Condemned to Death

by Cora Harrison

  She looked around at her scholars and said in a cursory way, ‘I’ll take one of you with me.’ She looked them over, pretending to endeavour to make up her mind and then said decisively, ‘I think that I will take you, Finbar. You will be useful to me.’

  Nine

  Bretha Nemed

  (Laws dealing with Professional People)

  Except when on military attacks, or when going on pilgrimage, or attending a fair, all inhabitants of a kingdom should stay within its boundaries. Only professional groups, such as poets, lawyers, physicians, and such like these, are permitted to travel to other kingdoms or states.

  Mara and Finbar set off soon after dawn on the next morning. Her scholars had been surprised and a little scornful that she had not taken advantage of one of the boats going to Galway to sell the delicately smoked fish, or with Brendan and the streaming baskets of samphire in his magnificent new hooker, but Mara decided that she would prefer to ride and took Finbar back with her, leaving Cumhal’s assistant, Séanín, in his place to assist with the gutting and smoking of the fish and the preparing of a midday meal.

  ‘We’ll probably have found the buried treasure by the time you get back,’ said Cormac optimistically and then looked apologetically at Finbar who seemed to have winced slightly. ‘Or we’ll probably wait until you get back until we do it,’ he said quickly.

  ‘It’s not going to be shared out amongst you all, you know,’ said Mara. ‘This is not a treasure hunt, Cormac. What we are looking for is to unravel the mystery of this goldsmith’s death, to find out where the death occurred and then who was responsible for it.’

  Cormac nodded in an off-hand way but Mara had the feeling that, as usual, he was only half-listening to her. He was young, she thought, and tried to remember what other lively scholars of hers had been like at that age. It was no good comparing her son with Domhnall; he had been logical and sensible at even five years old and Slevin had come to the school at the same time as Domhnall, though a year younger, and had fallen tremendously under Domhnall’s influence, admiring and copying him in every respect. Still, she thought, Cormac was a different character completely and she would make no decisions about his future until a few more years elapsed.

  Mara and Finbar set off early, but it was almost noon when they arrived at the gates of the city. Mara had often visited Galway – her married daughter, Sorcha, son-in-law, Oisín, and Domhnall’s younger sister and brother lived there – but for Finbar it was his first visit. He had been very silent on the journey and she had given up trying to get him to talk and had eventually allowed him to ride behind her and occupied her mind with thinking about the Galway connection to this murder.

  But at the first sight of the great stone city surrounded by a high wall and packed with tall houses, built side by side, Finbar’s depression seemed to slip from him. Mara had mentioned the name of Mayor Valentine Blake to the soldier on guard at the gates and they were ushered in and told that the Mayor was in his castle and Finbar was very impressed by the salutes of the military and the shouts of ‘Make way for the lady!’ Used to the open spaces, the scattered cottages and the widely separated enclosures of the Burren, he was astounded, Mara could see, by the sheer volume of buildings pressing in on them and he rode down the middle of the street, with his head continually turning from one side to the other and staring upwards with a stunned expression. In fact, a very large amount of the buildings in the city were tower houses or even small castles and they reared high up above their heads, their castellated roofs outlined against the sky. The streets were well paved with limestone cobbles – a drain running down the centre of each street and a narrow pavement for pedestrians on either side. It was a city built around a western seaport on the Atlantic Ocean, and despite the crowds of people and numerous houses it was fresh and airy even on this hot day in late June. They rode through it, Mara directing their steps towards the northern wall, just where the River Corrib entered the sea.

  ‘Amazing, the amount of people, isn’t it?’ said Mara after a while. She wondered whether Finbar was overwhelmed by the noise and by the sheer numbers of people and buildings that pressed upon them.

  ‘It would be a good place to get lost,’ said Finbar. A rather surprising sentiment, she thought, and wondered whether perhaps he felt that he would be glad to get away from the pity of his fellow scholars and the concern of his teachers. She could understand this and decided that she would have a word with the others and try to get them to treat Finbar in a more normal way. She did not bother him with any more questions, just allowed him to look his fill at all the wonders around him.

  Finbar exclaimed with excitement when he saw their destination. Blake’s castle was very splendid. In fact, Mara thought that it was the most splendid and the largest building in the city of Galway. It had been newly built when she first saw it, ten years ago, and even now the white surface of the limestone walls, the towers and the battlements shone and glittered – almost as white as quartz. It was in a wonderful position, with the restless blue and white inlet of the Atlantic Ocean as a backdrop and surrounded by neat gardens, well walled and guarded from any marauders. Above its gates was a stone shield, with the figure of a cat standing out in bold relief and painted black. Beneath it were the words ‘Virtus sola Nobilitat’ pricked out in gold and black, and Mara drew Finbar’s attention to this.

  He did not question whether it was true that virtue alone ennobled the merchant princes of Galway, or whether successful trading played its part. Others of her scholars, like Cormac and the two MacMahon twins, would have done so, she knew. And she began to think that it was just as well that a decision was now forced upon her about his future. To be a Brehon, logic, reasoning, memory – all of these things had to be present but, above all, the mind itself had to be a lively one, not willing to take anything on trust until it was proved to be true. A Brehon had to be, above all, someone who questioned and who probed. That, she thought, was not Finbar.

  Servants came forward to take their horses as soon as they came through the gate, and Mara guessed from their excessive courtesy that she had been spotted from a window. A moment later the door was thrown open and a handsome dark-eyed man, whose hair was just beginning to turn grey, came to the door and called out exuberantly:

  ‘Welcome! Welcome, Brehon! Welcome to Galway! Come in, come in.’

  The interior matched the glamour of the exciting exterior. As Finbar walked through the front door, held open by her host, he gasped and stood very still, gazing around him, his eyes wide with amazement. Mara was not surprised – she had felt like that, the first time she had seen Valentine Blake’s place. It did show, though, that Brigid was right. Finbar, as she had said, did not just have the most beautiful handwriting, but he was also very artistic.

  And, of course, the hall was magnificent. Finbar’s eyes wandered from wall to wall and then fixed themselves on the spectacular floor that, as Mara remembered from her last visit, appeared to mirror the colour of the ocean outside the windows. The whole expanse was tiled in grey-green marble, flecked here and there with subtle pinpoints of cream, just as the foam of the ocean highlighted its emerald depths.

  ‘That’s Connemara marble,’ she said to Finbar and he nodded and then sank to his knees, while Valentine looked at him with amusement. Finbar was touching the glossily smooth surface, so unlike the rough flagstone slabs that formed the floors of the school and the Brehon’s house at Cahermacnaghten. Here and there mirrors with gilded frames were placed on the walls, tilted at an angle so that they reflected the green of the marble. Heavy oak court cupboards, dark with polish, were placed against the white walls, but the room was dominated by that magnificent floor and Finbar’s glowing eyes went back to it again and again.

  The boy certainly is an artist, thought Mara and so, of course, in his own way, is Valentine Blake. However, she would allow time for the Mayor of Galway to assess the boy so merely said:

  ‘I’m here to beg your help, Valentine, and to report to you the sa
d fate of one of your citizens, one goldsmith. Niall Martin was his name.’

  ‘Was!’ Valentine was as quick as ever and had seized upon the word which she had used unthinkingly.

  ‘Was …’ she agreed.

  ‘Let’s go upstairs,’ said Valentine. ‘We can be private there.’ He half-glanced at Finbar, but Mara said immediately, ‘This is Finbar, one of my law-school scholars. Finbar, the mayor has just as beautiful a floor upstairs, come and see it. And a very beautiful room, if I remember it correctly.’

  Once again the long floor of the room above was of the cream-flecked grey-green marble, but here the tiles were overlaid in places with colourful woven rugs in rich shades of raspberry-red and sea-blue. The walls of the room were panelled in dark gold wood that smelled of lavender polish. Small, precious tapestries hung on the walls, and sconces of sweet-smelling beeswax candles were placed in front of more gilt-framed mirrors. It was all as she had remembered it – a masterpiece produced by an artist with plenty of silver.

  ‘Sit down, Brehon,’ said Valentine heartily, ‘and we’ll have a glass of wine, first. I know how much you like a good burgundy and I have one that I think you will appreciate. And then you can tell me your business. Come and help me, Finbar.’ Finbar crossed the room with him happily, his face flushed with colour, his head turning from side to side and his eyes full of wonder. Mara thought that she had never seen him look like this before. He held up a beautifully engraved glass as though it were the Holy Grail and only came to with a start when he realized that Valentine was waiting, decanter in hand, and a smile on his lips.

  ‘You’ll stay the night, both of you, won’t you? It will be a kindness to me as I am on my own. My wife and son – would you believe it, he is quite a young man now, almost ten years old – well, they are both away visiting her parents, so you will stay, won’t you?’ queried Valentine.

  Mara shook her head. ‘I need to get back,’ she said. ‘I have some urgent business and the days are long at the moment. It’s an easy ride. We will certainly be back in the Burren before it’s dark.’

  ‘At least have a midday meal with me,’ he urged.

  ‘I will, then, since you are so kind,’ she said graciously. ‘Could I ask one more favour of you? The last time that I was here I took my scholars to Blake’s Pie Shop on Bridge Gate Street and I promised Finbar to take him there.’ She told the lie unblushingly, before adding, carelessly, ‘I remember we had a pie there with apricots in it. I wonder do they still make such pies?’

  ‘Indeed they do; it’s a speciality of the house,’ exclaimed Valentine. ‘Old Mr Blake is dead now, but his daughter runs the place. Apricots are her great love. We supply her with plates bearing a pattern of apricot leaves – well, when I say “we” I have to confess that I don’t have much to do with the pottery these days – much too busy – it’s no easy task being lord mayor of a city that is growing as fast as Galway and the trade links are increasing every day with all of this going and coming to the new world. Galway makes a good place to stop off. My nephew is running the pottery and making a great success of it. Yes, of course we’ll have a meal at the pie shop. I’ll send a servant down to tell Joan that we will be with her in an hour or so.’ He was off in a moment and Mara sat there, gathering her thoughts and wondering the best way to handle the two affairs which had brought her to Galway.

  When Valentine came back, Finbar, his ale untouched, was examining a tapestry of a unicorn, a small smile curving his lips. Mara had decided on a plan of action and immediately said: ‘Finbar would love to see your pottery. Would it be possible? Would your nephew mind?’

  ‘I think,’ said Valentine, ‘that any visitor from Mara, Brehon of the Burren, would be welcomed by him. Drink your ale, Finbar and I’ll find a boy to guide you.’

  When he came back, he wore a grin. ‘So, how is that lad working out as a law student?’ he asked bluntly, lifting an eyebrow at her.

  Mara smiled back. This was the easiest part of her visit. She didn’t think that he would say no to her, especially if it was made plain that the arrangement was to be a temporary one unless both sides were happy with it.

  ‘His father has threatened to throw him out because he has twice failed his examinations,’ she said, knowing that would engage his sympathies. ‘He is well educated, writes a beautiful hand, draws well, and I have a feeling that he is very artistic – and that perhaps a trade such as pottery or engraving might suit him better than the law,’ she said, mentally excusing herself to Brigid, who after all, was the one who had first voiced this observation.

  ‘I could use a boy like that, and he might do very well at the pottery, but initially I could take him on as a sort of secretary and messenger and we could see how it goes.’

  ‘Don’t say anything to him yet, will you? I’d have to speak to his father first. The decision has to be his. The boy is well under the age of seventeen. In any case, I would suggest that you take him on just for the summer months to start with, and then you could review it and it gives his father a chance to reverse any decision made in anger,’ said Mara firmly. Her husband, King Turlough, would be back quite soon from his visit to O’Donnell in the north of the Ireland, so if Finbar and Valentine did not suit, then something else could be arranged for the boy. Whatever happened he was not going to be turned loose on the world at the age of fourteen. Fourteen-year-olds should be protected from themselves as well as from a harsh world, she thought, looking back at her first marriage when she was no older than Finbar and how disastrous that had been. Her father had warned her against Dualta, had told her that the boy was idle, too fond of drink, too fond of girls, but she had not taken his advice and he, out of weakness, or out of his deep affection for his daughter, had allowed her to go her own way.

  ‘Finbar is in a state of despair at the moment,’ she said aloud. ‘He worries me; he hardly said a word to me on the way over here.’

  ‘Leave him here with me, now, if you wish.’ He sounded eager to help.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘I’ll take him back with me. He’s not mine to dispose of so don’t say anything to the boy until we find out whether the father will agree. It would be cruel to raise his hopes only to have them disappointed again. Have a look at him today, though, and ask Walter, your nephew, what he thinks. It won’t do any harm for Finbar to see that there are different ways of making a living other than the very difficult route to qualifying as a lawyer. It will do him good to talk with Walter and see how happy he is. Oisín, my son-in-law, the merchant, tells me that Walter is universally liked and esteemed in the business world here in Galway, and that the plates and bowls that he makes sell very well in France and in England.’

  ‘And he never forgets how much he owes to you,’ said Valentine, adding hastily, ‘But it shall be as you please; you know that you can ask any favour of me, as well as of Walter. We both owe you much. Now, tell me what else brings you here. You spoke of Niall Martin. I know – knew the man. What happened to him?’

  Mara paused for a moment, gathering her thoughts. ‘Niall Martin came, apparently on many occasions during the last few years, to the seashore on the north-western side of the Burren, to a place called Fanore – a name which is made up of two Gaelic words, the one meaning “slope” and the other meaning “gold”, so the golden slope.’

  ‘Referring to the sand?’

  ‘Perhaps,’ she said, not committing herself. ‘There are reports that Niall Martin engaged various fishermen from our kingdom – people who sometimes sold fish in Galway – to take him over, leave him for a few hours to explore the area, and then to return with him.’

  ‘Odd!’ He brooded over this for a few minutes. ‘Not a man that I would have expected to be interested in exploring the countryside, or venturing into enemy territory. If he wanted sea air, well, why not go to Salt Hill?’

  ‘My own thoughts exactly,’ said Mara and waited to see what conclusion he would come to.

  ‘In fact,’ he went on, without acknowledging her words, ‘there
is only one thing that I would think that he was interested in and that was his trade. He spent all his days in that dark little shop of his in Red Earl’s Lane – not far from here – near to the fish market – you’ll probably remember the place – and never employed even a boy to help him.’

  ‘How did he dress?’ asked Mara.

  ‘Very fine,’ said Valentine immediately. ‘He was very careful of his appearance. I’d say myself that he wore a wig – the hair looked too thick and too much of a good colour for a man of his age – didn’t go with his skin – but if he did, it was a very good one. They say that you can get ones that you glue to the scalp and no one is the wiser – or so my wife tells me.’ He swept a hand over his thinning grey hairs and grinned at her ruefully. He was still, she thought, as she smiled back at him, an extremely handsome man.

  ‘Yes, he was wearing a wig when he was killed,’ she said. ‘He was killed by a blow to the head with some heavy but padded object, and, of course, the thickness of the wig, with the horsehair and the woollen cap that the hair was attached to, well, according to the physician who examined the body, both of these helped to absorb the blow. But when he came to the Burren on other occasions, by evidence of the fishermen who took him, he was not wearing a wig; “bald as a coot” as someone described him.’

  ‘Trying to disguise himself,’ suggested Valentine. ‘He would look different with a bald head. I mightn’t even recognize him myself. It was the first thing that you noticed about him – he wore his hair very fine, right down to his shoulders. Do you know why he was killed?’

  ‘Not yet,’ said Mara, ‘and, of course, you will understand if I don’t discuss any half-formed theories, any guesses with you.’

  ‘Of course,’ he echoed, though he looked slightly disappointed. ‘And, so, tell me what I can do for you. I’m sure that you didn’t come all the way just to announce the death of Niall Martin to me, though of course I will proclaim it in the court and discuss what is to be done about it and about tracing any relations.’