Scales of Retribution (30 page)

Frantically her mind ranged over the possibilities as her legs moved as fast as she dared to go. Did the murderer plan to use little Cormac as a bargaining tool?
Do not accuse me of the murder of Malachy and of Seán and I will let you have your baby back
. That was the most likely, she told herself, but deep in her mind she feared something worse.

There was no sign of anyone in the fields. The stony ground of the High Burren was used only for winter and spring grazing; now, at midsummer, the cows would be fattening contentedly on the rich grass of the valleys or wandering on the mountain common land. There was no sign even of anyone replacing a stone on a wall, or looking for a missing animal. The hay had mainly been cut so most of the farmers would be at the bog today. It would have been comforting to see someone, someone in whom she could confide, who would come with her, but she thought it might have been unwise. This was a matter that she had to solve for herself. She looked down at Bran and felt reassured. Bran would obey her smallest gesture.

It seemed an eternity before a few trees were to be seen in the distance. Malachy’s oaks were down there, down near to the church and the small graveyard. She turned to the right, going south; the way was rough but she trod it almost without seeing any of the hazards. Not long now, she told herself. Every nerve in her body was alive and tingling. Her breath came short and her heart seemed to bang against her ribs. The dog beside her uttered a long, low growl. She did not know whether he saw something or whether he had picked up on her mood.

Or whether, perhaps, he had sensed some evil in the air.

‘Heel,’ she said to him sharply and he obeyed instantly. This murderer, she knew, would be brittle – anything could break the tension and if that happened the baby would die and probably she would also. For her own life she cared little if she lost her child, she thought, and for a moment despair almost overwhelmed her. She bit her lips and dug her nails into her palm. How could she have been so stupid as to abandon her baby and leave him without a guard while she spoke to that absurd Boetius. She could not blame either Turlough or Brigid. She should have given orders that the baby was not to be taken off the premises, should have kept him under her eye. The fault was hers. She had misjudged this murderer. The relationship had led her astray.

She could not fail now. She had to be equal to the situation. This murderer was frightened, almost certainly mad, but not truly evil. She felt Bran’s nose against her hand and somehow confidence began to come back. When the moment came, she would find the right thing to say. The dog was her only hope if all else failed, but Mara had been trained from a very early age to rely on words, and words would be her first weapon.

She dare not allow herself to think that there might be two dead bodies at the end of her quest, but that thought kept rising up from the back of her mind.

Now they had left the High Burren and were going down the steep hill. Luckily, there was a well-trodden path here and she knew that it would lead to where she wanted to go. Malachy’s woodland reared up high to the left of her and to the right was the old iron gate leading into the churchyard. It stood open and she slipped through it, the silent dog at her heels.

Just by the gate was a large yew tree, studded with the poisonous tiny red fruits. Mara stopped beneath its branches.

Waiting, watching, wondering.

On the other side of the graveyard appeared a man. He also was almost concealed under a yew, the twin to the one where she stood. A handsome, florid man, a dark man, dark hair, dark eyes, brown skin – from the race of Dubh Daibhrean. It was Oisín and, though he made no move, she knew that he had seen Eileen arrive and had followed her. Of course, he would have seen her from the oak woodland; she would have been conspicuous as she crossed the stony ground of the High Burren.

The graves were mainly on the south side of the small ancient church, small grassy mounds, sometimes with a block of limestone to mark where the head lay and sometimes a small wooden cross. At the far side there was a small mound – a very little mound; it had not subsided; the soil still had the look of being freshly dug, but the small body beneath hardly raised it.

Kneeling beside the mound was a woman. And the mid-morning sun struck a ray of light from the knife in her hand.

And lying on the grass beside her was little Cormac – not crying, not moving, as still as if he were dead.

Mara went forward and knew that this time, of all times in her life, her tongue could be her saviour. She sat down on the grass beside her tiny son and fixed her eyes on Eileen. Bran lay down beside her, his nose touching the little body. There was no sound of distress from the dog and she knew that her son was safe. She had known it already. Something within her had sensed that the connection between them, as strong as the umbilical cord, was still unbroken. Still, she had to check, so she reached out and placed a hand on him. He lay immobile, too immobile, but his soft, round face was warm. She could hope. She could afford pity.

‘You have suffered greatly,’ she said compassionately to Eileen. It took every inch of self-control that she possessed not to scream at the woman, not to snatch up her son and hold him to her breast. She breathed deeply, willing her face not to show emotion, and fixed her eyes on the woman who had stolen her son. Yes, the eyes were certainly insane.

‘My baby was murdered by that man Malachy, the physician.’ Eileen’s pupils were huge and dark and her voice was sleepy.

‘So you killed Malachy,’ said Mara gently.

Eileen nodded. ‘I killed him,’ she agreed. ‘He had to suffer! He died like a dog and he deserved it.’

‘What happened?’ asked Mara.

‘You’ve guessed it already, I’d say.’ Eileen’s voice was dreamy and indifferent. ‘My husband came back from the hills and when he saw the salve that I was using he shouted at me. He told me that you should never put comfrey on a wound that has gone bad. He knows about these things, but I didn’t. And I had put pot after pot of that stuff on the baby’s arm! It was such a tiny thing in the beginning, just a bite from a cat. And every time I put the salve on I was making it worse.’

‘Was your husband angry with Malachy?’ Mara kept her voice low and gentle. Keep Eileen talking at all costs. The knife was still in her hand, but surely Mara’s own strength and the dog’s strength balanced that deadly weapon.

But why did little Cormac sleep as though it was his final sleep? Why had the voices not woken him?

‘No, he was just angry with me.’ Eileen’s voice was dull and sluggish now. ‘He didn’t go near Malachy. He didn’t dare in case he offended someone – that’s the type that he is. I was the one that he blamed. He told me that I was stupid to go on using the salve when I could see that it was doing no good. He showed me the red streaks on the baby’s arm. And then he went back up to the mountain – he had just come down for some more wolfsbane to poison the wolves. The sheep were more to him than his own child! And that night my baby went into a high fever. I could do nothing. I tried everything I knew, but at dawn, my baby died. And he was so beautiful. No boy in the world was ever as beautiful as he.’

Mara felt a sob rising in her throat. She could not speak for a minute, and in that minute Eileen acted. From behind where she was sitting, she took a flask, tilted it to her mouth and then put it down. After a moment, she gasped and then she sat very still. The pupils in her eyes grew even darker. Sweat oozed from her forehead and her hair was damp. Continually she licked her lips and swallowed noisily.

Suddenly she lunged forward, knife in hand, not towards the baby, but towards Mara herself, aiming straight at the heart. There was a rustle from the yew tree as Oisín started forward, but Bran was quicker. Instantly he seized the woman’s wrist in his strong white teeth, holding her firmly. Her hand trembled uncontrollably and the knife dropped to the ground. Mara took her hand from the baby’s face, picked up the knife and placed it in her pouch. Oisín, she noticed, had drawn back into the shadowy depths of the yew branches. She was grateful for his instinctive understanding of the situation. The essential thing now was to find from Eileen whether a drug had been given to the baby, and if so, what drug.

‘Let go, Bran,’ she said in a low voice.

‘I wanted to kill you; I wanted to keep your baby. If you were dead he would be left with me until he grew up.’ The voice was slurred and the eyes quite insane. ‘It would have been a quick death for you. Malachy had a slow death. I took some of the wolfsbane that my husband had in his store and I brought it to him – he thought I had come to pay him. I gave him the piece of silver, and then when he went to put it in his box I dropped the powder into his glass.’

‘Why did you kill Seán?’ asked Mara gently. Her hand was back on the baby again. Surely there was something wrong with him. She felt his neck. To her alarm she realized that her fingers were wet with the hot stickiness of sweat. She lifted him up into her arms. His little body felt limp.

‘What have you given to my baby?’ she asked urgently, her earlier question put aside, unimportant, now. ‘Why have you done this?’

‘Because you have everything and I have nothing,’ said Eileen.

Once again, she put the flask to her lips, turning it upside down against her mouth so as to drain the last drop. Then she took it away and flung it wildly, aiming high so that it soared through the trees that surrounded the little graveyard.

‘But soon you will have nothing,’ she gasped. ‘Your baby will die soon and then you will know how I felt.’

‘Eileen, tell me what have you given him?’ Mara tried to keep her voice cool, tried to make it sound like a casual enquiry. As Brehon, she had often to deal with a case of madness and she knew that it was important to keep calm. Soon Eileen would be beyond speaking. The woman’s eyes stared blankly ahead, her mouth had rigid lines to each side of it and saliva poured out uncontrollably down her chin.

‘What was it, Eileen? What did you give him?’ Mara held her baby close; already a slight drool had appeared in the corner of the tiny mouth. She looked an anguished appeal, but Eileen was beyond words. She had slumped over on her side and now her eyes were closed.

In a moment Oisín was by her side. ‘Let me take him; let’s get him back home. I waited because I thought you might get information from her, but it’s no good. Leave her. She will soon be dead.’

For a moment Mara half-held out the baby to him, but then she shook her head. ‘No,’ she said. ‘No, I’ll hold him quietly here. It can’t be good to disturb him. You go. Go as quickly as you can. Fetch Nuala from Lissylisheen. Tell her everything. Tell her about the sweating and the saliva . . .’

Oisín knelt at Eileen’s side, his quick eyes darting over her, feeling her hands, pulling up an eyelid and peering into the eye, noting all symptoms. Then he put his own hand on the woman’s heart.

‘Racing!’ he said with a grimace. ‘She won’t last long at this rate.’

With a feeling of dread, Mara put her own hand on her baby’s tiny chest. The little heart beat, but there was no difference as far as she could tell. Oisín quickly moved her hand, lifting it off and replacing it with one brown finger.

‘Seems normal,’ he said shortly, and then he was gone, running vigorously out of the gate. Mara could hear the noise of his sandals banging against the stone of the road, going at full speed towards Lissylisheen.

The woman on the ground beside her opened her eyes and gazed at the baby in Mara’s arms.

‘I’m dying,’ she whispered. ‘Get me a priest.’

For a moment Mara wavered. It was a sacred duty on all to fetch a priest to a dying person. But what about her baby? The sweat continued to flow from his neck and now even from his forehead, and the few scraps of fluffy hair on his head were damp, but his tiny feet and hands were stone-cold. She held him close to her breast and almost felt as though the beat of her own heart was keeping his heart working. Perhaps it was a mortal sin not to fetch the priest; she didn’t know and she didn’t care. This woman had used poison to kill Malachy – that might be forgivable, but she also killed poor innocent Seán who was guilty of nothing but a love of gossip, she had made Fachtnan seriously ill and worst of all she had given poison to a baby. She did not wish her harm, decided Mara, but she would not risk her baby’s slender hold on life in order to go and fetch a priest.

‘Don’t trouble yourself,’ she said softly. ‘Just lie quietly.’

Eileen groaned, but said no more.

I should know what to do, thought Mara. She had assisted at many a deathbed; the lawyer, as well as the priest and physician, was a frequent companion for the dying.

‘Do you repent of your sins?’ she asked.

Did she nod, or not? It was difficult to be sure as paralysis seemed to be setting in. Mara decided that it was a nod and went on with the ritual.

‘
Deus meus
,’ she said solemnly, hoping that the God she evoked was a merciful God, ‘
ex toto corde poenitet me omnium meorum peccatorum, eaque detestor, quia peccando, non solum poenas a Te iuste statutas promeritus sum, sed praesertim quia offendi Te, summum bonum, ac dignum qui super omnia diligaris
.’ In Eileen’s name, she expressed sorrow for her sins, and her belief in the goodness of God, and went on to promise to sin no more. ‘
Ideo firmiter propono, adiuvante gratia Tua, de cetero me non peccaturum peccandique occasiones proximas fugiturum. Amen
.’

Everything was very still. Even the pigeons in the nearby wood had ceased their cooing. The sun had moved and the stone church cast a dark shadow over the two women and the baby. Eileen suddenly groaned. It was a strange sound, very deep, as if it came from the depths of her being. She gasped. Her back arched as if from some unbearable pain. Her eyes opened widely. Her hands went to her breast and then fell away. Suddenly the light went from her eyes with that awful finality – as if the lamp of the soul had been quenched.