Cross of Vengeance (27 page)

The scene was set in the big hall for the play when Mara and Nechtan returned. Narait had organized the servants into putting up a screen – one of the many used to shield draughts from the badly fitting windows of the old castle. This hid the staircase leading out of the hall. In front of the screen was a square space marked out by benches, and to one side of this improvised stage, six of the servants sat as an audience. In the front were two cushioned chairs for Mara and Nechtan. Narait, one of the servants informed his master, was to be a player.

The play was surprisingly good for something that had been improvised so quickly. Narait made an excellent Eve, scolding her two sons for their jealousy and their quarrels and calling on her diminutive husband, Adam, to back up her threats of punishment. The part of Adam was acted with extreme embarrassment by Finbar, but Mara clapped him vigorously as his awkward endeavours to scold Cain and Abel reminded her strongly of King Turlough when he was ordered by her to reprimand his youngest son for some piece of bad behaviour. Once their father, Adam, and mother, Eve, had disappeared behind the screen, Slevin who was Cain and Cormac who was Abel had fun with a session of name-calling, which escalated until they each fetched a sword and shield neatly concealed under a couple of cushions. The temptation to show off became too much for both of them then, and they drew the jousting display out to such a degree that the voice of God hissed from behind the screen, ‘
That’s long enough!
’

And then, once Abel dropped with an impressive thump to the floor and rolled his eyes in a dramatic way, finishing with them fixed wide open on the ceiling above, God, arrayed in a priest-like garment, appeared shouting, ‘Where is your brother?’

He made short work of the cheeky reply – ‘Am I my brother’s keeper?’ – from Cain, and when he got the truth, lectured him for the murder of his brother and condemned him to be an outlaw forever. Slevin, in the character of Cain, tried some back-chat, but Domhnall, giving an insight into the dignity that he would hopefully bring to the office of Brehon later on in his life, dominated him, reduced him to a shivering wreck, then marked him on the forehead, using a rag dipped in ink, and dismissed him to be an exile and a wanderer for the rest of his life.

‘Wonderful!’ Nechtan was on his feet clapping as the cast, including the restored-to-life Abel, formed a line in front of the screen and bowed to their audience. His earlier bad temper seemed to be forgotten and he was generous in his praise for all of the actors and suggested that they might show it to Father MacMahon sometime – in happier times, he added quickly, remembering the unsolved death that still hung over the little community at Kilnaboy.

(Judgements of Blood Letting)

Any offence committed against a child is punished with the greatest severity. No matter how lowly his father may be, the honour price of a young child is as great as that of the highest cleric in the land.

The fine for the murder of a child is an honour price of forty
séts
, or twenty ounces of silver or twenty milch cows added to the normal
eraic
or body fine of forty-two
séts
or twenty-one ounces of silver or twenty-one milch cows.

So the total fine would be either: Eighty-two
séts
, or forty-one ounces of silver or forty-one milch cows.

Or, in the case of secret killing: One hundred and twenty-four
séts
, or sixty-six ounces of silver or sixty-six milch cows.

M
ara slept heavily that night – unusually heavily for her. The play had ended with a celebratory bowl of syllabub and a platter of sweetmeats. Nechtan had insisted on her drinking some mead with it and the creaminess of the sweet syllabub and the strongly alcoholic drink made her drop off to sleep almost as soon as her head touched the pillow.

When she heard her name whispered her first instinct was to turn over and bury her head under the blankets, but then she sat up and blinked sleepily at the candlelight in front of her eyes.

‘Finbar!’ she exclaimed. ‘What on earth are you doing here? What’s wrong?’

‘It’s Cormac,’ he whimpered, and by the glow from the candle that he held unsteadily she could see that his face was very pale and that he had marks of tears on his face.

‘What?’ In an instant Mara had grabbed her nightgown and pulled it on over her shift and swung her legs out of the bed. ‘Is he ill?’ she demanded. It’s only a fever and sickness, just as his foster brother Art had been suffering from, she told herself, but her heart thudded. Cormac was never ill.

And then she heard a quick sob from Finbar.

‘It’s not that, Brehon.’ His voice was choked and she had difficulty in making out his words. ‘The Spanish priest has got him.’

‘Got him?’ Mara grabbed her cloak from the nail on the back of the door and slung it over her shoulders. ‘Got him where?’ She bent down, pulled on her knee-high hose and then stuck her feet into her boots. Finbar was gulping hard and she could not make out what he was saying.

‘Where is he?’ she hissed.

‘With Father Miguel – in the round tower.’ Finbar seemed suddenly steadied by her fierce tone.

‘Wait outside while I dress,’ said Mara coldly.

I’m damned if I face that Spanish monk in my nightwear, she thought, as she rapidly pulled on a clean shift and her gown. She could guess what had happened. Cormac and Finbar were larking around in the round tower – probably with lights – and Father Miguel had caught hold of Cormac.
Serve the little wretch right
, she tried to say to herself, but she was filled with a cold anger that anyone would dare to lay a hand on her son.

‘But Brehon, he’s mad.’ Finbar’s mouth was at the keyhole.

‘I’m sure he’s furious,’ said Mara, rapidly plaiting her hair and wishing that she had attended to it the night before.

‘No, not furious!’ Finbar’s voice rose to a wail, but then he subdued it again. ‘He’s mad. He thinks Cormac is the devil – really the devil.’

‘What did you say?’ Mara drove a couple of hairpins into the back of her hair, picked up her cloak from the floor and pulled open the door. ‘Speak quietly,’ she said impatiently, ‘don’t wake the whole household. What have you two been doing?’

‘Cormac told me to fetch Father Miguel.’ He gulped hard and she swallowed her impatience with him.

‘Come on,’ she said, and went quietly down the stairs. ‘Tell me as we go.’

‘Cormac told me to get Father Miguel. He told me to say that …’

The front door was closed and bolted, but she slid the bolt back and was outside in a moment, followed by Finbar. Only then did she notice that he was shivering and she reproached herself for her harshness.

‘Told you to say what?’ she asked more gently.

‘That the devil was in the round tower. Cormac was pretending to be the devil. He sent me for Father Miguel.’

Mara sighed with exasperation. Now she knew what had happened. ‘You took that mask of the devil from the players’ chest, didn’t you?’

He nodded. ‘Cormac told me to tell Father Miguel that there was something strange in the round tower – that it might be a devil. He stood at the window, up on the top floor, and he held up a lantern so that he could be seen.’

And now, thought Mara, the priest is rightly furious to find that it was just a nine-year-old boy capering around, wearing an old leather mask. Still, she thought, it was fairly stupid of him to have believed that story. Did the man really think that the devil was in the round tower?

‘Come on,’ she said, touching Finbar on the shoulder. ‘Let’s find Cormac. Don’t worry. I’ll talk to Father Miguel.’

The boy was still trembling beneath her hand and she looked down at him with concern. There was not enough light in order to see his face, but she wondered whether he had a fever. Why should he be so very upset because Cormac was in the hands of the Spanish priest?

The night was dark with a sliver of a crescent moon and a few stars, but from behind the church the round tower glowed with light. That was good; it would light her way across to the inn if that was where Father Miguel had taken Cormac. She hastened her footsteps and then sniffed. There was a strange smoky smell in the air, a very familiar smell, the strong pungent odour of damp turf. Almost as though … No, she told herself. That’s not possible. Not twice in two days. In any case, there was nothing of value in the tower now – no reason for a fire.

And then she noticed that Nechtan’s stack of turf had collapsed on one side, just as though the sods had been pulled out of the carefully constructed wall. And that was definitely a smell of peat smoke filling the air. She turned back and grabbed the boy by the shoulder.

‘Finbar, what’s happening? What have you two been doing? Where’s Cormac? Have you and he been lighting fires? Where is he? Is he in the inn?’ She felt her heart thud, though she told herself that there was nothing that could happen to her son. Blad would soon interfere if Father Miguel got high-handed. But what had they been up to?

‘Cormac told me to get the priest,’ wailed Finbar. ‘He told me to …’ His voice faltered.

At that moment a glow lit up the east-facing window of the round tower. The silhouette was unmistakable: the gold gleamed around the huge eye sockets, large, coiled horns curved out from the domed forehead. Mara’s heart thudded. It certainly looked realistic. Father Miguel had been summoned by Finbar out into the night. The devil was in the round tower, he had been told, but Cormac was still there – not pulled out and taken across to the inn by an indignant man who had been momentarily fooled by a pair of boys, but still up in the top storey, peering out through the narrow slit of the window.

So where was Father Miguel?

And then a shadowy figure pushed past them, almost knocking them over, and Mara felt the stiff, hard curve of a willow basket knock against her hip. There were footsteps on the ladder ahead of them and then a gleam of light as the door was pushed open, and a black-cloaked figure, hugging a basket of turf, was suddenly lit up. And then the door closed behind him.

But that half a minute was enough.

The ground floor of the round tower was on fire, with clouds of smoke rising up from the wet turf.

And on the floor above was the figure in the devil’s mask.

‘Get Nechtan, get Sorley, wake everyone!’ screamed Mara, giving Finbar a push. She had little reliance on him but could not wait to see whether her orders were obeyed. She sprang up the ladder leading to the door and then realized that her shout had been heard. The figure was at the door, trying to close it against her. Her fingernails just touched it, and then she felt a blow. Her feet were still a couple of rungs from the top as he leaned forward, his black cloak flaring out. He bent down, his hands at her feet, fumbling. The ladder jerked abruptly, almost throwing her down, and the door flew back giving a sudden view of a smoking, smouldering fire in the centre of the wooden floor. Father Miguel looked over his shoulder. He stood up, abandoning the ladder, slipped back inside and then the door was pushed violently against her outstretched hands. She sprang forward. A second later her two hands were on the door and she was pressing it with every ounce of strength in her body.

‘Get out of my way,’ she said between gritted teeth. ‘Get out of my way or I swear that I will kill you.’
My child is in there
, she screamed, but she did not know whether the words were said aloud or whether they just burned through her brain.

She pushed him vigorously, yet he hardly seemed aware of her now. He went to the door and dragged up the ladder from its place on the ground below, pulling it into the little circular room. Mara heard the door slam closed and the metallic click as the bolt was shot home. Now she was cut off from the ground, suspended halfway up the stone tower. She was closeted within the small room, locked into the company of a mad man. His eyes blazed but did not see her. With an enormous output of strength he crashed the ladder against the circular stone wall, smashing it into two pieces, holding them up, suspended in his arms.

The fire had been smoking in the centre of the room. Some sparks flickered but otherwise it seemed to just smoulder and she only spared it a cursory glance. She fumbled through the clouds of smoke, trying to find the ladder to the second floor. Surely it was there. Her memory was quite clear. It had been against the wall of the small round room, directly opposite to the entrance door at the top of the first ladder.

And then the Spaniard placed the two pieces of the ladder that he had just broken on top of the fire. A spark found the wood and the fire blazed up, clear flames adding to the clouds of yellow-white smoke. The whole room was lit up. Mara could see clearly the opening into the top room, the room that had held the sacred relic.

But that ladder had already been pulled down, and this time the man did not wait to break it. In a second it was placed on the fire. And this had not been outside in the rain and the mist, year after year; this ladder had been sheltered, had spent a lifetime under cover. It was as dry as tinder. Instantly the effect of it was seen. The first-floor ladder had begun to burn steadily, but once the second-floor ladder was added there was an immediate change. Flames leaped from the smouldering fire of wet turf and licked on to the wooden rungs and side pieces. The timber was old and dry and it flared up instantly. The room was small and the fire dominated it, bringing instant terror.

And now the way to the top storey was barred. Ten foot above, the opening yawned – now no longer an exit, an escape hatch, but a conduit, a chimney for the smoke that rushed up through it.

‘Cormac!’ Mara screamed, but there was no reply.

Suddenly the Spaniard seemed aware of her. ‘Get back, get back,’ he screamed in a strange high voice. ‘Get back, woman. The devil must be burned. “
Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire.
” Get back, go down.’ He grabbed her by the shoulder and began to pull her towards the entrance door, trying to thrust her out.