Scales of Retribution (24 page)

‘Why? What’s wrong?’

‘Got himself another woman,’ hissed Ciara. ‘Teige’s steward was full of it when he came down from Aillwee last night. Apparently the husband – what’s his name . . . ? I forget . . . anyway, Eileen’s husband has got himself another woman. A girl, really. No more than about seventeen years old. She’s the daughter of one of the O’Lochlainn’s shepherds. It’s been going on since the little boy died – not her fault – no one could have guessed that a child could die from a tiny thing like that. But he blamed her, they say. That’s men for you! Went straight back up and found himself another wife – probably a more fertile one this time.’

‘Poor Eileen, does she know?’ asked Mara.

Ciara shrugged her shoulders. ‘I wouldn’t know,’ she said. ‘I’d say no, but I suppose it was possible. You know how people love to gossip.’

‘Perhaps it will all blow over,’ said Mara. These things often did, she knew. She had heard that there was a lot of wild behaviour at the annual sheep shearing in the mountains. The long hot days, the short nights, the midnight dancing, the singing, the brewers of
uisce beatha
doing a good trade with their strong liquor, young men and young women working side by side during the day and enjoying themselves in the evening – there were always a few marriages that resulted from these June days, whether of the first, second or even third and fourth degree. Presumably this new marriage, if it did take place, would be one of the second degree; but this did not make it easier for Eileen. She might not want to share her husband. She might look for a divorce.

‘Poor Eileen; it’s lucky that she is so devoted to little Cormac,’ she said aloud, hearing, to her satisfaction, how calm and dispassionate her voice sounded while her mind was desperately questioning whether now, in all conscience, she could get rid of this woman at the end of six months and reclaim her baby for herself. ‘It’s wonderful news about Saoirse, what a pretty bride she will make!’ she went on, and allowed Ciara another few minutes of motherly chat before bringing the conversation back to the evening before and the delivery of Turlough’s letter to Teige.

‘The messenger told you how our man, Seán, was found dead on the way to bring a message to the Brehon of Thomond?’

‘May God have mercy on his soul,’ muttered Ciara in a slightly perfunctory fashion.

‘I just wondered whether Seán did stop at Lemeanah on his way. It would have been on the Monday the thirteenth of June . . .’ Mara looked at her visitor in a hopeful manner.

‘That’s right; he did, not that I remembered, but I think the steward did. I’m not sure, but something was mentioned. Yes, of course, he did! That’s how we found out that you had given birth. That was a shock! Still, all’s well that ends well!’ Ciara beamed at Mara happily before continuing, ‘I was wondering if your daughter Sorcha was around. You see, my little Saoirse has got it into her head that the stuff for the wedding dress should come from Galway and I said to her that I would have a word with Sorcha. She’ll know all about the shops there – that’s what I would do, I said to Saoirse.’

‘Well, let’s come and find her,’ said Mara rising to her feet. She was fond of Ciara, but, unlike herself, Ciara had endless hours of the day with little to fill them. There was no telling how long her visit might last. She was glad to be cutting short the interview.

Sorcha and the children were playing happily in the garden of the Brehon’s house. Mara waited for a while, listening indulgently to Sorcha’s expressions of excitement and joy at the thought of a wedding, and then left them together with a murmured excuse of some work to do.

‘It’s good that you came today because Oisín is anxious to return to Galway,’ Mara heard her daughter say as she went at a rapid pace back down the road towards the law school. ‘This was meant to be a short holiday and it has turned into a longer one, due to his lordship, the little prince, arriving early.’

Mara stopped for a moment and then went on. This was the first that she had heard of that, but she was not surprised. Oisín had been looking restless. He had found out all that he needed to find, arranged everything that he could arrange, so now he was anxious to get back to the city of Galway, until the day would come when he could officially take possession of the twenty acres of oaks. This would be something that she had to consider and she was glad that she had received prior warning of it. Her son-in-law’s insistence that he needed to return to Galway would offer her a dilemma. She would not like, for the sake of her daughter, to say:
Oisín, you are a suspect in my murder case and as such I require you to stay in the kingdom and to be subject to the laws of that kingdom
.

But was he subject to Brehon law? After all, he had left his birthplace in Thomond over fifteen years ago. To himself he was a man of Galway – a freeman of Galway – the honour had been bestowed upon him recently. Apparently this gave him certain rights in Galway. Mara could not find that too interesting, but she knew one thing: if Oisín went back to Galway, Brehon law would have no power over him there. And was it a sign of weakness in her that she had a secret wish, for Sorcha’s sake, that he might depart and not come back? And yet, such a thought went against every fibre of her training and of her love for the law. On the scales of justice, retribution always had to balance a crime.

Fifteen

T
he examination papers, safe in their flat pouch of well-tanned leather, inside Seán’s satchel, had not suffered by being left out-of-doors for nearly two weeks. The pages of neat scripts came out looking very much, probably, as they had looked when Boetius had packed them for the Brehon of Thomond to look at. There was a letter from him also. Mara glanced through it, her lip curling in distaste at the pompous, self-satisfied wording. Still, he was a very young man, she reminded herself. He might grow out of this and learn a little humility. She put it aside and rapidly scanned, with a smile on her lips, Enda’s papers on the top of the pile. As she had hoped, he had acquitted himself brilliantly. His answers were models of pungency, brevity and wit, and all showed a deep understanding of the law. She would have awarded him an even higher mark, but Boetius had still given him a ‘
cum laude
’ degree so she was satisfied. Shane had done well, also; in fact it was hard to fault a boy of barely eleven who showed such knowledge of Brehon law. Moylan and Aidan had scraped a bare pass and Mara was happy with that, though she raised an eyebrow at a couple of Aidan’s incorrect answers which had received a perfunctory tick of approval, but poor Hugh’s paper was covered in savage underlinings and angry-looking crosses. There was no doubt that on the evidence of this paper the child could not be said to have passed. He would have to repeat the year. I’ll talk to his father, myself, thought Mara, and I’ll emphasize how his mother’s death last year had upset Hugh and how the sudden change of teacher had been bad for a sensitive boy. She put the papers aside. She was confident of her ability to talk Cian O’Brian into an acceptance of this temporary setback in his youngest son’s career; as a prosperous silversmith the fees for an extra year would not bother the man.

Fachtnan, however, was a different matter. He had already spent an extra year at the law school and this must be a great blow for him. Carefully and meticulously she went through the papers, rising from time to time to check on a fact in one of her law tomes. Boetius had marked as wrong some answers which were correct, but on the other hand he had not noticed a few mistakes. Mara took a spare piece of vellum and began to add up the marks. If she corrected Boetius’s incorrect marking, then Fachtnan would pass, by a tiny margin, but if she subtracted marks for his undetected mistakes, then he would fail.

‘Excuse me for interrupting you, Brehon.’ Mara had been so deep in thought that she had not noticed Cumhal come in through the open door of the schoolhouse. He was standing in front of her, looking rather troubled. She hastened to reassure him, glad of the interruption and the opportunity to postpone any decision.

‘It’s just that I’m a bit worried about last night at the bonfire. I told you that I would keep an eye on the lads, and that I did, but when the teacher, Master MacClancy, came up and chatted to them, and then asked Aidan and Moylan to go with him, well, Brehon, I didn’t feel that I could interfere.’

‘Of course. I understand, Cumhal. There was nothing that you could do. But there’s probably no harm done . . .’ Mara’s voice tailed off. Cumhal was not one to worry her about nothing. He happily took the boys sailing, caving and mountain climbing, and took over responsibility for supervising them if she had to be absent from the law school. He would not be coming to report this unless he was seriously worried.

‘Well, I thought the same, Brehon, but this morning when the lads were out at the pump, I could hear Aidan trying to borrow money from all of them. They refused of course, and then when the others had gone in to breakfast, I heard Moylan say: “You were a fool to go on playing with him. He plays with loaded dice!”’

‘What!’ gasped Mara. ‘Do you mean that Boetius took Moylan and Aidan from your care and then abandoned them to some gambler?’

‘It’s worse than that, Brehon,’ said Cumhal in a shamefaced way. ‘
He’s
the gambler – and I never knew it. I’m furious with myself. I understand it now. He was always having these two silly boys up in his room in the guesthouse. Well, it was two to start with, and then Moylan got tired of it. I should have guessed something was going on.’

‘But are you sure it was Boetius that Moylan was talking about?’ The story seemed almost unbelievable. So much care was taken in law schools that anyone who passed the final examination was of high, moral character. And Boetius had even qualified as a teacher – he had reached the grade of
ollamh
. She knew Brehon MacEgan well. He would have the highest principles, especially in the case of awarding the status of teacher to someone – though of course the school at Duniry was a large one, and he might not have been able to get to know his scholars as well as she did with her small school.

‘I’m certain, Brehon. I’ve just been up to the room and found this lodged inbetween the floorboards.’ Cumhal held up one of a pair of dice and tossed it in the air. It fell on the desk with the number six uppermost. ‘You try it for yourself, Brehon.’ He held out the small cube to her.

Mara tossed it four or five times, more to satisfy him than to check on the truth of what he was saying. She had absolute confidence in Cumhal. Every time the six showed on the top.

‘These crooked gamblers have two pairs of dice,’ explained Cumhal. ‘One lot always give a high score – usually a six – and the other pair always gives a low score – a one normally. They are quick with their hands, you see, Brehon, so they can easily swap them around. With a fool like Aidan you would only have to allow him to win once or twice, and then swap the dice and keep telling him that his luck would change. Easy enough to swap back to the high number if he looked like he was going to walk away.’

‘I see,’ said Mara. She tried to speak lightly to reassure Cumhal that no great harm was done. No doubt that silly Aidan had lost the silver his parents sent for his return journey. That did not matter; she would reimburse him, with a stiff lecture, of course, but the responsibility was hers and she was filled with shame. A young man of whom she had no knowledge should never have been allowed loose with her boys. ‘How did Boetius come to be at the midsummer celebrations, anyway?’ she asked.

‘I think he is staying at Caherconnell, Brehon,’ said Cumhal in a subdued tone, ‘at least that’s what Brigid told me,’ he added.

Mara nodded. She would not discuss the matter any more with Cumhal. A reserved man, he would keep to himself everything that she said to him, but her sense of loyalty to a man of her own profession forbade her to say any more. He would go now, and then she would puzzle over the matter and see how it fitted in with her thoughts about this secret and unlawful killing of Malachy the physician.

To her surprise Cumhal did not go, but stayed standing hesitantly in front of her. He had a worried frown between his eyebrows. She looked at him with surprise. He had the appearance of a man who was not sure what to say, and that was very unlike him.

‘Is something else wrong?’ she asked.

For answer he took a large jar from his pouch and handed it to her silently. It had been wiped very clean; the polished clay was smooth and shiny and the lid was wedged tightly into the neck. The jar had been whitewashed with a lime mixture so that any stain would immediately show on it.

All these precautions were ominous, and Mara was not surprised to see in large letters on the front of the jar the word POISON.

And on the back another legend; this time, the letters were smaller but instantly readable.

A
conite
it said. The jar contained the deadly poison, wolfsbane.

‘You found this, also!’ she exclaimed.

Cumhal shook his head. ‘No, Brehon,’ he said, ‘it was Brigid who found the jar.’

‘After Boetius left?’

There was a pause before Cumhal answered and when he did so it was with the air of a man who had resolved to tell the truth. ‘No, Brehon,’ he said. ‘If that had been the way, Brigid would have given it to you immediately.’ Mara looked at him in puzzled way and then suddenly understood. Cumhal saw this and nodded. ‘That was it, Brehon. It was in Nuala’s room before young Master MacClancy took it over. Nuala was busy with you – and she said that she would sleep in your room – so Brigid went to collect her things. Well, when she found that jar of poison, she put it aside and then when the news came about the physician’s murder, Brigid hid the jar. When I told her about the dice she tried to pretend that Master MacClancy had the jar also, but I got the truth out of her. I told her that you had to know everything.’