Verdict of the Court (8 page)

‘As you all know by now,’ she said, ‘Brehon MacClancy has been unlawfully killed here tonight. Under the law of this kingdom, unless the person who did the deed confesses it within twenty-four hours, I will count it as
duinetháide
(a secret and unlawful murder) and the fine of forty-two
sét
s, or twenty-one milch cows, or twenty-one ounces of silver will be doubled to eighty-four
sét
s, or forty-two milch cows, or forty-two ounces of silver. I will start my investigations tomorrow morning and until this crime is solved, no one present in this room during the last hour shall leave the grounds of Bunratty Castle. But for now, I would like everyone to retire to their own room and to avoid discussing the matter in public.’

The die had been cast; she had taken the investigation of this crime into her own hands and it would be for her, not for Enda, the assistant Brehon of the kingdom, to conduct the case. She avoided his eyes, telling Domhnall to collect the scrolls of evidence and then to escort the scholars to their sleeping place. The legendary King Cormac had advised his son, Cairbre, not to have an indulgent man as his judge; she, Mara, could not show any indulgence towards Enda until she had cleared him of all complicity in the murder of a man whom he hated and who had wronged him.

(The Law of Base Clientship)

‘For what qualifications is a king elected over countries and clans of people?’ asked Cairbre.

‘He is chosen,’ said the King, ‘from the goodness of his shape, and the nobility of his family, from his experience and wisdom, from his prudence and magnanimity, from his eloquence and bravery in battle, and from the number of his friends.’

‘Y
ou didn’t mean that about no one leaving the castle grounds; did you?’ Turlough had, with unusual tact, delayed his protest until all, except for Donogh O’Hickey, the physician, had filed out of the door of the great hall and gone to seek their sleeping places. Conor and his wife occupied the south solar and its adjoining bedroom; the others had rooms in one of the four towers that were attached to the central block. It was a luxurious castle and there would be no hardship for anyone to stay there a couple of days longer than they had planned.

‘Hopefully, it won’t take too long,’ she assured him.

‘But what about the hunt tomorrow? Everyone is looking forward to that.’

Mara sighed slightly. She had noticed lots of muttering as they filed out. Fionn and Raour had their heads together and Maccon was earnestly pouring whispers into the host’s ear. The poet and the harpist, both men in their prime, had been urgently whispering also.

‘Well …’ she began.

‘The women can stay and keep you company,’ said Turlough obligingly. ‘I’m sure that they will be a great help to you in the investigation. You wouldn’t keep the young lads at home, would you? They’d be very keen. And Enda, he’d like to come. But most of the women wouldn’t like those marshes – they’d get their gowns wet. You could talk over the case with them. Ellice, now, she’s sharp as a …’ He stumbled, not liking to use the normal comparison
sharp as a knife
about his daughter-in-law. ‘And then there’s Fionn’s wife,’ he went on, ‘and Maccon’s eldest daughter, and Donogh – you’re not too keen on chasing through the marshes, are you, Donogh? You can stay with Mara.’

‘I think, my lord, that the murder must take preference over the hunt,’ said Mara. ‘But, of course, it may well be that a confession will have been made, or else the identity of the guilty person proved before your breakfast is over tomorrow morning,’ she added and was amused to see his face brighten. He had a great belief in her cleverness and efficiency.

‘You go up to bed,’ she said comfortingly. ‘I’ll follow you in ten minutes. I just wish to have a word with Donogh first.’

When the physician had finished, she decided, she would summon the captain of the guard and have the body carried into the nearby church and locked inside it. A messenger would have to be sent to his sister and to the servants and workers at Urlan Castle – the burial would take place there, though it would, of course, be obligatory for King and court to attend the funeral.

She glanced through the scrolls while Turlough was making his farewells to Donogh, and while he was examining in a fascinated manner, once again before he left, the knife in the man’s back. There was little of use to her in her assistants’ written accounts, she realized with dismay. Conor had been sitting on a cushioned bench on the dais for most of the time; Ellice had danced a little, wandered around the room, and eaten, drunk, chatted. Raour, their son, had danced for most of the time, and had talked with Turlough about hunting – he wasn’t sure whether he had gone down to the end of the room, but thought that he hadn’t. Couldn’t remember whether he had noticed the Brehon or not. Fionn O’Brien and his wife were equally vague.

There was, of course, one person’s evidence missing from those scrolls, thought Mara as she gave Turlough a hug and promised to come up to the bedroom as soon as possible. Tomás MacClancy’s young assistant, who might well hope to inherit the position of Brehon of Thomond, had not been interviewed. Tomorrow she would have to talk to Enda before doing anything else, she planned, as she went across to the window recess where the physician was standing, yawning over the corpse.

Strange that Donogh O’Hickey didn’t show the slightest sorrow, not even shock, thought Mara. After all law, medicine, music and poetry were, as someone said, the four pillars that held a king in his place. These two men, the Brehon and the physician, must have had quite a bit to do with each other – they were of the same age and had served King Turlough Donn and his two uncles before him, for almost thirty years.

‘What do you think was the cause of death, Donogh?’ she asked.

He looked at her with surprise. ‘The knife in the back, of course,’ he said. ‘It’s obvious, isn’t it?’

Mara looked down at the protruding knife doubtfully. Before she could say anything, though, the door opened and a great gust of wind swept in, drawing a billowing cloud of smoke from the burning logs.

‘Oh, I’m sorry, Brehon. I didn’t know that you were still here,’ said Rosta. ‘The King came into the kitchen to say that he was on his way to bed so I thought that we could clear off the table.’

Mara did not answer for a moment. She was staring down at the table where the body of the old man still sprawled in that undignified pose. Whether it had been the wind that swept in, causing the fire to smoke and the candles to flare and flicker, or whether it would have happened at that moment in any case; that she did not know. But the knife had fallen from Brehon MacClancy’s shoulder blade and tumbled into the fold of his cloak. Turlough had been right – it had hardly penetrated the flesh.

‘Yes, Rosta, you go ahead, you won’t disturb us,’ she said then and shook her head quickly as the physician stretched his hand towards the knife. Her mind was whirring with thoughts as they waited in silence for the table to be cleared. One of the boys had opened the hatch leading to the kitchen and they placed the loaded trays, one by one, on the wooden counter behind this and soon they all disappeared back into the small kitchen.

Mara waited after the door had closed behind them. She looked curiously at O’Hickey. Turlough, her husband, no physician, but a practical man who had seen death throughout the numerous wars and skirmishes throughout his lifetime, had remarked that the knife seemed to be inserted very shallowly. Why had Donogh not noticed this? She picked up a candle from a nearby shelf and holding it in her hand she lowered it until the flame illuminated the back of the corpse. There was little to be seen. The man’s clothes, the cloak, the tunic, the
léine
all served to obscure the entrance pathway of the knife. But could any knife that delivered death have fallen out so easily? Or could he have swallowed or eaten something poisoned? She picked up the goblet of mead, sniffed, but could come to no conclusion. Still, poison was unlikely. After all what was the point of the knife if poison was the real weapon?

‘He must be stripped and examined,’ she said decisively. ‘The basement will be the best place for that.’

‘My apprentice has gone to his home in the north for Christmas; it will take days to get him back.’ Donogh O’Hickey stared at Mara in dismay. ‘We can’t keep the body for as long as that. Could we get Nuala over from the Burren?’ he queried.

Mara thought about this. Nuala worked terribly hard and had been looking very pale. Her assistant, Peader, had gone to visit his mother in Scotland so Nuala would be reluctant to leave her territory when a serious accident might occur. It could not be justified to take her away when her absence might mean that a man could bleed to death or a woman die in childbirth. Surely there were other physicians in the large kingdom of Thomond. Why was Donogh so reluctant to investigate this death properly?

She went to the kitchen hatch, knocked on it and when Rosta appeared, told him to send the captain of the guard to her.

‘Oh, and Rosta, could you lend me a box and a clean linen napkin,’ she said. ‘It doesn’t need to be ironed or starched.’ Rosta, she knew, was very proud of the starch which he made from the roots of the cuckoo flowers and she could see by his dismayed face as he handed her the crumpled object, which one of his assistants had taken from a large basket, that he didn’t think it was fit for the wife of his King.

‘That’s perfect,’ she assured him, ‘and just that small box over there, that’s all that I need. Tell the captain that his men should bring a litter and perhaps a rope so that the body can be carried safely down the steps.’

The safest thing on that spiral stairs, she thought, as she returned to the window recess, would probably be for one of those strong men-of-arms to sling the body over his shoulder and take it down to the cellar like that, but that might be considered to be discourteous to the dead man and could even be against some obscure rule of the church. She bent down to pick up the knife and slightly recoiled. A slightly fishy smell seemed to emanate from it. She looked down at it, feeling puzzled. She had expected a smell of blood, but not of fish. Holding the napkin to shield her hand she picked up the knife by its handle and held it to her nose. Yes, it was fish – rotten fish, she thought.

And yet the knife itself with its long blade and its deadly sharpened edge was no kitchen knife. It was a warrior’s knife, a knife that was meant to kill.

Meditatively she placed it into the box and closed the lid. This knife, she thought, had been inserted into the body of an ageing and malicious man. But was it the instrument of his death? She glanced across at Donogh O’Hickey. Another ageing man, she thought – not malicious – at least, she amended, she didn’t think so; but getting old, getting tired, wanting an easy life, wanting an easy answer to a problem.

It was not Mara’s way and she prayed that no matter how old she became, it would never be her way. Let me wear out on the task, not rust away, she sent up a brief prayer and wished that she could see into the future.

When the captain of the guard and his men arrived she was courteous and determined with them. The body had to be taken to the very low temperature of the basement. It needed to be guarded from rats – whether by means of a cage or of a human guard and a terrier dog, she suggested, she would leave that in the hands of the captain. The physician would need to work on the body on the following day before the burial could take place. She gave him no time for questions, just smiled warmly at him, expressed King Turlough’s gratitude for his prompt appearance and for the efficiency of his arrangements and watched the slow and difficult conveyance of the body down to the freezing depths of the basement beneath the castle – damp, cold; and a sad end, she thought, for a man who had held a position that was the envy of most of Gaelic Ireland.

And then she went back up the spiral staircase to the King’s bedroom on the north-easterly side of the castle.

‘You’re frozen,’ said Turlough, reaching out for her. He got out of bed and went across to the brazier and took a lidded flagon from it. Carefully he poured some liquid into a wooden goblet with elaborately carved handles and gave it to her. It was delicious – a Spanish wine, but softened by sugar, hot and perfumed with spices. She took a sip, undressed quickly and slipped in beside her husband. Only now, in comparison with the heat that came from his large body, had she realized how very cold she had become. She would think about this murder tomorrow, she decided.

(The Forbidden Things of a Judge)

A judge shall not come to a decision before the chaff has been blown from the corn; that is to say, all evidence has to be carefully sifted.

No one person should influence a judge; all must be equal before him.

He must not be slow or negligent in the seeking-out of the facts.

He must never accept bribes or show favour.

He must never allow his knowledge of the law texts to fade.

He must not make up his mind too quickly, but must challenge all his decisions as if he were his own enemy.

He must never utter a lie at a public judgement.

M
ara was up before most, but when, once washed and dressed, she went into the solar beside their bedroom she found that Rosta and his assistants had already been in and there was a breakfast of newly baked bread and cold meats and cheeses laid out on the long table in front of a blazing fire. There was milk as well as ale in flagons on the table and she poured herself a goblet of it – fresh this morning, she thought – and with a hunk of bread and butter in one hand and the creamy milk in the other she went over to stand by the heat of the logs and looked down into the great hall from the hatch by the fireplace.

Breakfast was spread on the ten-legged table there, also, but the platters seemed unused, the baskets of bread were still piled high and the goblets were neatly arranged in three rows of six in the centre of the table. As Mara watched, munched and drank her milk, she heard the door open. Someone came in, walking quietly and lightly up to the top of the room, stood for a moment surveying the breads, cheeses, cold salmon and slices of meat and then turned away and went towards the fire.