Scales of Retribution (20 page)

It was lucky that the law school party was not this evening. That would never do. As it happened, she did have a good excuse and Oisín and Sorcha could represent her. After all, Oisín was Malachy’s cousin, and his heir. She, Brigid and Eileen could take care of the children between them. Ardal, of course, would accompany Nuala. Thinking of Nuala made her remember something.

‘I wonder, Ronan, would you do me one favour before you go. Fachtnan has been very unwell. He was vomiting heavily yesterday evening after he came back. The vomiting was eventually stopped by a dose of skullcap, but perhaps you would check him this morning and see whether he is well enough to be allowed up.’

This would be useful, she thought, as she courteously invited Caireen to go and sit in the shade of the apple tree while waiting for her son. It would save Fachtnan the embarrassment of having Nuala in his bedroom once more, and also it would give her the opportunity of a private talk with Ronan afterwards.

‘You go in; I’ll wait outside,’ she said politely. She went into the younger boys’ room and sat on Shane’s bed. Her legs were beginning to remind her that she had given birth only ten days ago.

Ronan did not spend long with Fachtnan. Mara could hear the murmur of voices, but not what was being said.

‘He doesn’t seem too bad,’ said Ronan when he came out, shutting the door firmly behind him. ‘He could rise from his bed if he wishes. A low diet for a few days and then he should be back to normal.’

‘What do you think it was?’ asked Mara in anxious motherly tones. ‘Was it something that he ate?’ Resolutely she did not move from her position on Shane’s bed, so Ronan had to stand awkwardly, half in the hall and half in the younger boys’ bedroom.

Ronan paused. ‘Possibly,’ he said, in such reserved tones that it had obviously occurred to him that Fachtnan had eaten cakes and accepted wine at Caherconnell yesterday afternoon.

‘Nuala wondered whether someone could have deliberately tried to make him ill, not to kill him, of course . . .’

‘Unlikely,’ said Ronan briefly, and then gave a tolerant smile. ‘Nuala has an instinct for dramatization,’ he added scornfully.

‘Yes, but if that were true, what could he have been given that would cause such violent vomiting for a few hours? Perhaps you could think of a few herbs?’ persisted Mara.

‘I have really no idea,’ said Ronan impatiently, ‘and now, if you don’t mind, I’ll collect my mother as we must be going.’

And so they were off, refusing a belated and somewhat insincere offer of hospitality.

‘Strange,’ said Mara, half to herself and half to Fachtnan, as she watched the dust cloud diminish on the road to Kilcorney crossroads. ‘You would have thought that a young man who has just qualified as a physician would be able to come up with the name of some herb that might have been used to make you so ill. I would wager that Nuala ran through about twenty in her mind before coming up with alder buckthorn.’

‘I wouldn’t think that he is stupid, though,’ said Fachtnan thoughtfully. ‘He gave me a very good examination and asked all sorts of questions, which showed that he understood what happened to me yesterday – the faintness and the purging and everything.’

‘That’s what makes it even more interesting,’ said Mara with a smile. ‘Now, I think that you could get up if you feel like it. Go outside and sit in the shade. Don’t eat much – perhaps just a little milk.’

‘Brigid, can you remember yesterday afternoon, before Fachtnan returned, did anyone come to the law school? Blár O’Connor, or anyone else.’

‘Not Blár,’ said Brigid, rapidly stirring one pot and then tipping some onions into another. ‘I can’t rightly say, Brehon. I don’t remember anyone.’

‘There was Nuala,’ suggested Nessa, chopping some carrots vigorously.

‘Oh, I don’t count Nuala,’ said Brigid impatiently. ‘Cut these carrots a bit thinner, my girl. Big chunks like that will never cook.’

‘But nobody else?’

‘You could ask Cumhal,’ suggested Brigid, sweeping a platterful of carrots into her pot. ‘I wasn’t around here too much. I went over to have a look at the baby.’

So Fachtnan could have taken in the poison – if it was poison – when he visited Caherconnell, but someone who knew the ways of the law school could also have guessed that the cupful of ale left on the kitchen table would have been for the boy who had not yet turned up for his supper. That meant that Nuala was under suspicion – but would she have done this to Fachtnan? Nuala adored Fachtnan and had done so for the last couple of years. Would she have made him as ill as that – no matter how angry she was? Mara found that it was easier to think of Nuala as angry at the rejection of her marriage proposal than to think of Nuala as fearful of discovery that she had been involved in Malachy’s death. She would take her mind off these matters for the moment, she thought, and have five minutes with her baby before going back into the schoolhouse.

Little Cormac was wide awake. His slate-blue eyes were fixed on the object held in Eileen’s hand. It was a cat, beautifully carved from wood and wearing a leather collar to which was stitched a tiny brass bell. Each time the cat was waved the bell chimed, and the baby’s head followed the delicate clear sound.

‘How lovely!’ exclaimed Mara dropping on her knees beside Eileen and holding out her arms for the baby. ‘Where did you get that?’

‘Blár O’Connor brought it yesterday afternoon,’ explained Eileen. ‘I was walking down the road to the law school when he came along on his horse. He said that he found it on top of a shelf in his workshop and he guessed that his son had carved it for your baby. Look, it’s a bigger version of the one on the cradle.’

‘So it is.’ Mara took the wooden toy and admired it, stroking the sleek back and smiling at the roughness of the tiny whiskers.

‘He’s so clever, little Cormac,’ said Eileen proudly. ‘He’s so alert for his age.’ She took the toy back from Mara and set the bell jingling again, and once more the baby’s head moved.

‘And to think that he is not two weeks old yet,’ she exclaimed.

Mara held the baby close, touching the velvet cheek with her lips and rocking him in her arms. Cormac twisted his head towards her and began to cry.

‘He’s hungry, better give him back to me.’ Eileen stretched out her arms and Mara reluctantly put the baby back. In any case, it was time for her to return to work.

The five boys were in their places when she came in, and as soon as she had settled herself in her chair the door opened and Fachtnan, looking a little pale, entered.

‘I’m feeling much better,’ he said hastily, ‘so I thought I would come and join you. Are you going to discuss the murder?’

‘I think we will.’ Mara immediately abandoned her plans. ‘Aidan, perhaps you can do the writing for us. Take a fresh stick of charcoal.’ She waited until Aidan was standing beside the board, which Cumhal kept well whitewashed, before she went on. ‘Now what’s the first thing to do?’

‘List of possible suspects.’ Moylan managed to get this in before any of the others.

‘What are the most usual motives for a secret and unlawful killing?’ asked Mara looking around.

‘Easy! A wish for gain, anger, fear and revenge.’ They all chimed this in chorus. A lot of the work at the law school was memorizing these wisdom texts, many of which, optimistically, sometimes, began with the word ‘easy’.

‘Put in the relations first, Aidan, these will cover the “wish for gain” I would think, wouldn’t you, Brehon?’ Hugh looked at her for approval, and at her nod Aidan began to write on the whitened board in his large, scrawling hand.

‘Does Nuala get anything, Brehon?’ Aidan hesitated with charcoal in hand.

‘Nothing worth having,’ said Fachtnan firmly.

‘What!’ exclaimed Enda. ‘But she is the female heir. She must get the house and enough land to graze seven cows.’

‘Apparently, Malachy made a will leaving his new – well, half-new – house to Caireen, and all the possessions in it,’ said Mara, looking thoughtfully at Fachtnan. He flushed and looked away, and she decided not to ask him how he knew. Undoubtedly Nuala, in her honest way, had told him all the facts when she proposed marriage to him. ‘I’m not sure that the will, made by somebody in Galway, is actually valid,’ she continued. ‘And the house is the same house, just extended, and a will made in the kingdom of the Burren should have been made by a lawyer qualified in Brehon law.’

‘I’d say that Nuala would be quite happy to leave it as it is,’ said Fachtnan.

Enda nodded and said, ‘So next we have Oisín. How much clan land does he get, Brehon?’

‘Twenty acres of mature oaks,’ said Mara steadily, and forced herself to add, ‘and these would be valuable to him for making casks: something that he has to buy at the moment.’

‘Well, I think that Nuala should be on the list if Oisín is on – it would be about the same amount of land.’ Shane was great friends with Oisín and enjoyed many a game of chess with him.

‘Well, I agree with Shane,’ said Aidan, and then when Fachtnan said nothing he wrote up Nuala’s name.

‘Now,’ continued Aidan, moving to a new part of the board and writing the word ANGER with heavy emphasis, ‘who do we have for here?’

‘In this case, I think we should have “Anger” and “Revenge” together,’ said Enda.

‘You should have said that first.’ Aidan carefully wiped the word with the damp sponge from the windowsill, patted it dry with a piece of linen from his pouch and then wrote the two words.

‘I’m afraid that I would put Nuala on this list, also,’ said Enda with an apologetic glance at Fachtnan.

‘And Murrough, because of Rafferty,’ said Moylan hurriedly.

‘And Blár O’Connor because of his son,’ said Shane.

‘What do you mean by “dispossession” and “greed”?’ Hugh looked puzzled as he read the entry for Nuala.

Aidan replied briefly, ‘She was kicked out of the house and Malachy was trying to take her farm at Rathborney away from her.’ He then added a few words to Nuala’s entry, wrote the next two names, and stood back to allow everyone to read the board.

‘I’ve just thought of something interesting,’ said Enda. ‘I wonder if you would think of it as being a possible motive, Brehon? If Caireen managed to get you to convict someone, say for instance, Nuala, not only would she get her house, and her son get the position of physician in the Burren, but she would also get the fine. And that would be . . .’ he paused and made a quick calculation. ‘I make it forty-two
séts
doubled for the secrecy – that’s eighty-four – plus another seven for Malachy’s honour price, so that’s ninety-one
séts
or forty-five and a half ounces of silver. Now gentlemen,’ he looked around at his fellow scholars, ‘and lady,’ he made a courtly bow in Mara’s direction, ‘is, or is not, Caireen a woman who might commit murder for the sake of a house, a position for her darling son, land for seven cows and a nice little fortune of forty-five and a half ounces of silver?’

‘She’d look pretty stupid, though, if she were convicted of the murder,’ said Shane bluntly. ‘Then she’d be the one that would have to pay the fine.’

‘She is stupid,’ said Enda. His very blue eyes sparkled. ‘But who would the fine go to if she was convicted of the murder?’

‘Who do you think?’ Mara watched him with interest.

‘Nuala?’ asked Fachtnan hopefully.

‘No,’ said Enda. ‘I wouldn’t think so. A daughter can only inherit if the father mentions her in his will – and then only the limited . . . I know,’ he suddenly burst out, ‘of course it goes to the nearest male relation in his clan.’

‘So your son-in-law, Oisín, would be the one who would get the forty-five and a half ounces of silver.’ Hugh beamed congratulations at Mara.

And he is certainly a man who would make very good use of that substantial sum of money, thought Mara. Aloud she said, ‘That’s right,’ in as matter-of-fact a way as she could. It was important that the boys considered all aspects of the case and were not embarrassed about discussing a relative. She looked back at the board and their eyes followed hers.

‘So now we have six suspects,’ mused Fachtnan. ‘What about “fear” without “revenge”, Brehon? Have we anyone for that?’

‘I don’t think so, do you?’ Mara looked around at her scholars.

‘Usually a case of blackmail, isn’t it?’ reflected Moylan. ‘I’ve certainly never picked up a hint of anything like that to do with Malachy; has anyone else?’

Heads were shaken. Nuala might be one to talk to about this, if she weren’t so prickly and bad-humoured at the moment, thought Mara, but decided not to mention her name. The scholars had enough to exercise their brains for the moment.

‘There’s something very interesting about this list,’ she said looking at the board. ‘Can you think what it might be, Fachtnan?’

‘No, Brehon.’ He shook his head, looking at her in a bewildered way.

‘Well, that was hardly a fair question,’ she said hastily, ‘because I have information that you don’t have. Five of the six people on that board had access to Fachtnan, yesterday afternoon – could have made him very ill, could have tried to poison him, in fact.’

‘Caireen and Ronan at Caherconnell,’ said Hugh.

‘And Blár O’Connor passed by yesterday afternoon with a rattle for my little son, and Nuala came to talk to Eileen about herbs. Oisín, of course, lives here. The only one that could not have been guilty of trying to poison Fachtnan was Murrough.’ As she spoke she was conscious of a feeling of thankfulness. She was fond of Murrough and they shared a love of the great dogs that he bred.