Scales of Retribution

by Cora Harrison

  ‘God bless you, Brehon, you’re quite right. I never thought of that. Of course it was Seán. Was that why the poor fellow was killed? Did he see something? Well, the Lord have mercy on him, poor harmless creature! I’ll tell you what, Brehon; I’d give that murderer something to remember – to kill a poor fellow like Seán that never did a bad turn to anyone.’

  ‘Brigid, Seán may have died because he spoke to the murderer about that morning,’ said Mara solemnly, wishing that she had handled this differently. Brigid was hot-tempered and impulsive. ‘I am relying on you not to mention this to anyone, except to your husband, Cumhal, of course.’

  ‘Not . . . a . . . word,’ said Brigid emphatically. ‘Now, if you’ve finished with me, Brehon, I’ll get back to my work. Goodness knows what those girls will get up to if I don’t keep an eye on them. That bonfire night seems to have addled the few wits they possess.’

  ‘Nessa was having fun!’ said Moylan mischievously. ‘Hopping over the embers with—’ Then he stopped and put his hand across his mouth theatrically.

  ‘I’ll give her something better to think of . . . embers, indeed,’ said Brigid, shooting through the door so rapidly that Hugh, who had risen to open it, was left with his mouth open.

  ‘Now she won’t think any more about murders and small matters like that,’ explained Moylan with a grin at his fellow scholars, as Brigid’s voice sounded from the yard.

  Mara repressed a smile. Moylan was quick-witted. Hopefully, next year, he would settle down to using these wits to master the Brehon law! At the moment he was going through a silly phase, nudging Aidan to point out his joke. Aidan, to Mara’s surprise, did not respond. In fact, he had been looking gloomy all of the morning. Perhaps it was Seán’s death that had upset him, she thought, dismissing the boy from her mind. She had more important matters to think about.

  ‘What I said to Brigid, I say to all of you,’ she said seriously. ‘Whoever murdered Malachy, and whatever was the motive, this murderer is willing to murder again to preserve their safety. I don’t want anyone even hinting a suspicion. In fact, I think that though it will take a little longer, I would prefer you all to keep together in a group if I ask you to do any investigating.’

  ‘Where was Seán going, Brehon?’ asked Hugh.

  ‘Boetius sent him to Thomond with our examination papers,’ said Aidan. ‘That’s what he told me anyway.’ He spoke absentmindedly, as though some unpleasant thought had come to him.

  ‘Can anyone remember which day that was?’ Mara looked from Fachtnan to Enda, but both shook their heads.

  ‘I didn’t even know that he had done that, Brehon,’ said Enda, and Fachtnan nodded in agreement.

  It was strange that Aidan seemed to have been more in the confidence of young MacClancy than were the two older boys. Why on earth had Boetius revealed his plans to the silliest boy in the law school?

  ‘It was the day that we had sea trout for dinner,’ said Aidan, still with a slight frown between his brows. His adolescent skin, which had improved in the last few months, seemed to have erupted badly this morning, thought Mara, feeling slightly worried about him. He had shadows beneath his eyes as if he had not slept well and he kept yawning and blinking in a nervous way.

  The sea trout seemed to trigger a memory.

  ‘I remember them – ionach!’ exclaimed Moylan.

  ‘The day that we built the tree house in the alders,’ said Shane to Hugh.

  ‘And we were playing di—’ Moylan stopped abruptly as Aidan frowned at him.

  ‘Never mind about all that,’ said Enda impatiently. ‘Let’s go to our six suspects. Could any of them have been seen by Seán at or near the murder scene?’

  ‘Presumably, he arrived after Malachy had been killed, is that right, Brehon, do you think?’ asked Fachtnan.

  Mara nodded. ‘I’d say that would be right, but we can check with Nuala. My impression was that he was dead when the message arrived to say that I needed him.’ Her mind went back to that morning and its horrors. She shuddered quickly and then reproached herself. Here she was alive, and almost as well as normal, and Malachy was dead. His death had to be investigated and a solution found quickly. Seán’s death had shown that this murderer was easily panicked into violence.

  ‘So Ronan, Caireen and Nuala were all at Caherconnell,’ said Moylan.

  Mara shook her head. ‘Not Ronan. Caireen and Ronan both say that he left before Malachy’s death.’

  ‘And there would be nothing strange about seeing Caireen and Nuala there, so unless he actually saw them put the wolfsbane into the glass it doesn’t seem as if it were either of them,’ said Enda thoughtfully.

  ‘So it looks as though it might have been Blár or Murrough,’ said Shane knitting his black eyebrows. ‘I could just imagine Seán, couldn’t you, Hugh? I could just imagine him going up to someone and asking them what they were doing at Caherconnell on that morning.’

  ‘Did he ask it that morning, when he was on his way to Thomond with Boetius MacClancy’s errand, or had he asked the question before and on that day the murderer took the opportunity to poison him?’ Enda put the tips of his fingers together and looked around at his fellow scholars. ‘What I am thinking, Brehon,’ he went on, ‘is that Séan may not have been too bright, but surely if he had just accused a person of murder, he would have the sense not to eat something, however tasty, given to him by that person.’

  ‘Yet, it would be hard to poison Seán on a normal day when he was just working around the farm – he always eats the same food as Brigid and Cumhal and the rest of them. Brigid wouldn’t be cooking something special just for Seán,’ said Moylan with conviction.

  ‘So we think that he was poisoned on his journey, Brehon?’ asked Fachtnan.

  ‘There was a piece of linen in his satchel with traces of butter and a few slivers of meat, and what smells like horseradish on it,’ said Mara. ‘I’ve shown it to Brigid and she says she certainly did not give him anything wrapped in good linen like that. And she didn’t give him horseradish.’

  Shane whistled. ‘Horseradish was clever. It’s so strong that it would kill the taste of anything else. I hate it. It burns my mouth.’

  Mara took a deep breath. ‘We must also think about Oisín,’ she reminded them. ‘He was one of our original suspects. Could he, if Seán had voiced any suspicion of him, have been the one who poisoned the food and disguised the taste with horseradish?’ Cumhal, she knew, grew the plant in his vegetable garden. It certainly would have been possible for anyone at Cahermacnaghten to have pulled up one of them quickly and chopped up the root. While the plant was fresh, the taste was extra pungent. After a few hours this pungency died down and needed to be revived with the addition of vinegar.

  ‘Here is the piece of linen,’ she said, producing it from her pouch after she had reminded her scholars about this property of horseradish. ‘I wrapped it in this oil cloth to keep it safe. Smell it; can you smell vinegar?’

  One by one, they smelled and then passed it on. By the time that it reached Shane, every face was blank and every head had been shaken.

  ‘That’s what I thought, too,’ said Mara. ‘I could not smell vinegar, so it seems to show that the plant was fresh when its root was chopped and added to the meat – beef, I would say, from the few fibres which remain.’

  ‘So our murderer took it from the vegetable garden at Cahermacnaghten law school,’ said Fachtnan slowly.

  Mara shook her head vigorously. ‘Don’t jump to a conclusion too quickly,’ she said urgently. ‘This is where good investigative work is important. You must check the gardens of Caherconnell, Binne Roe, and of Murrough’s place at Cathair Caisleann. Every place connected with the murder must be checked; I have a feeling that horseradish may lead to the solution of these two deaths.’

  ‘If it came from Cahermacnaghten, then Oisín could have taken a root from the garden.’ Fachtnan was still logically and doggedly pursuing his line of thought.

  ‘That’s right,’ said Mara calmly.


  ‘Well, it couldn’t have been him,’ said Aidan. ‘Oisín wasn’t here. I remember he had gone over to Lemeanah the day that Seán went. I remember your daughter, Brehon, telling Seán to remind Oisín to ask to borrow a small hurley for Domhnall.’

  ‘Unless the food was prepared earlier,’ said Mara. She looked solemnly from face to face. Was she justified in using those young boys on this mission? On the other hand, it was probably not a good idea for her to ride so soon after childbirth. ‘Make sure that you don’t ask any direct questions,’ she said emphatically. ‘Ask Murrough about wolf hunts or something like that, and you can bring a message from me to Blár that we need a new turf cart for the end of the month, if possible. Cumhal plans to start cutting the turf in a couple of days’ time, tell him that.’

  ‘Is that our work for the morning?’ Enda was obviously dying to get going on the solving of the two murders.

  ‘And to trace the route of Seán. Someone must have seen him. You know Seán; he would have talked with everyone. He was unlikely to have gone anywhere near Murrough’s place, but he would definitely have passed Blár’s place on his way to Lemeanah.’ Mara looked around at her scholars and said seriously, ‘I want everyone to stay together at all times and safety to be the first thought in every boy’s mind.’

  When the boys had left, Mara went back to the Brehon’s house. She felt torn in two. One half of her wanted to solve this murder, and to wind up the year’s teaching at the law school in a dignified and satisfactory manner, but the other half wanted to take her baby, to hold him close to her, to admire him, to love him, and, if she were being honest with herself, to feed him. And yet she was very lucky with Eileen. The woman was devoted to Cormac, an intelligent, unobtrusive woman who fitted well into her household. And, as luck would have it, prepared to live in same house as the baby’s mother! Another woman might have wanted to keep their nursling in their own house.

  ‘You must invite your husband over any time that you wish, Eileen,’ she said, finding the woman walking up and down the parlour, rocking little Cormac in her arms and singing softly to him.

  ‘He’s busy with the sheep shearing; I would never see him normally at this time of the year,’ said Eileen briefly.

  ‘So he lives up there during June, does he?’ There were several stone huts on the summit of the Aillwee mountain, Mara knew. She knew also that most shepherds took their wives and families with them. It was a fun occasion for all and the shrieks of the children often drifted down from the hilltops.

  ‘Yes, he does. What a beautiful chess set, Brehon – made from copper and silver. I’ve been admiring it. Look, the queen looks a little like you and the pawns are all wolfhounds, just like your dog, Bran.’

  Mara laughed, relieved that Eileen seemed happy to stay at Cahermacnaghten for the moment. ‘That set was made by the young silversmith at Rathborney, and, yes, he did use Bran for a model and me, too. The set was left to me in his will by a kind old man who died last year.’

  Eileen nodded and went on walking up and down. In another minute she will say that the baby needs feeding or changing or washing, thought Mara. I hardly know this woman. We should talk more. I must put aside this stupid, infantile feeling of jealousy.

  ‘How are you getting on with your chess lessons?’ she asked quickly. ‘I’ve seen Shane teaching you.’

  Eileen shook her head. ‘It’s a difficult game,’ she said seriously. ‘I keep trying to remind myself of all the rules. I go over and over them when I am rocking the baby.’

  ‘Why do you want to learn?’ asked Mara, amused by this dedication.

  ‘I have in my mind that I would like to foster a child,’ said Eileen hesitantly. She glanced at Mara and then looked away. ‘If I were to foster a little boy of a high degree, I would have to teach him chess and other things, that’s the law, isn’t it?’

  ‘I see,’ said Mara. So that’s what Eileen had in mind. She wanted to take little Cormac into her own household and foster him. Well that was not going to happen! Once the child was about six months old, he would be able to do without a wet nurse and she would feed him on goats’ milk and mashed-up food. She and Brigid would care for him in the same way as they had cared for Sorcha when she was a baby. However, in the meantime, she was reliant on Eileen, so she smiled and offered to help with teaching chess when the boys had gone to their homes for the long summer holidays.

  ‘The place will be so quiet that we won’t know ourselves when they are gone!’ she said, persevering with the conversation as she saw that shuttered look come back over Eileen’s face. ‘They’ll be packing next Friday and then they’ll be off on Saturday. They have all received the silver from their parents for their journey by now.’

  ‘You have a visitor, Brehon.’ Eileen stopped her pacing and stood in front of a window. ‘It looks like the taoiseach’s lady.’

  ‘Go and bring her in. Give me Cormac; I’ll hold him.’ Mara took the baby from the woman’s arms. She was glad to see Ciara. Cormac was looking so beautiful, plumper now and with a roses-and-cream complexion. She would enjoy showing him off to Ciara.

  Ciara, however, was full of her own news. ‘God bless him, isn’t he looking wonderful,’ she said, giving the baby a perfunctory glance. ‘Well, Brehon, you’ll never guess what happened last night at the midsummer celebrations! No, don’t go, Eileen, you’ll be pleased to hear about this, too.’

  ‘What happened?’ Mara turned a smiling face towards her guest, making a silent bet with herself that young O’Connor had at last put the question to Saoirse.

  ‘We’re going to have a wedding in our family,’ said Ciara, roguishly prolonging the suspense.

  ‘No!’ exclaimed Mara. She was fond of Ciara and also very pleased to see her this morning. Now a question could be slid in unobtrusively and be lost in the effusive comments about the forthcoming wedding.

  ‘Yes,’ said Ciara nodding her head, her large face wreathed in smiles. ‘Teige and I are delighted. Tomás O’Connor and my little Saoirse are to be wed. We thought of Lughnasa for the big day.’ She turned to the other woman, ‘And, Eileen,’ she said warmly, ‘I’m hoping that the Brehon might be able to spare you for a few hours here and there to help with making the wedding gown. Would that be all right?’

  ‘That would be fine,’ said Mara heartily into the sudden silence. Eileen had not replied, just looked down at the baby in her arms. ‘Eileen has had to have almost full charge of Cormac because I have been so busy at the law school and with this murder investigation,’ Mara continued. ‘But, of course, the boys will be off on their summer holidays at the end of the week and hopefully I will be able to take over the baby much more then. Eileen will have plenty of time on her hands then. I plan to make the most of my son and do everything possible for him.’

  ‘Well, I’d better be giving him his bath,’ said Eileen. At the door she turned and said, ‘I’m very pleased about the wedding. Perhaps if there is sewing to be done, I could do it here. I wouldn’t like to upset the baby.’

  ‘Poor soul,’ said Ciara compassionately as the door closed and they heard Eileen’s footsteps on the stairs. ‘It’ll be good to keep her busy. I’m afraid that there’s new trouble on the way for her. That husband of hers . . . men!’

  ‘Why? What’s wrong?’

  ‘Got himself another woman,’ hissed Ciara. ‘Teige’s steward was full of it when he came down from Aillwee last night. Apparently the husband – what’s his name . . . ? I forget . . . anyway, Eileen’s husband has got himself another woman. A girl, really. No more than about seventeen years old. She’s the daughter of one of the O’Lochlainn’s shepherds. It’s been going on since the little boy died – not her fault – no one could have guessed that a child could die from a tiny thing like that. But he blamed her, they say. That’s men for you! Went straight back up and found himself another wife – probably a more fertile one this time.’

  ‘Poor Eileen, does she know?’ asked Mara.

  Ciara shrugged her shoulders. �
�I wouldn’t know,’ she said. ‘I’d say no, but I suppose it was possible. You know how people love to gossip.’

  ‘Perhaps it will all blow over,’ said Mara. These things often did, she knew. She had heard that there was a lot of wild behaviour at the annual sheep shearing in the mountains. The long hot days, the short nights, the midnight dancing, the singing, the brewers of uisce beatha doing a good trade with their strong liquor, young men and young women working side by side during the day and enjoying themselves in the evening – there were always a few marriages that resulted from these June days, whether of the first, second or even third and fourth degree. Presumably this new marriage, if it did take place, would be one of the second degree; but this did not make it easier for Eileen. She might not want to share her husband. She might look for a divorce.

  ‘Poor Eileen; it’s lucky that she is so devoted to little Cormac,’ she said aloud, hearing, to her satisfaction, how calm and dispassionate her voice sounded while her mind was desperately questioning whether now, in all conscience, she could get rid of this woman at the end of six months and reclaim her baby for herself. ‘It’s wonderful news about Saoirse, what a pretty bride she will make!’ she went on, and allowed Ciara another few minutes of motherly chat before bringing the conversation back to the evening before and the delivery of Turlough’s letter to Teige.

  ‘The messenger told you how our man, Seán, was found dead on the way to bring a message to the Brehon of Thomond?’

  ‘May God have mercy on his soul,’ muttered Ciara in a slightly perfunctory fashion.

  ‘I just wondered whether Seán did stop at Lemeanah on his way. It would have been on the Monday the thirteenth of June . . .’ Mara looked at her visitor in a hopeful manner.

  ‘That’s right; he did, not that I remembered, but I think the steward did. I’m not sure, but something was mentioned. Yes, of course, he did! That’s how we found out that you had given birth. That was a shock! Still, all’s well that ends well!’ Ciara beamed at Mara happily before continuing, ‘I was wondering if your daughter Sorcha was around. You see, my little Saoirse has got it into her head that the stuff for the wedding dress should come from Galway and I said to her that I would have a word with Sorcha. She’ll know all about the shops there – that’s what I would do, I said to Saoirse.’