My Lady Judge (23 page)

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Authors: Cora Harrison

Tags: #Fiction, #Historical, #Mystery & Detective

BOOK: My Lady Judge
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‘But you know this story, Brehon?’
‘No,’ said Mara. She was conscious that her eyes, also, were wet. She wiped them on a soft linen handkerchief from her pouch. It was true that she had not known the story. The bald details were there in her father’s notes; the boy’s crime and the decision of the O’Lochlainn to care for him, that had all been there; but not the true and terrible story.
Muiris turned to look at her. ‘Well, perhaps your father knew,’ he said. ‘Someone must have known. I told no one, except Áine, and Finn told me that he would tell no one. Not even Ardal or Donogh know. They were young at the time.’
‘Why do you say that someone knew?’ asked Mara, though she knew what was coming next.
‘Because Colman knew,’ said Muiris. ‘He told me that he had found out about it at the law school.’
‘Yes,’ said Mara. ‘The O’Lochlainn would have had to tell the Brehon, as the king’s representative, about the new arrival on the Burren. My father would have written it down. I hadn’t read it myself, but Colman must have. And he blackmailed you?’
‘Yes,’ said Muiris.
‘He broke his oath,’ said Mara bitterly. ‘Every law student swears an oath every year at the beginning of the Michaelmas term never to reveal anything learned within these walls.’
‘He came to me just after the marriage contract for Felim was signed. He said that he knew the whole story. He said that if I did not pay him six ounces of silver then he would tell everyone, including Felim’s bride and her father. I would be disgraced and the marriage would not take place. No one would want his daughter to marry the son of a man who had killed his own father,’ he ended simply, and Mara knew that he was right. This was the sin of sins in Gaelic society. As young Shane had recited only so recently:
The wisdom texts say that it strikes at the heart of society.
Muiris would have been ostracized and his family would have suffered with him.
‘So you paid?’
‘Yes, I paid. I sold a few cows and paid him and I thought that would be the end of the matter.’
‘But it wasn’t,’ said Mara softly. She was beginning to understand Colman now. If this had gone on, he would have become immensely rich – richer, by far, than his father, the merchant, who worked hard and took many risks. There would always be guilty secrets in a community and as a lawyer he would have had the means to find these secrets out.
‘No, it wasn’t. He asked for more.’
‘At
Bealtaine
?’
‘Yes,’ said Muiris. He gulped in a few breaths of air with the appearance of a man who has decided to tell the whole truth. ‘Yes, up on the mountain that night.’
‘And what did you say?’
‘I told him that I had no more to give,’ said Muiris. He gave an angry laugh. ‘But I suppose I would have found the silver some way or another. I couldn’t risk him talking and that was the truth of the matter. I would have paid.’
‘When did you know that he was dead?’
His pale grey eyes avoided hers, and when he turned back they were as hard as granite and his lips were set firmly.
‘Yesterday,’ he said.
‘So you didn’t know he had been killed that night?’ persisted Mara.
‘No, I didn’t know.’
‘But you had threatened to kill him,’ said Mara gently. Not a very inspired guess, she thought wryly. A man of Muiris’s well-known toughness would have undoubtedly threatened Colman. The willowy, effete young lawyer would have been an easy target for his strength and determination.
Suddenly Muiris became very still. He stiffened and sat up a little straighter. ‘So you heard that,’ he said softly. ‘The priest, I suppose; he would have told you.’
‘I usually hear things, sooner or later,’ agreed Mara. Now she was alert, on her guard; her sympathy for Muiris was almost overwhelming, but she must know the truth. The community could not survive if a secret and unlawful killing were blanketed over and forgotten. If Muiris were guilty then he had to acknowledge his guilt before everyone on judgement day. Then they could think about the fine. If necessary she would pay it herself. After all, some of the guilt was hers; she should have trusted her instinctive dislike of Colman. He should never have been set loose to prey on the people of the Burren.
‘So you threatened him,’ she continued.
‘I frightened him,’ acknowledged Muiris. ‘He took his knife out. I thought it was his own knife. It was only later that I found
out that it was young Hugh’s knife. I walked away then. I could not trust myself with him.’
‘Did you go to the top of the mountain?’
‘No,’ said Muiris heavily. ‘I had no heart for it. I climbed back down and went home once the bonfire was lit.’
‘So, was Colman still alive when the bonfire was lit?’ asked Mara.
He shrugged. ‘I couldn’t tell you,’ he said indifferently. ‘I had plenty to think about. How was I going to get the money to pay him off, and get the money for the bride price for Felim? And then there is Aengus coming up. I would want him to do as well as Felim. And Aoife. I want the best for them all. I don’t mind working all the hours that I can stay awake, but I didn’t want to be bled dry by that whey-faced fellow that never did an honest day’s work.’
‘Muiris,’ said Mara. ‘I want you to think very carefully about this. You were not at Poulnabrone yesterday but I’ll tell you what I said. I said that the fine for this crime would be reduced to forty-eight
séts
if acknowledgement were made at Poulnabrone within the next seventy-two hours. I said that the victim might bear some responsibility for this crime, and I would take this into account. I ask you now, Muiris, to tell me if you were the one who killed Colman that night in Wolf’s Lair.’
Muiris met her friendly eyes, but his own were blank and hard. ‘No, Brehon,’ he said emphatically. ‘I did not kill him, and nothing, and nobody, will make me say that I did. I only came to tell you this because Aoife was telling me about young Hugh and how he got up and told how he was being blackmailed. I came to you this morning to tell you what I know about Colman. A man that will blackmail a child will blackmail anyone. There are plenty of people here in the Burren that are glad that he is dead. I’m glad that he is dead, but I didn’t kill him. I have control over my temper, Brehon, I know – I knew that night – what would be the
consequences if I did kill him. I walked away, but another might not have.’
‘I appreciate what you have told me, Muiris,’ said Mara. ‘I am more sorry than I can tell you that such a thing should have happened and that a man who was trained by me and employed by me should do such a thing. I feel that I bear a heavy responsibility.’
‘No one blames you, Brehon,’ said Muiris, getting to his feet.
‘No one would blame you, either, if this murder remains unsolved. The man is dead and buried. Let him lie. Don’t let him do any more harm and tear the kingdom apart.’
He stood by the wall, a low, solid shape silhouetted against the morning sun, a menacing shape, thought Mara, a man who had killed once and who would certainly kill again without hesitation if he thought it was the right thing to do. But lie? Would he lie? Muiris’s family was all-important to him: his wife, his four handsome sons and his pretty daughter. Would he let anything, or anyone, get in the way of giving them everything that he himself had lacked?
She rose from the stone bench and watched him until he had disappeared across the fields. Then she walked down the road and in through the gates of the law school. The hastily drawn map of the terraces on Mullaghmore was still on the wall of the schoolhouse and she stood in front of it for a long time, studying the neatly printed names beside the little scrawled figures. Something was nagging at the back of her mind. A name had been mentioned; it had been mentioned before, but there was no marker for that person on the map. She would add that name to the list of people she needed to see.
CRITH GABLACH (RANKS IN SOCIETY)
An ócaire has an honour price of three séts.
He has land sufficient to graze seven cows.
He has a dwelling house of nineteen feet and an outhouse of thirteen feet
.
He has a quarter share in a plough team and a share in a kiln
,
a mill and a barn
.
An
ócaire
must pay food
-
rent and services to his lord
.
 
 
T
HERE COULD BE NO greater contrast between the farm of Muiris, a man who had risen from a servant boy to being an
ócaire
and then a
bóaire
, and the farm of Lorcan, a man who had inherited some of the clan land farmed by his father and who was still an
ócaire
and would never be anything better. Nevertheless, this was good land here in the small valley between the high tableland of Baur North and Baur South. Over thousands of years the winter rains had washed the limy earth down from the rocky places so the soil was thick and fertile and the grass was sweet and
lush. A good land for cattle; calves would grow fat and strong there. ‘Great land,’ Cumhal had said on many occasions. ‘That’s the sort of land where a good farmer could double his stock in a few years.’
Lorcan would be lucky to even keep the land, thought Mara, looking around at the neglected farm. It was fortunate for him that the O’Connor was so easy-going. Many a
taoiseach
would have taken the land from him and given it to a promising youngster. Not only was Lorcan a hopeless farmer, but he would also leave the land in a poor state for anyone else to inherit. These patches of nettles and thistles would take a long time to eradicate; the broken walls and fences would need months, if not years, of work. She stood and watched him as he came out of the filthy cow cabin. He stopped abruptly when he saw who it was and then came reluctantly across the yard towards her. She waited by the gate. The hem of her gown would get filthy in his yard and, in any case, it wouldn’t do any harm to give him time to feel a little apprehensive. She could see by his slow pace that he was wondering what to say, so as soon as he arrived at the gate, she decided to attack before he gathered his wits.
‘Lorcan, I have several questions for you and I want you to tell me the truth,’ said Mara severely. ‘There is only one person who needs to lie to me …’ She paused and eyed the man carefully. He was sweating heavily. ‘ … and that is the person who killed him. So I’ll ask you my first question and I want a truthful answer. Did Colman ask for silver from you?’
Lorcan’s pale blue eyes were heavily dilated, the pupils black and glittering. ‘I had nothing to do with what happened at
Bealtaine
,’ he said hoarsely.
‘That was not the question that I asked,’ said Mara. ‘Did he demand silver from you?’ She wondered whether Lorcan had asked Diarmuid to talk to her, or whether Diarmuid had decided himself to try to get his cousin out of the trap. The latter seemed
the most likely, she thought. ‘I must know all the facts about Colman before I can solve the mystery of his death,’ she added.
‘There’s plenty could tell you about him, Brehon,’ he said, his voice low. Mara nodded. There was an air of sincerity about this last sentence.
‘I know that.’
He picked up a rusty rake and placed it against the wall. It slid forward and toppled to the ground.
‘Anything you tell me, stays with me,’ said Mara. ‘I’ll be talking to others as well as to you, I have the day ahead of me.’
He opened his mouth once or twice and then looked at her imploringly. ‘Could you come back later?’ he asked, with a note of desperation in his voice. ‘I should be doing the milking now.’
Mara glanced at the nearest field. The cows were quietly tugging at the sparse grass. No animal seemed to be in distress. Lorcan probably wanted to talk to Diarmuid before he committed himself.
‘Talk to me now,’ she said. ‘Best to do these things without too much thinking about them; it’s a simple question.’ It was interesting, she thought, her eyes on the neglected land, how so many gorgeous bright yellow cowslips grew in the muddy hollows left by the heavy feet of the cows as they ploughed their way through those over-grazed fields. Mother Nature coped good-humouredly with the mistakes and sins of humans; so should she.
‘Tell me, Lorcan,’ she said coaxingly. She would get more from him by soft methods rather than hard, she thought.
He nodded then; slowly and reluctantly, but he did nod. ‘He was blackmailing me,’ he said. His voice was low and husky and she had to strain forward to hear the words.
‘About the use of Ardal O’Lochlainn’s bull? Was that what it was about?’
He gave a swift, hunted look around the empty lane and fields
as if he imagined that the tall figure of Ardal might be concealed behind one of the scrawny, neglected hedges, and then he nodded. Now there was a look of terror in his eyes. ‘You won’t tell the O’Lochlainn, Brehon, will you? He would utterly destroy me if he knew! I’m in a bad enough way as it is. I might not be able to hold on to the land if things get any worse. My father and my grandfather were
bóaires
on this land at Cregavockoge before me. I’d hate to be the one who lost it. My sister’s youngest son is hoping for it after my time. If I lose this land, then I will just be a servant to the O’Connor. I will lose my honour price.’
There was a terrible panic in the man’s voice. Mara was touched by it, but she forced herself to go on. She could not ignore any possibility.
‘So you killed him because you could not afford the blackmail,’ she said quietly.
‘No, I didn’t kill him!’ he protested. ‘I suppose I could have easily paid the silver,’ he added hastily, contradicting his earlier statement. ‘It would have been no bother to me.’
‘I see,’ said Mara, looking around the dilapidated farmyard. She didn’t believe that he could afford it, but would he have murdered? More likely that he would have borrowed it from Diarmuid, or any other of his O’Connor relatives, she thought reluctantly. ‘And what part of the mountain were you on when the bonfire was lit on
Bealtaine
?’
‘Right at the top,’ said Lorcan firmly. ‘Well away from Wolf’s Lair.’
That’s a lie, anyway, thought Mara, the picture of the mapped terraces of Mullaghmore firmly in her mind. It’s a lie, but does it mean anything? Lorcan is scared, and when people are scared they tell lies. Aloud, she said, ‘Well, I’ll leave you to think about the matter, Lorcan. Come and see me tomorrow at Cahermacnaghten if you want to tell me any more.’ She nodded to him and strode off. She had reached the rusty gate at the end of the
potholed land and was fumbling with the broken latch when he called after her.
‘Brehon,’ he said. ‘Diarmuid tells me that there was a stranger there. A fellow from Corcomroe, he said. Is that true?’
Mara eyed him coldly as he sidled up to her. ‘Do you want to tell me something, Lorcan?’
‘No,’ he said hastily, bending down and picking up a broken woven willow basket from the ground. He gazed at it and then, rather uncertainly, placed it on the wall. It toppled off and fell into the lane, but Lorcan made no move to retrieve it. It would stay there until the winter winds blew it across the field to stick in some hedge, surmised Mara. Aloud she said briskly, ‘Well, I have a busy day ahead of me, and many people to see. Have you any more to say, Lorcan?’
‘No,’ he repeated, and then he rallied and said sulkily, ‘the word is going around that this stranger was the one that killed the young lawyer.’
‘Why?’ asked Mara.
‘It stands to reason,’ he muttered. ‘After all, he was a stranger. What was he doing outside his own
túath
, if it wasn’t for some purpose?’
It was interesting how this view still prevailed, thought Mara, watching him carefully. Unless of the
nemed
class, such as Brehons, poets and harp players, people were expected to live and die within the narrow confines of their own kingdom; indeed, some of the older law texts suggested that a man had no legal rights beyond its borders unless he was attending a fair.
‘So what purpose could this stranger have in coming into the Burren?’ she asked mildly.
‘He came to kill the lawyer, of course,’ said Lorcan bluntly. ‘He’s one of the O’Connors of Corcomroe,’ he added helpfully.
‘One of your own name,’ smiled Mara.
‘Not of my
fine
, nor of my clan, either,’ he snapped.
Oscar O’Connor and Lorcan O’Connor had probably a common ancestor, the king of Corcomroe, going back hundreds of years, but now the kin-group and the clan, rather than the name, would be where the loyalty would lie. Diarmuid O’Connor would feel the same. In fact, the whole community of the Burren, whether O’Connors, O‘Lochlainns, O’Briens or MacNamaras, would fasten with a sigh of relief on the solution that Oscar O’Connor, from Corcomroe, had murdered the young lawyer from Cahermacnaghten.
‘Why would this man from Corcomroe murder Colman?’ she asked with a feigned air of surprise.
He shrugged. ‘Probably been blackmailing him, too,’ he said, but he sounded unconvinced. Obviously he did not know the story about Colman’s betrayal of Oscar to the Mayor of Galway. The people of the Burren had little interest in Galway. The farmers had their own markets in Noughaval and in Kilfenora; the merchants had their own fairs at Eantymore and at Coad. Very few of them would even have been to Galway. Their life was based on the kingdom, the family, the
fine
, the clan and their neighbours. Oscar O’Connor would be a convenient scapegoat. She would have to try to scotch that rumour quickly. If the murder were not solved soon, some hot-headed youths might try to organize a blood feud into Corcomroe.
‘I don’t think that is true,’ she said, trying to sound positive and authoritative.
‘You don’t know about that fight then, do you?’ he asked nastily.
‘What fight?’ she asked. She didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of asking, but she had to find out the truth, no matter how flawed and dirty the vessel was.
He feigned surprise. ‘You didn’t know about that fight he had at Corcomroe?’ he asked.
‘Which fight?’ she asked.
‘He had a fight with a sailor in an alehouse at Doolin,’ he said readily. ‘Diarmuid told me about it. Oscar laid the man low with a blow from his fist. He died a day later.’
Why didn’t Fergus tell me about that? thought Mara furiously. She knew the truth, though. Fergus, like herself, was protective towards his people. He probably thought that Oscar had been provoked. He would not have liked to expose him to suspicion in this case on the Burren.
‘That has nothing to do with this case,’ she said firmly.
He shot her a quick glance and with a dirty fingernail broke off flakes of rust from the gate, watching them intently as they drifted to the ground. She could see that his mind was working hard. If he could not divert her by some means, then he would try another.
‘Brehon,’ he said eventually. ‘I saw all of your young people going off this morning.’
‘Yes,’ she said patiently.
‘They had lots of others with them.’
‘Yes,’ she said again.
‘I saw Emer, Daniel’s daughter, with young Roderic, the horn player. They were with them.’ He hesitated for a moment, but she was silent so he was forced to continue. ‘I often go for a walk across the valley in the evening. I’ve seen them: Aoife, Muiris’s daughter; the blonde girl, I’ve seen her too, with Rory. I’ve seen them all larking around in the stone circle. There’s some courting going on there, I can tell you! Daniel wanted that match between Emer and Colman, but Emer didn’t want it. I heard them the other night when I went over to borrow a hay rake from Daniel. Emer was screaming at him. She was saying: “I’ll kill him, or I’ll kill you, before I’ll marry that fellow. I hate him.”’
‘And what did Daniel say?’
‘He knocked her to the ground; and quite right, too! A girl shouldn’t shout at her father,’ said Lorcan piously. ‘She had a fine old bruise on her cheek the following day.’
‘And what has this to do with Colman’s death?’ asked Mara stonily. There was no Brehon law against mistreating a daughter; though a wife could claim a divorce if her husband’s blow left a mark on her. Nevertheless, Mara’s trained mind ran through various possibilities for getting Daniel before her at Poulnabrone and teaching him a lesson.
‘I’m saying that there were a lot of people who wanted Colman dead,’ said Lorcan firmly. He smirked slightly. ‘That surprises you, Brehon, but there’s no reason why Emer and her lover couldn’t have done it. I saw them myself sneaking away just before the bonfire was lit. Ha, ha, I was thinking to myself, they’re up to a bit of lovemaking in the dark; there’ll be a fine old fuss if Daniel sees them. And what about if Colman sees them! Then there’ll be murder. That’s what I was thinking that night, Brehon, and that’s the God’s honest truth, so it is.’
‘And they passed you?’
‘They did, indeed; going down to the fourth terrace, they were, just beside Wolf’s Lair. They passed me just as the bonfire was lit.’

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