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  ‘The abbot wishes to see you, also, my lord,’ murmured Ardal as they stepped inside the heavy oaken door. ‘And he asked me to tell the Brehon that Father Peter is keeping the travellers and the workers in the lay dormitory until she can interview them. If you wish, Brehon, I will accompany you when you have finished talking to my cousin.’

  Mara gave him a quick nod and smile as she followed the king up the stairs. She had forgotten that Banna was Ardal’s cousin. There wasn’t much resemblance between the enormously fat Banna and the slim, handsome Ardal. Not much of a resemblance in temperament, either, she thought with a small, quickly repressed grin, as the king knocked on the door. Immediately loud sobs rose from within and as the maid opened the door, Mara could see Banna sitting on the window seat with a large linen handkerchief covering her face.

  There was a slight movement from above and Mara turned to see a young face peering down from the upper storey.

  ‘I’ll join you in a moment,’ she whispered to Turlough and rapidly made her way up the second staircase.

  ‘Frann,’ she said warmly, taking the young hand within hers. ‘I am very sorry. This has been a terrible shock.’

  ‘Oh!’ The young woman was obviously surprised at these words from the Brehon. Probably no one had thought of coming to condole with her. All attention would have been focused on Banna, the chief wife.

  Frann, the newly acquired wife of second degree, was no more than sixteen years old, Mara guessed, looking shrewdly at the smooth face and plump young hands. She was almost young enough to have been the dead man’s granddaughter. What had been the attraction, she had wondered last night, peering through the dim candlelight at the slim young figure, to make a man antagonize his wife of over thirty years and scandalize his brother, the abbot. But today, in the fierce white snow-light that streamed through the window of the upper landing, she understood.

  Frann’s smooth young face had creamy-white skin, the colour of a widely opened rock rose, and her eyes rivalled the blue-green iridescent sheen of a dragonfly in spring. She was slim, but there was nothing childlike in the voluptuously curved line of breast and hip. Her mouth had a curiously lifted and curled upper lip, almost as if it had been moulded from scarlet sealing wax. As Mara looked at her, she saw the girl’s pink tongue dart out and moisten the already shining lips; this was obviously an automatic gesture. Frann was well aware of her attractions. She made no other reply to Mara’s condolences and showed no pretence of sorrow.

  ‘Come inside out of the cold,’ said Mara, taking the girl’s arm in a motherly way. ‘Come in by the fire. Is this your room, here?’

  It was a narrow, bare room, with just a bed and a small, plain chest at the foot of it: more of a room for a servant than for the wife of the king’s cousin. There was no heat there; it was bitterly cold and the small brazier by the shuttered window only held cold grey ashes. Beside the brazier stood a basket empty of charcoal. Obviously no one had attended to the room this morning. Banna’s servants would have known that, now their master was dead, there was little point in serving this new, unimportant wife of the second degree.

  ‘Come downstairs to the parlour,’ said Mara swiftly. ‘You can’t sit here in this freezing room.’

  Frann shrugged her pretty, rounded shoulders. ‘I don’t mind,’ she said amiably, but she followed Mara down the stairs and when they came into the parlour she crouched near to the fire that roared up the chimney and held out her pretty hands to the heat. ‘I’m used to the cold,’ she boasted. ‘I was brought up on the mountains north of Galway. We get real cold there with snow for many months of the year.’

  ‘So what brought you to this part of the world?’ asked Mara, heaping some more wood on to the fire. The room was luxuriously furnished with well-padded, carved chairs and cushioned benches and stools. The walls were hung with handsome worked carpets and sheepskin rugs were scattered on the polished flagstones of the floor. This room had been swept and polished this morning, the dead ashes removed and the fire attended to. Mara sat down on the chair by the fire and looked across at the girl.

  ‘My father was a shepherd,’ said Frann. Her voice took on a slightly sing-song rhythm as if she were telling an old tale to the sound of a softly played lute. ‘We lived in a small cottage by a mountain stream halfway up the mountain. Myself and my brother, we used to climb to the summit every morning to see that the sheep were safe and we used to be able to look across the sea to the magical island of Hy-Brasil. We would stay up there all the days of daylight, looking after the sheep and leading them to places where they could feed from the herbs until evening came . . .’ Her strange eyes seemed to be green now, but still held those flecks of blue which gave them that iridescent sheen.

  ‘And in the evening,’ prompted Mara as the girl paused and looked at her.

  ‘In the evening,’ said the girl softly, ‘we used to come down to our little cottage. We could smell the turf smoke and even when the mountain was covered in mist we could find our way home by following that smell. My mother would have our supper cooking on the pot hanging over the fire and then afterwards we would sit around and my father would tell us stories.’

  ‘So that’s where you get the gift,’ Mara smiled. She had thought so. It was a pretty story and she could see how Frann would have beguiled a middle-aged man like Mahon. He always had seemed a sad sort of man to her, childless and married to a stupid, demanding woman. This girl would have been very tempting to him. ‘So why did you leave the mountain?’ she asked.

  ‘My father was killed one day in spring,’ said the girl and now her rich singing tones took on a deeper, sadder tone. ‘He was trying to rescue a sheep and he fell down a crevasse. My mother could not stay there on her own with two children so she took us back to Athenry, the place where her own family came from.’

  ‘And how did you meet Mahon O’Brien?’ asked Mara. ‘And how did the marriage come about?’ The eyes that met hers were clear and intelligent. There was no sense of wasting too much time over stories of childhood.

  For a moment Frann looked startled, and the green-blue eyes darted a flashing glance at Mara’s face, but then she smiled, a lovely smile, thought Mara, the strong white teeth contrasting so beautifully with the red mouth.

  ‘My mother’s father, my grandfather, worked for him,’ she explained. ‘He was working in the limekiln. He found some work for my brother and me.’ For a moment, the girl glanced down at her white well-cared hands and a slight shudder shook her plump young shoulders as if she were picturing those hands raw red, scarified by the lime. ‘Mahon came one day and no one was there but me. I told him the story of my childhood and he was very kind to me.’

  As I thought, reflected Mara. This is a well-rehearsed story and she is a pretty girl, but I must not delay too long here. This girl had much to lose and little to gain by Mahon’s death. There was little chance that she had anything of significance to say.

  ‘So when did you last see Mahon?’ she asked rapidly. From above, she could hear Banna’s voice rise to a great wail. Turlough would need rescuing soon. He had disliked his cousin and had no love for his cousin’s wife, but his sense of duty and his innate kindness would make him offer clumsy attempts at consolation. As far as Mara could hear, he was making matters worse rather than better.

  Frann cast down her eyelids. ‘I saw him at dinner last night, Brehon,’ she said demurely.

  Mara allowed a moment’s silence to elapse. Mahon, from what she had noticed last night, had hardly been able to take his eyes off Frann. Frann’s eyes shot open, surveyed Mara’s face cautiously and then, unexpectedly, she giggled.

  ‘Well, he did come to my bed last night,’ she admitted and once again she passed her tongue over her shining red lips. Mara’s heart warmed to her. At least the girl was honest. She settled herself more comfortably into the cushions of her fireside seat; Banna could wait. From upstairs she could hear the sound of the maid’s voice. Turlough should make his excuses and leave rapidly, but in the meantime she wou
ld get to know this wife of the second degree.

  ‘So, what did Mahon talk about?’ she asked bluntly and smiled when Frann shot her an amused glance. ‘I mean did he say anything about going to the church in the morning?’

  Frann nodded. ‘Yes,’ she said in carefree tones. ‘He said that he had to save his energy . . .’ She shot Mara a sidelong gaze and then giggled again. ‘He said he had to save some of his energy because he had to get up at dawn to take the king’s place at church. He said that the abbot had asked him to do it and he couldn’t say no as he had already refused another favour to the abbot and he didn’t want to be on too bad terms with him.’

  ‘So did the abbot come and see him, here in the guest house?’

  ‘No, a lay brother came over when Mahon was just climbing the stairs. I was waiting at the top. I heard Banna start to snore and I guessed that Mahon would come. I had just come out of the bedroom when I saw the young brother give him a piece of vellum.’

  ‘Did you see what was written on it?’

  Frann shook her head. ‘I can’t read,’ she said in a matter-of-fact way, ‘but that’s what Mahon told me.’

  ‘I see,’ said Mara. ‘And what time did Mahon leave?’

  ‘I don’t know. He stayed a couple of hours, I suppose. He went back to Banna afterwards. He said that he wanted a good rest. He got nothing but rest in her bed!’ Once again Frann giggled and Mara bit her lip to stop a smile appearing. The young are callous, she thought. Last night this girl lay in Mahon’s arms and a few hours later she heard of his brutal murder. Didn’t she care? Probably not: he would have seemed a very old man to her. But what about her future? It was strange that she seemed to care nothing about that. After all, Mahon had rescued her from a life of hard work and poverty where quite soon her beauty would have been ruined.

  ‘What will you do now, Frann?’ she asked. ‘Will you go back to your mother? How old are you? Fifteen? Sixteen?’

  ‘I will be sixteen in May,’ said Frann. ‘In May,’ she repeated softly. She smiled to herself, a secret happy smile. A slight tinge of rose spread across the shining matt pallor of her rounded cheeks.

  ‘So you will go back to your mother, won’t you?’ persisted Mara. ‘You do know that you have no rights over any property that Mahon owned. This will all go to his wife of the first degree.’

  Frann smiled again. She said something, but her words were almost drowned by the scream that came from upstairs. There was a sound of glass breaking and Turlough’s voice shouting: ‘Mara!’ Then heavily booted feet came thudding down the stairs and Ardal’s voice calling: ‘Brehon!’

  Regretfully Mara rose to her feet and went to the door. ‘Yes, Ardal,’ she said crisply.

  She had never seen him look so distraught. Normally he was quietly competent no matter what situation arose. His crisp curls of red hair were standing on end as if he had run his fingers through them, his very blue eyes were wide with panic and he was gesticulating frantically.

  ‘Brehon,’ he exclaimed. ‘My cousin seems to have gone mad with grief.’

  ‘Mara, come up,’ shouted Turlough, appearing above her through the open door. He had a hunted look. His two bodyguards looked as though they wanted to put their fingers in their ears. From behind him came the noise of hysterical sobbing punctuated by a few shrill screams. Mara sighed.

  ‘My lord,’ she said raising her voice to be heard over the pandemonium from above. ‘I think you should go to see the abbot now. Ardal, will you accompany him? When you return, you and I will go to the lay dormitory to interview the men there.’

  Seldom had she been so promptly obeyed by Turlough. He made a quick gesture to Fergal and Conall, clattered down the stairs and wrenched open the front door. For a moment Ardal hesitated, sending a glance up the stairs, but Turlough took him firmly by the arm and pulled him out. The door closed with a resounding thud.

  Mara delayed for a few minutes at the foot of the stairs until the four men had left the guest house. She smiled to herself. The wails and screams from above seemed to die down without the audience, she thought as she climbed the stairs slowly. By the time that she had reached the top, only a few hysterical gulps were heard. She pushed open the door and stood there glancing around. Banna had thrown herself on to the bed, her mountainous flesh still heaving with sobs, but the sound was now quite muted. The woman had completely exhausted herself with emotion, thought Mara. A stool had been flung against the window, but luckily only one small, diamond-shaped pane had smashed. Banna’s maid was cowering against the wall, sobbing also.

  Mara picked up a sheepskin rug from the floor and stuffed it into the gaping hole and then she closed the shutters. The room was now quite dim with just the light from one candle on a side table to illuminate it. Beside the candle was a small flask. She opened it and smelled it. Wine, she thought and poured some into a cup with a steady hand and carried it over to the bed.

  ‘Drink this,’ she said firmly, holding it to Banna’s lips and the woman meekly swallowed it.

  ‘Cover up your mistress,’ said Mara turning to the maid and speaking with crisp authority. ‘Make sure that she is very warm. Close the curtains and sit with her until she sleeps.’

  The overawed maid dried her eyes and then bustled around taking extra covers from the carved chest at the foot of the bed and gently untying the curtains and closing them around the bed. Mara blew out the candle and put some more charcoal into the brazier. She then went around the room, quietly putting everything to rights. After a while she peeped in through the curtains. The hysterical woman was now lying quietly, with just the odd sob disturbing her bulk. The maid sat on a stool beside her, stroking the large damp forehead. There would be no point in talking to Banna just now. She would have to make time to do this later on in the day.

  Soon the room was quite dark and warm. From behind the curtain came the first snore. Mara heard light footsteps pass the door and go up to the room above. So Frann was going back to her cold room, to sleep, to think about the future, to plan? That reminded her and she went to the curtains and beckoned.

  ‘Go over to the kitchen and ask if someone can see to the fire in Frann’s room,’ she whispered to the maid.

  Banna was now snoring continuously so, once the maid had left the room, Mara took the opportunity to look around. There was a large press for clothes, as well as a chest in this room and she decided to have a quick peep. A padded jerkin hung there – Mara recognized it; Mahon had worn it last night at supper. There was also a voluminous purple gown. Mara opened the press door a little wider; the gown was a very dark purple in shade, but she had the impression that the hem was even darker than the rest of the garment. She bent down and touched it. Yes, it was wet. Of course it was possible that it had trailed on the wet ground last night, but it had not been snowing, not even raining, when the guests had emerged from the refectory after supper and the path from the cloister to the guest house was paved. In any case, if it had got wet, then why not hang it near to the fire so that it dried overnight? Mara shut the door of the press quietly; there were footsteps on the stairs. By the time the maid entered the room she was seated quietly by the fire warming her hands and gazing thoughtfully into the blaze.

  ‘They’re bringing over some wood for the brazier now and some other comforts,’ the servant whispered. She looked slightly embarrassed and ashamed. No doubt, it was by Banna’s orders that no attention was paid to Frann so Mara gave her a reassuring smile and with a last peep through the curtains at the sleeping figure on the bed she got up and went quietly down the stairs. She looked into the parlour, but there was no sign of Ardal, but when she went to the window she saw him waiting outside. No doubt, he had not risked a second encounter with his hysterical cousin.

  ‘She’s fine, now, Ardal,’ she said reassuringly. ‘She’s asleep and she’ll feel better when she wakes up. Were they very close, she and Mahon?’

  He stopped for a while to consider this and then shook his head. ‘I don’t think that I know the answ
er to that question, Brehon.’

  He was a very enigmatic man, she thought with a certain amusement. She had known him for a long time; he had become taoiseach of the O’Lochlainn clan soon after she was made Brehon of the Burren, and yet she felt that there was a secret core to him that she did not know. She turned him over in her mind as they walked along the snowy path. It was only when they reached the lay dormitory that Mara remembered the last words that Frann had said.

  The noise, of course, had been tremendous. Banna had screamed, thrown a stool at the window, and then exploded into fully blown hysterics. The maid had pleaded in a high-pitched voice. Turlough had yelled. Even Ardal had shouted. The situation had to be dealt with instantly; there had been no opportunity to ask Frann to repeat what she had said.

  But now, underneath the memory of all that noise, the girl’s quietly spoken sentence asserted itself in Mara’s mind.

  I said: ‘So you will go back to your mother, won’t you?’ thought Mara and Frann had replied:

  ‘No need for that now; my son and I will have a castle by the sea of our own.’

  Four

  Bretha Nemed Déidenach

  (The Final Laws Concerning Nobility)

  The king’s servants and attendants may carry out acts of violence during the course of their duties without liability.

  Sayings of Fithail

  ‘What are the exempt fists which are permitted in the attendances of kings?

  Bodyguard, charioteer, champion, dispenser, cupbearer.’