Beside the bedchamber was the King’s solar – a smaller version of the great hall, furnished with a table, already spread with some cold meats, some baked apples, baskets of bread rolls, and a flagon of wine. A fire was burning brightly in the six-foot-long fireplace. There was no one there and the candles were not yet lit, though some light came through the ‘squint’ looking down into the great hall where Turlough and his friends were talking loudly and enthusiastically about a hunt on the following day. St Stephen’s Day was traditionally hunting time and it looked as though, with the frost, it would be an ideal day for the marshy land around Bunratty Castle. Mara smiled to hear her husband’s voice boasting about a bird that he shot from an impossible angle – he sounded rather like nine-year-old Cormac, she thought as she peered down, unnoticed by the crowd. She withdrew and inserted a taper into the blazing fire on the hearth and went around the room, carefully lighting all the candles within arm’s reach before saying quietly:
‘What’s the matter with Brehon MacClancy, Donogh?’
The physician shrugged. ‘Nothing that he can’t cure by abstaining from over-eating and over-drinking.’ He also spoke very quietly, almost in her ear, although the heavy oaken door was firmly shut and the noise from the hall below would drown any voices.
‘I don’t mean his health – that is not my affair. He seems to be upsetting everyone, especially some of the young people. He seems to love upsetting them and giving malicious information …’ She hesitated there. Perhaps she had no right to enquire into Enda’s affairs – after all he was a man of twenty-six years and had left her law school nine years ago.
The physician was looking at her strangely. He moved away from the hearth and over to the table. He sat down, poured out some wine into two goblets, and nibbled at a bread roll before saying thoughtfully: ‘He told you about Shona, then; he swore not to mention it to anyone, but I suppose he thought that he could trust your discretion.’
‘I’m more concerned about Enda,’ she countered. Shona, daughter of Maccon MacMahon, one of Turlough’s friends, was none of her business and she decided that it was preferable to talk about Enda than to trick the physician into thinking that she knew something to Shona’s disadvantage. It did explain the girl’s white face yesterday, though.
‘Enda was one of the brightest scholars that I ever had,’ she continued, looking at the physician earnestly. ‘If you can imagine Nuala, or your son, Donogh Óg, hanging around, running errands for a physician, but having no opportunity to practise all that they have learned, well then, you can imagine what I feel about Enda. But don’t mention to anyone that I spoke of this; I don’t want to make a bad situation worse,’ she added quickly.
Donogh O’Hickey frowned heavily, drank some wine and munched some more of the bread.
‘I know what you mean; I’ve been worried about him. There have been times when he looked at the end of his tether. Not a patient nature, I would imagine.’
‘No.’ Mara smiled as she thought of Enda’s adolescence. He had been one of the most troublesome, but at the same time one of the most rewarding, pupils that she had ever had.
‘I’d like to help him, but don’t want to interfere,’ she said after a minute.
‘Put out of your head any notion of trying to talk to Brehon MacClancy,’ he advised. His voice sounded alarmed. ‘There is only one thing that you can do to help matters.’ He eyed her carefully before continuing, ‘You can use your influence with the King to get the man removed from office. He is unfit; some of his judgements have been harsh; in a few cases people have appealed the verdict over his head and King Turlough, God bless him, has softened the fine.’
‘How did that go?’ Mara was a little appalled. Turlough had never mentioned these occasions to her. ‘How did Brehon MacClancy take the overturning of his verdicts?’
‘He pretended to accept it, but he had a face on him that looked as though he could commit murder. Brehon MacClancy is no man to cross.’
Mara thought about this but decided that she did not wish to discuss the matter any further with Donogh. She was surprised and slightly hurt that Turlough had not mentioned the disputed verdicts with her, but, knowing him, it was, she supposed, possible that it all gone right out of his head and would be classified, if he retained any memory of it, as a spot of bother that had been dealt with and should now be forgotten. She wondered, in a slightly suspicious way, why the physician wanted her to tackle the question of Brehon MacClancy. Did he feel at all threatened by the Brehon?
‘What an odd little girl that child is, the twin belonging to Maccon MacMahon,’ she said impulsively. ‘Why does she think that she has to dress as a boy and pretend to be a boy?’
‘You didn’t do the same when you were her age?’
‘Why no, I didn’t,’ said Mara, surprised at the question. ‘No, I think I was quite happy to be a girl. I felt unique, perhaps, but I felt that being a girl and being a foremost scholar at the law school made me quite interesting. I suppose that I was an impossible child at Cael’s age – always wanting to be better at the law than my father’s other scholars; but I didn’t want to pretend to be a boy.’
‘Perhaps, though,’ said the physician gently, ‘you had a father who cared and loved you and was proud of you. I wonder could the same be said for Maccon MacMahon.’ He got to his feet with the haste of one who feels that he has said too much.
‘Let me leave you to yourself now, Brehon.’ He cast a look down through the hatch at the riotous crowd below. ‘At least nothing is spoiling the enjoyment of my lord the King on this special anniversary for him. Let’s hope that the night passes peacefully and that you solve the problem of your young friend before your visit has finished,’ he said as he went out of the door.
Mara sat for a while, sipping her wine and nibbling her roll. Tomorrow, she thought, I will speak with Turlough and then perhaps I will tackle Brehon MacClancy myself. That man should not be allowed to spoil the life of a young man setting out on his career. Had he, she wondered, some sort of hold over Enda, some piece of youthful indiscretion which might make the young man reluctant to assert his rights – something that had been said, or done which would deeply offend King Turlough?
Brehon MacClancy’s words came back into her mind: ‘I know that there is one person here tonight who is secretly cheating him and when Judgement Day comes in seven days’ time then the name of that person will be revealed and the King will know the truth.’ What was meant by that, she wondered? Of course, it might mean nothing – just a hook to take the poet, Seán MacBrody, out of the picture and put the Brehon as the centre of attention. He had gone on to make more vague threats about knowing scandals and evil-doing; that might have caused even more uneasiness.
All in all, it was not a comfortable atmosphere and Mara hoped that Brehon MacClancy might retire early to his bedchamber and leave the King to enjoy his celebration without that old death’s head at the feast.
Four
Duties of the King
(Ancient Poem of the Gaels)
If thou be a king thou shouldst know the prerogative of a ruler, refection according to rank, contentions of hostings, sticks, quarrels in an alehouse, contracts made in drunkenness; valuations of lands, measurement by poles; augmentations of a penalty, larceny of tree-fruit; the great substance of land-law, marking out fresh boundaries, planting of stakes, the law as to points of stakes, partition among coheirs, summoning of neighbours, stone pillars of contest, fighters who fasten title.
From a king must come the extent of protection; the right of the fine, up to the sixth man, in movables and land. Valid is every neighbour-law that is contracted by pledges and secured by fines consisting of séts. Greater or smaller is the value of penalties. The penalty for breaching a boundary fence: from a bull-calf to a heifer-calf, from that to a yearling beast, up to five séts it extends.
Let fines be forthcoming on the fifth day after the offences, according to the law of neighbours. What single ox shares liability with the d
rove? What overleaping by a single piglet shares liability with the herds? What are the drivings carried out negligently for which final responsibility is not enforced? What are the concealed drivings forward? On which man grazing-expense does not fall? What are the unauthorized stalkings which deserve immunity? What are the larcenies from houses which do not entail a penalty?
Mara surprised herself by really enjoying the night’s festivities. Everything was very informal. Villagers and clansmen mingled freely with everyone, people passed up and down the stairs between the main guard hall and the great hall, and Turlough, suddenly tired of the praise heaped on him, announced that he wanted no more speeches or poems about him – let everyone eat and drink and sing and dance and laugh was his command and that was the way that evening went. Instead of two elaborate banquets, the food and drink were arranged on the table on the raised platform of the great hall or on tables pushed to the sides of the main guard hall and the guests sampled from both floors.
‘Have some of the lampreys,’ said an elderly woman to Mara. ‘They do them well here; put vinegar on them. And spice, too – cinnamon, I’ve heard tell.’
‘I think I’ll just stick to the salmon,’ said Mara apologetically, heaping some applemoy sauce on to her platter. She loathed the taste of lampreys, eel-like fish, and her housekeeper, Brigid, had a great prejudice against them, saying that she would never eat them unless she prepared them herself as there was poison in the sac and they had to be very carefully cleaned out. Still, lots of people were eating them here and they seemed to be very popular. Bunratty was a great place for fish as two rivers, the immense River Shannon and the tiny River Raite, met here before joining the ocean a little further west.
‘You’re the King’s wife, aren’t you?’ said the old lady in a friendly way. ‘I haven’t seen you before; I don’t live around here, but I’m the mother of the King’s carpenter. He’s a lovely man, your husband, God bless him.’
‘And a very handsome man,’ said Mara laughing as Turlough joined them, a flagon of ale in his hand.
‘Say God bless him, don’t you know that it brings bad luck from the fairies if you praise someone and don’t call down God’s blessing on them,’ scolded the old woman, while her son, who appeared at her elbow, blushed for his mother.
‘God bless him,’ repeated Mara obediently, though she wondered where the fairies stood in the hierarchy around God. She looked around for Enda to share the joke with, but there was no sign of him. Brehon MacClancy was sitting by himself in one of the window recesses, moodily staring into his goblet, but his assistant was nowhere to be seen. He’s probably dancing with Shona down in the main guard hall, thought Mara, feeling pleased that Enda was steering clear of the bad-tempered old Brehon. She left Turlough exchanging witticisms with the old lady, who had come all the way from Cratloe to join in the celebrations, and moved across the room to where a well-built lad was standing with dish of chicken and pork in one hand and huge slab of white bread in the other. He had been looking across at her from time to time as though hoping to catch her eye and now she recognized him as the boy who had taken her horse when she arrived and she went across and greeted him.
‘What happened to that silly figure of Brehon MacClancy?’ she asked.
‘I took it down as soon as they all went in, but I’m afraid that the Brehon saw it – the old Brehon, I mean,’ he said hastily and Mara gave him a nice smile for his courtesy and wondered whether she would still relish compliments when she was seventy years old – probably, she decided. So Brehon MacClancy had seen the work of the two little rascals; well, it couldn’t be helped. She had done her best.
‘They’re holy terrors,’ said the stable boy in a lowered tone watching Cael doing a sword dance with her father’s sword, which was almost as big as she was. ‘You never know where they are or what they’re up to. They slip in and out like a pair of eels. You wouldn’t believe it, Brehon, but that little fellow,’ he pointed to Cael, ‘brought that sword over when he heard that it was me that took down that thing and he threatened to stick it in me if I didn’t give him back his knives that minute. Really violent, he was.’
‘Send for me if you have any trouble with any of them, including my own fellow,’ said Mara with a nod towards Cormac, who was walking on his hands while swaying to the music of the drum.
‘Ah, he’s a very nice little buachail,’ said the boy hastily. ‘He’s been in and out of the stable petting the wolfhounds. He was telling me about his own puppy, Smoke, and how obedient and well trained he is. He misses him terrible, so he says.’
Cormac’s wolfhound puppy was, thought Mara, reasonably well trained if you held a piece of meat in your hand and gave him an order. Otherwise he was the wildest, most disobedient, badly behaved dog that Mara had ever possessed. She was struck, though, by the fact that Cormac had told the stable boy about how lonely he was for his half-grown puppy and had not told her, nor his father.
Just as she was turning that over in her mind, the church bells struck the hour of midnight. The captain of the guard banged on a shield hanging from the wall and held out his goblet. Everyone quickly filled up, got to their feet if they had been sitting, held out theirs and then the toasts to Turlough began, wishing him a long life and a happy one; a healthy heart and a wet mouth; all the wealth of the sea and the land to come to him and his; that the sun would shine on him; that the road would rise up before him and that he would die surrounded by those that loved him.
And then the musicians lined up at the front of the great hall. The bódhrain drums started to thud, the fiddles were plucked and the rince fada, the long dance, began with the line of dancers stretching to the very back of the hall. Three times they went around, sunwise, and then down the great hall, out of the door, down the spiral staircase where only the young and the agile managed to keep the dancing steps going and then all passed into the main guard hall and the musicians went up to the gallery. For a few minutes it looked as though none could move; the main guard hall was just too crowded. On this Christmas night of 1519 there was a huge number of relations, friends, clan leaders; all had gathered at the court of Bunratty to celebrate their King’s twenty years of rule over the three kingdoms of Thomond, Corcomroe and Burren. But after one dance the King, his family, his close friends, his personal guests and his immediate household, his harpist, his physician and his poet returned to the great hall and continued to dance and to talk there with room to move. The harpist relaxed with a goblet in one hand and a pastry in the other. Now a set of pipes provided the music for the young and the agile in the great hall.
But Brehon MacClancy had not joined the merry crowd, Mara noticed when she returned. He was still sitting by himself at the table recess. When she re-entered the room she saw him hold out the flagon to the cook in a wordless gesture and Rosta filled it from a larger flagon of mead which he was bringing in from the buttery to place on the table at the top of the room. The man would soon be drunk, probably was already drunk, thought Mara and then shrugged her shoulders. It was none of her business and at least he was quiet and disturbed no one. She went to join in the dance, whirling around, hand in hand with Turlough, marking the time, while feet stamped and pipes blew their shrill notes.
When they finished she saw that Conor, Turlough’s eldest son and, at present, his heir, was sitting by himself in the window recess opposite to the one where the Brehon had taken up his position. He did not seem to be looking at the dancers, at his wife, his son or not even his father, but stared steadily across the hall at MacClancy.
‘How are you, Conor?’ Mara went and sat beside him at the table. ‘Raour is looking well, isn’t he?’ She had deliberately not asked about his own health – he must be sick of the subject. He was now approaching the age of forty, she reckoned, a man who had lived his life in the shadow of his popular, successful and warlike father, not strong enough for warfare, not able enough for administration. A disappointed man, she guessed and knew that one part of his troubles was probably his convi
ction that his younger brother, Murrough, would have by now been the choice of the clan if he were still living in Thomond.
‘Come and dance with me,’ she coaxed. ‘That jig was too energetic for me but this is a nice, slow reel.’
He was reluctant, but too well mannered to refuse her. Ellice, his wife, was whirling around in the arms of Brian MacCraith, her dark eyes excited and her sallow skin warmed to a deep rose colour by the excitement, the exercise and the heat of the great hall. Enda and Shona, Maccon MacMahon’s daughter, had been sitting in the window recess behind the table but now rose and came to join the dance. This was a popular reel. Everyone, except Brehon MacClancy, was now dancing. The long table had been cleared of all remains of food and the door closed behind the last of Rosta’s assistants.
Another half-hour and then I can go to bed, thought Mara, conscious of slightly aching feet and a head that was spinning from the rotation of the reel. She sat down and watched the rapid movements of those dancing the jig. She had arranged with Rosta to serve soup and new bread to the guests an hour after midnight. After that, she hoped, most of Turlough’s guests would seek their bed chambers and the royal couple could do the same.
Five
An Seanchas Mór
(The Great Ancient Tradition)
There are two fines that have to be paid by anyone who commits a murder:
A fixed fine of forty-two séts, or twenty-one ounces of silver, or twenty-one milch cows
A fine based on the victim’s honour price (lóg n-enech – the price of his face).
In the case of duinethaide, a secret and unacknowledged killing, then the first fine is doubled and becomes eighty-four séts.
It was young Cormac who discovered the dead man. While most of the King’s guests had given up the dancing and wandered around the hall, drinking and eating and greeting friends, the younger ones had continued to skip energetically up and down. Cael, her brother Cian, Cormac and Art had given a marvellous display, forming a complicated interlocked foursome, clicking the iron tips of their boots on the white and red marble tiles. When this had finished, Cormac had gone into the recess to cool his hot cheeks against the cold glass of the tall window there.
Verdict of the Court: A mystery set in sixteenth-century Ireland (A Burren Mystery) Page 4