Eye of the Law

by Cora Harrison

  ‘That would have been the Thursday, wouldn’t it?’ he mused. ‘That’s right, isn’t it? The wedding was on Monday, not much done on Tuesday, I remember, everybody had too much to drink and the bargain was that Teige’s men were to do some of the work for me – mixing the mortar and that sort of thing – none of them were fit on the Tuesday. Wednesday was a very wet day, so I took the opportunity to talk to Malachy so when Thursday came I started work as soon as it dawned.’

  ‘You started here?’ Mara looked around the quarry.

  ‘That’s right, Brehon. I filled up the cart with blocks and drove it over there and began work immediately.’

  ‘Any sign of Iarla, the man from Aran?’

  ‘Not a sign.’ There was an air of distaste in the way that he had said the words. That was understandable. Donogh Óg, according to Enda’s story, was one of the party of youths that had punished Iarla for his behaviour to Saoirse.

  ‘And were you the one that drove the cart to and fro for new blocks?’

  Donogh Óg shook his head. ‘No, Brehon,’ he said with the air of one who knows his own value. ‘That would have been a waste of my time. I was doing the building, laying the blocks, supervising the mortar making.’

  ‘So who drove the cart?’

  Donogh Óg hesitated. ‘To be honest with you, Brehon, I wouldn’t be too sure. It could have been anyone. It seemed to be a different person each time. These are very heavy blocks – you couldn’t take too many at one time – so the cart was going and coming continually over the morning. Sometimes it was one of the guardsmen, sometimes a servant from the house, a farm worker, sometimes one of the O’Briens themselves . . .’

  ‘What about Teige?’ asked Mara. ‘Could he have taken a turn?’

  Donogh Óg wrinkled his forehead in an effort to remember. ‘Could have done,’ he said eventually. ‘I don’t remember. I was working very hard, getting the walls up. We were hoping to have it thatched before night. The thatchers were standing by with their bundles of reeds and their thatching tools and they were putting pressure on me. It could have been Saint Patrick himself that drove that cart and I wouldn’t have noticed as long as the supply of blocks kept coming.’

  Sixteen

  Críth Gablach

  (Ranks in Society)

  A Brehon has responsibility to the king to maintain good order in his kingdom. No crime should be allowed to go unpunished. If there is a puzzle over the author of the crime, the Brehon must use all knowledge and experience to solve that mystery.

  The mist was gathering by the time Mara walked her mare down the lane towards Balor’s Cave. The sky was a silver-grey, the bright yellow of the willow catkins was silvered by the moisture and drops of water nestled between the blue-green crisp curls of lichen.

  In the sally gardens, Dalagh the basket maker was sorting out the rods of purple willow, grading them according to size and thickness. Mara could see that he had been up since dawn. Already the green, yellow and red rods had been sorted and were securely tied with withies into neat bundles.

  ‘God bless the work, Dalagh,’ called Mara cheerfully. ‘You haven’t the family helping you today.’

  ‘No, I don’t, Brehon.’ He came over to the wall, carrying a set of beautiful purple twigs with him. ‘The O’Lochlainn sent a wagon and they all piled in. I’m having a fine peaceful afternoon to myself. I won’t see any of them before sundown. It’s Coad,’ he explained, seeing her puzzled expression.

  ‘Of course,’ said Mara.

  Coad Horse Races was a big day for Ardal. He bred some very fine horses and always liked to match them against other horses from Corcomroe, Thomond and other kingdoms. Everyone who worked for him had the day off. This part of the Burren would be very quiet today. Dalagh would be one of the few people still working on O’Lochlainn land. Mara stood still for a moment mentally rearranging her schedule. An opportunity like this might not come again.

  ‘I’ll leave you in peace then, Dalagh,’ she said good-humouredly. ‘Could I tie up my mare here against your willow tree? I’m just going to go for a little walk down here.’ He looked surprised and then a little alarmed and she quickly added, with a bright smile, ‘I need to say a few prayers.’ And if that left him thinking that she was going to spend half an hour on her knees in front of the altar at Kilcorney Church, well, that was his affair.

  Balor’s Cave looked ominous: a gaping mouth in a hillside of green. The clean neat black rows of earth piled into ridges outside the cave, waiting for their spring sowing of vegetables, seemed incongruous in that setting. Mara could see that Ardal would have a problem in persuading his men to work there again, even if they had overcome their fears in the first place. The picture was still in her mind of the dead man, of the two dead men, each with an eye gouged out, lying in front of the cave while the ominous ravens hovered overhead. Even the upturned willow tree, still not cleared away, gave the impression that a force stronger than man was at work here.

  Unhesitatingly, Mara turned her back on the tree and went towards the cave. She would never get such a good opportunity to do this again. This afternoon most of the Burren would be at the races in Coad. At the entrance she bowed her head, pausing once she was inside. It was unexpectedly dark; of course it faced north. She fumbled in her pouch and took out a box of sulphur sticks. Standing near to the light she counted them. Ten altogether; that should last her well enough.

  Oddly enough there was a neat, tidy look about this cave that reminded her of Ardal. The floor seemed to have been swept clean of the rocks and small stones that usually littered the floor of any other cave that she had been in. Perhaps Balor, despite his wicked ways and ferocious reputation, was of an orderly and tidy disposition. She grinned at the thought.

  By the wavering light of her first sulphur stick Mara could actually see the back of the cave as she advanced. She frowned, puzzled, but continued walking until she could actually touch the dripping limestone wall. Odd, she thought. She clearly remembered the words spoken by Danann, the basket maker’s boy.

  ‘It’s just a cave like any other cave, Brehon. My brothers and I took candles in one night and explored it. We went back quite a long way and found no Balor!’

  She had only come about six feet; no one could have called this ‘a long way’. She looked around, holding the sulphur stick aloft. It was burning steadily, she was glad to see. Cumhal had always impressed upon the boys that air in a cave should always be tested with a flame. Not enough air for fire; not enough air for people, she had heard him say again and again.

  And then, as she turned slowly around, she saw it. At first she thought that it was a shadow, but then she realized that it was a narrow slit in the rocky wall of the cave. The young slim boys had probably slipped through there easily but it was difficult for a woman five months pregnant. Eventually she was through, however, and then her sulphur stick wavered and went out.

  Mara stayed very close to the entrance while she lit the second one. Her hands shook for an instant. Was the air here bad air? Being pregnant had robbed her a little of her courage and her optimism; now she was not just risking herself, but the baby: her and Turlough’s unborn child. It will be all right, she told herself. This is the perfect afternoon for the exploration with everyone at Coad Races and then I will know the truth and can tackle the murderer with all the weight of the law and of my position.

  Once the second sulphur stick flared up, Mara could see that there was another way between the two caves, a much wider portal. She went over and examined it curiously. ‘There used to be lots of underground rivers once in the Burren,’ her father told her when she was a child, ‘and these rivers carved out passages through the limestone.’ She didn’t know whether that was true or not, but this opening was made by a man, she guessed, holding up the sulphur stick and examining the chisel marks in the limestone rock. It was very low; a person would have to bend almost double to get through it, but it was quite wide.

  With an eye on her sulphur stick, still burning steadi
ly, but at a rather alarming rate, Mara left the intriguing man-made opening and went down to the end of this cave. Going south in the direction of Lemeanah, she thought to herself, picturing the Burren above her head. This was a bigger cave than the last one and she guessed that it was probably as far as the basket maker’s boys had gone. They would have had the fear of discovery by their father in their minds and would not have wanted to spend too long out of their beds.

  This cave, too, seemed to end in a blank wall, but now Mara was sure that her guess was a correct one, so she painstakingly searched for another exit in the craggy dripping walls around her. It was difficult to see by the very small thin flame of the sulphur stick. It was burning down perilously near to her hand and then her foot slipped on the smooth, wet boulder clay underfoot and the flame went out. Mara drew in a deep breath. She was no longer sure of where she was and whether she would be able to retrace her steps. The dark made everything seem disorientating. Added to that, the whole cave was dripping wet. Already her hair was soaked and the wool surface of her cloak shed water when she passed her hand over it. Even the air that she breathed in was damp, with the sensation of being out in a heavy mist. The sulphur sticks in her pouch might get wet and then she should have no light. Common sense told her that she should now go back and return with Cumhal and perhaps another few men and certainly with a couple of reliable closed lanterns.

  But which was the way back? As Mara groped her way around the wall she could not seem to find any break in the stone. There must be, she told herself. And yet, she was sure that she had already knocked her hand a few minutes ago on the protruding spike of lime-encrusted rock. Quickly she reached inside her cloak and unthreaded a ribbon from the bodice of her gown. She would tie this ribbon on to the jagged point and then go on feeling her way around.

  There was something about the steady drip, drip, drip of the limey water falling from the ceiling that began to make her feel nervous. It did not seem particularly colder than it had been on the March day out of doors, but the damp made her hands feel numb. She stood still for a minute, rubbing them together, twisting her long fingers over and around each other. And then, to keep the blood coursing through them, she began to clap her hands, first in a steady, measured stroke and then faster in the rhythmic beat as played on the drum at those céilí dances in the cottages and halls of the Burren. The sound brought back the picture of Iarla’s mother, the lovely red-headed Étain, with her feet slapping out the rhythm on the hollow flagstone and the firelight striking glints of gold from her hair.

  The thought steadied her and she resolved that she would solve this murder of the boy who meant so much to Étain, probably all the more since her first-born son had been taken away from her as soon as he was born.

  Steadily Mara went on, moving her way down the wall, feeling the rough surfaces of some stones and the smoother ones of other. Here and there she encountered a protruding spike where some harder piece of stone had resisted the water, but none of them bore her cluster of silk ribbon. She knew that she was being stupid, but she could not help a surge of triumph. She was about to discover how Iarla and Becan could have been murdered.

  Mara almost missed the opening. Only the slight draught that stirred the hem of her cloak warned her that there was something different about this part of the wall. She lowered her hand and there was nothing there, just a gap.

  Was this the way back or the way forward? She would have to take the risk. Everything in life was a risk, Mara told herself. If she missed this opportunity, she might not get another one like it. Once she was certain, she would go straight back, retrieve her mare from the basket maker, ride home and then come to a decision about what to do next. She hesitated about whether to light a sulphur stick but decided to go right through first. There undoubtedly was a movement of air so there was probably little danger of poisonous fumes. Putting down her hand to feel her way, as she bent down as low as she could manage, she noted that these stones did not have the encrusted powdery lime clinging to them; no doubt this way through was also man-made.

  A series of caves: that’s what it was. A series of caves and someone had the enterprise to make the links between them. But why? This was not done in the last few days; weeks and weeks, perhaps done over a space of few years, no doubt many months of patient, secretive cautious hammering and chiselling would have gone in to the construction of these passages.

  Once Mara was standing upright, she rubbed her hands once more, slotted each hand far up the opposing sleeve of her léine in order to make sure it was dry, then unloosened the string of her pouch and counted the sulphur sticks. Yes, there were still seven of them. This time she would immediately look for the exit; she planned, as she struck the soft pink head against the ridged steel of the container.

  This cave was taller than the others. Mara raised the sulphur stick and looked around. The ceiling was hung with rods of petrified lime, but it was the walls that took her attention. Almost straight in front of her there was another exit, this time a natural one, she thought, though it may have been slightly widened at one spot at the bottom. She could walk straight through this and she did so carefully, holding the precious sulphur stick high out of the reach of the persistent air current that still moved on ground level.

  Mara wondered how far she had come – possibly a hundred yards, though probably less, but the thought left her head as she saw something standing in the centre of this cave. She stopped and stared at it and then a smile curved her lips. It was a low vehicle with four wooden wheels, very long and very wide, with two shafts at hand height on the back of it. In her mind she apologised to Aidan: this was a turf barrow and that was what he had said. She remembered his words clearly: ‘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 would haven’t been seen from the fields.’

  Aidan had been right about the turf barrow; this was what had been used to convey the body. But he had been wrong about the old sacks: here in these secret caves they had not been needed, nor had the murderer needed to bend double.

  And Aidan had been wrong about accusing Becan of the murder; Becan had been the accuser, had been the one who had stumbled upon the truth before she had arrived at the correct conclusion.

  Suddenly Mara’s elation died away. She was not the first person to make this journey in the last week. Becan had been there before her. He probably had the foresight to bring a lantern with him, but he had been there; she was sure of that now. He had seen the turf barrow. What had he done next?

  Recklessly Mara lit another sulphur stick and went forward in the footsteps of the man whose body she had recently committed to the sparse soil of Aran. She went forward to find full evidence against the murderer.

  Mara saw him immediately. She had not expected to meet him, but her courage was high and she showed no sign of dismay at the sight of him as she stepped through yet another arched opening and into a room-like cave filled with the light of a large lantern. This was far less damp than the others that she had passed through. It was higher, of course; she had been aware that the passages between the individual caves had become upward slopes – always slopes, never steps or stairways. The way for the turf barrow had been made smooth. This room was a storeroom; its walls were lined with barrels and casks and large wooden boxes.

  Mara’s eyes went rapidly to the far side of the room. There was a ramp there, and beyond it was the O’Lochlainn’s barn. A tall heavy press in the barn had been moved aside. She noticed immediately that it had small wooden wheels underneath it; from the back they were visible, but from the front the wheels would have been hidden by the carved flange of wood attached to the bottom of the press. Once back in place, the wooden press would have completely concealed the entrance to anyone in the barn. Mara remembered Turlough�
��s words about how most of the old enclosures had an underground room beneath their buildings. The barn at Lissylisheen had probably once been the main living place before the tower house had been built and this room that she was in now would have been the underground storage place.

  ‘Brehon!’ He had given such a violent start that the barrel, filled with springy sheep wool, which he had been wheeling through the entrance, spun out of his hand and crashed to the floor at Mara’s feet. She didn’t look at it and neither did he. The small, enclosed space was filled by the sound of his heavy breathing. He looked over his shoulder hastily and then back at her. She could see the thoughts rushing through his mind and then his ready tongue came to the rescue.

  ‘Lord save us, Brehon, you gave me a shock, turning up like that. Where in God’s name did you spring from?’ Once again he looked up at the unblocked entrance to the barn, but he knew that she had not come from there.

  I am the third person that has appeared in the caves before this man, thought Mara. And the first lost his life instantly, possibly even before he knew that he had been seen. And the second had lost his life too. Perhaps Becan had been bending over the turf barrow, searching for traces of blood that would betray the cargo that it had carried on that Thursday after St Patrick’s Day. Perhaps he had been examining the soft clay on the floor for telltale wheel marks, just as she had done herself, and the murderer had picked up a heavy club and had bludgeoned him to death.

  He had no staff here, as far as she could see, but like everyone else he carried a knife at his belt. Instantly she took control.

  ‘I must have got lost,’ she said carelessly. ‘I should have taken the advice of the basket maker when I was talking to him an hour ago. He told me not to explore that cave, some nonsense about Balor.’ She looked at him intently as she said these words and noted the change in his face. A stranger, two strangers, to be killed and their bodies wheeled down on the turf barrow and deposited outside Balor’s Cave – that was a much easier matter than getting rid of the Brehon of the Burren, not just the king’s appointed judge, but also the king’s wife. And now there was mention of the basket maker knowing where she had gone. Mara smiled at him gently and moved forward.