Verdict of the Court (11 page)

Turlough, however, was not a man who liked pomp and ceremony. His view was that his ordinary clothes were in general good enough for all ceremonies and he was strengthened in that belief by his popularity with the clan. He got dressed where he slept and did not require any particular place or particular ceremonies to do with his clothing. The robing room was handed over to his Brehon who found that the impressively carved press, painted dark green, was a useful place to keep the law documents relating to the courts held at Bunratty Castle.

Mara gazed around while she waited and wondered what secrets that piece of furniture might hold, secrets which might point the way to the murderer of Brehon MacClancy.

The problem was, when Enda arrived, that he had no idea where the key might be. Mara’s heart sank, but she knew that she had to get that key.

‘Go to the captain of the guard and get him or one of his men to search the body,’ she said, trying to sound unconcerned though she felt sickened at the idea.

Enda hesitated. He had become very white, she noticed. Despite herself, she wondered about that superstition that the wounds on a dead body would bleed if the murderer stood beside it.

‘Wait a minute,’ he said. He produced his knife from the inner lining of his tunic and applied it to the lock. After a minute there was a click. Enda grinned – it was, thought Mara, the first time that she had seen that wide grin since she arrived at the castle.

‘Nice to be able to open this rather than have it slammed shut whenever I entered the room. It’s not often that I’ve been allowed to have anything to do with this sacred press,’ he said flippantly.

The cupboard was a large one, made from oak and with four sections within it. It was neatly arranged with scrolls filling the two bottom sections and a fine collection of law books in the top right-hand section. Beside it was a section labelled ‘The Year of Our Lord 1519’ and holding boxes, each with a day of judgement marked upon it. They had more judgement days here in Thomond than she did back in the Burren, Mara noticed, reading the exquisitely lettered labels on each box
: Imbolic
, Mid Spring,
Bealtaine
, Midsummer,
Lughnasa
, Mid Autumn,
Samhain
and finally Yule. The Yule box was the one that she was interested in so she took it out and brought it over to the light from the candles on the table. One by one she took out the rolls and unrolled each. They were the finest vellum, the calf skin carefully prepared and bleached almost as white as snow. But there was no writing on them – not even a heading. It looked as though Brehon MacClancy had not prepared for the sitting of the court in a couple of days’ time.

And yet he was reputed to be a meticulously careful man. He had often boasted at meetings between lawyers from all over Ireland that he prepared all of his cases weeks in advance and even made a written copy of the evidence from witnesses.

Mara turned to Enda. ‘Was this like him?’ she asked, indicating the empty pages. ‘Not even a list of the hearings.’

‘He didn’t allow me to know anything about the cases in advance,’ said Enda shortly. The momentary flicker of light-heartedness when he had opened the lock had now gone and his face bore a heavy brooding expression. ‘The only thing that he said to me last night, and he was rubbing his hands and looking very pleased about something when he said it, was that he had decided to hold the day of judgement on the day after Christmas, and not to wait for the
Little Christmas
as usual.’

Mara frowned in puzzlement. The sixth of January would have been the usual day for a court to be held. The day after Christmas would encroach on the King’s festivities.

‘Where is the court held normally?’ she asked.

‘Here at the castle – in the great hall. He, the Brehon, Brehon MacClancy, would sit in the centre of the table with all his scrolls and documents around him. I would sit at the end of the table in case he wanted to send me on some errand or get me to hand him a deed or something. The people would sit on benches in the main hall or stand around by the walls, while the persons in the hearing stood on the dais.’

Mara frowned in puzzlement. Turlough had said nothing to her about a court being held during her stay. She, and her scholars, had been due to return on the fifth of January. She had chosen the day on purpose so that she would not interfere in the legal proceedings of another kingdom.

‘So will a lot of people be turning up to witness a judgement day at any moment now? Perhaps we should send out messages – at least to the village – perhaps to the churches – no good sending to the mills – no one will be grinding corn on the day after Christmas.’

‘No,’ said Enda with an effort. ‘This was not going to be a public day of judgement. When I asked him about that he told me that all concerned would be already at the castle. He was rubbing his hands together and muttering that some people would be very surprised and that the King was going to get a shock and that he was going to uncover secrets and expose what was rotten in the kingdom – that’s the way he was talking.’

‘And did he tell you who would be concerned?’

‘No,’ said Enda.

There was something about the brusqueness of the monosyllable that made Mara persist.

‘Did he tell you to be there?’

‘Of course; I was his servant.’ There was something slightly artificial about the deliberately abrupt way that Enda said this and Mara persisted.

‘So he told you about the time.’

‘Ten o’clock,’ said Enda more readily. ‘He told me that I would have to hold myself in readiness an hour before that in order to summon everyone.’

It would have been safe to presume that most people would be present within the castle at that hour, especially after the late night, thought Mara. And this question of summoning everyone seemed to indicate that Brehon MacClancy had decided to make a public example of those whom he had intended to prove guilty. Presumably he would have told Turlough the night before – if he had not been killed before that happened, of course.

‘But he must, at least, have had a list of those whom he intended to try,’ she said aloud.

‘He normally had everything written down. Someone must have taken it and it wasn’t I,’ said Enda, looking at her defiantly.

Mara did not answer. She picked up a branch of candles and carried it over to the cupboard and examined it carefully. The paint had been thickly applied – fairly recently, she reckoned, judging by the freshness of the colour. But just beside the lock there was a scratch – a scratch deep enough to allow the pale tan colour of the wood to show through. She returned and replaced the candles on the table.

‘Let me see your knife,’ she said.

He produced it with a puzzled expression and she examined it carefully. No, there was no trace of paint on it now, but, that of course, did not mean that he had not used it the night before, had not cleaned it previously – either early last night or first thing this morning. Enda, she remembered, was housed in the south-eastern tower only a flight of stairs below the room occupied by the Brehon.

Something occurred to her then.

‘I suppose that press was locked,’ she said. ‘It was not that it had stuck or something.’

‘It was locked,’ said Enda defensively. ‘You heard the click, yourself, didn’t you?’

It was true, thought Mara, that she had heard a click, but, on the other hand, it would have been easy perhaps to turn the lock backwards and then forwards in order to pretend that it had been locked.

‘If someone murdered the Brehon last night then he could have slipped the keys from his pouch and used them to open the cupboard.’ It was getting more imperative all the time to have a thorough examination of the dead man and of his clothes. But there was no sign of Donogh O’Hickey this morning.

And if Turlough was correct, then the body would remain stiff for another day or so and it would be impossible to get it out of that box before then. She would just have to proceed with her enquiries. Meditatively she began to stack the unwritten scrolls back into their box and then dislodged one of a different colour – much smaller – parchment rather than vellum, she thought, the quality was not at all so fine. She unrolled it and then took it to the table, flattening it with her hands.

And it was the satire. Cleverly done, she acknowledged, wincing slightly. Not very complimentary to Turlough, also, hinting that she led him by the nose. Aengus MacCraith had observed her closely, copied many of her favourite expressions, contrived to make her sound domineering and a woman well past her prime of life, still pretending to a youth that she did not have, not covering her head with the usual linen but displaying her hair, which he hinted was dyed, to all. The twins had undoubtedly read this, but how had they got hold of it? Once Brehon MacClancy got it into his hands he would have locked it up and surely contemplated showing it to the King on judgement day, or even, she winced again, reading it aloud.

She handed it to Enda with an effort, but was warmed to see a definite look of indignation on his face. He handed it back to her and then said with relish, ‘King Turlough will kill him, or roast him alive.’

‘I think this is something that we will keep to ourselves. I am the injured party and I choose to do nothing about this.’ Mara had come to an instant decision. It was against instinct to destroy evidence, but she could not risk Turlough’s hurt and fury if he read this silly satire. She hesitated for a moment. Was Brehon MacClancy’s seizure of this document enough of an incentive for his murder at the hands of Aengus MacCraith? She thought not. Despite Enda’s words, Turlough was not a man to inflict any savage punishment on one of household. He would have been filled with fury, would have been most upset, but it would all have blown over and they would probably have been best of friends again within months, if not weeks.

Nevertheless it was evidence, so she took a blank scroll from the cupboard and wrote on it,

‘
A scurrilous satire was written, allegedly by Aengus MacCraith, on the subject of Mara, Brehon of the Burren. I have read the lines before they were destroyed.

As witness by hand:

Mara, Brehon of the Burren.

Enda, Assistant Brehon of Thomond.
’

She signed the document and then pushed it across to him.

‘I’ll keep this in case there is need for it,’ she said holding the vellum to the fire to dry the ink and then tying it with tape and putting it into her own pouch. She did not look at Enda, but busily arranged the scrolls in the cupboard in neat order.

‘Brehon MacClancy changed very much in the last few years, didn’t he, Enda? I remember when you went here first that the King said how well you were getting on with him and what high praise he had of you.’ She herself did not often come to Bunratty – she preferred, when she was at leisure, for Turlough and herself to spend time in Ballinalacken Castle overlooking the sea and the Aran Islands. However, she had noticed a great change in MacClancy the last time that she had come.

‘What happened? What changed him?’ she asked then when he did not reply.

‘I think that his mind began to go,’ said Enda eventually. ‘His memory began to get very bad – he would forget people’s names, forget things that they said – not the law, he didn’t forget that – anything from the past, anything that he had learned when he was young, that was very real to him, but you could tell him something and five minutes later he would forget’

‘And how did he deal with this?’ Mara had a great wish for Nuala to be present; she was sure that she would understand.

‘He got bad tempered,’ said Enda. ‘And then he would get angry and accuse you of lying to him. He seemed to hate everyone and want to do them harm.’

‘And blackmail – do you think that he indulged in that? After all he was going to blackmail Aengus MacCraith.’

Enda nodded reluctantly. ‘It gave him a sense of power to find out things about people and threaten them. It made him feel better; perhaps made him feel that he was …’ He stopped and thought for a moment and then added, ‘Perhaps it made him feel more in control.’

Mara nodded. That was the old Enda, clever and astute. She watched him carefully. Had MacClancy blackmailed Enda? Somehow she did not think so. But someone that Enda loved; now that was a distinct possibility.

‘The twins were telling me about the business with Shona,’ she said, turning away to stack the law books in a neat pile.

There was a long silence. These books are very dusty; he hasn’t used them much for the last few years – thought he knew everything and didn’t bother looking things up to check, thought Mara, with one half of her mind, while the other half was tense and concentrated, listening for an intake of breath. She heard nothing, though, and turned to face him. His eyes were very bright and his face was very pale but he looked very directly at her.

‘So you haven’t found out yet what he was holding over my head.’ He almost spat the words out and for the second time in the day he turned away from her and went to the door.

‘Wait,’ she said imperatively. Enda had been a scholar of hers from the age of eight to seventeen and the tone of voice acted on him like the whistle of a shepherd to his dog. He turned back instantly and she went to meet him.

‘We’ve known each other for a long time,’ she said urgently. ‘Surely you can trust me. I know that you are in trouble. Tell me, and let us sort it out together.’

For a moment his face relaxed into the expression that she had known so well – half deprecating, half hopeful of forgiveness, and then it hardened. She could see that he was going to walk away and she put out a hand to him in mute protest.

‘You don’t understand,’ he said between gritted teeth.

‘I think that I do understand,’ she said quickly. ‘You are worried about Shona.’ She thought for a fleeting moment, anxious to speak before he stormed out of her presence, once again.

‘Shona was fostered by Brehon MacClancy,’ she said, feeling her way, but endeavouring to sound confident and in possession of the facts. ‘I don’t suppose,’ she went on, ‘that, if, as you say, a great change came over his intellect and his personality during the last few years, he was the ideal foster-father for a girl approaching womanhood. I seem to remember that his sister is a woman ten years even older than he, and Shona would not have received much interest, or guidance from her.’ Mara looked at Enda and said with careful emphasis, ‘It is possible that in such a situation that a girl like Shona, passionate, warm, loving …’