Cross of Vengeance (11 page)

‘The
púca
are here,’ wailed Slevin.

‘That’s enough,’ said Mara. Her ear was caught by the sound of horse hoofs from Roughan Hill – someone was riding at breakneck speed towards them. It couldn’t be Nuala already. In any case, Nuala was a cool, calm, collected young woman who would never ride like that. She listened with half an ear to Finbar telling her that he had given her note to Ardal O’Lochlainn and then assuring Domhnall and Slevin that he had known it was they all the time and that he didn’t believe in ghosts or the
púca
, but her mind was on that horse getting nearer by the minute. She climbed on a tall boulder at the edge of the enclosure and then sighed with a mixture of annoyance and relief.

‘Cormac,’ she said with exasperation. ‘What on earth are you doing back here?’

‘Art didn’t want to go back to Brigid; he wanted Mama. He said he was sick and he started to cry so Fachtnan dropped him off at
Dat
’s place.’

‘And you?’ Fachtnan had probably made the right decision about Art, to bring him back to his mother, but she was surprised that he had allowed Cormac to come back. He would surely have guessed that she was only too pleased to get both nine-year-old boys away from this gruesome murder. She would have expected that Fachtnan would either have left him with his foster mother or else returned him to Brigid at the law school.

Cormac’s eyes fell before hers. ‘Well, I stayed with Art for a while, but then I told
Mam
that you … then I said that I had to get back … that you would need me.’

‘I see,’ said Mara, repressing strongly the slight feelings of jealousy that always arose when Cormac referred to his foster mother by the affectionate familiar name of
Mam
and his foster father as
Dat
. He had, after all, spent his first five years of life with them, she told herself. It was reasonable that he had a strong affection for them, but reason didn’t always shut out jealousy.

‘Stand over there, Cormac, behind me, and don’t breathe a word,’ said Domhnall sternly. Cormac was, in fact, Domhnall’s uncle, but Domhnall kept an effortless authority over the younger boys and Cormac meekly did as he was told. Mara promised herself to have a stern word with her son afterwards, but in the meantime there were more important matters to be dealt with. This murder had to be solved and solved quickly. The pilgrims could not be detained for long. They had a right to be allowed to proceed on their pilgrimage to Aran and to celebrate the feast day of the saint that they had come to honour.

‘They’re coming,’ said Domhnall in a low murmur.

It took a minute, but then Mara heard them – the high-pitched tones of the prioress, the sibilant Latin of Father Miguel, Father MacMahon agitated and appealing to Ardal to tell him why the church was empty, Sorley grumbling, Nechtan explaining that he, Ardal, Ardal’s steward and his men had patrolled the boundaries of the
termon
all night and that the German’s horse was still in the stable; there was a confused medley of voices and languages. She stayed very still and was pleased to note that the truant Cormac was solemn-faced and standing meekly behind Domhnall.

It was unfortunate, but perhaps inevitable that the prioress was first. The men had all conceded precedence to the ladies, and, just as Slevin had predicted, she threw a fit.

Mara made no move to step forward and allowed her two sisters to console her and to block the terrible sight from her chaste eyes. The exclamations and broken sobs sounded over-done, but then she would have expected someone like the prioress to react like that and Mara did not think that it was significant. She did not really suspect the prioress or her sisters. She could not imagine how they could have stripped the man, killed him and then carried him to this spot and hoisted him on to the slab.

In any case, she thought, the most likely reason why Hans Kaufmann had been killed was to punish him for his sin of sacrilege – the sacrilege of burning the sacred relic. The women pilgrims had not struck her as particularly religious. Probably they enjoyed the travel, and visiting holy shrines gave a perfectly respectable reason for journeying from country to country.

Now Sorley, she thought, had an odd look – not too upset, almost glumly satisfied.

Blad, well, he crossed himself in the conventional manner of people seeing a dead body. But shocked? No, not really, she thought. More like a man putting on some show of sorrow when attending the traditional
wake
of a long-term enemy. Mór was very white, but had herself well in hand – not stunned by the nakedness of the corpse, just looking slightly to the left of it.

Nechtan – calm, dignified, not at all like the gossipy, friendly Nechtan that she had known for so long. Perhaps, she thought with interest, the revival of the old traditions had lent him this new gravity, a new solemnity. He was, after all, the
coarb
, the inheritor of the lands, possessions, and, to a certain extent, the revenues of those monks of old who had come to settle on the banks of the River Fergus, and who had built their magnificent stone church with its inlaid stone cross in the gable.

And Narait, Nechtan’s wife? Bewildered … bewildered at first, amended Mara. And then? And then – well, terrified would be the only word for her expression. Terrified and eyeing her husband with fearful mistrust. After one frightened glance, her eyes avoided the figure of the naked man.

And the clerics? Well, Brother Cosimo had a look of grim satisfaction, almost as though he were thinking that the false pilgrim had been satisfactorily punished – or was it that he felt a satisfaction at the sight of his handiwork?

Father MacMahon was very pale, immediately and mechanically crossing himself and muttering a prayer.

And Father Miguel. Now that was interesting, thought Mara. Father Miguel’s fine Spanish profile, viewed in the light of the morning sun, silhouetted against the western sky, had a look of fury – lips compressed, two patches of red on the high cheekbones, dark brows slightly raised, black eyes burning. He had the appearance of a man baulked of his prey. Or was it just that the very sight of the German pilgrim reminded him of the terrible sin committed when the relic of the true cross had been destroyed?

Mara stepped forward. ‘As you can see …’ she said, pitching her voice to a level where it smothered the hysterical sobs of the prioress. ‘As you see,’ she repeated when there was a cessation in the frenzied noises, ‘someone has desecrated the sacredness of the sanctuary evoked by Herr Hans Kaufmann. The man threw himself upon the mercy of the church and this God-given protection was profaned.’

And that, she thought, was a masterly way of putting things. The clerics of three countries – Ireland, Spain and Italy – were looking at her guiltily, and even old Sorley, dour and gruff from long years of gravedigging, eyed her with a certain measure of shame. Nechtan tightened his lips and looked straight ahead of him and his wife gazed up at him with that unusual air of timidity. Blad, the innkeeper, gave a quick, impatient snort, and Mór, his daughter, shook her head sadly and mopped her eyes with a snowy, well-laundered handkerchief. Only the prioress ignored her words and continued to shudder and sob artistically.

Mara gave them a minute to think about this and then changed her tone to a more business-like one. ‘Who saw Hans Kaufmann since the hour when I left Kilnaboy yesterday?’ she asked.

‘I brought him supper at about an hour after sunset,’ said Mór after a pause during which all looked at each other and then at the ground beneath their feet – anywhere except at the body on the slab.

‘Yes, I remember it was agreed that the pilgrim should have supper,’ said Mara with a nod. ‘So just take us through it, Mór.’

‘Well, I went over with some food in a basket, in a couple of baskets, Brehon,’ said Mór. Her voice was hesitant. Mara waited. She could see that Mór was wondering whether to tell her something or not.

‘And was all as you expected to find it?’ she queried in a matter-of-fact way.

‘Well, no, Brehon.’ Mór seemed relieved to be asked that question. ‘The church was locked, Brehon, and I didn’t expect that. I thought that it had been agreed that the church would be left open.’ She looked across at Nechtan and he frowned but said nothing.

‘So you had to go over to Father MacMahon and fetch the key?’ Mara wondered whether the Spaniard had locked the church. Father Miguel certainly looked pleased with himself when he heard Mór’s words, but then perhaps that was his normal expression.

Mór and her father exchanged looks and Father MacMahon flushed a patchily red colour and stared so fixedly and with such a heavy frown at the gorse bush that Mara turned her head to see what he was looking at. Cormac, she noticed, had his right hand half-raised as though he were in the school room asking permission to speak and wore a slight grin on his face. The pale green eyes that he had inherited from his father were alight with amusement. Mara frowned slightly and Domhnall nudged him hard in the ribs. Mara turned her attention back to Father MacMahon and raised her black eyebrows at him. He continued to look uncomfortable and she waited.

‘She fetched it herself,’ he said eventually, the words spurting out. His eyes had an embarrassed look.

‘Fetched it herself,’ repeated Mara. She was beginning to understand. She should have guessed. Now she knew what Cormac wanted to tell her. He knew Kilnaboy far better than she did. His father, King Turlough, was a man who loved to linger over his food, and while he sipped a post-meal brandy with Blad, his youngest son was probably down by the river or climbing trees in the churchyard. Since no one else seemed about to volunteer any information, she turned to Cormac.

‘You have some information for me, Cormac?’ she queried.

‘Just that the key is usually kept in a hollow behind the … behind the statue above the south door,’ he said, biting his lips while his eyes slid sideways to look at Slevin’s flushed face.

Mara sighed. She knew what was amusing them. In fact, that statue that he spoke of – a
sheela-na-gig
it was called – she had always thought was an amazing thing to have above a church door, though Turlough had assured her that there were many of them in churches all over the kingdom of Thomond. It was a carved figure of a woman displaying her enormous genitals and was, according to Turlough, supposed to show that lust was a terrible thing. She was surprised that Father MacMahon would place the key above that figure.

‘I suppose,’ she said aloud, ‘that from time immemorial, the church key has been placed in that spot.’ That would, she thought, have been the only reason for such a bizarre choice. Custom, in the kingdom of the Burren, was a hallowed thing.

‘That’s right, Brehon,’ said Blad, looking uncomfortable. He shot a quick glance at his daughter and then looked at the ground again.

‘And you found the door locked, looked up, found the key, and then unlocked it. Is that right, Mór?’

‘That’s right, Brehon,’ said Mór demurely.

‘And replaced the key.’

‘I thought it had probably been locked by mistake, Brehon,’ explained Mór.

‘Who would know that the key was placed there?’ Mara addressed herself to Sorley and he answered readily.

‘Everyone knows that, Brehon. Everyone in the parish.’

‘And the pilgrims?’ Mara switched quickly to Latin and her eyes went to the silent clerics. No one answered, but the
moue
of distaste on the prioress’s lips, the slight smile on the widow’s face, and the embarrassed blush on the cheeks of the youngest sister told her that the ladies, at least, had viewed this ‘
sheela-na-gig’
.

‘We saw the church being locked after the service of Benediction on the eve of the Feast of the Holy Cross,’ said Brother Cosimo eventually. Father Miguel, noted Mara, did not speak.

‘They stood around waiting for you to store the key?’ Mara switched back to Gaelic, addressing Sorley.

‘The ladies were there,’ he said. ‘That one,’ he nodded at the prioress with an annoyed air, ‘she made a sort of clicking with her tongue and I think that the brother and the priest came across then. They had been looking at the tomb slab with the bell and the crosier in the churchyard – the grave of the pilgrim of time long gone by.’

‘I did not notice where the key was placed,’ said Brother Cosimo stiffly. So he has picked up a little Gaelic, thought Mara – interesting.

‘Did you see it, Father Miguel?’ Mara looked across at the Spanish priest, but translated the question into Latin.

‘I think I may have. Yes, I did – an interesting old carving.’ The words were dismissive but the eyes were keen. He was eyeing her with a look of dislike and Mara returned his gaze, holding it steadily until eventually he looked away.

No Spanish Inquisition here, Father, she thought triumphantly. No burning, no torture. Nevertheless, I am in charge and everything, from now until the moment when the murderer is convicted and punished, must go according to my word and my directions.

‘I apologise, Father MacMahon,’ she said, looking towards the priest, ‘but even the church is under my authority until the crime is solved.’

‘But, Brehon,’ stuttered Father MacMahon, now speaking Gaelic, ‘I wasn’t the one that locked the church; I didn’t go near the place.’

‘It wasn’t the Father,’ confirmed Sorley. ‘He didn’t have a hand in it. It was that priest there, I guess. He was hanging around the churchyard and he seemed to be waiting until I went in for my supper.’ He, of course, also spoke in Gaelic, but his finger pointing directly at the Spaniard made his meaning obvious to all.

‘Did you lock the door, Father Miguel?’ asked Mara in Latin.

There was a moment’s silence, but then the Spanish priest nodded defiantly.

‘Yes, I did,’ he said. ‘I was not satisfied that sufficient arrangements had been made to keep the guilty man safe.’

Mara was not sure whether Ardal and Nechtan understood the heavily accented Latin, but she thought it wasn’t worth pursuing the point. Hans Kaufmann had been alive and well, and had eaten a good supper when Mór unlocked the door, so the locked door was not perhaps of significance at the moment.