An Unjust Judge

by Cora Harrison

  ‘That was true,’ said Mara. ‘And I’m afraid that worried me even more. He never stopped for a word, and he never hesitated and wondered whether he was right, and above all he never listened. It was supposed to be a trial, a time where the accused and accuser say what they have to say in front of the people of the kingdom, but his response was always to get that wretched child, his scholar, to shout for silence. A man, or a woman, who will not listen, will never learn, Turlough. I am deeply worried about this.’

  ‘Well, let’s deal with one thing at a time,’ said Turlough. ‘I’ll just pop down to the Brehon’s house and have a quiet word in his ear. Have a chat with him. Tell him that we don’t do things like that here. After all, the poor fellow comes from Ossory and that’s just near Kildare’s lands. And you know what the Earl of Kildare is like: would hang a man for looking sideways at him. O’Donnell was telling me that he heard talk that the Great Earl, as he calls himself, threatened to cut off the right leg of men who did not kneel to him as he passed. “Bend the knee or lose the knee” that’s what he shouts at them. It stands to reason that this fellow, the new Brehon, might have picked up some odd ideas about how to treat people.’

  ‘Do that, then,’ said Mara. She suppressed a sigh, unwilling to dishearten him, but she did not think that Brehon O’Doran would take too much notice of a quiet word from Turlough. After all, the appointment was made and it would be difficult now to dismiss a man because of one performance. There would have to be many complaints over a long period. In the meantime, of course, it was the people of north-west Corcomroe who would suffer. ‘I’m going back to the law school now, Turlough, and I’ll see you this evening at supper. You can tell me then how you got on.’

  During the ten-mile ride between Ballinalacken Castle and the law school at Cahermacnaghten on the Burren, Mara resolutely kept her mind off the subject of the new Brehon O’Doran. There was nothing that she could do, she told herself. The affair was for Turlough to manage. He had been king now for twenty-five years, a most successful reign and a most popular king who ruled in his own distinctive style. She would not interfere any more in this matter, she promised herself and turned her mind to her own law school.

  The new school year began traditionally on Michaelmas Day, the 29th day of September, but this year that had fallen on a Saturday and so the school had opened on Monday. She needed to recruit more pupils, she thought as she rode in through the gates leading to the cobbled yard of the law school. Her thirteen-year-old son, Cormac, had left the school to undertake military training with a friend of Turlough’s in the north of the country and her two oldest scholars, her grandson Domhnall and his friend Slevin had passed their examinations in the summer and were now qualified as junior lawyers. Slevin had gone back to his home kingdom in Mayo to take up a post there and Domhnall had stayed with her as a teacher. This just left her with three pupils: Art, the son of Setanta the fisherman, and the MacMahon twins, Cian and his sister Cael. She had arranged that two eight-year-olds would join the school next week, a boy, named Davin, the son of the Brehon MacEgan from Ormond, and a granddaughter of a local farmer, named Ide. She could, though, do with another thirteen- or fourteen-year-old to support the gentle, self-effacing Art against the twins Cael and Cian who were both very strong characters. Art was missing his foster brother, Cormac, intensely and had looked depressed during these last few days as he slumped over his desk in the law school. Her mind went to Niall, the new Brehon’s assistant. She had liked the look of his face and he had winced at the brutal judgements as though he knew that they were not made in accordance with law.

  And then she saw him. Niall must have been following her. She had heard the clip-clop of horseshoes on the limestone road for the last few minutes. He was riding his pony so recklessly that he came around the piers of the open gate and almost crashed into her. His face was a dead shade of white, the blond hair dishevelled and his pale blue eyes wide with horror.

  ‘Brehon!’ he shouted, almost screaming the word.

  ‘Get your pony under control,’ she snapped. He must have set off in a hurry because the saddle was twisted and girths either broken or not fastened. The pony neighed loudly and rolled its eyes. The boy fought with him as he reared up and tried to knock his rider off his back. Cumhal, Mara’s farm manager, came running from the woodshed where he was stacking the logs ready for winter fires and Domhnall followed by the three scholars erupted from the schoolhouse.

  ‘Careful,’ said Mara. Her own horse was restive, but she murmured a word and stroked him. Niall clung desperately to his pony. The reins had been jerked from his hands which were bleeding from a scrape against the rough stone of the entrance and he hung on desperately to the pony’s mane.

  ‘Whoa there, whoa,’ called Cumhal and for a moment the pony turned his head towards the calm soothing voice and that moment was enough for Domhnall who managed to snatch the reins and hold the dancing pony for long enough to enable Cian to put a heavy arm over the creature’s neck.

  ‘Whoa there, whoa,’ repeated Cumhal and, producing an early apple from his pocket, held it out. The pony paused. He did not accept the apple, but the smell was enough to calm him for long enough so that Domhnall could hold him next to the bit and bring him under control.

  ‘Down you get, young man,’ said Cumhal, handing the apple to Domhnall and keeping a steady grasp of the boy’s arm as he slid unsteadily from the saddle, holding him until he was steady on his feet. And then Niall looked at Mara with dilated eyes.

  ‘He’s in a lobster pot,’ he said unsteadily and then he began to laugh in a slightly hysterical fashion. ‘A bird nibbled his hand, thought he was a lobster.’

  And then, quite suddenly, he vomited onto the cobbles. Cian took a hasty step backwards and Art’s hand went to his mouth. Cael, quick-witted and sensible, grabbed the boy’s arm, while Mara hastily dismounted, handing over her horse to a wide-eyed stable boy.

  ‘Bring him over here, Cael,’ she said. ‘Sit down, Niall, sit on the mounting block. Put your head down. Art, get a drink from Brigid. Don’t worry, Niall, take your time. You can tell us all about it as soon as you feel better.’

  ‘Get some turf mould over that,’ muttered Cumhal to the stable boy and in a minute the pungent smell of peat dust overcame the sharp acidity of the vomit. The boy’s colour began to improve as he sipped the drink held solicitously by Art. Mara took one look around at the crowd that gathered: two or three of the farm workers had ceased their wood chopping and peat stacking, the lads in the orchard abandoned their baskets and the girls in the kitchen had all accompanied Brigid out to look at the stranger.

  ‘You’re looking better now, Niall,’ she said cheerfully. ‘Let’s get you indoors. Art, you help him into the schoolroom. You go, too, Cael and Cian. Cumhal, perhaps one of your men could look after this pony until Niall is feeling better.’ And then, in a low voice, she said to Domhnall, ‘That boy is the pupil of the new Brehon in Corcomroe.’

  Domhnall nodded. He was always very discreet. Now he said nothing, asked nothing about lobster pots, did not speculate about why Niall had come hurtling through the gate of the law school in the Burren. He waited knowing that all would soon be made clear and held the door open for Mara as she passed into the schoolhouse.

  ‘Feeling better, Niall?’ she asked. The cup had been drained and the air smelled of chamomile, Brigid’s remedy for all upsets. He nodded, but his face was still very white and his eyes still large with horror.

  ‘He was tied into a lobster pot,’ he said, the words spurting from him. ‘A very large one.’

  ‘Who?’

  He looked puzzled. ‘My master, Brehon O’Doran.’

  Mara waited. Surely a prank like tying a man within a lobster pot was not enough to cause the boy to look like that. Niall, however, said no more, just put his two elbows on the desk in front of him and rested his face within his hands. Mara could see that he was trembling.

  ‘A crime of murder has to be reported immediately to a Brehon; but t
he Brehon is the one who is dead,’ he said suddenly and there was a tremor in his voice. He took his hands from his face and once again shook with uncontrollable laughter. He was on the verge of hysteria.

  ‘Stop that,’ said Mara sternly. ‘You’re not a child. Tell me sensibly. Is Brehon O’Doran dead?’

  The boy nodded. His lips trembled but he had managed to stifle the hysterical laughter. ‘I didn’t do it. I had nothing to do with it. I wouldn’t have done that. Why should I? This was a great chance for me. My father said that. He said I would learn so much more than in a large school. He said that Gaibrial O’Doran was a clever man and …’ The boy’s voice shook again, but he swallowed hard. ‘My father said that he had a long life ahead of him as Brehon and that he could teach me, but he didn’t have a long life, did he?’

  ‘Where did you find him?’ asked Domhnall quietly. He put a hand on the boy’s shoulder and Niall looked up trustingly at him.

  ‘In Hell,’ he said.

  ‘By the ocean?’ asked Art and then, to Mara: ‘That’s what they call the place near the harbour, Doon MacFelim, that place where the water foams up. You’ve seen it, Brehon, haven’t you? No boat dares to go near to it, but you can see it from the cliff above.’

  ‘I remember it,’ said Cael. ‘It’s that massive fissure in the rock. You can see the ocean through it. Do you remember, Cian? We got drenched once when the seawater suddenly spurted up through it. There’s that big blowhole a bit further up and—’

  ‘And Bones’ Bay below it,’ said Art nodding. ‘That’s the place?’

  ‘Did he fall, did your master fall, Niall?’ Cian repeated the question twice before Niall’s eyes focussed on him.

  ‘Fall, no, I don’t think so. I don’t know. He’s still there. He’s squashed into that lobster pot. The birds were eating him. People eat lobsters and birds eat people.’ Once again Niall’s voice broke hysterically and he strove to keep back another fit of laughter. The three scholars looked at him with astonishment, and Domhnall’s eyes met Mara’s. He slightly shook his head and she nodded. Whatsoever was the truth of this matter it needed to be investigated immediately. The man, she thought, might not be dead. He might just have stumbled and become entrapped within the ropes of a lobster pot. He might just be stunned. Hopefully he might be saved. She made up her mind to waste no more time.

  ‘We need to get Nuala,’ she said decisively. ‘You go, Art. You know this place and you can take her directly to it. Cian, go and see whether Niall’s pony is fit for the journey, or better still, ask Cumhal to find something for him.’ Nuala O’Davoren was the physician of the kingdom; the daughter and granddaughter of former physicians, she had excelled her forebears by her knowledge and skill. If the man were to be found still alive, then she might be able to save him. If he were dead, then she would be able to tell Mara whether he died of drowning, or a broken neck, or whether something more sinister might have been involved. Several years of study in Italy had given her the skills to open a dead body, to look at the contents of the stomach, to trace a wound or to examine the heart.

  And if the man had been murdered, there would be plenty of suspects. As she climbed on her horse, she thought to herself of the extraordinary scenes at the hill of judgement, yesterday, and of the shocked faces of the five young men who had received such heavy and such unjust sentences. Sean the arsonist, Ciaráin the rapist, Ronan the brawler, Donal the infringer of copyright, Peadar the undutiful son; each one of them, or indeed any of the relations who would have to help pay the fine, could be the guilty one. And in particular she thought of the one who had been declared an outlaw, had been banished from his own kingdom and declared to be without the protection of the law, a target for any man who wished to rob, or even to kill him. Perhaps a messenger should have been sent to ascertain whether Peadar was still with Art’s father, but she was unwilling to cause gossip before the facts were confirmed. Niall did not seem a very reliable witness. The story of the lobster pot and the nibbling birds was quite strange. Or did he mean fish?

  Mara’s eyes went to the slumped-over figure of the exhausted scholar of Brehon O’Doran. Niall looked as though he had not slept all night, she thought suddenly. He was white with black circles under his eyes and he was yawning repeatedly. Domhnall was riding very close to him, and she knew that her astute grandson had noticed how the boy swayed in his saddle and was alert to catch the pony’s rein if sleep or hysteria overcame him.

  Might Niall, also, she wondered, be a possible suspect if this affair of the Brehon and the lobster pot turned out to be a murder case? For a boy of his age, he had shown an undue amount of upset in his account. By the age of fifteen, he would have seen many dead bodies. What had caused such hysteria?

  Three

  Bretha Forma

  (Judgements of Trapping)

  No bird trap may be set without the permission of the landowner. If a bird is trapped with permission, then two-thirds of the flesh and one-third of the feathers may be retained. If trapped without permission a fine must be paid and the bird given to the landowner.

  However, there is no penalty for trapping very small birds, or birds of prey such as herons and hawks.

  If a landowner is absent for some length of time, then birds may be trapped on his land with immunity from any legal action.

  ‘Look, Cian,’ said Cael as they crossed the boundary line between the two kingdoms. ‘Look at the geese! Do you remember we used to shoot these when we were young, at Urlan, do you remember? With our bows and arrows. Feels like a long time ago, doesn’t it? I don’t think I would do it now. It seems a shame.’

  ‘Tasted good, though, didn’t they? The cook was delighted when we brought them in. Cooked six of them that very night,’ said Cian, his eyes following the V-shaped trail of long necks and wide stretched wings outlined against the pale blue of the autumn sky. Mara listened with interest. The twins very seldom talked of the past. This summer she had talked to them about their father’s death at the hands of the king years earlier when the MacMahon had been hanged for treachery and found that both knew of the event, had known for a long time, but neither had wanted to discuss it, nor to bring to mind anything about their past. This reference was an unusual one, she thought, and then forgot the twins as Niall suddenly turned his head and looked at her.

  ‘It was that which brought my master out of doors last night,’ he said unexpectedly. ‘The geese were coming in from the sea.’

  ‘He went shooting, did he?’ questioned Domhnall, his voice quiet and relaxed.

  Niall shook his head. ‘Not shooting,’ he said scornfully. ‘The man was blind as a bat. He went out to bring the law on the shooters. He saw them from his room. He went running down the stairs, and out of the door. I could see him pelting down the hillside, his lawyer’s gown flapping out behind him like a black sail. He was shouting at them. He was threatening that they would be brought to the next judgement day.’

  ‘Did you go with him?’ asked Mara, adopting Domhnall’s neutral tone of voice. Niall still looked ill and still rode slumped into his saddle, but Cumhal had given him a very quiet pony, a nice old animal that he used to teach a new scholar to ride across the stone-laid fields of the Burren. She didn’t think that he would fall off now, though she noticed that Domhnall still rode very close to the boy and kept his head turned towards him.

  ‘No, I didn’t,’ said Niall, and this time his tone was raucous and defiant. ‘You can’t pin this crime on me. It was nothing to do with me. He didn’t order me to come and so I kept out of his way. He had stirred up enough hatred already. I didn’t want to be in it. Hell, that’s a good name for the place. A good place for him to end up in.’ He gave a short, abrupt laugh.

  ‘Did you see who they were, the huntsmen?’ asked Mara. ‘You looked out after them, I suppose.’

  ‘No, I didn’t see who they were. I don’t know the people here. They were just the usual sort of people you get around here. Very brown, very black hair. All about the same size. All dressed the
same. Just wearing a léine and sandals. When they heard him shout, they went running down the hill towards the sea. He followed them, shouting at them.’

  ‘How many of them, were there?’ asked Mara.

  ‘Five,’ said Niall.

  Five, she thought. That is a coincidence. ‘Are you sure?’ she asked.

  ‘Five of them,’ repeated Niall.

  ‘And you’re sure that you didn’t recognize them? Could they be the five young men that you saw at the law court?’

  Niall was silent for a moment. ‘Could be,’ he said then. ‘I think that the fellow Peadar was there. I thought I heard Brehon O’Doran shout out something about banishment when he went flying down the hill after them. I was saying to myself, Is that man going to banish everyone who commits the slightest crime out of the kingdom? But I suppose it could have been the fisherman fellow, Peadar – he had already pronounced a sentence of banishment on him.’

  ‘Where were they?’ Art was the one who knew this district the best as his father, Setanta, often fished from Doolin Harbour.

  ‘They were down by the hedge, just where the oats had been harvested. I suppose the geese come in off the sea to eat the stuff.’ Niall seemed better, more animated and he moved up to ride beside Cael who was discussing with Cian the legal rights of hunters. Domhnall hung back and looked at Mara.

  ‘Would Peadar have dared to go hunting on the Brehon’s own land?’ he asked and without waiting for an answer, continued, ‘And would Setanta have permitted him to go back to Corcomroe. It seems very strange, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Well, strictly speaking, Peadar had twenty-four hours before he had to leave the kingdom. Perhaps he thought that he would take one more look at the farm that should have belonged to him.’

  ‘Perhaps he went to the alehouse and met the other four drowning their sorrows,’ said Domhnall shrewdly. ‘Would they have dared to hunt over the Brehon’s lands, though?’