Deed of Murder (17 page)

She waited until he had moved on before holding up the loop to her scholars and to Nuala.

‘Definitely from our law school,’ said Moylan with conviction.

‘And it is just the right size to be used to tie a scroll,’ observed Fiona, assessing it with her eye.

‘Did you tie it, Brehon?’ asked Shane shrewdly.

Mara shook her head. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I always make a loop with one side of the tape, then wind the other around it. You can see that this has been made by having two loops knotted together.’

‘Do you think that Eamon had two deeds with him, Fiona?’ asked Moylan.

‘Not that I know. Why should he?’ said Fiona.

‘Perhaps it belongs to a deed of contract from last year and Cathal, the flax manager, dropped it,’ suggested Hugh.

‘Birdbrain,’ scoffed Aidan. ‘That piece of tape hasn’t been out in the open for a whole year.’

‘I didn’t say that,’ retorted Hugh. ‘It might be that Cathal destroyed the old one when he thought he would be getting a new one in a couple of days. In fact, he might have burned it and what Shane found might not be the fifteen eleven deed, but the fifteen ten one.’

‘What, took it out of his house, carried it up the hill and burned it there?’ exclaimed Moylan.

‘Why not?’ Hugh was standing up for himself. ‘These pieces of vellum really stink when you burn them – smell of dead calf.’

‘How do you account for the two pieces of tape, then?’ Aidan thrust his face aggressively towards Hugh.

‘Use your own brains, don’t borrow mine,’ retorted Hugh.

‘That’s enough. Let’s ride on now and see what else we can discover. Let’s take the Glenisheen route and then we’ll keep out of the way of the O’Lochlainn and his sheep.’ Mara understood their ill temper, which stemmed from frustration. This seemed to be a case where every step forward seemed to be followed by a step backwards.

There was no sign of Seamus MacCraith, the poet, she was glad to find, as they made their way up the winding road, passing the flax workers’ cottages and the flax garden itself until they reached the small plateau above.

The boys had been keen and observant. There was no doubt that there had been a scuffle of some sort here, and there was no doubt that a horse had stood there for some time. Mara stared thoughtfully at the droppings.

‘But only one horse,’ said Nuala from behind her.

‘Looks like it,’ said Mara quietly. A feeling of great relief came over her.

‘So not Fachtnan following him then?’ said Nuala shrewdly.

‘Thank goodness, no,’ said Mara. She turned and gazed down at the flax garden, lost in thought. It began to look as though the murderer came from there. Perhaps it wasn’t a murder; perhaps it was just a fight that went wrong. A taunt from Eamon, a quick and unfortunate blow from Owney or Cathal. Most likely Owney, given the fact that he had been informed by Nuala about the vulnerable ‘doors to the soul’ parts of the body. But if it had been an accident why didn’t he come and confess the deed to the Brehon? These fights between young men happened from time to time and provided that the correct fine was paid to the family then no further retribution was demanded.

Mara’s thoughts were interrupted by a hastily suppressed moan. With amazement she turned towards Nuala. This girl never cried. Even the death of her father, even his rejection of his daughter months earlier on, had not drawn a single sound from her, but now she stared across the mountainside with tears running down her face, her whole body heaving with sobs. She had her back turned to the law school scholars and seemed to be desperately striving for self-control, her knuckles jammed against her mouth.

‘Moylan,’ called Mara, ‘could you all go a bit further up the mountainside – go towards the north. See if you can see any tracks of Eamon’s horse up there.’

She waited until they had moved off, Moylan with an air of great self-importance, assigning different routes to each one. When they were out of earshot she turned to the girl beside her. Nuala had ceased to sob, but her olive-skinned face was sallow and there were dark circles around her brown eyes. Her cheeks were wet and her hands still clenched tightly as she desperately fought for self-control.

Mara put an arm around the girl, felt her stiffen, but then slightly relax. She did not move nearer or appear to seek any comfort, but she did not reject the arm, just continued to stare bleakly into the distance with the air of one who sees nothing.

‘What is it?’ asked Mara softly.

Nuala struggled for a moment and then her iron will came to her aid and she said in a flat voice, ‘I think Fachtnan is dead.’

‘What!’ Mara stared incredulously at the girl and then common sense reasserted itself. She was used to the young. Everything was dramatic to them.

‘How can you tell?’ she asked gently. Nuala avoided her eyes, staring bleakly at her feet.

‘Do you know anything that you are not telling me?’ Mara realized that her tone was sharper than she intended – only she knew how much Fachtnan meant to Nuala. Instantly she softened her voice, saying, ‘Nuala, you are only guessing. Neither of us knows what happened to Fachtnan. The chances are that he was so fed up and disgusted with Fiona’s behaviour that he decided to go home a few days early.’

Nuala raised her dark eyes and looked very directly at Mara. ‘You don’t believe that, do you? Not Fachtnan. He wouldn’t do a thing like that. He knew that Eamon had been killed. He knew that you would be starting an investigation. He wouldn’t run out on you like that – give you all the worry about him to add to your other burdens. He wasn’t like that.’

Mara was silenced. It was only what she had thought herself.

‘There was only one other possibility,’ continued Nuala. ‘He might have been the guilty one. He might have followed Eamon on that strange route from Arra to here. They might eventually have come to blows. Fachtnan in his anger punched Eamon in the neck, killed him, returned to the law school, found that he could not face telling you what he had done, and then went . . .’

Home, or to his death
. Were those the words that Nuala suppressed, biting her lips and clenching her hands? Mara waited. Nuala was an intensely private person. Her love for Fachtnan was probably greater than Mara had realized, used as she was to thinking of the fifteen-year-old girl as just a clever child. The face opposite her own was not a child’s though, but a woman’s and a woman who was coming face to face with a nightmare.

‘You see, if Fachtnan had come here with Eamon, we would see signs of his horse; I checked in the stables. His horse had definitely disappeared,’ said Nuala after a few minutes during which she seemed to be breathing deeply, sucking in some courage or resolution from the sharp bite of the mountain air.

‘I don’t think the lack of signs is any indication one way or other,’ said Mara, purposely making her voice matter-of-fact and judicial. ‘Let’s just stick to what we know. Fachtnan was alive and well and sitting in the schoolhouse on Saturday morning. He then disappeared. The chances are that he set out to investigate the murder. That, I think, is probably more likely than the idea that he would just go home without leaving word. If there is no sign or message by tomorrow morning then I will get Cumhal to organize a search for him. Now, here come the others. Try to put this out of your head. Fachtnan will turn up safe and well. He’s a sensible young man and I don’t think that he has an enemy in the world. Dry your eyes, let’s not talk of this in front of the others.’

Nuala would be best left to herself for a few minutes, thought Mara, as she went forward to meet her scholars. They looked keen and cheerful, she noticed, and waited for them to give her the news.

‘He came from the Galway side, definitely,’ said Moylan with an air of satisfaction. ‘Show the Brehon what you found, Fiona.’

‘These are definitely from his horse,’ said Fiona. She delved within the pouch she wore strapped around her waist and came out with a small handful of white horsehair.

‘See how long the hairs are and there are a few black hairs mixed with the white ones,’ she said. ‘I’d say these are tail hairs and Eamon’s horse had some black hairs mixed in with the white in his tail. I found them on one of those stunted blackthorn bushes and that makes me think that they came from the tail, also.’

‘I know what you mean.’ Mara considered the handful of hair. This part of the mountain would be open to gales of wind from the west and the blackthorn would seldom grow beyond a foot high, even over a time span of fifty or a hundred years. She had often marvelled at the thick gnarled branches of something that was no larger than a garden flower. Eamon’s horse had been a showy one with a tail that swept the ground. There now seemed little doubt that he had circled the mountains of Thomond and come around to enter the kingdom of the Burren from the north.

But why?

‘Would you like to see the place where I found the ash, Brehon, before it disappears?’ Shane broke into her thoughts and followed with a reminder of what Ardal O’Lochlainn had said about the wind from the west. She followed him and called to Nuala to join them. It would be better for the girl to avert her mind. Nothing could be done about Fachtnan until they were back at Cahermacnaghten and she could consult with her farm manager about the possibility of a search party. Fachtnan was unlikely to be anywhere on the Aillwee. It was a low mountain with quite a few shepherds’ and cattlemen’s huts. Already, many cows had been moved up there and the few pathways suitable for a horse would have been well trodden.

Shane had built a low wall around the ashes of the burned deed of contract. He had even roofed it in with some branches of thick, springy heather. Now that she was there he uncovered it carefully. Mara bunched up her gown to protect her knees from the sharp edges of the limestone and knelt down. Yes, there were some more unburned pieces of vellum.

‘Nuala,’ she called over her shoulder. ‘Come and help. Your eyes are amazingly sharp. If we could find a date we would know that this year’s deed was burned here.’

Nuala joined her rapidly and they crowded around the little pile of burned ash and scraps of vellum.

‘Got it,’ said Fiona after a minute’s silence. ‘Look.’ She pointed a slender finger adorned with a silver ring. ‘Look, Brehon, there.’

Mara narrowed her eyes, but already Shane had shouted. ‘Got it. “XI”. That’s it, Brehon, that’s certain. It’s this year’s deed.’

‘The rest has been burned off,’ said Hugh.

‘Doesn’t matter, we’ve got what we need; you can see the space after the two numerals. It has to be eleven, that’s right, isn’t it, Brehon?’

‘No other possibility.’

‘Good old vellum.’

‘This proves that the murder is connected with the flax garden.’

The voices chattered on while Mara remained on her knees staring at the remains of the roman numerals which had been written on the top of the deed. Memory had swept over her and for a minute her feelings of desolation almost overwhelmed her. Suddenly, and she had not thought of this for years, she remembered teaching the child Fachtnan how to record numbers in Latin. ‘Look,’ she had said, ‘the number five is written like a “V”.’ Carefully, she had arranged the chubby five fingers, moving the small thumb so that it and the forefinger made the letter. ‘And then you make a ten with all of your fingers, cross your wrists and you will see it looks just like an “X”.’ He had been such a sweet child, such a hard worker, always trying to remember things, grateful for her help, so intelligent and yet so handicapped by his bad memory. Could he really be dead?

And if so, was his murderer the same person who had crushed the throat of Eamon and cut short that young life?

Fourteen

Críth Gablach

(Ranks in Society)

Heptad 25

T
he bell had not yet sounded for vespers when Mara and her scholars descended into the flax garden. Nuala had wanted to go home and Mara suggested that she look for the young poet and accompany him back to Ballinalacken, whereupon Nuala instantly changed her mind and decided to accompany them to be a spectator at the auction. Mara had smiled at her decision. Obviously Nuala had no interest in the poet. Stop trying to play the matchmaker, she told herself. In any case, from what she had seen of Seamus MacCraith she doubted whether he was worthy of Nuala, or of Fiona, either.

The mountain today was no place for a dreaming poet. The flax garden was full of noise and, from the sounds to the south of the Aillwee Mountain, Mara guessed that the hunt was still in full progress. Perhaps Seamus MacCraith had decided to give composing a rest and had joined them. She hoped so, as she felt guilty about the poet’s isolation. If he joined the hunt it might take his mind off the lovely Fiona! Turlough, his son, his son-in-law and Ulick Burke – as well as the guards and men-at-arms, of course – were making enough noise for a hundred men.

When the sun began to set lower over the sea they would gather up their sticks and their dogs. Tired but happy, they would make their way back to Ballinalacken for their supper. It was an easy way of disposing of her guests, a day spent out in the mountains, though she suspected that the Aillwee Mountain would, by now, be denuded of wolves. Ardal O’Lochlainn was a careful and knowledgeable farmer and he would not be sending his lambs and their mothers up there unless he was fairly sure that there would be no threats to the flock.

The flax garden seemed to be full of tension when they arrived down. It was probably about half an hour before the time for the vespers bell to ring, Mara calculated, and the work was going on at a frantic rate. Thuds of wooden battens beating or scutching the flax came from the shed nearest to them and shuttles pinged violently from the weaving shed. Near to the dyeing vats Cathal and his son Owney were having a violent argument. ‘. . .
always imagine you know best . . .
’ were the only words that Mara could distinguish. She moved hastily in the other direction towards the spinning-wheel sheds. Gobnait, Cathal’s wife, was standing at the door shouting back in. She sounded incoherent with rage as she yelled, ‘I leave you for an hour and look at how little you have done. Nothing but gossip and slacking. Well, it’s your livelihood as well as mine. If you can’t do the work I can easily get those who can. There’s not a woman in Burren who couldn’t spin as well as you lot.’