Scales of Retribution Page 6

  ‘He probably faked the result. Ronan isn’t that good. Malachy would do anything to please Caireen,’ remarked Nuala, still in a dry, toneless voice.

  Mara saw Sorcha look slightly shocked. The way Nuala referred to her father as ‘Malachy’, the detached way that she spoke of him, the depth of bitterness in her voice would create a bad impression on anyone, even someone as good-natured and unsuspicious as Sorcha. Mara hoped that Nuala would not talk about her father in front of too many people. Had she spoken of him like that in front of Boetius? There was an uncomfortable silence for a moment, and then Sorcha exclaimed, ‘There’s a horse coming down the road. Look, it’s stopping at your house, Mother.’

  ‘Visitor!’ shouted Domhnall.

  ‘Cumhal will say that we are over here, Domhnall. Look, he’s coming out of the school. Don’t shout any more. You’ll wake the babies,’ said Sorcha, watching Brigid’s husband, Cumhal, the farm manager, leave his task of making room for the sweet-scented hay in the huge barn and come out to meet the woman on horseback.

  ‘It’s Teige O’Brien’s wife, Cairo, from Lemeanah Castle, you know.’ Mara gave the explanation to Sorcha while endeavouring to look hospitable. Teige was chief of the O’Brien clan in the Burren, a cousin and friend of her husband, King Turlough.

  ‘Let me hold little Cormac while you talk to her. Manus is fast asleep.’ Sorcha laid her sleeping son on a folded sheepskin on the ground beside her, and took the baby from her mother’s arms. Mara gave him up reluctantly. He was so tiny and so fragile that she hated letting him go.

  ‘Don’t worry, he’ll soon be as strong and healthy as these three,’ said Sorcha, sensitive to her mother’s moods.

  ‘Brigid says that Cormac is our uncle.’ Aislinn cast a dubious look at Cormac. ‘He’s too tiny to be an uncle.’

  ‘Let’s play a joke on the visitor.’ Domhnall was going through the painful stage where he insisted on telling jokes to everyone. He ran off instantly and waited by the field gate.

  ‘Would you like to meet my uncle, bhean usail (noble lady)?’ his voice floated back as he greeted Ciara and escorted her over the clints towards where his mother and grandmother sat. ‘He’s got a big black beard and he is as tall as the gable of a house . . . and there he is sleeping on my mother’s lap!’

  ‘God please him; isn’t he beautiful,’ said Ciara fervently, but Mara was not deceived. Ciara had been shocked by the baby.

  ‘He arrived a month early, gave us all a surprise,’ she said trying to sound like her usual competent, cheerful self.

  ‘He’s looking wonderful, all the same, God bless him,’ murmured Ciara. She appeared to be struggling to think of something else to say, but then gave up and started to admire Sorcha’s three children and to exclaim over their size and beauty, and resemblance to their father Oisín.

  ‘Any news from Teige?’ asked Mara.

  ‘Only that they were camped near to each other at O’Briensbridge, just outside Limerick – so near that they could hear each other drinking,’ said Ciara promptly. ‘Each side are waiting for the other to move first. I came to see if you knew anything else.’

  ‘No, we haven’t heard,’ said Mara catching a worried look from Sorcha. So this was the news that they had been keeping from her. Turlough and his forces were drawn up in battle formation. Perhaps the battle had already taken place. That wretched bridge! Turlough and his brothers had built it some years ago and it had been his pride and joy ever since. The Earl of Kildare would have known that any threat to O’Briensbridge would bring the warlike king of Thomond, Corcomroe and Burren marching into battle.

  ‘Very likely nothing will come of it,’ said Ciara hastily, and fell to admiring Cormac again. Aislinn and Domhnall wandered off on one of their daily optimistic excursions to find the chuckling cuckoo that woke them every morning with its echoing call, and was still shouting after their bedtime. Looking bored and unhappy, Nuala moved a little aside, squatting down and examining some plants in the small raggedly rounded holes where rainwater had dissolved the limestone. The three women left behind turned their attention to the the tiny premature baby.

  As if Cormac felt their eyes on him, he woke and cried.

  ‘He’s hungry again,’ laughed Sorcha, bending over her little half-brother. Instinctively his mouth turned towards the source of milk, and Mara winced as Ciara glanced at her and then at the baby in her daughter’s arms.

  ‘Sorcha is feeding him for me. I have no milk,’ she said in tones that she strove to make matter-of-fact and commonsensical.

  Ciara nodded in a perfunctory way.

  ‘Are you looking for a wet nurse?’ she asked, and Mara responded gratefully to the lack of fuss or false optimism.

  ‘Yes, do you know of anyone?’

  ‘I do indeed. The wife of Teige’s chief shepherd, a very good fellow, Teige says he never had a man as good with the sheep and all their ailments, a very nice family; well, his wife lost a baby last week. He died from a fever, poor little fellow. It would be an act of kindness to give work to poor Eileen. She’s all alone at the moment as the husband will be very busy up the mountain with the sheep shearing.’

  ‘How old is she?’ Mara was cautious. A girl who had lost her own son might not be careful enough of this very, very precious little fellow. She would have preferred someone who, like Sorcha, was nursing her own child and had enough milk for two.

  ‘Oh, she’s not a young girl. She has been married for over twenty years. It’s very sad because it looked as though she were barren. This was the first child. You needn’t think that she is a heedless young thing. That child was always beautifully cared for and looked as strong as a young horse. It was just one of those things! Children die easily. Poor little fellow, he died of a fever. You’ll like Eileen. She’s a very nice woman, very good with her hands, and we always have her at the tower house whenever we need extra staff for a party or a festival. She’ll do some lovely stitching for you; I think that you would like her. I’ve never seen such a good seamstress, though she’s left-handed and they are not usually so good, are they? She gets quite a bit of silver for her work at Noughaval market. Would you like me to ask her to come to see you?’

  ‘Yes, do.’ Mara had a quick, inward struggle, but it was no good trying to evade facts; she was not able to feed her son and Sorcha would be returning to Galway in a week or two. She had to have a wet nurse, and this Eileen, at least, was no giddy girl, but a woman of about Mara’s age, or more. She watched resignedly as Sorcha fed the baby; no matter who it was, she was going to be jealous. She just had to put up with it, and get on with solving the murder and sorting out the problems that Boetius had left her with after failing two of her scholars in their important summer examinations.

  ‘Here’s Oisín!’ exclaimed Sorcha, and a minute later, to the accompaniment of joyful squeals from the children, Oisín came into view; Aislinn riding high on his shoulders and Domhnall clinging to one hand.

  Baby Manus woke and howled, his large brown eyes surveying the company indignantly. With one arm Sorcha reached out for her own child, slipped him under the linen shawl that she wore around her shoulders and allowed him to feed from her other breast.

  ‘Now we’ll have peace all around,’ she said.

  ‘Aren’t they the image of their father,’ said Ciara looking at the three dark-haired, dark-eyed children.

  ‘The living image,’ said Sorcha.

  ‘All descended from Dubh (black) Daibhrean himself,’ said Mara. ‘My father used to tell me about him. I remember him telling Ardal O’Lochlainn and myself the story of the different races that came to Ireland. Ardal with his red hair and his white skin was a descendent of the Celtic race, and me with my dark hair and dark eyes was a descendent of the Firbolg race.’

  ‘It’s true,’ said Ciara. ‘Sorcha is the only one of the O’Davoren clan without the dark hair and eyes. Look at Nuala, the image of Malachy, of course.’

  ‘Sorcha takes after her father Dualta,’ said Mara briefly. ‘Oisín
is a true O’Davoren.’ She hoped that this talk about the O’Davoren clan would not lead to talk about Malachy’s murder. He, of course, like his daughter, had been O’Davoren in looks, but he had missed out on the brains that the O’Davoren family seemed to possess. Malachy had been a poor physician. Somehow he had lacked the ability or the application to do justice to the people of the Burren who had sought his help and advice.

  Mara surveyed her handsome son-in-law, admiring the adroit way that he managed to greet Ciara and herself, kiss his wife, stroke the rosy cheek of his youngest child, accept a bunch of tiny pimpernel flowers from Aislinn, admire Domhnall’s prowess at jumping across grykes, at the same time as stretching out on the warm surface of the clint and exposing his tanned bare legs and arms to the heat of the sun.

  Oisín was Mara’s second cousin. He had come from an obscure branch of the O’Davorens – there were neither physicians nor Brehons in his immediate family. His father, his grandfather and his uncles had all been coopers and had been content to live out their lives in the useful trade of barrel making. Oisín, though, had been ambitious. In his teens, he had visited Galway to sell some barrels there and had decided that the life of a merchant was the one for him. Though still a young man of just thirty, he had done so well that he now had a fine stone house as well as a shop in the city of Galway.

  Sensitive as always, Sorcha waited until Nuala had got up in a bored way and sauntered back towards the house before questioning him.

  ‘Well, what was Malachy’s woodland like?’

  Instantly he sat up, full of energy. ‘I couldn’t have believed it,’ he said enthusiastically. ‘That place is a goldmine. The trees are magnificent. It’s only twenty acres, but it must be worth more than a farm of two hundred acres.’ He beamed at his wife. ‘I must get my brother over here to pick out some of the best trees for felling. I’ll save a fortune if I have my own oak for storage barrels. I could never, in my wildest dreams, have guessed that I could have inherited so much from Malachy.’

  Was that true? wondered Mara. Had he not estimated the value of that woodland before now? Oisín was shrewd and knowing. And surely oak trees do not change much in five or six years. In fact, as far as she could remember that piece of woodland in Kilcorney looked much the same in her own childhood as it was now. Oisín had spent weeks staying with Malachy when he was courting Sorcha and had never failed to visit him whenever he was in the Burren. He must have seen that woodland hundreds of times. It was a favourite walk for courting couples. There was, perhaps, something slightly artificial in the way he laid so much emphasis on not realizing its value.

  ‘I think this little fellow has had enough,’ said Sorcha. She peered down at the tiny baby and then smiled at her mother. ‘He’s fast asleep; do you want to take him?’

  ‘Could I hold him?’ asked Aislinn wistfully.

  ‘When we are indoors,’ promised Mara. ‘I just want to have a turn holding him myself now. I didn’t see too much of him while I was ill.’ She saw Ciara give her a long look and busied herself with her baby, averting her gaze. Did she sound as jealous as she felt? she wondered.

  ‘You’ll be making wine barrels with it, will you?’ Ciara turned her attention to Oisín.

  ‘I’ve got a brilliant idea,’ he said, his white teeth flashing in a brilliant smile. ‘You’ll be interested in this, Mother!’

  Mara turned her face towards him, wishing that she had stopped this ‘Mother’ business when he first asked Sorcha to marry him. There was less than seven years in the difference between herself and her son-in-law, so it was all rather absurd. However, she guarded her tongue very carefully. Sorcha’s affection was hugely important to her and she would do nothing to imperil relationships.

  ‘Yes?’ she queried.

  ‘Well, you know you have always said that you mostly use the last quarter or so of the cask just for cooking or mulling – and you wouldn’t be the only one. True wine lovers all do the same thing. And of course, no matter how careful you are with the tap, sooner or later air gets in and then the wine starts to spoil.’

  ‘That’s true,’ said Ciara. ‘Teige always complains that we are feeding him the dregs of the barrels and that we should reserve these for the hot wine at night for the men-at-arms.’ Her face clouded suddenly and Mara knew that her thoughts had gone to her easy-going, affectionate husband, now in the company of his men-at-arms, fighting for his lord, face to face with the Earl of Kildare and his English troops. Would it end in tragedy?

  ‘Well, tell us your idea,’ said Mara hastily. She could not bear to allow her thoughts to dwell on Turlough out there, leading his kingdom’s forces, and perhaps never having the opportunity of seeing his new born son.

  ‘I suddenly thought of this idea a few weeks ago.’ Oisín, as always, was fluent and confident. ‘I thought: why not make half-size barrels, or even quarter-size barrels? I could make this my speciality. O’Davoren wines for wine lovers! I could, very likely, sell some to the people in all parts of the country, not just here in the west of Ireland. Perhaps even the Earl of Kildare himself.’

  ‘It’s a good idea,’ admitted Mara. ‘Will your brother be willing to leave Thomond, though, in order to work for you?’

  ‘Oh, I just want some advice from him and then I’ll set up my own operation. Build a few houses for the tree-fellers and a few shelters where the wood can season. After that I’ll think about employing some coopers to make quarter-size barrels.’

  ‘Well, it does sound a brilliant idea,’ said Ciara rising to her feet. ‘I shall have to tell Teige about it. He’s very fond of a good cup of wine in the evening. I must go now, Brehon. It’s been wonderful to see you and the baby, but I must get back to Lemeanah Castle and see what my young people are up to.’

  ‘Won’t you come into the house and have some refreshment?’ asked Mara. ‘Brigid will kill me if I allow you to go without anything to eat or drink.’

  ‘I won’t,’ said Ciara firmly. ‘You stay where you are and enjoy the sun. I’ll call in on Eileen when I get back, and I’ll ask her to come and see you tonight if she is interested.’

  ‘I’ll go to the gate with you,’ said Sorcha, rising to her feet and depositing her plump baby on her husband’s lap.

  There was a moment’s silence after she left. Mara held her sleeping son and admired the red and gold colouring of a tiny firecrest who was flashing in to peck the tiny oval seeds from the pink-flowered herb Robert plants in the grykes, and then flying away triumphantly. The man beside her sat very still, rocking his baby son. She glanced at him curiously and saw that his eyes were not on the child, but gazing across the clints as if he was viewing, in his mind’s eye, the unseen woodland that was going to bring him prosperity, or perhaps even riches. He felt her glance and turned to smile at her.

  ‘So, Mother, the sooner Malachy’s affairs can be wound up, the better for me.’

  ‘The murder has to come first,’ she said firmly. ‘There will be certain complications about Malachy’s affairs. You do realize that, although you are the heir to clan lands, under Brehon law his daughter must get land to graze seven cows and the house that she lives in – that is the house that she used to live in with her father.’

  ‘No problem about that,’ he said easily. ‘I’ve been thinking and I had a look around Caherconnell. The herb garden stretches to about two acres; the house meadow where Malachy had his cows and his hens should be another four or so, and then there is the big field where he kept his horse. All of that should amount to enough – and, of course, there is the property at Rathborney. I understand that the property was for Malachy’s use until Nuala comes of age, I suppose that will be for Caireen, will it? That’s what I was told, anyway.’

  ‘I’m not sure who gave you to understand that, but it is incorrect,’ said Mara emphatically. ‘The property at Rathborney was left to Nuala by its owner, Toin the Briuga. I drew up the will myself and these were the terms, as well as I can remember them.’ She half-shut her eyes and recited.


  ‘“And I bequeath to Nuala, daughter of Malachy O’Davoren, physician in the kingdom of the Burren, my house at Rathborney and all the revenues from the farm situated in this place.

  ‘“This gift,”’ continued Mara opening her eyes and looking very directly at her son-in-law, ‘“is for her to have and to hold without conditions.” And the will went on to say, if I remember rightly: “However, this testator would like to express a hope that the gift will enable the said Nuala, daughter of Malachy O’Davoren, to fulfil her ambition to have a school of medicine and also to enable her to pursue her studies in that subject.” I may have misremembered some of it,’ she concluded, trying to sound modest, ‘but I would say that it was the gist of the matter.’

  ‘I’m impressed by your memory, Mother.’ Oisín didn’t sound too put out and he spoke lightly, his tone casual. ‘Still,’ he added, ‘I’m sure that you will do your best for me, and of course, for your daughter and grandchildren.’

  ‘I do my best for everyone in my interpretation of the law,’ said Mara serenely. Suddenly she began to feel better. She enjoyed pitting her brains against a worthy adversary. Oisín was bright and clever, but he underestimated his mother-in-law if he thought that he could bribe or bully Mara, Brehon of the Burren.

  Six

  Cáin Íarraith

  (The Law of Fosterage)

  The fee for fosterage ranges from three séts, one-and-a-half ounces of silver, for the son of a small farmer, up to thirty séts, fifteen ounces of silver, for the son of a king. The fee for a girl is higher than for a boy because a girl is less likely to be of benefit to her foster parents in later life.