Writ in Stone (11 page)

‘I just couldn’t stay in that room any longer,’ sobbed Banna. ‘It holds too many memories.’

You were only there for one night, thought Mara, but aloud she said: ‘I suppose you keep picturing him going out this morning and then not returning.’

Banna answered only with a sob, so Mara added: ‘Or perhaps you didn’t expect him to go out. Perhaps he went while you were still asleep, was that it?’

Banna nodded her head vigorously and the yards of linen, which she had wound around her head, came loose. Impatiently she pulled the covering off and eyed the platter of hot food placed before her. She gulped down some wine and then attacked the cod with small, rapid, ladylike mouthfuls, her full cheeks creasing as she chewed on the rubbery fibre.

‘Perhaps Father Peter would be good enough to come up here and recommend something for the Lady Banna,’ suggested Mara to the lay brother. It was cold enough up here with a large brazier of charcoal to their backs. It must be almost unbearable further down in the room. Peter would appreciate the thought and he might have some poppy syrup or something which would quieten the lady if she started to become hysterical again.

‘So your husband, Mahon, left this morning while you were still sleeping,’ she continued. ‘Were you surprised when you woke up and found him gone?’

Banna took another gulp of the wine.

‘No,’ she said in an almost normal voice. ‘I knew where he had gone.’

‘You knew?’

‘He told me that he had arranged it with the abbot?’

‘With the abbot?’ Mara still felt puzzled about this matter. Of course the abbot had said that he thought the king had changed his mind and that his bodyguards should have known their own king, but didn’t it occur to him at least to check the body? He of all people should have known that the two men, Turlough and his cousin Mahon, were very alike. It did seem quite odd that the abbot, the man in charge of all matters to do with the establishment had not verified the first hasty guess of the bodyguards. And should he not have administered the holy rites instantly? Was that not canon law?

Banna nodded. ‘Yes, he told me that Father Abbot had asked him to do it and he had told him to keep his hood up so that if one of the brothers entered the church, it would look as though the king were there.’

‘I see,’ said Mara soothingly. ‘So you felt no surprise when you woke and found that he was gone.’

There was a short silence as Father Peter, carrying a stool, inserted himself like a small sparrow just behind Mara. Soothingly he took Banna’s wrist in small frozen hands and felt the pulse.

‘I’ve sent a young brother for some poppy syrup,’ he said, looking at her moon-like face, ‘but the best medicine for you now would be to talk about everything that is on your mind. Free yourself from the heavy weight of sorrow and of worries.’

‘Well, I am a bit worried.’ Thus encouraged, Banna began to reveal her concerns. ‘I know so little about these things. What happens now? God did not bestow the gift of children upon us, so I don’t know what my position is now. Will that last piece of madness, and I don’t think my dear husband was in his senses when he did it . . . What could he have seen in that girl . . . ?’ She gulped and drank some more wine.

‘Perhaps he just wanted to ensure an heir for his property,’ murmured Father Peter tactfully.

Banna ignored him. She shuddered hugely, the mound of flesh on the chair moving like an upturned bowl of jelly, before continuing bravely, ‘that girl, whatever her name is, that girl young enough to be his daughter . . .’ She closed her eyes with the air of one turning faint and then opened them and fixed them intently on Mara. ‘I just wonder whether that girl can take what is rightfully mine.’

‘I don’t think that you need to worry,’ said Mara gently. Was this also in Frann’s mind, she wondered? If it were, then she would be disappointed. ‘Yours was a marriage of the first degree,’ she continued. ‘It is called a union of equality. Most of Mahon’s possessions and wealth will go to you and although the land goes back to the clan, you will have about twenty acres for your lifetime. After your death this, also, reverts to the O’Brien clan. However, your own Brehon will tell you more about all of these matters.’

Banna was listening intently, even suppressing her sobs in order to hear correctly. However, as soon as Mara finished speaking the small, sharp brown eyes welled up with tears again.

‘I’ll never forget this morning,’ she wailed. ‘He went out and he did not come back.’

‘It was a terrible shock for you, poor soul,’ said Father Peter solicitously. ‘Did you hear him going out at all?’

Banna paused for a moment. She looked around her. Turlough was engaged in a loud conversation across the table with his cousin Teige O’Brien, the abbot and Ellice still had their heads close together, one of the brothers, a heavy burly young man, at a tall desk was reading in a strong rough Galway accent from the Life of St Columba and the sound of busy knives on wooden platters created a barrier of sound which made it almost impossible to be overheard.

‘I did see him go,’ she confessed hesitantly. She swallowed some more wine and Mara hastened to refill her cup from the flagon, eyeing the woman with interest. Did Banna really see her husband go out? And, if so, why did she lie about it earlier? Perhaps, though, she was just extracting the last ounce of drama from her sad situation. That was possible from the way Banna looked all around at the interested faces before turning her attention back to the table, gulping down some more wine and mopping her eyes with the corner of the flowing linen that now swathed her shoulders.

‘I didn’t know where he was going, then. I thought that he was leaving my bed for that harlot, that Frann,’ she muttered.

‘Not something you could accept easily,’ murmured Mara.

‘I quarrelled with him.’ Banna looked as if she were about to burst into tears again, but fortunately took another sip of wine. ‘I told him that he was dishonouring me, that it was barbaric to take another wife when he had one living, I told him that I would speak to my cousin, the O’Lochlainn, and get him to write to Rome.’

So Banna thought that her relations would take her part in this affair. That was interesting. Could Ardal O’Lochlainn have taken this late and hasty marriage to a young girl as an insult to his family and to his clan? And, if so, would he have been inclined to avenge it? She dismissed the idea. He had seemed to be very friendly with Frann ten minutes ago.

‘What did Mahon say?’ she asked.

‘He told me then that he was going to the church, that he was going to take the king’s place for the first hour of the vigil. He was furious with me. He said Father Donogh would be angry that he had told me and that there was enough bad feeling between them as it was.’ Banna’s tears flowed again. She began to gulp noiselessly and every eye turned towards the top table.

It was time to put a stop to this, thought Mara. Banna had given her the information that she needed; it was likely that no one else, apart from Frann and the abbot, did know that Mahon O’Brien, not King Turlough Donn, would be in the church – even the abbot may have been unsure as to whether Mahon would answer his summons. This was a perhaps an explanation, though an unsatisfactory one, of his behaviour that morning when he had appeared to be certain that it was the king who had been killed.

Mara glanced around the refectory. The young monk had ceased reading, the book was closed, the knives were replaced and the abbot had risen to his feet.

‘Father Peter will take you back to the guest house,’ said Mara soothingly. ‘Please do not worry about your future. Your own Brehon will explain everything to you once you return home.’

The abbot waited while his brother’s wife stumbled out of the refectory, leaning heavily on Father Peter’s arm, and then he turned to his monks.

‘There will be recreation and exercise for one hour,’ he announced. ‘Then one hour’s work for everyone. Vespers will be a special service in honour of my brother Mahon. The passing bell, which was omitted because of the formal legal procedures this morning,’ here he shot a quick sour look at Mara before continuing, ‘the passing bell will be rung at the end of the service. After vespers, the fire will be lit in the warming room until compline. I hope that our guests will join us in the church too as we lead up to the celebration of the birth of our saviour.’

‘Let’s go back to the lodge,’ said Turlough in her ear. ‘It’s going to be a short night; I feel like a rest now.’

‘Just a minute,’ she said with a small private smile for him. ‘Let the others go out first.’

There was a moment’s hesitation while the brothers looked up to the top table, but when no one there moved, the monks all got to their feet and filed out decorously, followed by the abbot. Murrough moved from his position by the fire as the lay guests went out also and he came up to the top table.

‘Ellice, are you coming too?’ he asked with a charming smile and a brotherly hand under her elbow to assist her to rise. ‘I feel like some fresh air and some exercise and I’m sure you do also. Dear old Conor had best be left undisturbed for some time; sleep is what he needs now.’

She went with him readily, her bright smile illuminating the olive-skinned face with a flash of white teeth and a softening of the black eyes. A girl who liked men, thought Mara, perhaps there was nothing other than boredom in her friendship with Father Denis. The abbot gave Mara a quick nervous glance and then hurried after them. Frann followed, with her head bent modestly and her eyes on the floor.

‘What’s all this about that Father Denis, then?’ asked Turlough. Only the king, his four
taoiseach
s and Mara were left in the refectory.

‘Didn’t you know, Turlough?’ Teige’s ruddy face was sparkling with mischief. His wife giggled and took some more wine and so did the O’Connor’s wife. ‘Father Denis is Father Donogh’s son.’

‘What, the abbot’s son?’ Turlough roared. ‘Well, the old dog! Who would have expected it?’

‘And they say, “like father, like son”’, confided Ciara O’Brien. ‘There was talk of a girl in Galway; this Father Denis set her up in a house near the abbey of Knockmoy and I did hear tell that the girl’s parents insisted on a marriage. That’s right, isn’t it, Ardal?’

Ardal looked embarrassed. ‘I think it was just a marriage of the fourth degree.’

‘Still a marriage, nevertheless! I wonder what the Holy Father in Rome would say about this,’ chortled Turlough.

‘What did Mahon O’Brien feel about the matter?’ Mara addressed them all, but after a moment’s silence when the O’Briens and the O’Connors looked blank, her eyes turned to Ardal.

‘I think he was not happy for Father Denis to become abbot of Knockmoy,’ said Ardal reluctantly.

‘Of course, his mother, the mother of Father Denis, God be good to her, she was an O’Brien from the Arra branch,’ said Teige after a minute’s pause.

‘Was she indeed?’ said Turlough. ‘I never heard that.’

‘The family don’t speak of it,’ said Teige. ‘She made a good match afterwards and this boy Denis was fostered somewhere in the midlands with some relations of hers – they would be on her mother’s side, of course. Let me see, what was their names – not related to the O’Briens of Ara – they’d have been the O’Briens of Carrigunnell – now what was that man’s name?’

Mara looked on amused. This tracing of relations could go on for hours. However her interest sharpened when Teige said musingly: ‘Of course this death of Mahon has worked out well for young Denis. It’s his uncle, the mother’s brother, the O’Brien of Arra, who was the
tánaiste
to Mahon O’Brien. Now that Mahon is dead, the lands and all the property will go to the O’Briens of Arra and, of course, the abbey of Knockmoy will be in his gift, then – that’s if Rome approves, of course.’

‘So you’re saying,’ said Turlough eagerly, ‘that Mahon’s death will mean that Denis can be abbot of Knockmoy after all.’

‘That’s exactly it,’ said Teige. His eyes turned towards Mara and so did Turlough’s. Mara busied herself with the remains of the cod on her platter.

‘So Denis might have murdered Mahon,’ said Turlough, in the jolly tones of one who was enjoying a good day’s hunting.

‘Or the abbot, his father . . . his holy father,’ put in Finn O’Connor, while his wife made a few scandalized noises with her tongue against her upper gums.

‘So could one of our dear cousins have murdered the other, Teige?’ enquired Turlough eagerly.

Teige chuckled mischievously, but did not answer. His wife looked shocked. ‘Surely not,’ she said. ‘His own brother!’

‘It was a particularly brutal killing,’ said Ardal quietly. ‘I noticed that. The head was quite beaten in. The man must have been dead after the first blow, but the assassin kept on striking again and again.’

Mara looked at him with interest. Ardal spoke little unless a question was directed at him; it was unusual to hear him give his views unasked.

‘Could it have been that the murderer was unsure?’ she asked him tentatively. ‘Perhaps someone who had never inflicted death before; someone who had never been on a battlefield, had perhaps never seen violent death? Someone who had to make certain that the man was really and truly dead?’

He took his time about that, stirring a piece of cod around the centre of the platter and separating out the coarse fibres with the precision of a surgeon.

‘To me it looked more like a furious and hate-filled onslaught,’ he said finally and she knew he would say no more.

There was a moment’s uncomfortable silence and then Turlough and his cousin, Teige, started swapping stories about their childhood – both had been fostered in the same household – and the others listened, smiling. No one wanted to consider this murder too closely, thought Mara. She looked at the man beside her, a man whom she loved, and then for comfort looked behind him where the two solid figures of his bodyguards stood. Her eyes met Fergal’s. Fergal was particularly devoted to Turlough. His own father had been a bodyguard and the young man had been brought up with a strong sense of fealty. He was looking troubled and she understood this. If Turlough had been the expected victim, then a murderer, full of hate, would try and try again until the deed was done and the hated man lay dead. She heard the door open while she was looking back and immediately both bodyguards had their hands to their knives; they were certainly alert and ready for any attack.