Eye of the Law (16 page)

Saoirse cast a regretful glance at Enda and Fachtnan vigorously battling on the hurling field, but then shook her head.

‘No, I’ll be all right, Brehon. It won’t take me long. My pony is a very fast one.’

She climbed up on the mounting block, vaulted on to the back of the sleek pony and clattered off down the road at a smart pace. It was only when she had rounded the corner leading to Kilcorney that something just came into Mara’s head. What was it that one of the scholars had remarked when telling her about Mairéad’s dramatic rescue of Saoirse?
And then he went off and got himself another girl.

Who was that other girl? She had a fair idea, but she went over to the edge of the field and called the hurlers so that she could verify her suspicions. How lucky, she thought, as she crossed back the courtyard towards the kitchen house, that on the impulse of the moment, she had ordered those purple baskets from Dalagh the basket maker.

‘Now, Brigid, don’t make a fuss,’ she said, peering around the door of the kitchen house. ‘I’m just going for a very quiet slow walk down the road towards Kilcorney. It will do me good; fresh air and moderate exercise are both important when a dog is having puppies and I’m sure that the same thing applies to humans.’

Brigid looked at her suspiciously. ‘Just a walk?’

‘Just a walk,’ repeated Mara. ‘I’ll drop into the basket maker’s cottage and enquire about my lily baskets, have a little rest and then walk back again just in time for supper. The king won’t be coming tonight; he’ll be in Thomond so I’ll just have a light supper and an early bedtime.’

‘Well, I suppose that can’t do you too much harm,’ said Brigid grudgingly. ‘Should someone go with you? What about Seán?’

‘Brigid, I have another four months to go before this baby is born,’ said Mara in exasperated tones. ‘I can’t wrap myself in sheeps’ wool and sit by the fire for all of that time. I must lead a normal life.’ With that she marched out of the kitchen house. Between Turlough and Brigid she felt like a stalled cow.

‘These look lovely, just the right size and shape,’ said Mara with genuine admiration, looking at the four baskets that were already made. ‘Do you think that I could possibly take these with me? I’m longing to start planting my lilies in them.’ She picked up two of the baskets, stacked them together and made a show of slightly sticking out her stomach as one who is bearing too heavy a load.

‘No, no, Brehon, one of the boys will carry them for you. Wait a minute and I’ll see if one of them has just finished a task.’ The basket maker’s wife looked horrified, got up and glanced hurriedly out of the open door. Mara came and stood behind her. All boys were busy cutting rods.

‘Could Orlaith come with me?’ asked Mara. ‘Would that be all right, Orlaith?’

By a piece of good luck, Orlaith had just been finishing off the fourth basket when Mara arrived at the door. She looked up now at her mother with an expression of hope on her small-featured face. These children probably led a life of such unremitting toil that even a walk along the road was a treat for them.

‘Yes, of course she will. Give them all to her, Brehon. They’ll be nothing to Orlaith. You help the Brehon with her lilies, Orlaith, and then you can come back when she has no further use for you.’

And then Orlaith was out the door and walking demurely by Mara’s side with no questions asked, no worries, no apprehension on the part of daughter or parents. There is a lot to be said for doing things in a tactful way, thought Mara, feeling rather pleased with herself. If she had followed Brigid’s advice, or her father’s practice, and sent for Orlaith, no doubt both parents would have been counselling her to say nothing, not to interfere in other people’s business and would have given her a hoard of instructions which would probably have resulted in a silence from the girl.

‘That was fun at Lemeanah on St Patrick’s Day, wasn’t it?’ said Mara chattily as they turned out of the gate and began to walk along the little lane.

Orlaith didn’t reply. She was gazing apprehensively over her shoulder. Mara quickly followed her gaze. Orlaith wasn’t looking at the sally garden; that was in the opposite direction and they had not come to it yet; she was gazing back towards Balor’s Cave. The air was full of harsh cawing noises. Great tattered crowds of ravens circled and swooped and then rose again into the air. Mara frowned with puzzlement. What could be there to catch the attention of the birds? She stopped and stood very still looking back. Orlaith took a few steps forward and then she, also, stopped, resting the baskets on the stone wall. The day was breezy and the sudden squalls of wind blew the ravens, scattering them, and then subsiding and allowing them to coalesce again in one black, untidy mass.

‘What’s attracting the birds, Dalagh?’ called Mara, seeing that he and his sons had stopped work and were looking at her.

‘Just the wind exciting them, Brehon,’ he called back. ‘There’s nothing there for them. They just get wound up when the weather is stormy.’

Mara raised a hand to show that she understood. The wind was getting up to gale force, bending the bare branches of the trees and almost blowing her off balance. The sooner she and Orlaith got to the sheltered garden of Cahermacnaghten the quicker she would be able to talk to the girl. No conversation could be heard in this wind.

Once they got out on the Green Valley road, though, the wind did not seem so strong. Mara admired the baskets again, getting Orlaith to explain how they were made and praising the workmanship. And then she turned the conversation.

‘I thought that you were very upset about the death of Iarla from Aran when I was in your house the other day. Did you know him well?’ she asked, looking solicitously into the girl’s face.

‘No!’ Orlaith’s exclamation sounded startled and almost frightened.

‘You see,’ went on Mara, ‘I am anxious to hear anything he said that night, no matter how trivial it might seem. It’s not right that someone should come here as a stranger for a night of fun on St Patrick’s Day and end up dead three days later. I’ve talked to Saoirse O’Brien and she told me what he said to her and then someone told me that Iarla had danced with you, also. Don’t worry,’ she finished hastily as she saw the girl glance anxiously over her shoulder, ‘anything you say to me will be private. I won’t tell your parents.’

‘He didn’t say much; we just danced.’ Orlaith’s eyes were cautious. ‘Don’t tell my father. He and my mother and the younger ones had gone home; I was going to stay the night with my aunt. She’s the cook at Lemeanah.’

‘Saoirse spoke of a secret,’ said Mara. ‘She said that Becan, Iarla’s uncle, was keeping a secret from him. Did he speak of Becan at all to you?’

Orlaith stopped in the middle of the road. She looked at Mara solemnly, almost appraisingly.

Mara stayed very still, looking back. ‘Trust me,’ she said quietly. ‘I won’t let you down.’

‘He did mention him,’ admitted Orlaith. ‘It was just when he saw Becan drinking some
uisce beatha
, he said: “I hope he doesn’t take too much of that stuff and start spilling secrets. Else we might both end up in the ditch with our throats cut.” That was all he said and I don’t think that he meant to say it – he had been drinking a lot too. The next minute he was just joking and laughing and teasing me.’

‘
End up in the ditch with our throats cut.
’ Mara repeated the words and then she turned swiftly, saying over her shoulder, ‘You carry on, Orlaith. Take the baskets to Cahermacnaghten. You can give them to Brigid, she’ll know what to do with them. I must go back. There’s something that I must see. Don’t worry; I’ll say nothing to your parents about you and Iarla.’

There was a song that Mara’s father used to sing. She had forgotten most of it. Stanza by stanza, it went through all of the birds and described their sweet singing, but each verse ended with the ominous words:
But the raven, the black raven, he sings of naught but death.

Nine

B
ecan was there. Lying in almost the very same spot as his nephew. Stretched out on the damp, pale-brown clay in front of Balor’s Cave. Once again the upturned roots of the willow half concealed the body, but this time the ravens had been bolder. Becan’s face was covered with peck marks where pieces of flesh had been gouged out by sharp beaks. One eye had been removed by the ravens, but only one; the other had been dug out with a sharp knife.

I could have prevented this, thought Mara, bending down to look closely at the disfigured eye. I should have made more time to talk to him. I should have known that he came back from Aran for a purpose, that he wanted to investigate his nephew’s death, that perhaps he guessed the murderer. Why didn’t I insist that he came back with me to Cahermacnaghten? I must do my job properly. Just because I was tired, I didn’t press him on where he was going to spend the night and now this has happened. I must not allow my marriage and my pregnancy to get in the way of the position that I hold. The law must be upheld in this kingdom.

And now there had been another killing beside Balor’s Cave. More rumours would be spreading, more superstitious unease and more half-recollected stories about the evil god. Ardal would find it hard to get men to work for him here at this spot after these two murders.

Wearily Mara straightened her back, using one of the roots of the upturned willow to assist her. She had to do her best now for Becan and for Iarla. The truth of these deaths had to be uncovered and the murderer exposed as soon as possible for everybody’s sake. Slaughter could not be allowed to happen here on the Burren. She turned to go back, her mind sorting through the tasks ahead of her. She would have to find a few messengers – it was lucky that Dalagh and his industrious children were working so close by.

It was strange though, thought Mara, thinking of the basket maker as she picked her way down the muddy lane. Why had Dalagh not shown any curiosity about the behaviour of the ravens? Even now, as Mara moved away from the body, they were flocking back, shrieking and circling just above her head. Mara bent down and automatically turned to throw a stone at them, but her mind was still busily considering the problem of Dalagh. He was not a farmer; but he would, doubtless, have been the son of a farmer, have lived amongst farmers all of his life. Even the carefully brought up daughter of a physician had immediately thought to turn aside from her path once she saw the ravens hovering. Too many young lambs and even calves had fallen victim to these blood-hungry birds.

The wind from the west was very strong and Mara had difficulty in forcing her way along the small lane, staggering against its invisible force. It seemed to her almost perverse the way that Dalagh continued to ignore her while still chopping against the willow rods with his long sharp knife. There was no point in calling to him until she got a little nearer; the force of the wind would just sweep her words away so she struggled on until she came near enough to attract his attention.

‘Dalagh,’ she shouted when she reached the stone wall just opposite to him.

For a moment he did not show any signs of hearing her and in exasperation she thought of throwing a stone at him. Then one of the boys timidly touched his shoulder and Dalagh swung around, a passing streak of sunshine glinting on the knife in his hand, and then he came across to her, moving with the sureness of long custom through the closely set willow rods. The boy followed and his brothers all ceased work and stood looking across at her.

‘Brehon?’ Dalagh’s voice sounded a query. He looked down at the knife in his hand and then hastily slotted it into its leather scabbard at his waist.

‘Dalagh, Becan, the uncle of the boy from Aran, is dead.’ Mara spoke the words firmly and unemotionally and for a moment he did not react. He just stared at her as if wondering what to say.

‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph,’ said the boy beside him. ‘Another one dead!’ He was a young boy, probably younger than Shane.

Mara was sorry for his distress, but at the same time she did not allow her eyes to move from Dalagh’s face. Why did the man not say something? Surely it was unnatural that he should just stand there eyeing her in that uncertain way as if he were in some social situation where he was unsure of the correct response.

‘May the Lord have mercy on his soul,’ he muttered eventually, rather as if he were attending the wake of the dead man.

‘What happened, Brehon?’ asked the boy. ‘Was he killed by Balor?’

Suddenly Dalagh seemed to come to life.

‘Another killing?’ he asked. Now there was a correct measure of horror in his eyes.

‘That’s right,’ said Mara evenly. ‘And I don’t think that Balor is responsible. Dalagh, could you send one of your older boys for Malachy the physician and another one of them for your
taoiseach
, the O’Lochlainn. We’ll need to move the body quickly before the storm breaks.’ She cast a quick, worried glance at the dark grey clouds.

‘I’ll do that, Brehon.’ Suddenly Dalagh was galvanized into action. ‘I’ll get my lads to bring our own cart over. That will save time a bit. We’ll be able to move the body to the church as soon as the physician is finished with it. I’ll go for the
taoiseach
myself. This lad here is a good shot with the stones. He’ll go back with you and keep those ravens off the body.’

‘My name is Dathi,’ said the boy chattily as they walked back side by side. From time to time, he picked up a stone and flung it with deadly accuracy at the ravens, causing a squawk and a flutter from amongst the bunch with his third stone. A cluster of black feathers floated down, whirling vigorously in the wind. The ravens flew off exclaiming loudly and the boy smiled with delight.