Cross of Vengeance (22 page)

‘You’re forgetting Brother Cosimo.’

‘He could always deny it. Once Hans Kaufmann accepted money from him, Brother Cosimo probably thought that he could silence him easily enough.’

‘True,’ said Mara. ‘In any case, according to Ardal O’Lochlainn, the followers of Luther are saying such terrible things about the Church of Rome, and the followers of the Church of Rome are saying such terrible things about the followers of Luther, that in the end sensible people may start to shrug their shoulders and believe little of what they hear.’

‘So we come back to religious revenge.’ Fachtnan fastened up the sides of the turf barrow and continued to lob the light sods over the top of the nearest one.

‘And a burning belief in being God’s agent – like the angel in the Bible, the one with a flaming sword.’

‘You are thinking of Father Miguel; I could imagine him with a flaming sword,’ said Fachtnan, pausing in his work to wave a greeting to a man leading a donkey heavily burdened with a basket full of turf suspended from each shoulder. ‘How’s the leg, Micheál?’ he shouted.

‘Never better, thanks be to God,’ came the reply and Fachtnan grinned.

‘Thanks to Nuala,’ he said in a low voice. ‘That’s a man that could tell you all about the wishing hole of Kilnaboy, Brehon. He was sticking his leg in there for years and nothing happened. Then he came to see Nuala and she found that when he broke his leg years earlier, a bit of bone was left in the flesh and that was causing the ulcers. She dug it out and he hasn’t known himself since.’

‘That’s another thing!’ exclaimed Mara. ‘I was talking to Blad, the innkeeper, about how pilgrims might still come to Kilnaboy even if the relic of the true cross no longer existed. I was trying to cheer him up and I was saying that they might come to see the sacred well of the daughter of Baoith – so why didn’t he say that Kilnaboy has a wishing hole? After all, that must be fairly unusual. I’ve never heard of one before now.’

‘You don’t suspect Blad, do you?’ Fachtnan stopped his work for an instant and looked at her with surprise. ‘I don’t see Blad murdering anyone,’ he said, resuming the rhythmic tossing of the sods. ‘He’s a fisherman and fishermen don’t do anything on impulse. There would be no point in murdering Hans Kaufmann. The deed was done and the piece of the cross was burned. Nothing could be done about that. If the German was murdered because of that, he was murdered for revenge and that would hardly be worth it – that wouldn’t give a man back his livelihood.’

That was an interesting idea about fishermen, thought Mara. She supposed that it might be correct. Fishermen had to be quiet, slow-moving, meditative, and above all optimistic. The person who killed Hans Kaufmann was probably impulsive, quick-thinking, filled with self-righteous anger – someone who felt that they were the instrument of God
, the angel with the flaming sword
.

‘Father Miguel,’ said Fachtnan, echoing her thoughts. He moved to another small mound of turf sods. Using both hands he began firing them two at a time into the barrow. ‘What would you think of him, Brehon?’

‘He has the anger, the courage, probably the ability to think fast.’ Mara spoke slowly and judiciously, but she could hear a note of doubt in her own voice.

‘And the desire to let the world know about what happened to a man who questioned the sanctity of relics – to an anti-Christ and a blasphemer,’ queried Fachtnan, and Mara nodded with approval.

‘That’s a very important point, Fachtnan,’ she said. ‘After all, if Hans Kaufmann had been killed and his body left in the church, that would be enough for someone like Brother Cosimo to silence a man who could do him harm. By dragging the body from the church, wheeling it out to the tomb, laying it out there, spreadeagled on the capstone, in the shape of the crucifix and sticking a knife into the hands and the feet – as well as the knife thrust into the left side – all that seems to show a man who was willing to run the risk of being seen in order that the world should hear about this death and should regard it as miraculous. I wouldn’t be surprised if the name of Hans Kaufmann were to be known throughout the world as the man who was struck down by the wrath of God.’

‘So we tentatively cross Brother Cosimo from our list,’ said Fachtnan.

‘I think so,’ said Mara. And the same applies to the prioress, she thought. If it were true that Grace was the prioress’s daughter, and if Hans Kaufmann had discovered the secret and was threatening to reveal the truth, well, the prioress, just like Brother Cosimo, would have been interested solely in silencing the man, not in making a public show of his dead and naked body or in marking hands and feet with the stigmata – all of which added hugely to the risk of the murder being uncovered.

‘And Blad,’ she said aloud. ‘He might have been fearful that his livelihood would be threatened by the loss of the relic, but I’m not sure that he had anything to gain by murdering him in that strange way, stripping the man before death and then wheeling the dead and naked body through the churchyard, up the path and then positioning it on the tomb with the clothes hidden underneath it. Surely nobody would go to that trouble just in order to dispose of a man who was a threat to your security of office – or even who had perhaps ruined your business? Though I suppose it might be a sort of double bluff – make the murder look as though it were done for religious reasons …’

Fachtnan nodded. ‘I think that seems to be complicated, given that it added so much to the danger of the proceedings.’ Mara nodded. He had echoed her thoughts.

‘So we are left with a motive of revenge for religious reasons. And that leaves Father Miguel, Father MacMahon, and, I think, Sorley. Though I had discounted that, your notion of it warning others not to do such a thing has made me change my mind.’

‘And what’s the next step?’ Fachtnan dusted his hands and stood back from the barrow.

‘The next step is to find out where everyone was at the time of death – about an hour after his supper, according to Nuala.’

‘Will everyone remember?’

‘I think,’ said Mara, ‘this might be quite easy to remember. That heavy shower of rain came at about nine o’clock in the evening. It lasted less than an hour and I was thinking that might be a time when our murderer might have been able to dispose of the body and rely on the downpour to wash away a lot of the blood.’

‘Yes, you’re right – I remember it. And it didn’t last too long, did it? Nuala and I went out into the herb garden for a few minutes after the rain stopped, just before going to bed. Everything smelled very sweet there. It seems terrible to think that at that time, on the other side of the Burren, someone was being murdered for a stupid reason like disagreeing about relics and their significance.’

Mara glanced across the bog; the workers from Cahermacnaghten law school had worked with immense rapidity and energy. Their two high-sided carts on the road were virtually full, and one of Cumhal’s men was walking the horses over to be harnessed to the shafts. Cumhal himself was wreathed with smiles. This was the successful ending to a process that had begun last May when Cumhal and his farm workers, armed with those long-bladed spades known as
sléans
, would have sliced the mud-like sods from the wet bog and heaved them on to the bank above. Slice, lop … thud. Slice, lop … thud. Mara had often watched the process when she was a child. It would have gone on for hours, and then later on the sods would have been stacked, five or six leaning against each other and then a final sod placed on the top to hold all in place. Two or three times during the summer the piles would have been undone and then rebuilt again. There was heartbreak, some wet summers, when rain fell almost continuously and thick mists swept in, day after day, from the Atlantic – summers when natives said to visitors: ‘
If you can see the Aran Islands, it’s a sign that it is going to rain; and if you can’t see them, well, it’s already raining
.’ On years like that the small stacks of soft, wet, slimy sods might just have to be abandoned to sink back into the bog again. But this summer there had been lots of fine days and strong drying winds; this year the crop looked good.

No wonder Cumhal was smiling – now all of the hard work had come to a successful conclusion. Tonight there would be a special supper for the Cahermacnaghten workers to celebrate what was known as ‘the drawing home’.
Hay is carried; turf is drawn
– Mara remembered Cumhal teaching her that when she was a small child; it was something to commit solemnly to memory at the same time that, in the schoolroom, she was chanting the value of different types of land and its significance for inheritance.

Mara bent down and picked up the last two sods of turf lying on the ground, feeling their dry, uneven surface and noting the small traces of hardened twigs and desiccated tree knots in their structure. She waited until the contents of Fachtnan’s barrow had been unloaded on to the second cart. Then she walked over, placed the last two sods, one on the top of each cart, and said in clear, loud tones: ‘Thanks be to God; the turf is saved.’

And then she forgot about murder for the moment as her scholars and workers cheered this successful conclusion of an annual task. The turf would be drawn home and then built up into an enormous stack, thatched and allowed to dry still further. They would be burning this harvest in the year of 1520 or even 1521.

Would the memory of the dead man, stretched out in a ghastly imitation of the crucified Christ, have faded from the memories of the people of Kilnaboy by then?

Liability for the offences of a child under the age of seventeen is normally borne by his father, or by his foster father during fosterage.

Heptad 34

There are seven fathers who are not considered to be liable for their children’s offences:

1. A king.
   
2. A bishop.
   
3. A poet.
   
4. A hermit.
   
5. A man without property.
   
6. A person of unsound mind.
   
7. A slave.
   

C
ormac was very cold with his mother. He presented a beautifully written, excellently worded translation of the Latin that he had declared to Fachtnan that he could not understand, looked indifferent when she praised it, fixed his eyes on a spot above her head when she explained why courteous behaviour was important for all of the scholars at the law school, and then slid out of the room as soon as possible.

On the ride across the Burren to Kilnaboy, he and Finbar were noisy and silly, exchanging jokes and laughing immoderately at them. Cliona had sent over a message to Brigid to say that Art’s fever had gone, but that she would keep him for another couple of days to make sure that he did not pass on any illness to the other boys. Mara had sent back a message saying to tell Art that they were all missing him. However, Finbar, although more than three years the elder, seemed to be enjoying Cormac’s company and that, thought Mara, was good.

She moved her mare up to ride beside the two older boys and was amused to find that they were discussing religion.

‘It makes you do some extraordinary things, like fasting until you are almost dead, or whipping yourself with a scourge, or allowing yourself to be killed,’ said Slevin.

‘And do extraordinary things to people who don’t agree with you,’ pointed out Domhnall in the judicial tones of an elderly judge. ‘Look at what happened to the poor old Jews and Muslims out in Spain. My father has a friend, a Jew, a merchant from Normandy, and he gets the shakes when he sees a Spanish ship and he’ll run a mile from the Dominicans.’

‘Like Father Miguel; he’s a Dominican priest,’ said Slevin. He looked across at Mara. ‘Domhnall and I think that he is the most likely person to have committed the murder, Brehon,’ he said. ‘We were talking about it when we were riding home from the bog.’

‘We were thinking, Brehon,’ said Domhnall, ‘that no one stole anything from Hans Kaufmann – so it wasn’t greed that caused his death – no one benefitted financially by his death. I think that is significant; religion-mad people don’t think about money and goods like normal people,’ said the son of a successful Galway merchant.

‘So we think that it must have been some crazy, religious freak who killed him,’ put in Slevin.

‘Going to all that trouble, putting on a sort of show,’ supplemented Domhnall.

‘That’s interesting,’ said Mara, feeling proud of them both. ‘Fachtnan and I were thinking along much the same lines when we were talking together this morning up at the bog.’ She wished that her son would join in with the discussion instead of singing to Finbar a silly song that he had learned on his last visit to Turlough’s court, but then remembered Cliona’s words.
He is only nine years old
, she told herself; Domhnall was five years old and had a younger sister and brother when Cormac was born. The thought of the frail baby that her son had been just over nine years ago filled her with a sudden gush of love, and she wished that she could stop and draw him to her and kiss him – and then smiled to herself at the thought of his horrified expression if she dared do such a thing in front of the other boys.

‘The O’Lochlainn is coming, Brehon,’ said Domhnall. His tone was respectful and he immediately reined in his pony. All of the boys had a deep reverence for Ardal – not only was he the chieftain of his clan,
the
O’Lochlainn, but he was the breeder of fine horses and her scholars admired him immensely.

‘How is everything going, Brehon? I suppose you are off over to Kilnaboy again?’ Ardal politely turned his stallion’s head so that he could ride beside her and not delay her on her journey.

‘I’m glad to see you, Ardal,’ said Mara. ‘I was thinking that I should drop in to Lissylisheen and thank you for your help the other night at Kilnaboy. It was good of you to offer to patrol the church boundaries when the unfortunate man claimed sanctuary.’

It had been in her mind to double check whether there could have been any stranger around the church that night, but that was something that she felt she could not ask outright of either Ardal or Nechtan. Yet this opportunity was too good to pass up.