Writ in Stone (2 page)

But who was the man in the church, she wondered, as she walked across the heavily trampled snow of the curving path leading from the guest houses to the west door of the church. She had forgotten until now about Turlough’s boast at supper the night before that he would spend the first hour of daylight on his knees before the tomb of his great ancestor. He had probably forgotten it, also, she thought with a small, secret smile. The night he and she had just spent together had not afforded much time for thinking of kingly obligations. For a moment it crossed her mind that Turlough might have gone over to the church before coming to her bedroom last night and played some childish trick by stuffing a bolster and wrapping his own cloak around it, but that was impossible. When the monks rose in the middle of the night for the service of matins they would not have failed to discover the deception.

‘He is in here, Brehon,’ said the abbot, leading the way through the widely opened doors. ‘May God have mercy on his soul,’ he added in a slightly perfunctory way. There was no love lost between Turlough and his cousin the abbot, Father Donogh O’Brien.

There was an immense chill within the small church. Heaps of trodden soiled snow lay without melting on the tiled floor of the aisle, the breath of the living rose up in clouds of mist. The sky outside had clouded over with more storm clouds and only the small red light in the sanctuary guided them towards the chancel at the eastern end of the church. The light was enough to show them their way, but the body on the ground was just a shapeless heap. Even in the damp cold air the smell of blood was overpowering.

‘Bring torches,’ said Mara crisply. ‘Stand back everyone until I can see what has happened.’

Fergal and his fellow bodyguard Conall rushed out to fetch torches, but everyone else stood without moving. Mara had been Brehon of the Burren Kingdom for fifteen years and her lightest word was law to the people there. She waited calmly, her hands tucked into the fur lining of her mantle. There was no doubt that someone had been killed here – obviously not Turlough, but perhaps some passer-by had sought refuge from the storm.

But once the torches had arrived Mara gave a gasp – echoed by those around her. For a moment she felt as though she were in the midst of a nightmare – or perhaps that the events of the past night had been just a blissful dream. She bent down and touched the still-warm body. The man on the ground was the king – tall, broad-shouldered, wrapped in a furred mantle, its hood now sodden with blood, one hand flung out with the O’Brien ring sparkling in the torchlight, that ring which only those of the
derbhfine
, the true linear descendants of King Brian of the Battles, could wear.

A heavy sigh came from behind her. She wheeled around to see the emaciated figure of Conor, eldest son of Turlough. His face was whiter than the clumps of snow that lay around them and his large, blue eyes were blank. His thin hand sawed the air in a futile gesture.

‘Quick, hold him,’ snapped Mara and Fergal automatically stretched out an arm towards his lord’s son. Mara’s mind registered that there was blood on the bodyguard’s sleeve, but her immediate concern was for Conor. He had been ill of the wasting sickness for months and now he looked near death.

‘Stand back,’ said the abbot authoritatively. ‘Give some air to the king’s son.’

‘The king,’ said a low voice from the back of the crowd. It sounded like Teige O’Brien’s, thought Mara. Of course, Conor was the
tánaiste
, the heir to his father. If Turlough were dead, then Conor automatically became king. And probably, then Teige, the king’s cousin, would be appointed
tánaiste
in his place.

By now, Mara had regained her wits and she could see who lay dead on the church floor before her. Without hesitation, she knelt on the wet floor and swept back the hood from the man’s face.

‘Conor,’ she said urgently. ‘Listen to me, Conor. That is not your father. Look at him.’

And yet it was so like Turlough, the height, the shape, the same brown moustache, the same high-bridged O’Brien nose, the ring, the age, everything said it was the king.

But of course, it wasn’t. Mara had seen that in a glance and even Conor’s white face warmed into a slight flush. Those at the front of the crowd pressing into the chapel saw it also. She rose to her feet.

‘I fear, my lord abbot,’ she said, ‘that your brother, and the king’s cousin, Mahon O’Brien, has been foully murdered.’ She waited for a few respectful minutes while the abbot approached. He stood very silently for a moment, looking down at the dead face of his elder brother. He showed no sign of surprise; he did not touch the man, nor did he kneel as Mara had done. He signed himself with the sign of the cross and with a surprisingly steady voice gave a blessing to the dead body and then looked around in a peremptory fashion. A young monk hurriedly approached with the sacred oils and the abbot performed the final service for his brother, anointing the five senses, bending down to touch the eyes, ears, nostrils, mouth and then the hands and feet, and praying for the salvation of Mahon O’Brien’s soul. After a minute he straightened up and looked at her. All the piety of his position as abbot was now overlaid by the fieriness of his O’Brien inheritance.

‘Who has done this?’ he asked and his voice rang out against the rafters of the roof.

‘I shall begin my investigations immediately,’ said Mara, conscious of her naked feet in the thin shoes. ‘But first, could I ask you to get one of your young brothers to take the
mac-an-ri
, the king’s son, back to his house and perhaps your herbalist would tend to him. The king’s bodyguards and I will go to make sure that the king is in good health and that no assassin has approached him in the night.’

Turlough, she thought, was in remarkably good health when she saw him last, but a return to the royal lodge would give her an opportunity to get dressed and put on some warm hose and boots.

‘And the church?’ The abbot, she was glad to note, had responded meekly to the note of authority in her voice.

‘The church must be locked until I have time to look thoroughly around it,’ said Mara, decisively holding her hand out for the large key which the abbot wore around his waist. He gave it to her with less reluctance than she had expected. His brother’s death must have shaken him more than had appeared initially. She waited calmly while the crowd dispersed and then beckoned the bodyguards to go ahead of her. She had perfect confidence in her own ability to preserve an air of dignified solemnity, but Turlough, when faced with the anxious queries from his bodyguards, might not be able to resist sidelong glances at her while he declared that his night’s rest had been unbroken.

Once everyone had left the chapel, though, she was suddenly seized with a violent attack of shivering. Her feet were cold, but it was not that so much as the sudden realization that this blow was undoubtedly meant to kill Turlough. Everyone, whether noble or humble, lay or monastic, had been gathered in the refectory for supper the night before and everyone would have heard the king’s booming voice, declaring that he, and he alone, would keep the first hour of the vigil in front of the tomb of his great ancestor, Conor Sudaine. Mara’s knees felt weak and she sank down on the low seat beside her. The smell of blood was making her feel sick, but she tried to ignore it. She shut her eyes and tried to concentrate on the scene the night before.

They had all been there, all the principal members of the O’Brien clan. There was Turlough, of course, in the seat of honour, and she herself on his right-hand side. To his left was Conor, his ailing son, and beside him his wife, Ellice. On the other side of Mara was the abbot, and next to him his brother, the king’s cousin, Mahon O’Brien. Mahon O’Brien’s wife of the first degree sat opposite and also at the table, to the great amusement of Turlough, was a pretty young girl Mahon had introduced as his wife of the second degree. Of course, Brehon law allowed this. A wife of the second degree was a woman who brought no property and was completely under the control of her husband. Banna, who had brought her husband rich land in Galway, was not looking too pleased at the addition of Frann to her family circle. Then there was Teige O’Brien, and his placid plump little wife, Ciara, from Lemeanah Castle on the Burren. Teige was Turlough’s first cousin and a possible choice as the next
tánaiste
if anything happened to the delicate Conor. There were also the other three
taoiseach
s on the Burren: Ardal O’Lochlainn, Finn O’Connor, and his wife, Mona, sister to Ciara O’Brien, and Garrett MacNamara.

Oddly enough, it was Conor, the sickly Conor, who had provoked his father last night. Conor had been ill for a long time, but he had made a great effort to attend the pre-wedding ceremonies, probably, thought Mara, because he knew how heart-sore his father would be at the absence of his other son, the disgraced Murrough. Nevertheless, it may have been some jealousy of Murrough that caused him to make the unfortunate remark.

‘People live in the past too much,’ he had declared in his thin, breathless voice. ‘I don’t believe that any man gains a jot of nobility by reason of his ancestors.’ Here he was interrupted by a violent fit of coughing and his dark-haired wife assisted him from the refectory, her sharp-featured face impatient and sulky. Ellice and her father, a younger brother to the Duke of Ormond, had thought to make a good match when she was betrothed to the son of the king of Thomond, but it began to look as if Conor would not live to succeed to his father’s position.

Turlough had opened his mouth to make an angry retort, but shut it hastily as he saw the red stain spreading across the white linen handkerchief pressed to Conor’s mouth. Gloomily he poured himself some more wine.

‘A man’s ancestors are the most important thing to him,’ he said as the door shut behind his sick son. ‘Tell me a man’s breeding and I will tell you what that man is. My ancestors were great men.’ He looked beligerantly around the table and everyone’s eyes fell before his. ‘Conor Sudaine, whose anniversary we will honour tomorrow, was a man who fought until no drop of blood remained in his veins.’ He turned to the abbot. ‘We will have a Mass for him tomorrow?’

The abbot bowed his head respectfully. ‘At sundown, my lord.’

‘I’m not convinced that we do enough to honour him.’ The king was in a quarrelsome mood, thought Mara, anxiously eyeing the low level of the flagon of cheap Spanish wine which the abbot had placed before his most important guest.

‘Perhaps some extra prayers,’ she murmured. The weather was stormy and there would be many young brothers at a loose end tomorrow as farm work would be difficult. It wouldn’t do any of them any harm to have an hour of quiet prayer inside the church as a change from the back-breaking toil of digging leeks from the cold wet soil.

‘That’s it,’ said Turlough, crashing his fist on the table and making the platters jump. ‘Tomorrow will be a day of continuous prayer, from dawn to dusk, beside the tomb of Conor Sudaine.’ He looked around the refectory where every knife was suspended and every eye turned respectfully towards him before announcing dramatically: ‘I myself will take the first hour of the vigil, after you have celebrated the office of prime. I will be in the church by dawn.’

‘I will be happy to accompany you, my lord,’ said the abbot heroically.

‘No, no.’ Turlough was in a mood to disagree with everyone. ‘I will be alone. You, my lord abbot, may take the second hour. Fergal, Conall,’ he bellowed over his shoulder, ‘I’ll rouse you at dawn and we’ll go across to the church.’

‘Yes, my lord,’ they chorused respectfully. They would know the king well enough not to take it upon themselves to rouse him, thought Mara, guessing that by morning, Turlough would change his mind.

So what had made the bodyguards go to the church before Turlough, wondered Mara, rising to her feet and walking quietly down the middle aisle of the church. Carefully she locked all of the doors and then stepped outside. The sky was full of menace, with purple-black snow clouds piling up against the white-capped summit of Cappanabhaile Mountain to the west. The four
taoiseach
s of the Burren stood outside the door to their guest house waiting for her, waiting, like the chieftains from time immemorial, to serve their lord, the king.

‘Brehon,’ said Ardal O’Lochlainn, coming forward. ‘This is a terrible thing. What can we do to help?’

‘Could it be one of the O’Kelly clan?’ asked Teige O’Brien eagerly. ‘He could have crept in and struck the blow.’

‘How would an O’Kelly know that the king meant to be in the church at daybreak?’ objected Garrett MacNamara. His wife was from Galway and she had distant connections with the O’Kelly clan.

‘They have spies everywhere,’ said Teige with conviction. ‘Everyone heard the king last night. Everyone knew that he intended to be alone in the church this morning. Perhaps they have a spy among the brothers and he managed to get word out. By the mercy of God, it wasn’t the king, but only Mahon, who was killed.’ Mara had to conceal a smile. There was little love between the cousins, Teige and Mahon. It had been rumoured that Mahon was more favoured than Teige by some of the O’Brien clan, although Teige would be Turlough’s choice for
tánaiste
, if anything happened to Conor. Teige’s suggestion that an O’Kelly might have come forty miles through a blizzard just because the king might possibly be alone in the church was absurd. It didn’t surprise her, though; the outsider was always a popular suspect when it came to murder.

‘The bodyguards were on duty outside the west door. No one from the outside could have got in. In any case, no one came or went from this abbey last night or this morning,’ said Ardal O’Lochlainn with conviction. ‘You have only to look for yourself, Brehon. I’ve been to the gate and all around the walls. The snow is heaped up and there are no footprints. If an O’Kelly came here last night or in the early morning then he must have flown like a bird.’

‘I’ll take your word for it, Ardal,’ said Mara. She smiled at him. He was a handsome figure of a man as he towered above here; his red hair flamed against the whiteness of the snow and his blue eyes were the colour of the sea. A man of honour and principle, she could rely on his testimony; she knew that.