My Lady Judge Page 6

  ‘Just a word, Colman,’ she called coldly as her assistant prepared to follow the other young men. He turned courteously, his face as devoid of expression as always, and she moved towards him. Malachy was now deep in an argument with Nuala who was pleading to be allowed to climb the mountain. Malachy’s housekeeper stood beside them with a look of amusement on her face. Mara half-smiled also, then remembered herself and looked sternly at Colman.

  ‘I’m surprised that you did not think to consult me about your marriage plans, Colman,’ she said. With satisfaction she noted that her voice betrayed no note of hurt; he would have enjoyed that too much. He was shrewd enough to know all of her weaknesses, shrewd enough to know that, despite her mock ferocity, she relished being a mother to her boys at the law school and that she enjoyed the feeling of being in their confidence.

  ‘Oh, I apologize, Brehon,’ he said with his usual charm. ‘I thought it would be a nice surprise for you and I couldn’t resist the temptation to draw up my own contract, though, of course, I knew that you would do it so much better. I hope that it was acceptable to your high standards,’ he added with the false humility that he had used from early childhood in an effort to ingratiate himself.

  Mara stared at him in disgust. Did he really think that he could get around her in this fashion?

  ‘Do your parents know about this proposed marriage?’ she asked abruptly. Colman’s parents lived in the city of Galway, some miles away across the mountain pass.

  ‘No, Brehon,’ he said politely. ‘I wanted you to be the first to know.’

  She ignored this. ‘I think you should go and tell them immediately,’ she said decisively. ‘Go there first thing tomorrow morning. Take a horse from the stable if you wish. And Colman … do make sure that you look after the boys tonight, especially the younger ones. Make sure that they have a good evening, but don’t let them get into any danger on the mountain. I’ll hope to hear from them tomorrow that you have been kind and attentive to them.’ She turned her back on him without waiting for a response. The king was beckoning to her and suddenly a marvellous idea came to her. She crossed over to him.

  ‘Turlough,’ she said, ‘you know that you once said to me that you wished you understood the English better and that you wished you understood all the differences between their law and our law? Well, that young man there, Colman, is one of the cleverest scholars I have ever had. Why don’t you employ him? Send him on a journey to Dublin, or even to England. Get him to gather information for you. Get him to find out about this Tudor king, Henry VII, and he can tell you all about his laws and policies. Colman is wasted here, to be honest; I can easily manage the law school and the business of the kingdom without an assistant. I’ve never had one before.’

  Turlough Donn looked at her in amusement. ‘You don’t like him much, do you?’ he said. ‘Well, perhaps I might be able to make use of him.’ He wheeled around and beckoned to Colman. ‘Young man,’ he said, looking at him keenly. ‘I hear you are interested in English affairs. What can you tell me about the English king, the Tudor Henry VII?’

  ‘He’s dead, my lord,’ said Colman, bowing with great respect. ‘He died recently. His son, Henry VIII, is now king. Henry VIII’s eldest brother, Prince Arthur, died seven years ago, so now he is the one to inherit the throne. The English do not have our system of electing a tánaiste from the kin-group; the eldest son is always the heir.’

  ‘Good, good,’ said the king. His light green eyes gleamed with amusement. He shot a quick glance at Mara, who shrugged. Henry VII or Henry VIII; it was all one and the same to her. She had no interest in the English. Let them stay in Dublin or Waterford; she only hoped they would never come as far as the west of Ireland. They hated the Brehon law and tried to suppress it wherever their rule ran. A barbarous law, they described it as. And yet, Brehon law seemed to her to be much more humane than their own laws. In England, she had heard, a man could be hanged for stealing, leaving his wife a widow and his children orphans; under Brehon law he would be asked to pay a fine and if a man was too poor to pay it, then his clan would help.

  ‘Well, we must have a chat sometime,’ the king said genially to Colman. ‘Now for the fair and then this mountain.’

  FIVE

  CRITH GABLACH (RANKS IN SOCIETY)

  The honour price of a king is deemed to be forty-two séts, or twenty-one milch cows, or twenty-one ounces of silver. The king loses his honour price if he:

  Works as a commoner

  Goes unattended

  Flees his enemies

  THE SUN WAS SETTING over the Atlantic by the time the climb began. Long streaks of gold gilded the polished surfaces of the clints, and the grykes between them were filled with the sharply etched oval shadows of the glossy green hart’s tongue ferns. The limestone terraces on the western side of the Mullaghmore were flushed with a pink glow though the sky was still darkly blue.

  Mara and King Turlough Donn had made their way slowly – enjoying the rare opportunity to meet and talk – but the crowd, even the eager young, had waited politely for them on the far side of the lake at the foot of the mountain. It would be the king’s privilege to be the first to set foot on the mountain.

  Roderic was playing his horn. Mara had often heard him play, but she had never before heard such wonderful music from him. It seemed as if all his misery and his love for Emer went into the tune. Rory was singing the song very softly, but the crowd remained very still and the sound floated across the quiet water of the lake. Mara knew the song well; ‘Eibhlín a Rúin’ had been composed in a bardic school on the Burren in the time of her grandfather, but on this quiet evening the story of frustrated love and longing seemed to have a special poignancy. When the music stopped, there was a short silence and it almost seemed as if a stir of emotion went through the crowd. And then all faces turned to welcome the king.

  ‘That’s a marvellous musician, that horn player … what’s his name?’ asked Turlough, nodding and smiling to everyone as he and Mara made their way through the people.

  ‘He’s Roderic, the son of the old horn player, Cormac,’ replied Mara.

  ‘I wonder would Roderic like to come to Thomond? I could do with a musician who plays as well as that. I get tired of the harp myself; there is something wonderfully uplifting about horn music.’

  ‘Ask him,’ said Mara. ‘He has no position here. Ask him now. He needs cheering up. He loves Emer, that lovely dark-haired girl over there, the one whose father has betrothed her to Colman.’

  ‘Young man,’ boomed Turlough when he was only several yards away from Roderic. ‘Would you think about coming to the court at Thomond and bringing that horn of yours with you?’

  ‘Yes, my lord,’ said Roderic, the blood rushing to his cheeks and his eyes shining. He took a step towards Emer and then turned back to the king. ‘My lord, I would be very honoured,’ he said respectfully.

  ‘Well, that’s it then,’ said Turlough, smiling broadly. ‘Now for this mountain.’

  A great cheer went up as soon as he took a few steps up the slope and very soon he and Mara were passed by the strong and the energetic, everyone in that huge crowd going at a pace that suited him.

  Most people from the Burren were there, all except for the very old and the very young. Not Nuala, Mara noticed; Malachy was on his own, climbing fast. Father Conglach was behind him, obviously trying to catch up, but it looked as if Malachy were trying to avoid the priest. Behind Father Conglach came Diarmuid and Lorcan, their heads close together, talking eagerly — Mara smiled at the sight.

  ‘Lorcan will talk his way out of that fine that I imposed,’ she said to the king. ‘Diarmuid is his cousin, of course.’

  ‘Well, that means a lot,’ said the king heartily. ‘Where would we be without our families! By the way, how is Sorcha?’

  ‘She’s well.’ Mara always felt warmed when she thought of her pretty daughter. ‘She has two children, would you believe it! The eldest, Domhnall, is four now. He’s a clever little fellow. The little
girl, Aisling, is two. Sorcha’s husband, Oisín, is doing well, too. Galway is a great place for trade and he brings goods in from Spain and France. He brought me a fine barrel of wine from France on his last voyage. You’ll be sampling some of it with your dinner.’

  ‘I’m looking forward to that,’ said Turlough with the beaming smile that made Mara think what an attractive, open face he had. ‘How much further do you think we should go?’ he asked with a glance up at the seven terraces, piled one on top of the other. The smallest top terrace was slightly shrouded in mist, its rounded summit barely visible.

  ‘We’ll just go to the first terrace,’ said Mara reassuringly. ‘Most people will stop for a rest there, and a few will go back down.’ She shaded her eyes with her hand and scrutinized the mountain slopes. She wanted to make sure that Colman was looking after the boys. She could see Fachtnan’s dark hair and a cluster of boys with him, but Colman’s neat fair head was not with them. She counted heads – only five. Hugh’s flaming red head was missing, also.

  ‘Your young man is not with his bride-to-be,’ said Turlough, looking further up the mountain. ‘Isn’t that she, with the other pretty girl, the one with the blond plaits, who gave evidence in the case against the bard?’ He chuckled. ‘They’ve got the two young men with them, Rory, and what’s the name of the boy with the horn?’

  ‘That’s Roderic,’ said Mara, just as the triumphant toot of the horn came floating down the mountain. She looked around. Daniel was even further down the mountain than themselves. There was nothing he could do. She smiled. ‘Well, let them have their fun,’ she said indulgently. ‘I suppose Emer will have to marry Colman but it’s a shame, especially now that Roderic’s prospects have improved. I think she is very much in love with him.’ Once again she counted the heads around Fachtnan’s tall figure. ‘I wonder where Hugh is.’

  ‘That’s your young man, your assistant, over there, isn’t it?’ said Turlough pointing. Mara looked and let out a sigh of relief.

  ‘And that’s Hugh with him.’ She narrowed her eyes against the horizontal glare of the setting sun. ‘Perhaps Hugh is tired and couldn’t keep up with the others. Funny, though. Usually he is as energetic as a puppy. And Shane is with Fachtnan, how strange. They’re always together, Shane and Hugh.’

  ‘Stop fussing over them. You’re like a mother duck with her brood out from the nest for the first time,’ said Turlough affectionately. He struggled up the last few yards and announced breathlessly, ‘There we are: the first terrace. Let’s take a seat on this rock. I’m not as fit as you.’

  ‘You should get a dog, and climb a hill with him every day,’ said Mara, sitting beside him and stroking the brittle rust-coloured stain of the lichen. ‘That would keep you fit. I should have brought Bran, but I didn’t want him near Diarmuid’s dog. Bran isn’t a fighter, but Diarmuid’s dog would fight with his own shadow.’

  She stood and walked over to look at some creamy mountain avens that grew in a small crevice on the side of the mountain. She picked one of the small daisy-like flowers and brought it back and tucked it inside the king’s brooch, resuming her seat beside him.

  ‘That was good of you to give Roderic a position in court. You will like him. He’s a very nice fellow.’

  I wonder, would there be any chance of arranging a marriage between Emer and Roderic now, she thought. Perhaps I could get Turlough to talk to Daniel. After all, Colman is under twenty-one; he should not, perhaps, have entered into this contract without his parents’ permission – though, of course, he does have his independence from them and they will always do, and say, as he wants. Her mind trawled through the steps that she could take to annul the marriage contract until it was interrupted by a series of excited barks.

  ‘Look, Murrough has got some of his dogs with him. Murrough,’ she called as the small round man struggled over the edge of the first terrace. He had three enormous wolfhounds with him, the leather leashes gathered loosely into one hand. ‘Murrough, I was just saying a minute ago that I wished I had brought Bran; he would have enjoyed it, poor fellow.’

  ‘I’m coming up here again on Saturday,’ said Murrough, pausing and panting slightly. ‘There have been a few wolves sighted on the north side of the mountain. My neighbour Fiachra lost a few sheep so we will have to clear the mountain of wolves. I wouldn’t want to let dogs loose today with all the people around.’

  ‘No, indeed,’ said Mara, glancing up and down the mountain. A herd of black and white goats, accompanied by their kids, were thundering down, leaping from rock to rock, and there were shrieks of terror from many of the girls.

  ‘Tonight and tomorrow the wolves will be very wary after the bonfire,’ continued Murrough. ‘You’ll find that they’ll stay off the mountain tomorrow and go down some cave or other. Wolves are funny creatures. They are very nervous, very wary. That’s how they survive, I suppose. Saturday will be just right; it’ll give them another day to settle down again and to come back up. Will you come, and bring Bran? We’ll just go as far as the first terrace and then release the dogs.’

  ‘I’d love to do that,’ said Mara with pleasure, fondling the narrow hairy head of the nearest dog. Saturday was a holiday at the law school and she would enjoy a day’s hunting. ‘The lads might like to come as well, will that be all right?’

  ‘The more the merrier,’ said Murrough. ‘I’ve got plenty of dogs. They can have one each. Young lads like that, they can have a bit of a competition to see whose dog gets a wolf.’ He turned towards the king. ‘It’s a pity you won’t still be here, my lord.’

  Turlough Donn sighed. ‘Do you know, I would really enjoy that. A day’s hunting on the mountain, it’s a long time since I’ve had a good day out like that.’

  Mara hesitated. The note of appeal was unmistakable. She would enjoy his company; she always did. However, she was very busy; she could not neglect her scholars and Turlough would be a demanding guest.

  Turlough sighed again and then patted one of the dogs. Mara looked at him and then melted. He was lonely; she knew that. His wife, Ragnailt MacNamara, had died a few years ago and his four sons and one daughter were all married with their own families.

  ‘Why don’t you stay until Sunday morning?’ she asked. ‘The guest house at the law school is always kept ready. There’s plenty of room for your two bodyguards, as well. Brigid will be delighted. She will think it much more worthwhile to cook for you than just for me.’

  The king’s face brightened. ‘I’ll do that with the greatest of pleasure,’ he said. ‘That would be a wonderful break for me.’

  ‘I’ll have my best dog for you, my lord,’ said Murrough. ‘And now I’d better be getting on; these dogs will pull my arm from its socket if I don’t get moving.’

  ‘God bless you, Murrough, and have a good evening,’ called out the king as Murrough was towed up the next slope by the three muscular giant dogs.

  ‘You don’t feel like changing your mind and going to the summit for the bonfire?’ teased Mara.

  ‘I don’t,’ said Turlough. ‘When you spoke about Brigid’s cooking I suddenly felt a great void within me. Do you think we might disappear now?’

  Mara took one last look around. Yes, Fachtnan had Enda, Moylan, Aidan and Shane with him. Hugh was still with Colman. Why didn’t Hugh go and join the other lads? she wondered. Why was he acting so strangely? Mara wished that she did not have the king with her. She wanted to climb up and see what was troubling Hugh.

  ‘Yes, let’s go down now,’ said Mara. King or no king, she thought, as they began their descent, tomorrow I’ll find out what’s going on with Hugh and Colman.

  The Burren seemed very empty, deserted except for the figure of one man on horseback, and very quiet also, as they strolled companionably back across the limestone-paved fields, their feet automatically stepping across the grykes filled with the bright green rounded leaves of the maidenhair fern and speckled with tiny rock roses. Turlough, like any country farmer, wore nail-studded boots and his heavy tread brought o
ut the sharp bittersweet smell of the juniper bushes which grew prostrate over the flat rocks wherever some soil lodged in the crevices. Behind them, at a discreet distance, came the king’s two bodyguards, the soft murmur of their conversation blending with the high sweet voices of birds twittering overhead. They passed the ancient dolmen of Poulnabrone, now standing sentinel over empty flat fields, and then paused for a while to rest.

  The king sat down heavily on the nearest rock and the two young bodyguards stopped at a distance, eyeing the empty landscape keenly. There had been trouble recently between the O’Kellys from north of Galway and the O’Briens of Thomond. The bodyguards would not relax until they were sure that their king was safe from attack. After a few minutes, they also sat down on a flat-topped rock.

  ‘You enjoy being Brehon, don’t you?’

  ‘I do,’ said Mara, surprised at the question, seating herself beside him. ‘I suppose it is what I have wanted ever since I was three or four years old.’ She smiled at the memory of her young self. ‘I used to come to judgement days with my father and listen to everything – it gave me a great thrill, though I’m sure I could not have understood it all. When I went back home I would play a game that I was Brehon and make a little model of Poulnabrone with a few flat stones. I would collect lots of small sharp-pointed stones and wedge them into the grass and pretend that they were the people of the kingdom and then I would address them. I must say that they never interrupted me,’ she finished with a laugh.

  Turlough did not laugh, just looked at her gloomily. ‘It’s your life; that’s what I supposed,’ he said shortly and rose to his feet again, the bodyguards immediately rising also. Mara raised her eyebrows but decided not to enquire. If something were wrong he would tell her eventually.

  ‘You must be hungry,’ she said, setting a good brisk walking pace across the fields of Baur North. Her feet stepped instinctively over the rock roses and the gentians that littered the grass between the slabs of stone, but Turlough stumped along without looking where he was going. He was hungry, she thought. Men were invariably bad-tempered when hungry. It must be getting late.