An Unjust Judge

by Cora Harrison

  If Niall had killed his master then she would have to handle the matter with great sensitivity. Still, she thought, there may well be other left-handed people among the suspects. She turned back to Domhnall who waited patiently while she digested the news that he had brought from Nuala.

  ‘Shall we get them into groups?’ he asked. He did not question her and she thought that was typical of him. ‘I’ve brought spare pens and pieces of vellum with me,’ he said in a business-like way. ‘Would it be best to investigate the story about the hunters first?’

  Mara suppressed a smile. Her grandson had read her mind, or else just reasoned the matter out correctly.

  ‘I’ll just talk to everyone first,’ she said and immediately he stepped forward and waited. With a few quiet words and a couple of glances at Cian, Art and Cael, Domhnall managed to get most of the crowd sitting on benches or stools in three neat lines while the alehouse keeper inserted a tap into a new barrel of beer. Niall stood with his back against the wall, his mouth set in a straight line and his blue eyes were hard and full of hostility. Mara looked at him. She would have expected him to offer to help, but he made no move towards Domhnall or any of the scholars. Still, she would have time enough to talk with him afterwards. Now was the moment to deal with this unexpectedly large crowd who had turned up to hear what she had to say and to share their knowledge of the events of the previous day, she hoped. She scanned Domhnall’s note on Nuala’s findings. Yes, as she had guessed, the man was alive when placed into the pot. Death, according to Nuala, Domhnall had written in his precise neat hand, probably occurred about two hours after supper. Mara beckoned to Niall.

  ‘How long after supper was it when your master saw those hunters and went out after them?’

  Niall thought for a moment. ‘Not long,’ he said. ‘Straight after, really. He was pacing around waiting for Orlaith to take away the dishes and ordering Ríanne to help her.’

  ‘I see,’ said Mara. ‘Thank you, Niall. Could you show me your knife, please.’

  He put his hand into his pouch and then withdrew it and shook his head. ‘I haven’t got it. It’s broken. I left it behind.’

  By now Domhnall and the scholars had everyone sitting down and all heads were turned towards her. Mara abandoned the questioning of Niall. That could wait. As she moved forward the low-voiced conversations ceased and all heads turned towards her.

  ‘A death in a community is always a very difficult thing to deal with,’ she said, speaking clearly so that those in the back could hear, but keeping her voice low and unthreatening. There had been enough shouting at that judgement day. ‘The king has authorized me, as you will all have heard, to take charge of this matter so I would urge everyone to confide in me and to keep nothing back. Let me be the judge of whether a matter is of importance or not. It is, I know that you recognize that it is of great importance that this crime is solved, that retribution is paid and that the community can trust each other again.’ She paused for a long moment and then said gravely, ‘One murder can result in another murder unless the matter is solved quickly. It is dangerous to keep information hidden. This opens the way to blackmail and to more deaths. Now,’ she said changing the tone of her voice and speaking more briskly, ‘I have two immediate concerns. One is to ascertain the identities of the five men who went hunting the wild geese in front of the Brehon O’Doran’s house and the other is to know whether any of you recognise this.’ And with that she bent down and plucked the enormous lobster pot from the canvas bag at her feet.

  It worked very well. She had thought that it would. Immediately the tension vanished, the tight-lipped expressions on the faces of these people who were not, unlike the people of the Burren, used to a female Brehon, and not used to her methods and her authority. All tensions seemed to melt away. A buzz of talk arose. People turned to talk to neighbours, to call questions across to others in the row behind them, or leaned across neighbours to speak to someone further along the bench. After a while heads were nodded and the conversations ceased. All eyes were turned in one direction. Peadar rose to his feet.

  ‘It appears, Brehon, that it belonged to my father. I’d be last person to know that; he wouldn’t ever have wasted lobster on me,’ he added bitterly.

  ‘Who recognized it?’ Mara turned her head towards the crowd. The lobster pot had been broken for a long time, she reckoned by the look of it, and there did not appear to be any recent attempt to mend it. All of the canes were silvered with age. This was an unexpected development. She had asked the question purely with a notion of breaking the ice rather than find any useful pointers to the murderer, but now Peadar’s admission had changed matters. Several hands were raised and after a few minutes more went hesitantly up. Mara picked out a brown-faced, white-haired man. He would be the nearest fisherman in age to Peadar’s father. She smiled reassuringly at him.

  ‘I don’t know much about catching fish,’ she said, trying to sound modest and friendly. ‘I would have thought that one lobster pot looked very much like the other. What makes you think that this one belonged to Peadar’s father?’

  ‘This man was a neighbour of Peadar’s father, Brehon,’ put in Art in a low voice and she nodded her thanks to him. She was glad that he spoke and that he addressed her as Brehon. There had been a tendency to call her ‘Noble Lady’ which she deprecated. She was here as an investigating judge, not as the wife of the king. As she had hoped, the man took up the name.

  ‘That’s right, Brehon,’ he said. ‘Many a time I’ve seen the old man with that. I used to say to him, “It’s too big!” but he was a greedy man, God have mercy on him. He wanted to catch six lobsters at the time and sell them at the market, but I never knew him to get more than one and after a while he just left it lying around. He was getting too old to bother, too old to be wading through seawater.’

  ‘And where would it have been left? Have you seen it recently?’ asked Mara.

  There was a moment’s uncomfortable silence and then the man said, ‘It would be in the old man’s yard, I suppose.’

  ‘I’m sure that I’ve seen him carry in some sods of turf for the fire in that very basket,’ said his wife. ‘He was coming out of his barn with a load and I called out to him not to slip because the yard was a mess after the cattle had walked through it. He’d keep it for turf now. It’s just the right size.’

  That was true, thought Mara. Turf as a fuel for the fire was very light, but quite bulky. An ordinary log basket would not be at all as useful as that tall lobster pot, made light by dozens of years’ exposure to seawater and sunshine. What was interesting was the uneasy atmosphere. Something had occurred to the majority of her audience there. Heads were turned, glances exchanged, almost silent whispers were spoken into a neighbour’s ear. Most of these people here before her had some knowledge of what had occurred on the night that followed the judgement day and the verdicts of the unjust judge, Brehon Gaibrial O’Doran.

  ‘That’s very helpful,’ she said aloud. She would ask no further questions about the oversized lobster pot, but she would, perhaps, have a word in private with that helpful man later on. He had the look of one who knew more than he had told. She noticed him exchanging meaningful glances with his wife.

  ‘And now to another matter,’ she said aloud. ‘There were five men who went out hunting on the lands and cliffs at Knockfinn in the evening. It is very possible that these men have no knowledge of what occurred later on at that place, but on the other hand they may have some information which might prove valuable to me in my investigations into the death of Brehon Gaibrial O’Doran. So if these five men would identify themselves, then this would be very helpful.’

  It was a high-risk strategy and it did not pay off. Glances were exchanged but no one volunteered any information. And yet, perhaps it had been valuable. Mara was alive to the atmosphere and she sensed that it was hostile. Not perhaps to her personally; as the wife of their popular king she would have their respect, but these five savagely unfair judgements had made Gai
brial O’Doran deeply unpopular with the people of this small area in north-west Corcomroe. There was probably a lot of local sympathy with his murderer, or murderers, and no one appeared willing to help to convict.

  ‘Of course,’ said Mara artlessly and in her most chatty manner, ‘it may be that this crime has nothing to do with anyone in the area. The man was less than a week here. He came from Ossory on the other side of the country and it may be that an enemy followed him.’ Her mind was on Niall and on Ríanne, but she was glad to see that no eyes looked at the boy. She would not want him to be victimized. Everyone nodded wisely and the faces that she could see clearly in the front row seemed to look relieved.

  ‘And now,’ she continued, ‘I don’t want to delay you too long on this fine Sunday morning, but perhaps you would just give your names to my scholars and to my assistant and any information that you think might be useful. Just one last thing, I shall be staying in the Brehon’s house at Knockfinn until this matter is cleared up so that if anyone wishes to see me, then they should just …’

  And then she stopped. Peadar was on his feet, making urgent signals to others in various parts of the room. Reluctantly Donal, who was seated beside him, stood up also and then, after a few moments, Ciaran was pushed to his feet by Emer. Ronan and Seán whispering to each other, joined them. Peadar was the one that spoke, though, and the others just nodded in agreement.

  ‘There’s been a lot of talk about this murder and how it might be one or all of us five who might have done it. That’s the story anyway; that’s what some people have been whispering,’ he said, his voice overloud for the small room. ‘Well, I’d just like to say, Brehon, that all of us five spent Friday evening in this very alehouse and any man who says different is a liar.’ There was a tremor in his voice, and he glared around the room in a nervous fashion.

  ‘And I’m witness to that,’ said Emer emphatically. Mara waited, but no other voice was raised. Glances were exchanged, but that was all.

  ‘That’s the truth, isn’t it, Barra?’ Peadar turned to the alehouse keeper.

  ‘If you say so.’ Barra’s response was that of a man who liked to keep his customers happy. Peadar’s shoulders slumped. He looked around the room appealingly, but no eye met his and no voice was raised in his support. After a minute he sat down again with a deflated expression.

  ‘Good,’ said Mara firmly. ‘Now, if we can just divide you up so that we keep no one waiting for too long.’ Her eyes met Domhnall’s and she was not surprised when she found that the short line waiting for her attention included Barra as well as Peadar and Ciaran. Her grandson worked fast. Within minutes Art, Cian and Cael each had a table, a candle, a piece of vellum, a couple of pens and a carefully selected number of people to interview. Emer, separated from Ciaran, was tactfully placed at the head of the line to be dealt with by himself and Mara was amused to see a simper on the girl’s face as the handsome young man said something to her.

  Then she turned her attention to questioning the alehouse keeper.

  ‘It must be difficult for you, Barra,’ she said quietly, ‘to know everything that is going on here on an evening when you have lots of clients.’ She cast a look around the room. Though small, it was partitioned into various cubicles and the bar where the beer barrels were stored was quite high. Barra, despite his bulk, was not tall. It would be difficult for him to see people seated on low benches and stools.

  ‘Well, that’s the way of it, Brehon,’ he said. His hoarse whisper sounded relieved. ‘You can see for yourself, there’s not much light here at the best of times. And then when someone opens the door to go around the back, well, the candles all flare and smoke.’

  ‘I can imagine,’ said Mara. Even at midday, a day when the autumn sunshine seeped in through the small window, the place was dark. At night with the shutters closing off that source of light and the tallow candles flickering and flaring, it would be impossible for the alehouse keeper to be sure of who was here or who was not.

  ‘It was different when my wife, God be good to her, was alive. She’d keep an eye on everything, she’d notice everyone. But since she died on me, well, I’m hard put to keep serving drinks. I’d not be any good for giving evidence or saying who was here, or who was not.’

  ‘No, no,’ said Mara soothingly. ‘What happens here of an evening, Barra? Do people usually sit down, or do they move about?’

  ‘Move about, mainly,’ said Barra. ‘They’d all be having a word with each other, coming up and asking for a beer, and, of course, I’d be busy writing it on the slate. Not many people here would have silver or copper either to pay for a drink, so I’d put it on a slate and they’d pay me later. You know young Peadar’s father, well he used to pay me with a lobster. They were his drinking money, you could say. Some give oats and that’s always welcome and others might give a few eggs, that sort of thing.’

  ‘And what about someone like Donal the songwriter?’

  ‘Oh, he’d have to find the money, or else he might give free entertainment for an evening. I wouldn’t have any use for one of his songs myself, but there’s some that think he’s a good singer. He brings along his timpan and sings away. People drink all the more when they are singing these old songs,’ he added with a cynical smile on his battered face.

  ‘Well, that’s very useful, thank you, Barra.’ For form’s sake Mara wrote a few words on the sheet in front of her and dismissed him with a smile before turning to Ciaran.

  ‘You and Emer have made up your differences, is that right?’ she asked.

  ‘That’s right.’ He looked a bit uncomfortable. ‘To tell you the truth, I don’t think that she ever really wanted to bring me to the court. It was just that new Brehon persuaded her mother into it. He used to spend time in the alehouse picking up cases, in this very place, you know. People used to say that it was no place for a Brehon. You’d never see the old man, the old Brehon, God love him, in a place like this. But the new one was a very different man. Didn’t care how low he went if he got a case for himself. That’s what Peadar was saying.’

  ‘Peadar is a bit of a leader of you all, is that right?’

  ‘He’s a boy with brains,’ agreed Ciaran. ‘People say that’s why he didn’t get on with the old man. Too much to say for himself, too many ideas.’

  Mara studied the boyish face in front of her. ‘Would it be rude of me to guess that you and Emer were talking to the priest about your wedding day?’ she asked.

  He beamed happily. ‘That’s right, Brehon. I’m going to be an old married man soon. No more trips out with the lads, I suppose.’ He sighed theatrically.

  ‘She’ll probably be glad to get you out of the house for a while,’ said Mara. ‘And if you go off hunting and bring back a fat goose, why, then she’ll give you a great welcome. Or do you fish?’ she asked quickly. She had seen an unmistakable look of panic in his eyes when she had mentioned geese and his head had swivelled back towards where Peadar was standing.

  ‘No, I’m not much good with the fishing,’ he said in a more relaxed fashion. ‘Peadar’s the boy for the fishing.’

  ‘Someone told me that he is a great shot, too,’ said Mara, wondering whether she was going too far. ‘Or was it the knife throwing competition that he won at Coad last year?’

  ‘No, it was the arrow shooting,’ said Ciaran and then bit his lip.

  ‘So when is the wedding going to be?’ asked Mara hastily.

  ‘In three weeks’ time; the priest said that he would read the announcement next week.’

  ‘And Emer is quite happy now to drop the case against you? The king asked me to enquire?’

  ‘That’s right, Brehon. It was all her mother, you know. Emer has always been scared stiff of the old … We planned all the time to get married before the winter set in, I just wanted to get the house ready, first. Wouldn’t want to be living with her mother. It was just pure malice. Why make me pay a fine to Emer? Wouldn’t make sense, would it? We’ll be sharing everything from now on. In fact, don’t t
ell the priest, but Emer has moved in with me. There’s a lot of wool sitting there since the shearing in the summer and she’s giving me a hand with it, carding it and spinning it, ready for the weaver.’

  Ciaran looked very happy and very pleased with himself. Mara made a mental note to get Turlough to give the happy couple a small present, thanked him and moved on to the next person.

  ‘You won’t know me, Brehon, but I am Mór O’Connor and I live up there on the cliffs. You might have seen my place when you and your scholars were down there with the body of that man.’ The elderly woman plumped down onto the stool opposite Mara.

  ‘Yes, I think that I might have. Do you have some bushes growing behind it? With fishing nets over them? And a wall around your garden?’

  ‘That’s right, Brehon. You must come up and see my place some time. I have a great little herb garden there. And I have the bushes netted to stop the birds picking all the fruit. Elderberries are great to make a drink when you have coughs and rheums. I gave some to your husband the king once, God bless him. He said it was the best thing that he had ever tasted.’

  ‘Did he?’ Mara suppressed a smile when she remembered Turlough’s appreciation of the French wine that Domhnall’s father, Oisín, imported from France for her. He was not a man to disappoint any of his subjects, though. Even the poorest of them was spoken to as an equal and he managed to make all feel that he was one of them.

  ‘Well, I must tell him that I met you,’ Mara went on and then slipped in: ‘So you saw us down there with the body, did you? You knew that there was something wrong, did you?’