Then Hugh’s words came back to her memory: once Roderic was enticed into the Cauldron, he had said, then Aidan was going to escape out the other end, block the hole, and join the others on top. There must be another exit. Someone had trapped the boys, whether by malice or for a joke, and her three young scholars were now somewhere deep in the confusing labyrinth of passages that honeycombed these caves. She had no memory of another exit, but it was over twenty years since she had been down here and this soft limestone of the Burren was always decaying and crumbling.
Mara hesitated for a moment; perhaps she should go back and wait for Cumhal. He and some of the other men from the farm could go down with torches and ropes and search for the boys. On the other hand, Cumhal might not come for a while and who knows, the boys could have got tired of the cave and gone elsewhere, planning to retrieve their ladder on the way back. Time meant little to boys of that age; she had learned that through experience.
I’ll just go down and have a look to see if there is another exit first, she thought. If there isn’t, then they must be elsewhere. If there is an exit then I’ll go back and send some men down.
The iron spar that Dualta had driven into the stone of the passageway twenty-four years ago was still there. They had used a rope, not a ladder, she remembered. She remembered also how he had filled the chamber with great armfuls of ferns so that no mud showed on their clothes when they went back to the law school and, despite her worries about Enda, Moylan and Aidan, a grin touched her lips. She hooked the ladder over the iron spar and scrambled down.
The chamber was about the size of a small room and perfectly round in shape as if it had been hollowed out by some giant hand. The roof, thirty feet above her head, was hung with spear-like stalks of petrified limestone. Except for one change, everything was as she had remembered it; the walls had been smooth and unbroken twenty years ago, but since then there had been a rockfall, and behind a pile of broken stone was a small passageway.
SEVENTEEN
CÁIN ÍARRAITH (THE LAW OF CHILDREN)
The relationship between a felmacc, pupil, and his master is similar to that of a foster-father, dátan, and his dalta, foster-son. The felmacc must be taught board games, such as fidchell, chess, and must be instructed in all aspects of the profession of his master. The master is responsible for the safety of the felmacc.
ENDA,’ CALLED MARA. THERE was no doubt in her mind that the boys had come through this exit from the Cauldron. Smears of wet clay were here and there, and more footmarks from hobnailed boots. The roaring sound was even louder now and her anxiety sharpened. What could it be? Though there were very few rivers on the Burren, there were several in Corcomroe and in Thomond and this sound was the sound of a river in full flood. Perhaps the caves were flooded further down. The caves at Kilcorney flooded on a regular basis after heavy rain.
Mara knew that it would be sensible to go back, but her anxiety for the boys made her press onwards. Just a little further, she told herself, shutting her mind to the realization that she was being impetuous and unwise.
Further along, the passageway was more difficult. The rocks on either side were water-worn, their straight sides scalloped into gentle curves, but the stream that had carved its way through them thousands of years ago had been feeble and intermittent, leaving a narrow and twisted channel. She reached the end of it and came to a more open space. This passage forked and her common sense told her that she should go no further without help.
‘Enda!’ she called again, using all the power of her well-trained voice. She did not expect an answer and had turned to go back when suddenly she realized that there had been another sound deep within the booming noise that had been her constant companion. Could it have been a voice?
‘Moylan!’ she screamed. Her father had often told her that the letters ‘m’, ‘p’ and ‘b’ come out with the most force. She should have remembered this and shouted ‘Moylan’ before. It was a far better name to yell than ‘Enda’.
‘Help!’ The word was faint, but it was unmistakable. It came from the left and Mara hesitated no longer. She could not turn back now or wait for Cumhal. The boys might be in danger. However, she could mark her way back. She had enough experience of these caves to know how passageways twisted and turned, and how easy it was to get lost. Like all lawyers, in her pouch she always kept a spool of pink linen tape and a small lump of sealing wax. There was not too much of the tape left; she had given some to Nuala to tie up her woodbine plant and she had used a lot the week before when she had visited Ardal O’Lochlainn and had helped him to sort a chest full of old leases. The documents had all been in an untidy jumble and she had gone through them methodically, rolling, labelling and tying them into neat bundles. However, there was enough tape left for her purpose.
With steady hands she opened the horn window of the covered lantern, took the sealing wax from her pouch and held it carefully to the flame of the candle. Once it was soft, she squashed it against the rough edge of a protruding rock and dug the edge of the tape into the soft wax with a fingernail. The tape only stretched a couple of feet down the passageway but it would be enough to show her the correct way back. Brigid would instantly despatch Cumhal to Poll an Cheoil Cave as soon as he returned and this tape would show him the way that she had gone.
‘Moylan,’ she shouted again as she went rapidly down the passageway and this time she distinctly heard the word ‘Help’.
There was no doubt in her mind now that the caves had flooded. The roaring, thundering sound was getting louder every second. It seemed to be coming from beneath her now, although this passageway was extremely wet and small pieces of glistening grass clung to its rough sides. The river from Slieve Elva must have swept along here recently, she thought, with an apprehensive glance over her shoulder. She held her lantern high and then stopped abruptly.
Just a little further from where she was standing, the wall on the right-hand side of the passageway had suddenly disappeared and jagged, broken lumps of rock showed how the river had burst its way through the decayed stone and found another level forty feet lower down. She moved a few feet further on. It was like standing on the side of a mountain and looking down a precipice to the roaring torrent below. For a moment she felt almost dizzy and the noise was so great that it took her another moment to realize that the word ‘Here!’ was coming to her ears.
Mara lifted her lantern and shone it on the craggy wall of the opposite side of the precipice. The three of them were there, only about the width of a room away from her. She could see them quite clearly by the light of her little lantern. They were huddled together on a small ledge and all three were soaking wet, but they were there and they were alive and there was no possibility that the river could reach them as long as they did not try any heroics.
There was no possibility of calling any instruction; the noise was far too great, so she just held up her left hand, palm facing them in the way that she trained dogs to stay. She hesitated to leave the boys, but she could not be sure when Cumhal would return. Getting animals down from the mountainside to their summer grazing land in the valleys was always a tricky task; it might take an hour, but it could take three. Once she got back to Cahermacnaghten, she could summon help. All the people of the Burren would turn out to rescue the boys; she knew that she only had to ask. She looked across at them to make sure that they were looking at her, pointed her finger back along the passageway to tell them that she was going back for help and once again held up her hand. Three heads nodded and she felt a little comforted as she turned, going as quickly as she could, back towards the Cauldron.
Then Mara heard a bark. It seemed at first as if it was one of the sounds of the fast-flowing water below, but then it came again; she knew what it was and a rush of gratitude towards Cumhal warmed her. She should have done that. How intelligent of him. He had taken Bran, and Bran would scent his mistress. She need not have bothered with the pink linen tape. Mara moved quickly up the passage. She rounded the corner and then s
topped and waited, a smile broadening on her face.
Yes, it was Bran, but it wasn’t Cumhal. Bran was being held by Turlough Donn, King of Thomond, Corcomroe and Burren, and descendant of Brian Boru. And behind him were the two bodyguards, and then Fachtnan, Roderic, and then the company of ten gallóglaich, some holding lanterns and some, coils of rope.
‘My lord,’ said Mara demurely as she patted the ecstatic Bran. ‘This is no place for you.’
‘I can’t allow you out of my sight for a minute,’ grumbled the king. His arms went around her tightly and from over his shoulder Mara could see the gallóglaich glance at one another and then look away. There were a few wide grins, but she didn’t care. Suddenly she felt her legs tremble and she had never been so glad to see anyone.
‘Three of my boys are down here,’ she said in his ear. ‘They’re on a ledge above the river.’
He nodded. ‘These lads will get them out; give them something to do. They’re getting bored; there’s not a sight or a sound of an O’Kelly anywhere. I suspect you killed them all off up there on Clerics’ Pass and you’re not telling me. Someone will find the bodies one day and then we’ll have to have a big investigation. Now, let’s see where those boys of yours are. Here’ – he handed her the leash – ‘you’d better take Bran. He has nearly pulled my arm out of its socket. I thought you said he was well trained.’
Mara grinned. They were back to their old good-natured, teasing relationship. For a moment, there in his arms, she had sensed that she wanted something different, but her legs had steadied and she felt in control once more.
‘We’d better talk here as it’s far too noisy to hear anything back there,’ she said, moving away from him and addressing the gallóglaich. They straightened up at her cool tone of command and looked at her with immense solemnity. She kept her eyes averted from Turlough, knowing that he would be grinning.
‘The heavy rain during the past few nights has caused the caves to become flooded,’ she continued. ‘I think the river came down here, probably when the three boys were in this passageway, then burst through some thin rock further on and fell to a level of about forty feet below here. I think that it probably swept the three boys along with it and, by the grace of God, they managed to scramble up on to a ledge. If some of you hold the ropes and a couple of volunteers would drop down into the river you could probably reach them. There’ll be a flagon of mead to be shared when we are all safely back at Cahermacnaghten.’ She started to lead the way back.
‘Can the boys swim, Brehon?’ asked one of the gallóglaich.
She turned back and nodded. ‘Yes, they are all good swimmers,’ she said. That was something that she always insisted of her scholars, that they all learn to swim, to ride and to climb rocks in safety. Cumhal taught each of them and let her know when they were safe to be allowed out on their own. She was realistic enough to know that young boys would always be adventurous and would always get into various dangerous situations but, rather than lock them up, she gave them the skills to extricate themselves.
There was a buzz of enthusiastic comments and suggestions from the gallóglaich, but she pressed on rapidly down the passageway. She would not be easy until she saw that the boys were safe.
They were still there, however, and now she could see them more clearly by the light of the many lanterns, each of them larger than her own. She drew in a breath of relief. None of the three appeared to have been injured. They would only be wet and very cold.
All the time that the gallóglaich were tying the ropes, swimming across the river, clambering on each other’s backs, lowering Enda, Moylan and Aidan down, Mara’s mind was busy. She looked speculatively at Roderic. He didn’t seem as shocked and worried as did Fachtnan, but he looked concerned – normal, she thought. She would have to speak to him and she would do so tonight, but she thought it was fairly unlikely that his were the hands that pulled up the rope from the Cauldron and placed the heavy flagstone over the entrance to the hole. He was a well-balanced, good-natured young man; she had known him since he was two years old. If he had taken the rope away to give them a fright, he would have been back fairly soon to release them.
Once the boys had all been safely hoisted up she resisted an impulse to hug them all, though Bran made up for it, wagging his tail and licking bare, wet legs. She turned and led the way back down the passageway. No one spoke, even when they had reached a spot where the river’s thunder was muted. The whole procession followed her in respectful silence.
When they came to the Cauldron, she stood back.
‘Go straight to school,’ she said severely to the wet trio. ‘Boil yourself some water, have a hot wash and go straight to bed. I will see you in the morning. Fachtnan, will you go with them and make sure they do this? Oh, and Fachtnan, ask Brigid to prepare some hot water and some dry léinte so that these men can change. Ask her to get out the flagon of mead, also. Roderic,’ she turned to the young horn player, ‘could you wait for me at Cahermacnaghten? I would like to have a word with you.’ Roderic looked a little bewildered at that, she thought, regarding him keenly. He certainly did not look like a man with a guilty secret.
The boys and the gallóglaich, one of them carrying Bran across his shoulders, filed up the ladder in silence, and she waited until they were all gone before turning to find Turlough with an amused smile on his face.
‘What will you do to them tomorrow?’ he asked. ‘Hang, draw and quarter them?’
‘No,’ she said lightly. ‘Brehon law does not exact punishment, just confession, repentance and compensation. They will confess; I’m sure that they have already repented; and the only ones hurt by this escapade were themselves. It was just a prank that went wrong.’ Then she told him all about Enda’s idea of extracting a confession.
‘You’re too soft with them,’ said Turlough. ‘They should be at my old school at Emly Abbey. The monks would have flayed them.’
‘Well, the church has never really accepted Brehon laws,’ said Mara tolerantly. ‘St Patrick did his best to change them to his own liking and Rome has been trying to impose her own laws ever since, especially the laws about “an eye for an eye”, “a death for a death”.’
Turlough laughed. ‘I suppose Enda and his friends were pretty enterprising to try to solve the murder on their own. So which of them did they hope to get to confess, the horn player or the stone-cutter? ’
Mara shrugged. ‘Knowing Enda, possibly both,’ she said. ‘He is a boy of great ambition and belief in himself.’
‘And why are you going to cross-question young Roderic, then?’
‘Just to see what happened,’ said Mara, seizing the ropes with both hands and climbing swiftly up the ladder. For the moment, she would keep to herself the mystery about the missing ladder and the flagstone, she decided.
Roderic was waiting for her, sitting on the wall of her garden, when she arrived. The king looked good-humouredly from him to Mara and then strode off to the law school courtyard where Cumhal had lit a large bonfire to dry and warm the men. Fachtnan was filling goblets and Brigid held a basket of newly baked rolls. The gallóglaich were enjoying their mead, she noticed, hoping that it would not distract them too much from their duties of guarding the king.
‘Well, what happened?’ she asked and then, as Roderic hesitated, she said quickly, ‘Shane and Hugh told me about the silly message. Did you go down the cave?’
‘I was going to,’ he confessed. ‘But I heard them giggling and I guessed it was a joke. Then, just to make sure, I went across to Caheridoola to see if Emer was there.’
‘And she was?’
‘Yes,’ said Roderic. ‘She was helping her mother with the washing so I came away.’
‘And decided to play a trick on the boys in the caves?’
‘No!’ said Roderic, bewildered. ‘No, I didn’t know that Enda, Moylan and Aidan were actually in the caves. I saw Hugh and Shane running back towards the law school then. I met Fachtnan later on and went back with him. That was when I found
that the boys were missing.’
‘And you didn’t see anyone else?’
Roderic shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I can’t remember seeing anyone.’
‘Thank you, Roderic,’ said Mara, rising to her feet. ‘Well, you’d better get off home if you are all going to start off early in the morning. I’ll walk down the road with you. I want to see Fachtnan.’ Her eyes were on the tall, blond-haired figure that had just come out from the gate of the law school and was walking slowly down the road towards them.
‘Yes, Enda?’ she asked coldly. Roderic quickened his step and went on through the gates to make his farewells.
Enda hesitated. ‘I know you said to go straight to bed and that you would see us in the morning, Brehon,’ he said nervously, ‘but I just wanted you to know that it was all my fault and that Aidan and Moylan didn’t really want to do it. It was all my fault,’ he repeated, ‘and it was stupid and childish and I know I could have got them killed. I hope that I will be the only one to be punished, Brehon, and that you won’t punish them. They’re very upset.’
Mara considered this for a moment. It was a confession and if he took it to heart it might be a turning point for this impulsive boy. ‘We’ll talk about it all tomorrow evening after you come back from Fanore,’ she said, ignoring his incredulous gasp. Obviously he had expected that treat to be cancelled for them. ‘Or else the following morning, as you will be tired after a day at the sea. Just one thing, Enda. Did either Roderic or Oscar O’Connor turn up at the caves?’
‘No, Brehon,’ said Enda respectfully. ‘We didn’t see either of them.’
‘So who do you think pulled up the ladder and closed off the hole with the flagstone?’
My Lady Judge Page 21