Verdict of the Court (16 page)

So Raour is the only left-handed member among the guests at the Christmas supper, she thought, as she nodded to Turlough and turned to go back to questioning Maccon MacMahon as to why he thought fit to disregard her command and leave the castle when he had been told that he should stay.

Though she thought that she had kept her face bland and expressionless, she was aware during the rest of the interview that he was subtly conscious of the change in her. His denials of any motive other than to deal with private business grew louder and more assertive – almost, she thought, as if panic at not being allowed to go had possessed him. She wondered why he was making such a huge fuss about the matter. Why should it be so important that he leave the castle on this very day?

‘Rest assured that nothing you say will influence me to permit you to leave before I give the word,’ she said with emphasis as she concluded her interrogation. She had almost said
before I have solved this murder
but it had come into her mind suddenly that this was a murder enquiry that might fail. Raour was the only left-handed person among the guests. and yet everyone had placed him as dancing in the lights in front of the pipe players. She herself had noticed him there and had smiled to herself. Heavy though he was, Raour was a talented dancer and was making certain that all would admire him. He had not strayed from the top of the room, beside the table on the dais for the whole evening. It did not seem possible that every single one of the guests, including Mara herself, would have overlooked a move to the bottom of the room where he would no longer be centre of attention and under his grandfather’s eyes.

And then she suddenly thought back into the past and her heart plummeted.

Enda had come to her at the age of eight – older than most of her pupils, but the very talented, very intelligent son of a farmer. She had straight-away noticed the left-handedness and had challenged him to overcome that difficulty and to acquire a script as neat and as legible as that of his right-handed companions. She had made no attempt to get him to use his right hand. He had been taught by the monks at Murrisk Abbey, who had attempted this and then had given up the struggle. She guessed that they had found it best to let him go his own way and to write left-handed. He was a determined boy and had risen to her challenge and soon become one of the brightest and most advanced scholars in her school.

It will break my heart if he has done this stupid thing, she thought.

(The Law of Adomnán)

An offence against a woman is a more serious matter than an offence against a man of the same honour price. In the case of murder the culprit may, according to Church law, have a hand removed as well as paying the honour price of the woman, or that of her husband if she is without occupation. The normal eraic is also payable.

Brehon Law abhors violence against women who are unable to defend themselves.

M
ara slept badly that night, and such sleep as she did attain was filled with bad dreams. Towards morning she fell into a deep, heavy sleep and by the time that she opened her eyes from this, she knew that some were already stirring. A sound of hammering came from outside their window, a few shouts from men-at-arms, and then the shrill sound of swords and throwing knives being sharpened against the huge stone that stood outside the front entrance to the castle.

The place beside her in the bed was empty and cold. She sat up abruptly. Turlough was seldom an early riser when he was with her. For a moment she feared that something had happened, but then she noticed the grey light coming through the window and realized that she had just over-slept. She got out of bed, visited the latrine, shuddered at the icy chill that came up from the moat and the river beyond, rapidly replaced cushion and board and having washed her hands in the bowl placed beside it, finished off the rest of her washing with the warm water which stood in a metal flagon beside the fire.

I hate looking untidy, she thought crossly as she braided her hair by touch and thought for the hundredth time that she must suggest to Turlough that a mirror would be an addition to the King’s bedroom. She smiled slightly when she remembered Cael’s querying her lack of a veil and then suddenly, as she inserted the pins, an idea sprang into her mind. She went to her pouch and counted out some small pieces of silver. There would be a fair in the nearby village to celebrate the eve of the Epiphany and she had planned to give the scholars some spending money before they set off on their journey back to the Burren.

But for the moment she had a better use for some of the money.

Still that interview had to take a background step for the moment. She could no longer shirk this unpleasant task. She had to know whether the murdered man had the keys to his press, or whether they had been stolen by someone.

She also, if she had the courage and the determination, had to resolve the problem of the knife. Did it kill him? And, if it did, why did it spontaneously fall from the wound? Could such a slight incision be responsible for any man’s death? Or was there any chance that he had been poisoned? It would have been easier to achieve. But if so, there would be no reason for the knife in the back. Exasperated, Mara twitched her light cloak from the back of the door and draped it around her shoulders.

From the sound of the noisy voices, her scholars, she thought, were having breakfast. She peeped through the stairway wall slot but there was no sign of the physician breakfasting in the great hall. There was no help for the matter, thought Mara gritting her teeth with annoyance at the mental image of Donogh O’Hickey skulking on a sickbed. The body of Brehon MacClancy should now be quite soft and malleable and she admitted honestly to herself that as well as searching for the keys she should also slit the clothing and check on that wound which was so shallow that the knife had just fallen from its slot as the body’s fibres cooled. She wished desperately for a competent physician, but it was no good wishing for what she could not have; she had been trained from early girlhood to do her duty whether it was pleasant or unpleasant. She continued down the stairs at a slower pace, deep in thought, and knocked on the door to the captain’s room, half-hoping that he was not there, but he opened instantly, with cordial enquiries as to her health, the health of the King and her young scholars. Then he spent a few minutes discussing the music and praising the genius of the cook and eventually wound up by looking at her enquiringly.

‘I just wondered whether I could trouble you for the keys to the basement and to the coffer?’ said Mara trying to sound matter-of-fact and at ease.

‘Oh, so the physician is better,’ he stated and then with a worried note, ‘There’s no one here at the moment but I can send for some men if he wishes for help,’ he said.

‘No, no,’ she said hurriedly. Whatever was to be done down there in the basement, she felt that she would prefer to be alone with her thoughts. There was no way that she was going to undertake an in-depth examination of the body – just a quick look to solve a few queries. In her pouch she carried the throwing knife which had inflicted the deadly wound – the knife belonging to the child, Cael. She had wrapped it carefully in a piece of the oilskin which she used to protect documents from the rain, but when she had taken it out this morning she found that the slight fishy smell had disappeared. Perhaps she had imagined it. And yet the picture came to her mind of Maccon MacMahon and Enda sharing a dish of lampreys and exclaiming loudly over the delicious flavour.

Mara had great difficulty with the lock to the basement. The key was enormous and the lock so stiff that nothing happened when she turned it. Eventually she put her two hands to it and twisted as hard as she could. There was a strange, groaning creak and the door moved back grudgingly, displaying a vast piece of antique ironmongery on its inside. There was a stone lying nearby and Mara guessed that it was often used to prop the door open – she could see a tell-tale groove in the wooden door frame, no doubt a precaution in case a sudden draught slammed it closed. She placed the stone in position, but nevertheless, she took the keys from the outside lock, picked up the small lantern of perforated steel which she carried with her and held it up to the walls until she found a small ledge where she laid the keys carefully. Then she held the lantern aloft again and shone its light towards the centre of the room. But the coffer was not where she had remembered. She shone the light steadily around, moving it along each of the four walls and then around the centre of the room. But she had made no mistake. There was no sign of the box which enclosed Brehon MacClancy’s body.

And then, frowning slightly, she moved the lantern again. Something had caught her attention and a moment later she realized what had puzzled her. The gate of iron slats, where she had seen the rat with its long bald tail disappear the last time she had been in the basement, was now no longer latched shut, but was standing wide open.

And that was not all that she saw. The floor at that end of the basement was made from hammered clay and the marks showed up quite clearly – something heavy had been pushed across the floor and had disappeared into the river beyond the iron grille.

Filled with anger, Mara crossed the floor, still holding her metal lantern aloft. The floor continued to just beyond the grate and then it stopped abruptly. Below were the dark waters of the river. She peered down into the water. The tide was full, she reckoned. The last time that she had been here she had smelled wet mud and the rat had disappeared readily through the grille. Rats did swim, she knew, but thought that someone had told her that they did not like salt water. The River Shannon was tidal up to Bunratty Castle and beyond, so surely the water was salt here.

As she stood and glanced around something caught her eye, something just above her head. She moved inside the frame of the metal doorway, and looked upwards. It seemed as though some netting traps were stored there, something for fishing, she thought.

And just at that moment she thought she heard a movement from the room behind her. She spun around, shone the light from her lantern, but there was nothing to be seen. Her skin crawled. A rat, she thought. She lifted the lantern once more. One more glance, she thought, just one more look into the murky depths below her to see whether she could spot the container of her fellow Brehon’s mortal remains. And then she would go back and call for assistance. The basement was only a few feet below ground level, but the ground probably fell away at this spot and the lead-lined box, when pushed, had tumbled to the bottom of the river. She had no idea how deep the water was here, but she thought that it would not be worth the risk of trying to retrieve it. The King’s Brehon would be buried at sea, and she, Mara, would have to solve the murder of MacClancy without viewing the body once again. She turned back to go towards the door, noting with a puzzled frown that now it appeared to be closed, to be shut so tightly that no light came through it.

Then she heard a drawn-in breath and knew that she was not alone.

And, at that second, something hit the side of her head and shocked her into dropping the lantern from her hand. She overbalanced and tumbled into the water below her feet. At the same moment she heard the metal grille crash closed behind her and there was a sharp click as the bolt was shot home. Sick and dizzy, she fumbled for something to hold on to, but a surge of tidal water swept up, soaking the skirts of
léine
, gown and cloak and she sank beneath the surface. Her mouth filled with water and she tasted the salt. There was a sudden hurried movement just beside her, and for a moment she felt sick with horror as she pictured a shoal of rats swimming vigorously beside her. She struck out violently and instinctively and her hand struck something metal – a cage, she thought, and was shocked to see large eyes looking at her from the violently churning water inside it. She tried to grasp it, tried to hook a finger through the metal, but the outgoing tide swept her helplessly away, leaving her with the impression of silver bodies and wide round eyes. Giant fish, she thought and then realized that it had been a cage full of live salmon.

Mara had never learned to swim, but she had watched her farm manager, Cumhal, teach the small boys of her school. He had waited for a hot afternoon in late spring or early summer, then taken them down to Rathborney, tied a rope around their waist, lowered them into a pool in the Rathborney River, commanded them firmly to kick their legs and flap their arms and under no circumstances were they to even think about sinking. Such was his influence over them that they usually learned to swim that same day.

Now Mara knew that her life was in her own hands and without hesitation she scooped the water with her hands and kicked frantically. Her head hurt so much from the blow that she felt weak and sick, but she was determined to make her way to the shore.
I cannot and I will not drown.
The words went through her head and she imagined them written on vellum in a fine Carolingian minuscule script with a goose quill dipped in thick black ink made from the bitterest gall.

He’s not going to get away with this, she thought, dizzily imagining her murderer – he or she, perhaps, had killed once, and now intended to kill again. One more stroke, she told herself as she felt the bile rising in her mouth and she wondered what would happen to her if she had to stop her frantic splashing in order to vomit.

Sink, that’s what would happen. She could not do it. She shut her mouth firmly and thought of her son and of her husband. Cormac needed her. She had given birth to him and she had to fulfil her unwritten contract to care for him, mind and body, until he was grown up. ‘Cormac’, she used the word like a sacred prayer, visualizing his face and the smell of newly washed hair, remembering his jokes, his courage, his cleverness, visualized his green eyes sparkling with fun, his disordered crop of red-blond hair. She needed to be around until he grew up. She concentrated on her son so intensely that the nausea faded and she began to feel herself move with the vigour of her exertions. Not many women have as much to live for as I do, she thought and wished that the fog was not too thick and that she could see the bank. The light was getting brighter though and she guessed that she had moved out of a tunnel of some sort and into the river that ran in front of the castle.