Writ in Stone (30 page)

He touched Brother Melduin on the shoulder and they both disappeared.

‘Will you give him absolution and anoint the body, Father Abbot?’ asked Mara.

He hesitated, but he could not refuse this; the oils were fetched immediately by Father Peter and placed into his hands. Turlough knelt down and the others followed his example. Mara took a step back so that she was standing beside Father Peter.

‘The grave,’ she whispered.

He nodded in reply. ‘Best get everything done quickly.’ His voice was barely audible to her ears and he got to his feet as softly as any cat. Mara saw him touch the shoulders of four strong lay brothers and they all slipped to the dimness at the back of the church without attracting his abbot’s attention.

There was a certain bustle, anyway, as the carpenter with Brother Melduin, now returned through the cloisters’ door. They carried the makeshift coffin to the top of the church and placed it on the marble slab where, only a short time ago, the elaborate coffin of Mahon O’Brien had lain. Together they lifted the body of Dualta into it, turning him so that he lay on his side. Mara knew they did this so that the arrow would not need to be withdrawn, but she thought it gave Dualta an air as if he slept. Despite the widely staring eyes, there was something about him, now, that reminded her of the twenty-year-old when she had last seen him.

Brother Melduin withdrew, but the carpenter spent a few minutes bending over the coffin, straightening the legs and joining the hands together. Mara watched him appreciatively. Somehow his gestures spoke of a relationship, a comradeship between two people who worked together and who respected each other’s skill. She wished now that she had said more to Dualta when they talked there in the church. She wished that she had shown her appreciation of his talents, of the heights to which he had attained in a profession that he had adopted as a second best. Perhaps if she had done that he would not have taken that final fatal step.

Now the carpenter had finished his work. He straightened up and glanced at her. Brother Melduin had returned carrying a large plank. They would use this as a lid.

‘Wait!’ Mara swiftly crossed over to the pier where Dualta had left his candle earlier and groped around until her fingers touched the tiny stone harebell. Dualta had been working on this, the last replacement flower for the circle of flowers above. If he had lived this stone blossom would have taken its place, beside the others, on the frieze that encircled the tall column. Mara picked it up and held it to the light for a second. It was quite perfect: the five star-like points pricked out with careful exactitude. She carried it across and placed it in the coffin beside the right hand of the man who had fashioned it. If, sometime in the future, the bones of Dualta were uncovered he would be known as the artist who had carved some of these wonderful capitals, which adorned the clustered piers at the north transept. Perhaps the fame of this work would endure when the work of Brehon lawyers had been forgotten. She nodded to the carpenter and then stood back. Now was the time to close up the makeshift coffin.

The carpenter took the large plank, covered the coffin with it and then, taking the iron nails one by one from his pouch, hammered it securely to the crude box which was to be the final resting place for that handsome youth, son of a wealthy mason from Thomond, who had come, full of ambition, to the law school of Cahermacnaghten over thirty years ago.

Then there was a pause. The abbot had not moved. With knitted brows and compressed lips, he was standing staring at the patch of blood on the ground. He had blessed the coffin in a perfunctory fashion, but was now obviously brooding on that challenge to his authority, when the Brehon had brushed aside any question that this bloodletting in church was a crime. Everyone waited for his instructions.

He lifted his eyelids and stared coldly at Ellice, and Mara noticed that the girl flinched at his gaze. Then he raised a long forefinger and beckoned to a couple of young lay brothers. Mara guessed that they were being told to carry the coffin, but she guessed wrongly. They both nodded their heads, looked quickly and furtively at Ellice, then went and stood by the door to the cloisters waiting while the abbot retrieved the keys and unlocked the door, jerking his head at Brother Porter to accompany them. Still no one in the church moved, though several looked inquiringly at each other. The presence of the porter seemed to show that these brothers were being sent on an errand outside the gates of the abbey.

A few minutes later, the porter was back, alone, whispering in the abbot’s ear. Of course, thought Mara, Dualta had stolen the porter’s key to the great front gates of the abbey. However, she decided to keep silent. Why disturb the coffin now – surely there were other keys.

With an expression of annoyance, the abbot detached a key from his own bunch and handed it over. Now Mara guessed what was happening. She stepped a little to one side so as to be nearer to Brigid and said in a low tone: ‘See whether Brother Melduin knows where these two have been sent.’

By her side Turlough stirred impatiently. It was time for the dead man to be carried to the burial ground. The carpenter stood with one hand on the coffin obviously ready to take his share; but no man can carry a coffin on his own.

‘Father Abbot,’ said Turlough in tones which he strove to make sound low and reverential, ‘will some of your young brothers carry the coffin?’

‘I will ask no man to carry the body of a murderer.’ The tone was low and almost neutral, but the glance that flashed around the clustering monks held the whiplash of authority in it. No brother, whether lay or choir monk, would dare to offer now.

Mara felt the tears well up in her eyes. This man was once her husband. If they had stayed together, even if his death had been so untimely, sons would have been born who would, by now, have been old enough to perform that last simple service for him. There would have been other daughters, too; sisters to Sorcha, and their husbands would have lent broad shoulders.

‘I will carry the coffin, then.’ As unassuming as any farmer, Turlough stepped forward and stood beside one corner.

‘I will partner you, my lord,’ said Teige promptly with a quick malicious glance at his priestly cousin.

‘Come on, lad, match up with Master Carpenter; you two are much of a size,’ said Turlough impatiently to Murrough.

‘Garrett and I will take the head, my lord,’ said Ardal, stepping forward before Murrough had moved and in a few moments it was all arranged with the four younger men at the corners and the two middle-aged cousins in the centre positions.

Dualta would have been pleased to know that royalty and nobility were carrying his coffin, thought Mara, looking affectionately at Turlough. Cumhal, she noticed, was looking slightly shame-faced. However, he and Brigid had hated Dualta with a depth of bitter dislike which was in proportion to the height of their love for herself: she would not have given him an order to do what would have been distasteful for him. As it was, this was a princely cortège. Decisively she linked her arm to Ellice’s and walked behind the coffin, noticing with pleasure how Banna and Frann, still side by side, followed her. Soon those two would be friends. Frann had an engaging way about her and poor Banna would probably soon find herself in the position of second mother to the coming child.

Coming out into the bright fresh air was a relief after the dark, dank heaviness of the church. A few late evening streaks of sunlight silvered the heights of Abbey Hill and illuminated a small pink herb Robert, blooming in the shelter of the stone wall around the graveyard as happily as it had done right through the summer months. The fractured rays of the winter sun gilded the rain-washed rocks and the silver carapaces of the carline thistles. Mara sniffed the air; the strong north-westerly wind brought the smell of the Atlantic ocean even to this enclosed ground. There would only be another couple of hours of daylight, the sun would sink down behind the mountains of Connemara in the north-west and then would come the night before Christmas, a night to celebrate the birth of Christ and the turning of the old year.

She turned towards Ellice, feeling her tremble, and whispered reassuringly: ‘You did the right thing. None will blame you. You saved the boy’s life in the only possible way that you could. Thank God that you were there and that you had the skill and the courage to do it.’

Ellice said nothing but a little colour came into her white cheeks. If the day had not turned stormy, thought Mara, if Ellice and Father Denis had managed to reach Galway they would now be on their way and he would be alive, but then perhaps Shane would have died. Perhaps God was watching over them and arranging everything better than any man could do it. Perhaps if Conor’s health improved, he and Ellice would settle down to a happy marriage. The king should make sure that his son played more of a part in the governing of the kingdom and that Ellice, also, would have her role. I’ll talk to Turlough about this, she promised herself.

The grave was just being finished when they entered through the gate to the burial ground. The four lay brothers shovelled out the last few sods of the light, friable soil and then climbed out and stood with bowed heads. Father Peter, his grey cloak fluttering in the stiff wind, came forward. He looked around for the abbot, but, seeing no one, he himself began the service, first in Latin, and then rather movingly in Gaelic, praying that the man’s sins be forgiven and that his crime be not remembered, but rather that the good he had done and the beauty that he had created should live after the maker himself had turned to dust. The figures around the grave watched with solemnity, and in silence, until the coffin was lowered down to its final resting place. Then Banna sobbed quietly and Shane gave a sudden violent shiver and a loud hiccup. Up to now, childlike, he had been almost elated by his escape and by his admiration of Ellice’s skill, but now the awful realization of death had suddenly hit him.

‘Take Shane over to the Royal Lodge and give him a hot drink, Ellice,’ whispered Mara. Brigid would have been delighted to do this, but Mara felt that Ellice, also, should not be present when the earth was shovelled down over the coffin of the man she had killed. ‘And Conor had better go too,’ she added. It was bracing, but cold, out in the fresh air, and the delicate Conor would be better not standing around too long. In any case, in caring for the boy the couple would find a closeness which might otherwise be spoiled by mutual embarrassment. Mara’s eyes followed them with satisfaction. Ellice had an arm over Shane’s shoulders, but her other hand was firmly held by Conor.

Father Peter must have guessed her intentions, because he had made a quick gesture to the lay brothers to stay their hand for the moment. Once the three figures had gone through the small iron gate, they began to shovel quickly and soon the hole was filled with the fine-grained Burren soil.

I’ll bring some harebell seed in the summer and plant the grave with them, thought Mara, and then she blessed herself and turned away. Turlough was talking to Teige O’Brien, so Mara went over to Brigid.

‘How did you manage with Brother Melduin?’ she asked in a low voice.

Brigid’s eyes twinkled. ‘He was listening, of course,’ she said. ‘He’s a man after my own heart; he always knows the latest news.’

‘So, what’s the story?’ asked Mara lightly, borrowing one of Brigid’s favourite phrases.

Brigid moved a little further away from the group and Mara followed her.

‘He sent those two brothers to Kinvarra,’ she whispered.

‘Kinvarra?’ Mara frowned with puzzlement. Kinvarra was only a few miles away from the abbey. It was not Burren territory, but neither did it have anything to do with the Galway city. It was part of O’Flaherty territory. ‘That’s all right, then,’ she continued. ‘I was afraid that he had sent them to Galway, though I did think it was a long way to go – it would be dark by the time they got there and then it’s Christmas tomorrow.’

‘Ah, but listen, Brehon,’ said Brigid eagerly, ‘it’s not all right. It’s not all right, at all. He sent them to Kinvarra because the sergeant-at-arms – Brother Melduin thinks that’s a kind of Brehon – the sergeant-at-arms from Galway is staying there with his wife’s family.’

‘I see,’ said Mara thoughtfully. She was very doubtful as to whether this sergeant-at-arms would bother disturbing his Christmas holiday to come and investigate a crime which was committed well away from the laws of Galway. On the other hand, he might be friendly with the abbot – otherwise how would his whereabouts for the festival be known – and he might feel that it was a good opportunity to extend the sway of English law and English customs. Undoubtedly nothing serious would happen to Ellice, but the abbot probably felt that he should make a show of maintaining discipline within his abbey. It was a risk that she was unwilling to take and instantly she made up her mind.

‘Brigid, what are your stores of food like, back at Cahermacnaghten?’

Brigid, as usual, had followed her thoughts accurately and answered instantly.

‘Plenty for all, Brehon; the sooner we go the better.’

‘I was thinking that we could perhaps have our Christmas festivities back at the law school,’ said Mara, her eyes gazing thoughtfully towards Clerics’ Pass. How long would it take the two brothers to ride to Kinvarra and then to return against a strong headwind? Long enough, she decided. She looked back at Brigid who was nodding her head vigorously and counting off storeroom items on her fingers.

‘There would be the king, of course, and the two bodyguards, and . . .’

‘And the lads and Shane’s father,’ finished Brigid. ‘And perhaps the king’s son, Conor, and his wife?’

‘And the O’Brien and his wife?’

‘Plenty for all, Brehon,’ repeated Brigid.

‘And perhaps Father Peter?’

Brigid looked doubtful. ‘
He
’d never let him go,’ she said.

‘Who, the abbot?’