An Unjust Judge

by Cora Harrison

  ‘Why did he go out in the morning, and pretend to discover the dead body, though? Why not leave it for someone else to find?’

  ‘Because if he was the one who told you the news, then he could slip you all the information of the hunters, and about the masks. He got you very quickly onto suspecting Peadar and his friends, didn’t he? And, of course, because you are the king’s wife, he could hope to get the king to offer to send the two of them, Ríanne and himself, back to Ossory as soon as possible, if between them they got you to be sympathetic towards them. That was their aim, if I am right,’ concluded Cian.

  ‘I must say that you have made an excellent case, Cian,’ admitted Mara. ‘And so you think that the last person that Fergus named, in fact, the person with the knife that gleamed in moonlight, was Niall?’

  ‘I rest my case,’ said Cian with a grin.

  ‘I think that I’ll have a chat with them both,’ said Mara. They would shortly be at the house door, but she decided against going inside. Brigid would be scrupulously careful that no one interrupted the Brehon when she was in the parlour, but the house was full of the noise of exuberant young people, banging dusters, scraping chimneys, pumping water from wells and dashing in and out of the fuel shed. It was difficult to know what question to put to them, she mused unhappily. She needed some more evidence, some witness who saw something, not just a strong inner belief that both girl and boy were lying.

  Cian, she thought, had made a very good case. There had been something odd, something slightly theatrical – her mind went to some Greek plays that she had read with her father when she was a scholar – yes that would be the word for the way that the two of them had behaved. And if Ríanne had smeared a blackberry over one cheek bone in order to simulate a bruise, well that did seem to show that they had planned the approach to Mara, Brehon of the Burren and the wife of the king of the three kingdoms.

  ‘No,’ she said aloud, ‘on second thoughts, I think that I will leave that for the moment.’ She narrowed her eyes. There was a distant sound like that of marching feet and then she saw a flutter, a glimpse of blue and saffron.

  ‘It’s the king, the king’s banners,’ said Cian joyfully. Cian and Cael were fostered by the king and he lavished gifts and praise on them continually, admired their prowess, laughed at their jokes and enveloped them in the warmth of his personality.

  ‘Well, that’s good,’ said Mara. ‘I was just thinking about him. I have a few questions for him.’

  ‘About the secret and unlawful killing of Brehon O’Doran?’ queried Cian.

  ‘That’s right,’ said Mara. ‘You know the way I always tell you scholars that in order to understand the present, you need to go back into the past. Well, the king was involved in this matter before we were and now I think that we need to take a step backwards and examine what was going on before the murder occurred.’

  Thirteen

  Bretha Comaithchesa

  (Judgements of the Neighbourhood)

  A king carrying building material to his castle has the same and only the same claim for right of way as the miller carrying material to build his mill; the poorest man in the land can compel payment of a debt from a noble or can levy a distress upon the king himself.

  Even before the emblem on Turlough’s banner, the silver shield held aloft by an arm placed against the blue and saffron background, had come properly in to view, Mara had formulated a series of questions for her husband. Fergus had been Brehon of north-west Corcomroe in the time of her father, he had been her own sponsor for the position of Brehon of the Burren after her father’s death. She remembered clearly how he had taken her to the castle of Turlough’s uncle, the then king, the Gilladuff (dark-haired lad) as he was known and argued the case for her to be allowed to take over her father’s post. He had demanded that questions be put to her by a whole swathe of lawyers, gathered there at Bunratty for the unusual event of electing a woman Brehon and had beamed happily at her fluent answers. Dear Fergus, she thought, he had such confidence in me that he gave me confidence. She had heard her voice ring out in the great hall and had seen the astonishment on the faces of the lawyers who had questioned her and who had put to her as many complicated legal issues as they could have devised.

  So Fergus had always been a father figure to her and she had never questioned him about his affairs or doubted his judgement until his memory problems began to get too bad to be ignored and a certain unrest and riotous behaviour among the young people had been whispered about, even over in the Burren. Cormac’s foster father, the fisherman, Setanta, brought some stories and others were carried by Brigid’s husband, Cumhal the farm manager.

  ‘I’m glad to see you, my lord,’ she said formally when Turlough drew his horse up with a flourish beside her.

  He beamed happily as he vaulted from his saddle, like a man of half his age. ‘I thought you might be needing a bit of help,’ he said, boisterously kissing her with a loud smacking of his lips that drew grins from his escort. ‘Need a man with brains around, don’t you? That’s right, isn’t it, lad?’ He winked at Cian and then turned back to Mara. ‘We’re staying the night up in Ballinalacken Castle; you’ll come, won’t you? You won’t leave me alone, will you?’

  ‘Well, I’ve my scholars over here at Knockfinn and then there’s Niall, Brehon O’Doran’s scholar, and there’s Ríanne, his wife. They’re there, also. I probably should stay at Knockfinn. Brigid is getting a bit old to expect her to manage everything.’ In Cian’s presence she did not like to mention the antagonism between her boys and Niall, but it was in the forefront of her mind.

  ‘They’ll be all right. Cumhal is following us over with a cartload of turf and logs,’ said Turlough. ‘Terrible damp house, that place in Knockfinn. As soon as Cumhal told me that you were staying there and that you’d sent for Brigid and her crew to clean the place up, well, I said to him immediately, “Who cares about a few cobwebs? What she needs to do is to get fires going in the place, get the place warmed up.” We had a good laugh, myself and Cumhal, about women fussing over things like cobwebs. “Bring some charcoal and some braziers too,” that’s what I said to him. Only one bloody fireplace in the whole house. No wonder the poor old fellow went a bit off his head. I would if I was living there alone with the mist seeping in through those draughty old windows.’

  ‘Oh well, if Cumhal is coming, then I suppose I could come back to Ballinalacken for the night,’ said Mara. Cumhal, she knew, was a tough customer. Cian and Art would obey him instantly and Niall, she guessed, did not have too many reserves of courage.

  ‘That’s my girl,’ said Turlough enthusiastically. ‘Let’s go for a walk down towards the cliffs and you lads,’ he called to his riding party, ‘you lads go back to Ballinalacken and tell the steward that the Brehon and I will be along in an hour or so and to get the pots boiling for a good supper. Cian, you be a good lad, and take this horse of mine up to the house. Give him a drink and a rub down and then you can turn him loose in that little meadow where the oats were. He’ll have a bit of fun picking up anything that was left behind after the reaping.’

  Turlough, thought Mara as she strolled at his side towards the cliffs, managed men and boys very well. He was a tireless leader and no detail was too small for his attention. Another king might have given commands for an elderly and senile Brehon to be removed from his post; Turlough had come across himself and had been involved in every minute detail. She listened to him with a quiet feeling of deep love for this second husband of hers.

  ‘So I said to him, “Fergus, old lad, a house with only one fireplace is no place for a man like you!” So do you know what I did, Mara. Well, I got the lad who does the building work for me, and I took him down to that little beach down there, Bones’ Bay, is that its name? I took Fergus with me, too, poor old fellow, and when we got down I found a stick and I drew a house in the sand, there in front of them both. “See, Diarmuid,” I said to him. “One big square chimney in the middle of the house.” And I drew it there, Mara.’ T
urlough eyed her to make sure of her attention. ‘“And then,” I said to him, “put a fireplace into each side of the chimney. Now you have four fireplaces, Fergus. Well, I’m going to give you four rooms, one on each of the four sides of the chimney.” And then I drew it out for Diarmuid, the parlour overlooking the sea, a bedroom for Fergus facing the south so that he gets plenty of sun, the kitchen facing north to keep the food nice and cool and then a bedroom for Gobnait and Pat at the back facing the east. But do you know, Mara, the poor old fellow, poor old Fergus, he was staring at me as though I was talking Greek or something, he just couldn’t understand a simple drawing, so do you know what I did. Well, I got down on my hands and knees and I built up the walls out of wet sand and I made nice little openings for the doors and I sent one of the men to get pebbles to make the fireplaces. Well, you know, Mara,’ Turlough roared with amusement, ‘it was like I was six years’ old again, out on a beach on Arran, wearing nothing but a léine. You’d have split your sides laughing if you had seen me, Mara. But the great thing was that Fergus really did understand after a few minutes and he knelt down beside me and took up some sand and made a seat by the fire, like a bench, you know. And I made another on the other side of the fire and we both cackled like a pair of children.’

  ‘So that was the beginning of the house, was it?’ Mara joined in her husband’s laughter, but she felt very touched to think of the king of three kingdoms on his knees building a sandcastle in an attempt to make a senile old man understand.

  ‘That’s right. And I said to Diarmuid, “Take every man you have available. They’re to work from morning to night.” And it was great weather, wasn’t it, Mara? You were in Galway when we were doing it, but I bet that even there you had the sun. And I said to Diarmuid, “No excuses! The stone is all there on your doorstep and there’s a good well on the site. Bring in the lime, use all the carts you need, but just get it built and ready to live in before the end of September.” And we did,’ said Turlough with simple pride. ‘It was whitewashed on Michaelmas Day and I thought it looked a little beauty of a place.’

  ‘And how did you find Gobnait and Pat?’ asked Mara, tucking her arm into his.

  ‘Oh, the priest recommended Gobnait. He said that she knew all about herbs. He said that the pair of them were very poor and that the house they were living in was only made from turf. He said that she was a very pious woman.’

  ‘And they were pleased?’ Mara thought of the snug little house and the shining silver on the dresser. Moving into that from a house made from sods. What a change.

  ‘And the furniture?’

  ‘That was me, too,’ said Turlough beaming with pleasure. ‘Let’s have everything new, that’s what I thought. So Diarmuid brought a few carpenters along and they made it on the spot so everything fits. And I got them to make the two seats, one on either side of the fire, just the way that Fergus had done them out of sand.’

  ‘And the silver on the dresser?’ queried Mara.

  ‘Oh, that’s probably their own; they brought their own things with them, I suppose,’ said Turlough. ‘And I suppose Fergus might have brought some plates and knives and things from his own place. Don’t know whether he had much. I was there myself and I could see that there was nothing but rubbish. They burned most of it, my men did – old clothes and broken chairs and sticks and a few mouldy wall hangings … well, it was in a fine old mess. Rats, too. We had to get a few cats in, I remember one big tom cat with only one eye. He caught three rats on the afternoon after we moved Fergus out.’

  ‘It’s odd, though, that there wasn’t anything but rubbish, isn’t it? I know he let the school go about ten years ago so he hasn’t had the income from that. But then there was the stipend that you paid him. And he had the lands of Tuath Clae free of rent for his lifetime, is that right? I think he told me that, or it may even have been my father.’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Turlough. ‘I think that he was granted that by one of my uncles, either Conor na Shrona, the chap with the big nose, or perhaps it was my father, one or other of them. Before my time, anyway. And it was granted to him personally, not just to whoever held the office of Brehon.’

  ‘So the new man, Brehon O’Doran, had no right to the land, did he?’

  ‘That’s right. Strictly speaking he had no right to the house, either, but I thought that he could have it for a while until he had enough silver accumulated to build himself a home. I got my steward to go through it and make sure that there wasn’t anything valuable left in it.’

  ‘It’s strange, Turlough, though, isn’t it? There he was, Fergus, just himself for the last ten years, and even before that it was just himself and Siobhan. He had no children ever. And when Siobhan was alive he had the fees from his law school as well as the rents from the farms and the sale of the produce of his own farm. What on earth did he do with it all? The house is like a place occupied by a very poor man. It’s a miserable place.’

  ‘I suppose that it is,’ said Turlough uncomfortably. ‘I don’t think that I ever really visited it much. I would call to see him and he would come to the door and propose that we visit the alehouse and I was quite happy with that. I wouldn’t have seen him short of silver; if he had wanted anything then he could have asked, but, you know, these lands are quite extensive.’

  ‘Yes, I know. About the same size farm as my father got from your father and then when I was given the position of Brehon, the farm was mine. It was my father’s own personal property and he left it to me. I know how much it brings in and it’s quite substantial. I’ve never wanted for anything. But I asked your uncle for a yearly stipend and he paid it to me. And so did you when you inherited twenty-four years ago.’

  ‘Funny, I remember that day when I met you for the first time. I was scared stiff of you before you came in. I thought you might ask me some tricky question about the law and I’d look a fool. I had heard that you were very clever. But then you admired my dog; you got down on your knees and stroked the old fellow and we were friends from then on.’

  ‘And Fergus?’ Mara steered him back. Turlough could take a long time once he started on romantic memories.

  ‘Fergus had the same arrangement as you,’ said Turlough promptly. ‘That was the arrangement I inherited and I left it at that. The silver was paid every year on the eve of Bealtaine, just in the same way and at the same time as yours was paid.’

  Mara thought about this for a moment and then shelved the thought at the back of her mind. There was another more important matter to discuss with her overlord, the king.

  ‘We have to talk about those lands of Tuath Clae. You see, Turlough,’ she said, ‘Boetius has been talking to me and, though I didn’t admit it to him, he does have a point. He is, as far as I know, if we go back to the great-grandfather of Fergus, the only living relative in the derbfine. He asserts that and I think that it is true. I remember Fergus saying something about that to me, something about how Boetius was the only male relative that he had.’

  ‘Funny the way that happens in some families, no boys born. There are too many of them in the O’Brien family. I trip over possible male heirs wherever I go, these days. They’re all bringing themselves to my attention all the time. I suppose they think that I am getting to be an old man, now,’ said Turlough cheerfully.

  ‘Yes, you do look a bit decrepit. Now, could we come back to Boetius? He has brought up the matter of Fergus and I had to admit he has a point. There is little doubt in my mind now that Fergus should be the subject of a court investigation into his mental state. Boetius, as his only male relative, is quite within his rights to demand this. But you see, Turlough, the position is that if Fergus is classified as legally incapable due to his mental condition, then his lands should be divided up amongst his heirs.’

  ‘And that means that Boetius gets the lot.’ Turlough gave a whistle. ‘Worth coming back from London for that. I suppose that all in all, he should perhaps be Brehon, as well. I can’t offhand think of anyone more suitable. The last one
wasn’t a great success, was he? Got himself murdered a few weeks after he arrived in the kingdom.’

  ‘I don’t agree about that. There must be someone more suitable. Don’t rush into it, this time.’ Mara felt a great wave of irritation rise up within her. The law mattered more to her than it did to Turlough, who, deep down, felt that most disputes could be settled with a sword, but she had not expected him to envisage, so cheerfully, the prospect of having Boetius as a Brehon.

  ‘You see if he is here, living on the spot, and if his uncle, dear old Fergus, was Brehon, and his grandfather, Hugh MacClancy, before that and his great-grandfather, Conor Oge MacClancy was Brehon before that, going right back into ancient times. You can’t get away from things like that, Mara. If Boetius comes back and takes over the house and the lands at Knockfinn, it would be very hard to exclude him from the post of Brehon. You could almost say that he has a blood right to it. If I hadn’t had young Gaibrial O’Doran in mind, I might have appointed him in the first place. Don’t worry about it, Mara. I’ll keep a close eye on him and make sure that his judgements are fair. I’ll tell you what I’ll do, I’ll attend every one of his judgement days for a year until he settles back into our way of doing things. And I’ll make sure that there is none of this hanging and drawing and quartering of that King Henry. What a way to treat a fellow human being!’

  ‘And you are prepared to forgive and to forget what he did ten years ago?’

  ‘Well, he explained all that to me. He was under the influence of some drug or other. I blame that Englishman, that Stephen Gardiner, myself. He was a nasty piece of work. Just like his royal master. Boetius told me that he was out of his head half of the time and really did not know what he was doing. And I believe him,’ added Turlough with a touch of defiance in his voice.