Cross of Vengeance (14 page)

She waited until the cart had trundled off and Nuala had followed, before turning to Fachtnan.

‘But why were the clothes, bloodstained or not, so carefully hidden?’ she asked, feeling quite exasperated by this minor puzzle. ‘After all, the man is dead. There was no effort to hide the body – on the contrary. So why bother to hide the clothes?’

‘I suppose,’ said Fachtnan with his attractive grin, ‘that if I asked you that question, you would tell me to think myself into the mind of the murderer.’

‘So I would,’ said Mara. ‘And, do you know, boys, I am suddenly struck by the wisdom of my own words. Yes, of course. I ask myself what does the murderer hope that those finding the body will immediately think. Fachtnan, you and I have dealt with cases where the murder is made to look like an accident, or to look like suicide. But this case is neither of those. In the case of the killing of Hans Kaufmann, the murderer hopes that everyone will think that this man, this anti-Christ, this blasphemer, was struck dead by God himself – “
God is not mocked
”
–
that’s what was written on his forehead.’

‘And he wants us to think of the crucifixion,’ said Domhnall.

‘Where Christ had no clothes – though he did have sort of braies,’ put in Slevin.

‘And God is magic, so he could just whisk the clothes up to heaven, or so some people think,’ was Cormac’s contribution, showing, thought Mara, the effect of his religious upbringing in her household.

‘That’s what the murderer wants us to think,’ put in Domhnall.

‘But the Brehon is cleverer than the murderer so she knows that it wasn’t God after all.’ Finbar looked at her carefully to make sure that he had said the right thing – trying to ingratiate himself, as usual. He was, she thought worriedly, one of the most insecure children she had ever had in her law school.

‘But where would I be without my scholars?’ she said lightly. ‘Now run on ahead, all of you, and wait for me by the church door.’

(Last Book of Judgements)

‘Folomrad do mairb’
(to strip clothes from a corpse) is deemed to be a very serious offence unless the act takes place on a battlefield.

Anyone who composes a satire about a dead person, or dishonours their dead body in any way, will have to pay that person’s honour price to the nearest living relative.

T
he five boys were standing in the sunlight beside the church door when Mara and Fachtnan arrived there. Sorley was digging a grave a short distance away – she assumed for the German pilgrim. There had been, to the best of her knowledge, no local death – certainly none had been announced at yesterday’s service. And presumably once Nuala was finished with the body, it would be coffined and buried. She handed the key of the church to Fachtnan and went over towards Sorley, who straightened as she approached and stood leaning on his shovel.

‘We thought that we would put him here, Brehon,’ he said. ‘He should be got below ground as soon as possible. There’s another pilgrim already buried there – so they say – it was before my time, and before the time of my father – there under that slab with the tau cross and the bell engraved on it.’

He must have seen some surprise on her face because he went on, ‘Father MacMahon thinks that he should be buried here, poor man, beside his fellow pilgrim. He thinks it might have been just a temporary madness that made him do an evil deed like that, so we should give him a decent, Christian burial – that’s what the Father says. “Sorley,” he says to me, “Mark my words; even if God struck him down for blasphemy, it’s not for us to judge. Let God deal with him – let God put him in hell or in purgatory – let the flames burn the sin from his soul – we will put his body in the ground,” so that’s what I am doing, Brehon.’

It was an unexpected flow of words from one who was not normally so garrulous. And the phrase ‘poor man’ struck her as sounding particularly false.

‘A very Christian-like gesture,’ said Mara solemnly.

Interesting, she thought, that Father MacMahon should show himself so forgiving to a man who had desecrated the sacred relic of the true cross and ruined the lucrative business of pilgrims arriving and leaving donations. She would have expected him to direct that the German, as a blasphemer, should be buried outside the churchyard, in the scrap of nettle-infested ground that was kept for unfortunates who had committed suicide. Unbaptized babies should also be buried in that spot, but families usually kept the tiny bodies hidden and buried them secretly by dead of night in the ancient burial places of their pagan forefathers.

‘So does Father MacMahon think that he should have a burial slab also?’ she asked after a minute and was surprised when he nodded vigorously.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘The good Father is composing something just this very minute; he’ll get the mason to carve it out on a stone.’ And then he closed his lips firmly and went back to his digging with a muttered excuse.

‘Father MacMahon is composing an epitaph for the dead man,’ she said to Fachtnan when she joined them in the church. She shut her ears firmly to Cormac’s mutters to Finbar. As far as she could hear it was a rather ribald verse about the dead man’s state of undress – no doubt something Cormac had picked up from his kingly father. However, it was, she thought, rather good to see how happy Finbar was with Cormac as a temporary friend. Five was a bad number of boys to have at the law school; she wondered whether she could recruit another twelve-year-old to be a companion for Finbar, though twelve was rather too late to start on law studies. The task of memorizing the hundreds and hundreds of triads – pithy, three-part summaries of complicated laws – was so much easier when done before the age of nine when the memory is at its height. Still, perhaps a merchant’s son from Galway who wanted to know a little native law – that might be ideal. Once Art was back at the law school, Cormac, she knew, would desert Finbar; Cormac was intensely loyal to Art. In any case, Cormac and Art were not just foster brothers; their very different temperaments made them ideal companions, in the same way as Slevin and Domhnall got on so well and always had done.

‘Let’s look at Hans Kaufmann’s satchel again. We’ve already looked at it to check that the murderer had not put his clothes in it, but he hadn’t. You’ll remember that he was wearing a blue doublet and that is missing – the underwear and shirts in the satchel are newly laundered. But let’s look to make sure that there is nothing else before we question the other pilgrims.’

She went briskly up to the dim space behind the altar, noting, as she passed, that the various gold, silver and bejewelled crucifixes and holy figures all seemed to be in place and untouched. Of course, she thought, Martin Luther may not have been against such things, only relics and indulgences. She regretted that she had not made more time to talk with the German pilgrim yesterday. It would have been interesting for herself and for her scholars to have joined in the debate that seemed to be going on in Europe at the moment about certain aspects of the Roman church.

‘Put the bag over here on this table near the door, Fachtnan,’ she said aloud. The light was very dim in the church, but she did not want to go outside in case Sorley came near and tried to pick up some tit-bits of information in order to relay them to Father MacMahon.

The clothes were of good quality, she noticed, as, one by one, Fachtnan took the garments out and laid them on a stool. He had three spare tunics as well as a pile of shirts and braies, all neatly and carefully laundered and none darned or frayed in any way. There was also a travelling ink horn made from pewter, such as she had herself, and a smart leather wallet enclosed a set of quills and a small notebook, with a separate pocket for some small leaves of vellum.

‘Neat,’ said Domhnall admiringly. ‘There’s a leather worker in Galway could make you something like that, Brehon, if you would like one. My father would see to it for you.’

‘That would be kind,’ said Mara absent-mindedly.

The small leather notebook was filled with an elegant Teutonic script. Mara turned over the pages rapidly, mentally translating the enigmatic entries. There was a long list of places with initials after them, each probably signifying some scandal or abuse – R, she thought, probably stood for robbery,
raub
, and then there was a capital K in various places, including that of the convent of St Winifred at Holywell.
Kind
, of course, was the German word for child. For a moment she felt a spasm of dislike for the dead man. Why go around rooting through people’s lives, discovering carefully kept secrets, just because they differed from you in religious matters?

However, that was not her business. A murder had been committed in her territory and she had to solve that, make sure that the guilty person was accused of the crime before the people of the kingdom and the appointed retribution paid. She turned her attention back to the leather folder.

One of the leaves of vellum had something written on it – not a prayer, more like a letter. She read it in silence, thinking hard.

‘May we know what it says, Brehon?’ asked Domhnall after a moment.

‘Yes, of course,’ said Mara. It was always a conviction of hers that her scholars were being trained, not just in the law, but in how to understand human nature, how to deal tactfully and sensibly with people, how to investigate a crime – all of these lessons they could only learn if they were admitted to all stages of her enquiry. She would read the letter to them; it certainly explained one of the entries in the notebook.

‘You do remember your oath?’ she said, and listened as Domhnall fluently recited the traditional promise to keep silent in public about all matters discussed at the law school. The scholars swore this at the beginning of each Michaelmas Term, and from time to time throughout the year she reminded them of that. Emphatic nods greeted his recitation.

‘Shut the door, Cormac, and Finbar, bring over that candle from the altar,’ she said when Domhnall had finished. When they were all standing in front of her she showed the writing to Fachtnan and then read aloud:

Brother Cosimo:

The good lady, known as a
Brehon
, the King’s representative in this strange land, has told me that I will have to pay a fine as retribution for what is deemed my crime in burning that piece of wood in the round tower, wrongly designated as a piece of the true cross.

I find myself a little short of silver at this moment and am sure that you will be happy to supply me. If not, then it would be interesting to see what Father Miguel thinks about that cross which I saw in your satchel and which I know that you stole from the Shrine of the Virgin near Bern in Switzerland.

I appreciate that you have already paid me for my silence on this matter, but I now realize that the thirty pieces of silver was not enough. Expect further demands from me, but for the moment five ounces of silver may suffice – I will see what the lady says tomorrow.

I am, dear Brother Cosimo, yours in the bosom of Christ,

Hans Kaufmann.

Mara finished. She looked towards Cormac, the youngest member of her law school, but he was nodding happily, eyebrows raised, so she guessed that he understood the Latin. She did not look at Finbar; he would not admit to being bewildered once he saw Cormac nod, and she would only shame him in front of the other boys.

‘So Brother Cosimo has already paid blackmail,’ said Fachtnan quietly. He looked towards the boys expectantly.

‘But this letter hasn’t been delivered yet, has it?’ was Slevin’s comment.

‘But he had already blackmailed him and blackmail could provide a motive for murder.’ Domhnall’s voice was meditative. ‘And he could have guessed that Hans Kaufmann would come back to him for more money – after all, he was present when you explained about Brehon law and about fines. Even if he hadn’t received this letter, then he might well be expecting it and might have decided to quickly get rid of the German pilgrim, the follower of Luther, and hope that everyone would think that God had struck him down.’

‘Who was going to give it to Brother Cosimo, Brehon, do you think?’ asked Cormac, and then, hardly drawing breath, ‘Mór,’ he said triumphantly. ‘She was sweet on him – I could see that, couldn’t you, Domhnall?’

He was probably right, thought Mara, and then while Fachtnan took the boys through the various motives for murder, her mind went to Mór. There was something that puzzled her, something that Mór had said that had not made sense at the time. Her mind had picked it up and put it on a shelf in the background until she had time to think of it. Now she revisited that shelf, took out the incongruity and examined it.

Mór had said that Hans Kaufmann had not wanted breakfast.

And that did not make sense.

Why did he not want breakfast? He was a big man with, no doubt, the appetite of a big man. In any case, the arrival of breakfast would break the monotony of the night in the church with nothing but sacred objects to keep him company, and he could enjoy a quick flirtation with Mór as well.

So Mór had lied, thought Mara. But why?

‘Do you remember what Mór looked like when I asked her whether she’d arranged to bring some breakfast to the German pilgrim?’ She put the problem to her young scholars. At that age their eyes were keen and their memories excellent.

‘Embarrassed,’ said Domhnall and the others nodded agreement.

‘Could it have been true that he didn’t want any breakfast?’ wondered Mara, carefully sticking to her rule that all facets of a problem had to be examined before any conclusion were drawn.

‘No way, not one of Mór’s breakfasts – no one would turn one of them down,’ said Cormac emphatically.

‘So did she lie?’ asked Domhnall, and then, as he often did, answered his own question. ‘She looked like she was lying. She was embarrassed; I do remember that. And I saw the innkeeper, the man who is her father, I saw him look at her, just like he was surprised or something like that.’

‘Perhaps she murdered the German,’ said Finbar hopefully, and Cormac frowned.