Condemned to Death

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Condemned to Death Page 12

by Cora Harrison


  ‘I’d like to look at his shop, at his residence and at his papers, if that is possible, and I will need your authority for that,’ she said. She smiled at him. ‘You see, I remember from my visit here all those years ago, that the Mayor of Galway acts as a judge, in the same way as the Duke of Venice.’

  ‘Have you his keys?’

  Mara shook her head. ‘He was dressed just in a shirt and hose when I saw him,’ she said, deciding not to give any further details.

  ‘I see,’ he said. ‘We’ll have to break in, won’t we?’ He gave a sudden, rather boyish grin. ‘It shouldn’t be too difficult. Would you like to wait here, or to come with me?’

  ‘I’ll come with you; I’d like to see the streets of Galway again.’

  And, indeed, she thought, it was quite a contrast to her homeland on the Burren with its wide sweeping landscape of white limestone slabs lying flat on the uplands, or piled unevenly on the mountain slopes. Here in this tiny space, probably less than the distance between the law school and her nearest neighbour, Ardal O’Lochlainn at Lissylisheen Castle, a whole city was crammed. Instead of a single meadow paved with clints and boulders and grazed by cattle, there were hundreds of houses almost touching each other, and between them narrow streets – all, she thought, the product of the same limestone that covered the fields and formed the mountains of her homeland.

  Valentine led the way rapidly until they reached the courthouse. The court official bowed to them both with great respect. He remembered her, he said, and she remembered him and his kindness in finding a hot brick for her feet when she sat in the chilly courtroom, for which she thanked him, but he said nothing, just ushered Valentine into his office and went off in search of a locksmith.

  ‘Are you returning the body to us?’ asked Valentine, carelessly scribbling a note and then signing it with a flourish.

  ‘No, the body was beginning to decompose; we buried it.’

  ‘So much the better,’ said Valentine, touching a bell on his desk. ‘Take this to Lawyer Skerrett to get it countersigned,’ he said briefly. ‘Just an order to break into the shop and dwelling place of Niall Martin,’ he said when the man had departed. ‘We’ll have to seal it up afterwards, of course. There will be a treasure in gold lying around. I wonder who is the heir to it all? I’ve never known him to have a family, or even a visitor, I’d say.’

  ‘My son-in-law, Oisín O’Davoren, the merchant, reported Niall Martin saying that he had neither kith nor kin and that he came originally from Bristol,’ said Mara. ‘That was one of the reasons why I took the decision to bury the body in the churchyard at Fanore.’

  ‘Come now,’ said Valentine looking cheerful, ‘if that’s the case, if he really has neither kith nor kin, then we can probably use the gold for a worthy purpose. The grammar school could do with an endowment. It will have to be decided by the Mayor and the bailiffs – you remember our system of government here – the mayor and the bailiffs have the power to dictate the use of all taxes and money collected – this, I think, if we make an honest effort to trace relations and then fail, this can be counted as a legacy to the City of Galway.’

  Mara let him plan while she thought over the matter. Her concern was not with the gold, but with the loss of life. Murder must not be ignored or it can lead to further loss of life. The culprit had to be identified and the community notified of his guilt. The scales of retribution had to be balanced. In this case the fine would perhaps end up in the hands of the authorities of the City of Galway, but so be it. The law could not be bent or twisted in any way. ‘No Brehon is able to abrogate anything that is written in the Seanchas Mór. In it are established laws for king and vassal; queen and subject; for taoiseach and liegeman; for the man of wealth and the poor man.’ It was one of the first things that her father had taught her when she was five years old and beginning work in the law school at Cahermacnaghten.

  ‘Ah, here he comes,’ said Valentine as a heavy step sounded on the stairs outside the room. ‘Good day to you, Master Locksmith.’ The court official slid the piece of vellum across to him with a scrawled countersignature of Anthony Skerrett, a law student in London when Mara had last visited Galway, but now, apparently, back working in his native Galway. Mara wondered briefly what had happened to the glamorous Catalina, and whether Anthony had married her. But then she decided that this visit was going to be too short a one to look up all of the people whom she had known during that visit in February of 1512.

  ‘Let’s go,’ said Valentine, barely glancing at the signature. His authority was enough for any tradesman in the city, Mara reckoned as the locksmith nodded to her respectfully and preceded them down the stairs and along the narrow lane.

  The gold merchant’s shop was certainly a mean, small building. The only thing impressive or even new-looking about it was the huge oaken door with an iron lock. The mullioned window was tiny, and although it did have two sheets of glass on either side of the stone bar in the centre, the space was too tiny even for a two-year-old child to fit through.

  The lock was massive, and secured to the wood with enormous nails. The locksmith grinned at the Mayor, produced several small instruments made of iron, fiddled around with them for a while and then there was a sudden click and the sound of something falling and he pushed the door gently open.

  ‘Good that you are an honest man,’ said Valentine, looking slightly taken aback at the ease with which the door had been opened.

  ‘He keeps a lamp there on the counter,’ volunteered the locksmith, not replying to Valentine’s remark, but addressing himself to Mara. Quickly he found a tinderbox by the dim light that came through the opened door into the small, dark shop and lit the lamp for her.

  ‘I’ll have to put another lock onto it, your worship, unless he keeps a spare key hidden somewhere here,’ he said to Valentine while Mara held the lamp aloft, examined the shelves that held little but dusty instruments of his trade, and then, remembering Ardal’s words, she went behind the counter, lowered it and examined the shelves concealed from the public. There was a large safe, secured by another enormous lock, and above it were open boxes containing many bills of sale, neatly stored in wooden boxes, but one large scroll caught her eye. She did not move or touch it, though, until Valentine and the locksmith had gone back outside the street and were arguing over the security of the door.

  ‘Three locks, that’s what I would advise,’ the locksmith was saying. ‘Put one lock and a man can work on it quickly while the nightwatchman is in another place. Even two is a possibility if he knows his business, but I defy anyone to get three of my locks open without attracting attention.’

  While they were arguing, Mara opened the scroll and had a moment’s thankfulness that some instinct had led her to call in on Ardal O’Lochlainn. This was, indeed, a map of Fanore, done more carefully and much more accurately than her own, she thought with a quick glance. Resolutely she rolled it up again and thrust it into her satchel and then went to the door to join the other two.

  ‘Finished your business?’ enquired Valentine.

  ‘Yes, indeed,’ she said briskly. ‘I found the document that I was looking for.’ Quickly she took it from her satchel, showed it to him and then said: ‘Let me give you a receipt. It shall be returned when I have solved the mystery of the man’s death in the kingdom of my legal jurisdiction.’

  He protested that this was unnecessary, but she made out a receipt, signed it and gave it to him, describing the document as a map of the seafront and surrounds of the bay of Fanore in the Kingdom of the Burren. He gave it a cursory glance and tucked it away and turned his attention to looking around the shop and her eyes followed his.

  It would, she thought, be difficult to steal anything from this place. The back wall of the shop, behind the counter, was lined with shelves and heavy iron safes were placed on these and were, as additional safeguard, bolted to the stone wall. Valentine wandered along, looking up at them with interest, and calling her attention to the huge locks on every one of them.


  ‘Where is your pottery, Valentine?’ she said after a minute, seeing that locksmith was waiting for his attention. ‘Shall I walk down and wait for you there? I’d like to meet your nephew again.’

  Valentine, she guessed, now that he had thought of a worthy use for the goldsmith’s treasure, was eager to make sure that the place was thoroughly sealed up and kept safe. Even as she walked down towards the docks she could hear the blows of a hammer on the tough wood of the door. Probably a couple of soldiers would be left there on duty, until the gold was safely in the hands of the city’s banker, she thought as she made her way down towards the docks and the splendidly impressive pottery building, where Walter greeted her with great warmth and insisted on showing her over the whole premises.

  ‘The last time I was here it was in February,’ Mara told Finbar as they walked with Valentine towards the Pie Shop in Bridge Street. ‘I remember that we all ate out of doors, though the frost was on the ground and there was a fire going within the yard and boys brought heated blocks of limestone for us to put our feet on.’

  Finbar nodded and smiled a little, but he wasn’t really listening. He seemed to be immersed in all he had seen and touched and there was a dazed expression on his face. He had had a wonderful time at the pottery, had been allowed to sketch a design of pansies onto one of the jugs and had the fun of painting it in clear yellow and violet. He was eager and responsive to the men working on the moulding of bowls, plates and pots and when Mara came in he hardly noticed her as he was watching everything so carefully, and she could see that young Walter Lynch, Valentine’s nephew, looked impressed by the few timid suggestions that he made. And then Valentine asked him to copy out a bill of sale, scrutinized it carefully and appeared so impressed by the excellence of the neat script that Finbar glowed with pride. If only his father agreed then he could spend the summer months in Galway. He could stay with Walter in Lynch’s Castle – they seemed to get on well, but Mara thought she would have a word with her daughter, when Sorcha came to spend her usual summer holiday – if necessary Oisín and Sorcha would have him to stay in her fine big house. He could occupy Domhnall’s empty room and would have the companionship of her two remaining children until he found his feet and hired lodgings of his own. However, nothing could be said until Finbar’s father had been consulted. He had placed his son in Mara’s care so that she could instruct him in the law and the next step would have to be his.

  By the time that they arrived at Blake’s Pie Shop, Finbar was chattering eagerly about the pottery and Mara could see that his depression had lifted. Joan Blake, primed by the message from Valentine, recognized them instantly and ushered them to an outdoor table already set out with plates and large, colourful ceramic goblets.

  ‘As good as any of your Venetian glassware,’ boasted Valentine, pointing out how the white interiors set off the deep ruby red of the wine.

  ‘Where on earth did you find such wonderful goblets, Joan?’ enquired Mara and Joan giggled appreciatively and related that they came from the local pottery run by the Mayor and his nephew.

  ‘Lord have mercy on us, the way that the years have passed,’ she said in a nostalgic way to Mara. ‘It seems only yesterday that you were here with all of your scholars. What has become of them all?’

  ‘Well, Fachtnan, the oldest of them, now works as a teacher for me,’ said Mara. ‘Moylan has gone to work for the Brehon of Waterford, Aidan, the chap with all the jokes, he’s employed in the north of Ireland …’

  ‘And what about the little red-headed fellow, the one that spoke out so well in court?’ asked Joan with a maternal sigh.

  ‘Hugh, well, he decided that the law was not for him, so now he is working for his father the silversmith; better to find that out young than to go on with something that is not quite right for a person,’ said Mara in a matter-of-fact way, though she had an eye on Finbar, ‘and Shane, the youngest, the dark-haired boy,’ she continued, ‘is now working for his father up in Tyrone.’ She did not add that Shane, even though just twenty-one years of age, had passed with great ease the last and most difficult of the law examinations and was now a fully-fledged Brehon. That would not be a tactful thing to say in front of Finbar.

  ‘I remembered your pies,’ she said aloud. ‘I’ve often told my scholars about them and I promised my scholar Finbar that we would not leave Galway until he had tasted one. In fact,’ she went on, seizing the opportunity while Valentine went over to have a word with a friend, ‘I was reminded of that wonderful pie with apricots by a visit to our area from the goldsmith of this city, one Niall Martin. He had a taste for your pies, did he not?’

  Finbar, she noticed from the corner of her eye, had become very still, but he had the sense to say nothing. Joan nodded easily.

  ‘I’d say that he had every one of my pies,’ she said. ‘He’d work his way through them – sometimes he’d pop out of his shop, give a lad a farthing to bring a message to me about what he wanted for his dinner and if I could, well I’d do my best – it wouldn’t be every time that I could, mark you, because I’m dependent on what the ships bring in and what is in season. Funny you should mention apricots,’ she went on, ‘because the last time that he came in here, it must have been this day week, yes, it was a Monday – well, he sent a message to ask if he could have a chardquince pie, but when he came I told him straight to his face that he had to give me notice of a few days if he wanted quince – because at this time of the year I only have the dried stuff and I have to soak it, you see, so he had to make do with the apricot, after all. He complained a bit but I didn’t pay him much heed. I was busy talking to a girl about samphire.’

  ‘A girl, was it someone from Galway? Was she with Niall Martin?’ asked Mara, casually adding, ‘Do tell me about chardquince pie – I’ve never had that before.’

  ‘I can do better than tell you, you can have a slice and see how you like it. Fresh is best, of course, but they store well and even the dried stuff keeps its flavour. You come back in September and I’ll make chardquince pie for you then from fruit just plucked. I grow the quinces myself on the garden wall at the back here and I tell you I have to fight the birds for them. I’ve even tried putting bags made from pieces of netting over them, and would you believe it, a bold thief of a grey crow just swooped down and broke the stem and carried one off, bag and all.’

  Mara had begun to think that she had been too clever in hiding the question as Joan turned to go back into the kitchen, but then she came back.

  ‘And I’m getting fresh samphire from the girl and her brother every few days now. I’ve been using it as a side dish, but I want to make a speciality out of it now that the summer fruits are nearly over and we have a gap before the fresh apples and the quinces. I’ve been thinking over my mind what would go with samphire best. What do you think?’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ said Mara doubtfully. ‘I’m not much of a cook.’ She was dying to revert to Niall Martin and to the question whether he had been with or seen to speak to the samphire girl when he ate his apricot pie on his last day in Galway, but Joan’s mind was now completely occupied with a culinary question and her face showed that she was deep in thought.

  ‘Salmon,’ she said triumphantly, just as Valentine came back to the table. ‘Salmon – I’ve just thought of that. It would taste good and would look good. Nice fresh pink salmon with a butter sauce and the samphire arranged in a trellis pattern over it.’

  ‘That sounds great,’ said Valentine eagerly.

  ‘Walter could make plates that would show the pie up properly,’ said Finbar thoughtfully and Mara smiled to herself at the intervention. Finbar had already begun to identify with the pottery business.

  ‘We could do you one divided into eight wedges – I’ve seen one like that in Spain. It was coloured yellow and the decorations were in pale blue,’ suggested Valentine and Joan pursed her lips, unwilling to disagree, but obviously not too impressed.

  ‘Black,’ said Finbar suddenly. His eyes had gone to a larg
e round pie that was carried in by one of Joan’s assistants. ‘Plain black, with a good glaze to make it shine; that would be best; you will have enough colour with the piecrust, the salmon and the samphire.’

  ‘That’s the boy that has the good eye,’ said Joan beaming as she went back out into the kitchen. A moment later she reappeared with another steaming orange pie on a white plate with a pattern of green leaves. ‘There you are,’ she said. ‘That’s my chardquince pie. You just tell me what you think of that, Brehon.’

  Neatly she detached a triangular portion and slid it onto a thin wooden platter and put it in front of Mara.

  ‘Delicious!’ Mara nibbled a little. The egg pastry, Joan’s speciality, melted in her mouth. The filling, though beautifully cooked, was, in fact, a little sweet for her taste, but her mouth watered at the thought of what a cook like Joan could do with the silky smoothness of salmon flesh and the salty crispness of the samphire. She would have to pay another visit to Galway in the early autumn, perhaps in September before the Michaelmas term started. If all was settled for Finbar it would be her duty to visit him from time to time and to see that he was happy, she told herself, and Sorcha was always begging her to come and stay and to have a complete rest from all her responsibilities.

  ‘What’s in it?’ she asked and listened with half an ear as Joan related the quantities of mashed-up quince and the two cups of white wine, the sugar, the egg yolks, nodding wisely at the mention of the exotic spices of cinnamon and ginger, but her mind was working busily. Samphire, she said to herself. Surely this can be no coincidence. However, Mara’s mind was a well-disciplined one and she was used to listening so she allowed no sign of impatience to escape until eventually Joan came back to the question of the new pie, wondering whether Valentine could get her some lemons on his next shipment from Spain.

 

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