‘He’s coming to himself,’ said Grace softly. She bent her face down and placed her lips next to the boy’s mouth. ‘He’s breathing strongly and well,’ she said.
‘So he is,’ said Nechtan, holding a lantern up. ‘The colour is coming back into his face.’
Cormac’s eyelids fluttered and Mara held her breath. Was he coming back to full consciousness, or was he still drifting in and out of a stupor caused by the amount of smoke that he had inhaled?
‘Where’s Father Miguel?’ came Finbar’s voice, unmistakable with its lilting Cloyne accent.
Then Cormac’s eyes opened fully.
‘You amadán, Finbar,’ he said in clear, strong tones which held a trace of annoyance, ‘you’ve made a mess of things; you shouldn’t have let him into the tower.’
Eighteen
Cáin Lánamna
(the Law of Marriage)
There are two kinds of rape: ‘forcor’, forcible rape, and ‘sleth’, where a woman was subjected to intercourse without her full consent.
‘Sleth’ of a woman who normally frequents alehouses, without a male member of her family in attendance, will carry no penalty.
In the case of ‘forcor’, the rapist must pay the honour-price of his victim’s husband, father or son. He must also be responsible, if necessary, for any children that result from the rape.
In addition to the honour-price, the ‘éraic’ or full body fine must also be paid in the case of a rape of a nun or of a ‘girl in plaits’.
The burned remains of Father Miguel’s body had been recovered and hastily buried by the time Mara returned to Kilnaboy the following day. Blad and Mór had given Cormac the promised midnight supper, which had turned into an impromptu feast. No beds were sought and they all remained there in the big hall of the inn, some sleeping, some talking, some eating, some sipping wine until dawn had begun to show at about five o’clock. Then Mara had taken the boys back to the law school at Cahermacnaghten, leaving them to sleep for a few hours and then to be supervised by Fachtnan and Brigid, with instructions to Brigid that Cormac was not to play at hurling, if Brigid could prevent it, but was, if possible, to spend the day sleeping or reading quietly in his bed. He seemed well, but Mara was worried about the amount of smoke that he had breathed in. He was to be excused lessons for the day, she told Fachtnan when he arrived, and if he seemed to be unwell, Cumhal was to take him down to be checked over by Nuala.
It took a strong effort for Mara to tear herself away from her son, but the pilgrims were due to set off on their postponed visit to Aran at noon and she wanted to see them before they left, to tie up the loose ends of the case of the false pilgrim.
It was about an hour before noon when she reached Kilnaboy. She had a quick word with Father MacMahon who was shaking his venerable old head at the idea that the Spanish priest could have lit a fire in the tower, almost burning to death the son of the King and his Brehon.
‘Poor man,’ he said charitably. ‘His mind must have been turned by the terrible events of the last few days. Do you think, Brehon, that he had anything to do with the death of the sacrilegious man who burned the relic of the true cross? It does seem as though he had, doesn’t it?’
Mara shook her head sadly. ‘I think,’ she said, ‘that Father Miguel believed that death to be the work of God himself.’
And, she thought, that was what the Spanish priest had truly believed. God alone knew what he had had in his mad, perverted brain as he set fire to the tower when a boy had summoned him to see the devil mask and silhouette of a nine-year-old capering around by the light of the lantern, but as to the death of the German, of the false pilgrim – of that crime she truly believed that Father Miguel had been innocent. His belief that it had been the work of God had completely convinced her. And if he really believed that God had struck down the guilty man, well, then it followed that he himself was blameless.
Brother Cosimo had not committed the murder either, she thought. A man who would steal a jewelled cross would not let a pouch full of coins remain untouched.
And Father MacMahon himself – too old, too helpless – how could he have stripped a man, killed him and then taken out the body and placed him on a tomb? Neither he nor Sorley would have had the intensity of hate to do a deed like that.
And Blad – no, of course not. He would not have had the time to set up the elaborate display; he was busy with his guests – and why do it? His business could only be brought back if another relic was purchased in the place of the one that was destroyed. If Blad had resorted to violence, he would have threatened the pilgrim, then taken the valuable bag of coins in recompense and allowed the man to go free. Or, more likely, he would have trusted the king’s Brehon to impose a suitable fine and hoped that the money would be used to buy another relic.
Mara took leave of Father MacMahon and walked across to the inn to see Mór. The kitchen was empty of all when she looked in there, but Mór herself was sitting on a bench outside the window looking across at the river running calmly down through the meadows. She had an unusually meditative expression on her face and it did not change as Mara sat beside her.
‘You’re back, Brehon,’ she said, and the words were a statement, not a question.
‘I’m back,’ agreed Mara. She noted an apologetic note in her voice and sought to explain it.
‘It would,’ she said ruefully, ‘probably seem good sense to you that I should abstain from more enquiries and that the matter should be allowed to die, that the story of the night of the Feast of the Holy Cross should be buried in the grave where Hans Kaufmann now lies, but I cannot leave it like that. I must know the truth and only you can tell me what happened in the early part of that night.’
She stopped and waited, but Mór said nothing. After a minute, Mara resumed. ‘I suppose it was your words about the breakfast that first took my attention,’ she said apologetically. ‘There were only two reasons why there should be no arrangement about breakfast for the man who had claimed sanctuary – the first was that this man was going to escape during the night and therefore would need no breakfast …’ Mara glanced sideways at Mór, but the innkeeper’s daughter showed no change of expression.
‘The other,’ she continued, ‘and I do believe this to be the true explanation of the facts, was that there was no question of breakfast because you were going to see him again long before that.’ She paused for a while, thinking about Mór’s amused expression when she had last asked about the breakfast. And then when the woman still said nothing, she added quietly, ‘You and he had a good supper together – you had carried across from the inn two covered baskets; witnesses related this. One, of course, would have held food, but the other, I guess, would have held a couple of flasks of your father’s best wine – and a couple of goblets. And then, somehow or other, the wine got spilled.’
A smile curved Mór’s lips. Mara could picture the scene – the supper, the hand holding, the kisses, and then the spillage of wine on top of the precious crimson carpet. Then the frantic cleaning, the water brought from the holy water font, the scrubbing with cloths, and then …
‘He told you you owed him another flask of wine,’ she ventured, and saw the smile broaden on the lips of the innkeeper’s daughter. Of course, Mara thought, looking back; the carpet had smelled of wine as well as incense, but at the time she had assumed it was the communion wine – a holy smell, had said Finbar, who had been an altar boy for the monks at the abbey in Cloyne where his father’s school was located.
‘Let me guess,’ she went on, purposely keeping her voice to a non-committal, non-judgemental tone, ‘he wanted to make love. You are a pretty girl, he was a virile man who had drunken quite a bit of wine, you were already … friends, lovers. He proposed to do it there and then, but you …’
‘I knew that they were all around, Brehon.’ Mór suddenly threw caution away. ‘It was not that I minded, you understand; we … we had been together before, but who knows, one of those busybodies, Father MacMahon, or that old
woman, Sorley, or even the O’Lochlainn, any one of them could have come along to check on him. And if they found the church locked and knew that I was inside …’
‘I know,’ Mara nodded. Of course she knew that Mór and Hans Kaufmann had been together before. She thought back to the missing key and the convenient little windowless chamber on the first floor of the round tower. Hans Kaufmann, she reflected indignantly, had used Mór; she was to him not just a recreation, but a tool in his fanaticism, a means to an end.
‘The missing key,’ she said aloud.
Mór’s eyes fell before hers. There was a short silence, but then she raised them. ‘That’s right, Brehon,’ she said.
‘And you wished to be together again; I can understand that.’ Mara’s voice was soothing. There would be, she knew, no trace of censure in her tone. She felt none. Why should Mór not enjoy the company of a handsome young man?
Mór stared at her for a moment, but then she nodded emphatically. ‘Yes, I wished for it as much as he,’ she said defiantly. ‘It might have happened there and then if the wine had not been spilt, but that broke the mood. I knew that Father MacMahon would throw a fit; I just had to get that carpet clean. And by the time I had got most of it mopped up then I thought of other things. And I told him that I would come back later.’
‘So you took back the basket and the cloths that you had used to swab the crimson carpet,’ stated Mara. That carpet, of course, had been of vital importance. Unfortunately it had taken the comment of the serving boy to make her realize that – his comment and that of her daughter Sorcha, Domhnall’s mother came to her mind.
‘Blood is brown when it dries,’ he had said.
And sometime, away back among unremembered trivia, was Sorcha’s voice saying: ‘Mother, you must treat a red wine stain instantly or else you get a blue-black mark even on a red cloth.’
The stain that was left on the carpet had been blue-black. So no blood had been spilled within the church …
‘Go on,’ said Mara, looking across at Mór, ‘you cleaned up the wine stain, it spoiled the mood, but you promised to come back later with another flask full of the best Burgundy.’
‘That’s right.’ Mór nodded.
‘And you kept your word?’
‘I told him,’ said Mór, ‘that I would delay for a while before I came back. It was already starting to rain and I thought that the O’Lochlainn and his steward would seek shelter. Wait for a couple of hours, that was what I said to him, Brehon.’
‘And you came back about midnight, did you?’ Mara asked gently. She was certain now in her own mind about the truth, but all of the incidental details had to be cleared out of the way.
Mór nodded. ‘He had told me to come straight back, but I knew it was not safe, not with all that patrolling. I had an excuse the first time – it had been agreed that he should be fed – but to come again, well, I would have to be careful and to choose my time. I did think that it would be best just around the time the O’Lochlainn handed over to Nechtan O’Quinn.’
‘And when you arrived at the church at the hour of midnight?’
‘I waited until Sorley sounded the bell. I saw him go back to his own house. I heard Nechtan and the O’Lochlainn talking together over by Crooked Moher and then I went across the churchyard with my new flask of wine.’
‘And you went through into the unlocked church?’
Mór nodded. ‘That’s right. I opened the door and I went in. All of the lights were still on, every candle blazing. For a moment I thought that he was hiding behind the altar and that he would spring out on me; it was the sort of thing that he would do. But … it’s a funny thing, Brehon, but there was an empty sort of feel about the place.’
‘And he had gone?’ Mara knew the answer to that question, but followed it up with another. ‘What did you think?’
Mór shrugged her plump shoulders. ‘I thought that he had made a fool of me; that he had stolen out and somehow got hold of his horse and managed to get away – perhaps at the time when I told him that the O’Lochlainn would be handing over to Nechtan O’Quinn.’
‘You didn’t think to search the church?’
Mór shrugged again. ‘Why should I? It wouldn’t be the first time that I was let down. He wasn’t there and that was that.’
‘And when you saw him dead the next morning, what did you think then?’
For the first time Mór did not meet Mara’s eyes.
‘I didn’t know what to think, Brehon,’ she said firmly.
Mara smiled. ‘I didn’t know what to think either,’ she admitted. ‘It was one of the most puzzling cases that I have known. Thank you for telling me everything so honestly, Mór, and don’t worry. Nothing that you have said to me will ever be made public.’ She got to her feet, noting the relief in the woman’s eyes.
Grace was not with her two sisters and Brother Cosimo who were having a farewell snack with Blad in his spectacular hall. Mara did not go in, but went swiftly across the churchyard and down the small passageway until she reached the tomb – the gabhal. Grace was there, just standing, not looking at the capstone but below it. Mara saw that she had removed the limestone plug. She turned her head and then seemed to feel that an explanation was needed.
‘An old lady showed me this place on the first day that we came here,’ she said softly. ‘She saw me limping and beckoned to me. I couldn’t understand her and she couldn’t understand me, but we both had lame legs and that made the bond. She brought me here and showed me how she put her leg into the hole and then said a prayer. I did the same and she patted me on the shoulder and said something and mimed how she had been so terribly crippled and now was improved.’
Mara smiled. A dry, hot summer had probably improved lots of rheumatic arms and legs in the elderly, she thought cynically, but did not say so. Who was she to judge?
‘I wondered how you knew about it,’ she admitted.
Suddenly the last piece of the picture slipped into place. She looked down at the hole and knew what had happened.
‘You were sorry for him, weren’t you, perhaps a little in love with him?’ The girl, she thought compassionately, was probably very young for her age. While fourteen-, fifteen- and sixteen-year-olds were out flirting and trying out their wiles on young men, Grace would have been hiding indoors, afraid to show her scarred face and her marred body among the pretty Welsh girls of the neighbourhood.
Mara bent down and touched a scratch mark on the stone that had been removed from its socket. Badger, she thought, and wondered whether some other frightened creature had tried to get inside the hole.
‘Will it be easier if I tell what happened?’ she asked, looking into the white face. ‘Don’t worry. I mean you no harm,’ she added, her heart melting as she heard the stifled sob. This tale should be told quickly, she thought. She knew its beginnings, soft words spoken on board ship, jealousy awoken by the flirtation with Mór, girlish, romantic love turned to horror.
‘You went to the church – perhaps you brought the pilgrim something, or perhaps came to bear him company. You knocked on the church door, is that right?’
‘I knocked a couple of times. I was going to go away, thought he must be asleep. And then he suddenly opened the door.’ The words were barely audible.
‘And he had taken his clothes off.’
Mara hardly waited for the nod. That must have been the way it was. Hans, roused, wanting to make love to Mór, would have taken the knocking as flirtatious by-play – he had already stripped because of the hot night, perhaps, and then at the knock removed his braies.
‘And you got a fright and ran.’ Once again there was a nod.
‘And he chased after you.’ Undoubtedly the false pilgrim was drunk – perhaps he did broach the communion wine after Mór left. It was extraordinary that no one had seen him, but of course Ardal and Danann were sheltering with their backs to the oak tree looking towards the road, not towards the church. They would have been too far away to hear anything.
‘I ran.’ The words were barely audible. ‘I could hear him behind me. I ran towards the darkness, out of the churchyard.’ Grace, Mara remembered from Bess’s explanation, could when frightened run as fast as any other girl of her age. The sight of Hans would have terrified her into forgetting the pain of the scar tissue on her thigh.
‘And you suddenly thought of the hiding place, the empty space under the capstone.’
‘I thought that I would be safe there. I still thought I was, even when I heard him come after me.’
Mara put out a hand and touched the girl on her arm. ‘You must have been terribly frightened.’ Not for nothing, she thought, was the rape of a young girl considered to be such a serious crime under Brehon law; although technically Grace was not ‘a girl in plaits’, emotionally she was. Her terribly scarred face and lame leg kept her away from the experiences that helped other young girls to mature.
There was more to be said, though, she knew that. She had a picture in her mind of the terrified girl crouching in that small space beneath the capstone. It was obvious what would have happened next.
‘You took out your knife from your pouch.’ All of the women had serviceable strong-looking knives. Grace would have reached for hers once she felt threatened. The trapped animal is dangerous; Cumhal always warned the boys of that, telling them to back away from a cornered rat.
‘He heard me breathing, I think,’ whispered Grace. ‘I couldn’t see him, but I could … I could smell him. He reached in and grabbed me. He said something … something about it being good that it was so dark that he wouldn’t be able to see my face …’
Vile rapist, thought Mara, but she said nothing. The rest of the story had to be told by Grace.
There was a long silence. And then, quite abruptly, Grace said, ‘I didn’t know it would be so easy to kill someone. I just drove my knife – drove it into him – and nothing seemed to happen. He made a kind of sound, but he was still there. Still standing. I thought he’d run away.’
Cross of Vengeance (A Burren Mystery) Page 23