Cross of Vengeance (17 page)

‘Yes!’ said Slevin fervently.

‘I agree,’ said Finbar quickly.

‘He could be unbalanced,’ said Domhnall after a short pause. ‘He talks rather wildly, doesn’t he? All this stuff about scrubbing the marks of the devil out of the round tower – hard to clean stone at the best of times,’ he added judicially, and Mara concealed a smile. Her grandson had a practical and analytical mind and looked at all aspects of a problem.

‘Well, now,’ she said with a sigh. ‘We’d better see the prioress and her sisters. Would you fetch them, Fachtnan?’

‘The prioress is having a hysterical fit and her two sisters are tending her. They say that she is quite unable to rise from her bed.’

‘Well, I’ll have to go across to the inn then,’ said Mara. ‘Blad won’t mind.’ She thought for a moment. ‘I think, Fachtnan, I will interview the three women on my own, so it might be best if you took the scholars back to school now. The prioress may object to men and boys being present and I would not like to offend her needlessly. In any case, I feel that everyone should do some work today – I’ve promised Cumhal that we will all come to the bog tomorrow to help him load up the turf. Bring back their bags to the inn, boys, will you, and then collect your ponies and ride back to the school.’

There were broad smiles at that reminder. It was an annual treat going to the bog on the tableland between the mountains to the west of the law school. It was always an immensely sociable day where the whole neighbourhood helped each other to get the dried sods of peat loaded on to the carts. Nechtan, she had noticed when going into the church, had already drawn his turf and his men were busy unloading it from the huge, high-sided cart and wheeling the sods into the barn where they were stacked to a cottage-sized heap so that they would dry over the next four seasons.

Sorley had left his gravedigging – all was ready for the body – and he was now busy putting another layer of thatch on to the roof of the round tower. The renewing of the top layer of thatch on houses, barns, sheds, dovecotes and other farm buildings was an annual early autumn task throughout the Burren. On the whole, unless there had been damage by storm winds or by rodents, the bottom two layers of the thatch – measuring up to two feet in thickness – were left untouched, and neatly-tied bundles of freshly dried reeds were pegged on top, using hazel sticks to pin them in place, just as hairpins fastened braids to the head. When it was finished the thatch would be immensely thick and completely rainproof.

Cormac was dashing to and fro from the cart and handing up the sheaves to Sorley. Father MacMahon and Father Miguel, grim-faced, were deep in conversation at the bottom of the short ladder that led up to the doorway to the desecrated shrine. While she watched them, a couple of maidservants came out from Father MacMahon’s house, bearing long-handled brooms and carrying buckets of water. As they drew near, Mara could smell the odour of a strong solution of the lye soap and see the flat grey bubbles on the top of the buckets. She suppressed a smile and accosted the priests politely.

‘I see that you are about to purify the place,’ she said to Father MacMahon.

He nodded gloomily. ‘Though we will never be able to afford a relic like that again,’ he said. He raised his voice slightly as Nechtan drew near. ‘Kilnaboy Church has held the relic of the true cross for almost three hundred years,’ he said clearly and distinctly. ‘The O’Quinn family presented it. Ah, Nechtan, I was just telling the Brehon that it was your great ancestor, Cathal O’Quinn, who brought the relic back from the Holy Land and presented it to the church of his ancestors.’

Mara looked at Nechtan with sympathy. How would he answer that? Would he turn it aside with a jest? He was not, she reckoned, a particularly rich man; Cumhal, her farm manager, had hinted that he had a poor steward for his lands, and that Nechtan himself did not properly supervise the work. Certainly Roughan Hill, behind the church, appeared to be almost covered with gorse bushes and brambles. There would be meagre grazing on that. And the turf that his men were stacking appeared, by its very black colour, to be poorly dried. He said nothing in reply to the priest, but the slight flush of shame and his lowered eyes gave him a guilty look.

‘How does one go about obtaining a relic?’ asked Mara in an interested tone. ‘Do they all have to come from the Holy Land, or do we have any relics here in Ireland? After all, we have plenty of Irish saints and also plenty of holy wells, don’t we? There’s one over there, associated with the daughter of Baoith, a very holy woman,’ she informed the Spanish priest, adding her contribution to the discussion in order to give Nechtan time to recover.

‘A well,’ said Father Miguel, and in his voice was a note of derision.

These wells, thought Mara, feeling annoyed by his scorn, were venerated by people from ancient times, venerated with various ceremonies. The well of the daughter of Baoith was decorated throughout the year with tiny scraps of cloth which were tied to the branches of a thorn tree that grew beside it. She would not be surprised to learn that the custom was an extremely ancient one, and she guessed that the ceremonies of going around it ‘sunwise’ fifty times when asking for a favour might well have distant druidic roots. In any case, it was probably very soothing to a worried or despairing person and certainly did no harm, nor caused needless expense, as did those pilgrimages to far-flung lands. However, she said nothing, just inclined her head.

‘There is, of course,’ said Father Miguel to his fellow priest, disdaining to address Mara on the subject, ‘a big difference between the relics of the first class and relics of the second class. Pilgrims want to see relics that are associated with Jesus and his holy mother – relics of the first class – not just relics of obscure saints – second- or even third-class relics.’

Mara felt a surge of partisanship for the obscure native saint of Kilnaboy – daughter of Baoith, she was known as; her own name had not come down through the centuries – but nevertheless, she held her peace. Her business was to solve the murder that had occurred on her territory, not to engage in religious disputes. In the meantime, she would speak to her son. Discourtesy from a scholar of her law school could not be tolerated.

‘Cormac,’ she called. ‘Come here, please.’

He came reluctantly and there was a challenging look in the pale green eyes which he turned on his mother.

‘Yes, Brehon?’ he said haughtily.

‘I think you owe Father Miguel an apology,’ she said firmly. ‘What you said was rude, impertinent and, actually, none of your business.’ She spoke in Gaelic, but then added, ‘And in Latin, please. And do make sure that I won’t have to feel ashamed of you again.’

She listened critically as the apology flowed fluently from Cormac’s lips. Certainly she need not blush for the nine-year-old boy’s prowess in Latin; he bore the air of one reciting a lesson and she knew this was deliberate. There was nothing penitent about him as he stood very straight and fixed his eyes on a spot just slightly above the priest’s left shoulder.

‘Now go back over to the stable and collect your pony. You will return to school with the others,’ she said when he had finished. The Spaniard had listened, scowled and then turned to talk with Father MacMahon again. For a moment she was almost as angry with him as with her son – after all, the boy was only nine years old – he could at least have acknowledged the apology. And then she sensibly decided that the manners of the priest were not her business, whereas her son’s manners were. She would not let this matter rest, she decided. Cormac was behaving in a spoilt and arrogant manner and he could not be allowed to go on like this. He was, after all, the most junior member of the law school. She watched him cross over towards where Fachtnan was standing, and every inch of that straight back seemed to show that he was deeply offended.

Father Miguel was now haranguing the rather exhausted Father MacMahon about the advisability of sprinkling holy water on the walls and floors of the round door so as to make it fit for the relic that some kind person would present to the church in place of that which had been destroyed. Nechtan looked embarrassed and frustrated as the glances of the two priests continually slid in his direction, so she invited him to walk across to the inn with her.

‘I must see the prioress and her two sisters,’ she said to him as they went through the gate and into the river meadow that surrounded the inn. ‘Isn’t everything looking beautiful here,’ she said cheerfully as they walked on the well-trodden path through the grass.

Blad had no use for hay so the grass had been allowed to grow after its summer cropping and the field was like a woven tapestry, where the seedheads of foxtail, yellow oat grass and long-haired grasses formed a beautiful background for the clumps of creamy froth from the meadowsweet, the jewel bright purple knotweed, and the dramatic spires of crimson loosestrife. A slight wind had sprung up causing the flowers and grasses to ripple almost like the waves of some exotic sea. Mara pointed out its beauties to Nechtan and was relieved to see his depressed expression lighten as they moved further away from the gloomy priests and the desecrated tower.

‘I’m sorry that you have such a long ride to and fro from the other side of the Burren, Brehon,’ he said with his usual friendly good manners. ‘And I suppose that you will be coming over again tomorrow morning?’

‘Not tomorrow morning,’ she said. ‘Tomorrow is “bringing home the turf day” and my scholars will not wish to miss that. They always have that treat at the beginning of the Michaelmas term, and this year it’s lucky that they’ve started back early because the turf has dried out well enough to be moved in early September due to the fine weather.’

She had thought briefly of not going to the bog, of abandoning the scholars to the care of Fachtnan and returning herself to Kilnaboy first thing in the morning, but so far she felt herself completely puzzled by this almost inexplicable murder. Perhaps a morning spent away from everything would clarify matters for her.

It was such a puzzling case. Mara frowned to herself. At this stage it was completely understandable that she had little idea of who the murderer was. But not to know how the crime could possibly have been accomplished – well, that was strange. If the German pilgrim had been found murdered on the steps of the altar, wearing his ornate and colourful clothes, then it would have just involved a careful sifting of evidence, times, alibis, motives.

But that large, heavy body, stripped of all clothing and yet not bearing a single bruise, moved a distance of about 150 yards from the church, then spreadeagled in the shape of the crucified Christ on the capstone of an ancient tomb – that, so far, seemed inexplicable.

‘I’ll be back in the afternoon tomorrow,’ she said aloud. By then Nuala would have found out the time of death and the real questioning could begin.

‘Stay tomorrow night with us,’ he said immediately. ‘And your scholars, too. It will be lovely to have young voices in the castle again. When myself and my brothers were growing up the place rang from morning to evening. We were outside every day, no matter what the weather, and then when darkness came we would be up in the old room under the roof and playing with bows and arrows and having sword fights and making up plays. What energy we had, all four of us. Poor fellows – I still can hardly realize that they are dead. That terrible shipwreck …’ He paused for a moment, his face full of sorrow, and then said more cheerfully, ‘We’ll give you supper, Brehon; your boys will find plenty to eat. The company will be good for Narait, too.’ He paused for a minute and said quietly, ‘We have almost given up hope of a child of our own. It will take a miracle now, I think. And Narait is in no mood to wait for a miracle.’

Mara nodded sympathetically, but there was nothing that she could say. This was Nechtan’s second marriage and no child had resulted from either of them. It looked as though he were barren. And his brothers with two cousins had been killed in a shipwreck so now he was the last of the ancient family of Quinn –
coarbs
to the ancient lands of the Kilnaboy monastery. Under Brehon law, Narait could now leave him, be impregnated by another man and then return to him. Nechtan would have to rear the child as his own. Mara felt intensely sorry for him, but there would be little that she could do if Narait wished to avail herself of the provision within the law – after all, why should she remain barren and not know the delight of giving birth to a child and rearing it? Mara thought back to her own joys and deep delight in her son Cormac, and although there were moments of worry and anxiety, overall was this feeling of huge triumph and achievement. –
this is my beloved son
, she thought, and knew that nothing that Cormac would ever do would rob her of this feeling. No, she thought, if Narait had left the barren marriage bed and had sought the love of a lusty stranger, then she had nothing to expiate under Brehon law.

But Nechtan, her husband, was the descendent of an ancient line; he could not be expected to welcome this. And if the stranger who had impregnated, or had wished to impregnate his wife, was one who had already desecrated the church of his ancestors … what then?

‘Yes,’ said Mara to Nechtan. ‘Thank you very much – we would love to do that. The boys and I will enjoy it and it will save me a lot of time.’ She had half thought of leaving the boys behind, thinking they might be tired after their early rising and hard, back-breaking work at the bog, but they would be excited to stay overnight with Nechtan.

(Judgements on Blood Lettings)

When blood has been shed, it is the responsibility of the culprit to maintain his victim in a hospital, or in a house appointed by the physician, until a full recovery has been made.

A physician’s house or hospital should be placed in a quiet spot and if possible should have flowing water nearby so as to calm the spirit of the sick person.

It should always have a garden where herbs may be grown. A good physician will have more than a hundred herbs within the enclosure so that all illnesses can be treated.