers began to arrive just as the rosary finished. Probably a message had been sent by the efficient Una and their overseer had sent them down as a mark of respect. Many of them were already there, dressed in their working clothes, still with picks or shovels in their hands, standing silently on either side of the cart that carried the remains of their dead master. As Mara raised her eyes to the grey heights of Cappanabhaile, she could see a long line of tiny figures straggling down its slopes. The deformed man whom she had earlier noticed briefly in the church was still there. Mara’s eyes watched him with pity. He stood, as far as he was able to stand, amongst his former workmates and then just as the rosary finished and the order was given to move the cart, he struggled forward and placed his hand on the wheel of the cart and a strange sound came from him. For a moment, Mara thought it might be the start of a traditional keen, but then the man stepped back and Mara realized that the sound was a laugh, or a shout of
triumph, almost a victory sound, a sound which celebrated the death not mourned it.

  ‘What happened to that man?’ asked Mara quietly as Malachy approached.

  ‘I don’t know.’ Malachy surveyed the crippled man with a professional interest. One of the other Welsh mineworkers came up, spoke to him, took him by the arm and helped him away. Mara did not understand all of the miners’ Welsh speech, but the repetition of the word, Anluan, made her guess that was the injured man’s name. She turned back to Malachy.

  ‘You mean you weren’t called to treat him?’ That was surprising. Malachy was the only physician in the kingdom of the Burren.

  ‘His scars look fairly fresh,’ observed Nuala. ‘It must have been a mining accident. His leg and his whole right side were probably crushed by a boulder. It’s the right side of his face that has been damaged, also.’

  ‘Well, I wasn’t called,’ said Malachy shortly.

  Sorley probably didn’t want to waste any silver on paying a physician to treat one of his workers, surmised Mara.