Eye of the Law

by Cora Harrison

  ‘And then Becan cleared off and went back to Aran. He had his own boat, waiting there at Doolin, so he could go back whenever he liked. Perhaps he expected that Balor would be blamed for the death.’

  ‘Would he know that it was Balor’s Cave, though?’ asked Mara with interest. ‘I know that he would probably have heard the story of Balor, but would he know where Balor’s Cave was on the Burren? I think they came in after the storyteller had finished the tale of Balor.’

  ‘That storyteller told the same story about three times that night,’ said Moylan triumphantly. ‘People kept asking him to tell it again. And Becan could have found out exactly where the cave was just by asking anyone. Even a child could have told him that.’

  ‘I see.’ Mara was silent for a moment. ‘The only problem is that no one saw either Iarla or anyone else go along the laneway to Balor’s Cave. Fiachra O’Lochlainn was ploughing from sunrise in the field opposite the turn-off for the lane and Dalagh the basket maker was there all the morning and so was his wife and his ten children.’

  ‘Perhaps Becan murdered him somewhere else and then threw the body across a horse and took it over to Balor’s Cave,’ suggested Moylan.

  ‘No, that wouldn’t work,’ said Aiden. ‘Anyone working in the fields would have noticed him leading a horse with a dead body on top of it. I know how it was done.’ Aidan’s voice rose and then cracked badly with the force of his enthusiasm. ‘He could have put the body on one of those turf barrows, you know how low they are, then he could have thrown some old sacks over the body and people meeting him would have thought he was just wheeling along a pile of winter cabbages, He could have bent double over the barrow, bent down lower than the walls, so that he wouldn’t have been seen from the fields.’

  Mara thought about the idea with as much gravity as she could command. She was always careful to encourage her scholars to think for themselves; throwing too much cold water on their ideas would just make them reluctant to venture an opinion. However, she could not quite see why Becan should go to so much trouble to hide overnight, kill Iarla in the morning and then creep along the roads in that furtive way just so as to place the body by Balor’s Cave.

  ‘Thank you, boys,’ she said eventually. ‘That’s an idea worth thinking about and you have brought me some very useful information. You have done very well and have helped me considerably. Now take Bran into the stables and Seán will feed him while you are rubbing down your ponies. Then go in and have your supper. Brigid will have kept something for you.’

  After they had gone she stood for a few minutes wearily watching the sun sink down behind the hill. She wished for a moment that she were at Ballinalacken, the castle on the top of the hill near the sea. She could sit on the window seat and watch the sunset colours streak across the sea and perhaps forget about this puzzling murder and wipe her mind clear of the task that had to be done. She shook herself resolutely and turned to go into the schoolhouse. This was her choice to keep working, her choice to do everything: to be a teacher, a Brehon, the king’s wife and the bearer of the king’s child.

  She wanted to have it all; that was her problem.

  ‘Brehon.’ Brigid emerged from the kitchen house.

  ‘Ah, Brigid.’ Mara forced a smile and straightened her back. ‘I told Aidan and Moylan that you would have kept them some supper.’

  ‘Don’t worry about them. That will be the day when they starve!’ Brigid narrowed her small green eyes against the sun and fixed them on Mara’s face. Her sandy-coloured hair was sticking up in spikes – always a sure sign that she was perturbed. ‘Don’t worry about them,’ she repeated. ‘What about you? You look very tired. Why don’t you go and have an early night? Cumhal and I will see to the lads.’

  ‘I can’t,’ said Mara. ‘I really should go over to Lissylisheen. I was just wishing that I could ride, but I don’t suppose that it’s a good idea at the moment.’

  ‘What’s there that can’t wait for the morning?’ asked Brigid sharply. ‘You should go over to your house now and just get straight into bed.’

  ‘You could be right,’ said Mara resignedly.

  Brigid had looked after her when she was little and had not got out of the habit of treating her mistress as if she were about five years old. It was usually easier to follow Brigid’s commands than to argue with her.

  ‘Though I suppose you’ll toss and turn all night unless you get your own way.’ It was Brigid’s turn to sound resigned. ‘I’ll tell you what I’ll do,’ she continued. ‘I’ll send young Donie over to Lissylisheen to ask the taoiseach to come and see you. Will that satisfy you?’

  ‘There’s someone coming now.’ Mara’s quick ear caught the drumming of hoofs on the stone of the roadway outside.

  ‘Well, well, it’s himself,’ murmured Brigid with satisfaction. She walked quickly to the gate.

  ‘You’re very welcome, my lord,’ she said as Ardal dismounted with a neat swing of one leg. ‘I was just saying to the Brehon that she was looking tired and that she should leave her visit to you until the morning.’ Her voice had a warning note of emphasis.

  ‘I won’t keep her long.’

  Ardal had a smile on his attractive face; it was easy to read Brigid.

  ‘I wondered whether Becan had arrived from Aran,’ he continued, looking around the courtyard.

  ‘He didn’t come. He refused.’ Mara told him the fisherman’s words – she didn’t mention the betrothal between Becan’s daughter and Iarla, though. This was something that she would keep to herself, she decided.

  ‘Strange!’ Ardal shook his head in disbelief. ‘I never heard of such a thing. To allow your own nephew to be buried without a friend or kin to be there to pray for his soul. And yet he seemed fond of the young man to come all the way here with him. Mind you, we didn’t see much of him. Liam told me that Becan went off on Tuesday morning to visit relations of his at Kinvarra and he didn’t come back until late on Wednesday.’

  ‘Borrowed your horse too, didn’t he?’ Brigid’s tone was sharp. ‘Cumhal told me that he met him on one of the Lissylisheen horses.’

  ‘Let’s come into the schoolhouse, Ardal,’ said Mara. ‘Will you have a cup of ale or wine?’

  ‘Nothing at all,’ he said firmly. ‘I really won’t keep you long, Brehon. You’ve had a tiring day.’ Adroitly he had moved ahead of her, opened the heavy door and ushered her into the schoolhouse, placing her chair by the fire and putting a cushion from the window seat at her back. Then he stood by the fireplace, a look of indecision on his handsome face.

  ‘I don’t like this, Brehon,’ he said after a moment. ‘In a way, though I don’t honestly think that boy was my son, I still feel a certain responsibility for him. He came here in good faith, on the word of his mother, and he was murdered. I don’t like the thought of burying the poor fellow without friend or family near to put the clay over him. I think I’d like to take him back to Aran and bury him beside his mother; that’s where he belongs and that’s where he should go. Would that meet with your approval, Brehon?’

  ‘I can understand your feeling, Ardal.’

  Mara was conscious of a warm feeling. There were times when Ardal annoyed her; he could be tiresome and stubborn, but there were other times, like now, when she had to admire the essential nobility of the man. The wind was strong and it would be no light thing to embark on a journey in this weather on the turbulent seas between the mainland and Aran, but he would undertake that without a thought if he felt it to be the right thing to do. ‘However,’ she continued, ‘I really don’t think that would be necessary. After all, if his sisters had any feeling for him they would have crossed over for the funeral. You don’t know what they are feeling. Perhaps they regard him as no relation of theirs. Also, we don’t really know whether Becan will come after all. He might have got a passage in one of the fishing boats. That would have been cheaper for him. I don’t suppose that he has any silver to spare.’

  ‘Anyway, let’s go back to the problem of the murder.’
Ardal, as always, was efficient and precise. ‘We thought it might help, myself and Liam, to get statements from everyone while they all had supper in the barn.’ As he spoke, he carried a table over and placed it close to her chair.

  ‘Yes, of course. That was a good idea,’ said Mara.

  Ardal had the custom, carried on from the days of his father, of supplying a substantial supper for all of his workers at the end of each day. It probably worked out well for him, she thought. It united the men, gave each a feeling of ownership in the O’Lochlainn land and it meant that farming matters could be discussed and work allocated for the morrow in an efficient way.

  ‘So we took the opportunity, while they were all there, to write down where every man was and whom he saw during yesterday morning.’ Ardal unrolled the scroll of vellum, columns carefully ruled and all the relevant information written in Liam’s small neat hand. He flattened it on the table, placing the inkhorn and a heavy iron ruler on top of two corners and quickly fetching a couple of law tomes for the others. Mara bent over it.

  ‘Of course,’ said Ardal delicately, ‘you may wish to question these men in private, but we thought this might save you a certain amount of time.’

  ‘This is wonderfully helpful, Ardal.’ Mara rapidly scanned the list. She was very sincere in her thanks, but a slight doubt did come into her mind about the value of the testimony of those who asserted that their master and taoiseach, the O’Lochlainn, was occupied on the Ballymahony lands, to the west of Lissylisheen, between daybreak and noon. Still, it would be hard for all three men who were with him to have testified to a lie and there would have been little chance that they would not have noticed his absence. His horses and foals were of huge importance to Ardal and the men would have been consulting him every few minutes.

  ‘But nobody saw Iarla after he left the kitchen house, soon after daybreak,’ she said in an exasperated tone. ‘You’re sure that everyone was telling the truth, Ardal? It wasn’t that they were holding something back, unsure as to how it might affect someone else.’

  This was the problem of not investigating herself, she thought. Over the years she had developed the skill to hear the hesitation behind a statement, to notice how a voice might falter, or how a pair of eyes could glance away from her gaze. Ardal could give her the facts, but not the impressions. Still, it was valuable evidence that he was bringing to her in this neatly collated form.

  ‘I was thinking about that,’ said Ardal, taking out another piece of vellum and leaning over her. ‘Look, I got Liam to make a little sketch here of the townlands around Lissylisheen and, of course, Lissylisheen itself. You can see that we’ve put in names of those who were there on Thursday morning.’

  ‘So Fiachra was ploughing on this side of the road to get the land ready for oats.’ Mara pointed. The townland of Lissylisheen lay on the north as well as the south side of the road to Kilcorney.

  ‘That’s right, and his father was ploughing on the south side of the road.’ Ardal indicated the sweep of the townland border, obviously established before the road to Kilcorney was built. ‘They were having a bit of a competition to see who would make the best job of it.’

  Ardal’s voice was amused, easy-going, the voice of a man who has nothing to fear and for whom life is good. ‘And here, at Craigaroon,’ he continued, pointing to the townland south of Lissylisheen, ‘I had five men on this large field forking dung from the carts and spreading it over the land here. These are my best grasslands so we always get the winter dung out on them as soon as we get a good wind and some dry weather in March.’

  ‘And, of course, if Iarla was going towards Balor’s Cave, he would either have had to go by the road or else cross the field at Craigaroon.’ Mara looked at the little sketch with puzzlement.

  ‘Not a chance of him not being seen,’ said Ardal emphatically. ‘The men were spread right across the field in a line so as to make sure to cover everything. And then there were the carts coming and going and with the dry weather a couple of men were clearing the ditches on the road between . . .’

  ‘And there were four men working in the courtyard with Liam.’

  ‘That’s right. At this time of year we always get out the storage barrels from the barn and the cellars; we check and clean and repair them all. Then they are ready for the tribute at Bealtaine and at Michaelmas.’

  ‘And what about the townland of Ballymurphy? There’s no name here.’

  Ardal smiled. ‘Well, that’s exactly what Liam said. This is the only possibility: Iarla came out of the kitchen house, at a moment when Liam and the other men were in the barn. Iarla could have gone over the wall of the courtyard, through Ballymurphy and down south towards Noughaval.’

  ‘But why on earth should he go towards Noughaval? Anyway, it’s the wrong direction for Kilcorney and Balor’s Cave.’ A sudden thought struck Mara. ‘Ardal, on Monday night, how did you take Iarla and Becan back from Lemeanah Castle?’

  Ardal looked at her with a puzzled expression. ‘How? Well, Teige lent us a couple of horses.’

  ‘I don’t mean that. I meant what route did you take?’

  ‘Oh, I see. Well, we just went through the fields. Just went direct.’

  ‘Through Noughaval?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  Ardal looked puzzled, but Mara said no more. An idea had just come to her. Tomorrow, once morning school was over, she would use the Saturday half-day to pay a round of visits. She would take her mare, Brig, she decided. She would not gallop, or even trot; just a slow walk sitting side-saddle on the horse’s back could not do her any harm, despite all the old wives’ tales.

  She had to see Malachy and Nuala at some stage and ask them if they were certain about the time of death. But first of all she would go to Glenslade, the home of Ardal’s brother, and heir, Donogh O’Lochlainn. She would see Donogh, and also his son, Donogh Óg, and his daughter Mairéad. And then she would go to Lemeanah Castle. If Iarla had memorized the route on that Monday night and did leave Lissylisheen through the Ballymurphy townland and then down to Noughaval, the most likely possibility was that he was going to visit Lemeanah.

  And if the man from Aran had arrived there on Thursday morning, what sort of reception did he get from the outraged father?

  Five

  Crith Gablach

  (Ranks in Society)

  Bláthmac, the poet, compares the relationship between a taoiseach (chieftain) and his clan to that between God and the Jewish people. A taoiseach must care for all members of his clan, especially if old, sick or handicapped, and he must be just in all dealings with them and protect them against any threats.

  ‘I’m just going to use the mare to walk the road between here and Glenslade. I won’t even trot, I promise!’ said Mara apologetically.

  She had sent Moylan to tell Seán to saddle Brig, but Brigid, of course, always knew everything that was going on. Now she was gazing at Mara, her thin lips compressed and her green eyes sparkling with annoyance.

  ‘What do you have to go to Glenslade for, when you will have to go to Poulnabrone to make the announcement at vespers?’ Brigid’s voice was sharp with anger. ‘If you want to see anyone there, just send for them. That’s what your father would have done. He didn’t do all this journeying around. He sat in the schoolhouse and saw people there.’

  ‘Well, I just want to see Donogh O’Lochlainn and, well . . . well, I thought it was better for me to go to see him, than . . .’

  Brigid nodded resignedly. She had noted the emphasis on the word ‘me’. What Mara had not said – and you know how touchy he is – would not be mentioned by Brigid, but they were both aware of the truth.

  ‘The taoiseach could have brought the man over for you,’ she muttered, ‘but I suppose you don’t want to cause any more trouble between the two of them. I remember when they were young, there used to be great trouble. Donogh was always fierce jealous of his brother.’

  ‘Brigid, what were they like when they were quite young, the two of them?’ asked
Mara curiously. ‘I didn’t know Donogh too well. Ardal was nearer to my age so I knew him better. Donogh had gone off and was farming over in Glenslade by the time that I was growing up.’

  ‘Not too different to the way they are now,’ said Brigid thoughtfully. ‘Ardal was a beautiful child, big and strong, could talk to anybody. In fact, even though he was four years younger, he could talk before Donogh – used to talk for him, I remember. And when Donogh did talk, nobody much had time to listen to him. He wasn’t good-looking, even as a child. There was talk for a while of sending Ardal to the bard school, but I think that Finn always wanted him for his heir.’

  There was a silence as Mara turned over the picture of the two brothers in her mind. It was something that most people had forgotten by now – that at the death of the tánaiste (heir) to the O’Lochlainn clan, twenty-five years ago, when Ardal was fifteen and Donogh was nineteen, the clan had decided that the younger brother was more fit to be the new tánaiste than the elder. Brigid was probably right, suspected Mara; no doubt Finn, himself, had preferred the tall, handsome, fluent and clever Ardal to the unfortunate Donogh and had quietly made his preference known to his clan. There would have been no doubt in anyone’s mind that, of the two brothers, Ardal would make the better tánaiste and subsequently taoiseach. Glenslade, with its extensive lands and tower house, was given to Donogh and with that he had to be content.

  Glenslade tower house was built on a square craggy platform of rock overlooking the deeply sunken glen of Slaoide. This was a depression of about two hundred yards wide and two hundred yards long. The stone of the sides of this pit was squared-off, almost as if it were cut stone and the whole hollow resembled a roofless giant’s castle whose proportions made the real four-storey-high tower house appear like a child’s toy.

  As Mara rode at a slow walking pace across the familiar road between the law school and Poulnabrone, she pondered on the man she was about to meet. This would be a difficult interview – not because she really suspected Donogh of having a hand in the murder of the young man who had turned up claiming to be the son of his brother Ardal, but because every interview with Donogh was difficult; a long, drawn-out agony of stuttered words and unfinished sentences.