Cross of Vengeance (3 page)

(Judgement Texts Concerning Professional People)
Triad 31

Three things are required of an innkeeper or a hospitaller:

1. A never-dry cauldron.
   
2. A dwelling near a public road.
   
3. A welcome to every face.
   

T
he inn at Kilnaboy had been recently built. There had been an old monastery on the site, probably hundreds of years ago; certainly it had been a ruin even in the time of Mara’s grandfather – her father had told her that. Ruined walls, piles of cut stone and huge stone roofing slabs had lain by the river until Blad had seen an opportunity.

Blad had been a farmer in Thomond until the last few years. When his wife died he divided his farm between his two sons and bought the site of the old monastery and a few acres of riverbank meadow from the church. The money he had paid had gone to buy a splendid crosier for the use of the bishop when he came to Kilnaboy Church, while Blad could now achieve a secret dream and build a splendid inn on the bank of the river, using the old stones from the ruin. He was a great fisherman and a man with a huge interest in good food and fine wines, and he had trained up his daughter to be as good a cook as himself. Mara had been responsible for drawing up Blad’s Will and knew that he had endowed Mór with the inn and with the fields surrounding it where they grew vegetables and reared ducks, hens and geese for the table.

It had been, she thought, a fair arrangement. His sons had the farm and his daughter the inn. Normally a daughter could not inherit land – except enough to graze seven cows. It was one aspect of Brehon law that needed amending, she had often thought, though she knew the arguments about keeping clan land within the clan. But this was not clan land or property; it had been bought by Blad out of the profits from successful farming and so was now his own to do what he wished with. She was pleased for Mór’s sake – a jolly, plump girl who was no longer a girl but was sliding rapidly towards an age when a future husband might need the inducement of her property before proposing.

The inn, indeed, was a property worth possessing. It was a well-planned building, with an undercroft filled with straw mattresses for the servants of the guests and for poverty-stricken pilgrims. Above that there was a spacious hall with three tall, narrow windows overlooking the river and three very small ones on the wall opposite giving sight of the courtyard. The bedchambers for the more affluent pilgrims were built above the hall and each had its own wooden staircase leading to it from the courtyard and another on the side of the river. The bedrooms, Mara was intrigued to see when Blad showed her around, each had washing facilities with pumped water – there was even a small latrine built into the thickness of the wall – and a chute led down to a small culvert to carry away the waste, an arrangement that had been retained from the time when there had been an abbey on the site. Clean river water entered the kitchen from upstream of the River Fergus and foul water and waste were returned eventually by a meandering stream, fringed with willows and filled with bulrushes and water lilies – a stream which entered the river well away from the inn. By this time the water would have been purified by the plants and the river weed. Blad insisted on showing her all the arrangements and she admired them to his heart’s content.

Having viewed the bedrooms, Mara looked around the hall with interest. It was her first visit here. Kilnaboy was on the very south-eastern tip of her territory and she did not often ride in this direction. The room was a very simple one: walls of white limestone blocks, carefully and evenly cut, their surfaces still bearing the mason’s marks, were left unadorned by tapestry hangings or wall carpets – just a couple of pale oak dressers laden with gaily painted flagons, mugs and dishes and numerous wooden and leather drinking vessels. The sun streamed through the windows facing south on to the river – the room well protected from the cold air by diamond-shaped panes of glass – and the white stone of the walls gleamed in its light. Two small windows faced north and allowed a view of the entrance court, and an oil lamp, suspended from the ceiling in the centre of the room, would supplement the candlelight on dark days and evenings.

‘It’s spectacular,’ said Mara with a warm smile of approval. ‘I like it so much.’ She looked at Blad with interest. He was a very wealthy farmer; she had known this and had expected to see evidence of his wealth everywhere, but this room was a miracle of restraint. There was nothing in the room that was not needed, but everything that was needed was of the best quality: the finely-grained pale oak of the central table and the dressers, the tasteful decoration of small stylized flowers on the pottery – French, she guessed, and then wondered when she saw that they were painted with images of the tiny dark blue May-flowering gentians that grew everywhere on the Burren. Perhaps they grew in France or Switzerland also. Her father had spoken of seeing these gentians in the mountains on his pilgrimage to Rome when she was a girl – the Alps, she thought.

‘Ah, here come the ladies!’ Blad’s ear had caught a sound from outside. ‘You will be very interested to meet with Madame Eglantine, the prioress, a very travelled lady,’ he assured Mara before hastening out to throw open doors and usher in the three women pilgrims. They were followed by Ardal O’Lochlainn, still recounting details of his visit to Rome to Father MacMahon, Nechtan O’Quinn and his wife, the priest from Spain and the monk from Italy. There was no sign of the German with the interesting face, but Mara took a few polite steps forward to greet the prioress.

‘It’s a great pleasure to meet you,’ she murmured in English. Welsh was not a language that she knew, though it might not be too unlike her native Gaelic. She wondered whether the woman should be addressed in Latin.

‘Oh, good, you speak in English. How wonderful! Like being back in civilization again,’ said the prioress sweetly. She cast a disparaging glance around at the magnificent simplicity of stone and oak and whispered, ‘Very bare, isn’t it?’

‘Not to me, Madame,’ said Mara serenely, and was amused when the woman pressed a tiny delicate hand to her rosebud lips.

‘Oh,
excusez-moi
,’ she said, with what Mara assumed must be a Welsh accent. It certainly sounded like no French person that she had ever met. Her son-in-law, Domhnall’s father, often had French wine merchants staying at his house in Galway and Mara, who had a gift for languages, loved to talk to them. Still, she smiled affably at the woman and remarked, ‘When natural things are beautiful, there is no need for too much decoration.’

‘Of course,’ said Madame Eglantine politely, and then in lower tones, with a glance at Blad, ‘I don’t suppose that the innkeeper speaks English, so you don’t need to worry about his feelings. Now tell me about yourself. Are you really a lawyer? I’ve never heard of such a thing. How do you manage? It must be terribly exhausting to go out into the world of men. I’m so lucky; I’ve led such a sheltered life inside my convent with my dear sisters.’ She saw Mara’s glance go to the other two women, and laughed shrilly. ‘Not these sisters. I mean my sisters in Christ – the nuns in my convent.’

‘But you journey with your sisters of the blood?’ Mara lifted her eyebrows in a query and wondered how quickly she could get away from this woman. She had no notion of explaining how deeply satisfying her life was, and how she enjoyed the society of both men and women on equal terms, and that her voice was listened to just as eagerly, or even more so, as the voices of her male colleagues, MacEgan of Thomond and MacClancy of Corcomroe.

‘Will you introduce me to your sisters?’ she went on, moving a little closer to the other two women. They intrigued her. There was such a gap in age between the prioress and her sister the widow – both of whom looked to be in their late forties or early fifties – and the youngest sister, who judging by the skin on her hands and neck and the sheen on the blonde hair that escaped from under her hood, was at least twenty years younger. The widow, she found, was Mistress Narboath and the young girl Mistress Grace Bowen.

‘What a very pretty hood you are wearing, Grace.’ Mara boldly addressed the youngest sister by her first name. It was, after all, the Irish custom, and Wales, she had heard, was like Ireland in lots of respects. They even had Brehon law there, though not, Madame Eglantine had assured her, in the north-eastern part of Wales where her convent was situated.

‘But we are more English than Welsh. My convent is at Holywell, beside the well of St Winifred, almost in England,’ she interrupted as Grace was telling Mara that the pattern was a traditional Welsh pattern and that she had woven the hood herself from wool that she had dyed with the juice from blackberries.

‘Such a pretty rose colour and the pattern is most unusual,’ commented Mara, ignoring the prioress. Did the two sisters live in the convent also, she wondered. If so, it was not a good life for Grace who was still a very young woman.

Father MacMahon was passing on to Father Miguel from Spain all he had learned from Ardal O’Lochlainn on the burning question of the ex-monk Martin Luther, who was expostulating about the abuses of the Catholic Church and about the relics. These sermons and talks of his, Mara gathered, were ruining business for the shrines all over Europe, and she wondered whether he had deterred the usual crowds that arrived at Kilnaboy for the feast of the Holy Cross. If that were the case, then Blad’s investment in an inn opposite the church might not have been very wise.

He looked happy enough as he summoned them all to table and seated them according to his notions of status. Mara was on his right hand, with her scholars on a separate small table just behind her seat. The prioress was seated on Blad’s left. The other two ladies were seated together opposite Father Miguel and Brother Cosimo. Father MacMahon was placed on Mara’s other side beside Ardal O’Lochlainn, and they continued to converse gravely on the Pope’s view of Martin Luther as the serving boys began to bring in the first course.

‘Ninety-five theses, words criticizing the Church and its teachings about the salvation of the Christian soul – and he nailed them to the church door at Wittenberg!’ Father MacMahon lifted his hands with horror. His voice rose to almost a squeak and everyone at the table looked towards him. Cormac muttered something to Art and Art went a dark red and dived under the table. Mara glared at her son – Art was a terrible giggler and always found it hard to stop once he started. Cormac stared back at her with an angelic expression and she made a mental note to have a stern word with him as soon as they returned to the law school.

‘What does this Martin Luther object to?’ she asked to distract attention from the boys, and Ardal answered gravely.

‘He speaks out against sacred relics and indulgences,’ he told her. ‘The Holy Father is very concerned.’

‘I see,’ said Mara. Indulgences were a fact of life in the Church – bargains with God, as she often thought of them. You did something difficult and unpleasant, like remaining on your knees for hours on end, or climbing a stony mountain called Croagh Patrick in your bare feet, and in return you got a printed document telling you that you would be let off a year or more’s suffering in the fire of purgatory after your death. Did no particular harm, she thought. In fact, she understood that the climb up the mountain in Mayo was quite a sociable affair and the view over Clew Bay, with its myriad of tiny islands, was spectacular once you arrived at the summit. You could also buy an indulgence if you had plenty of money, and that Mara found less easy to accept. She wondered how many people truly believed in these.

‘I’m sure your young scholars will know all about indulgences,’ said the prioress. ‘You, young man, do you know what is meant by a plenary indulgence?’

To Mara’s relief she pointed at Domhnall and he replied, in very good English, after his usual careful pause for thought, ‘A plenary indulgence is a full remission of all sins, Madame.’

‘And you can buy that?’ Cormac opened his mouth and widened his eyes. ‘For ever? And then you could do what you liked for the rest of your life? How much is it?’ His voice rose up full of excitement and most people at the table looked across at him – some indulgently, others with annoyance.

The door behind him opened and the tall figure of Hans Kaufmann, stooping slightly under the doorway and then straightening to his full height, came in. All eyes went to him but he walked up to the scholars’ table, looking directly into Cormac’s large light green eyes. His handsome face was very serious as he said, speaking Latin with a strong German accent, ‘Yes, my boy, you can buy this. There are Pardonners everywhere all over Europe who sell these indulgences. They have a basketful with them and when the basket is emptied they fill it up again.’

‘They buy them cheap and sell them dear, is that the way of it?’ Cormac had a sharp brain and, despite herself, Mara’s lips twitched, though she resolved again to have a word later about guarding his tongue.

‘And the money, Cormac,’ said Father MacMahon repressively, ‘is used for the greater honour and glory of God. Our own church has been repaired and the chancel rebuilt by the generosity of the pilgrims and the gifts of money that they have left. The beautiful carpet on the altar steps was presented by a wealthy pilgrim who had returned from the Holy Land.’

‘Ah, indeed,’ said Father Miguel, with an air of triumph, speaking a heavily accented Latin, ‘and remember also, Cormac, that you can save a soul from purgatory by buying an indulgence for him.’ By now Blad must have spread the word that this young boy was the son, not only of the Brehon, but also of the King of Burren, Corcomroe and Thomond. To Mara’s annoyance, the pilgrims seemed interested in impressing him. Still, she thought, it was good for his Latin. Cormac hated not to understand everything and she could see from his eyes how he was concentrating intently on the words said to him.

‘That’s correct, boy,’ said Hans, changing over to English as he strolled to the table and seated himself on the bench beside Grace, who blushed uncomfortably and shifted nearer to Mistress Narboath to make room for him. ‘This is what they say, you know, “
Wenn die Münze im Kästlein klingt, die Seele in den Himmel springt
.” And in English that is, “
As soon as the coin in the coffer rings, the soul from purgatory into heaven springs
.” That’s a thought, isn’t it?’ His English was good, though he spoke with a strong German accent.