‘That’s Oscar,’ said Fergus in a low voice as a tall, black-haired young man came out from the house and followed his man to the quarry. Fergus handed the reins of his horse to Fachtnan and went down the dusty path to meet him. Mara looked after him with annoyance. This was Fergus’s territory, but she would have preferred to deal with the questioning of Oscar herself. Quickly she swung herself down from her horse, handed her reins to Fachtnan and went after Fergus, neatly sidestepping the rocks that lay strewn on the path. They arrived at the same moment so all Fergus had time to say was: ‘The Brehon of the Burren would like to speak to you, Oscar.’
Mara could see a flash of shock, even fear, in the young man’s eyes. He clearly hadn’t known who she was. Of course, he had just arrived at Mullaghmore Mountain when she was leaving; he may not even have noticed her that Bealtaine evening. But why should he be so alarmed?
‘About your cousin’s death,’ she said rapidly before Fergus said any more.
That was not such a shock. He just nodded. ‘You knew about Colman Lynch’s death, then?’ she asked. Fachtnan had handed the reins of the three horses to one of the quarry men and he came up to them quietly. He seated himself on a rock and took out his quill, his inkhorn and his writing tablets from his pouch.
‘We might be more comfortable inside your house,’ said Mara to the young man. She had seen him glance furtively around. The tapping of mallets had stopped and everyone seemed to be listening.
‘Yes,’ he said in a deep, husky voice. ‘Come inside.’
‘You knew of your cousin’s death?’ she repeated. As the four of them moved along the narrow path she deliberately stepped in front of Fergus and walked by Oscar’s side. This was her investigation and she was going to conduct it in her own way.
‘Yes,’ he said again. ‘I went to the burial. I was in Galway on Sunday. Just by chance.’
‘So no one sent to tell you of the death?’
‘No,’ he said as he pushed open the door and stood back to let her enter. ‘It was by chance that I was there,’ he repeated and there was a note of slight bitterness in his voice. Understandable that he should feel bitter, thought Mara as she went in. She was not surprised, though. The Lynch family was one of the most powerful families in Galway. There would be plenty of people to invite to the burial without worrying about the poor relations in Corcomroe.
‘And Colman Lynch was your first cousin; your father’s sister married Sean Lynch,’ she stated, sitting down on a stool. Fergus went and stood by the window while Fachtnan seated himself on another stool at the dusty table and took the top off his inkhorn. Oscar nodded wordlessly.
Mara waited until Fachtnan wrote a few lines and then she asked calmly, ‘Why did you come to Mullaghmore on Bealtaine Eve?’
The window was covered in powdery flour-like dust from the limestone quarry and little light came through it, but Mara could not miss the convulsive start that Oscar gave. Obviously he had hoped that he had not been recognized on that night. He did not reply and she repeated the question, hoping that Fergus would not intervene to prompt the young man.
‘I came to see Colman,’ he said eventually.
Mara waited for Fachtnan to write this down and then proceeded. ‘And did you see him?’
There was another long silence. Mara could almost read his mind while he struggled with various explanations and then rejected them. She waited patiently, looking around the room. It was a poor place, inside here, she thought, though the house was well built on the outside. The air smelled damp through the layer of dust. The wooden settle by the empty fireplace had no cushions. The table was roughly made, the legs slightly uneven with a piece of stone wedged under one leg, and its surface unplaned, splintered and spotted with rings of ale cups and stains of long-past meals. She looked back at Oscar and raised an eyebrow.
‘I did see him, just for a minute or two,’ he blurted out.
‘And what did you talk about?’
There was another long silence and then Mara said encouragingly: ‘Just tell the truth. Sooner or later I will find out what was said. There were plenty of people there that night and someone will have been bound to overhear you.’ Was Colman blackmailing this cousin of his? she wondered.
‘Did he ask you for silver?’ she continued.
That startled him. She could see he gave a slight jump. His large hand balled itself into a fist.
‘No,’ he said bitterly. ‘I asked him for silver. I thought he owed me something. He had taken away my trade. All I can do now is to crawl on the cliffs like my father and brother, and probably die like them, too.’
‘Tell me about it,’ said Mara softly, but suddenly she understood. It had only been a few days since she and King Turlough had discussed the laws of Galway and the excluding of the Gaelic clans.
Oscar O’Connor seemed glad of an audience, glad to pour out his grievances. ‘I had built up a good trade in Galway,’ he said rapidly. ‘I was down at the docks every day when a ship came in. I would have a couple of our flagstones with me and I would show them to the merchants from foreign countries. Everyone liked them. These stones of ours are something they don’t have in many other places. They don’t ever become slippery in damp weather. You know what they’re like.’ He scuffed the dirty floor with the toe of his boot. Mara understood what he meant. The surface of the limestone flags from this area was ridged with an intricate pattern, rather like worm casts on the sand. She had them herself on the floors of her house; Brigid complained of how hard they were to scrub and polish but, it was true, no one could ever slip on them.
‘Of course, the law is that if your name begins with an “O” or a “Mac” you can’t trade in Galway,’ he continued, ‘but a lot of people don’t take too much notice of that.’
This was true, thought Mara. Her own son-in-law, Oisín O’Davoren, had traded in Galway for many years and no one had caused trouble for him.
‘How many years were you there?’ she asked.
‘About six,’ he replied. Suddenly he was talking fluently, his black eyes burning with passion. ‘Seán Lynch rented the premises to me originally, but then he wanted me to buy it and I did. I was making plenty of silver by then,’ he said proudly. ‘The ships from Spain and from France that had unloaded barrels of wine were only too keen to take back the same weight as ballast. Leather goods, which was what most of them wanted, don’t weigh much, so the flagstones made up the weight.’
‘And then …’ prompted Mara.
His balled-up fist struck the table with a force that made a splash of ink shoot out from the horn. Fachtnan gave him a quick glance and steadied the inkhorn with one hand while continuing to write with the other.
‘And then Colman came along and laid information against me with the Mayor of Galway and I was told to get out of the city and Colman claimed his reward,’ he said rapidly. ‘My shop, the place that I had bought, and paid for, and furnished, and kept in repair, that was all given to Colman as his reward for informing on me.’
‘And what happened when you spoke to Colman on Bealtaine evening?’
She heard him draw in a breath. Outside the window the steady stroke of the iron mallet on the hard stone continued to ring, but inside, the damp, cold room seemed suddenly very quiet.
‘I told him how angry I was and then I left,’ he said tonelessly. Now the dark eyes were veiled by jet-black eyelashes. Fergus peered at him curiously, half opened his mouth but then closed it again.
Mara waited, but no more came. ‘Colman said nothing?’ she asked, allowing her voice to sound incredulous.
Oscar shrugged. ‘He sneered a bit,’ he said after a minute. ‘He told me that he planned to set himself up as a lawyer in that shop. He was tired of the law school and he wasn’t going to stay another year. He had plans to make a fortune, I suppose. There are always people buying and selling in Galway and Colman had been studying English law as well as Brehon law.’
Mara nodded. So that was what Colman had been doing during his freque
nt absences from the law school. He had been building up a client base in Galway and studying English law. Now she no longer wondered why he had stooped to blackmail instead of asking his parents for money. Colman’s ambitions had been boundless. No doubt he had seen himself as a merchant prince of Galway and perhaps Lord Mayor as well. The legal business would be just a start.
‘And what did you say?’ she enquired.
‘I thought it was no good talking to him so I just came away.’
‘And he was alive when you left?’
‘Of course he was,’ said Oscar bitterly. ‘He was alive and smirking.’
‘It was still bright, then. You could see his face?’
‘I could see his face, all right,’ said Oscar. There was a brooding look on his own face.
‘And did you see anyone nearby as you left?’
‘There were plenty of people around,’ said Oscar. ‘But I didn’t know any of them. I cursed myself for a fool for coming. I hadn’t planned it: I was on my way back from Galway and I saw all the people going up. I knew he’d be there. The last time that I saw him, in Sean Lynch’s place, he had been boasting about judgement day and how important he was.’
‘You say that you didn’t know any of the people, but you know Diarmuid O’Connor, don’t you?’ asked Mara sharply. ‘He saw you.’
Oscar shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I don’t remember the name. Who is he?’
Mara didn’t answer. She was busy thinking. His story was fairly plausible; if he went away while it was still bright he was definitely not the one who killed Colman. However, she would need evidence of this before she took him off her list of possible murderers. He was very strong; he could definitely overpower Colman who had been slender and lightly built. Surely, if his story were true, someone would have seen him go down while it was still bright? This was a matter that the boys could investigate. Enda would love that, she thought indulgently. She would give him the task of looking for evidence of Oscar’s arrival and departure. He could be in charge of organizing Moylan and Aidan to help him get evidence. At nearly sixteen he was yearning for some responsibility.
Mara rose to her feet. ‘I may need to speak to you again,’ she said. ‘You will be here?’
He accompanied them to the door, opened it and stood looking over the dusty scene of back-breaking toil.
‘I’ll be here,’ he said with a depth of bitterness in his voice that saddened her. ‘I’ll be here unless I’m at the bottom of the sea. At the moment I feel that’s the best prospect facing me.’
‘You’ll find a way to combine your father’s business and your own, Oscar,’ said Fergus encouragingly. ‘Galway should not be allowed to take all the trade. When I was young, Liscannor was almost as busy a port. Perhaps it will be again.’
Oscar did not look convinced, Mara thought, and she suspected that he saw the position more clearly than did Fergus. Perhaps Gaelic Ireland was at risk. Perhaps the gloomy thoughts of Turlough were prophetic. Perhaps this new king, Henry VIII, would turn his thoughts towards Ireland and would sweep away the Gaelic customs and the Gaelic laws. Still, she thought cheerfully, while I’m here I will do my best for the people of the Burren, and what I need to do now is to solve this secret and unlawful killing and allow everything to get back to normal.
‘I don’t think that I can spare the time to come back with you, Fergus,’ she said when they came to the crossroads. She noted with pleasure how her voice held the correct note of regret. ‘There is so much to do, so much evidence to gather, so many people to see and then, of course, there are my scholars …’
‘Of course,’ said Fergus solemnly. ‘I do understand. Siobhan will be disappointed; she would have loved a good gossip with you, but she will understand, also. Another day … another day in happier times.’
‘Another day,’ echoed Mara, carefully arranging her face to look preoccupied and worried. She waved to him and hastily quickened her pace to catch Fachtnan up with the air of a woman who has many tasks on her mind. He is such a nice man, she thought with some compunction. Others in his position would have cross-questioned her, tried to impose their advice and opinions on her. Without his help, she might never have attained the position of Brehon of the Burren. Despite all the careful provision in the law texts for female poets, female physicians, female wood-wrights and female blacksmiths, it was generally held in Ireland that women were inferior to men.
‘Better than in England, though,’ she said aloud and Fachtnan turned to look at her. She laughed. ‘I was just thinking that the position of women is probably better here than anywhere else,’ she said.
‘Was it difficult for you to become a Brehon?’ asked Fachtnan curiously.
‘Fergus spoke up for me,’ said Mara, feeling a twinge of guilt. It would not have hurt, she thought, to have gone and spent ten minutes with him and Siobhan. ‘We had to go to the court at Thomond; King Turlough’s uncle was king then. Fergus brought along all the law texts and wisdom texts which showed that women had been Brehons in the past. He spoke for so long that the old king almost fell asleep. He even trotted out the old story about the judge Sencha being put right by the wise elderly female judge, Brig.’
‘Well, I think you are a very good Brehon,’ said Fachtnan awkwardly.
‘Thank you, Fachtnan, I do my best,’ said Mara. ‘I only hope I can solve this case speedily,’ she added, half to Fachtnan and half to herself. She hated to think of the slow poison of fear, suspicion and apprehension seeping into the daily life of the people that she served.
FIFTEEN
CÁIN LÁNAMNA (THE LAW OF MARRIAGE)
Imscarad, divorce, is permitted for many reasons. In the following cases the woman may retain her coibche, bride price:
1. If the man leaves her for another woman
2. If the man is impotent or homosexual
3. If he is so fat as to be incapable of intercourse
4. If the man relates secrets of the marriage bed in the alehouse
THE RAIN STARTED TO fall again around sunset and it rained all night. However, soon after sunrise it stopped and when Mara went down to her bathhouse on Tuesday morning thick white clouds were scudding across a sky as blue as the sea. As she washed and dressed her mind was busy with the tasks ahead of her. For once she did not stop in her garden when she came out of the house, but walked quickly down the road and into the empty schoolhouse. Brigid was in the kitchen and Cumhal was milking the goats in the yard behind, but there was no sign of life from the scholars’ house. That was good; she would have a few minutes’ peace.
She took the piece of vellum that Colman’s mother had found and held it to the light of the window. His handwriting was clear, but it was tiny and the west-facing room was dim at this hour of the morning. She had already gone through the list and had a quick look at the first of the numbers: MCDLXX. The year had intrigued her. Her father was Brehon then; he had taken over from his father five years earlier in 1465. The case number was XXXV. She found it again instantly and settled down on her own chair to read it.
There were several shouts from the scholars’ house by the time that she finished undoing the pink linen tape that bound the scroll. The lads seemed to have fully regained their spirits, she thought absent-mindedly. She put down the scroll and cast a quick glance out of the window. They were pouring out of the door of the house, their hair tousled, their faces unwashed. Brigid might send them back now, or she might have pity on them and give them their porridge and honey first. Either way, Brigid would ensure that they would be tidy and well groomed by the time that they came into the schoolroom, so Mara had a few more minutes to herself before they came tumbling in.
She took up the scroll again. It was not a public judgement at Poulnabrone dolmen; she had seen that when she had looked at it before. This was a private affair. There were two names at the head of the scroll. One was the O’Lochlainn, Ardal and Donogh’s father, and the other was Muiris O’Heynes. Mara frowned. It was a strange document, not a formal document of fo
sterage, or of bondage, though it did hold a declaration from the O’Lochlainn that he would care for this fourteen-year-old boy cast up on the sands at Fanore until the boy reached the age of eighteen. She read it through and then rolled it up rapidly, tying it with the pink linen tape and pushing it back on to the shelf. She spent some time gazing through the window, seeing nothing, her mind busy. That indeed could have been a motive for murder. Muiris was not a man to take blackmail lightly, and this was a secret that he would not have been willing to share with anyone.
I must get the blacksmith to put a lock on this cupboard, she thought, eventually, turning away from the window. How could Colman have done this? How could he have betrayed her trust? How could he have forgotten the oath that all scholars swore every year at Michaelmas, the beginning of the law year, that they would never betray any secret that came to their ears during their time at the law school? She looked back at the strip of vellum and the case numbers written on it. She would look at these other cases afterwards, she thought, as she sat down at her desk. First she had to prepare a schedule for her scholars’ day.
‘Dia’s muire agat, a bhean uasil.’ They were all jostling and pushing in through the door, their faces shining, their hair ridged from wet combs.
‘It’s a lovely day, Brehon,’ said Fachtnan politely as he took his place on the front bench.
‘It’ll be just perfect for riding around the Burren gathering evidence,’ said Enda enthusiastically.
‘Have you made your list, Brehon?’ asked Moylan, coming straight to the point instantly.
‘Brehon, can we help too, me and Hugh?’ asked Shane. ‘Oh, and Cumhal says that the wind is going around to the east and we are going to have a few good days now. He is going to Fanore tomorrow to get some seaweed to put on the vegetable garden. He said that I could ask you if we could go as well?’
My Lady Judge Page 18