‘I’m afraid that he met with a tragic accident on the way back,’ said Mara.
‘No!’ The shock on the man’s face was huge. ‘What happened?’ he asked urgently.
‘He met his death on the side of the mountain in the centre of the Burren,’ said Mara gravely.
‘An accident? On the way back from Arra? Why?’ He thought for a moment, looking puzzled. She had nodded at his first two exclamations, but had not offered a comment on the third. ‘But why was he climbing a mountain? You’d think that he’d be exhausted. Did he deliver the signed deed back to you?’
Conor was lingering in the distance, hesitating on the threshold of the castle door. A sensitive young man, thought Mara. So different from his brother Murrough. Was he of kingship material, though, she wondered in the back of her mind, while simultaneously watching the man in front of her. And yet Turlough had been such a successful king, far better than either of his two dominating uncles.
‘No,’ she said aloud after allowing a few moments to pass. ‘No, he didn’t come back here first. He went north from Arra and then crossed the mountain pass, and came down by Aillwee and the flax garden.’ It was not quite an answer but it would do him for the moment.
He looked puzzled, didn’t know the land west of his own possessions very well, she thought. Never once, during her almost twenty years of office, had she known him to visit the flax garden.
‘But what about the girl?’ he asked suddenly. ‘Did she go with him? Surely she was with him.’ A shade of anger passed over his face. He must be quite strait-laced, she reflected in an amused fashion. The thought of Fiona had brought a look of hot indignation to his blue eyes.
‘No,’ she replied, ‘they quarrelled. They parted and Eamon rode north, while Fiona went south by the route of O’Briensbridge and through Thomond west and Corcomroe.’
‘I see,’ he said. Oddly, he seemed relieved about that. Perhaps his notions of propriety were such that he felt it was better for a girl to ride alone at night rather than with a young man who had lived in the same law school and worked side by side with her for the last few months.
‘I scolded Fiona for doing this,’ continued Mara. ‘I told her that you would have given her an escort.’
‘I certainly would have been very happy to do that.’ He said the words with great sincerity and Mara had no doubt that he was telling the truth.
‘There is another problem,’ she continued. ‘You signed the deed and gave it back to Eamon –’ she waited for his nod before continuing – ‘but unfortunately when the body was discovered, his satchel, which he would have worn strung across his body, was lying in a different place. It had been opened and it was empty.’
‘The deed had been stolen!’ The shock in his voice was almost as great as when he had heard the news that the young man had been killed.
‘Yes,’ said Mara briefly. She had said what she had planned to say and had observed his reactions. Shocked and horrified, was probably how she would have characterized them. Whatever mystery there was about Eamon’s death, it certainly had come as a surprise to this man. Of course, she reminded herself, her judgement was not infallible. Brian Ruadh could be just a good actor. It would have been easy for a man of his power to send a trusted man-of-arms after the young lawyer. Perhaps his surprise was about the location of the murder and the news that Fiona and Eamon had parted. And yet, why should Eamon be of interest to him? Even if he did dislike Eamon’s father, why harm the son? She thought about her colleague, Fergus MacClancy, Brehon of the kingdom of Corcomroe, a man thirty years older than she. He would know all the gossip about the Brehon of Cloyne. She resolved to have a word with him as soon as possible. Perhaps on the day that the party set out for Aran she would ride with them to the coast and call into the MacClancy law school on the way back.
‘And since the deed is missing and therefore no longer valid,’ she continued smoothly, ‘I was wondering whether we should take advantage of your presence and hold the auction again tomorrow, if you could spare the time to ride with me up to the flax garden in the afternoon.’
There was something hesitant about the way in which he promised. She handed him over to Conor and went back to her room for a few minutes before facing the dinner party again. She felt tired and discouraged and torn into too many pieces. This murder, if it was a murder and not just an unfortunate accident, was proving puzzling and she felt that she wasn’t tackling it systematically.
Perhaps, thought Mara, she was really not able to cope with anything extra outside her daily routine. Perhaps she should not have insisted on keeping on the law school and her appointment as Brehon of the Burren when she got married. Perhaps it was all getting too much for her – and then there was Cormac. If only she could be like one of the women in the farms around, going about her daily duties with a baby tucked snugly into a sling on her back. If only she could spare the time to be with him more often. Brigid had reported proudly that Cormac had said his first word – it was only a two-letter word – a loud and explosive ‘No’ apparently, but it felt sad that his mother had not been there to hear it.
‘So, had the O’Brien of Arra anything of interest to say about the death of your young lawyer?’ enquired Ulick, coming to join Mara as she stood watching the servants scurry to and fro, spreading the dinner feast on the huge table in the hall. This would be the last ceremonial meal for most of the guests; only Ulick, Donán, Conor and Brian Ruadh would be left behind to escort Turlough on his annual visit to Aran. The rest would depart for Thomond after a quick breakfast.
‘Not much,’ said Mara briefly. The wretched little man had probably been looking out of his window and observed all of her conversation with the Lord of Arra.
‘That’s his trouble, poor man,’ said Ulick with a sigh. ‘He never does have much of interest to say. It makes him a very boring person. No friends, you know. Watch Teige trying to get away from him!’
‘I thought him charming! So sincere!’ retorted Mara. ‘It makes quite a change for me.’
‘Dear Brehon. So sharp.’ He smiled at her benignly before adding, ‘It’s a wonderful thing, this legal training, is it not? Sharpens the wits – and the tongue.’
‘Allows a man to talk his way into and out of every situation, wouldn’t you say, Ulick?’ said Mara sweetly and added, ‘Remind me, Ulick, which was the law school where you studied?’
‘Not me, Brehon. I just pick up pieces of knowledge here and there from acquaintances and friends; just a crumb from the medical profession, another crumb from the lawyers. Used to haunt the house of my father’s Brehon at one stage; got quite a few crumbs from him.’ Ulick put his head to one side, observing her from one eye, looking quite like a little bird himself. ‘But let’s not talk of me, Brehon,’ he went on, ‘let’s talk of you and your new scholar. How charming it is to see the female sex taking over the profession.’ Ulick’s eyes went across the room to where Fiona was merrily shaking her curls as Seamus the poet read from a manuscript.
‘I thought it was Nuala you were interested in last night,’ said Mara. She spoke more sadly than she intended. Nuala was a great favourite of hers. Mór, Nuala’s mother, had been a great friend of hers and the poor girl had died when her daughter was only nine years old. Mara had promised to watch over the child. She had seen her grow tall in body and strong in mind. Straight as an arrow, through and through, thought Mara. A girl of huge intelligence, great determination, hard-working, sincere and compassionate – but alone in the world, with few to care for her. This young poet, Seamus MacCraith, was talented, highly educated and would have been a good husband for her, but it looked as though his interest was focussed on Fiona. Mara glanced back at Ulick, half wishing that he would praise Nuala, would admire her new-found poise and the improvement in her looks, but he only said lightly, ‘It’s just a matter of business, my dear Brehon, a matter of business – the older I get, the more I realize that everything comes down to business. One girl is prettier than the other, but that can’t blind me to the fact that the other girl is possessed of a good fortune.’
‘Ulick,’ said Mara throwing caution to the winds in a fit of exasperation. ‘You have three living wives, two dead wives, two mistresses to my certain knowledge. Just leave Nuala alone and allow her to choose a young man of her age and whom she loves.’
‘She seems to be taking her time over it,’ sighed Ulick. ‘Let’s hope that the bloom doesn’t disappear while she is choosing. Still, she’s dark-skinned and dark-haired like you, and look how you have kept your looks, Brehon, so let’s hope that the same good fortune attends little Nuala.’
‘I think we can all take our seats now,’ said Mara. ‘You sit here, Ulick. Seamus, I’ll put you here – and Nuala between you both. Fiona, bring down my Lord of Arra and we will entertain him between us.’
Adroitly she went around the table seating friends together, keeping enemies apart. Ciara O’Brien, Teige’s friendly and talkative wife, would keep Turlough in good humour. The silent Ragnelt, well away from her surly husband, Donán, but placed beside the bishop who would make conversation enough for two. The Limerick O’Briens well separated from the O’Briens of Clondelaw.
The soup was taken in comparative peace with neighbours murmuring to each other, but then someone brought up a battle of a hundred years ago and immediately hackles began to rise. Mara decided to intervene swiftly. Let the last meal end in peace.
‘My lord,’ she said in the clear, carrying voice which she used at public meetings. ‘I wonder whether our guests have heard the full story of the unfortunate death of the young lawyer, Eamon, who dined with you all at this very table two nights ago.’
‘So sad, such a handsome young man,’ said Ciara in a comfortable tone of voice. She had obviously heard the news from Teige.
‘Where did it happen?’ The O’Brien of Clonderaw addressed his question to Donán and Mara waited while her husband’s son-in-law took a long draught of wine.
‘On the mountain.’ It wasn’t a very full answer, but that was Donán, who appeared to bear a permanent grudge and who offered words with the hesitancy of one who was giving away pieces of silver.
‘Yes,’ confirmed Mara, ‘on the Aillwee Mountain, the very place where you all hunted on Saturday morning.’
‘Ulick got us all out of bed early,’ chuckled Teige O’Brien, cousin and foster-brother to the king, and then looked serious when his wife gave him a reproachful look. ‘Terrible, terrible thing to happen, a young man like that,’ he muttered.
‘I wondered whether anyone might have seen something. Might have noticed him fall . . .’ I’ll leave it at that, she thought. The word ‘murder’ might make everyone clam up.
As it was, the questions came quickly. Everyone was intrigued.
‘Where was he coming from?’ Mara fielded that neatly, referring to Brian Ruadh to corroborate the hour when Eamon had left. There were a few surprised remarks about the route that the young man took, but people were busy asking each other whether they remembered seeing someone on the mountain pass.
‘What was he wearing, Brehon?’ asked Teige.
‘He was wrapped in an undyed
brat
,’ said Mara with a sigh. If only Eamon had worn his blue cloak there might have been some chance of him being seen, but the other, with its untreated rough, cream-coloured wool, had probably been warmer for the midnight ride.
‘And he was riding a white Connemara pony,’ she added.
‘Difficult to see against the limestone,’ said Ulick. ‘In fact, I avoided looking at the stone with the sun glittering on it. I must get you to look into my eyes, my dear young physician,’ he said to Nuala. ‘I fear that I have injured them. Light always hurts them.’
Mara gave him an exasperated glance, but decided that Nuala could easily handle Ulick.
‘What could you see from the side of Aillwee?’ She threw the question out, looking around the table. ‘This would have been an hour or so before I met you. I think that you had already killed the first two wolves and the third had been scented by the dogs. You all came towards the flax garden.’
And then she sat back and allowed the broken sentences, the contradictions, the assertions to flow into her brain. Fiona, she was pleased to note, had stopped looking across the table at Seamus MacCraith, the poet, and had an eager face turned towards the other guests and seemed to be thinking hard about their recollections of the wolf hunt.
‘What do you think of your little godson?’ asked Mara. After the meal had finished, she, Nuala and Fiona walked down the stairs to the babies’ nursery on the floor beneath the great hall. Nuala had asked to see Cormac, to have a proper look at him and Fiona had joined in. Mara was glad of both of their company.
The room was a lovely one. When she and Turlough had planned the new extension to the ancient tower house of Ballinalacken, she had envisaged the possibility of bearing a king’s son. Designed by Mara down to the last detail, this was a room that should be every child’s dream. It was a large room, full of small alcoves, little nooks and secret corners, a place full of light and playthings, a place for a very special child to grow to maturity. A large window, barred for safety, overlooking the Atlantic Ocean, with a view on to the Aran Islands, had a low, cosily cushioned wide window seat in front of it, providing a place for her child to sit and dream or read some of the books that Mara had carefully preserved from her own childhood; a wooden horse that rocked when a child sat on it was in one corner and in the other a splendid model of a miniature tower house peopled with tiny warriors.
‘Doing well.’ Nuala picked up Cormac and weighed him in her arms and then put him down on the floor, watching him crawl rapidly across and grab triumphantly at the cloth that lay on top of the table. In a moment he had pulled it down and Cliona laughed. ‘You little villain,’ she crooned, picking up Cormac and nuzzling into him, causing him to dissolve in a fit of giggles and then replacing him on the floor. She had no sooner put back the tablecloth when her son, little Art, pulled on the cloth. At the top of his voice, Cormac shouted, ‘No!’ Cliona laughed, beaming on them proudly.