‘Bless you, I was there before you ever arrived. I went straight down there when I saw the young fellow, Niall, dash away as soon as he saw him. Not that I’m curious, you know, but I just came to see what was wrong. But the man was dead. No amount of medicines would bring him back to life. And he wasn’t killed with an arrow either, his throat was cut.’
‘You saw the hunters, then, did you? The evening before, just about supper time.’
The woman didn’t hesitate. ‘No, I didn’t. I was busy at my hearth. I would have been making my potage for my evening meal. I didn’t go to the window once.’
Might or might not be true, thought Mara, but she moved swiftly on.
‘You wanted to see me, didn’t you? I saw you ask my grandson to put you here?’
‘That’s right, Brehon, because I have something to tell you. I was out taking some medicine to a man in Fisher Street on Friday and when I came back there was something missing from my shelf. A pot was missing.’
Mara’s interest sharpened. This was unexpected. ‘A pot,’ she echoed. ‘What was in the pot?’
The woman hesitated for a moment. ‘I just keep a little of it,’ she said. ‘It’s valerian. It does no harm if just a little is taken. I’m very careful with it, but it was gone. And that gave me a shock. I don’t know why anyone would come into my house and steal something like that and take it away. I went out to see if there was anyone around and I saw young Niall down the hill and then I saw him run back, get on his pony and gallop away. And I’ll tell you, Brehon, when I went down to see what it was that he had been looking at, well, I got a fright when I saw that dead man and a whole pot of my valerian missing. It’s a terrible thing to say, but I was relieved when I saw that the man’s throat had been cut. Cruel thing to do to him, leaving him there under the water.’
‘Valerian.’ Mara repeated the word to impress it upon her memory. She would ask Nuala about that. If it were as dangerous as this old woman seemed to think, then it was worrying to imagine it loose in the community.
‘Thank you, Mór,’ she said. ‘Thank you for telling me about the valerian. I’ll come across to see you as soon as possible and you can show me your medicines.’
It was a strange and worrying occurrence, she thought, though she could not think what connection it could have with the murder of Brehon O’Doran.
She dealt with the next two people waiting to talk to her in a fairly mechanical manner. One was keen to impress on her that he could not have been one of the hunters as he couldn’t shoot an arrow straight to save his life. ‘Ask the priest, ask anyone in the world,’ he said dramatically. The other was a friend of Ronan’s who said that he saw Ronan just as it was getting dark and then did not see him again for a while. That was interesting, Mara thought, but she was eager to get on to the last person in her line who was Peadar.
By the time he had placed himself on the stool in front of her Peadar, though a strong-looking young man, was trembling noticeably. His knees knocked together as he sat down and he hastily pulled his léine and cloak over them to hide the involuntary movements.
‘So you came here for a drink with your friends, then you left, and returned later, that seems to be what happened?’ said Mara briskly. She felt a little sorry as she saw him stare, open-mouthed at her. He had fallen into her trap easily. Domhnall had so arranged the room that the interviewers were well away from those that waited. It would be very hard for Peadar to be sure that someone had not actually said that about him.
‘Where were the bows and arrows left?’ she kept her voice crisp.
Peadar’s eyes slid to the door.
‘Yes, I suppose with all of those thick bushes on both sides of the alehouse, it would be easy to find a hiding place. You left them in the bushes, is that right?’ Keep the questions thudding out as quickly as possible, Mara told herself.
He didn’t nod, but he didn’t deny it. This time he looked across the room, seeking the eyes of his friend Donal the songwriter. Mara looked, too, as unobtrusively as she could, but even in the poor light of the alehouse, she could see how Donal stiffened and for a moment did not notice that Cael was inviting him to sit down. From the quick glance that her girl scholar shot across the room, Mara guessed that Cael had interpreted the exchange of glances correctly. She could rely on Cael, she thought. After Domhnall, the girl had shone last year as the cleverest of the scholars.
‘You thought that you would teach Brehon O’Doran a lesson, that was the way of it, wasn’t it,’ stated Mara in a chatty fashion. ‘You had those mummers’ hoods left over since the Samhain celebrations last year, so when you came out from the alehouse, one by one, so as not to attract too much attention, you disguised yourselves with them. And then you went up to the hillside, just outside the Brehon’s house and you shot off a few arrows at the geese, relying on the cackling to attract him out of doors. You knew by now, I’d say, that he would not show the same indulgence towards hunters on his land as the previous Brehon did, and you were not disappointed. He came out, shouted at you all.’ Mara tried to visualize the scene. Yes, that was the way Gaibrial O’Doran would have handled the matter. ‘He probably threatened to fine you at the next judgement day, demanded that you remove the hoods,’ she continued, trying to convey with her voice and assured manner, that she knew exactly what had gone on at sunset on that Friday evening. ‘And then,’ she continued, ‘the five of you manhandled him towards the cliff. Perhaps you merely wished to tie him up, put him in the lobster pot, give him a ducking under the waterspout, but when it came to it, I suppose fear of retaliation, sudden realization of what the man had done to all of your lives, well, the violence escalated, you slit his throat,’ she finished and sat back and waited.
‘We didn’t slit his throat,’ said Peadar hoarsely. ‘I swear to you, Brehon, we didn’t slit his throat. We put him under the waterspout, that’s right. We did that, but no one killed him.’
‘I’ll need to talk to you five a little more about this,’ said Mara. She looked around. Most of the people in the room had now given their evidence and were standing in groups, quite relaxed now and chattering animatedly. Cael had finished with Donal and was now interviewing Ronan who suddenly banged his fist on the table causing a sudden silence in the room.
‘You’re putting words in my mouth,’ he roared and Cael made a careful note. Mara left Peadar. Turlough’s men were outside the door and had instructions to allow none through until she gave the order.
‘Would you like to tell me again,’ said Cael politely. ‘You went out for a breath of fresh air; that’s right, isn’t it? And you did hear geese overhead, that’s right, too, isn’t it? I have a note here that you said that. And you wanted to get a goose for your mother’s pot. I think you said that, didn’t you?’
‘It was nothing to do with the new Brehon,’ he muttered.
‘Perhaps, you could tell us a little more about that, Ronan, when the room is a little quieter,’ Mara intervened. Domhnall was having a quick word with Art and Cian and then he came across to her. ‘Nothing much, except for these five,’ he said in her ear and she nodded.
Aloud, she said, ‘The king has issued a pardon for all sentences on Friday. Could the five men concerned: Donal, Ciaran, Ronan, Seán and Peadar please come outside with me and I will explain this further. As for the rest of you, thank you very much for your help in this matter and now I will not trouble you any further.’
Seven
Cáin Adomndáin
(The Law of Adomndán)
It is an offence to set a trap on common land unless the trapper issues a warning in the usual places such as an alehouse, a mill and at the church door. If failure to do so results in injury or death to any person or domestic animal, then the trapper is legally responsible to pay the correct restitution.
‘Show me where the bows and arrows were hidden,’ Mara said once they were outside. The five men looked at her and then at each other with a mixture of guilt and resentment on their faces. Mara gave them a moment
to think, but stood quite near. She was not going to leave them alone to cook up some story between them. They were all, she was sure, very aware of the armed presence of the king’s men and none ventured to move away. Seán looked towards Niall and he scowled. Niall flushed a dark red and appeared embarrassed and uncomfortable. Donal muttered something to Ciaran about peering out of the window and Ronan agreed enthusiastically.
‘Come on,’ said Mara after a minute, allowing a hint of exasperation to enter her voice. ‘It’s a simple question. Where were the bows and arrows hidden? Donal, you answer me.’
‘Underneath the blackthorn,’ said Donal after a minute.
‘Good choice,’ said Mara crisply. Inebriated men usually knew enough not to urinate up against the long sharp thorns of that bush. They looked at each other slightly embarrassed at her comment but said no more.
‘And they were in the old lobster pot, is that right?’ asked Domhnall.
Peadar gave a despairing shrug of his shoulders. ‘That’s right.’
‘And you brought it from your father’s farm.’
Another nod.
‘Tell me about it.’ Mara allowed a hint of a threat to enter her voice. She turned elaborately as though to check the king’s men were still there and the captain of them moved his hand to his belt and touched the short sword that hung from it. The eyes of the young men followed hers and then they turned back.
‘The basket was just to carry the bows and arrows,’ said Peadar hurriedly. ‘We didn’t think about putting him into it. We just wanted to get him out following us and then we were going to grab him and shove him under the waterspout just to teach him a lesson.’
‘And the rope?’
‘That was there, already. That was lying coiled up in the bottom of the basket. That was my father’s rope. He kept it there.’
‘I suggest that your plan was to tie up the man and to leave him under the waterspout,’ said Mara crisply. ‘In that way, he would get much more of a punishment. Pushing him under the waterspout would be just a small child’s trick.’
They said nothing, just looked at each other. Not very ready with their tongues, she thought and was glad of it. It would mean that she could get at the truth more quickly.
‘Bring out a small table from the inn, will you, Domhnall?’ she murmured in his ear and then, very quickly, in order to distract attention from him, she asked brusquely, ‘Who was the man who suggested squeezing Brehon O’Doran into the lobster pot?’
‘I did,’ said Peadar. He lifted his head and looked straight at her. ‘As you say, Brehon, pushing him under the water was not enough of a punishment. Even if we tied him up, he’d probably roll away as soon as we turned our backs on him, and we couldn’t afford to have any witnesses to the deed. We kept our hoods on, but if a few lads from the alehouse came up they could snatch these off if he commanded them to do it. So we gagged him and we tied him up and then, well, you know, Brehon, this man had ruined our lives. Mine most of all, of course. Until the king, God bless him, pardoned me, I was an outlaw, a man who had no right to set foot in his country for ten years, a man who could be killed without penalty by anyone in the kingdom. And there was Ciaran. His life was spoilt. The Brehon had set his woman against him. And Seán’s family would have been ruined with that fine for something that was not his fault, just an accident with the wind turning direction so quickly and the same went for Ronan and as for Donal, he just didn’t know what to do. He has no family here in the kingdom. He would have had to leave a place where he was happy, sell his timpan to pay the fine and go back across the sea to his homeland.’
‘And so you made another plan.’
‘That’s right, Brehon. We thought that he could wriggle away if we just tied him up, so we managed to stuff him into the basket and we decided that we would go back to the alehouse and that when the alehouse shut for the night and when everyone had gone home, then we would come back and set him free.’
‘Just like that.’ Mara allowed a questioning note to come into her voice and she saw them look at each other.
‘Well, no,’ said Peadar after a moment. ‘We thought that we would take his gag off and get him to promise to have another judgement day and to say that he had made mistakes with his punishments. We thought we could get him to promise that, if we threatened to put him back under the water for another few hours.’
Mara considered this. It was possible that had been the plan. Though they would all have had to be naïve if they thought that Gaibrial O’Doran would have kept that promise extracted from him in those circumstances. It was, she thought, more likely that one, or all of them, had been responsible for his death.
‘And did you?’
‘We came back,’ said Peadar evenly. ‘We came back and we meant to set him free, but it was no good.’
Mara waited.
‘It was no good,’ echoed Donal. His brown face turned sallow under the sunshine and his voice was husky and broken. ‘We brought a pitch torch with us, Brehon. We didn’t light it until we were a good step away from the alehouse. There was a bit of a moon that night and you know, by the sea, it’s never completely dark. The sea shines the moonlight back onto the land. Well, we walked up. We could hear the water splashing, and the waves, we could hear them, too. It was high tide about that time, on Friday night, and the waves were smashing against the cliffs. And when we came up to the top of the cliff, well, there was just a sheet of foam there in front of us. And we had to light the torch to see where he was.’
‘And I said, “Christ, I hope we haven’t left him too long”,’ said Ciaran. ‘You know what it’s like, Brehon. When you’re drinking the time goes quickly. But when we came up there, I could see that the moon was much higher in the sky than I had expected.’
‘We all rushed into the spray, all except Peadar. He was holding the torch. And we picked the Brehon up, carried him out. He was a dead weight; we expected that because we had put a stone, a big boulder, in the bottom of the pot to keep it upright.’ Donal stopped for a moment and then said, ‘I had a feeling, though, that something was wrong. Something about the weight, something about the way he was so still.’
‘But anyway, we got the basket out; we managed with the four of us, two of us on either side,’ put in Ronan. He was anxious to get the story finished.
‘And then I shone the torch on his face,’ said Peadar sombrely.
‘And Ciaran said, “He’s fainted” and Peadar shone the light a bit closer and then he said, “Sweet Jesus. The man is dead.” And he was shining the light of the torch on the neck. We could see that his throat had been slit, from ear to ear.’ Donal looked at her pleadingly.
‘Did you think of reporting this death?’ put in Mara.
‘There was no one to report to, was there. No Brehon, nobody. Donal thought that we should get the priest, but Peadar said that his soul would have well and truly gone. The man was stone cold – I know that the water would have cooled him, but even so he was stiffening. He had been dead for hours. And I was saying that we would be blamed for it. I knew what it was like to be blamed for something that was just an accident,’ said Seán bitterly.
‘So we lifted him up again and carried him to the same place where we had put him a couple of hours ago,’ said Peadar.
‘How did you know it was the same place?’
‘We could see the hollow in the grass, Brehon, just near to the blowhole, just where the water would go over him.’ Ciaran looked a little uncomfortable. ‘He must have struggled a bit, rocked it from side to side; that was all that he could do with the weight of the stone that we had put into it.’
‘Wish we had never thought of it,’ said Donal.
‘We must have been mad,’ said Seán.
‘We were mad,’ said Peadar in an undertone. And then when Mara looked at him, he said earnestly, ‘Our lives had been ruined by that man, Brehon. I was thinking of throwing myself over the cliffs. I had no life left. It was only the thought of that cousin of mine, that Clooney,
that stopped me doing it. I made up my mind that in the twenty-four hours left to me I would get even with a few people. I was the one that planned putting the new Brehon under the waterspout and then I planned that I would destroy as much of my father’s farm as I could before I left. I planned it all out. The lads were going to help me. We were going to turn the cattle into other people’s lands, and the hens too. And then I was going to set fire to the hay ricks and to the turf stacks against the house and let the house burn down with them.’
‘But if Brehon O’Doran had given in to your demands, then you would not have needed to do all this. You would have inherited your father’s farm and have defeated your cousin’s malice. You would not have needed to do anything else.’ Mara considered the strong resolute face in front of her. ‘But did you really think that he would have been able to go back on his judgements, judgements given in front of the king?’
His glance wavered and he looked at the others. They said nothing. Mara looked at the small table that Domhnall had carried out from the inn.
‘Place your knives on this table,’ she said abruptly. She watched carefully as the knives were pulled from the sheaths that hung from their belts and were placed on the table. Domhnall, Cael, Art and Cian stood on the opposite side of the table and Niall moved hesitantly forward and then stepped back as Cian glared at him. The October sun was bright at this hour of midday and the knives sparkled in its light. Mara watched carefully. Both Peadar and Donal were left-handed, but the other three were right-handed. It was surprising to find two out of the five to be left-handed, but she remembered that Fergus had once told her that a high proportion of the people of this area were left-handed and he guessed that they were all descended from one ancestor.
Domhnall and the scholars handled the knives with care, passing them from one to the other, turning them over and holding them close to their eyes. After a few minutes, first one, then a second and a third was replaced on the table and the fifth knife was passed from hand to hand. Cael took it over to Mara, holding it carefully at the very base of the handle. Their eyes were doubtless better than her own, but Mara could see quite clearly what had caught their attention.
An Unjust Judge Page 9