Cross of Vengeance (A Burren Mystery)

by Harrison, Cora

  ‘Like Father Miguel; he’s a Dominican priest,’ said Slevin. He looked across at Mara. ‘Domhnall and I think that he is the most likely person to have committed the murder, Brehon,’ he said. ‘We were talking about it when we were riding home from the bog.’

  ‘We were thinking, Brehon,’ said Domhnall, ‘that no one stole anything from Hans Kaufmann – so it wasn’t greed that caused his death – no one benefitted financially by his death. I think that is significant; religion-mad people don’t think about money and goods like normal people,’ said the son of a successful Galway merchant.

  ‘So we think that it must have been some crazy, religious freak who killed him,’ put in Slevin.

  ‘Going to all that trouble, putting on a sort of show,’ supplemented Domhnall.

  ‘That’s interesting,’ said Mara, feeling proud of them both. ‘Fachtnan and I were thinking along much the same lines when we were talking together this morning up at the bog.’ She wished that her son would join in with the discussion instead of singing to Finbar a silly song that he had learned on his last visit to Turlough’s court, but then remembered Cliona’s words. He is only nine years old, she told herself; Domhnall was five years old and had a younger sister and brother when Cormac was born. The thought of the frail baby that her son had been just over nine years ago filled her with a sudden gush of love, and she wished that she could stop and draw him to her and kiss him – and then smiled to herself at the thought of his horrified expression if she dared do such a thing in front of the other boys.

  ‘The O’Lochlainn is coming, Brehon,’ said Domhnall. His tone was respectful and he immediately reined in his pony. All of the boys had a deep reverence for Ardal – not only was he the chieftain of his clan, the O’Lochlainn, but he was the breeder of fine horses and her scholars admired him immensely.

  ‘How is everything going, Brehon? I suppose you are off over to Kilnaboy again?’ Ardal politely turned his stallion’s head so that he could ride beside her and not delay her on her journey.

  ‘I’m glad to see you, Ardal,’ said Mara. ‘I was thinking that I should drop in to Lissylisheen and thank you for your help the other night at Kilnaboy. It was good of you to offer to patrol the church boundaries when the unfortunate man claimed sanctuary.’

  It had been in her mind to double check whether there could have been any stranger around the church that night, but that was something that she felt she could not ask outright of either Ardal or Nechtan. Yet this opportunity was too good to pass up.

  ‘No trouble, Brehon,’ he said lightly. ‘I’m a man that sleeps very little and my steward, Danann, and I had some plans that we wanted to discuss. It so happened that recently every time we settled down to discuss them, we were interrupted. That night gave us plenty of time. We each walked the boundaries every fifteen minutes or so and then came together for another ten minutes near to the road, and continually checked the stables. Of course, Brehon,’ he said looking at her keenly, ‘we were making sure that the man did not leave sanctuary, but I would be fairly certain that no stranger came in during that night. Danann and I watched until about the hour of midnight and then Nechtan’s men took over until dawn. We saw Mór going and then coming back with her basket from the church, but otherwise no one went near to it as far as we know.’

  ‘And during the heavy thunder shower?’

  Ardal smiled. ‘Neither Danann nor I mind the rain much. We had our cloaks and pulled the hoods over our heads and we sheltered under that thick old oak tree in the Crooked Moher.’

  Mara suppressed a sigh. The Crooked Moher was an oddly shaped small field beside the road leading west from Kilnaboy Church. It was named ‘Moher’ because that was the old word for an enclosed field or meadow, and it had high stone walls all around it. The ancient oak tree was just next to the gate leading on to the road. It was a good place to choose if you wanted to make sure that no one escaped from sanctuary – and the old tree would have provided good shelter – but there would have been no chance of Ardal, deep in conversation with his steward, seeing anyone going into the church. They would have been facing in the opposite direction.

  ‘Well, I’m glad to have had the opportunity of meeting you, Ardal, and thanking you for what you did,’ she said, and he immediately took the hint.

  ‘Call on me whenever you need me, Brehon. I’ll leave you now and let you get on with your ride to Kilnaboy.’

  Father Miguel was standing in front of the inn when they arrived at Kilnaboy. He did not greet her, but stood impassively, sliding the beads of his rosary through his fingers, his eyes fixed on the impressive double cross outlined in stone against the gable of the church. She gave him a quick glance, but decided that Slevin’s words ‘crazy, religious freak’ could be taken to apply to the priest and that excused him from ordinary good manners. She didn’t like the unpleasant expression in his eyes, though, when they rested on Cormac’s grinning face. Father Miguel, it appeared, was not one to forgive and forget easily.

  ‘Brehon, welcome, welcome,’ Blad bustled out, greeting the boys and summoning the stable boys.

  ‘We’re staying the night with Nechtan, Blad,’ said Mara, ‘but perhaps you could house the mare and the ponies for us.’ She would not offer to pay him now, she decided, but Turlough, after a fleeting visit to the law school, would be on his way back to Thomond soon. She would make sure that he stayed overnight with Blad at Kilnaboy and Blad would be delighted to have the king and his follower. Turlough, as always, would be extremely generous.

  ‘You are very good, Blad,’ she said. ‘Now could I trespass a little further on your kindness? Have you a small parlour where I can talk in private to the people who were present within the church boundaries on the night that the German was killed?’

  She half listened as he assured her of privacy, made plans for light refreshments, and then left Domhnall to organize the bringing of the overnight bags to Kilnaboy Castle. She herself walked over to the church and sat down by the altar and gazed at the carpet on the steps.

  It had been expensively woven, she thought. And dyed with some stuff from the east – no dye from the Irish hedgerows could have made that deep, strong crimson – almost purple, but with a glow of red illuminating the rich colour. She reached out and touched the stain. It was still slightly damp, but where it was starting to dry at the edges an ominous blackish shade was beginning to mar the brightness of the original dye. The stain could probably never be completely eradicated – another grief to poor Father MacMahon, another loss to the church of Kilnaboy.

  She enumerated those she would see mentally. Five pilgrims; Father MacMahon and Sorley, that was seven; and then there were the two from the inn, Blad and Mór – their testimony about times and the whereabouts of their guests would be useful; and then, thinking of whoever was within the inner boundary around the church, she would also have to count in Nechtan and his wife. That meant that eleven people had to be questioned.

  And what to ask them? In her mind she sifted through the questions. The rainstorm, she knew, had begun about two hours after sunset. A couple of years ago Mara had purchased in Galway a small clock for her house – it had come all the way from Nuremberg, her son-in-law, Domhnall’s father, told her, and ever since possessing it she had become very aware of the time. The heavy rainstorm had begun, she knew, at nine o’clock. Mór’s testimony was that the dead man had eaten his supper an hour after sunset – that would have been about half-past seven to eight o’clock. Nuala had not only stated that death occurred about an hour after the meal, but had pointed out that the blood had been washed from the body by the heavy downpour, which had lasted about an hour. All the evidence pinpointed the time of death to about two hours after sunset. In other words, thought Mara, about half-past eight to nine o’clock in the evening. The church bell would have been rung every three hours by Sorley, so at nine o’clock he would have pulled the bell, which, at Kilnaboy, was situated in the top of the round tower – only a few yards from the church.

&nb
sp; I’ll see Sorley first of all, she thought, and got to her feet decisively.

  Fachtnan had arrived by the time she emerged from the church. He was standing by the round tower, talking with the boys, and Mara was glad to see that Cormac appeared to be animated and at ease with him. So it was only his mother that he blamed for being deprived of the fun of going to the bog. She wondered whether to say something else to him, but then decided that she had not got the time for tactfulness. Better to ignore his stiff, aggrieved behaviour.

  ‘Blad has very kindly given us the use of his parlour,’ she said to Fachtnan and led the way across to the inn. She said no more until they were all inside the room and Blad had retreated after being assured that they needed no refreshments.

  He had set out a small table with an ink horn and a supply of parchment leaves and an ornate chair behind it. There were a couple of benches and a few stools also in the room. Fachtnan put a stool in front of the table then brought up another stool for himself and sat beside her chair.

  ‘Put the benches along in front of the window, Domhnall,’ directed Mara. ‘You boys can sit there and you will be able to observe the faces very clearly with the light pouring in on them. Of course,’ she said the words casually, ‘you all know that you must not speak unless I ask you something. Your role is to listen and watch.’ She carefully looked only at Domhnall when she said that and he nodded solemnly. She hoped that Cormac had taken in her words also. Finbar did not have much judgement, but he was tentative and unsure of himself and most unlikely to speak without authority. Domhnall and Slevin, she knew, could be relied on, but both were too sensible and balanced to take umbrage at her words.

  Sorley was disconcerted to be first. It was against his sense of fitness to be summoned before Father MacMahon or the pilgrims. He knew nothing, could not remember seeing anyone – yes, he did remember the rain, kept a three-hour glass filled with sand which reminded him of the bell; had certainly gone out in the downpour, and put on his cloak, thrown an old turf sack over his head, dashed out from his house to the round tower, pulled the bell nine times, then dashed back again.

  ‘And the turf barrow?’ asked Mara innocently.

  He glared at her. ‘What turf barrow?’ he asked.

  ‘I wondered whether you fell over it – someone mentioned it to me.’

  He shook his head decisively. ‘Didn’t see anything of the sort,’ he said. ‘The O’Quinn barrows were all under cover inside the barn. That barn was locked.’

  ‘I understood that one of them had been left out,’ persisted Mara, hoping to be forgiven for the lie.

  He shrugged. ‘Not my business – all I can say is that I didn’t see one.’ His voice was harsh and belligerent. Mara noted the fact without comment, glad to have an excuse to leave him waiting for a moment. People often rushed in to fill a silence with speech, but Sorley didn’t.

  ‘And who did you see on your way out and on your way back?’ she asked after a minute.

  ‘Not a person. In rain like that? And there was good warning for it. The sky had been black ten minutes before.’

  That had been true, of course, but it didn’t mean that no one would have been out. After all, Ardal and his steward were out.

  Aloud she asked, ‘Did you take a lamp with you?’

  He shook his head, giving her the information that she wanted. ‘No, there was no need for a lamp. Every blessed candle in the church was burning. There was light streaming from every window of it. If that’s all, Brehon …’ He had begun to stand up as he finished and Mara could see no reason to detain him, so she nodded a dismissal and Fachtnan escorted him to the door, and then when Sorley’s footsteps began to echo down the passageway, he raised an eyebrow in query and asked, ‘Father MacMahon?’

  Mara nodded and smiled. Fachtnan had been at her law school since he was five years old; by now he could almost read her mind. It would be good to see Father MacMahon before he and Sorley could have a talk together.

  But Father MacMahon also had little to say. He had been in his house, had heard the bell, had seen no one, had noticed the prolific waste of his candles, but had decided not to go across to the church and challenge the pilgrim – ‘given as he would only be one night there,’ he said sagely, though Mara suspected that the elderly priest was probably a bit afraid of the burly and irreverent young German. But he had not noticed a turf barrow either, and confirmed what Sorley said by spontaneously giving his opinion that Nechtan’s steward would have checked that they were all locked into the barn.

  ‘Blad next, Fachtnan,’ said Mara when she had finished with Father MacMahon.

  Supper, according to Blad, was at sunset. The guests had lingered a long time over it, had eaten and drunk well, all of them, even including the three ladies. That supper had, of course, been paid for by the Brehon of the kingdom, and no doubt all of the pilgrims had been pleased to eat as much as possible, knowing that the bill would be the responsibility of the person who had halted their voyage to Aran of the Saints. They would, according to Blad, have spent about an hour and a half over it.

  ‘They had plenty to talk about – all the places that they had been to,’ was his comment. ‘Talking about relics, they were.’

  After supper the ladies had gone up to their bedrooms, according to Blad. ‘Don’t know whether they stayed there or not, Brehon, but I didn’t see them down in the hall or in the parlour from then until the next morning at breakfast time.’

  He couldn’t, of course, be sure whether any or all of the ladies had gone for a walk. Mara clearly recollected how each of those bedrooms had two doors, one of which led to the gallery on the north side of the inn, leading towards the cobbled yard between the inn and the stables; the other led to a gallery facing on to the River Fergus and allowing the inhabitants to steal down on to the grass and walk back towards the church.

  But, said Blad, just as she was thinking about the prioress, Father Miguel and Brother Cosimo had gone for a walk – to say their prayers, according to them; to walk off their huge meal, according to Blad, with a wink. They had come down for a cup of brandy later on, after the storm had blown itself away. They had come down together, but then their rooms were beside each other and one would have heard the other stirring. They had both got wet, he thought. He had sent the boy up to their rooms to make up the fire while they were busy drinking, and the boy had reported that their cloaks were steaming in front of the hearths.

  ‘And yourself, Blad, did you go out towards the church? Or did you bring any comforts to the pilgrim in sanctuary? No? And did you see anyone at any stage? I’ve been wondering whether there was any stranger hanging around. You would have noticed a stranger, wouldn’t you?’ Mara asked the question in an indifferent manner, but he looked astonished and puzzled.

  ‘Someone from Thomond, do you mean, Brehon?’

  ‘Perhaps someone on the way back from Aran – someone who was going to spend the night in Thomond,’ she improvised quickly, but he shook his head. ‘I wouldn’t know, Brehon. You’re thinking perhaps someone called to see Father MacMahon. But I didn’t stir from the river until the rain drove me indoors. It was a good night for the fish.’

  ‘You can’t catch river fish when the rain is heavy,’ burst out Cormac, and then he turned a dark red and muttered an apology.

  ‘That’s right,’ said Blad, beaming at him. ‘Ah, you’re a great little fisherman. You’re right, of course. I stopped when the rain came down heavily. You should have seen the water, Cormac, when the rain came down. After ten or fifteen minutes the whole river was just filled with mud – stirred up the bottom, it did – no sense in fishing any more for the night, or yesterday either. It takes a few days for the mud to settle.’

  So he didn’t go straight indoors once the rain began if he knew what the river was like a quarter of an hour later, thought Mara, and forgave her son his impulsive interruption.

  ‘I suppose Nechtan’s turf got soaked,’ she said innocently. ‘I saw that he hadn’t had time to thatch it –
and, of course, all of the barrows were out in the rain.’

  ‘Don’t think they were,’ said Blad. He sounded puzzled at her interest. ‘His steward was telling me that they heaped as much turf from the carts as possible and pushed them all into the barn so that at least some of it didn’t get wet. Not a good crop this year, he was telling me. They started a bit too late. Anyway, I shouldn’t be gossiping – you’ve got your work to do, Brehon. I’ll certainly ask all of the stable lads and the kitchen staff whether they saw anyone strange around the church that night.’

  ‘Thank you, Blad, that would be very helpful. I’m sorry to be taking up your time. I know what a busy man you are.’

  ‘Not at all, Brehon, I’m just sorry that I couldn’t have been of more help to you.’ Blad got to his feet with a relieved expression.

  ‘You’ve been very helpful, Blad,’ said Mara with sincerity, noting with approbation that Cormac was the one who got to his feet and went to open the door for the innkeeper. She gave her son a nod. Yes, she thought, Blad has been most helpful. There had been, it seemed, quite a few people out in the rain that night: Blad himself, Ardal and his steward, Father Miguel, Brother Cosimo, Nechtan and his steward frantically getting as much turf under cover as possible, and then there was Sorley ringing the bell in the round tower only about fifty yards from the church itself.

  But ten minutes later, as the rain continued to lash down, in all probability only the murderer was left in the vicinity of the church. And within that church, relying on the ancient laws of sanctuary, was the pilgrim who had desecrated the relic of the true cross; the relic which was of great importance to the Church of Rome, as well as to the esteem, the wealth and the future prosperity of the small community of Kilnaboy.

  Brother Cosimo was tight-lipped, arrogant and unwilling to say anything. Mutely he challenged Mara to find any facts against him, and she, with memory of his stolen treasure, stared back at him with a blank face and allowed him to wonder what evidence she might have garnered to convict him of the murder of the man who not only attacked his church, but who had threatened to expose him as a liar, a thief and a man who had desecrated sacred shrines.