Chain of Evidence (25 page)

‘I didn’t quite catch that,’ she said smiling at him in a friendly fashion. ‘This rain makes such a noise . . .’ She cast a look up at the purple sky and the large drops that were beginning to bounce upon the stones. It would get worse before long, she thought, and was glad that she had worn boots rather than shoes and had put on an extra pair of woollen stockings.

He repeated his remark patiently. He must be used to that, she thought, feeling desperately sorry for him and impatient with herself for not being able to understand. There was something about ‘cows’, she thought and she seized on this word and talked for a while telling him of Cumhal’s high opinion of him and then, to her great relief, Rhona came forward. Neither she nor her son Peadar had been at the
inauguration
so they must have come down from the castle to accompany the body.

‘Has Brennan told you the news, Brehon?’ she asked; her hand on the man’s arm and her broad-cheeked face lit up by a gap-toothed smile. ‘The new
taoiseach
has given him his position back as chief cowherd – couldn’t do without him, that’s right, isn’t it, Brennan?’

Brennan grinned bashfully, saying something, and Mara bit back an exclamation of pleasure as she picked out the words ‘
told her
’ from his mangled speech. Instead she turned to Rhona and repeated all of what her farm manager, Cumhal, had said in praise of Brennan.

‘Se . . . cow.’ Brennan indicated Rhona with a smile that stretched his misshapen mouth and caused Mara to feel intensely sorry for him. The pulled back lip gave him something of the look of a seven-year-old displaying new, large teeth. She wished she could understand him better but refrained from looking for help.

‘What did she do?’ she asked with a friendly smile, nodding at Rhona and his own smile widened.

‘No . . . fri . . . bull,’ he said eyeing Mara anxiously to see whether his words would be understood.

‘You’ve been tackling a bull!’ exclaimed Mara, turning a look of mock-horror on Rhona. ‘What! You, Rhona! Or was it your son, Peadar!’

‘Peadar!’ said Rhona. ‘He’s no cattleman; nothing interests him but herbs and medical matters. I was brought up with cattle; I was the only child of a cattle dealer. Not that there were any problems with this bull, were there, Brennan? He’d just got a bit above himself having run free for a few miles with all the cows. We got him back into the cabin, poor fellow, didn’t we? He’ll stay there until August when he can run free with the herd again. Good bull, isn’t he?’

Brennan said something and Rhona nodded sagely, ‘Yes, I thought that you would have had a hand in choosing him. Reminds me a bit of our Galloway cattle. Good bone.’

‘I must go and see Father MacMahon,’ said Mara, feeling that it was necessary to pull this burial party into order and at least to consign Garrett’s body to the earth with dignity. Ardal had been as good as his word and there was an enormous mound of earth beside the grave and a collection of the highly valued quartz pebbles to place on top of all when the grave had been covered again. ‘Goodbye, Brennan; I’m so pleased that you are now chief cowherd of Carron, again,’ she said, making her escape quickly before there could be any more talk about cows.

But while making easy conversation with Father MacMahon she found herself wondering why Tomás, with all that he had to do, should have found time to reinstate a disabled cowherd. It showed, she thought, an unexpected side in his nature. She frowned slightly, turning to look at the threatening sky to explain her preoccupation when the priest looked startled. It was not of the rain, though, she was thinking. There was something strange about this. Unless, of course, Rhona had interceded on Brennan’s behalf. That, however, was unlikely, thought Mara. Was there a chance, perhaps, that Tomás feared that Brennan might have seen something? After all, his cottage was not far from the spot where Garrett’s body was found. She decided to postpone her thinking to the time when she was warm and dry and turned to see what the stir of people from the gate might mean.

‘The O’Lochlainn must have sent him,’ muttered Niall MacNamara. There was a look of shame on his face, and on the faces of the other MacNamaras from the Burren. Where was the MacNamara piper? wondered Mara, watching with approval as O’Lochlainn’s own personal piper came through the gates and went up to Tomás. Probably back at the castle preparing jubilant melodies to celebrate the inauguration of the new
taoiseach.

‘Shall we gather around the graveside, Father?’ she suggested to the old man. ‘Perhaps you would consult with Tomás
about who should share the honour bearing the coffin with himself and Jarlath.’

Without waiting for an answer, she just glanced over her shoulder to make sure that he spoke to Tomás and then she went up to Fintan. ‘You, as bearer of the rod, should be one who will carry the coffin to the graveside,’ she said firmly. ‘Let me go with you to Jarlath.’

In a few minutes she had it all arranged; it was only in the sudden silence after the piper ceased its wail, when the coffin had been successfully lowered on ropes into the grave and before the priest had begun to intone the words of the great psalm
De profundis clamavi ad te, Domine
,
that her mind suddenly cleared. And it was only then that she fully understood how Garrett MacNamara had lost his life on the evening of the cattle raid of Bealtaine.

A physician needs public recognition before practising in a kingdom. He must be learned in the ways of the body; must know the twelve doors of the soul – the twelve ways in which life may be extinguished; he must know the seven most serious bone-breakings; and be able to classify teeth and find an answer to their problems.

A physician’s house should be free from dirt, should have four open doors, and should have a stream of water running across it through the middle of the floor or else nearby. It needs to be set in a quiet place with no noise from talkative people, from fools quarrelling or from dogs barking.

‘I
’ve made up my mind.’

Mara turned a distracted face towards Nuala. Turlough had left at noon to go to another inauguration in Ossory. She had given herself and her scholars time to get warm and dry and to have their usual midday meal and then she had resumed teaching during the afternoon, but with only a quarter of her mind on the task. The other three-quarters ranged over the situation at Carron. What was best to do? It had always been her philosophy to take full responsibility for any actions of hers – and that now involved carefully thinking through
consequences
before making any accusations. In the end, she dismissed her scholars to have half an hour’s exercise before their evening meal, thankful that she had Fachtnan to take charge of them. Now she looked unseeingly at Nuala who had followed her over to the Brehon’s house and then was aware of the silence and the puzzled look on the girl’s face as she waited for an answer.

‘You’ve decided,’ she said. Earlier in the day Nuala had been talking to Brigid about a new gown for a celebration at Thomond to celebrate the birth of one of Turlough’s latest grandchildren. ‘So did you decide on green or saffron?’ she asked, trying to force her voice into a note of enthusiasm.

‘Not that.’ Nuala sounded exasperated. ‘I’m not talking about gowns. I’m talking about my future. I’ve decided to come to the Burren and live at my house in Rathborney. You’re right. It’s a great house and would make a perfect teaching hospital.’

Mara’s eyes widened. ‘That’s wonderful,’ she said with
absolute
sincerity. ‘What made you decide?’

‘I suppose it was Peadar,’ said Nuala thoughtfully. ‘I’ve been thinking, watching you at work, how much your scholars learn by doing things, by being with you. Yes, they have to have book learning, too – but I remember when I was a child what a struggle it was to understand my grandfather’s notes and how much I wished that I had someone to show me how these drawings applied to a real human body. I learned a lot about how to teach when I went to the medical school in Salerno in Italy, but I would like to teach the way you do – seizing opportunities from real life and applying them to the stuff you find in books.’

‘Perhaps one day the medical school at Rathborney in the Burren will be as famous as the school in Salerno,’ said Mara enthusiastically. ‘Well, everything is in good order for you. Fachtnan rides down there once a week and makes sure that the house is kept warm and the farm is well-attended to. He has been your faithful steward.’ She ended on a lighter note and saw the flush come to Nuala’s cheeks.

‘I think . . .’ she began and then she stopped. They had been standing at the doorway into the house and both heard the sound immediately. A horse been ridden at breakneck speed. A moment later the beautiful Arab horse that Mara had last seen being ridden by Tomás’s son came thundering down the road. At the same minute, Moylan, attracted by the sight, came running down the road between the law school and the Brehon’s house.

But the horse was not ridden by its owner. Instead of the elegant, beautifully-dressed figure of Adair MacNamara was Peadar. Peadar with a white face and fear-filled eyes.

‘Brehon!’ he shouted, sliding from the horse and allowing Moylan to catch the bridle. ‘Brehon! Something terrible is happening. My mother is gone to Galway so I had to come to you; you’ll have to stop them, Brehon. They’ve got her!’

‘Who? Your mother? Rhona?’ Mara turned an alarmed face to him.

‘No, I told you; she’s gone to Galway. It’s Slaney; the wife of . . . of my father.’ His voice rose to squeaky heights and then broke abruptly on a half sob. ‘I didn’t know what to do.’ He looked at Nuala. ‘I couldn’t do anything,’ he said apologetically.

‘How on earth did you get Adair to lend you that horse? You’ve ridden him to the ground,’ said Moylan angrily. He plucked a handful of last year’s dead grass from the ditch and began rubbing the foam and sweat from the animal’s legs and flanks.

‘I had to; they’ve got her, out in the circle; below Carron.’ Peadar turned a sob into hiccup and brushed his hand across his eyes. ‘What do you care about a horse?’ he raged in his high, half-broken voice. ‘They’ve got the woman out there. And I’ve seen the firewood.’

‘Where?’ asked Nuala, but Mara had immediately known where he was speaking of and she felt her lips turn cold. She knew that lonely circle at Creevagh and she knew the tales that people told in whispers about things that had happened there in old legends. Brigid’s words about Tomás’s unpleasant grandfather came back to her.

‘Cumhal,’ she called, but to her dismay it was young Dathi who appeared, saying that he didn’t know where Cumhal had gone. Still she had to go now before anything happened. She would have to rely on her status in the kingdom to give her authority. ‘Dathi, we’ll leave this animal with you, but saddle a horse for me. Moylan, you and Aidan saddle your horses now and be ready to come with me.’

When they had gone, she turned to Nuala. ‘Are you willing to take on Peadar as your apprentice, Nuala?’ she asked. ‘You’re sure?’

Nuala nodded; her face serious and concentrated.

‘I want him out of the way and safe and I want no one to be able to get hold of his patrimony,’ said Mara. ‘Fachtnan, you get your writing materials and go with Nuala and Peadar to the schoolhouse. Draw up the apprenticeship agreement and have it signed – Peadar is old enough to sign it himself as he has no living father. Make sure that Nuala has all the powers over him according to the English law of apprenticeship. When you have done that, lock it into the box in the press. I’ll leave you in charge. Settle Nuala and Peadar down in Rathborney and then follow us to Creevagh – Fiona, Hugh and Shane can stay with Nuala. Help her in every way, won’t you, and, Nuala, on my return I will be bringing you Slaney, your first patient. I must get her away from that crowd. With the help of God,’ she added. She was not given to these pious appendices to her words, but this time, thinking of how she would have to confront the might of the MacNamara clan on her own, except for a couple of young lads, she felt that she would try to get all the supernatural help possible. The thought of Ardal O’Lochlainn and the army of men that he usually had working around his farm crossed her mind but she dismissed the idea. This would have to be carefully done.

‘Let’s go,’ she said when Moylan and Aidan returned and set such a pace on her mare that she soon outstripped them and had to wait beside Caherconnell, Nuala’s old home, in order for them to catch up. She had no real fear of aggression towards her own person; her status as Brehon of the Burren had given her complete confidence in her ability to handle a crowd, but she did want her entrance to be as impressive as possible. She rode in silence, turning over in her mind what was best to be done. If only she had got rid of Stephen Gardiner! It had been a shock to hear from Cumhal that he had gone – not to Galway, but only a few miles west to the kingdom of Corcomroe.

‘Look down there, Brehon,’ said Aidan after a while. Mara checked her horse and looked down. They had been climbing steadily and had passed through the area of common land, known as the High Burren. Far below them, where the high clint-paved land fell away into a small valley, there was the townland of Creevagh with its large ancient enclosure. Mara stayed very still and signed to her scholars to wait in silence. Both were, like herself, dressed in serviceable dark grey wool cloaks, felted and treated until they were almost impervious to wind and rain. In the gloom of the late afternoon, with the heavy sky above giving little light, they could watch without being seen.

The enclosure at Creevagh was a large one measuring about a hundred feet across its centre. Uniquely it had two dolmens – the one situated within its walls and the other one in another enclosure just outside. Each was almost the same in construction – a flat stone rested upon three massive upright stones, giving it the look of some strange, prehistoric altar. When Mara was young, Brigid had told her that the dolmen within the first circle had been used for burial of good souls who would go to heaven; and the second dolmen had been used for the evil souls who were doomed to go down into the fires of hell. A sunken passageway, about the depth of a man’s height, had been made by hacking through the stone and was constructed to join the two enclosures. Some years back, a farmer, rescuing a sheep which had become trapped within the stones, had come across a pile of burned skulls and bones and this had seemed to lend credence to Brigid’s story. Most people avoided the place, especially at evening and during the great festival of Samhain, when, it was rumoured, the dead came back to life.