Deed of Murder (6 page)

‘So what did he say?’ Mara was reassured by Fiona’s resolute manner.

‘Oh, he just went on about how much he loved me and that he would find a way, so I just told him that I didn’t love him enough to get married and that I was going back and he could follow if he wished to ride with me or else he could keep going up to the north and beyond if he wished. Then I offered to take the deed back to you if he was going to go on to Galway.’

‘So he wanted you to go to Galway,’ mused Mara. ‘Was that what he said? Didn’t he know that he would have to go through the Kelly territory to get there?’

‘I told him,’ said Fiona with another toss of her bright gold curls. ‘I told him it all and then he grabbed me and tried to kiss me. I kicked him hard and screamed. I told him that someone was coming and he just jumped on his horse and rode away.’

‘And you came home – alone? Why didn’t you ask O’Brien of Arra to give you an escort? That was a stupid thing to do, Fiona. I’m surprised at you.’

‘I thought that Eamon would come after me,’ confessed Fiona. ‘I thought that he would apologize and behave himself. I kept thinking that I heard him following me. I didn’t look back because I didn’t want to encourage him, but I was sure that he was only a little bit behind me the whole way back until we came to Corcomroe. I was so tired then that I just stopped thinking about him. As soon as I reached the castle I went straight to bed.’ She looked up at Mara and said, ‘Don’t look so worried, he’ll be home soon. He was just in a bad mood, but he won’t fail to bring you back the deed.’

Mara looked at the girl closely. She had known her for over six months now and had always found her to be honest and straightforward. There was nothing about her to suggest that she was lying or hiding the truth in any way. The story was a plausible one.

‘I’m afraid, Fiona,’ she said gently, ‘you’ll have to prepare yourself for a shock. Eamon will not be coming home.’

‘Why? What’s wrong? Have you had a message? Where is he?’

Mara contemplated the girl carefully. Could she be sure that the ingenious face presented to her was as innocent as it appeared to be? She wasn’t certain. Fiona was very bright, very clever; she could not be positive that the demure face before her did not conceal some knowledge of Eamon’s demise. Nevertheless, she proceeded in a calm, straightforward manner.

‘Eamon’s body was found at the valley of the flax about noon today. It was discovered by Muiris O’Hynes – you may remember him as the successful bidder for the lease.’

‘Eamon – dead? Dead, today? I can’t believe it.’ She stared wide-eyed at Mara and then began to cry hysterically, tears pouring down, her face white and shocked. The broken words would be just what you might expect from any girl when appraised of the death of a young man who, less than twelve hours ago, had rode with her, proposed marriage to her, quarrelled with her and disappeared from her vision.

But did she know more than she had related? Was the puzzling death of Eamon, and the disappearance of the deed, countersigned by O’Brien of Arra, cousin to King Turlough Donn O’Brien himself, was this death anything to do with the wide-eyed, beautiful girl opposite.

‘You seem surprised,’ said Mara, purposefully brutal and then waited for the sobs to subside. Fiona said no more, just cried helplessly. Mara longed to comfort her, but the truth of that night had to be ascertained. It could be that Fiona had left Eamon at Arra and had returned by O’Briensbridge and the southerly route to the Burren. But it could also be that she had gone north with him and that the quarrel had begun on the mountain pass. She was a small girl, but sturdy; a healthy girl who loved the outdoors and happily played hurling with the boys – perhaps one strong push from her would have been enough to have overbalanced Eamon.

‘No one is saying this is murder – as yet.’ Mara waited for a reaction, but none came. Fiona was making a strong effort to control herself now, but Mara’s words seemed to be unheeded by her.

‘It may have been an unfortunate accident; a quarrel. One person pushes another, he overbalances, strikes his head on a rock, tumbles down, is killed.’ I must talk to Nuala, thought Mara. I’m not even completely sure how Eamon died. At the same time as these thoughts raced through her head, she watched Fiona narrowly. The girl lifted her blue eyes, now reddened and filled with tears, and shook her head wordlessly. She had understood the implication of Mara’s words but that did not necessarily condemn her. Fiona was an intelligent girl who would instantly realize the implications of Eamon’s death.

‘Was I the last one to see him?’ She choked slightly over the words, but now she had herself under control.

‘That’s not possible for me to answer,’ said Mara. ‘It depends . . .’ Purposely she did not finish the sentence.

Fiona nodded. ‘It depends on whether he fell or was pushed.’

‘Who did you think was the secret follower of you both?’ asked Mara, wondering whether this was just a piece of imagination, or even a tale told to cloak the real killer. In fact, for a moment she thought she saw a hint of puzzlement in Fiona’s eyes – almost as though the girl did not know what she was talking about.

‘Who was the rider who had followed you both from the Great Hall of Ballinalacken Castle? Who followed you both through the lands of the Burren, the lands of Corcomroe through Thomond, and right across the mighty width of the river Shannon itself, that’s what you told me . . . Isn’t that right?’ added Mara as Fiona said nothing, just looked straight ahead of her.

‘I don’t know,’ said Fiona slowly, but her eyes told a different story.

Something had just occurred to her.

Six

Bretha Déin Chécht

(The laws of Déin Chécht)

T
he houses at Cahermacnaghten law school were built within the immensely thick walls of an ancient enclosure. Up to recently there had been just four small, oblong, lime-washed and stone-built cottages: a kitchen house, a scholars’ house, a schoolhouse and a farm manager’s house. To these buildings, Mara had recently added a roundhouse for female scholars and hoped that soon she would have another girl to join Fiona. At the present time she herself was the only woman Brehon in Ireland, but there was no reason why there should not be more. In fact, Mara secretly thought that a woman, more than a man, possessed the skills necessary for administering a law which was not enforced by imprisonment or by savage punishments such as whipping, branding and hanging, but by the consensus of the people of the kingdom. The law needed qualities of tact, understanding and a willingness to listen – very much women’s qualities, thought Mara, and she dreamed that her school would produce a line of women Brehons, all as successful at maintaining law and order in the kingdom as she had been.

Throughout almost twenty years as Brehon of the Burren, she thought proudly, she had experienced only two cases where the culprit refused to pay the fine and had escaped into an alien territory. Neither of these men could be permitted ever to show their faces in the kingdom of the Burren until justice was done and the penalty paid. All other cases had been settled, the fine paid and the culprit restored to a life of usefulness to the family and to the community. A Brehon was a valuable profession, and she hoped that this latest case could be solved quickly and the peace be once more restored.

Cumhal came forward when Mara’s horse turned in at the gate and stood beside her, holding the reins while she dismounted. ‘Nuala is in there with him, and Brigid, too, in the roundhouse,’ he said indicating the new cottage.

The roundhouse had been built in the style of the monastic huts on the smallest of the Aran Islands. It had a large room facing the door, with four small bedchambers, screened by leather curtains, beyond it. A big iron brazier, filled with logs, stood against the wall near to the doorway and in the centre of this room was a sturdy wooden table and some stools. Even on a winter’s night this was a cosy place to sit and study and the walls were so thick that the heat was retained even when the fire went out.

Today, there was no fire and on the table there were no books or writing materials – just the body of the young man stretched out to the length of it. Brigid, Cumhal’s wife, had washed and dressed the corpse and he lay there, his eyes weighted shut, wrapped in his white cloak, his face looking younger than Mara had ever seen it. Mara swallowed hard. Young men died; that was a fact of life. They died in battles, they drowned in stormy seas; they died because they were reckless and they did dangerous things. Fortunately this particular young man, unlike others, had left no one behind to mourn him. Both father and mother were dead; there were neither brothers nor sisters, or, as far as she knew, any near or dear relation.

But why did this young man die? This was a question that she had to solve.

‘What do you think?’ she asked, looking directly at Nuala.

Nuala made no reply to this; she just undid the fastening on the white cloak and parted it so that Eamon’s neck was visible. Mara leaned over the body. The injury had been hidden by the cloak, but now it was unmistakable – the purple bruise on the base of the young man’s neck showed as shockingly obvious.

‘The small bones here have been smashed,’ said Nuala.

‘In falling?’

Nuala hesitated. ‘Of course, there were cuts and bruises on the face, and one bruise here, but . . .’ She did not finish, and, in front of Brigid, Mara did not question her. Brigid was very dear to Mara, had been her nurse, had been everything to a motherless small girl. These days she managed the two households, looked after the scholars, cooking for them, cleaning, washing clothes, mothering them, also. Often, Mara wondered how she could possibly manage without Brigid and Cumhal to support her. However, this death was a matter for the law now and Brigid never interfered in any legal matter. She walked towards the door, obviously wanting to leave them alone together to discuss this untimely death.

‘Cumhal has been to the priest, Brehon,’ she said with her hand on the latch. ‘Father O’Connor will bury him tomorrow morning. He wanted to know if there would be a wake and I said that I thought not, but that we would let him know.’

‘No,’ said Mara. ‘No wake. He hasn’t been here long. Very few people will know him.’ Wakes were tedious and distressful affairs, she always thought, where newly bereaved and grieving members of the dead person’s family were subjected to a night-long procession of friends and neighbours arriving with condolences and staying to eat and drink the hours away.

‘Thank you, Brigid,’ she said affectionately. ‘You’ve done wonders. We’ll coffin the poor lad as soon as Blár, the wheelwright, arrives. I’ll bring the others to say a prayer for him in the church, I think. Is Fachtnan with Cumhal?’

‘No,’ said Brigid with surprise. ‘He rode off at least an hour ago. Almost as soon as the body arrived. I thought he had gone over to Ballinalacken Castle. Didn’t you see him, Brehon? You saw him go, didn’t you, Nuala?’

‘I must have missed him,’ said Mara hastily. She didn’t like to see the hurt, proud look on Nuala’s face. She would have been upset to see Fachtnan leave as soon as she arrived. What a tangle it had been for the last few months, she thought with a sigh. Nuala in love with Fachtnan; Fachtnan in love with Fiona; Eamon in love with Fiona . . . And Fiona? Just in love with life, probably, thought Mara. ‘Ask Cumhal if he could spare someone to ride over to Ballinalacken and tell the scholars to come here,’ she said aloud. She followed Brigid to the door. ‘Do you know Cathal O’Halloran, Brigid?’ she asked. She need say no more. Brigid would understand that her thoughts had turned towards the inhabitants of the flax garden and to surmises about how the death of the man who had borne the deed for the new lease could perhaps be connected with the O’Halloran clan.

‘Don’t know him, Cathal, very well,’ admitted Brigid. ‘But I know Gobnait, of course. She was an O’Connor from Corcomroe before her marriage.’

‘Really,’ said Mara. ‘I didn’t know that.’

That was enough for Brigid. She herself and her husband Cumhal belonged to the O’Connor clan and would know it, seed, breed and generation, as she put it herself. She was a woman who loved to impart knowledge, to pass on gossip and, above all, she liked to be asked to have a hand in the law business of the kingdom.

‘Why would you?’ she said immediately. ‘Gobnait would be a good ten years older than you. You wouldn’t have been interested.’

‘Gobnait,’ mused Mara, ‘it’s an unusual name. I haven’t heard of it before in these regions, but there was a Gobnait once, way back, a thousand years or so. She was an abbess, with a convent full of nuns, this Gobnait. Anyway, an army was approaching and coming very near to these holy nuns, so what did Gobnait, the abbess, do? Well, she released swarm after swarm of bees, a hundred thousand of them, the story tells, and they flew, straight as an arrow, towards the army and the soldiers could not stand up to them and they fled and the noise of their shrieks of pain filled the plain of Ireland. That’s how the story goes.’

‘Sounds like this Gobnait,’ said Brigid smiling. ‘A tough woman. I can just imagine her sending a swarm of bees after you if you annoyed her. I knew her mother well and she was a tough woman, also. Gobnait is the living image of her. She was well trained by her mother in spinning and weaving and they say that she was the one that pushed Cathal into making the offer for the flax garden and she was the one that made a success of it. Wouldn’t be easily robbed of that place, Brehon, that’s what I say.’