Most of the rest of the company hastily excused themselves at that.
‘Well, I suppose I’ll come. A man’s got to die some time,’ said Donán with false bravado. He tossed back a glass of wine and looked towards his wife, but Ragnelt had her eyes on her plate and did not attempt to dissuade her husband. She would probably be glad to be rid of him for a few days!
‘What about inviting O’Brien of Arra, my lord?’ asked Mara, a brainwave suddenly dawning on her. She would like to talk to the man, but to ride over there with her scholars might antagonize him and worsen the relations between himself and Turlough. She could not think what he might have to contribute about the death of Eamon, but she had learned long ago the value of meticulous and thorough investigation of everything and everyone connected to a crime. In any case, the matter of the missing deed would have to be settled.
‘Good idea! I’ll send a messenger for him first thing tomorrow. No, he can go now. The moon will be full. Fergal –’ Turlough turned to his bodyguard standing behind him – ‘Fergal, find some young fellow who would enjoy the ride. He can sleep at Arra tomorrow and then come back with Brian Ruadh. The man won’t refuse. He can’t refuse. He owes me service and hospitality and it’s a long time since I called upon him for anything. That’s a good idea of yours, Ulick. We’ll make a festive few days of it.’
Mara returned Ulick’s satisfied smile. No doubt, Turlough would enjoy Ulick’s company, the flow of wit and fun from the Lord of Clanrickard would make up for the surly Donán and the possibly disgruntled Lord of Arra.
‘Will you grace us with your presence, Brehon?’ asked Ulick.
‘Alas, no, I have so much to do that I could not possibly spare the time,’ said Mara.
She had an impression that Ulick was relieved at her words. He would probably find that her presence put rather a damper on the proceedings. He left her with a quick assurance that it was probably no journey for a woman and went over to Conor, bending over the young man and whispering urgently into his ear. After a minute he straightened up with a beaming smile and announced, ‘My lord, your son Conor will come also. We will make a wonderful few days of it. Brian, the Spaniard, will open his best barrels of wine and we will feed on lobsters and oysters and steaks of sea shark. Five merry young bachelors, that’s what we will be for five days and then back to wives and families again.’
Eight
Díre
(Text on Honour Prices)
Every person in the kingdom has an honour price. This honour price is a measure of status in the kingdom. Women without a trade or a profession take the honour price of their husband or father. Children under the age of seventeen have the honour price of their father. A Brehon has to know the honour prices of all. No judgement can be given, no fine imposed without this knowledge as the first part of the fine is the honour price.
List of Fines:
The honour price of a king is: forty-two séts, or twenty-one milch cows, or twenty-one ounces of silver.
The honour price of a Brehon is: sixteen séts, or eight milch cows, or eight ounces of silver.
The honour price of a taoiseach (chieftain) is: ten séts, or five ounces of silver, or five milch cows.
The honour price of a physician is: seven séts, or four milch cows, or three and a half ounces of silver.
The honour price of a blacksmith is: seven séts, or four milch cows, or three and a half ounces of silver.
The honour price of a goldsmith is: seven séts, or four milch cows, or three and a half ounces of silver.
The honour price of a silversmith is: seven séts, or four milch cows, or three and a half ounces of silver, or four cows.
The honour price of a wheelwright is: seven séts, or four milch cows, or three and a half ounces of silver.
The honour price of a boaire (strong farmer) is: three séts, or two milch cows, or one and a half ounces of silver.
The honour price of an ocaire (small farmer) is: one sét, or one heifer, or half an ounce of silver.
The church at Noughaval was unexpectedly full when Mara arrived followed by five of her six scholars. The Burren was full of churches, the O’Davoren family traditionally attended Noughaval, but Kilcorney and Rathborney were almost as near to the law school. Each church had its own set of patrons and there were seldom any surprises at the Sunday Mass ritual.
Today, however, the church was full of strangers, standing at the bottom of the church, leaning against the side walls, huddled together with the air of people who felt they were trespassing. It was only when Mara noticed the huge frame and wide shoulders of Cathal’s son, Owney, that she realized the O’Halloran clan had forsaken their own nearest church of Ballyalban and had come to Noughaval to attend the burial mass of the young lawyer whom they had known for a brief half-hour before losing everything they had worked so hard for over the last twenty years.
Mara glanced along the line of her scholars. All were serious, but tears flowed only from Fiona. How much had Eamon meant to her? Perhaps it may have been more serious than Mara had realized, or was Fiona feeling guilty?
Guilty. That word was going to come up again and again until this murder was solved, but it was the first time that she had associated it with Fiona. As she stood, sat, knelt, gave out responses in a clear tone, Mara pondered over the girl at the end of the bench. Nothing in life had ever seemed serious to Fiona before now. Even examination papers were signed off with a flourished ‘Salutations!’ Her quick wits made learning easy for her and she joked and laughed her way through lessons. All the boys, except perhaps Shane, were in love with her. Hugh and Aidan were reduced to a tongue-tied series of blushes until they got used to her presence; Moylan to a would-be-man-of-the-world, excruciatingly gallant; and Fachtnan to a state of awestricken adoration.
Eamon, of course, had been more sophisticated and ever since he had arrived Fachtnan had retreated further and further into his shell. Where is Fachtnan? thought Mara, turning an attentive face towards the priest as she composed herself on the seat, ready to listen to the sermon.
But there was no use speculating. Fachtnan was nineteen years old, a man, he could be anywhere. He might have decided to go home early, though that was very unlike the courteous, well-behaved Fachtnan that she had known for over fourteen years. Still, love could do strange things to a young man. Mara turned her thoughts back to Fiona.
Fiona had left Ballinalacken at midnight, had ridden across O’Briensbridge, gone to the O’Brien castle at Arra, left there, still in the early morning, quarrelled with Eamon and returned back the way that she came. That was her story.
But what if that was not true. What if she had done Eamon’s bidding, rode north with him, and then for some reason had quarrelled with him, picked up a stone and flung it at him, stunned him, then perhaps squeezed his throat and killed him.
If that were the case it could have been an accident. An accident, where she would have been completely blameless if the young lawyer had attempted rape.
But if that were the case, why had Fiona not admitted to the deed and said that was an accident?
But what if it was not an accident? An unlucky chance, Nuala had said. Only someone with a physician’s training would have known that a blow on that particular part of the neck would result in death. These had been her words.
But, of course, it was not just physicians who possessed that knowledge.
The law scholars chanted the words, day in and day out, from the laws of Déin Chécht: There are twelve doors of the soul: 1. Top of the head, 2. Occipital fossa, 3. Temporal fossa, 4. Thyroid cartilage, 5. Suprasternal notch, 6. Axilla, 7. Sternum, 8. Umbilicus, 9. Anticubital fossa, 10. Popliteal fossa, 11. Femoral triangle, 12. Sole of the foot.
And two scholars from her school were suspects in this murder.
‘That was kind of you to come to the burial, Cathal, and all of your family, also.’ Mara made a point of going rapidly to the back of the church and standing beside the O’Halloran clan while the coffin was being car
ried down the aisle of the church.
‘Terrible thing to happen.’ Cathal was ill at ease, looking at her and then looking away quickly.
‘Terrible,’ echoed Mara. This was not the time, nor the place, to do any questioning, but she was interested to see the glances from the O’Halloran clan that seemed to flicker between looking at Cathal and then at her. Almost as though they expected some sort of announcement from her. But how could they know of the loss of the deed?
Well, they would have to wait, thought Mara. She would first of all have to see O’Brien of Arra, check that the deed had been signed, check that it was not lying somewhere among the rocks and fissures on the mountainside.
Only then would she be able to tell the O’Halloran clan that no deed existed and that another auction would have to be held.
‘Excuse me,’ she said to Cathal, and took her place behind the coffin as it was carried out into the little graveyard on the south side of the church. She stood at the side of the grave, listened to the prayers, made the responses, watched the coffin being lowered down into the hole and then took a small, symbolic handful of clay from the pile beside their feet and threw it down.
‘Requiescat in pace,’ she said. She hoped that Eamon would rest in peace. She had seen his body committed to the grave, would commission a stone marker to commemorate him with an inscription. There was only one thing more to do now, and that was to find his killer.
‘Brehon,’ said Moylan, ‘what is the honour price of a flax master?’
Mara looked at him with surprise. She and her scholars had been standing at the gate to the churchyard for what felt like ages, greeting neighbours, thanking them for coming to take part in the burial service, accepting their condolences and fielding questions about Eamon’s untimely death.
Now they were alone, the boys preparing to walk back to Cahermacnaghten where Brigid would have a large meal ready for them and Mara, accompanied by Fiona, about to mount her horse and ride back to Ballinalacken and entertain her husband’s guests, when Moylan’s question made her stop to consider her answer. She noted to her amusement that he had waited until they were completely alone before speaking. Moylan was growing up and becoming responsible.
‘As far as I can remember, Moylan,’ she said carefully, ‘there is nothing about flax in the laws, except in so far as it forms part of a settlement in the case of a divorce. As in so many other cases in law we have to draw an analogy. Flax in this case has to be taken as a crop. Cathal pays a rent; something which covers not just the use of the land, but also the use of the equipment such as the looms, the spinning wheels, the scutching shed and the dyeing vats. We’ll have to look up Cáin Sóerraith tomorrow, but, for these three reasons – use of land, use of equipment and payment of an annual rent – I would be inclined to classify him just as a free client. So the answer to your question is probably that he does not have an honour price, but he is a free man.’
‘I see,’ said Moylan nodding his head wisely.
‘What made you ask the question?’ Shane sounded curious. ‘After all, Cathal O’Halloran wasn’t the one who was murdered. We’d only be thinking about his honour price if an offence had been committed against him.’
‘It’s always good to consider every aspect of the case,’ said Mara, though she herself was curious about why Moylan had wondered about the honour price of the flax master.
‘In any case, Cáin Sóerraith might come up in the summer examinations,’ said Aidan wisely.
‘Muiris asked you that question, didn’t he, Moylan? I saw you talking to him,’ said Hugh innocently.
‘It’s an interesting question, and I’m very glad that you brought it up,’ said Mara hastily, noting the angry glance that Moylan cast towards Hugh.
‘Why did Muiris ask Moylan that?’ wondered Shane.
‘I’ve been trying to decide that myself,’ confessed Moylan. ‘He came up to me and asked how I was getting on with my studies and when would I qualify as a lawyer and what would be my honour price.’
‘He was trying to find out if you are a fit husband for Cait,’ said Aidan with a loud guffaw.
The other boys laughed heartily at that. Cait, Muiris’s daughter, was a very pretty girl with two thick flaxen braids and a pair of gorgeous, harebell-blue eyes. Even Fiona smiled a little at this.
‘I think, perhaps, that Muiris is interested in honour prices because of rising from being an ocaire to a bóaire two years ago. Do you remember that?’ asked Mara tactfully and Moylan neatly overbalanced Aidan with a quick push.
‘So he asked you about your own honour price first and then he went on to ask about Cathal’s,’ said Fiona shrewdly. ‘That sounds to me as though he was trying to disguise his real question – which was about Cathal’s honour price.’
‘Wondering whether it would be worth his while to murder him and then take over the flax garden.’ Aidan picked himself up from the ground and kicked Moylan on the leg.
‘But the fine for murder is twenty-one ounces of silver and double that for a secret and unlawful killing,’ said Hugh. ‘It doesn’t make sense for him to worry about whether Cathal’s honour is one or two ounces of silver, or even nothing.’
‘That’s very true,’ said Mara with an approving nod at him. ‘I think you boys should go back now; Fiona and I will join you tomorrow morning and we’ll talk it all through. A visit to the flax garden might be useful.’
‘Tell me about Muiris,’ said Fiona as they rode together, side by side, down the stone road towards the west.
‘Why do you want to know more about Muiris?’ Fiona was beginning to look better, thought Mara. She would be better still once she was back in the law school atmosphere where sharp wits rubbed up against each other and the day was punctuated with jokes and roars of laughter.
‘I noticed that you stiffened a bit when you heard that it was he who wanted to know about the honour price of a flax manager.’
Mara looked at the girl with respect. ‘You’re right,’ she said, ‘but I can’t give you any particular reason why I reacted like that. It just struck me as strange, and you know I’m a bit like Bran here.’ She looked down at the huge, grey wolfhound loping tirelessly beside the horse. ‘My hackles go up and I start sniffing around when anything strikes me as strange while I am investigating a secret crime.’
‘Could it just be idle gossip?’
Mara shook her head. ‘Muiris is not that kind of man,’ she said firmly.
‘That’s why I said tell me about him,’ said Fiona.
Mara smiled but did not reply for a moment, sifting through all the facts that she knew about Muiris. There were the facts that everyone knew, a few that not many people knew and one about how he killed his brutal father that was told to her in great confidence and which she would have to keep locked away in her mind from everyone else.
‘Muiris had a poor start in life,’ she said eventually. ‘He worked for the O’Lochlainn, the father of Ardal O’Lochlainn – Nuala’s uncle. He was a very good worker and when he was a teenage boy he saved the life of a cow and her calf and the O’Lochlainn gave him a present of the two animals, saying that the stockman had given up all hope and without Muiris they both would have died. And when Muiris was about sixteen he gave him a few acres of land – nothing worth much.’
‘And that was the beginning of his good fortune.’ Fiona nodded thoughtfully.
‘That’s right. No one is sure how Muiris managed to do it, but everything went right for him. He bought more and more land. Built himself a house with the labour of his own hands – well, you’ve seen the house.’
‘And now he is a bóaire.’ Mara knew from Fiona’s thoughtful face that she was visualizing the large house, made from well-cut blocks of stone thatched with durable reeds, the cow cabins in the well-scrubbed yard whitewashed inside and out, the emerald-green fields around the house, grazed by fat contented cows and enclosed by well-built walls.
‘Everything he touches turns to gold, that’s what Cumhal says, a
nd you know what a good farmer Cumhal, himself, is.’
‘And now Muiris wants to be a flax manager.’
‘That’s right – but I can’t for the life of me think why he asked that question about an honour price,’ said Mara. She always liked to be completely honest with her scholars. She turned to the girl at her side, reining in her lively mare who was trying to get ahead of Fiona’s pony. ‘Who do you think killed Eamon?’ she asked and then when she got no reply, added after a long minute, ‘Do you fear that it might have been Fachtnan?’
Now it was out in the open. Fiona gave a startled gasp and her pony shied, causing Mara’s high-bred Arabian mare to dance on her back legs for a moment. Bran moved neatly into the hedge to avoid both horses and after a minute all was under control again.
However, the words had been spoken and Mara waited for a reply. What would the girl say? Deny? Prevaricate? Feign innocence?
‘I think he might have,’ said Fiona in a low voice.
‘You think it was he that followed you?’
Fiona’s silence gave a good answer to that question. Mara looked back over her shoulder and saw her look ahead with a troubled expression on her face.
‘Why did he do it?’ she said eventually, and then added quickly, ‘I don’t mean why did he kill Eamon. I mean why did he follow us?’
Mara thought about this question, but decided not to answer it. The path was narrow and she had to ride ahead of Fiona. She would postpone this conversation, she decided.
‘There’s Ballinalacken,’ she said. ‘Let’s get in and stable our horses, then we can talk in peace. The visitors won’t be back from Kilfenora Cathedral for an hour or so. The bishop has promised them some refreshments after the service.’
A light wind was blowing as they scaled the steep path that wound up to the castle, which had been a wedding present to Mara from her husband King Turlough Donn. Ballinalacken Castle was built on a high crag, a dramatic shadow against the western sky on the road to Corcomroe, a place so high that you almost felt you could touch the stars from its turrets. Originally there had only been a dark, gloomy tower house, but a new extension had been added on shortly before their marriage. This had provided plenty of bedchambers and a great hall whose broad mullioned windows faced the sea.
Deed of Murder Page 8