A large three-mullioned window had been placed on the landing outside the door to the great hall. It was set into the six-foot-thick wall on the western side of the castle. It gave a wonderful view over the Atlantic Ocean to anyone descending the stairs but now the thick velvet curtains were closed in front of it, cutting off the cushioned window seat from view. Two pairs of feet showed below the curtains and there was a soft murmur from behind them. A murmur that flowed mellifluously – the alliterating words and the rhyming syllables chiming melodically like bells struck in a rhythmic sequence.
Mara paused. The poem was very beautiful, a hymn of praise to loveliness: to hair more gold than the treasures of kings; to lips more red than rubies; to eyes that held the blue of oceans. It was easy to guess which couple sat concealed in the window seat.
Turlough will have to wait for his poem about the joys of hunting, she thought with a smile. Seamus MacCraith had found in Fiona a more worthy subject. She was about to continue downwards when the words suddenly ceased, midline, and then came a strange sound. Strangled sobs from the man and Fiona’s voice murmuring consolation. Mara frowned. This seemed more serious than she had realized. The poet had only met the girl a few days ago. Still, love could flare up quickly in the young. She hesitated for a minute before going on down the stairs towards the nursery. She had no desire to play the part of an eavesdropper, but as Brehon she had a responsibility to investigate that secret and unlawful killing. If Seamus MacCraith had been completely bowled over by Fiona’s beauty, had fallen madly in love with the girl, with all the intensity of feeling which a poet possessed, what had he felt when Fiona disappeared for that midnight ride with Eamon? Was it possible that he was the secret follower of the pair, that when Fiona parted from Eamon, he had watched her safely cross O’Briensbridge, then turned back, followed the young lawyer and killed him? Whether the killing was murder or an unhappy accident was a matter that Mara had still not decided.
This made her think of the party that night. Fiona had been dancing with Shane, then she seemed to disappear. But Seamus MacCraith had not disappeared; quite clearly Mara remembered seeing him dance with Nuala. This decided her. Cliona, and Cormac’s future had to wait for the moment. She went soundlessly back up the stairs to Nuala’s room. As she had guessed, Nuala was there, lying on her bed studying an old, tattered book.
‘Was that belonging to your grandfather?’ asked Mara with a nod towards the book.
‘No,’ said Nuala. She gave a slight smile. ‘I think that I have every word that grandfather wrote engraved on my brain. My professor, Donough the healer, as they call him in Thomond, gave me that. It belonged to his father. He told me to take great care of it as it is meant for his son who is studying in Italy at the moment.’ She shut the book and turned, swinging her legs to the ground. ‘Mara,’ she said abruptly, ‘is there any news of Fachtnan?’
‘I wanted to ask you about Fachtnan.’ Mara postponed the discussion of the poet for the moment. Fachtnan was very dear to her and Nuala was a clever girl whose opinion was always worth having. ‘What do you think happened to him?’
‘I’ve been thinking about that,’ said Nuala seriously. ‘I even made a little list here of possible reasons for his disappearance.’ She flicked though the pages of her book and then produced a leaf of vellum filled with her strong, slanting handwriting. ‘I copied this from your scholars when they were debating a murder,’ she added, and then read aloud:
‘Motives:
Fear, anger, revenge, greed
. That’s right isn’t it?’
‘I should have made a lawyer of you – life might have been easier for you, if I did,’ said Mara studying the dark-skinned, dark-eyed face of the girl opposite and thinking of her struggle for knowledge. Nuala’s father had been a physician, but he had no sympathy with his daughter’s desire to follow in her father’s footsteps. She didn’t have the overwhelming beauty of Fiona, but to Mara’s eyes she was an extremely attractive girl; tall, slim and her very black hair had the high gloss of expensive silk. Why had Fachtnan chosen to fall in love with Fiona when this girl offered herself and her fortune to him?
‘I think to be a physician was bred in the bone,’ said Nuala with a dry smile. ‘Anyway, to go back to Fachtnan’s disappearance, when I went through that list, I thought that there was something left out. Quite a few extra possibilities occurred to me.’
‘And to me, also,’ said Mara. ‘Because this, I pray God,’ she went on quietly, ‘was not a murder. Or if it was, there is no strong reason why it should have been committed by a fellow scholar. Perhaps Fachtnan just felt bad and decided to go home a few days early. We know that he was in the schoolhouse early on Saturday morning, so no harm came to him on that moonlit night when Eamon and Fiona went on that disastrous expedition. There could be lots of ordinary, everyday explanations as to why a boy of nineteen suddenly goes missing.’
If only Fachtnan were not Fachtnan, she thought. If he were any of the other boys; Moylan, Aidan, or even Enda who, after a turbulent adolescence, was now soberly working as a lawyer in Thomond. Her mind ranged through all of her scholars through her almost twenty years of teaching. Fachtnan stood out amongst the cheerful, noisy throng as well behaved, sober, considerate and polite. It was just so unlike him to disappear like this that wild notions of abduction had begun to race through her mind.
‘You haven’t asked me what I would add to the list of possible motives.’ Nuala was watching Mara’s face with her intelligent dark eyes.
‘Tell me.’ Mara tried to smile, but she had a feeling that all this was getting too much for her.
‘I wonder whether he has decided to test whether he could be a Brehon,’ said Nuala tentatively. ‘You know he feels that he has failed twice. Only once, in fact, I know, the year before he was due to take his examination, but you advised him to leave it and then he did fail last summer. He told me once that he has no interest in being just a lawyer. What he wanted was to be a Brehon like you and keep the peace in a community.’
‘And I’ve always thought that was what he was suited to,’ said Mara. ‘How well you understand him.’ Perhaps, she thought, Fachtnan will come back to Nuala and forget this obsession about Fiona. He seemed to have confided his dreams and hopes to her. However, that was probably before the delicate, blonde beauty of Fiona had enraptured him.
‘So,’ continued Nuala, ‘I just wondered whether he had decided to go off and to solve the murder himself. You know. Hunt down the murderer and bring him back in triumph to lie at the feet of the wronged maiden.’
‘Don’t be sarcastic,’ said Mara with an amused smile. ‘Still there is something in what you say and I’ll think about it. You’ve cheered me. Now I must go. There’s just one more thing I want to ask you about that night. Do you remember that you danced with Seamus MacCraith? I think it was just after Fiona danced with Shane and everyone was looking at her. And then the music started up again and I saw you dance with the poet.’
‘That’s right,’ said Nuala indifferently. ‘The king told him to dance with me and so he obeyed.’
‘Just the one dance?’ queried Mara.
‘Just the one. I didn’t see him for the rest of the night. In fact, he didn’t even finish the dance with me. Do you remember? It was the
Rince Fada
– long dance – and when I came back up to the top again, he had disappeared. I had to call Hugh over to stand opposite to me.’
‘I see,’ said Mara. She frowned thoughtfully. It looked as though once Seamus MacCraith noticed that Fiona had disappeared, he also left the hall. But where did he go? Did he follow the two? Or did he merely retire to the guards’ room, along with other non-dancers, and have something to drink there? That might be something that Moylan would have noticed as he had been popping out and in with great regularity and once came back wiping his mouth with his sleeve.
‘Don’t start making matches for me, Mara. I’ll do my own work there.’ Nuala was watching, her lips twisted in a wry grin. ‘After all, I am a woman of fortune. I should be able to find a husband somewhere.’
‘I wasn’t making a match, I promise.’ Mara laughed. ‘You find yourself a husband when you are ready. I’m not in favour of early marriages. It’s a big decision. Get qualified first before you rush into marriage. That brings its own strains. You no longer just have to think about yourself but there is also a husband, and then, perhaps, a baby to think about. Now I must go. I have to talk to Cliona about Cormac. I have a problem I must solve.’
‘I take your point.’ Nuala nodded condescendingly. ‘A professional woman has many problems when they take on a husband and a child. I’ll probably remain single. I’d like to travel around the world and meet other physicians, like the son of my teacher, Donough Og O’Hickey, does. That would be interesting.’
Nevertheless, there was a bleak note in the young voice, thought Mara, as she made her way down the stairs, passing the window seat where the young poet and Fiona still sat, concealed except for their feet.
Eleven
Díre
(Text on Honour Prices)
Fosterage is the way that children are reared. It is known as the ‘shared cradle’. The foster mother is known by her foster child as Muimme and the foster father as Datan.
Fosterage can be undertaken for affection, perhaps by a relative, in which case no fee is paid. Otherwise fosterage is for a fee. The fee is calculated according to the honour price of the child’s father.
The fee for the son of an
ocaire (small farmer) is three séts
or one and a half ounces of silver and four séts for a daughter. The fee for the son of a king is thirty
séts
or fifteen ounces of silver and forty séts for a daughter.
Cáin Iarraith
(The Law of Fosterage)
The son of a king must be supplied with a horse for riding and with clothing worth seven
séts,
or three and a half ounces of silver. He must be educated according to his rank, taught to play chess, horsemanship, swimming and marksmanship. A daughter of a king must be taught how to make silken garments and how to embroider.
The son of an
ocaire
must be taught how to care for lambs, calves and pigs. He must know how to dry corn, chop firewood and comb wool. A daughter of an
ocaire
must be taught how to use the quern, the kneading-trough and the sieve.
M
ara went on down the passageway and stood outside the nursery for a moment listening to the shrieks of excitement from within. This was a room where she had envisaged her son would spend up to six months every year. She had prepared with such care for this child. How much time would he spend there in the future?
But plans don’t always work out and Mara now faced that possibility. Cormac was a strong-willed, active child, not a mirror image of his mother or of his half-sister. His needs were perhaps different to those that she had envisaged. Companionship of his little foster-brother was essential to him and this would continue as he grew and became even more active. Unlike her daughter, Sorcha, he would not be content to sit in the corner of the schoolhouse with a piece of sewing, or to model little cups and figures of animals from a lump of clay. Cormac, unless he changed, would be bored to fury by such a regime. He would be better leading an active life on a farm, standing in gateways brandishing a stick as the animals were herded to different fields, carrying bales of hay for winter feeding, leading a life of fun and companionship with his foster-brother, skating on icy ponds in the winter and swimming in the sea in summer.
The matter had now been decided. She had to bear herself with dignity and grace and do the best for this late-born son of hers, the young Prince Cormac O’Brien, born of the union between Mara, Brehon of Burren, and Turlough, king of Thomond, Corcomroe and Burren.
Inside the room there was a happy scene. Cliona was on her knees racing around the room, barking like a dog and the two little boys were shrieking and crawling rapidly across the room after her. Cormac saw his mother, stopped, then approached Cliona fiercely shouting ‘no’ and then smacked her hard on the head.
‘You are getting too bold for your own good,’ exclaimed Mara, picking him up and holding him in her arms. For a moment she strained him to her and then put him down again.
‘No!’ shouted Art and they wrestled together sprawling on the floor, cheeks flushed with excitement.
Cliona beamed at both boys. ‘They’re so clever,’ she crooned. ‘They’ll be picking up new words every day now.’
Mara watched the two babies. They were making such a noise that any conversation would be impossible. Perhaps she could postpone her talk with Cliona. She sat on the window seat, looking out towards Aran. The day was very clear and she could see the gold sand on the island beach and above it the castle belonging to Brian the Spaniard, rearing up towards the blue skyline. It was a day of no wind and a few large white-sailed boats seemed to stand quite still in the middle of the sea. Two or three black coracles, rowed by the islanders, made rapid progress by contrast and they seemed to be on their way across to the becalmed ships.
A silence made her turn her head. Art had quite suddenly fallen asleep on a large floor cushion; Cormac stared at him for a minute, but then his blonde eyelashes drooped over his eyes. He put his head down on the cushion beside his foster-brother, put one arm around the other baby’s chest, snuggled into him and in a moment was sleeping peacefully, also. Mara found her eyes wet with tears.
‘They’re like that,’ said Cliona softly. ‘They’re great children. When one sleeps, the other drops off straight away.’ She took from a carved chest a cover woven by Brigid from soft lambswool, and tucked it around the two children. Then she put some more turf on the fire and tidied away all of the playthings, avoiding Mara’s eye. Both women were tense; Mara recognized that and knew that she had to speak now.
‘I’ve been thinking about what you said, Cliona, and I’ve discussed it with the king.’ She paused for a moment and then hurried on, ‘We both feel that it would be very wrong to take Cormac away from you now; he is doing so well and is so happy with you and with little Art.’