‘But why? Why does he pay it to Colman?’
‘Well, not to put too fine a point on the matter,’ said Diarmuid bluntly, ‘young Colman has been blackmailing him for the past few months.’
Mara stiffened and stared at him.
‘Lorcan … I don’t know if you noticed this, but Lorcan has a few fine white calves,’ continued Diarmuid. ‘He keeps them in the field behind his house, the one with the hawthorn hedge. He’ll be able to sell them soon. They are the best cattle that he ever had.’
‘Did he steal them?’
Diarmuid shook his head. ‘He didn’t steal them, but he borrowed the O’Lochlainn’s white bull when two of his cows were bulling. Well, Colman found out – I don’t know how, but he is always sneaking about and listening and prying into people’s affairs — well, he found out and he threatened that he would tell the O’Lochlainn unless Lorcan paid him some silver. Lorcan agreed. You know what the O’Lochlainn is like about going to law over everything, and, of course, Lorcan should not have done this; I told him that. He had no right to use another man’s bull without paying him.’
Mara nodded absent-mindedly. It was true that very few judgement days went by when Ardal O’Lochlainn did not bring a case against a neighbour, and it was typical of Lorcan to try to get something without paying for it, but her mind was not on either of those men. She was filled with anger and disgust. She was responsible for Colman. He had been a scholar from early boyhood at her law school; he had access to all of her documents – now she remembered with horror that he was forever tidying the shelves full of judgement texts in the big oak press in the schoolhouse. What information might he have gleaned from these? Was he blackmailing anyone else?
Suddenly she remembered Lorcan’s words. I’m a very poor man, Brehon. The young master here knows that, he had said with a meaningful glance at Colman. She should have guessed that something was going on.
‘I’ll hear this case at Poulnabrone,’ she said rapidly. ‘Colman shall pay back all of that silver to Lorcan.’
‘Well,’ said Diarmuid cautiously, ‘I’m not sure that would suit Lorcan. He would not want the O’Lochlainn to know about the bull. I think the best thing would be for you to have a word with young Colman and put a stop to this.’
He looked at her furious face and said hesitantly, ‘I wouldn’t be surprised if he were blackmailing some other people, as well. No one would speak of it, but there may be others. I saw him talking to Muiris last night and I heard Muiris shout at him. I’ve never seen Muiris look so angry.’
‘I’ll speak to the king about this,’ said Mara decisively. ‘If necessary, I myself will bring a case against him! One thing is certain: I will not have the law broken in this kingdom. And broken by my own assistant!’
SEVEN
URAIRECHT BECC (SMALL PRIMER)
All physicians have an honour price of eight séts, four milch cows, or four ounces of silver.
Three things give nemed, professional status to a physician:
1. A complete cure
2. Leaving no blemish
3. A painless examination
THE FROST SPARKLED ON the grass when Mara looked out of her window as the abbey bell went for prime on Saturday morning. A young fox in the field, his ears enormous and bat-like, and his back still covered in the grey downy fur of a young cub, hesitated, attracted by the movement at her window, and then bounded merrily away, scattering frozen drops of dew. The swallows were already hard at work, swooping in and out of the barn, ceaselessly feeding the future lords of the air. The air was cool and clean and the north-easterly breeze blew the sharp woodsmoke scent of bluebells from the hazel wood. The mountain of Mullaghmore was sharply etched in pale blue on the skyline.
‘It will be fine today, Bran,’ said Mara happily as the great wolfhound rose from his wicker basket at the end of her bed and stretched and yawned. This day of hunting would be a special day for him. It would do the lads good, also, she thought, and it would give her time to think about how she would cope with the problem of Colman.
Yesterday, once the midday meal was over, Mara and King Turlough Donn had toured the farms on the Burren and stayed for supper with Ardal O’Lochlainn at Lissylisheen. It had been late when they arrived back at the law school. No more had been said about his surprising offer of marriage. The king would keep his word and give her time to make up her mind. Mara had thought of confiding her worries about Colman to him as they rode home but she had been unwilling to break the atmosphere of friendship and easy happiness that existed between the two of them. Tomorrow night, she told herself, tomorrow night I will talk to him about Colman. There was no easy solution; she could not simply transfer the young man to Corcomroe or to Thomond. He was too flawed, too corrupt for that. The problem that Colman posed needed to be addressed as soon as he returned on Sunday night.
‘The lads are brighter this morning, Brehon,’ said Brigid, meeting Mara at the door and raising her voice to be heard above the raucous shouts from within.
‘They’re certainly noisier,’ said Mara dryly, but she felt a flood of relief. Perhaps she needn’t have worried; boys of that age were often moody. The intense long-drawn-out studies at the law school put a great strain on them. Her thoughts drifted to young Feirdin. Her last sight of him had been of a solitary figure making his way up the mountainside, stooping from time to time to pick up a piece of rock, or to study a stone. Hopefully he had a good evening watching all that went on. Obviously there had been no trouble or she would have heard by now.
‘Come on, Bran,’ she said and went into the kitchen house. The boys had eaten a big meal – the porridge pot was empty, as was the platter for oatcakes and there was a well-scraped-out pot of honey on the table. They rose politely and wished her the blessing of God, but the voices still sounded constrained and as they filed out into the open air she noticed again how pale and hollow-eyed they looked. They were making an effort to appear normal, she thought, and this alarmed her even more than anything else. At this age they seldom worried about saving the feelings of others; if they were unhappy they let the world know about it.
‘Dia’s muire agat, a thirgene,’ they all chorused as the door to the guest house opened, across the stone-flagged yard. Mara turned to greet King Turlough Donn. He was looking well, she thought affectionately. His sunburned face was glowing and his eyes were bright with excitement.
‘Have you had a good breakfast?’ she called as she went to meet him.
‘I have, indeed,’ he said, greeting her with his customary kiss. His hands held hers for a moment. He won’t take no for an answer easily, she thought.
‘Where are we meeting Murrough and the dogs?’ he went on.
‘By Poulnabrone. Murrough’s place, Cathair Chaisleáin, is on the cliff behind the dolmen. We’ll walk,’ she added firmly. ‘It’s only a couple of miles and there is no sense in taking the horses and leaving them tied up all day. The howling of the wolves might upset them.’
The six boys went ahead of the four adults and they were already at the dolmen by the time Mara, the king and the two bodyguards reached the last field of Baur North. She could see Murrough coming down the steep narrow hillside path from Cathair Chaisleáin, accompanied by a pack of wolfhounds. The quiet cool air of the early morning was filled with their excited barking. Bran barked back; he knew them all well.
‘Here you are, my lord, there’s a great hunting dog for you,’ said Murrough breathlessly, handing over a large grey wolfhound to the king, ‘and here’s one each for your bodyguards, for Fergal and for Conall. I’m afraid that the scholars will have to share. I’ve only got three more to spare.’
‘That’s fine,’ said Mara. ‘Fachtnan, you take Hugh, Enda you take Shane, Moylan and Aidan you go together.’ Normally she would have put Shane, as the youngest, into the care of Fachtnan, but she was worried about Hugh and Fachtnan was not only the eldest, but also the most gentle of the boys. She saw him look quickly at Hugh and there was a comforting reassurance
in the way that he took Hugh’s smaller hand into his own large one and then handed the leash of the wolfhound to him.
‘I had a word with Fiachra at Bealtaine night and he took his sheep off the mountain first thing yesterday morning. He said that he didn’t see a sight or a sound of a wolf while he was doing it,’ said Murrough. ‘They’ll be back by today, though.’
‘There’s no fear of any other sheep being on the mountain?’ asked Mara. ‘I know your dogs don’t chase sheep, but if there were some in lamb they might frighten them and make them drop their lambs.’
‘No, all of the lambing sheep are down in the valleys or in barns by now,’ said Murrough. ‘Fiachra just had some hoggets on the mountain. No one would have the lambing ewes up there – not with the prices that you can get for wool these days. Most people will be shearing today or tomorrow if this weather keeps up.’
‘Where shall we try first?’ asked the king, warily eyeing the 1,800 feet of the mountain. ‘They won’t have gone up to the top yet, will they?’
‘Well, I thought we might split up when we get to the first terrace,’ said Murrough. ‘Each try a different direction; the dogs will let us know when they get a scent and then we can release them.’
The great dogs climbed effortlessly and the humans clung on to the leashes and panted. The sun was rising and the limestone mountain glinted.
‘Hot, isn’t it?’ said Turlough Donn, leaning back heavily to stop his dog while he fumbled in his pouch for a fine linen handkerchief to wipe his sweating forehead.
‘My dog is better trained than yours so I am getting more exercise than you,’ said Mara with mock concern. ‘Would you like to swap? You’d get more exercise with Bran. He wouldn’t pull as much as Murrough’s dog so you would have to do more climbing.’
‘No, thank you! Anyway, you are younger than I am and used to this sort of thing. You wouldn’t believe the number of hours I have to spend sitting listening to all my Brehons, and my poets, and then there is all the entertaining of guests and the meals and wine and mead. I can do with this sort of exercise, I suppose.’
‘Come any time, my lord,’ said Murrough enthusiastically. ‘There’s nowhere like the Burren for good sport like this.’
‘Hugh and I are going to try Wolf’s Lair,’ shouted back Fachtnan, who had just reached the first terrace.
‘Take care,’ called Mara but she was not really worried. Wolf’s Lair was, in fact, just a hollow on the side of the mountain; it may once have been the lair of a wolf, but she had been up there hundreds of times and had never seen a sign of one there.
Now there was a great scramble for the other boys to reach the first terrace and to shout out their destinations. Mara smiled indulgently as they all went in different directions. She sensed a certain relief of tension in the young voices. They would enjoy their morning, after all.
‘Slip the leash as soon as your dog picks up the scent,’ yelled Murrough.
‘Come on, my lord,’ said Mara teasingly. ‘You have the best dog. Don’t hold him back.’
‘I’ll slip the leash as soon as I reach the terrace,’ grunted the king. ‘He’ll do better on his own.’
‘The first one to catch a wolf will have the fur for a cloak,’ yelled Murrough.
‘Murrough does a great trade in fur-lined cloaks,’ said Mara to the king. ‘Sorcha’s husband, Oisín, sells them for him in Galway. He …’ Then she stopped. Bran was jerking her forward; that was not like him. He was very well trained.
‘What’s the matter, Bran?’ she asked. He was whining now and scenting the air, his quivering nose pointing in the direction of Wolf’s Lair. Mara grasped a rough projecting point of rock and hauled herself on to the first terrace. She could see everyone except Fachtnan and Hugh who were hidden by an outcrop of rock, but Bran was whimpering and pulling in that direction. Mara held him for a minute, straining her ears for a cry, but there was none. She looked down at Bran. There was something very wrong with him, she knew. He looked at her and there was fear, or a sort of agony of apprehension, in his eyes. He was not hurt; his breathing had hardly quickened. This was something different.
Then, quite suddenly, Bran sat back on his haunches, threw back his head and howled. The howl reverberated through the air, bouncing back from the stone terraces. And then the other wolfhounds took up the sound and the air was soon filled with the noise.
‘They’ve scented,’ shouted the king.
‘No,’ said Murrough. ‘Don’t release them yet. That was just Bran set them off. That’s not the noise they would make. They would bark. There’s something wrong.’
‘I’m releasing Bran,’ said Mara with decision. ‘Hold the other dogs until I see what’s wrong.’ She bent down and unfastened the leash. ‘Off you go, boy,’ she said, and he was gone almost before the words were out of her mouth.
Mara followed as quickly as she could but Bran was out of sight in a second. Then, to her relief, she heard Fachtnan’s voice.
‘Bran,’ he shouted.
‘Bran,’ came Hugh’s high voice.
Mara’s heart slowed down. They were both safe, but the puzzling thing was that Bran seemed to have gone ahead of them. She could hear Fachtnan shouting to his dog. ‘Lugha, wait,’ he kept yelling. The dog was trying to follow Bran and Fachtnan was trying to hold him. Mara climbed as fast as she could and had just rounded the rock outcrop when she saw Fachtnan bend down and release his wolfhound. Bran was still howling – it sounded as if he had reached Wolf’s Lair – and then a second howl joined his as the other dog joined him. The short hairs on the back of Mara’s neck seemed to stiffen. The noise was like something from another world.
Fachtnan had stopped now. His face was white and his arm was around Hugh’s shoulders. Hugh was crying, but Mara did not stop to comfort him. She had to see what it was that made Bran howl like that. Quickly she brushed past them and climbed, using toes and fingernails, and exerting every muscle in her body, heedless of pain and exhaustion.
Huge, gleaming chunks of sharp-edged limestone lay about Wolf’s Lair, but goats had sheltered for thousands of years between the rocks, and their droppings had fertilized the broken stone and made a small garden filled with exquisite flowers: delicate butterfly orchids, tiny dark blue gentians, late violets, white rock roses and tall purple butterwort on the sunny south-facing side, and delicate spirals of round-leaved maidenhair ferns on the shady north side.
There were no goats there on that Saturday morning, 2 May 1509. There were no wolves either, but there was a man. The man lay curled up on the ground. He was slightly built, fair-haired, with delicate, hardly distorted features. He was wearing a saffron léine and his cloak was pinned with a heavy, ornate silver brooch. That was not the only piece of silver on him. For a moment Mara thought Colman was sleeping and then she noticed the silver jewel-studded handle of a knife protruding from the back of his neck.
Mara took two steps forward and then sank to her knees. The crinkled edges of the water-worn limestone pierced the fine linen of her gown and jabbed into the soft flesh of her knees. She was glad of the discomfort; it distracted her from the sickness that welled up within her. For a moment she had been afraid that she might faint. She stayed very still for a moment, her eyes closed, and then she opened them. She allowed the tears to well up and to run down her cheeks.
Colman had been one of the first students to come to her law school after she had become Brehon of the Burren. She had known him as a five-year-old child, as an adolescent, and then as a man. And now he was dead. She reached out blindly and her hand found Bran’s comforting bulk beside her.
‘Hush,’ she said softly, her hand automatically stroking Bran’s head, smoothing down the hackles along his spine and trying to quieten the muted howl that still emerged from him. Resolutely she wiped the tears from her cheeks and stood up. Yes, the man was Colman; but the silver knife was Hugh’s.
Mara’s mind and heart seemed to split into two. She had to mourn Colman; she had to mourn him and to find his m
urderer, but first she had to care for Hugh. The dog, Lugha, had returned to Murrough so she slipped the leash on to Bran and turned away, her mind automatically checking through everything that she would have to do that day. It took her only a few minutes until she was back with Fachtnan and Hugh.
‘You knew about Colman?’ she said to Fachtnan, drawing Hugh to her side.
Fachtnan quailed under her look, but said nothing.
‘I told him,’ said Hugh. ‘I told them all. I told them to say nothing.’
Mara shot Fachtnan a glance and he coloured up to the edge of his thatch of thick curly hair.
‘You knew he was dead?’ she asked. ‘You all knew?’
‘We thought that someone else would find him,’ said Fachtnan quickly. ‘We couldn’t believe it when no news came yesterday. So we thought we should …’ His voice trailed away.
Mara considered this; it was a likely story. They probably did think that someone else would find him; that they would not have to bear the responsibility of reporting this killing. And why didn’t someone find him? Almost everyone would have passed Wolf’s Lair on the way back down the mountain.
Mara sat herself on a rock and drew Hugh towards her. She had a sudden impulse to take him on her lap, but she resisted it. He was small for his age, but he was twelve and she had to consider his dignity. She patted the rock beside her and he sat down. He already looked a little better, as if a weight had been taken from him.
‘Brehon,’ came Murrough’s voice. ‘Is everything all right?’
‘Hold all the dogs, Murrough,’ she called back. ‘Keep them there with you. I’ll be down in a minute.’
‘Now, Hugh,’ she said urgently. ‘Tell me the truth as quickly as you can. You know the law. You know that no child under fourteen can be punished for a crime. If you admit everything now, your father will pay the fine to Colman’s family.’
‘I didn’t kill him, Brehon,’ said Hugh hopelessly.
My Lady Judge Page 9