A Fatal Inheritance

by Cora Harrison

  At that moment Cormac thrust his head through the door and announced, ‘The physician is coming down the road, Brehon. She’s brought a cart for the body. And Fachtnan is with her, and Slevin, of course.’

  Mara was conscious of a feeling of relief. It would be good to have Fachtnan at her side. And, of course, Nuala always gave such valuable information.

  Nuala O’Davoren, the daughter and the granddaughter of a physician, was a distant cousin of Mara’s. From an early age she had wanted to study medicine, had picked up as much as she could from her father, had studied her grandfather’s notes. After her father’s death, she’d had the best of training from the physician in King Turlough’s court and then had furthered her studies by time spent in Italy. She had learned there how to open the body and to find out, not just the reason for the death, but how many hours had elapsed since the victim had died. Nowadays Mara felt that a murder investigation could not properly start before all of this information had been noted down. She rose to her feet and smiled graciously at the brothers and the two women.

  ‘I shall leave you now,’ she said. ‘I know where to find you if I have any more questions, but it won’t be today.’ She hesitated in case they would think that she was meddling in what did not concern her, but her conscience made her add, ‘And, I hope, in your charity, that you will be kind to Aengus. This will come as a terrible shock to him.’

  ‘Oh, yes, indeed, Brehon, misfortunate man. He’s welcome to stay here, if he wishes.’ Deirdre was warmly sympathetic and Pat joined in with some inarticulate murmurs while Gobnait nodded energetically and Dinan promised that he would look out for him.

  A compassionate family, thought Mara, as she made her way to the door to greet Nuala. Clodagh’s father, Danu, had been well-cared for by them and it may be that the dead man’s wishes were now being fulfilled, that he preferred his property to go to the nephews who had looked after him, rather than to the daughter who had neglected him and with whom he was at odds. And that, perhaps, there had been a will, made and witnessed by Brehon MacClancy of Corcomroe. And, she admitted to herself, it was likely that the will had been stolen by Clodagh O’Lochlainn.

  Nothing, though, she said to herself, justifies murder.

  Three

  Uraicecht Becc

  (Little Primer)

  A physician has an honour price of seven séts. He is expected to apply herbs, to supervise diet and to undertake surgery. There will be no penalty for causing bleeding, but if he cuts a joint or a sinew he has to pay a fine and he will be expected to nurse the patient himself.

  A banliaig (woman physician) is a woman of great importance to the kingdom.

  Nuala’s black eyebrows met in a frown as she swung herself down from her horse. She tossed her reins to Cormac, strode ahead of Fachtnan and Slevin, and went straight up to the stone pillar. She stood for a moment, touching nothing, her dark eyes intent on the bound and slumped figure, waiting for the cart to come up and, when she spoke, it was to give some practical directions to her servant and her apprentice. Then she stayed them with one hand and moved forward, examining the dead woman’s wrists.

  ‘Difficult to know whether she was still alive, or just newly dead when this was done.’ The remark was to herself and Mara did not question or interrupt Nuala’s concentration. On the whole Nuala preferred to give her report only when she knew all that the body could reveal. But then, uncharacte‌ristically, the physician looked away from the body and at Mara. She moved a step nearer and said in a very low tone to her, ‘I warned Dinan that this was a dangerous business. I wish that he would leave all those gods and goddesses alone. If you have to have the supernatural, it’s best to stick to Christianity.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Mara was taken aback. Nuala, when confronted with injury or death, seldom spoke of anything except the practical task ahead. It was unusual to see her turn away from a body and take the time to talk.

  ‘Well, a bit of Mass going and chanting of psalms can’t hurt,’ said Nuala with a shrug. ‘But when people start blaming banshees or the Morrigan for deaths and injuries, it all gets very dangerous and bad things like this can happen.’ She spoke very quietly, her words barely audible to Mara’s ear and Mara nodded silently in return. There was a strong superstition about the presence in local caves of the Morrigan, the great and evil queen of the old gods. All sorts of disasters and crimes were blamed upon her presence.

  ‘Have you been talking to Dinan, then?’ she asked. Nuala was rarely seen outside her own home and hospital at Rathborney and she was not a woman with any spare time for gossip. Mara’s eyes went to the bystanders, but no one was looking at them. All eyes were drawn to the huge figure of the Fár Breige and they watched uneasily while the cart was manoeuvred as close as possible to it. Domhnall and Slevin with the two younger boys had formed a slight barrier and the cluster of people were kept at a distance of about a hundred yards from the body, but there was no doubt about the intensity of atmosphere. No one spoke, even children were hushed into silence, and all gazed intently at their stone god.

  ‘Dinan?’ Nuala had turned away towards the body, but then she turned back to Mara. She had a query in her voice as if she had already forgotten what she had said. ‘Oh, yes, Dinan. He had a very badly infected fox bite. It had to be cleaned out every day at the hospital; he kept telling me those old tales while I was draining out the pus. He wouldn’t believe me when I told him that foxes eat filth; eat dead, decaying bodies and that was why his arm went bad. No, according to Dinan, it had to be the soul of some old god. He loves all of these old stories. I don’t like them; they deal too much in pain, mutilation and cruelty. It’s dangerous when people take these things seriously. It becomes a screen for evil to hide behind.’

  Nuala set her lips firmly and moved forward. She would say no more, but she had already said enough to make Mara feel deeply uneasy. There was no doubt, she thought, that Dinan in particular, but also all of the people within this hidden valley, seemed to dwell rather too intensely on the heroic past and on the suffering and the ugly and terrible deeds that had been performed. Not for a moment did Mara herself believe that this oddly sculpted stone pillar, named as the Fár Breige, had anything to do with the death of Clodagh O’Lochlainn; there were only too many ordinary, human reasons for killing the woman, but she feared the effect of wild rumours and superstitious fears and the way that these can screen evil doers. One murder, she thought, often begets another murder. She cast a slightly uneasy look at the cluster of people, which was increasing every minute, and went to stand by Nuala.

  Nuala, as always, was quick and practical, her dark eyes focussed and alert as she directed her servant and one of her apprentices to unwind the rope carefully and then to lift the body and to place it upon the cart. Mara, standing beside Fachtnan, watched in silence. It was not something that she enjoyed doing, but she felt that she owed it to the dead person to bear witness to the suffering that they had endured and to the tragedy of their death. Human life, she thought, as she watched, is a very sacred thing and she felt glad and proud that the legal tradition which she had served for over twenty years forbade the shedding of blood and sought always for the compensation to the victim, rather than revenge upon the guilty. Brehon law was above a petty vengefulness and concentrated on re-establishing peace in the community after any violent upheaval such as murder. From now on, until the crime was solved, her whole focus had to be on finding the doer of this deed and to ensure compensation for the family. And the investigation had to start with the victim, respect for the body and a determination to get justice for the dead person.

  And so she forced herself to go nearer and to stand beside the cart as Clodagh was laid on it. There was a rough canvas sheet rolled up at the bottom and the apprentice picked it up, getting ready to cover the body with it, but was stilled by a quick motion of Nuala’s hand. Mara saw her bend over, looking intently, saw her hand come out and move a fold of the dead woman’s cloak aside. Then she straightened herself and looked
directly at Mara.

  ‘I can tell you one thing for you to be going on with, Mara,’ she said. ‘Clodagh wasn’t strangled with that noose which was tied around her neck. What killed her was something else. Look at those bruises. These are finger marks. Someone came behind her and squeezed hard – easy to do. She was choked to death by a pair of hands, possibly when she was standing there beside that stone pillar, or perhaps when she was sitting down at a table.’ And with a quick nod at her apprentice, Nuala signalled for him to cover the body and then she mounted her horse and rode ahead of the cart back up the hilly road which, after winding through the mountain pass, would bring her back to her house, hospital and farm at Rathborney. She took no leave of Mara or of her husband, Fachtnan; her whole being was now focussed on the task ahead, the scientific procedures that she had learned when studying at a university in Italy, whereby the dead body yielded up its secrets.

  Neither Fachtnan nor Mara gazed after her. Their eyes had met, both horror-filled, yet full of surmise. Fachtnan was the first to speak.

  ‘Merciful heaven,’ he said. ‘Sitting down at a table. Did it happen overnight? Inside her own house? It couldn’t have been Aengus, could it?’

  ‘I wouldn’t blame him,’ said Cormac. ‘God, I’d have strangled her if I were he! The way she yelled at him, screamed at him and called him an idiot and every filthy name under the sun.’

  ‘De mortuis nil nisi bonum, Cormac,’ said Cian loftily, displaying simultaneously both his knowledge of Latin and his superior moral code.

  Cormac came back furiously: ‘Hypocrite! What’s the point of telling lies about a dead person? We’re supposed to be finding out the truth and the truth has to start with Clodagh. We have to acknowledge what she was and then decide who hated her enough to kill her.’

  Mara thought of hushing him but decided that, too, would be hypocritical. Her son had only voiced what was in her mind and in Fachtnan’s also. There was no doubt that Clodagh had treated the nice little man, her husband, Aengus, abominably. Even market traders had sniggered at the names that she called him and the insults that she screamed at him. Mara had silenced the woman once in public, threatening to bring her before the court, assuring her that the law took very seriously the offence of taunting. After that, Clodagh had been careful in her presence, but she had little doubt that the tormenting had gone on when she was absent.

  ‘We should wait for some more evidence, though, shouldn’t we, before naming any possibilities, Cormac,’ said Domhnall quietly. ‘Though I agree with you that he was very badly treated,’ he added diplomatically.

  ‘Poor old Aengus! I can’t see that he’d ever have got his courage up to do a thing like that, though,’ said Cormac regretfully, his eyes on the rope that now lay coiled upon the ground. He leaned over, precariously maintaining his balance, and managed to pick it up and store it into his satchel.

  ‘Evidence,’ he said with a grin at Mara and then, quickly: ‘But why is the ground all hacked up around here if she were strangled with thumbs and fingers inside her own house. I’d say myself that the murder took place out here. Remember how misty it was until a half-an-hour or so ago.’

  ‘I agree with Cormac,’ said Slevin. ‘I think it could have happened out here. It would be too risky to bring the body out from the house. And then there are those marks on the ground as though someone struggled violently.’

  ‘Easily done,’ said Cian. ‘A few hacks with the heel of a boot and you give the appearance of a struggle. The ground is soft after all the rain.’

  ‘That shows that it wasn’t Aengus,’ said Cormac triumphantly. ‘He’d never have the brains to think of that. Anyway, it’s not the sort of thing that he would do. He’s a very nice fellow.’

  ‘I don’t know, though,’ said Cian, eyeing the satchel enviously. ‘Old Aengus had a temper. I said something to him once, joking-like, and he screamed at me. Took a swipe at me with his stick.’ He coloured up when he saw Mara’s eye on him and said hastily, ‘Ages ago. I was young then.’

  Which might, at this age, mean just last Christmas, thought Mara, but she decided to let it pass.

  ‘I don’t think that we can do too much more, here, we should talk to Aengus, first,’ she said in a low voice to Fachtnan. ‘I asked Cael and Art to go and find out from Ardal O’Lochlainn where he might be – Dinan saw him around dawn up in Ballynahown, probably going towards the Knockauns Mountain where Ardal has his sheep.’ If Aengus were responsible for the murder then he did run the risk of the body being discovered before he left the valley. But, of course, if he had scaled that steep hillside and had reached Ballynahown by dawn, then he must have left Oughtdara while it was still dark.

  It was odd, she thought, that no one, neither Pat, nor Gobnait, nor their wives, nor Dinan had noticed the body tied to the stone pillar.

  However, according to Pat, there had been a thick mist in the valley that early morning and that could have cloaked the stone pillar. They probably averted their gaze from it, in any case; it had been, it appeared, an object of fear to all of the brothers from the days of their childhood.

  ‘Yes, we’ll go straight to Lissylisheen,’ she said aloud and was pleased with her decision. They would have to do without her at Ballinalacken Castle. She had thought to spend the day there making arrangements for the elaborate celebrations for her fiftieth birthday. These had not been her idea. She would have preferred to mark the day quietly with perhaps a special dinner, a choice bottle or two of wine, possibly a few friends to share it. But Turlough had other ideas. She was the wife of a king, he had said solemnly. Her fiftieth birthday was going to be marked in the same way as his fiftieth birthday had been celebrated. He had planned some great celebrations and then went away on a visit to the north of Ireland leaving his staff rudderless and looking for direction. Well, she thought, it could not be helped. Without her presence they would have to make their own decisions and she was glad to be away from the tiresome preparations for a celebration that did not interest her.

  She climbed on one of the flat rocks next to where the horses were tethered and mounted. Fachtnan checked the saddle on his horse and then swung a long leg over it. The boys were already on their ponies and they went in a long single line up the small street of Oughtdara and past the tiny church with Father O’Lochlainn’s house beside it, and up onto the road leading to Cahermacnaghten.

  March was going out like a lion during the week. Day after day the winds tore up from the Atlantic at gale force and the rain fell without ceasing. The limestone gave up its accumulated water from the caves that lay below the grass and lakes had appeared in fields. The sodden trees creaked and their black, bare-branched crowns streamed away from the storm winds. The small birds ceased to sing and even the blackbirds skulked beneath bushes. By noon the sky was so dark that it felt like twilight and the distant hills were blotted out by a grey and lowering sky.

  But now the wind had died down and the heavy rain that had drenched them during the earlier part of the morning had turned back to a drizzle, pearling on the stiffly brushed nap of their cloaks, but not soaking them. Small silver raindrops balanced on the sharply pointed spines of the blackthorn bushes and the division between mountain, hills and sky was lost in a soft, grey haze. Mara cast a quick glance at the towering shape of Ballinalacken, high on the hill above them, its crenellated rooftop lost from view and smiled as she saw the illuminated windows and a light moving down the staircase in the old tower, showing first in one loophole, then in the next. All were still busy there, getting ready to celebrate her fiftieth birthday.

  ‘There’s nothing too wonderful about living for fifty years when you have shelter from the cold and the rain, and enough to eat,’ she said, half to herself and caught her grandson Domhnall grinning at Slevin.

  ‘You don’t find it an achievement,’ he suggested when he saw that they had been spotted.

  ‘No, I do not,’ she said robustly. ‘It just reminds me of growing old and dying and after a while no one will remember tha
t I have ever lived.’ She thought about that for a moment. Had she achieved anything, other than attaining the age of fifty? Still there was plenty of time ahead of her. She had excellent health and was strong and energetic. An idea flashed through her mind and she savoured it for a minute. She would enjoy a new challenge.

  ‘I’ll tell you what we’ll do, though, Domhnall, you and I,’ she said enthusiastically. ‘When I’m about eighty or ninety and too old to work, we’ll write a book, together. We’ll collect all the judgements from the length and the breadth of Gaelic Ireland, and manuscripts, too; all that has been written down, all that has been memorized. You can get your scholars to work on the copying, but you and I will word it and perhaps if I am gone by the time everything has been collected then yours will be the ending.’

  Domhnall smiled enigmatically and glanced over towards Cormac who was busy arguing with Cian about the height of the stone pillar. Mara saw the look, but said nothing. By now, though, she was fairly certain that Cormac would not want to inherit the law school that had been first owned by his grandfather and then passed down to Mara. Cormac had little or no interest in the law and wanted to be a warrior, like his own father. He had brains and an excellent memory, but he had no interest in the intricacies that delighted Domhnall. No, Domhnall – an O’Davoren on his father’s side as well as on his mother’s side – was the true heir. He would care for the inheritance of the law school and keep it safe – that was, thought Mara sadly, if the long arm of England’s might and determination had not regained control over the small neighbouring island of Ireland. King Henry VIII had now been a king for fourteen years. He had fought France, had laid waste to vast tracts of that country, was even at this moment marching his armies north, preparing to overrun Scotland, according to Turlough’s information. Next would come Ireland’s time.