Condemned to Death (2 page)

Still, the prospect of the midsummer’s eve supper and of staying in the newly built castle inside the ancient wall of Cathair Róis – that was exciting even if the tents were impossible, and the prospect of being ready at the very first moment to set out to sea was wiping the gloom from their faces now.

‘And you can all help us, you know, you can help us in putting up the supports for the tents. We’ll have to wait in case the wind rises again before putting the canvas over them, but there’s no reason why you can’t make a start in putting in the poles; you can have three tents to share between you– that will do you, won’t it?’ asked Fernandez, pointing down to one of the sheltered hollows in the sand dunes. Already quite a few tripod structures had been erected in other hollows and there were neat fireplaces made from stones from the beach near each of them.

‘Great! Is that place just for us!’ shouted Cormac. ‘Me and Art in one, the twins in the second one and Domhnall and Slevin in the other – and Finbar,’ he added.

Mara reminded herself silently to ask Cliona, Cormac’s foster-mother, to find another tent for Cael, the girl of the MacMahon twins, or better still keep the child with her. I really should try to discover another able girl to keep Cael company at the law school, she thought. Cael was an extremely clever youngster, brighter even than her brother, and it would be a shame for her not to qualify as a lawyer, but this insistence on being a boy and doing everything with the boys was quite a problem. There had been a huge fuss when Mara decreed that she had to live either by herself in the one-roomed girls’ house, or else with the farm manager and his wife, and not share the boys’ accommodation in the scholars’ house. It was a shame that Cael could not be happy to be a girl, she thought and looked an appeal across at Fernandez.

‘Well, I was hoping to get Cael to share with Etain’s sister,’ said Fernandez diplomatically. ‘Síle is afraid of rats and she thought she saw something moving in the sand dunes. I told her that you were pretty handy with the knife,’ he added to Cael.

Rabbits more likely than rats, thought Mara. There was no doubt that the dunes were full of rabbit burrows – and she had just seen one leap from inside an old discarded boat that had been abandoned upside down, high up between the cusps of two sand hills, but she applauded Fernandez for his quickness of wit. Even now he was shouting, ‘Etain, Etain, I’ve got someone with a knife that will make sure that no rats come to Síle’s tent at night. Here are Etain and Síle,’ he said as a red-haired young woman, carrying a dripping basket and followed by a young girl, came up from the beach. Mara hastened to settle the question of the tents by firmly allocating Cian and Finbar to one of them and Art and Cormac to the second. Domhnall and Slevin could have the third tent and some peace from the younger boys and then she rapidly silenced all protests by telling them to greet Etain and her sister.

‘Cael is afraid of nothing; you can trust to her; she’s expert with the knife and would make nothing of killing a rat,’ she said to Etain, laying her hand on the girl’s shoulder so that Etain would know which one of the short-haired, identically dressed scholars, in knee-length cloak,
léine
, bare legs and sandals, was the girl.

‘That’s good! Síle, this is Síle, she’s my younger sister, she’ll be glad of someone who’s handy with a knife, won’t you, Síle?’

Mara liked her for the quick-witted and matter-of-fact reply. Etain, she thought, would make a good wife for Fernandez. So far they hadn’t bothered with the marriage ceremony, but happily lived together in the newly built castle. No doubt at some stage there would be a wedding. And perhaps it might, she thought, looking around at the meticulous preparations for the great fishing expedition, at the giant net, at the boats lined up on the shore with their sails folded within them, at the orderly crowds moving around the beach, each one with a task to perform, perhaps it might well take place at the same time as the clan elected a new
tánaiste.
There seemed to be a great affection between Fernandez and Etain, though they had a joking, playful relationship; and the younger scholars were amused when she demanded that they hold Fernandez a prisoner while she robbed his purse of some silver to buy goods for tonight’s midsummer’s eve supper.

‘I must go in and change into a fancy gown,’ said Etain waving her piece of silver aloft triumphantly. ‘I have to take this samphire to Galway City and I’ll bring back some nice things for the midsummer’s eve supper. Come in with me, Cael, and you and Síle can choose something for me to wear in the city streets. Cormac and Art, be angels, and take this basket down to the pier, won’t you? I daren’t ask Domhnall and Slevin to do anything these days, they are getting bigger than I am. Finbar and Cian, could you go and get nine poles from the heap by the wall in front of the castle. They’ll do you for your tents and there’s plenty of canvas stacked up in the hall. Just help yourself, all of you.’

And Etain, rapidly engaging Cael in an animated conversation about throwing-knife competitions, went off with long strides towards the castle, leaving all the boys in good humour and willing to do her bidding. Even Cormac and Art made no fuss about carrying the dripping basket down to the pier.

Etain O’Connor, and her brother Brendan, had set up an industry collecting and selling the samphire which grew prolifically along the coastline between Black Head and Poll Salach, but especially on the rocks in front of Cathair Róis, and Etain’s basket was full of the plants, their fleshy leaves of palest green looking like transparent deer’s antlers. Mara’s mouth watered at the sight of it. Picked early in the morning before the sun got at it and boiled while still fresh, it had a crisp salty texture and went marvellously with a fried sole or plaice. She turned her eyes from it resolutely, though. She knew that if she offered to buy some, she would be pressed to take a present of it and that was something she did not want to do. Brendan, she had heard, ran a daily boat across the Galway Bay inlet, going from Black Head to Galway Docks, and did a very good business in supplying the many inns there with the ingredient that the wealthy merchants of the town enjoyed.

There are three stages in the qualification of a lawyer.

The first stage is that of an
aigne
, who can plead for a client in court for a client.

The second stage is that of an
ollamh
, who is qualified to own and manage a law school.

The third stage is that of a Brehon. The Brehon has the power to judge all cases of law-breaking within the kingdom, to allocate fines and to keep the peace.

Each kingdom in the land must have its Brehon, or judge. The Brehon has an honour price,
lóg n-enech
(literally the price of his or her face), of 16
séts.

T
hree days after her first visit to Fanore, three days of peace without her scholars, three days when she had given herself a rest from school work and had visited friends and neighbours, Mara had woken late on the Thursday morning. The night before she had stayed up until after midnight going over and going over the examination papers of the scholars at her law school. Then she had slept badly for the early part of the night pondering over what to do about Finbar. He had now spent two years at her law school and she hated to think that she had failed with him.

Mara had two positions in the Burren. The first was to be judge and investigating magistrate of the one-hundred-square-mile territory of that stony kingdom, but the second was to be
ollamh
or professor of the law school that her father had established at Cahermacnaghten in the north-west of the kingdom. She taught her scholars, once they were past the basic stages of reading and writing, all that they needed to know about the ancient laws of Ireland, and also educated them in languages, such as Latin, French and even Greek, so that they could read the great works penned in the past. At the end of the Trinity term of each year, in June, her scholars sat the examinations laid down by the Brehons of Ireland at their annual congress.

Six of her seven scholars had a satisfactory result. Domhnall, the eldest, and Mara’s grandson, had achieved an outstanding result – excelling in Greek, which he had only studied for four terms. Twelve-year-old Cael MacMahon, the only girl, had done excellently, also, with top marks in every subject and that gave Mara great satisfaction as she had been at the school for less than two years and had spent most of the first term arguing about everything from where she was to sleep to whether she needed to obey orders. Art and Slevin had both done well also, and Cian’s result was better than she had expected. There was a slight disappointment in the very average score from her son, Cormac; although he had done well in French, he had forgotten quite a few of the Triads he had been supposed to have memorized. He was clever, but not interested, she told herself and knew that she would have to face the fact within the next few years that he might want to choose a different environment. Just now he was barely eleven years old and she would endeavour to keep him at school and by her side as long as possible.

But the big worry was Finbar, son of the Brehon of Cloyne, in the south of Ireland. Finbar had been sent to her two years ago by his despairing and angry father. Initially he had made progress in a more sympathetic atmosphere, but it had become increasingly clear that the boy’s aptitude was insufficient for the arduous and demanding study that qualification for even the lowest grade of lawyer demanded. He had failed his examinations last year, and there was no getting away from the fact no matter how often she re-examined the papers that he had failed again. According to the rules of the Brehons of Ireland, he could not have a third chance even if his father was willing. And what was even more worrying was the news Domhnall, in confidence, had told her during the winter, that Finbar had been threatened with expulsion from the family home if there was another failure. There were younger brothers, the Brehon of Cloyne had said, and Finbar had already had every chance to make his way in the law. Now he had to choose a different path and go his own way without further help from his father. Mara sighed over the harsh decision. Finbar, she thought, was not yet fifteen years old. She looked back over her own life. At fourteen she had rushed into a disastrous marriage with a boy who degenerated into an idle, drunken sot, only too willing to live on his wife’s patrimony. At Finbar’s age she had been a mother, but her father had stuck by her, had believed in her. With that belief and love behind her, she had the brains and ambition to succeed and sailed through her law examinations with great ease, qualifying at the age of sixteen, then, after her father’s death, conducting her own divorce, going on to get the further qualification of
ollamh
so that she could manage the law school and then reaching the height of her profession at the age of twenty-one when she was examined by two erudite men and given the rank of Brehon, with responsibility to solve and judge all crimes committed within the kingdom. Finbar, she thought, now needed to display similar courage and industry. He was shrewd, clever with his hands and could be hard-working. Cumhal, her farm manager, thought he might make a good farmer, but farming land was inherited – as she had inherited her farm, as well as the school, from her father. Something else had to be found for Finbar.

Mara got to her feet and walked out to the gate of her house and then down the road towards the law school and the farmyard. Everything seemed very quiet. Even the animals seemed quieter after three days of peace. The cows were all in the fields with their calves – only the house cow would be milked in this season – and most of the workers were up on the peat bog
footing
the turf
, as the process was named: stacking the wet turves in little groups of three leaning slabs supporting a top slab, like a miniature flat roof over a tripod. Cumhal was the only worker in sight, carefully removing the surplus tiny green apples from the trees in the orchard outside the wall that enclosed the houses of the law school. He turned when he saw her, but was forestalled by his wife, Brigid, who popped out from the kitchen.

‘There you are, Brehon. I was just coming over to see you. Cumhal was up on the bog this morning and he saw the ships and boats come in. Came in before the turn of the tide, that’s what he said. He saw the sails from the mountain – and he heard the O’Connor victory song! So they’re all safe and well. I was just about to come over and tell you when I heard your door close. So now you can relax and not worry any more. Give yourself a bit of a holiday. You’re looking tired, so you are. I said the same to Cumhal, last night. She looks tired and worried, that’s what I said.’

‘That’s good news,’ said Mara, ignoring the bit about herself. Brigid had been her nurse, almost her mother, and she still fussed over her as though she was only five years old. Cumhal was a very sensible, experienced man and there was a good view of the ocean from the farm’s bog, which lay in a dip between two mountain peaks. He would have been able to see whether all came in good order – and they would not have been singing unless all had gone well with this fishing trip.

Her scholars would be having a holiday of a lifetime, going out in boats, eating and sleeping on the beach of Fanore, helping to smoke the enormous catch of mackerel and herring that was brought in from the sea by the fishermen and themselves. Mara missed the sound of the eager voices from the law school, but revelled in the quiet that allowed every note of the larks’ high song and the swallows’ chirping to be heard clearly in the still air.

It was a beautiful late June morning, she thought as she walked on down the road, averting her mind from the problem of Finbar and just luxuriating in the calm and peace. The cows and their calves wandered in a leisurely way over the limestone that paved the fields and snatched morsels of succulent green grass from between the stones. It was interesting that they avoided the clusters of dark and light purple orchids which grew amongst the grasses. Instinct was a marvellous thing, she reflected, watching how the bees seemed to go straight towards a cluster of pale woodbine flowers that had just opened that morning – instinct was something that she never ignored in herself, though the long training of the law school had guided her towards overlaying it with reason, with probability and with a strong respect for the law.

Her thoughts had strayed to some past cases when she was roused by the sound of hoofs on the paved road that led from the law school to the coast. Immediately she was alert. The sound alarmed her. It was not a neighbour trotting along to see to cows in an outlying farm, nor yet a visitor – the hour was far too early. This was someone coming fast towards her – coming for an urgent reason. Mara stood very straight and waited until around the corner came, very quickly, on a powerful pony from the Connemara Mountains, the oldest pupil in her law school, and her grandson, Domhnall O’Davoren. Had something happened during the three days since she had left her scholars at Fanore?

Is all well?
She almost said the words, but then checked herself. If all was well, Domhnall would not be here. He would be helping to beach the morning catch of fish, would be slotting them in line above the fires made from dried seaweed and pieces of sun-baked driftwood. No, something was wrong and she braced herself for the news. Cormac, she thought, and realized how vulnerable any woman with child would always be.

But Domhnall, when she pulled up his pony in front of her, said nothing about Cormac.

‘Brehon,’ he said with his usual calm air of respect, ‘Brehon, we’ve found a body.’

‘What happened?’ she asked when they arrived at Fanore less than an hour later. She had already heard the story from Domhnall, but he was discreet beyond his years and said nothing when she asked this question of the small crowd assembled to meet her, and it was Fernandez, the natural leader, who came forward. His voice was quite loud, almost as though he deliberately pitched so that it would be heard by all who were on the beach.

‘Well, it happened like this; we came in on the tide, Brehon,’ he said. ‘Just about an hour before full tide. We left the boats in the water while everyone got buckets and bags and emptied the nets and boats of the fish.’ He told the story well, thought Mara, imagining how the beach would have been alive with activity, the children, the women and the men running up to the top of the beach, well outside the summer high-tide line, depositing the piles of fish on the tarpaulins which she could see spread out on the marram grass, anchored by heavy stones. There would have been frantic activity, everyone engaged in gutting the fish, hanging them from well-soaked alder rods, stacking dried seaweed and pieces of driftwood onto the fires.

‘And then we got the boats tied up or beached just before the high tide,’ he finished. ‘We had everything unloaded by then – all was as you see it.’ He waved an arm, indicating the numerous fires, the drifting smoke, the silver spear-shaped fish, suspended above the fires, and the crowds of men, women and children.

‘And the boat with the corpse also came in on the tide?’

‘That’s what we think, Brehon. Probably before high tide, because none of us spotted it on the sea. It landed at the spot where you will see it to be, over on the far side of the beach, away to the south of where we were working.’ Was it her imagination, or did his voice become a little cautious, as though he was trying to distance himself from the event? He wouldn’t like this, she thought. The people were superstitious. So far everything to do with Fernandez had borne the sheen of glittering success. This might do him harm.

‘Let me see,’ she said and Domhnall, silent at her elbow, moved forward towards the spot that his fellow scholars guarded. The fishermen, their families and the shore-dwellers, together with Fernandez, followed at a respectful distance, straggling across the sands in twos and threes, coming after the two of them as they crossed the rocks and came into a sheltered, hidden tiny bay of sand surrounded by boulders and rock pools.

The boat had come to rest on the sand and the body of a man lay in it – hands outstretched and dangling over the sides and the face, framed by shoulder-length hair, turned up towards the sky. And the significant thing was that there were neither oars nor sail.

Mara looked down at him. The sun had risen to its full height; the light sparkled across the blue sea and it cast a warm glow on the face, but there was no doubt the man was dead. The worst thing about the corpse, she thought, was the way the swollen tongue protruded as if seeking moisture and the eyes were fixed and staring – almost betraying the horror of the final moments. She stood there silently for a few minutes, noting everything.

‘It’s nothing to do with us, Brehon.’ The slightly belligerent tone came from Brendan O’Connor, the samphire-gatherer, Etain’s brother. His voice was loud and quite hoarse – a man who spent his life on the sea, ferrying the delectable fronds from an inlet on the northern side of Black Head rocks across the bay and into the docks of Galway City. He wouldn’t have taken part in the fishing expedition; his own business was too valuable for him to take a few days away from supplying the cooks and innkeepers of Galway with the fresh samphire.

‘Did you find the body, Brendan?’ she asked.

‘No, no, it wasn’t Brendan. It was young Síle here.’ Fernandez sounded almost alarmed as he contradicted her. He dragged Brendan and Etain’s young sister forward, Cael’s tent-mate, a child of about eight, thought Mara, noticing with an inward smile that Cael looked disdainfully at the girl and moved a step nearer to the law-school scholars, placing herself firmly between her brother Cian, and Art, the fisherman’s son. The little girl gave her evidence in a frightened whisper. She had gone to collect some pretty shells and then seen something glinting from a rock and so had climbed out from over here … And she pointed back to where a line of rocks, still splashed by the retreating tide, ended in this small oval of sand, surrounded by pool-filled boulders.

‘We thought it best to leave it until you came, but we should get it buried before the tide comes in again and sweeps it back out to sea,’ explained Fernandez. ‘In this weather the corpse will soon be in a bad way and the boat can be buried with it. It’s useless, as a boat. You can see for yourself, Brehon, that the timbers are as thin as linen in some places.’