Eye of the Law (35 page)

T
he weather on that mid-April day was good. There was little wind and the noonday sunshine felt warm on Mara’s back as she walked slowly down the road towards Kilcorney and then turned up towards Poulnabrone. She looked quickly around as soon as she had taken her position beside the ancient dolmen. For a moment she feared that Liam, the unjust steward, had not come, but he was there, not next to his master Ardal, where she had looked to see him, but over to the north of the field, talking earnestly to his companion. Mara narrowed her eyes, but she could not see the face of the second man as he wore the hood of his
brat
pulled forward around his face. Ardal, himself, accompanied by his niece Nuala, looked uneasy and kept sending glances across at Liam.

There was a large crowd of people present. Although her summons had not mentioned any names, rumours had obviously being flying around and many heads turned to look across at Liam. Almost the entire O’Lochlainn clan was present and a fair sprinkling of the O’Connor and MacNamara clans. Teige O’Brien, however, was not there and very few of his clansmen attended. Mara felt annoyed at his absence – he should have trusted her not to mention his name without prior warning, she thought as she took the scroll from Fachtnan’s hand and moved forward to greet the people, wishing them a benediction from God and his blessed mother.

An expectant silence ensued once the murmurs of ‘and Patrick’ died down and Mara immediately raised her voice, pacing the delivery of the words as the cliff-face to the east of the townland of Poulnabrone picked up her words and echoed them back to the crowd grouped around the ancient dolmen.

‘Over four weeks ago a stranger from Aran came here to this kingdom of the Burren,’ she began, watching to see comprehension in the faces of those furthest from her in order to be sure that her voice carried. There were nods from all and a strange sigh went up from the assembled clansmen, almost as if they were children hearing a story of which the beginning was familiar, but the ending was still unknown.

‘He came here in good faith with a message from his mother on her death bed,’ went on Mara. ‘He came, he spoke, he lived among us for three days, from the feast day of the blessed Saint Patrick to the following Thursday and then he died, brutally murdered.’

The murmur began again, rose and swelled and then quite suddenly died away as everyone looked at their Brehon with expectant eyes.

‘And then,’ continued Mara, making a pretence of consulting her scroll, ‘four days later, on Monday March twenty-fourth, another man, the uncle of Iarla from Aran, a man named Becan, was also found murdered.’ She paused again, but this time there was no sound from the people and no one moved.

‘I now name the killer of both men,’ Mara said, her voice firm and unemotional. ‘It was Liam O’Lochlainn, steward to the O’Lochlainn. He committed the first murder because Iarla from Aran had detected him in the act of stealing from his
taoiseach
.’

Now every head turned, but there were no gasps, no murmurs, just curiosity and interest on all faces. I wonder, speculated Mara as she glanced at her scroll, whether everyone on the Burren, except Ardal O’Lochlainn, suspected the truth about Liam.

‘The second crime,’ she said firmly, ‘was committed because Becan had suspected what had happened to his nephew and was bold enough to investigate the cave, known as Balor’s Cave, which led back underground to Lissylisheen and provided the means for the steward Liam to remove goods in secret from the O’Lochlainn barn. He met his death there.’

Now the sound of a hundred voices swelled up into the warm, still air. Everyone was interested in this, and to Mara, listening carefully, shocked indignation seemed to be the prevailing note. As she had thought, people had surmised that Liam had been stealing, but had not known how he could do it. The implications of the possible extent of his thievery had now dawned on this quick-witted people and over a hundred alert and interested faces turned once more towards her. With a slight feeling of amusement, she noticed that Nuala, her cheeks crimson with fury, had slipped her hand into her uncle’s hand. Ardal glanced down at her with a smile and patted her arm with his other hand.

‘I now call upon Liam O’Lochlainn, steward, to come forward to admit to his two crimes of secret and unlawful killing.’ Mara’s voice rang out as clear as the bell from the abbey.

And Liam did come forward, but not alone. The figure beside him pushed the hood back from his face and as he advanced Mara recognized him. It was the young man, Cavan, who used to be a law-scholar at MacClancy’s Law School before he qualified as an
aigne
. Mara looked at him with interest, wondering whether he was better briefed now than he had been at Malachy’s abortive attempt to take Nuala’s property for himself.

Cavan bowed to her and she bowed back gravely. It was the first time for many, many years that an accused person had bothered having legal representation at her court. The people of the Burren seemed mainly resigned to the sentences that she passed, or else her reputation as a lawyer of great knowledge made other lawyers reluctant to take on the task of sparring with her.

‘You speak on behalf of Liam O’Lochlainn?’ Mara addressed him with formal courtesy.

He bowed again. ‘My client, Liam O’Lochlainn, denies the charge of murder.’ His voice, though loud and emphatic at close quarters, did not carry as well as hers and Mara could see the people on the outskirts of the crowd pressing closer in order to hear better. This young man would need to practise his delivery, she thought critically. All courts in Ireland were held in the open air so he would be unsuccessful in his pleading if he did not improve.

‘Cavan the
aigne
, formally a scholar at the MacClancy Law School in Corcomroe, will represent the accused man,’ she said to the crowd, and saw the nods that showed her words had reached them all. ‘Speak for your client,’ she said to Cavan.

‘My client, Liam O’Lochlainn, admits the killing of Becan, uncle of Iarla, but says that it was done in self-defence as Becan tried to strangle my client. Becan accused my client of the murder of Iarla and attempted to kill him in revenge. The cook at Lissylisheen is available to give testimony that he observed marks on my client’s throat the following day.’

‘Why was the matter not reported to me?’ Mara kept her voice confident and slightly scornful, but she was taken aback. She had not expected this. It might even be true, she thought. Becan and Liam might have come to blows, though if they had it seemed surprising that a man of Liam’s age and sedentary occupation would have been able to overcome the blacksmith in a fight. Still, if the cook had noticed marks on Liam’s throat, it may well have been the way this happened.

‘My client regrets this now,’ said Cavan blandly. His voice still did not carry to the back of the crowd, but Mara decided not to waste time interpreting for him. She had other matters to think of. Suddenly she was filled with a sense of panic. She felt her breath come quickly and her hands began to sweat. She could not think for a moment. What was the law on the subject? For the first time in her career, she felt as if all her knowledge of the law was sliding away from her.

Deliberately, Mara moved her eyes away from the crowd and looked towards the west. She concentrated on taking long, deep breaths of the soft air. She could not see the law school at Cahermacnaghten from where she stood, but she could visualise it. The schoolroom was as vivid to her as if she were present. Her mind’s eye wandered along the shelves of the wooden press, lingering over each leather-bound volume until it stopped at the oldest and most worn book, the book that she had handled thousands of times. Her panic subsided and she turned towards Cavan with a slight smile on her lips.

Enda, she now saw, was writing a note on a piece of vellum. She waited until he slid it over, then glanced at it and gave him an appreciative nod. It had been unnecessary though. Her mind had cleared from the fog of pregnancy and tiredness and the correct law was on the tip of her tongue. Nevertheless, she would give Enda his due praise.

‘My young colleague here reminds me that if a killing is unreported and the body left in an unfrequented place then the crime has to be classified as
duinetháide
,’ she said clearly and added in a low voice to the young
aigne
, ‘See
Cáin Adomnáin
, page 128.’ She did not care that, even to her own ears, her voice held a patronizing note. She had had a bad fright for a moment and, rather meanly, was not sorry to take her revenge.

‘Let us turn now to the first murder, the murder of the young man Iarla,’ she said in clear, carrying tones. ‘What is your client’s explanation of that? Does he also plead not guilty to this charge?’

Cavan raised his voice. ‘Not guilty,’ he said and this time his tones rang out against the cliff face. He looked confident and happy now, but Mara waited without apprehension. Liam was guilty; she was certain of that and she was also certain of her own ability to remember the ancient laws better than this callow young man.

‘Not guilty because . . .?’ she queried.

‘Because he acted in defence of the property of his
taoiseach
, the O’Lochlainn,’ shouted Cavan. He was now determined to be heard by everyone in the moment of his glory and was bellowing as if he were on a hurling field.

‘Go on,’ said Mara.

‘Let me speak.’ Suddenly Liam elbowed Cavan back and climbed, with great agility for a man of his age, on to one of the large boulders scattered around the dolmen. Ardal O’Lochlainn took a quick step forward, his eyes fixed on his steward’s face.

‘Brehon, my lord, fellow clansmen, people of the kingdom . . .’ Liam’s rich, confident voice was easily reaching to the back of the crowd. Every eye was upon him. ‘This is the truth of what happened on that Thursday after the feast of St Patrick. I was working in the barn and in the courtyard at Lissylisheen. I saw Iarla from Aran go into the barn. I took no notice of that; I was used to him going in and out of the barn ever since he had arrived to stay with us. But –’ Liam made his voice low and dramatic and his glance swept the crowd like that of a practised orator – ‘when I went into the barn a few minutes later there wasn’t sight or sound of him. He had disappeared. Then I noticed something. There’s an old press in the barn – something I had never taken much notice of before and it was pulled out from the wall and there was a gap beyond it. And beyond the gap was a passageway. I had lived all of my life at Lissylisheen and my father before me, but I had never known of this place. It was a cave and the passageway led all the way underground.’

‘And Iarla?’ interrupted Mara. She didn’t like the way that Ardal had his eyes fixed so admiringly on his steward’s face and the way that the crowd hung on his words as if they were, to them, as real and as true as the Gospel read at Mass on Sundays.

‘And there he was!’ shouted Liam triumphantly. ‘There he was wheeling an old turf barrow that we keep in the barn for moving heavy barrels. And it was full of the most valuable goods that he could find, thief that he was, in the barn. I followed him, Brehon. I followed him silently. I didn’t know what he was up to until we had come a long distance and then I saw that the underground passageway ended at Balor’s Cave.’ He paused to look around the crowd. Every face was turned towards him, mouths slightly ajar. Mara noticed a slight smile twitched at the corner of Liam’s lips. It was gone in a second and then he continued his tale. ‘And then I saw it all!’ he said dramatically. ‘Iarla was going to stay as long as he could, imposing on my lord, himself, and he was going to steal as much as he could manage and the other fellow, that uncle of his, Becan, was going to pick up the goods late at night and take them to Kinvarra.’

‘And you killed him?’ Mara’s voice was icy but her mind was working quickly. Was there any way of refuting this?

‘I killed him because he stole from my lord,’ said Liam firmly. His voice was full of confidence. ‘And the law says that we can do this. I learned that from your own father, Brehon.’ He bowed his head humbly as if he waited for her acquiescence before continuing.

‘
Ba gó
,’ called out a clear, young voice.

‘Who gives me the lie?’ Liam’s head snapped up and his eyes burned with fury.

‘
Ba gó
,’ repeated the voice.

Now Mara knew who it was. He was in the centre of the large group of his brothers and sisters, his father and his mother, but she knew that voice.

And then something strange happened. Suddenly it seemed as if the eyes of everyone had been opened to the truth. ‘
Ba gó, ‘Ba gó, ‘Ba gó
,’ came from every corner of the large field. Every voice took up the chant. It became rhythmic, almost like the accompaniment to dance music. Even the harsh voices of the grey crows that circled overhead were hushed by the sound.

Mara waited, her eyes fixed on Liam. Something had happened to the large self-confident, fat man. Like an inflated bladder that has been pricked by a sharp stone while being passed among a crowd of boys, he climbed down from the boulder and turned his back upon the crowd. It was as Mara had surmised earlier. Everyone had known or guessed that Liam was cheating his master and now they saw how. They were quick-witted enough to see how he had condemned himself out of his own mouth, how likely it was that the trusted steward had made this passageway and how impossible it was that he had not known of its existence. How he could have arranged for the heavy wooden press to block it and how unlikely that a stranger could discover in a day what Liam had not discovered in a lifetime.

‘
Ba gó, ‘Ba gó, ‘Ba gó
,’ chanted the crowd until Mara raised her hand for silence. She obtained it instantly; each person wanted to know more.

‘Danann, will you come forward?’ she said mildly.

Every neck twisted as the basket maker’s eldest son came forward. He didn’t look at his father or his mother as he left them and his mien was confident and assured.