Scales of Retribution

by Cora Harrison

  The physician to heal the king and his queen and the rest of the household.

  The file (poet) to compose satire or panegyric for each one according to his good or evil deeds.

  The seancha to preserve the genealogies, the history and transactions of the nobles from age to age.

  The musician to play music, and to chant poems and songs in the presence of the king.

  And three stewards with their company of attendants and cup-bearers to wait on the king, and attend to his wants.

  This custom was kept from the time of Cormac to the death of Brian son of Cinneide without change, except that, since the kings of Ireland received the Faith of Christ, an ecclesiastical chaplain took the place of the druid, to declare and explain the precepts and the laws of God to the king, and to his household.

  The supper was a success. Brigid, as usual, after a few exclamations, had risen to the occasion, and the long trestle tables were covered with shallow baskets woven from willow and piled high with honey cakes and crisp bread rolls. Bowls of whipped cream brimmed over with tiny wild strawberries, and bitter-sweet raspberries were sandwiched between layers of Brigid’s special white-of-egg and honey cake.

  The cradle was the showpiece of the evening. Little Cormac slept soundly within it, dwarfed by its splendid proportions. Eileen and Brigid had filled it with a mattress stuffed with sheep’s wool and covered with crisp white linen sheets, and with a couple of woollen blankets, woven from the finest wool, folded up at the end of the cradle, in case the evening should turn cold.

  ‘A little prince!’ Diarmuid kneeled awkwardly on the ground and stared at the child. Nothing else seemed to occur to him, so he repeated his phrase and then got to his feet with relief and embarked on a discussion of the cradle with Blár O’Connor.

  ‘Great piece of work, that,’ he said stroking the satin-smooth wood. ‘Where did that oak come from? I think I can guess. Not far from here, isn’t that right?’

  ‘That’s right. Kilcorney,’ said Blár O’Connor with a hasty glance towards Nuala.

  Diarmuid nodded his head with a smile. ‘I knew it,’ he said with triumph. ‘Grand trees these – must be about two hundred years since they were planted – been well looked after in the past, too.’

  Mara left them to their discussion of how to look after forestry, and their lamentations that enough people did not think of the future and plant trees for their future heirs, and went to greet Murrough.

  Murrough O’Connor was a breeder of wolfhounds, who lived at Cathair Chaisleáin, on the steep cliff behind Poulnabrone. He was a small, round man, good-natured and well liked by all. He made a good living by breeding and selling his handsome dogs. Mara’s wolfhound Bran had come from there and King Turlough himself owned a few of the hounds. The dogs were Murrough’s livelihood. He was good with them and fond of them. However, nobody could have predicted that a man like that, after half a lifetime of rearing and selling animals, would have suddenly fallen violently in love with one dog.

  Rafferty had been the pick of the litter, a magnificent puppy, huge even when he was only a few weeks old. Murrough would have got a great price for him. Several offers had been made and when they were rejected the surrounding chiefs had reckoned that Murrough was saving the dog for a client in England. Perhaps even for King Henry VIII himself.

  However, time went on and the dog was not sold. There had been something about Rafferty – perhaps it had been his exuberance, the depth of his affection for every human being – something which rose to the level of idolatry when turned upon his owner, but Murrough turned down every offer for the dog who continued to worship him. In turn, Murrough had adored Rafferty. He slept by Murrough’s bed, was fed from Murrough’s table and everywhere Murrough went, Rafferty accompanied him. He was quite untrained, but luckily possessed a sweet nature and was friendly to smaller dogs as well as people. Everyone on the Burren got to know Rafferty and he was greeted wherever he went. The law school boys loved him too. His exuberant high spirits matched their own and Bran, though a very well-trained dog himself, seemed to be amused by his young cousin’s antics and they played great chasing games around the fields of Cahermacnaghten.

  And then came the tragedy. Rafferty was poisoned and died a terrible death because of Malachy’s action of putting wolfsbane into the carcass of a hare in the oak woodland. Murrough mourned his beloved dog as if he had been a child of the house. Even now, two weeks later, thought Mara, he was full of sorrow. His round cheeks seemed to have fallen in, and his small frame seemed to have shrunk.

  Why had Malachy laid that poison? What reason did he have? Even if wolves did go through there at night, they would cause no harm. There were no animals in the wood. The few cows and chickens that Malachy possessed were all in the fields around his house. On the other hand, he must have known that many people walked through the woodland, often accompanied by dogs, and that young children came to pick bluebells and primroses there. He must have realized that he was taking a great risk.

  Diarmuid and Blár were still discussing the oak woodland, so Mara quickly steered Murrough away once he had admired the baby. Eileen was sitting with Shane, who was engaged in teaching her to play chess, and Fachtnan was sitting beside them, overseeing the tuition.

  ‘Bring Murrough a cup of wine and some food, Fachtnan,’ she said as she watched Murrough sit beside Shane. Her boys got on very well with Murrough and loved to plan elaborate wolf hunts with him. These wolf hunts, even if they seldom resulted in any capture of their prey, gave the boys great exercise and excitement and made the weekends fun for them. Mara made a slight face as she thought of the alternative. She, like everyone else, hated wolves who could do such harm to the young lambs and calves, but this poison, this wolfsbane, was such a terrible way to kill any living creature compared to an instantaneous death from the powerful jaws of the wolfhounds.

  As the evening wore on, the guests continued to eat and drink. Mara surveyed the scene. Everyone was enjoying themselves – even Eileen, who seemed to be quite animated as Shane explained the moves of the castle to her. Murrough had left the chess players and was wandering around in the little hazel woodland looking at the white windflowers, Bran, the wolfhound, at his heel. Brigid was enjoying the compliments on her cooking; young Nessa, her assistant, was giggling with Aidan about a large dab of cream on his chin; and Cumhal, Brigid’s husband, who was himself a good carpenter and wood turner, was showing Blár the wooden wine cups that he had made from an old apple tree that blew down in the storm. Nuala and Fachtnan were organizing races up and down the path for little Domhnall and Aislinn, while Sorcha played with her baby Manus, swinging him up to look at the tiny apples forming on the old Bramley tree and then lowering him down again quickly when he tried to grab one.

  And then suddenly there was a sound that made Mara’s heart stop.

  The marching of feet, the smart click of metal horseshoes on the paved road.

  And then the triumphant toot-toot of a bugle.

  ‘It’s the king!’ screamed Shane, abandoning the chess game and racing to the gate.

  ‘The king!’ echoed the other boys, and in a minute they had joined him, the six of them forming a sort of guard of honour, lining both sides of the road.

  Mara stood very still for a moment. Tears flooded into her eyes and her legs trembled. Only now did she realize that she had been quietly preparing her mind for bad news. A warrior’s life was only as long as the distance between battle and battle.

  Turlough Donn O’Brien had inherited the three kingdoms of Thomond, Corcomroe and Burren from his uncle eleven years ago and those eleven years had been spent fighting. He believed passionately in the old Gaelic ways and hated the new order of Earls, such as the Earl of Kildare and the Earl of Ormond, who had surrendered their birthright and paid obeisance to the king of England.

  And now he came into sight, flanked by two of the chieftains of the Burren: the O’Lochlainn and the O’Connor. The MacNamara and the O’Brien would have dropped off fro
m the cavalcade near to their own castles, but these two lived nearby.

  King Turlough Donn was a heavily built man of fifty, with brown hair, which had given him the nickname of ‘Donn’, just turning grey, light green eyes and a pleasant open face. A pair of huge moustaches curving down from either side of his mouth gave his face a warlike look, which was denied by the gentle amiable expression in his eyes. He and Mara, the Brehon of the Burren, had been married the preceding Christmas.

  ‘Safe and sound,’ he shouted boisterously, as she forced herself to go to the gate. He urged his horse forward, swung himself down from the saddle before any of his men could grab the reins and then stopped, mouth wide open at the sight of her slim figure.

  ‘Whaaat!’ he shouted out in a long-drawn note of exclamation, and she smiled quickly and reassuringly.

  ‘Your son was in a hurry,’ she said. ‘Come and see him. Come in, come in,’ she invited the two chieftains. ‘Come and see the latest O’Brien.’

  This time she did not care whether she woke the baby. She leaned over the cradle and lifted the warm little bundle out of it. He woke, but did not cry. Eileen had fed him less than an hour ago and just recently his little stomach seemed to have expanded enough to retain milk for longer periods. He opened a pair of slate-blue eyes and stared mistily at his father. Turlough held out his arms and Mara placed the baby in them.

  ‘Hold your finger out. See how he will grasp it!’ Mara caught a grin on Sorcha’s face, but she did not care if every baby in the world did this – it still seemed a miracle to her that such a tiny baby would have such strength.

  ‘And he is well, strong?’ Turlough surveyed his son with a fond smile on his face. ‘And you, all went well?’

  ‘Very well, and very strong, both of us,’ said Mara firmly. She hoped that no one would bother Turlough today with the story of Cormac’s birth. Now was celebration time. She quickly whispered in Fachtnan’s ear and he and Enda went into the house and reappeared a few minutes later with a large cask of wine. Brigid sped off to get more cups and more platters. Nessa was sent over to raid the stocks of the kitchen house in the law school, taking Aidan and Moylan with her to carry the provisions back, and Oisín broached the cask in a professional manner, filling up jugs for Shane and Hugh to take around to the guests. Mara handed the baby to Eileen who was at her elbow.

  ‘Malachy not here?’ Turlough had a special smile of welcome for Nuala who was always a great favourite of his. He did not wait for the answer.

  ‘Who wants to hear about the battle?’ he roared.

  ‘Us, us,’ shouted the boys, and the rest of the guests added their pleas.

  ‘Wait until everyone is sitting down, my lord,’ said Ardal O’Lochlainn. ‘This is a story that is worth the telling.’ He gave a puzzled glance at Eileen and she looked back impassively. Of course, thought Mara, the O’Brien and the O’Lochlainn ran sheep together on the Aillwee mountain. Ardal was a man who took an interest in every animal on his land and he would have known; probably have met both Eileen and her husband when the time came for the clans to separate the sheep. Ciara had mentioned what a good shepherd the man was.

  ‘Fill up everyone’s cups, boys,’ said Mara hastily. ‘I think we will all need to drink a toast after this.’ She nodded at Eileen and glanced towards the house. A slight breeze was stirring from the west; the baby would be better indoors. Eileen herself would have little interest in hearing about an event at which her husband was not present and Mara did not wish to run any risk that this tiny baby would get chilled.

  ‘We heard that you came up to them when they were camped near to your bridge,’ said Diarmuid O’Connor.

  ‘Why did they camp there? Why not attack the bridge straightaway?’ asked Murrough eagerly.

  ‘Or better still, cross the bridge over towards the east – nearer to Kildare for them – and once they were safely across, they could have destroyed the bridge behind them,’ put in Oisín.

  ‘Well, that’s easy. They were waiting for the cannon – you’ve never seen a cannon, boys, but it’s a huge, big, metal thing like a pipe, the size of a cart and it spurts great balls of hot metal out of it – enough force in those things to knock down a wall the size of that.’ And Turlough gestured towards the massive, ancient wall around Cahermacnaghten law school.

  ‘So it would make short work of a wooden bridge.’ Enda’s blue eyes were filled with excitement. Mara shuddered inwardly as she reflected how much harm to living flesh and bone a deadly instrument of war like that could do, but she kept an interested face turned towards her husband. This was the moment of his glory and she would not spoil it.

  ‘What about guns, my lord?’ asked Moylan. ‘Did the English troops have guns this time, just like they had at the battle of Knockdoe? You remember you told us about them and how they would kill a man who came near enough to them.’

  In answer, Turlough looked at Ardal and they both began to laugh. Ardal quietly amused, Turlough roaring and slapping his thigh.

  ‘That was the joke of it.’ Turlough began to recover and looked from face to face. ‘They had their guns and when morning came we all lined up against them. There was no sign of the cannon arriving – these things are so big and heavy that it takes them a day to do a few miles – well, of course, because they had their guns they thought they could beat us.’

  ‘Wish I had been there,’ said Aidan wistfully.

  ‘You’d have enjoyed it,’ Turlough assured him. ‘There they were and the men with guns were in front of the others, and there we were facing them: the men on horseback with their battle axes and their throwing spears, the men on the ground, the kerns, with their darts – well, you know what these are like, Fintan, don’t you?’

  The blacksmith nodded. ‘Yes, my lord,’ he said happily. ‘And I’d bet that three-pronged iron top against any arrow – but against guns . . .’

  ‘Ah, but we had a secret weapon!’ Once again, Turlough laughed and Ardal joined him. The boys moved even closer, their eyes shining with excitement. The neglected girls began comparing their garlands.

  ‘They were between us and the river so the sun was in our eyes.’ One of Turlough’s men joined in the recital.

  ‘And then the good old west of Ireland weather took a hand,’ said Turlough, resuming the story. ‘It all happened in a moment. The clouds blew across the sky and the next thing was that it began to rain.’

  ‘Poured down,’ supplemented Turlough’s bodyguard, Fergal.

  ‘And there were all those English troops standing there, pointing their little guns at us and nothing happened.’

  ‘But why?’ screamed Shane. ‘But why, my lord, why didn’t they fire at your men?’

  ‘Because,’ said Turlough, ‘because . . .’ he was laughing so hard that he couldn’t continue for a moment and even after he resumed, he had to keep stopping to laugh again, ‘because these guns work by setting fire to gunpowder inside the barrel – the little pipe – and it . . . it explodes and spits the ball out – that’s how it works, I think – and the ball comes out with such force that it can break a man’s arm – but the rain came down and every one of their matches, their lights, every one of them were quenched and . . . there they were just standing there with their silly, little useless pieces of metal in their hands, and my brave lads sending across their darts and the horsemen throwing their spears and the gallowglasses with their battle axes . . . and . . .’

  ‘Go on, go on,’ screamed Aidan, his eyes shining.

  ‘Please, my lord, go on,’ pleaded Shane.

  ‘I need a bard,’ said Turlough, ruffling his greying hair with one hand and then pulling at his moustaches with the other. ‘I can fight, but I’m no storyteller. Ardal, you do it for me.’

  Ardal O’Lochlainn rose to his feet. A ray of sunlight shining through the holly trees to the west of the garden shone upon him as if to pick him out. He was a fine figure of a man, with his tall athletic frame, his eyes as blue as the sky above their heads and his red-gold crown of hai
r. He waited like a true artist until every eye was upon him and then began to speak clearly and plainly, and yet with a hint of the rhythmic speech of a bard.

  ‘The Earl of Kildare, whom men call the Great Earl,’ he said in his musical voice, ‘had mustered a great army. All men who paid court to the English king had joined with him. And among that vast army were his cousins the Geraldines of Munster, under the conduct of James, son of the Earl of Desmond, and there came to the gathering also all the English of Munster, and McCarthy Reagh (Donald, son of Dermott, who was son of Fineen), Cornlac Oge, who was the son of Cormac, son of Teige, and many more of the English and Irish of Leinster. This great army proceeded into Limerick, murdering and pillaging as they went. And all men feared their passing.’ He paused and looked around, holding the glances of all. Even little Domhnall, sitting on his father’s knee, leaned forward, fascinated by the tale.

  ‘And then,’ said Ardal dramatically, ‘there came to challenge him Turlough, the son of Teige O’Brien, Lord of Thomond, descendent of Brian of the Tributes, and he came with all his forces. And with him was Ulick Burke, he whom men name the Clanrickard, and then there was MacNamara of Clanmullen, the Siol Aodha. And there came also the lords of the kingdoms of Thomond and Corcomroe, those who had sworn to bring their own warriors to each slógad, and from the kingdom of the Burren there were O’Briens, MacNamaras, O’Connors and O’Lochlainn.

  ‘The Great Earl marched with his army through Bealaeh-na-Fadbaigh and Bedach until he arrived at the bridge of Portcroise, that mighty monument to O’Brien power which had been constructed over the Shannon. And when he came to there, Kildare and his troops encamped for the night, waiting for the morning light to continue the spoil and pillage. Their goal was the great bridge across the River Shannon, but they waited for their cannon to arrive, and that was the mistake.

  ‘For the mighty O’Brien left him not in peace, but hurried to the spot. Well-tried in arms, and well-knowledgeable about battles, the O’Brien did not engage in battle straightaway. Stealthily, he and his men crept along until they were within arrow-fall of Kildare and his men. They encamped so near them, that both armies could hear each other’s voices during the night.