Writ in Stone

by Cora Harrison

  She smiled sweetly at their puzzled faces and went across to the guest house where Father Peter was looking after Conor.

  ‘So, how long have you been a priest, Father Peter?’ Mara enquired. She spoke softly as Conor was dozing on a cushioned bench by the fire.

  He meditated for a moment, visibly adding the years, checking them off on his fingers. He was a man whose thoughts seldom dwelled on himself, she guessed.

  ‘It must be thirty-one years now.’ His voice had a note of shock in it. He pondered for a moment and then added, ‘Of course most of our order are brothers, but I wanted to be a priest from the start.’

  ‘You had ambitions to be abbot,’ she teased.

  Father Peter jerked his head back with a deprecating gesture that bared his skinny neck and his lips parted in a toothless smile. ‘Ah, that wouldn’t be me, at all,’ he said gently. ‘I’m happy to serve the Lord in any way that I can be of use. If Father Donogh, God bless him, moves away to become abbot of Mellifont, then the order will appoint a new man to our own abbey. I’m too old for anything like that now.’

  ‘But you would have administered all the sacraments, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘I never baptized a baby,’ he said sadly.

  ‘What about marriage?’

  ‘Nor that, either.’ His voice was cheerful now. ‘We get only one or two marriages a year at the most and, as they are mostly important persons, Father Abbot attends to them himself.’

  ‘But you could marry a couple?’

  ‘Of course I could; any priest can do that.’

  ‘Well, Father Peter,’ said Mara lightly, ‘just get your prayer book out and have a little practice because in half an hour we are going to have a wedding in the schoolhouse.’

  ‘What!’

  Mara smiled blandly at him and waited.

  ‘You and King Turlough,’ he said after a minute.

  ‘That’s right. All the other adults here are already married.’

  ‘Lord bless you, the abbot will have my life. I couldn’t do that – marry the king himself here, in a schoolhouse, not even in a church!’

  ‘Well, I have a problem, Father,’ said Mara, a note of well-feigned concern in her voice. ‘You see, what with you in one bedroom of the guest house and the tánaiste and his wife in the other, and the Brehon from Tyrone in the third, Brigid is going to have to lodge the king in my house . . . and, well you know what the Church says about avoiding an occasion of sin . . .’

  ‘Lord bless us and save us, you’re a terrible woman to be saying things like that to me, Brehon,’ he said in a shocked tone, but his small grey eyes were full of merriment.

  ‘So you’ll do it?’

  ‘Sure when you put it like that, Brehon,’ he said in a resigned way, ‘I suppose I can always say that you left me with no choice.’

  ‘We’ll tell the abbot that we tortured you!’ whispered Mara. Conor’s wide blue eyes were starting to open so with a quick smile she left them.

  ‘Brigid, could I disturb you for a moment?’ Mara put her head around the kitchen door. The scene looked relatively peaceful. Nessa and her mother were peeling vegetables, Séan was feeding both fires with alternate pieces of pine and lumps of turf, all of the iron pots were simmering, boiling or roasting and nothing seemed to urgently require Brigid’s attention. Mara knew that Brigid liked to keep an eye on everything but, on the other hand, Brigid had looked after her since she was a baby: if anyone deserved to know her news first, it was Brigid. She beckoned to her then, and led the way upstairs to her bedroom, closing the door behind them.

  ‘Brigid,’ she said nervously. ‘I’m getting married tonight.’

  ‘What!’ Brigid’s jaw dropped and her pale green eyes widened and bulged like gooseberries.

  ‘Well, I don’t see why you are looking so astonished,’ said Mara lightly. ‘After all, I was going to be married tomorrow. This is only a few hours earlier.’

  ‘Yes, but . . .’ spluttered Brigid. ‘Do you mean you are going back to the abbey, or down to Noughaval Church?’

  Mara shook her head. ‘I’ve decided not to bother about the church.’

  ‘What!’ Brigid’s outraged and scandalized voice rose to an ear-splitting volume.

  ‘But we will have a priest; Father Peter is going to read the service.’ This seemed to bring approval. ‘It will be so much nicer here with you cooking the wedding feast instead of us having to eat the food that the abbey offers,’ she ended diplomatically and watched the red patches of indignation die down from Brigid’s cheeks.

  ‘Well,’ said Brigid with a sigh, ‘you always did go your own way and I suppose there is no one to stop you. The king, God bless him, is just like your poor father, always ready to let you do anything that takes your fancy.’

  ‘What do you think I should wear, Brigid?’

  The question, as Mara had intended, immediately distracted Brigid.

  ‘What would you wear but your wedding gown,’ she said immediately. ‘Let’s look at it. I suppose you haven’t even bothered taking it out of the chest since Cumhal carried it up here. Crushed to bits, I suppose.’ Still muttering she opened the chest and took out an elegant red satin gown frilled and embroidered with heavy encrustations and with it an elaborate veil. Her son-in-law, Oisín, a merchant from Galway, had brought the cloth over from France and the veil as well as the gown had been made and embroidered in Galway City.

  ‘You’re right, Brigid,’ said Mara, filling her voice with penitence. ‘Yes, they are too crushed. And the wedding is in half an hour; Father Peter is already conning the service.’

  ‘They don’t look too bad to me,’ said Brigid, dubiously. She looked suspiciously at Mara but could see nothing but regret there.

  ‘I think I’ll wear this,’ said Mara. Quickly she took from the wooden press a simple woollen gown made in the traditional Irish fashion.

  ‘What! That! But you’ve had that for years!’

  ‘The king likes this one,’ said Mara serenely. ‘He said the colour reminded him of hazel leaves in the spring.’ That was not quite right, she had made the remark and he had nodded agreement, but it did clear the anxious look from Brigid’s face.

  Mara held up the gown. It was always a favourite with her. The skirt was made from twenty-four triangular pieces of fine woollen cloth sewn together and each one of the triangles was pleated into four and attached to a broad, waist-hugging band. The bodice was beautifully tailored, with darts at the front. It had a small high collar at the back of the neck, but in front it was cut low. Quickly she pulled a snowy white léine of bleached linen over her head, then slipped the gown over it, laced up the bodice and then turned to look at herself in the long silver-plated mirror. Yes, she thought, it looks good. The heavy tubular folds fell straight down over her slim hips, the laced bodice outlined her breasts and the white of the léine trimmed with delicate lace at the neck, cuffs and hem enhanced the cool green of the gown.

  ‘What about the veil?’ queried Brigid.

  Mara shook her head. ‘No, no veil, it wouldn’t go with this gown. I like my own black hair as it is.’

  Brigid’s freckled face lit up with a loving smile. ‘Well, you always had beautiful hair. You could see your face in it I used to say. You look lovely, alannah, he’s a lucky man, king or no king.’

  Everyone from Cahermacnaghten crowded into the schoolhouse; farm servants and the two scholars rubbed shoulders with the O’Brien royal family as they sat on the heavy school benches.

  There was no singing, no chanting, no ceremony, just a simple exchanging of vows and a recital of the Latin service conducted by Father Peter with frequent references to his well-worn missal. Then when all was over he put away the prayer book and turned to face the small congregation and beamed his toothless smile on them all.

  ‘Brothers and sisters in Christ, we are here today, on this Christmas Eve, to bear witness to the exchanging of marriage vows between King Turlough Donn O’Brien and Mara O’Davoren, Brehon of the Burren,’ he said.
He paused for a moment and then continued in a conversational voice. ‘We all know this man, King Turlough Donn, the worthy descendant of Brian Boru. We have all lived under his benign rule and we have all prospered. I am an old man and I have seen troubled times where neighbour killed neighbour and there were widows and orphans starving after bloody battles, but for the last ten years, since our king, God bless him, has ruled over these three kingdoms there has been peace and plenty for all.’

  He paused for a moment looking kindly on the faces around him and then his eyes rested on Mara.

  ‘Our Brehon, may the Lord make her burdens light, has reigned over us like a queen for even longer than that. It’s hard to believe it when I look at her and see her like a girl before me, but she took on the task of Brehon of the Burren over fifteen years ago and since then has kept the peace between families and friends; she has seen into the human mind, unravelled all crimes, made the rough ways smooth and the brethren to dwell together in unity. The heart of every man and woman in this kingdom will wish her well as she is united with her noble husband.’

  Then the old priest raised his right hand in solemn benediction, saying, ‘Now may God Almighty bless the union between this man and woman and may they go through life helping each other to bear the heavy burdens of their sacred offices, may they go on doing the Lord’s work for many years to come and may they be blessed in their children and in their children’s children.’

  Mara and Turlough bent their heads for the blessing and then exchanged the formal kiss. The others crowded up to congratulate them and Mara found her eyes wet as first Conor and Ellice, then Teige and his wife, her two scholars and then the farm workers, encouraged by Cumhal, poured blessings and good wishes upon them both. Last of all she found herself in Brigid’s arms and felt her tears mingle with the tears of the woman who had been a mother to her for all of her life.

  ‘The Brehon, God bless his soul, would have been a happy man today to see his daughter married to the king,’ said Brigid, eventually, mopping her face with a large square of linen.

  Then the wedding was over and by the light of the stars they all walked across to the Brehon’s house.

  ‘I wonder what they are eating at the abbey, now,’ said Teige, helping himself to some more duck from the platter in front of him.

  ‘Salted cod,’ shouted Turlough, raising one of Mara’s precious Venetian glasses in a salute before emptying the dark red burgundy in one long swallow. ‘Come on, everybody,’ he added, distributing the wine with a liberal hand, ‘let’s not forget the salted cod. I give you a toast to its memory.’

  Patrick chuckled quietly, adroitly removing the cup of burgundy from in front of Shane and substituting some small beer.

  ‘Oh, Lord tonight,’ said Father Peter, his small white face creased with consternation, ‘it’s Christmas Eve and I should be fasting.’

  ‘Not on my wedding day,’ said Mara firmly, rescuing the last of the duck from Teige and sliding it on to the monk’s platter.

  ‘Nor on mine,’ roared Turlough, tilting the flagon of wine over Father Peter’s glass. ‘You just obey your king, my lad, and forget about the abbot. No one will carry tales.’

  ‘Well, I suppose I did take vows of obedience to my superiors,’ murmured Father Peter with a resigned smile. His kind old eyes were watching Ellice and Conor, shoulder to shoulder on the cushioned bench. Ellice was feeding her husband pieces of duck from the point of her knife and he was chewing them hungrily.

  ‘The lad’s looking well, isn’t he?’ said Turlough in Mara’s ear and she nodded happily. Conor, she thought, was looking better than he had for the last six months. Perhaps there was a chance that he might recover, after all.

  ‘Our bridal night,’ said Turlough with deep satisfaction. ‘Well, with a feast like that and such good company it will be a night to remember. Just look at those stars out there!’

  ‘I think we had our bridal night three months ago,’ Mara said, but she wasn’t really listening to him. She lay back on the bed, her face preoccupied and one hand on her stomach. There it is, again, she thought. For a while she had thought that she must be wrong; it was, after all, twenty-one years since she had felt this movement, but now she knew that she had made no mistake. She leaned out of the bed, took a piece of pink linen tape from her pouch beside the bed and turned to her new husband with a smile.

  ‘Slide off your ring, Turlough,’ she said. ‘I need to borrow it for a moment.’