The Sting of Justice Read online

  ‘Toin was talking to me about that mine the other day,’ went on Malachy. ‘He was saying that it was a miracle that there hasn’t been anyone killed up there – as far as we know, of course. Those Welsh miners keep their distance; they have their own village and they never mix with people on the Burren.’

  ‘Shouldn’t we visit Toin, now?’ asked Nuala. ‘He looked very ill when I saw him and he didn’t come into the church.’

  ‘I’m sorry that he tried to attend the service.’ Malachy’s voice was concerned. ‘Yes, we’ll go now if you have no further use for us, Brehon.’

  ‘Come to supper today, Nuala,’ said Mara. She would have liked to find out more about this Anluan, but it was probably none of her business. ‘Will it be all right if she goes to the Samhain festival with us, Malachy? The O’Lochlainns and Mairead are coming, and probably some other young people. Either Cumhal or Fachtnan will accompany her home.’

  ‘I’d love that,’ said Nuala, her eyes shining. ‘Oh, I do hope it keeps fine for a few more hours!’

  ‘Any invitation for me?’ asked Ulick hopefully.

  ‘It’s just some boys and girls,’ said Mara firmly. ‘I don’t think that you would enjoy it. Anyway, I presume that you will be off back to Galway now that your host is dead.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ said Ulick thoughtfully. ‘I think that I’ll enjoy seeing you at work, Brehon. I’ll tell you one thing, if I may: if that skep of bees was deliberately upset in order to cause the death of Sorley the silversmith then there will be quite a choice of names for your killer.’

  FOUR

  FIDBRETHA (TREE JUDGEMENTS)

  There are seven nobles of the forest:

  1. Dair (oak)

  2. Coll (hazel)

  3. Cuilenn (holly)

  4. Ibar (yew)

  5. Uinnius (ash)

  6. Octach (pine)

  7. Aball (apple)

  If anyone injures one of these trees on another man’s property he shall incur a penalty of five séts, or two-and-a-half ounces of silver, or three cows.

  ‘LORD BLESS US and save us, that was a terrible thing to happen,’ said Brigid with huge enjoyment as Mara rode into the courtyard of the ancient enclosure which housed Cahermacnaghten law school with its kitchen house, scholars’ house, schoolhouse and farm manager’s house.

  ‘So you’ve heard the news!’ No surprises there! Brigid always did hear all of the news. Despite all of her worries, Mara found herself smiling broadly.

  ‘Cumhal was over repairing the wall in the Moher field and he met Muiris O’Heynes on his way back from the burial mass at Rathborney,’ explained Brigid. ‘Muiris told him the whole story.’

  ‘What did Muiris say?’ enquired Mara, neatly jumping from the mounting block and handing the mare’s reins to Sean, one of her farm workers. ‘Give Brig a good rub down and let her cool off before you give her a drink, Sean, that hill is very steep and she’s very hot. Yes, Brigid, so Muiris told Cumhal all about Sorley, did he?’

  ‘Someone tipped over a hive and he was stung to death,’ whispered Brigid with evident relish as Mara marvelled at how rapidly news spread throughout the kingdom. Brigid waited for a moment, eyeing Sean to make sure that he was not dawdling in order to listen and then, when he had taken the mare into the stables, she leaned forward so that her face was quite near to Mara’s shoulder and whispered, ‘I’m not one to gossip, as you know, Brehon.’

  ‘No, of course not.’ Mara hoped her tone held the right mixture of curiosity and shocked denial.

  ‘Well, between us both and that gatepost there, Muiris told Cumhal that he knew who had done it.’

  ‘Done what?’ queried Mara.

  ‘The murder, of course, the murder of the silversmith.’ She paused dramatically while Aidan retrieved a hurling ball from in front of the kitchen house and waited until he had vaulted the wall back into the field before hissing: ‘Muiris says that it was young Rory the bard that murdered the man.’

  ‘It may have been an accident,’ said Mara blandly. ‘It appears as if a whole swarm of bees stung Sorley. He ran away from them and collapsed at the church door. Malachy thinks he might have had a seizure.’

  ‘Hmm.’ Brigid had a very expressive range of sniffs. This one seemed to express doubts about Malachy’s competence or, indeed, about his ability to come to a firm decision about anything.

  ‘Anyway, why on earth should Rory kill Sorley?’ Mara decided to move away from the subject of Malachy.

  ‘Well, I swore to say nothing to nobody about this so I’d only mention it to you, Brehon,’ Brigid lowered her voice even more, ‘but do you know that young bithlúnach,’ Brigid always reverted to the old Gaelic of her grandmother’s time when she wished to be emphatic. ‘Well, that young scoundrel has walked out on poor little Aoife, and is paying court to the daughter of Sorley. Perhaps he got up to his usual tricks with her – and he’s no saint that one – we all know that – and Sorley was going to throw him out so Rory made the first move. It stands to reason that the daughter will be easier to plámás than the father. Muiris told Cumhal that Aoife is in a terrible state.’

  ‘I wonder, Brigid, could I ask Aoife and her brothers to the Samhain supper tonight – as well as the O‘Lochlainns?’ The news about Aoife’s grief was no surprise; she and Rory had been almost inseparable for the last eighteen months. Mara was sorry for the girl and, in any case, the issuing of the invitation would give her an excuse to go across to Poulnabrucky and have a word with Muiris. ‘Oh, and I’ve asked young Daire the apprentice silversmith, and Nuala and a few other young people. Is that all right, Brigid? I should ask you, I know, before I throw out all these invitations,’ finished Mara, feeling a genuine penitence. What would I do without Brigid, she thought for the millionth time.

  ‘Lord bless you, Brehon, don’t you worry about that.’ Brigid was immediately diverted from the question of Sorley’s death. ‘There’s plenty for everyone. I expected a bit of a party tonight,’ she called over her shoulder as with rapid, decisive steps she crossed the courtyard towards the storeroom. In a moment, she was out with a basket of turnips on her arm.

  ‘Come on, lads,’ she shouted across the wall. ‘Put those hurleys away now. I want these turnips carved before a scrap of dinner is put on the table for anyone. I’ll get the candle ends.’

  Mara lingered for a while in the courtyard, watching the boys whittling the turnips into skulls with empty eye sockets and grinning teeth. When Sean emerged from the stables he was immediately dispatched to pick a basket of apples from the tree that grew sheltered from the west by a little hazel woodland. This tree was always the last to be picked and the apples were carefully guarded from marauding crows until the day for Samhain.

  ‘I’ll set up the tables in the schoolhouse, Brehon. That will be best. You don’t want all these youngsters in your house.’ Brigid was flying in and out calling directions to Nessa, who helped in the kitchen, to Sean and to the boys. All would be perfectly arranged; Mara knew that. For once, there was nothing urgent for her to do. It would be an hour at least before the scholars had finished their dinner. Quietly she clicked her tongue at Bran, her wolfhound, who was looking at her hopefully; she would take him for a walk and sort out matters in her mind.

  There were two routes to Poulnabrucky where Muiris and his family lived and Mara decided to take the lower road which descended steeply into a hidden valley. It was one of the few places on the Burren where trees grew and the small woodland of alder and oak trees was Bran’s favourite spot. The ground was thickly carpeted with crisp, golden-brown and yellow leaves, and the huge gnarled and looped grey tree roots, clinging to the stony ground beneath, formed homes for a large population of rabbits. While Bran chased happily after them, Mara paced the ground, crunching underfoot the empty, small, round calyxes of the acorns and thinking about the sudden death of Sorley that morning. The boy Marcan had seemed genuine in his denials and his mother, also, unless she was an amazingly fluent liar, had seemed to be speaking the tru
th. If these two were to be believed, then who had inserted that stick into the wall and tipped over the hive with its thousands of little furry inhabitants?

  When Mara emerged from the wood shaking the last few tinder-dry leaves from her hair she saw that she did not need to go across to Poulnabrucky as Muiris was there in front of her mending a stone wall. She stood and watched him for a moment, a square undersized man of immense strength and determination; a man to whom family was everything. She would have to handle this matter carefully, she thought as he called out a greeting to her.

  ‘I was going across to your house and now I’m saved the journey. I wondered if Aoife and her brothers would like to join some other young people for supper and a few games before going on to the bonfire?’ As she spoke she gazed admiringly at the wall, marvelling at the skill and strength that could make these huge stones into such an effective and beautifully constructed barrier without a trace of mortar used in the construction.

  ‘The lads will, I’m sure …’ There was a shadow on his face as he added, ‘Aoife is a bit upset and I’m not sure that she will want to come.’

  ‘Oh, what’s wrong?’ It seemed as if the speculation about Rory’s involvement with Una was correct.

  ‘Well, you know Aoife, always one to have the boys running after her,’ he said hesitatingly and Mara nodded. Aoife was the only daughter of Muiris, and Mara often marvelled how such a plain-looking couple as Muiris and his wife, Aine, could have produced a beauty like Aoife, with her blue eyes, flaxen hair and her apple-blossom complexion.

  ‘Well,’ went on Muiris angrily, ‘that young bard, Rory, started hanging around her over a year ago now, and since then she’s had eyes for nobody but him. He’s not what I would have wanted for her; her elder brother has married well and I would have liked a match like that for Aoife, but she wanted Rory and you know what girls are like,’ he finished helplessly.

  Mara concealed a smile. Muiris, renowned for his toughness, was as pliable as damp straw in his pretty daughter’s hands; Aoife would get her way.

  ‘So you are going to agree to a betrothal and a marriage contract,’ she said. Perhaps Rory was just pretending an interest in Una in order to force Muiris to agree to the betrothal.

  ‘It’s not like that at all,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘It’s that the young fellow has walked off on her. He’s moved into Newtown Castle.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Mara, innocently. ‘But that was a good move, wasn’t it? I suppose that Sorley the silversmith took him on as a bard, did he? That would have been better than all this hand-to-mouth business of singing at festivals and weddings, Muiris. You can’t blame him for trying to better himself; he may even have hoped to earn enough to get married on,’ she ended encouragingly, though she doubted her own words even as they echoed in her ears. She watched him narrowly trying to decide whether it was spite or fact behind his report of Rory’s guilt.

  ‘Aoife went over to see him,’ continued Muiris, clenching his fist, his face full of anger and pain. ‘I didn’t want her to go, but she would do it. Rory hadn’t been to see her for a few weeks and she went off to see what the matter was. She went to the castle and asked for him. He came down and, you wouldn’t believe this, Brehon, he was furious. She told her mother that. He shouted at her to go away. He told her that he was sick of her following him around and that she wasn’t to do it again. Him! Sick of her!’ Muiris moved his boot restlessly and kicked one sod of turf into the embers and then stopped himself, staring moodily at the toecap of his heavy leather boot. ‘That fellow has been hanging around the house caterwauling his miserable love songs week in and week out for over a year and now he tells her that he’s tired of her!’

  ‘I see,’ said Mara sympathetically.

  ‘She’s at home crying now. She does nothing but cry. I don’t know what to do about her. She won’t eat; she doesn’t sleep. I moved in with the lads to let her sleep with Aine, but she just cried all night. That’s what Aine said in the morning.’ Muiris sounded like a man at the end of his tether.

  ‘Very hard for a father to bear,’ said Mara gravely. She looked at him carefully. This was a self-made man, a man who had risen from nothing to become a prosperous bóaire; a man who adored his family and who could be moved to violence in defence of his beloved daughter. She felt some concern. She had no liking for Rory the bard, but she did not want Muiris to put himself in the wrong. ‘I’m glad that you told me this,’ she continued carefully.

  ‘I felt like going over to Rathborney and giving him something to think about,’ he said grimly and she had the impression that he was not listening to her words, ‘but Aine persuaded me not to do it. It’s just as well. I might kill him if I saw that smug face of his.’

  ‘You were very wise not to do that,’ said Mara. ‘This is the trouble with having children, Muiris: when they are little, and they hurt themselves, you can pick them up and kiss them better, but when they grow up, sometimes you have to let them grieve in their own way and just be there for them when they turn to you. Aoife will get over this, you know. I would advise you to keep away from Rory and to say nothing to him.’

  ‘I wondered could I do anything within the law?’ His voice was hopeful as he looked up at her questioningly.

  Mara shook her head. ‘Not unless there was some sort of legal contract and there isn’t. Muiris, I think she is just as well without him. It’s hard on her now, but no doubt some other young man will come around and there will be a match made for her.’ Busily her mind trawled through the number of eligible young men in the district. The trouble was that Muiris O‘Heynes was an outsider; most people on the Burren belonged to one of the four clans: O’Brien, O‘Lochlainn, MacNamara or O’Connor. Despite all Aoife’s beauty and the evident prosperity of the family, fathers would not encourage their sons to think of her.

  ‘Forget Rory,’ she said decisively. ‘That’s my advice to you, Muiris, don’t try to do any harm to him; you will only injure yourself if you do that.’

  ‘Well, I’d better be getting back home,’ said Muiris. ‘Thanks for the invitation, Brehon. I’ll try and persuade her to go.’ He looked downhearted, but Mara could think of no further comfort to give him. There were no relations, as far as she knew, to whom Aoife could be sent; the poor girl would just have to swallow the disappointment and endure the pitying looks for a while.

  And, she thought, as she turned to go back through the woodland, Muiris had said nothing about his accusation to Brigid about Rory being responsible for Sorley’s death. She was glad of that. It sounded most improbable. At the moment it appeared as though Rory had far more to gain from Sorley alive than from Sorley dead.

  ‘So, do you think that this Sheedy has anything to do with the killing of Sorley the silversmith, Brehon?’ asked Fachtnan. Mara looked around her schoolhouse. Ordinarily on the afternoon before the celebrations of Samhain, her six scholars would be in an excited, fidgety state, unable to concentrate on their studies, but now the excitement of this unexpected and unexplained death kept them alert and interested.

  ‘And what about Giolla the beekeeper?’ asked twelve-year-old Hugh.

  ‘No one would murder a man because of a few bees, birdbrain,’ said Aidan scornfully.

  ‘It’s possible, though unlikely,’ said Mara. ‘He is very attached to his bees – Aidan, don’t keep using that silly expression, birdbrain. You’re nearly fifteen now, so it’s time for you to express yourself in a more grown-up way. However, let’s go back to Fachtnan’s question. I need to look at the map that we made a few years ago of everyone’s holding on the Burren, but I think that Sheedy’s land does not really come too near Sorley’s silver mine. However it may be that some of the mountain is common land. Thank you, Enda, yes, spread the map out on my table. Stand around it, all of you.’

  ‘There’s Lios Mac Sioda, is that where he lives?’ Ten-year-old Shane picked it out with lightning speed.

  ‘That’s right,’ said Mara. ‘And below that, on the lane between the mountains, are t
wo small farms: Lios na gCat and Lios Mac Taidhg.’

  ‘Who owns these?’ asked Fachtnan with a puzzled frown. ‘I thought that just Sheedy lived up that lane.’

  ‘I think that Sorley the silversmith bought them when he bought Newtown Castle,’ said Mara.

  ‘Lios Mac Sioda is nowhere near the silver mine, though, is it?’ Moylan estimated distances with his finger and his thumb.

  ‘I suspect that the land where the mine is situated is probably common land. No one seems to own these upper terraces. You remember when we did this map, don’t you, Fachtnan?’

  ‘I think I was about twelve then, Brehon – I don’t remember too much about it. It was more Cormac and some of the others who were doing the drawing. We did a bit of measuring, but that was all.’

  ‘We’d only have been about eight or nine, then,’ said Moylan looking at his friend Aidan.

  ‘I remember doing it,’ said Enda thoughtfully. ‘And I do remember that the farms around the mountain did have common grazing rights. I remember telling my father that and explaining to him why mountain grazing rights were so important for farmers on the Burren and how the grass keeps growing on the limestone through the winter and the cattle have dry feet as there is no mud. And, of course,’ his voice rose with excitement, ‘that is why Sorley bought these two farms as well as the land belonging to Newtown Castle: they gave him rights over the common land on the upper slopes of Cappanabhaile. Is the mine on the common land, Brehon?’

  ‘I think,’ said Mara, rolling up the map and placing it in her leather satchel, ‘that we should go up there now and see for ourselves. It’s a lovely day and we can ride as far as Rathborney. I’m sure that Toin the hospitaller would not mind if we left the horses in one of his fields. We’ll take Bran, he’ll enjoy the climb,’ she smiled affectionately at the giant white wolfhound who lay stretched across the doorway.