What a strange thing to leave your home and to wander from shrine to shrine. Not something that would appeal to her, she thought, though it would be interesting to see some more of the world. She imagined she might like to go to France one day and to witness how they grow the grapes and make the wine, wander around vineyards, sample different vintages and … She suppressed a smile. She was a wife and a mother, and with her position as Brehon of the Burren, her responsibility for law and order on the Burren, investigating crimes, drawing up legal documents, counselling couples who wished to divorce, explaining to farmers about boundary obligations, drafting wills, giving advice on problems with common land, sitting in judgement three or four times every year – more often if necessary – and added to all that her teaching commitments to her young scholars, she was lucky if she got a couple of hours to herself, she thought, as she rose respectfully to her feet to listen to the gospel. That young man, that German merchant, she mused, as she solemnly signed her forehead, mouth and breast with her thumb, what was happening to his business while he wandered over lands and seas in the company of three women and a couple of elderly men?
He could not be more than about twenty-eight, she reckoned, as she looked across at him. An intelligent face, but with a slight look of a fanatic about him. Certainly, at the moment, he was not looking at the women who were eyeing him: Narait, Nechtan’s wife; Blad’s daughter, Mór; the three women pilgrims; and even herself. He was looking straight ahead, staring at the altar and its marble statues, its crimson carpet, the gold figure of the crucifix, the jewel-encrusted monstrance which the priest raised on high with the sacred host in its centre, and there was a stillness, a concentration and, she almost thought, a look of burning passion in his eyes. That was the explanation, she supposed. This man was not going on a pilgrimage for the company or the amusements or to while away the time; some burning belief, some religious fanaticism drove him to sacrifice his time and his money.
Well, thought Mara, it takes all kinds to make up a world. Religion to her was something very much in the background. And yet she was, she thought with a sudden insight, as fanatical about the law, the Brehon laws of her ancestors, as this man or Ardal O’Lochlainn was fanatical about the Church of Rome. A law which never shed blood, which ruled that the hungry and the insane had to be cared for, a law that gave rights to women and children, a law that relied for obedience to its judgements on the consensus of the community and not on savage punishments with whip and the hangman’s noose – that law, she thought, as she stood up for the last Gospel, with a half-smile at her sudden fervour, was worth a certain fanaticism.
‘May we go up to see the relic of the true cross, Brehon?’
‘If you like, Art.’ Mara suppressed a sigh. She had hoped to plead urgent business once the service was over and get away quickly, but Art was a genuinely religious boy and his mother, who lived on a farm near to the law school, would be eager to hear all about it when he visited her later on in the evening. Odd, she thought, that Cormac, her son, had been fostered with Art from the time that he was a tiny baby, had lived in the same house, slept in the same bed, fed from the same milk – and yet Art was religious like his mother and Cormac, like his mother, Mara, seemed to be sceptical about certain aspects of the Church’s teachings.
Still, if Art wanted to see the relic and if he truly believed that it was part of the cross on which Jesus met his death, then he must be allowed to do so. She wondered for a moment about allowing Domhnall to be in charge of the party climbing up to see the relic, housed in its own little tower a few yards from the church, but although he was very responsible, for fourteen he was rather small and Father MacMahon might think it strange of her. In any case, she thought, Cormac was quite likely to wonder aloud how many pieces of the true cross existed in the world, and, being a mathematical boy with a love of figures, might start working out how many pieces of wood could be taken from a man-sized cross. And then he would probably take his findings to Father MacMahon and scandalize the good priest.
‘It’s my first time seeing it,’ said Art as they crossed the churchyard, shepherded by Father MacMahon and ushered ahead of the pilgrims who were being placed in an orderly line by Sorley.
The stone-roofed round tower was quite small – probably only about ten foot across on the inside and made from stone. Mara and her scholars followed the priest up the ladder that led to the door, placed for security reasons a good six foot above ground level, and waited on the first wooden floor until Father MacMahon laboriously made his way up to the second floor where the relic was housed. It was a tight squeeze in the little circular room and Mara moved on to the ladder, allowing the boys to huddle together in an area not more than a couple of paces wide. It turned out that it was the first time for all of the scholars and they speculated freely, in discreet whispers, on what might happen by the sacred power of the precious relic. It was very airless and Mara was thankful when Father MacMahon finished his prayer and came back down again. She climbed the wooden spiral staircase and breathed thankfully the cool air that came from the four narrow window slits – facing north, south, east and west. She stood by the eastern one and allowed the boys to press forward to where the relic lay on a cushion of purple velvet, housed in a knee-high, beautifully carved gold shrine.
‘To think that people cross the world to see something the size of that,’ said Cormac. He sounded quite disappointed and, being Cormac, had a note of annoyance in his voice as though he felt that someone had tried to fool him.
‘Across Europe,’ contradicted Domhnall. As the son of a successful merchant who exported goods from and into the Anglicized city of Galway, he had a clear idea of the location of various countries. His father, as a boy, had met Christopher Columbus when the explorer had stopped off in Galway, and since then had taken a huge interest in the exploration of the Americas, and Domhnall was deeply interested in the idea that the world might be shaped more like a ball than a disc, as most people believed. He looked down at the relic now, bowed his head, but made no comment. He was a boy with a razor-sharp brain and a discretion beyond his years.
‘It’s very small.’ Art also sounded disappointed, but he crossed himself reverentially and after a couple of minutes of silent prayer Mara led the way back down the staircase. The local people waited politely until the Brehon and her scholars descended, but now formed a queue, eager to see their parish relic before returning to work on the farms and households of the Burren. The place would then be cleared and the pilgrims allowed a longer time to pray uninterrupted. Five of the six pilgrims were wandering around the churchyard, looking at the slabs and examining the tombs, but the sixth, the German, she saw through the open door of the church, still lingered, on his knees, with head bowed. Mara nodded to herself with satisfaction. I’m right, she thought. He’s probably a religious fanatic and wishes to say some very long prayers.
‘Ah, Brehon, I was hoping to see you.’ A rich voice from behind distracted Mara as she was about to hush Cormac from hoping that sight of the precious relic would help him to score a goal in the forthcoming hurling match against the MacClancy Law School. She turned to greet the innkeeper.
Blad was in full flow, inviting her to a meal at the inn in company with the six pilgrims and, of course, Father MacMahon and Sorley his sexton. Nechtan O’Quinn and his wife Narait were already walking down the path that joined the inn to the church. ‘And all of your scholars as well,’ he said. ‘And I hope you are hungry, boys, because I have a table covered with food.’
It was the look on Finbar’s face that made Mara change her mind about making an excuse. Finbar was always hungry. He was the son of a Brehon and had come from a law school in Cloyne in the south of Ireland. To her surprise the Brehon had sent his son to her when the boy was already twelve years old. She had seen after a day that Finbar was very much behind her other boys and had realized that his father had given up the teaching of his son in despair. She wished that he would just leave the boy to her now, but Domhnall, h
er grandson, had told her that Finbar’s father made him work at the law texts during the holidays and that he went supperless to bed if he didn’t answer questions correctly. Brigid, Mara’s motherly housekeeper, had exclaimed at how very thin the boy was when he returned from his summer holidays.
So she changed her refusal into a hearty acceptance and was rewarded by a blaze of pleasure on all of her boys’ faces. Brigid gave them plenty of good food, but the reputation of Blad’s cooking had spread far and they could hope for something exciting from a meal at the inn. Brigid herself would be relieved not to have to provide a meal for the boys when they returned from the Feast Day Mass. This was a busy time at the farm attached to the law school and Brigid’s husband, Cumhal, with the help of hired labour and friendly neighbours, was snatching a second cut of hay before the autumn rains began. Brigid would be on her mettle to feed them all well and would be pleased not to have to think about the boys and herself as well.
‘And your neighbour, the O’Lochlainn, has promised to come also,’ said Blad, with a look across at Ardal who stood courteously bending his head as Father MacMahon interrogated him, no doubt about his pilgrimage to Rome. It gave Mara a slight pang to see Ardal’s once bright red-gold hair now so grey. He was only five years older than she and yet there was hardly a grey hair among the dark coils fastened behind her neck.
Two
Betha Nemed Toiseach
(Judgement Texts Concerning Professional People)
Triad 31
Three things are required of an innkeeper or a hospitaller:
A never-dry cauldron.
A dwelling near a public road.
A welcome to every face.
The inn at Kilnaboy had been recently built. There had been an old monastery on the site, probably hundreds of years ago; certainly it had been a ruin even in the time of Mara’s grandfather – her father had told her that. Ruined walls, piles of cut stone and huge stone roofing slabs had lain by the river until Blad had seen an opportunity.
Blad had been a farmer in Thomond until the last few years. When his wife died he divided his farm between his two sons and bought the site of the old monastery and a few acres of riverbank meadow from the church. The money he had paid had gone to buy a splendid crosier for the use of the bishop when he came to Kilnaboy Church, while Blad could now achieve a secret dream and build a splendid inn on the bank of the river, using the old stones from the ruin. He was a great fisherman and a man with a huge interest in good food and fine wines, and he had trained up his daughter to be as good a cook as himself. Mara had been responsible for drawing up Blad’s Will and knew that he had endowed Mór with the inn and with the fields surrounding it where they grew vegetables and reared ducks, hens and geese for the table.
It had been, she thought, a fair arrangement. His sons had the farm and his daughter the inn. Normally a daughter could not inherit land – except enough to graze seven cows. It was one aspect of Brehon law that needed amending, she had often thought, though she knew the arguments about keeping clan land within the clan. But this was not clan land or property; it had been bought by Blad out of the profits from successful farming and so was now his own to do what he wished with. She was pleased for Mór’s sake – a jolly, plump girl who was no longer a girl but was sliding rapidly towards an age when a future husband might need the inducement of her property before proposing.
The inn, indeed, was a property worth possessing. It was a well-planned building, with an undercroft filled with straw mattresses for the servants of the guests and for poverty-stricken pilgrims. Above that there was a spacious hall with three tall, narrow windows overlooking the river and three very small ones on the wall opposite giving sight of the courtyard. The bedchambers for the more affluent pilgrims were built above the hall and each had its own wooden staircase leading to it from the courtyard and another on the side of the river. The bedrooms, Mara was intrigued to see when Blad showed her around, each had washing facilities with pumped water – there was even a small latrine built into the thickness of the wall – and a chute led down to a small culvert to carry away the waste, an arrangement that had been retained from the time when there had been an abbey on the site. Clean river water entered the kitchen from upstream of the River Fergus and foul water and waste were returned eventually by a meandering stream, fringed with willows and filled with bulrushes and water lilies – a stream which entered the river well away from the inn. By this time the water would have been purified by the plants and the river weed. Blad insisted on showing her all the arrangements and she admired them to his heart’s content.
Having viewed the bedrooms, Mara looked around the hall with interest. It was her first visit here. Kilnaboy was on the very south-eastern tip of her territory and she did not often ride in this direction. The room was a very simple one: walls of white limestone blocks, carefully and evenly cut, their surfaces still bearing the mason’s marks, were left unadorned by tapestry hangings or wall carpets – just a couple of pale oak dressers laden with gaily painted flagons, mugs and dishes and numerous wooden and leather drinking vessels. The sun streamed through the windows facing south on to the river – the room well protected from the cold air by diamond-shaped panes of glass – and the white stone of the walls gleamed in its light. Two small windows faced north and allowed a view of the entrance court, and an oil lamp, suspended from the ceiling in the centre of the room, would supplement the candlelight on dark days and evenings.
‘It’s spectacular,’ said Mara with a warm smile of approval. ‘I like it so much.’ She looked at Blad with interest. He was a very wealthy farmer; she had known this and had expected to see evidence of his wealth everywhere, but this room was a miracle of restraint. There was nothing in the room that was not needed, but everything that was needed was of the best quality: the finely-grained pale oak of the central table and the dressers, the tasteful decoration of small stylized flowers on the pottery – French, she guessed, and then wondered when she saw that they were painted with images of the tiny dark blue May-flowering gentians that grew everywhere on the Burren. Perhaps they grew in France or Switzerland also. Her father had spoken of seeing these gentians in the mountains on his pilgrimage to Rome when she was a girl – the Alps, she thought.
‘Ah, here come the ladies!’ Blad’s ear had caught a sound from outside. ‘You will be very interested to meet with Madame Eglantine, the prioress, a very travelled lady,’ he assured Mara before hastening out to throw open doors and usher in the three women pilgrims. They were followed by Ardal O’Lochlainn, still recounting details of his visit to Rome to Father MacMahon, Nechtan O’Quinn and his wife, the priest from Spain and the monk from Italy. There was no sign of the German with the interesting face, but Mara took a few polite steps forward to greet the prioress.
‘It’s a great pleasure to meet you,’ she murmured in English. Welsh was not a language that she knew, though it might not be too unlike her native Gaelic. She wondered whether the woman should be addressed in Latin.
‘Oh, good, you speak in English. How wonderful! Like being back in civilization again,’ said the prioress sweetly. She cast a disparaging glance around at the magnificent simplicity of stone and oak and whispered, ‘Very bare, isn’t it?’
‘Not to me, Madame,’ said Mara serenely, and was amused when the woman pressed a tiny delicate hand to her rosebud lips.
‘Oh, excusez-moi,’ she said, with what Mara assumed must be a Welsh accent. It certainly sounded like no French person that she had ever met. Her son-in-law, Domhnall’s father, often had French wine merchants staying at his house in Galway and Mara, who had a gift for languages, loved to talk to them. Still, she smiled affably at the woman and remarked, ‘When natural things are beautiful, there is no need for too much decoration.’
‘Of course,’ said Madame Eglantine politely, and then in lower tones, with a glance at Blad, ‘I don’t suppose that the innkeeper speaks English, so you don’t need to worry about his feelings. Now tell me about yourself.
Are you really a lawyer? I’ve never heard of such a thing. How do you manage? It must be terribly exhausting to go out into the world of men. I’m so lucky; I’ve led such a sheltered life inside my convent with my dear sisters.’ She saw Mara’s glance go to the other two women, and laughed shrilly. ‘Not these sisters. I mean my sisters in Christ – the nuns in my convent.’
‘But you journey with your sisters of the blood?’ Mara lifted her eyebrows in a query and wondered how quickly she could get away from this woman. She had no notion of explaining how deeply satisfying her life was, and how she enjoyed the society of both men and women on equal terms, and that her voice was listened to just as eagerly, or even more so, as the voices of her male colleagues, MacEgan of Thomond and MacClancy of Corcomroe.
‘Will you introduce me to your sisters?’ she went on, moving a little closer to the other two women. They intrigued her. There was such a gap in age between the prioress and her sister the widow – both of whom looked to be in their late forties or early fifties – and the youngest sister, who judging by the skin on her hands and neck and the sheen on the blonde hair that escaped from under her hood, was at least twenty years younger. The widow, she found, was Mistress Narboath and the young girl Mistress Grace Bowen.
‘What a very pretty hood you are wearing, Grace.’ Mara boldly addressed the youngest sister by her first name. It was, after all, the Irish custom, and Wales, she had heard, was like Ireland in lots of respects. They even had Brehon law there, though not, Madame Eglantine had assured her, in the north-eastern part of Wales where her convent was situated.
‘But we are more English than Welsh. My convent is at Holywell, beside the well of St Winifred, almost in England,’ she interrupted as Grace was telling Mara that the pattern was a traditional Welsh pattern and that she had woven the hood herself from wool that she had dyed with the juice from blackberries.
Cross of Vengeance (A Burren Mystery) Page 2