Laws in Conflict (11 page)

Logic, precedents; that would be the way to approach this man, she decided. He had his virtues; Mara believed what Margaret had said about her husband’s probity – this was a well-maintained city. When she had walked around with Henry Bodkin she had noticed that there were men at work on the walls, men at work on the pavements, on the roads and also on the ornate gardens outside the city where the trees were neatly pruned and the paths well swept.

A man like James Lynch would not be moved by a plea for mercy, but he might be influenced by a well-reasoned argument which was based on the laws that he upheld and was backed by a judgement given by Richard III, that English king, who had founded the prosperity of the city of Galway. The man, judge though he professed to be, was quite ignorant of the law which he was sanctioned to uphold, but would he be willing to learn from an outsider?

Mara took a quill, ink horn and some vellum from one of her satchels, lit a second candle and sat down at the small table and opened one of Henry’s law books. After half an hour she had a page of notes which she gazed at with satisfaction. By herself, she decided. This was a man who would not like witnesses to his change of mind.

And if she succeeded then she would return to the Burren on the following morning. She was lonely for the fresh air, the open spaces and the swirling limestone mountains. Hopefully they would take Sheedy with them. Her son-in-law, Oisín, kept a string of pack ponies, one of which she could, she was sure, even in his absence, borrow in order to take the poor old fellow back to his own environment where the law would protect rather than accuse him.

By this time there was a cautious stirring on the stairs and when Mara went to the door she saw a maidservant emerge from Fiona’s room with a bucket of fresh coals in her hand. She smiled at the girl and went in to find that Fiona, to her surprise, was not yawning in her bed, but already up with a wrapper around her and was standing at the window.

‘Brehon, come and see. It’s a holiday today; I’m sure of that. Someone was talking about that last night; being pleased about not having to get up for work. Today is Ash Wednesday, so everyone should be either in bed recovering or at church receiving the holy ashes, but the streets are full. The whole city seems to be in some sort of fuss about something,’ she said with a puzzled expression. Mara crossed over to stand beside her scholar. Her own rooms faced the inlet from the sea, but Fiona’s was full of the morning light and Lombard Street lay beneath her windows.

There was something odd about the crowd. Mara felt her own brows knit. If, indeed, this was a holiday, she would have expected to see people chatting, laughing, perhaps some yawning – a few with sore heads. But the people in the street below them huddled together in small groups, whispering, glancing over their shoulders, their eyes wide with shock. Sometimes a newcomer joined a group, was told some news and then a hand was clapped to a mouth in a gesture of horror.

Cautiously, Mara pushed open the casement window between the stone mullions – the diamond-shaped panes of glass were thick and full of bubbles. It was difficult to see properly through them.

Just as she did so a woman wearing an ornate purple hood had joined a group standing directly in front of Bodkin’s tower house. Her voice floated clearly up in the still, frosty air.

‘What are ye all—’ she began her question in a loud, cheerful voice, but then one of the other women in the group seized her wrist and said something into her ear, then stood back to see the effect of her words.

‘Whaat? Murdered?’ shrieked the woman in the purple hood, and the others hushed her instantly. One of them glanced up, saw Mara at the window and they all moved rapidly down the street. Mara closed the window and looked at Fiona.

‘Murder?’ she queried.

Fiona nodded. ‘That’s what she said.’ Her voice was airy and unconcerned. ‘Let’s hope that it was that mayor, James Lynch,’ she said lightly. ‘I’d have no sympathy for him. Poor old Sheedy. The jury were going to recommend mercy, but he shut them up. If they hang Sheedy, then, in my mind, James Lynch will be guilty of murder, and it’s no good you talking about a conflict of laws, Brehon. Do you remember what Cicero said about all law being based on natural law,
lex naturalis
, and that the laws of men must be derived from the laws of God? Well, God would not condemn to death a poor old man whose wits are wandering for the theft of a pie.’

‘I’m glad you know your Cicero so well, but while we are inside the city walls of Galway be careful to voice thoughts like that just to me. I hope that there was no talk about this matter when you were out last night.’

‘Fachtnan shut Aidan up and we all took the hint,’ said Fiona with a shrug. ‘It would be rather exciting if the mayor were murdered, though, wouldn’t it, Brehon?’ she added as Mara went out of the room.

Mara went down the winding stone staircase with a smile. Fiona was irrepressible. Totally spoilt by her father; Robert MacBetha had cheerfully acknowledged when he had brought her to Mara’s law school on the Burren that, ‘You’ll get more work out of her than I’m managing to do these days.’ Robert and Mara were the same age and had worked side by side at her father’s law school, competing with each other, neither allowing the other to gain too much of an advantage. Unfortunately there was no one to compete properly with Fiona, these days. If only she had come when Enda, Mara’s star pupil, had been there. His family had money troubles and Enda had left the law school once he had gained the minimum law qualification and begun to practise as a lawyer in the kingdom of Thomond. Moylan was sharp and quick-witted but did not have Fiona’s brains, and Fachtnan, though intelligent and hard-working, had great memory problems.

But then she forgot about Fiona as she went into the dining hall. Henry Bodkin and his sister Jane were there and judging by his cloak and the flush on his cheeks from the cold air, he had just come in from the street. Indeed, she had noticed an icy draught from an imperfectly closed front door as she came down the stairs.

Henry Bodkin had been speaking quietly, but Jane reacted just as the women in the street had done. She had gasped, clapped her hand to her mouth, opened her eyes very widely and had gulped out, ‘Murdered!’

The word hung in the air for a moment and then the lawyer nodded; nodded slowly and with a heavy air of regret about him.

Mara hesitated at the door. This was, she reminded herself, none of her business. If it were back in the kingdom of the Burren that this word had been uttered, she would immediately have had to get to work, going herself to see the body, summoning witnesses, gathering evidence with the aid of her young scholars, putting her brains to work and never ceasing her efforts until the killer was brought before the court beside the ancient dolmen of Poulnabrone.

However, a little curiosity was permissible, she decided, and now was the time to ask before the scholars arrived downstairs.

‘You seem worried,’ she ventured, looking from one to the other.

Jane Bodkin turned a shocked face towards her. Her large, short-sighted eyes filled with tears.

‘His poor mother,’ she gulped and went out of the room, pulling out a linen handkerchief from the large pocket that hung from her waist.

Mara turned enquiring eyes on her host.
Poor mother
– not
poor wife
, nor,
poor children
. . .

‘There’s been a murder,’ he said, ‘or rather –’ he corrected himself – ‘a killing. A terrible ending to last night’s festivities!’ He broke off as loud shouts came from outside the half-closed front door.

‘Excuse me,’ he said and made rapidly for the front door. Mara followed him, snatching her own cloak from the row of hooks in the entrance hall. As she did so, there was a clatter of feet on the stairs and the six scholars, led by Fiona came running down into the hallway. They too would have been watching from the window and they instantly took their own cloaks, and followed her out into the street.

Lombard Street was now almost empty. The few people who were still there were hurrying towards Gaol Street. There was a noise in the distance, a rhythmic thudding, something that Mara could not identify instantly. At first she thought it might be horses, but this sound was more muted. And then there was another sound that rose, high and clear, above the mutters from the crowd.

‘Left turn!’ yelled a voice and then, ‘Eyes right!’

‘Soldiers!’ breathed Moylan. He and Aidan pushed in front of Mara and began to make their way through the crowd. Mara followed in their footsteps, feeling slightly apologetic as she saw people on the pavement step out into the road in order to allow them to pass.

By the time that they reached Gaol Street itself, the crowd was huge. A few constables were doing their best to confine the people to the pavement, but they kept spilling back out again on to the road. Mara hesitated, wondering whether she should call the boys back. But once again, the strangeness of their clothes caused people to turn around and stare and this allowed the two boys to struggle to the front and the others to follow them. And then they could see everything.

The soldiers were in two groups, very smart in white coats with a green stripe on the sleeves. They marched precisely and rhythmically in front of one man, a man not in uniform, but wearing the sweeping fur-trimmed gown of office with a gold chain around his neck and a flat black cap on his head. The Mayor of Galway, James Lynch, had just come from his house on the corner of two streets. He held his head high and looked neither to right nor left, but kept his eyes fixed straight in front of them and his feet moving to the pace of the soldiers.

And behind him came four soldiers dragging a wretched creature, bareheaded and without a cloak, his hose soaked in mud and bearing some ominous dark red stains across what had once been a white shirt, his matted hair fell in dank locks across his face, but that was not enough to hide his identity from the crowd and a loud gasp went up.

And a name was sent from mouth to mouth.

The prisoner was Walter Lynch, only son of the lord mayor of the city of Galway.

For a moment, Mara thought that there must be some mistake. The change between this poor creature and the tall young man that she had seen yesterday was enormous. He had been so vibrant then, so full of life, gleaming like polished copper, she had thought at the time. Now the curly chestnut-coloured hair was dull and matted; the jaunty red cap with a kingfisher’s feather stuck into it had been lost. The bright alert face was puffy and white and the red jerkin and crisp white shirt were smudged with bloodstains.

Mara watched in horror as the soldiers turned down towards the prison. A sharp command was given; the door was pulled open by the gaoler. He looked sleepy and unkempt, but even from a distance Mara could see how he straightened himself at the sight of the lord mayor and the troop of soldiers. She was too far away to hear what was said, though the crowd stood so still and soundless that the noise of seagulls overhead suddenly seemed almost unbearably intrusive.

The mayor appeared to be speaking, giving orders; looking straight at the gaoler and then at the sergeant-in-command. Never once did he look at the wretched face of his only son.

And then he stood back, waved an imperative arm and the boy was dragged into the prison. The sergeant and two men went with him and returned a few minutes later.

The troop turned and marched back, making a smart left turn when they reached Lombard Street.

‘They’ll leave him in there for a day or two, and then he’ll be released,’ said a voice from behind Mara. It was, she saw from the corner of her eye, the woman in the ornate purple hood. ‘Stands to reason, doesn’t it? The mayor’s own son!’

‘What happened?’ asked Mara, turning around in a friendly fashion. ‘We’re strangers here,’ she added apologetically.

‘God bless you; so you are.’ The woman beamed at her. ‘I’m one of the Blakes, myself; one of the poor relations, you could say, but that’s a nice boy and it was just one of those unfortunate things. I don’t suppose that he meant to kill him, you know. Too much drink taken; that was the problem.’

‘It was a fight, do you think?’ asked Mara easily. She was beginning to guess.

‘They’re bringing the body to St Nicholas’s Church,’ said the woman, beginning to shove her way to the left in order to follow the soldiers into Lombard Street.

‘We’ll go in front, Mistress Blake, and make way for you,’ said Moylan gallantly. ‘Come on, Aidan.’

‘Nice, well-mannered boys,’ said her new friend. ‘They were at The King’s Head Inn last night – you know, Stephen Lynch’s place. Everybody praised their behaviour and how they did not drink too much. I’m Mistress Athy, really,’ she added. ‘I married an Athy, but you know what they say, “once a Blake; always a Blake”. Lord love you, the city is full of Blakes.’

‘Well, I’m glad you think my boys are well behaved,’ said Mara, doing her best to lead back to the subject of young Walter Lynch. ‘Of course, like all boys, they are better behaved if they don’t drink too much . . .’

‘Well, you’re right about that; that’s just it; that’s what happened last night – too much to drink. She’s a cousin of mine, Margaret, the lad’s mother, but she gave him too much money. Ruined, spoilt, he was. Couldn’t deny him anything!’ She raised her voice. ‘Into Market Street, lads, that’s where they are bringing the body.’

There was no need for her to say that. The troops had already marched into Market Street and the crowds had followed. At a word from the sergeant, the soldiers formed two lines on the upper part of the street, leaving a narrow passageway between them and pushing back the crowd against the doorways opposite to the church. At the gate to the church, the bishop stood, his vestments fluttering in the slight breeze, and after a moment’s hesitation the mayor crossed over and stood beside him.

‘Here it comes,’ hissed Mistress Athy. Her ears were sharp and had caught the first sound of marching feet. A second later that was drowned out as the church bell began to toll. Mara counted the strokes and saw that everyone around almost held their breath as they did likewise. Some used fingers to help them in the sum, but all came to the same conclusion.