Laws in Conflict

by Cora Harrison

  The bell from St Nicholas’s Church chimed the hour of four o’clock, but the church itself was only dimly lit with the light of one candle coming from a single window. No evening service was planned. A sound came from behind her – not a rat, but perhaps more dangerous: it was the sound of a footstep and of another quickly suppressed whisper. She glanced over her shoulder up towards the junction to Gaol Street and saw a detachment of soldiers, with torchlight glinting on drawn swords, standing guard.

  And yet that was not what she had heard. The soldiers had no reason to be quiet, no need to suppress a whisper. They were making as much noise as possible, shouting orders, drilling with their swords; the clash of iron against shield would frighten the townspeople to obedience was the reasoning behind all of the noise, she supposed. No, that had not been the soldiers that she had heard. In fact, there had been something familiar about the whisper and then she realized that the half-heard words were in Gaelic.

  Mara took a few decided steps towards the Bodkin tower house and then whirled around. She was right! Two small, slender figures darted out from a doorway and began to run down towards Gaol Street. They were careful, keeping well into the shadows of the houses and shops, but one shopkeeper had a flaming pitch torch stuck into the bracket outside his door and the light showed two heads, one was jet black but the other had curls of red-gold.

  Hugh and Shane were out in the Galway streets and they were running straight towards where the soldiers had lined up ready for battle.

  Mara gasped and immediately began to run after them. Her shoes were of soft leather so made little sound and neither boy looked behind. When they approached Cross Street, they did not continue, but swerved into one of the small alleyways that led off to the left. Unhesitatingly, Mara followed, furious with herself that she had not picked up on the reason for their conversation with Valentine Blake this morning. How smoothly young Shane had turned the conversation back to Carlos Gomez and the Spanish captain, she thought, feeling exasperated that she had not pursued the matter.

  Of course, she thought, Valentine Blake needed someone who spoke both English and Gaelic so that communications could be passed between the Blakes and the O’Malleys. Shane and Hugh, adventurous young boys, were ideal for his purpose.

  The alleyway, with its tall houses on either side, was very dark. She could no longer see either boy, but from time to time heard a mutter or a stone kicked by a boot. Now they would be going parallel to the gaol. The buildings opposite all housed shops, Mara remembered, and they were empty and dark. She had to feel her way, now, keeping one hand on a side wall. She dare not call the boys. None of them had the right to be abroad after the curfew bell had sounded. The penalty for all three would be prison, or worse.

  And then her groping hand found only space in front of it. She took a few more steps and stopped abruptly. There were lights ahead of her and she realized that she had reached another of those small narrow alleyways that formed a network of passages between the main streets of the town. She waited for a moment, hesitating and listening intently, but there were no sounds from further up so her instinct led her towards the light. If Shane and Hugh, normally very well-behaved boys, had stolen out at night, it would have been something to do with Walter, she thought. Slowly and carefully she turned up the alleyway and crept onwards until she stood in a dark doorway, just opposite the entrance to the gaol.

  The door to the prison was shut firmly and in front of its blackened, studded surface stood the figure of James Lynch, flanked by a soldier on either side. The torches flaring from iron holders on both sides of the door illuminated his face. Mara studied him carefully. His expression was stern, remote and determined; the mouth set firmly. His eyes, though, were disconcerting. From where she stood, she could see that, unlike the soldiers whose eyes darted here and there, his eyes were staring fixedly at the sky, just as though he were communicating with his God – the God of anger – above.

  And then suddenly there was a shrill whistle from her left – coming from the fish market – a seaman’s whistle, thought Mara with a slight thrill of excitement. The boats that fished and plied their trade between Doolin and the Aran Islands all used whistles like that in order to summon aid. She had heard it said that the sound from one of these could travel five miles across seawater and here, in the small, enclosed streets of the city, it rose up loud and shrill with an almost frightening intensity.

  And then it was answered by another that came from the area around Bridge Street Gate, with its warning notice about the ferocious O’Flahertys, and yet another from the eastern side towards The Green. It seemed as if the city was surrounded by a wall of sound from the west and the north. O’Malley of the Ships and his men had encircled the town. How her kingly husband, Turlough, would have liked to be here with his old comrade-in-arms, O’Malley from Sligo, he of the ships, who patrolled the Atlantic coast and cared nothing for the English and their pretensions towards the civilized rule of law.

  And now she began to understand. O’Malley and his clansmen probably spoke only Gaelic, with perhaps enough seaman’s Latin to make their way in the Mediterranean countries, but were unlikely to speak English. Hugh and Shane were there to let them in through the gate and to direct them towards the gaol and, then, boy-like, had crept along to see the attack.

  And the battle had started. From both sides of Gaol Street came the clash of swords, and this was no drill. The soldiers shouted and warlike howls responded. Mara edged a little further out.

  ‘The Cat! The Cat! The Cat!’ chanted the attackers and she recognized the war cry of the Blakes. She thought she glimpsed the tall figure of Valentine Blake using his sword to beat his way through the massed ranks of the soldiers, rather like her housekeeper, Brigid, used a broom to go through a flock of cackling geese. Valentine would not want to be responsible for any deaths; he was, after all, bailiff in this city, and the protection of the troops would be important for the citizens.

  Now another attack began at the other end of Gaol Street, just where it abutted on to Cross Street. Mara could hear the shouts and the clash of steel. And from there, too, rose up the war cry of ‘The Cat! The Cat! The Cat!’ The Blakes had divided their forces and were progressing towards the prison in a pincer movement, one approaching from the north side of the town, from where Gaol Street joined to the corn market, and the second from the southerly junction with Cross Street. Mara held her breath. Could they possibly rescue Walter from his cell? And if they did, she determined, she would make sure that poor old Sheedy was rescued, also. Despite the danger, she would stay here until all was over.

  The Blakes were large in numbers; by the light of the torches, Mara could see how they thronged together and faced into a smaller amount of soldiers. But piemen, bankers, innkeepers and merchants were no match for a detachment of trained and well-armed soldiers and gradually they were being driven back into the corn market. For the moment the battle on the southerly side, on the Cross Street side, was still going on – she thought she saw the huge form of the blacksmith leading this detachment – but the soldiers had certainly begun to prevail at the northerly end, at the crossroads where Valentine Blake commanded. The troops made a forward rush; the Blakes retreated out of sight. A man screamed and a volley of curses broke out.

  But the only words she heard from both sides of the battles were English words. So where were the O’Malleys? Perhaps she had been wrong. She heard Valentine Blake’s voice roaring orders and his men rallied and made another surge. There was a brief clash; for a moment the white uniforms of the soldiers were mingled with the colourful doublets of the Blakes. But it was all over soon. With dismay she saw that Valentine Blake’s cohort was once more being driven back. They had retreated back into the corn market and the soldiers were lining up, with drawn swords, forming a wall of steel to keep them from coming back into Gaol Street.

  And then, from just opposite to where she stood, a stone slate came crashing down and landed almost at the foot of where the mayor stood, su
rrounded by his bodyguard of soldiers. One of the bodyguards ran forward, torch in hand, and looked upwards towards the sky. For a second his light illuminated the scene, before he was cut down by a well-aimed throwing knife.

  On top of the roof of the gaol were the figures of men, men to whom climbing ships’ masts on violently turbulent seas was an everyday affair. Even as Mara looked up, a hail of stone slates came raining down on to the street. O’Malley and his men had made their way by the rooftops and had reached the gaol without anyone being aware of their presence.

  ‘They’ve stripped the roof,’ shouted some soldiers, running down Gaol Street from its junction with Cross Street.

  ‘The Cat! The Cat! The Cat!’ came the cry from the Blakes and from above their heads it was answered by roars of ‘O’Malley Abú’. Everything seemed to be happening at once. At roof level the slates were being torn and cast down as missiles; at this rate it would not be long before the O’Malley and his sailors would be into the top storey of the gaol.

  From Cross Street the southerly detachment of Blakes, under the leadership of the blacksmith, had begun to force the soldiers to retreat down Gaol Street. Step by step, with swords, crowbars, cudgels, hammers, daggers and kitchen knives held in front of them, they were making progress towards the gaol, driving the soldiers in front of them.

  When it was that James Lynch had disappeared, Mara could not tell. The Cross Street detachment of soldiers had been steadily driven back by the blacksmith and his men and was now between her and the door to the gaol. The chant of ‘The Cat! The Cat! The Cat!’ had doubled; Valentine Blake’s men must have gone back down Corn Market Street to the Cross Street junction and joined their kinsmen from the back. The roars of ‘O’Malley Abú’ were muffled, but the Sligo clansmen were now within the building.

  And it was at that moment that James Lynch must have reappeared. His voice rose up, high and fanatical, ‘Make way! Make way! Make way to Gallows’ Green!’ The solid block of soldiers moved slightly, those at the back presenting a line of drawn swords to the Blakes coming up from the south side of the town, those at the front forming a guard for the mayor who was going north.

  ‘He’s got Walter!’ The shrill scream of Hugh’s voice came from the top of the roof, and by the light of the torch Mara could see the head of copper curls, so admired by Jane Bodkin, leaning over the drip ledge of the parapet on top of the gaol. Beside him was Shane’s dark head. Mara’s heart stopped at the peril that her boys were in. She came forward from her place of concealment and stepped out into the street, only to shrink back as the soldiers, fighting hand-to-hand with the Blakes, passed her so closely that she could only save herself by returning quickly into the alleyway.

  And then Mara saw what they had seen.

  James Lynch was dragging his son up Gaol Street, up towards Middle Street and from there through the Great Gate and out on to Gallows’ Green.

  And Walter Lynch, manacled and shackled with heavy iron chains, had a noose around his neck and was been led by his own father like a beast to the slaughterhouse.

  Mara acted quickly. There was, she reasoned, nothing that she could do for Hugh and Shane just now. They were with the O’Malley in the gaol and the gaol was now no longer the focus of the battle. Somehow, she felt confident that the clansmen would look after her two boys.

  But Walter Lynch, no more than a boy himself, would be hanged by the neck, hanged until he was dead, within the hour unless someone rescued him.

  Was it possible that, even now, she could make James Lynch hesitate? That what she had to tell him would ring true and that he would spare his son until a just trial could be held?

  Gallows’ Green, she thought. The fanatical father was going to drag his son there. How could she get there before them?

  Mara knew Galway quite well by now and quickly she pictured her route. A moment later she had gone back down the alleyway, had crossed Market Street, gone through the gate into the graveyard of St Nicholas’s Church and out of the back gate and into Lombard Street.

  Lombard Street was no longer empty. Lights were on in all the shops, tower houses and dwellings. People were coming out through opened doors, or thronging up from Quay Street. She saw David Browne, with his sister Catarina, hurrying forward, but she did not wait to greet them. There was a murmur of conversation and then a swell of voices. The words ‘Gallows’ Green’ were on all lips. Mara pushed her way through them and went rapidly up North Street, noticing Richard Athy, standing with a perturbed face, at the gate of his splendid mansion.

  And then she became aware that she had a companion. By her side was Anthony Skerrett with a drawn sword in his hand. He saw her look at it and smiled.

  ‘Got used to carrying this around the streets of London at night,’ he said casually, and kept his place at her elbow as she turned down Little Gate Street, praying that she would get to its junction with Middle Street before James Lynch. She went faster now – Anthony and his sword ensured that a path opened out in front of her.

  And she was just in time. The soldiers had to fight every inch of the way with their pursuers, and the boy Walter, dragged by the noose, was in chains and could not make good progress. Despite her circuitous route she had arrived at the junction before the father and son and was ready to say what had to be said. This life had to be saved. That other life would have to take a chance. At least the warning would be public and would give a chance of escape. But she had no choice. She would have to tell this madman, James Lynch, what she believed had happened on that fatal Shrove and she would have to tell him before he reached Gallows’ Green.

  Seventeen

  Críth Gablach

  (Ranks in Society)

  A king or his representative, a Brehon, can issue an ordinance in times when law and order begins to break down and where the orders are necessary for the preservation of life. It follows then that a Brehon must be skilled in talking to incensed multitudes and negotiating their consent to a new order or law.

  Triad 49

  There are three things that are the sign of a well-run kingdom:

  1. Suppressing robbers.

  2. Crushing criminals.

  3. Preventing lawlessness.

  Just as Mara and Anthony Skerrett emerged into the crossroads, she realized that James Lynch could go no further. The street between him and the way to Gallows’ Green was completely blocked with people. Men came running down towards him from the Great Gate, but these men were not sailors; these were men with bare legs and huge moustaches, wearing woollen cloaks or short jackets over their Gaelic léinte. They were armed with short swords and small, light, slender throwing knives, and they yelled their battle cry of ‘O’Flaherty Abú’ as they came.

  The ferocious O’Flahertys, hated and feared by the people of Galway, had arrived.

  Mara could picture how they had arrived at this spot and admired the quick wits of whosoever had directed them. The message would have been passed to them, probably by Hugh and Shane as soon as they had come in by the open gate to the west. They would have circled the town on the side of the sea and then cut across its eastern side, keeping always inside the walls of the city and finding nothing but empty streets and scared citizens hiding within their houses.

  But were they in time?

  James Lynch, dragging his son by the noose, and accompanied by the ranks of soldiers, had reached the junction of the four crossroads where Little Gate Street and Great Gate Street joined on to Skinner’s Street and High Middle Street – by coincidence just beside his own house. Ahead of them was the short length of Great Gate Street and then, on the other side of the gate, was Gallows’ Green. The entire regiment of soldiers was with him, forming a human shield to his back, and on both sides.

  But the O’Flahertys had been too quick for them. They had wedged themselves into a solid fighting mass, blocking the way forward. The soldiers hesitated and then stopped, their swords in their hands and their eyes on the ferocious clansmen ahead of them. And behind the soldiers came the
cohorts of the Blake family reinforced with the clansmen of O’Malley of the Ships.

  ‘Walter, Walter,’ screamed Margaret, and she burst through the crowd of soldiers, desperately clawing her way towards her son. Her hair streamed down her back and her face was blotched with tears. At the last moment a soldier seized her by an arm and she clawed at him as if she had been the cat depicted on the Burke shield over her brother’s castle.

  ‘Let me go, let me have my son,’ she wept, and her nails raked the man’s face until he managed to seize both of her hands. Another soldier put a hand over her mouth and she was dragged back.

  The boy was almost unconscious, Mara could see. The noose was pulled so tightly that his face was purple and his eyes were staring. His head slumped down over his chest and when a sudden silence fell after Margaret’s shrieks were suppressed, Mara could hear him retching desperately, his chained hands trying to rise high enough to be able to grab the rope from his neck.

  A second later, James acted. The noose, shortened to a dangerous extent, was in one of his hands, but with the other he seized the boy by a fistful of curls and hauled him over towards the studded oak front door of his own tower house. Somehow he must have got the key into his hand, because a few seconds later he had jerked his son over the threshold and had slammed the heavy door behind them.

  ‘My son, my son,’ screamed Margaret again as her captors released her.

  And then a great roar broke out – a roar of anger, but of triumph, too. No door in the world was strong enough to stand against the combined might of the Blakes, the O’Malleys and the O’Flahertys!