Scales of Retribution (25 page)

Mara hesitated for a moment once she was alone again. She put the examination papers back into their flat pouch, locking it carefully into the cupboard. All the time that she was doing this, she was thinking hard. This news about Nuala was an unpleasant shock! What had persuaded the girl to put that jar of poison in her room?

Or did someone else put it there, hoping that it would be discovered?

Mara spent a long time considering the matter, but then with an effort turned her thoughts. She would see Nuala and ask her the position and Nuala would give a straightforward reply, or else refuse to answer the question. For now, she had to consider the matter of Boetius.

Brigid, she knew, would probably know all there was to know about Boetius and his reasons for staying at Caherconnell, but, on the other hand, she would make a huge and unnecessary fuss about Mara walking across there. No, she would just go, she thought. Whatever there was to find out, she would do it herself.

‘Have a lovely time,’ she called out merrily to Sorcha and the children who were building a house in the garden with some lightweight hazel hurdles supplied by Cumhal. She did not pause, but kept up a brisk pace until she reached the Kilcorney crossroads. It was warm, but with a slight breeze that wafted the scent of the cream and gold flowers of the woodbine that circled around the hawthorn branches in the hedgerow. The orchids were everywhere, bee orchids, butterfly orchids, purple pyramid orchids and spotted whites, while the pale blue butterflies hovered over the delicate stitchwort flowers and the slim green bodies of the meadow pipits darted in and out of the dense clumps of roadside ivy. To her pleasure, though slightly out of breath, she felt none of the weakness that had dogged her up until fairly recently. Nothing like a bit of fury to lend strength to the legs, she thought.

Fifteen minutes later, Mara arrived at Caherconnell. The herb garden was empty, several plants were wilting from lack of water and a plentiful supply of weeds was clogging up the beds of rosemary and bugle. Nuala had not, by the looks of things, returned to tend the plants since the day of her father’s death.

Mara paused by the window of the stillroom, now closed. How strange to have the window of this room closed in such hot weather, she thought. Even in cooler summer days it always stood open, making sure that air circulated and kept the precious ointments and mixtures at an even temperature. It was a shady room, facing north, and it looked quite dark when she peered in. Was Ronan working in Galway? she wondered, and then stiffened.

Most of the space on three of the walls was taken up by shelves, but against the fourth wall, the one opposite to the window, was a long broad couch with several drawings of herbs, all carefully drawn and coloured by Malachy’s father, above it. It was not at them, however, that Mara looked, but at the couch – the place where Malachy used to examine his patients.

There were two people lying there, fully dressed, but with arms tightly around each other. Both faces were glued together in a long kiss and both pairs of eyes, she was glad to see, were shut in ecstasy. It was Boetius MacClancy and Caireen O’Davoren, the newly bereaved and sorrowing widow of Malachy the physician.

Shocked and embarrassed, Mara moved quickly away from the window. For a moment she was appalled to think how awkward it would have been if either had seen her, but then she felt a smile tug at her lips and stopped under the shade of a large apple tree to laugh to herself. So what on earth was going on? Boetius was not that much older than Caireen’s son. Was he amusing himself with a women old enough to be his mother? Or was there some other reason for this show of love? He had struck her as a young man that knew his own worth. She would have expected some pretty young girl to be his choice.

Absentmindedly, Mara reached out and with her sharp nails detached two tiny apples from the cluster of three on the twig before her, discarding them upon the soft grass beneath her feet. Of course, Caireen had something that very few pretty young girls had. She had two houses. And the one in Galway would be singularly attractive to Boetius. It was, she had heard, a fine stone house within the city walls with a large garden going back to the river. If he induced Caireen to marry him he could set up practice there in Galway. He had already told her that English law was the law for an up-and-coming young man, and with a knowledge of both law systems and a fine stone house he would probably be able to build up a flourishing practice – he might even be able to have a school.

There would have been another reason, also. Mara carefully removed a small green caterpillar from the underside of a leaf, while her mind worked busily. The walk to Caherconnell and now this quiet time under the tree had made her change her focus. She was no longer solely interested in tackling Boetius about gambling with her pupils. This matter was more serious. Many young men gambled. It was to be deplored, but mostly they grew out of it, or resorted to it with less and less frequency, as other matters took their attention.

But any man who travelled with loaded dice – and Cumhal had convinced her of that – this was a man for whom gambling was a way of life. It was easy enough to use loaded dice with a silly and rather innocent boy like Aidan, but with real gamblers Boetius would probably have been the loser. Perhaps he had built up a huge weight of debts and his eagerness to be taken on by Fergus, or better still, to take over the legal affairs of the Burren, was a measure of his desperation to pay his debts. Neither of these seemed to have worked for him. She herself had dismissed him summarily and Fergus, in his good-natured and gentle way, had probably made it clear that he was not going to retire and leave the law school work to his young cousin . . .

And was it possible that Brigid might have been mistaken about the ownership of the jar of aconite? Boetius had a cool impudence about him and might, once he heard that he was to occupy this room, have gone in to explore and put the jar in a hidden place. He might not have reckoned with Brigid’s obsessive tidiness – it would have seemed quite likely that a room which looked clean and neat already would not have any more dusting or scrubbing done before a new occupant took it over.

Or did he openly deposit it among Nuala’s belongings in order to throw suspicion on the girl?

Certainly, there were now reasons why she had to take a long, hard look at Boetius MacClancy.

I think I am now cool and calm, and hopefully the pair on the couch have finished their bout of lovemaking; Mara silently addressed a gorgeously apparelled bullfinch who peered down through the branches at her and then flew away to join his more soberly coloured mate. She emerged from under the apple tree and moved quietly across the grass towards the front door of Caherconnell.

The door was opened by Sadhbh, the housekeeper. She exclaimed loudly at the sight of Mara and was full of questions about her health and about the baby’s health – all of which Mara answered in loud, cheerful, carrying tones. As far as she had seen, neither Boetius nor Caireen had been undressed so it should not take them long to join her. In the meantime, she was happy to sit and sip ice cold buttermilk and chat to Sadhbh in the cool parlour.

Caireen was on her own when she came into the room. Mara greeted her politely, asked after her health and then after her future plans.

‘Dear Mara, always so thoughtful for everyone! How can my concerns be of any interest to you?’ As usual there was a false note in her voice.

‘I just wanted to check that you, and your son, Ronan, have no immediate plans to return to Galway. That, I’m afraid, cannot be permitted until the murder of your husband, Malachy, has been solved and the name of his killer announced to the people of the kingdom at their place of justice at Poulnabrone.’ Mara watched with interest for a reaction.

‘Whyever should we not go back to Galway?’ Now her voice was shrill.

‘Because Brehon law has no jurisdiction in Galway,’ said Mara calmly.

‘I have never come under the rule of Brehon law!’ exclaimed Caireen. ‘I am a native of Galway.’ She tried to speak in a dignified way, but there was a definite undercurrent of alarm in her voice.

‘Not any more,’ Mara explained in kindly tones, ‘you married a man of the kingdom and you lived within that kingdom for the last few months. You were present in the kingdom when the crime was committed – as was your son, Ronan – at least he was there on the morning that Malachy was murdered. Your other sons were absent in Galway on that day, so I have no concern with them.’

‘Are you accusing me of murdering my own husband, Brehon?’ Caireen’s voice rose to a shriek.

Mara waited. Caireen had a voice like a corncrake – surely it must have rung through the house. She had not long to wait. A heavy footstep sounded on the stairway and in a moment he was in the room.

‘Ah, Brehon, you are well, I trust? Not finding all of this too much for you? And how is your little baby? And my lord, the king?’ He shot out the questions, smiling affably and smoothing his red beard, while his small green eyes darted enquiring glances at Caireen, who was mopping her eyes vigorously with an extra large linen handkerchief.

‘How nice to see you, Boetius,’ said Mara politely. ‘I didn’t realize that you were still in the kingdom. I thought that you had left and returned home.’

‘You should have left while you had a chance,’ said Caireen spitefully, giving her eyes another mop, accompanied by a loud sniff. ‘Anyone who was present here on the day that poor Malachy was murdered is now to be kept a prisoner in this terrible, barren place until the murder is solved, and God alone knows when that will be.’

There was a silence after those words. Boetius ceased to stroke his red beard and his eyes gazed stonily ahead, looking at neither woman. Mara surveyed him from head to foot, but he did not move nor glance at her.

‘Do I understand that you were actually in Caherconnell, Boetius, on the day that Malachy died?’ Mara spoke gently, but knew from Caireen’s aghast expression that the woman had realized she had made a gaffe.

‘Yes, did you not know?’ He asked the question airily, placing a forefinger on Malachy’s scales and rocking them gently up and down.

‘On the contrary, I remember Fergus saying that you arrived at his house just half an hour before he escorted you over to Cahermacnaghten.’

Boetius laughed. ‘Dear Fergus. He looks forward to my visits so much that I did not like to tell him that I had stopped off at Caherconnell on the way.’

‘Let me get this straight,’ said Mara gravely. ‘You journeyed down from the MacEgan law school at Duniry, north of Galway, in order to visit your cousin Fergus in Corcomroe. I cannot see how Caherconnell could be said to be on your way. Naturally, you would have gone around by the coast road if you were on your way to Corcomroe.’

‘You forget that I don’t know the route as well as you do, Brehon,’ he said lifting an eyebrow at her.

Mara allowed it to pass. Now she would probe on a different matter.

‘There is something else that I must discuss with you, Boetius,’ she said in stern tones. ‘It’s to do with the time you spent with my scholars when I was ill. Perhaps you would like Caireen to go out of the room.’

He didn’t look alarmed, just laughed indulgently. ‘You ladies! You are so tenderhearted! I suppose one of the boys has complained of me being a little too stern. Is that right?’

Mara waited a moment, but Caireen made no move to go and Boetius still smiled at her in the slightly mocking way, his sharp little eyes boring into hers.

‘No, none of the boys have complained,’ she said. ‘It was Cumhal, my very trusted farm manager, who spoke to me.’

His gaze hardened, but he still made no move to ask Caireen to go, so Mara proceeded.

‘Cumhal found this in your room,’ she said, ‘one of a pair of dice, I understand.’ And she produced the small weighted cube from her pouch. Neatly, she flipped it into the air, adroitly stopping it from rolling from the table. It showed a six. Three times more she tossed it, each time allowing the six to speak for itself.

‘My old friend, Giolla MacEgan, would be horrified to know that one of his graduates was playing with loaded dice and inveigling young boys into losing their money,’ she remarked into the silence.

His hand went automatically to his pouch, but then he hastily dropped it when he saw her eyes on him.

‘Not mine, Brehon,’ he said cheerfully. ‘Probably belonging to one of your husband’s guards or some other visitor.’

‘You yourself don’t gamble . . . Is that correct?’ Mara asked the question in a matter-of-fact way.

His eyes slid from hers and looked uneasily towards Caireen, but the smile on his lips did not falter. ‘Certainly not, Brehon,’ he said.

‘I’m very glad to hear it,’ said Mara gravely. She had got what she had come for. That look at Caireen had verified her suspicions. Boetius did not want Caireen to know that he was a gambler and that probably meant that he had designs on her property. Caireen was no fool and had a proper appreciation of the comforts of life. However, she had twice been widowed and her choices for a third husband would be fairly limited. And, of course, she might enjoy Boetius’s lovemaking. She had been flushed and red-lipped when she had come into the parlour.

‘Now let’s go back to the murder of Malachy in this house on the eleventh of June,’ she said briskly. ‘When actually did you arrive here at Caherconnell, Boetius?’

She saw him cast a quick sideways glance at Caireen – trying to assess whether he could get away with a lie. However, Caireen looked stonily ahead. Mara’s respect for her rose. No doubt the allusion to gambling had not been lost on Caireen. She looked like a woman who was thinking hard.

‘I came on the Wednesday before,’ said Boetius eventually.

‘And you were actually present in the house when Caireen shrieked for help, is that right?’

Again he hesitated, again he glanced at Caireen, but eventually he nodded.