Laws in Conflict (25 page)

Immediately, she thought of the two people from the Burren. Setanta and Ardal O’Lochlainn. Traditionally there was great enmity between the merchant families of Galway and the Gaelic clansmen. Her mind went back to Setanta. That may have been the news that he had whispered to the boys, had told them to keep secret, perhaps. Setanta, as a fisherman, would have often encountered the O’Malleys.

Nothing to do with me, she told herself firmly and yet she found it very hard not to worry about the situation. There was little doubt in her mind that Valentine Blake had organized the night’s events. He was determined to put the utmost pressure on his brother-in-law to free Walter.

And if he did not succeed? What then?

It was easier to unleash war dogs, like O’Malley of the Ships, than it was to rein them back in again.

The clouds had gathered, blotting out the last vestiges of the sunset. The sky was inky black. Nightfall was coming early. There would be no frost tonight and the stars were quenched. Only the pitch torches stuck into iron holders at every corner of this well-run city gave light to the streets.

There were no lights from Blake’s Castle, though, and this struck her as ominous. Where was everybody? And, in particular, where was Margaret? Cecily had spoken of all those men, but had not mentioned her sister-in-law.

And then she heard something. It was the turning of a large key in a lock. She distinctly heard the click and saw the gatekeeper at the western entrance to the city, The Bridge Gate, as it was known. He locked it and then he walked briskly away towards the city centre. The mayor had organized this day like a battle. The bell was to be rung early; the gates were to be locked early. This martial rule of the city would probably go on until the unfortunate boy, Walter, was hanged.

But not all observed the curfew. From out of the shadows stepped some men. Mara turned her face towards the sea, thankful that her cloak was dark. The silence now was complete; only the stirring of the waters of the incoming tide broke it, but somehow Mara felt that there were people all around her. She could not analyse why – it was just a series of tiny noises, nothing in themselves, but together they seemed to add up to a presence.

And then there was a sneeze and a sudden chuckle. It was hushed immediately but she had an impression of movement, of whispers and then nothing. The torch on the top of Bridge Street Gate was suddenly quenched. A stone fell with a dull sound and rolled on the hard ground. A suppressed whisper sounded from the other side of the street and abruptly a large, waterside rat ran across from there, just missing her feet by an inch, and from the metal gate that led to the bridge crossing over the Corrib River there came the sound of a sudden, hard blow and then a creaking of hinges. The gate to the west had been thrown open.

It was beginning to get pitch dark now and she was conscious that she was alone in an alien city. She began to walk briskly back towards Lombard Street. Mara had often walked by night on the Burren. She had found that she slept well after taking a walk before going to bed, but the Burren was different. It was her own kingdom, and none, she thought, would harm her there. Here was different. If only she had her wolfhound Bran with her, she would have been more confident. But she didn’t and the sensible thing now was to get indoors before any harm befell her. In a few moments she had reached the top of Bridge Street, passing the dark, shuttered premises of Blake’s pie shop, and looked thankfully at the pitch torch flaring on the corner of Lombard Street. The Bodkin tower house was well lit and inviting, with candlelight shining from every window. Mara wondered whether Henry had managed to return in her absence. The scholars, she thought, were on the roof looking down; at least she could see four heads appearing between the merlons of the battlements.

The bell from St Nicholas’s Church chimed the hour of four o’clock, but the church itself was only dimly lit with the light of one candle coming from a single window. No evening service was planned. A sound came from behind her – not a rat, but perhaps more dangerous: it was the sound of a footstep and of another quickly suppressed whisper. She glanced over her shoulder up towards the junction to Gaol Street and saw a detachment of soldiers, with torchlight glinting on drawn swords, standing guard.

And yet that was not what she had heard. The soldiers had no reason to be quiet, no need to suppress a whisper. They were making as much noise as possible, shouting orders, drilling with their swords; the clash of iron against shield would frighten the townspeople to obedience was the reasoning behind all of the noise, she supposed. No, that had not been the soldiers that she had heard. In fact, there had been something familiar about the whisper and then she realized that the half-heard words were in Gaelic.

Mara took a few decided steps towards the Bodkin tower house and then whirled around. She was right! Two small, slender figures darted out from a doorway and began to run down towards Gaol Street. They were careful, keeping well into the shadows of the houses and shops, but one shopkeeper had a flaming pitch torch stuck into the bracket outside his door and the light showed two heads, one was jet black but the other had curls of red-gold.

Hugh and Shane were out in the Galway streets and they were running straight towards where the soldiers had lined up ready for battle.

Mara gasped and immediately began to run after them. Her shoes were of soft leather so made little sound and neither boy looked behind. When they approached Cross Street, they did not continue, but swerved into one of the small alleyways that led off to the left. Unhesitatingly, Mara followed, furious with herself that she had not picked up on the reason for their conversation with Valentine Blake this morning. How smoothly young Shane had turned the conversation back to Carlos Gomez and the Spanish captain, she thought, feeling exasperated that she had not pursued the matter.

Of course, she thought, Valentine Blake needed someone who spoke both English and Gaelic so that communications could be passed between the Blakes and the O’Malleys. Shane and Hugh, adventurous young boys, were ideal for his purpose.

The alleyway, with its tall houses on either side, was very dark. She could no longer see either boy, but from time to time heard a mutter or a stone kicked by a boot. Now they would be going parallel to the gaol. The buildings opposite all housed shops, Mara remembered, and they were empty and dark. She had to feel her way, now, keeping one hand on a side wall. She dare not call the boys. None of them had the right to be abroad after the curfew bell had sounded. The penalty for all three would be prison, or worse.

And then her groping hand found only space in front of it. She took a few more steps and stopped abruptly. There were lights ahead of her and she realized that she had reached another of those small narrow alleyways that formed a network of passages between the main streets of the town. She waited for a moment, hesitating and listening intently, but there were no sounds from further up so her instinct led her towards the light. If Shane and Hugh, normally very well-behaved boys, had stolen out at night, it would have been something to do with Walter, she thought. Slowly and carefully she turned up the alleyway and crept onwards until she stood in a dark doorway, just opposite the entrance to the gaol.

The door to the prison was shut firmly and in front of its blackened, studded surface stood the figure of James Lynch, flanked by a soldier on either side. The torches flaring from iron holders on both sides of the door illuminated his face. Mara studied him carefully. His expression was stern, remote and determined; the mouth set firmly. His eyes, though, were disconcerting. From where she stood, she could see that, unlike the soldiers whose eyes darted here and there, his eyes were staring fixedly at the sky, just as though he were communicating with his God – the God of anger – above.

And then suddenly there was a shrill whistle from her left – coming from the fish market – a seaman’s whistle, thought Mara with a slight thrill of excitement. The boats that fished and plied their trade between Doolin and the Aran Islands all used whistles like that in order to summon aid. She had heard it said that the sound from one of these could travel five miles across seawater and here, in the small, enclosed streets of the city, it rose up loud and shrill with an almost frightening intensity.

And then it was answered by another that came from the area around Bridge Street Gate, with its warning notice about the ferocious O’Flahertys, and yet another from the eastern side towards The Green. It seemed as if the city was surrounded by a wall of sound from the west and the north. O’Malley of the Ships and his men had encircled the town. How her kingly husband, Turlough, would have liked to be here with his old comrade-in-arms, O’Malley from Sligo, he of the ships, who patrolled the Atlantic coast and cared nothing for the English and their pretensions towards the civilized rule of law.

And now she began to understand. O’Malley and his clansmen probably spoke only Gaelic, with perhaps enough seaman’s Latin to make their way in the Mediterranean countries, but were unlikely to speak English. Hugh and Shane were there to let them in through the gate and to direct them towards the gaol and, then, boy-like, had crept along to see the attack.

And the battle had started. From both sides of Gaol Street came the clash of swords, and this was no drill. The soldiers shouted and warlike howls responded. Mara edged a little further out.

‘The Cat! The Cat! The Cat!’ chanted the attackers and she recognized the war cry of the Blakes. She thought she glimpsed the tall figure of Valentine Blake using his sword to beat his way through the massed ranks of the soldiers, rather like her housekeeper, Brigid, used a broom to go through a flock of cackling geese. Valentine would not want to be responsible for any deaths; he was, after all, bailiff in this city, and the protection of the troops would be important for the citizens.

Now another attack began at the other end of Gaol Street, just where it abutted on to Cross Street. Mara could hear the shouts and the clash of steel. And from there, too, rose up the war cry of ‘The Cat! The Cat! The Cat!’ The Blakes had divided their forces and were progressing towards the prison in a pincer movement, one approaching from the north side of the town, from where Gaol Street joined to the corn market, and the second from the southerly junction with Cross Street. Mara held her breath. Could they possibly rescue Walter from his cell? And if they did, she determined, she would make sure that poor old Sheedy was rescued, also. Despite the danger, she would stay here until all was over.

The Blakes were large in numbers; by the light of the torches, Mara could see how they thronged together and faced into a smaller amount of soldiers. But piemen, bankers, innkeepers and merchants were no match for a detachment of trained and well-armed soldiers and gradually they were being driven back into the corn market. For the moment the battle on the southerly side, on the Cross Street side, was still going on – she thought she saw the huge form of the blacksmith leading this detachment – but the soldiers had certainly begun to prevail at the northerly end, at the crossroads where Valentine Blake commanded. The troops made a forward rush; the Blakes retreated out of sight. A man screamed and a volley of curses broke out.

But the only words she heard from both sides of the battles were English words. So where were the O’Malleys? Perhaps she had been wrong. She heard Valentine Blake’s voice roaring orders and his men rallied and made another surge. There was a brief clash; for a moment the white uniforms of the soldiers were mingled with the colourful doublets of the Blakes. But it was all over soon. With dismay she saw that Valentine Blake’s cohort was once more being driven back. They had retreated back into the corn market and the soldiers were lining up, with drawn swords, forming a wall of steel to keep them from coming back into Gaol Street.

And then, from just opposite to where she stood, a stone slate came crashing down and landed almost at the foot of where the mayor stood, surrounded by his bodyguard of soldiers. One of the bodyguards ran forward, torch in hand, and looked upwards towards the sky. For a second his light illuminated the scene, before he was cut down by a well-aimed throwing knife.

On top of the roof of the gaol were the figures of men, men to whom climbing ships’ masts on violently turbulent seas was an everyday affair. Even as Mara looked up, a hail of stone slates came raining down on to the street. O’Malley and his men had made their way by the rooftops and had reached the gaol without anyone being aware of their presence.

‘They’ve stripped the roof,’ shouted some soldiers, running down Gaol Street from its junction with Cross Street.

‘The Cat! The Cat! The Cat!’ came the cry from the Blakes and from above their heads it was answered by roars of ‘O’Malley
Abú
’. Everything seemed to be happening at once. At roof level the slates were being torn and cast down as missiles; at this rate it would not be long before the O’Malley and his sailors would be into the top storey of the gaol.

From Cross Street the southerly detachment of Blakes, under the leadership of the blacksmith, had begun to force the soldiers to retreat down Gaol Street. Step by step, with swords, crowbars, cudgels, hammers, daggers and kitchen knives held in front of them, they were making progress towards the gaol, driving the soldiers in front of them.

When it was that James Lynch had disappeared, Mara could not tell. The Cross Street detachment of soldiers had been steadily driven back by the blacksmith and his men and was now between her and the door to the gaol. The chant of ‘The Cat! The Cat! The Cat!’ had doubled; Valentine Blake’s men must have gone back down Corn Market Street to the Cross Street junction and joined their kinsmen from the back. The roars of ‘O’Malley
Abú
’
were muffled, but the Sligo clansmen were now within the building.

And it was at that moment that James Lynch must have reappeared. His voice rose up, high and fanatical, ‘Make way! Make way! Make way to Gallows’ Green!’ The solid block of soldiers moved slightly, those at the back presenting a line of drawn swords to the Blakes coming up from the south side of the town, those at the front forming a guard for the mayor who was going north.