Cross of Vengeance (2 page)

Since Cormac was Mara’s son this was doubly reprehensible, but on the other hand, the tiny figures, which the boys were pushing into groups of three, were made from clay so dark that they hardly showed up against the grey tiles on the floor. And they were both kneeling quietly with bent heads. Mara decided to ignore them for the moment, at least until the service began, and allowed her eyes to study the pilgrims with interest.

‘Who’s the tall blond pilgrim?’ she murmured to Nechtan, keeping her eyes fixed on the altar. The priest had not appeared yet. Father MacMahon would still be putting on his special red robes, worn only on this day every year; Sorley, his sexton, would be taking them out from the cedar chest, removing the small sour crab apples which kept the moths away from the silk, hanging them up to air and smoothing out the creases.

‘That’s Hans Kaufmann. He’s from Germany, a rich merchant,’ whispered back Nechtan. ‘The small, dark-skinned one, the elderly-looking man, is a monk from Italy – Brother Cosimo – and the one with grey hair is a Dominican priest from the shrine of St James of Santiago in Spain. He’s called Father Miguel.’

How does he know so much about them? wondered Mara, and then Nechtan’s wife came drifting in from the side door that led to the path towards the tower house. Narait O’Quinn was Nechtan’s second wife – a very good-looking young woman at least twenty years younger than her husband. It was the voluptuous figure, the dark eyes and the lusciously pouting mouth that had attracted him, and disguised the total absence of intelligence, Mara supposed, but now after a couple of years of marriage, she had the impression that both parties were bored and discontented.

Still, she thought, unlike in England where a wife would have to murder her husband to get rid of him – and risk being burned to death if her crime was discovered – here, Brehon law allowed for a peaceful divorce and an equable division of property. She smiled sweetly at Narait and noted with interest how the girl ignored her husband, but blushed and smiled across at the row of pilgrims, and how her eyes lingered on the pilgrim from Germany.

‘We offered them supper last night,’ said Nechtan to Mara, following the direction of her eyes. ‘Narait met them soon after their arrival,’ he continued. ‘She thought that the inn would not give them a good meal.’ Unlike the jolly, gossipy note of his previous pieces of information, his voice was toneless now and he did not trouble to reduce it to a whisper, but stared belligerently at his wife as she came to sit beside him.

An unlikely excuse, thought Mara. Blad, the owner of the inn, which was built on the banks of the River Fergus, only fifty yards from the church, was a wonderful cook. Even her husband, King Turlough, who loved his food, spoke of him with reverence. She looked around the church for Blad and could not spot him, though his daughter, Mór, was present. She, also, was looking across at the tall, blond young German pilgrim.

Did the German know how many women in the church were stealing glances at him, Mara wondered? He was an unusual pilgrim, very much younger than the customary people who made these voyages from shrine to shrine, across Europe and even to the Holy Land itself. The Italian and the Spaniard were well above middle age – the Italian perhaps approaching old age – and so was the prioress and her plump sister, the widow. Only the German and the unfortunately scarred woman could be called young.

And then all rose for the entrance of the priest, dramatically dressed in the special robes of red damask embroidered with gold thread. He mounted the carpeted steps to the altar, followed by a well-trained troop of altar boys and watched from the doorway by Sorley, the sexton and gravedigger. Mara smiled to herself to see the anxious look of the man. It was said on the Burren that Sorley was so immensely proud of having the responsibility of the round tower with its relic of the true cross in his keeping that he acted as though he were the king of Kilnaboy. Once the priest had genuflected to the altar, saying, ‘
Introibo ad altare dei
,’ and the altar boys intoned the response, Sorley retired – no doubt, thought Mara, to make sure that all was in order for the ceremonial visit to the relic in the round tower once the service was over. The presence of a group of pilgrims, though there were disappointingly few today, would add to his consequence. This was usually his big day of the year – and even though the number of pilgrims was small, the people of the Burren, as usual, had turned out to worship the relic.

Mara automatically listened to the Mass and made the appropriate responses, but when the congregation sat to listen to the epistle – one of the many hundreds written by St Paul, a man who was no favourite of hers – her mind wandered back to the pilgrims.

What a strange thing to leave your home and to wander from shrine to shrine. Not something that would appeal to her, she thought, though it would be interesting to see some more of the world. She imagined she might like to go to France one day and to witness how they grow the grapes and make the wine, wander around vineyards, sample different vintages and … She suppressed a smile. She was a wife and a mother, and with her position as Brehon of the Burren, her responsibility for law and order on the Burren, investigating crimes, drawing up legal documents, counselling couples who wished to divorce, explaining to farmers about boundary obligations, drafting wills, giving advice on problems with common land, sitting in judgement three or four times every year – more often if necessary – and added to all that her teaching commitments to her young scholars, she was lucky if she got a couple of hours to herself, she thought, as she rose respectfully to her feet to listen to the gospel. That young man, that German merchant, she mused, as she solemnly signed her forehead, mouth and breast with her thumb, what was happening to his business while he wandered over lands and seas in the company of three women and a couple of elderly men?

He could not be more than about twenty-eight, she reckoned, as she looked across at him. An intelligent face, but with a slight look of a fanatic about him. Certainly, at the moment, he was not looking at the women who were eyeing him: Narait, Nechtan’s wife; Blad’s daughter, Mór; the three women pilgrims; and even herself. He was looking straight ahead, staring at the altar and its marble statues, its crimson carpet, the gold figure of the crucifix, the jewel-encrusted monstrance which the priest raised on high with the sacred host in its centre, and there was a stillness, a concentration and, she almost thought, a look of burning passion in his eyes. That was the explanation, she supposed. This man was not going on a pilgrimage for the company or the amusements or to while away the time; some burning belief, some religious fanaticism drove him to sacrifice his time and his money.

Well, thought Mara, it takes all kinds to make up a world. Religion to her was something very much in the background. And yet she was, she thought with a sudden insight, as fanatical about the law, the Brehon laws of her ancestors, as this man or Ardal O’Lochlainn was fanatical about the Church of Rome. A law which never shed blood, which ruled that the hungry and the insane had to be cared for, a law that gave rights to women and children, a law that relied for obedience to its judgements on the consensus of the community and not on savage punishments with whip and the hangman’s noose – that law, she thought, as she stood up for the last Gospel, with a half-smile at her sudden fervour, was worth a certain fanaticism.

‘May we go up to see the relic of the true cross, Brehon?’

‘If you like, Art.’ Mara suppressed a sigh. She had hoped to plead urgent business once the service was over and get away quickly, but Art was a genuinely religious boy and his mother, who lived on a farm near to the law school, would be eager to hear all about it when he visited her later on in the evening. Odd, she thought, that Cormac, her son, had been fostered with Art from the time that he was a tiny baby, had lived in the same house, slept in the same bed, fed from the same milk – and yet Art was religious like his mother and Cormac, like
his
mother, Mara, seemed to be sceptical about certain aspects of the Church’s teachings.

Still, if Art wanted to see the relic and if he truly believed that it was part of the cross on which Jesus met his death, then he must be allowed to do so. She wondered for a moment about allowing Domhnall to be in charge of the party climbing up to see the relic, housed in its own little tower a few yards from the church, but although he was very responsible, for fourteen he was rather small and Father MacMahon might think it strange of her. In any case, she thought, Cormac was quite likely to wonder aloud how many pieces of the true cross existed in the world, and, being a mathematical boy with a love of figures, might start working out how many pieces of wood could be taken from a man-sized cross. And then he would probably take his findings to Father MacMahon and scandalize the good priest.

‘It’s my first time seeing it,’ said Art as they crossed the churchyard, shepherded by Father MacMahon and ushered ahead of the pilgrims who were being placed in an orderly line by Sorley.

The stone-roofed round tower was quite small – probably only about ten foot across on the inside and made from stone. Mara and her scholars followed the priest up the ladder that led to the door, placed for security reasons a good six foot above ground level, and waited on the first wooden floor until Father MacMahon laboriously made his way up to the second floor where the relic was housed. It was a tight squeeze in the little circular room and Mara moved on to the ladder, allowing the boys to huddle together in an area not more than a couple of paces wide. It turned out that it was the first time for all of the scholars and they speculated freely, in discreet whispers, on what might happen by the sacred power of the precious relic. It was very airless and Mara was thankful when Father MacMahon finished his prayer and came back down again. She climbed the wooden spiral staircase and breathed thankfully the cool air that came from the four narrow window slits – facing north, south, east and west. She stood by the eastern one and allowed the boys to press forward to where the relic lay on a cushion of purple velvet, housed in a knee-high, beautifully carved gold shrine.

‘To think that people cross the world to see something the size of that,’ said Cormac. He sounded quite disappointed and, being Cormac, had a note of annoyance in his voice as though he felt that someone had tried to fool him.

‘Across Europe,’ contradicted Domhnall. As the son of a successful merchant who exported goods from and into the Anglicized city of Galway, he had a clear idea of the location of various countries. His father, as a boy, had met Christopher Columbus when the explorer had stopped off in Galway, and since then had taken a huge interest in the exploration of the Americas, and Domhnall was deeply interested in the idea that the world might be shaped more like a ball than a disc, as most people believed. He looked down at the relic now, bowed his head, but made no comment. He was a boy with a razor-sharp brain and a discretion beyond his years.

‘It’s very small.’ Art also sounded disappointed, but he crossed himself reverentially and after a couple of minutes of silent prayer Mara led the way back down the staircase. The local people waited politely until the Brehon and her scholars descended, but now formed a queue, eager to see their parish relic before returning to work on the farms and households of the Burren. The place would then be cleared and the pilgrims allowed a longer time to pray uninterrupted. Five of the six pilgrims were wandering around the churchyard, looking at the slabs and examining the tombs, but the sixth, the German, she saw through the open door of the church, still lingered, on his knees, with head bowed. Mara nodded to herself with satisfaction. I’m right, she thought. He’s probably a religious fanatic and wishes to say some very long prayers.

‘Ah, Brehon, I was hoping to see you.’ A rich voice from behind distracted Mara as she was about to hush Cormac from hoping that sight of the precious relic would help him to score a goal in the forthcoming hurling match against the MacClancy Law School. She turned to greet the innkeeper.

Blad was in full flow, inviting her to a meal at the inn in company with the six pilgrims and, of course, Father MacMahon and Sorley his sexton. Nechtan O’Quinn and his wife Narait were already walking down the path that joined the inn to the church. ‘And all of your scholars as well,’ he said. ‘And I hope you are hungry, boys, because I have a table covered with food.’

It was the look on Finbar’s face that made Mara change her mind about making an excuse. Finbar was always hungry. He was the son of a Brehon and had come from a law school in Cloyne in the south of Ireland. To her surprise the Brehon had sent his son to her when the boy was already twelve years old. She had seen after a day that Finbar was very much behind her other boys and had realized that his father had given up the teaching of his son in despair. She wished that he would just leave the boy to her now, but Domhnall, her grandson, had told her that Finbar’s father made him work at the law texts during the holidays and that he went supperless to bed if he didn’t answer questions correctly. Brigid, Mara’s motherly housekeeper, had exclaimed at how very thin the boy was when he returned from his summer holidays.

So she changed her refusal into a hearty acceptance and was rewarded by a blaze of pleasure on all of her boys’ faces. Brigid gave them plenty of good food, but the reputation of Blad’s cooking had spread far and they could hope for something exciting from a meal at the inn. Brigid herself would be relieved not to have to provide a meal for the boys when they returned from the Feast Day Mass. This was a busy time at the farm attached to the law school and Brigid’s husband, Cumhal, with the help of hired labour and friendly neighbours, was snatching a second cut of hay before the autumn rains began. Brigid would be on her mettle to feed them all well and would be pleased not to have to think about the boys and herself as well.

‘And your neighbour, the O’Lochlainn, has promised to come also,’ said Blad, with a look across at Ardal who stood courteously bending his head as Father MacMahon interrogated him, no doubt about his pilgrimage to Rome. It gave Mara a slight pang to see Ardal’s once bright red-gold hair now so grey. He was only five years older than she and yet there was hardly a grey hair among the dark coils fastened behind her neck.