A Fatal Inheritance

by Cora Harrison

  ‘There you are, Rossa, here she is, here is Mara, what did I tell you?’ The pride and excitement in Turlough’s voice was so vibrant while he waved his hand in her direction, as though she were a particularly fine statue or piece of silver, that Mara felt, despite herself, the corners of her mouth lift in a suppressed smile.

  ‘Not enough, obviously! You told me that she was fifty years old; well, that’s an impossibility, for a start,’ retorted Rossa MacMahon. His voice had the brisk clarity of the northern Ireland accent and it cut through the buzz of conversation and the clip-clop of the horse hoofs on the paved road outside the castle. Mara began to laugh. It was impossible to do anything else with a husband like Turlough. He was looking at her with the hopeful expression of a puppy that is not sure whether he is about to be scolded or praised for the enormous hole in the middle of a flowerbed. She allowed herself to be hugged after he leaped from his saddle with the agility of a man half his age and then drew back to greet Rossa. Cormac, she noticed, had, with a courtly air assisted him to dismount and was now holding the man’s sword in one hand and the reins of the enormous coal black horse in the other, and managing to do both very adroitly. A clever boy, she thought, suppressing a sigh. He had probably had a word with his father, a month or so ago, had been given a half-promise and now, with this advent of an admired and war-like taoiseach from the north, had immediately drawn the conclusion that here was a mentor and a foster father for the next stage in his life.

  How many foster fathers had Jesus Christ? The early Gaelic converts to Christianity had asked that of Saint Patrick, who, over from Bristol in England, had probably been taken aback at the question, but here in Ireland a boy of noble descent would commonly be furnished with many foster fathers, in ascending order of class, according to his needs and the last foster father for a war-like boy such as Cormac, son of a warrior king, would be one who could teach him war-like skills. It was, perhaps, Mara told herself, as she escorted the visitor and his train to the castle, time for him to move on. He had been trained in the law, but had shown little interest, barely scraping through his examinations at the end of each year. That training, the knowledge of the laws which each king had to swear to uphold, would now fall into its rightful place in his life; just as the knowledge of sheep farming and the ways of fishermen had been assimilated in his first seven years. Nevertheless, Mara had hoped to avoid this.

  There were, already, enough contenders for the role of king of the O’Brien clan and descent was not, as in England, to the eldest son, but to the most worthy. Turlough had sons, grandsons by an earlier marriage and there were nephews and cousins – all members of the derbhfine, all descendants of the one great-grandfather, Turlough Beag, who had been succeeded, one after the other, by three of his six sons: Teige, the father of Turlough Donn, Conor naShrona (of the big nose) and then by another Turlough, known as the Gilladuff (the black lad). Only after the death of his last uncle had her husband Turlough succeeded to his father’s place.

  This waiting to fill dead men’s shoes was not something that she wanted for Cormac, but he was now almost thirteen years old and he had a right to have a say in his own future.

  ‘I look forward to talking with you and hearing all about Oriel,’ she said to young Rossa MacMahon, signalling to the steward, ‘but now you must refresh yourself after your journey.’ The steward, she guessed, would allocate one of the best bedrooms to this unexpected guest. There was a buzz of excitement amongst the servants and men-at-arms as Cormac walked past, solemnly carrying the huge sword.

  ‘So, tell me all about Rossa MacMahon,’ she said to her husband as soon as they were alone.

  ‘Well, he’s a very good fellow, a very nice fellow and he’s got great ideas, more ideas in his little finger, than his father had in his head. He was the one responsible for winning that battle when O’Neill took it on himself to invade Oriel and do the English king’s dirty work for him. Taught O’Neill a lesson that he won’t forget in a hurry.’

  ‘And you’ve spoken to him about Cormac?’ Mara quailed inwardly at the prospect of her son’s almost inevitable involvement in future teaching of the warlike kind, but she kept her voice steady. Turlough was an excellent leader himself and would be a good judge of a man. After all, she said to herself, no one is safe. A boy can fall off a horse, drown in the sea, can get some deadly illness; there were hazards in every life.

  ‘Well,’ said Turlough, ‘I just thought that I’d make a few enquiries, look around me, see who would do a good job of fostering him. You see, he’s like me at that age – got your brains, of course, but he does want to be out and about doing things, not just muttering Latin and learning off laws. He can always have his own Brehon. Anyway, there’s no hurry about it; you can get to know Rossa and see how you like him and we’ll see how Cormac gets on with him. Now, what have I done with that clean léine; I had it in my hand one second ago.’

  And then as his head emerged from the folds of the linen, he said, with the triumphant air of one who delivers a winning argument, ‘And he’s got two very nice little wives for himself so the boy won’t lack mothering.’

  Downstairs in the Great Hall, the room with its triple mullioned windows overlooking the Atlantic Ocean and the Aran Islands, the visitors were gathering. The window casements were propped open and sea air, smelling of mineral freshness, swept into the room. And the sea itself stretched out in front of the windows, blue as harebells; the waves streaked across its ruffled surface like cream whipped to rough peaks. The colour was so intense that the sky itself paled before it and the limestone rocks were black and formless against the continuously moving water. A single-sailed Galway hooker moved swiftly towards the coast and the gulls cried and screamed overhead. The air was like wine, full of life-giving vigour. It was a perfect place for a festive gathering – a huge room with fireplaces burning tree-sized logs at both ends, a minstrels’ gallery above and those magnificent large mullioned windows overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. The guests were a mixture of young and old – lots of Turlough’s royal relations: his eldest son, Conor with his wife Ellice, his daughter Ragnelt, her husband, Donán O’Kennedy. There was also the king’s cousin, Mauritius the bishop of Kilfenora and some of his allies from other kingdoms, such as Ulick Burke, Ulick of the Wine as he was now known. The scholars from Cahermacnaghten law school and some of their friends, young people from the kingdom of the Burren, were there also.

  Cormac and Rossa MacMahon were sitting side by side on a window seat overlooking the valley of Oughtdara and from Cormac’s animated face and gestures Mara guessed that the legend of the Fár Breige and the Morrigan was being told. She watched them for a moment, liking the interest and enthusiasm on the young man’s face. Cormac was glowing with excitement, at his ease, and yet respectful and admiring. Rossa had allowed a small dagger that he had been fingering, to slip to the floor and Cormac immediately jumped to his feet, picked it up and presented it with a graceful and rather courtly bow. Mara moved away. She would talk to Rossa and to Cormac a little later, but she had a feeling that Turlough had chosen well.

  Turlough himself was deep in conversation with his cousin Teige O’Brien, taoiseach of the O’Brien clan on the Burren; the MacNamara and the O’Connor were tasting wine together in one corner of the room and so Mara went straight towards the remaining chieftain of the kingdom.

  ‘Well, Ardal,’ she said cordially, ‘now you will know how to celebrate your sixtieth birthday when it comes up, won’t you?’

  He looked slightly startled at her words, but then smiled. ‘I was wondering whether to come here today. I almost didn’t, and then I told myself that an O’Lochlainn taoiseach must never back away from a challenge.’

  She didn’t pretend to misunderstand him. ‘That is all over and done with. The crime was acknowledged; the penalty paid.’

  ‘That’s just the point,’ he said. ‘I haven’t paid the penalty. I’ve tried, but I can’t. Aengus just will not accept it. There is no point in giving him a bag of silve
r; he doesn’t want it. I’ve offered to set him up with some land, but he doesn’t want that either; he doesn’t want cows; he doesn’t want anything. Every time that I try to talk to him, he shies away like a frightened sheep. He’s even asked my steward, Danann, to get me to leave him alone. I’ve tried to do lots of small things, like making his place more comfortable, things like that, but it’s not enough. I owe the man forty-two milch cows or forty-two pieces of silver, but how on earth am I going to get him to accept them?’

  He had a look of genuine unhappiness and guilt. Mara knew that he was not going to be satisfied with a soothing assurance that he had done his best. She understood his feelings and guessed that she would share them.

  ‘It’s a difficult problem, isn’t it,’ she said sympathetically. ‘If it were me, I could think of a dozen projects that I might use the silver for, but I can understand that he doesn’t want to change his way of life. Sheep are probably very different animals to cows. He’s happy with the one, but that doesn’t mean that he would be happy with the other.’

  ‘He doesn’t want a house either,’ said Ardal. ‘He’s happiest of all in one of the shepherds’ huts. He asked me as a favour to allow him to stay up there. He didn’t like their house in Oughtdara, and he hated Dunaunmore when Clodagh inherited it from her father. He said that she had no luck with it, these were his words.’

  ‘I wonder whether that is why he doesn’t want your money,’ said Mara thoughtfully. ‘After all, Clodagh’s did turn out to be a fatal inheritance, didn’t it? It brought her no luck, he was right there, neither luck nor happiness.’ And then, because she could see how Ardal winced away from the memory of his deed, she said hastily, ‘I wonder whether Aengus would like to have something done with this silver, something that he could give to the community, something that would bear his name and … perhaps something that would benefit children … he seemed very fond of Fachtnan’s little daughter … saved her life …’

  Mara gazed thoughtfully across the room to where Fachtnan and Nuala, both in their finest clothes, were chatting animatedly to the son of Turlough’s physician, O’Hickey, who had just returned from Italy.

  ‘Leave it with me, Ardal,’ she said. ‘I’ve got an idea in my head. Why don’t you go over and talk to Fachtnan. Poor fellow; he is beginning to turn a little green. Nuala and young O’Hickey are probably discussing what human flesh looks like when it has been in the water for a few days. It would be a kindness to go and discuss the weather with him.’

  She watched in satisfaction as Fachtnan turned with relief to the O’Lochlainn taoiseach and then went across to the window where Cormac was entertaining the MacMahon with a story about entrails being wound around an oak tree.

  ‘Cormac,’ she said with an apologetic smile at the MacMahon, ‘could I ask you to get the book, Utopia from my satchel, it’s a slim book, written in Latin …’

  ‘I know it,’ said Cormac. He cast a glance at her, half-defiant, half-appealing, and she nodded reassuringly. She could see his face brighten as he turned back to Rossa MacMahon, murmuring in a courtly way, ‘Excuse me, for a minute, my lord.’

  ‘Well, how do you like my son?’ she said as soon as Cormac had gone through the door.

  ‘I like him very much,’ he said in a straightforward fashion that she admired. ‘Clever boy, very bookish.’

  ‘Oh,’ she said, rather taken aback. ‘Well, I suppose that he has been studying the law for five or six years now and …’

  ‘Oh, the law, that’ll be no good to him.’ He dismissed the law with an impatient wave of the hand. ‘It’s this fellow Caesar from a way back, back in time out of mind; well, he had some interesting ideas about fighting battles and your young lad knows all about him. Good as a storyteller, he is. Must get him to tell some of those tales to my men on the long winter evenings – that’s if you’ll be happy for me to take him away with me, of course,’ he added hastily.

  ‘We’ll have to discuss it tomorrow when all of the celebrations are over,’ said Mara firmly. She got to her feet as she saw Cormac edge his way through the crowds towards them, book in hand. She knew that she was going to agree, though. She could not bear to disappoint that bright, hopeful face.

  ‘Thank you, Cormac,’ she said taking Utopia from him. She thought of suggesting Livy’s History of Rome for their consideration, but decided not to tease. She rather liked this young man, she thought. His earnest and straightforward manner appealed to her; Cormac would come to no harm under his leadership. She found another window seat and beckoned to Ardal and Fachtnan and they approached her eagerly; glad to get away from medical matters, she guessed.

  ‘Listen to this,’ she said and turned the pages of Utopia until she found the one that she wanted. ‘This was written by an Englishman, named Thomas More, about what he imagined to be an ideal state; and I must say that he has some interesting ideas. I wonder what he would think of our Brehon law if he understood it properly.’

  And then she read aloud, translating the Latin text into fluent Gaelic for Ardal’s benefit.

  ‘You see,’ she said triumphantly. ‘All children in this state go to school, not just a few whose parents are educated and wealthy, they all go to school and as well as reading and writing, they learn the trades of their fathers and mothers, they are educated by the community. Wouldn’t a school like that be a wonderful thing for the kingdom of the Burren? We could build it at a central spot, perhaps near to the judgement place at Poulnabrone and everyone would have the right to go there and everyone would contribute their knowledge and their experience to teaching the children. We will teach them to spin and weave, to dye the wool,’ she went on, thinking of the young Clodagh with her colourful cloak, ‘and the wheelwrights and the smiths will show their skills and those wise in the way of stone will build the school with the help of the children – they will be involved at all stages and Fachtnan, if you both agree, will be the first ollamh of the school.’ She stopped, almost out of breath and looked at them.

  ‘I remember you saying once, Ardal, that if Clodagh had received an education that her clever brain would have had something more constructive to do, rather than tormenting her family and her neighbours. Perhaps the school, if Aengus agrees to spend the forty-two ounces of silver on it, will not just bear his name, but will be a sort of memorial to his troubled wife also.’

  And this school, she thought, as she listened to their delighted comments, and looked across the room at her husband, will also be a memorial to the golden age of King Turlough Donn O’Brien, the king who had brought peace to the three kingdoms of Thomond, Corcomroe and Burren.