Eye of the Law (14 page)

‘Don’t tell me, you were getting hungry,’ she teased, spotting her servant, Cumhal, following the bodyguards, leading her golden-skinned mare, Brig.

‘We were getting worried about you, weren’t we, Cumhal?’ said Turlough. ‘Brigid sent me,’ he added defensively.

‘Oh, well, in that case . . .’ said Mara sweetly.

Cumhal had already dismounted and throwing his own reins to Fergal, walked the mare over towards the bank.

‘Hold my hand,’ said Turlough protectively. ‘That’s it, carefully now. Let me do it.’

‘You’re strong for a man of your age,’ she commented as soon as she was safely on the side-saddle. As she had intended, this diverted him from anxious inquiries and while he blustered she quietly turned over the implications of her conversation with Becan in her mind. It seemed to imply, she thought, that the secret of young Iarla’s parentage was certainly known to his wife, Iarla’s aunt, and probably also known to Becan himself. But if it were, in fact, Ardal who was named as the father on the deathbed, why did Becan not reiterate the claim?

And if it were someone else, then why not name that person and have done with it? There could not be any reason against that at present – Iarla was dead; there was no hope now that some of the wealth of the
taoiseach
of the powerful O’Lochlainn family would be diverted into the hungry mouths of the blacksmith family on the island of Aran.

‘Turlough, tell me some more about that visit to the Aran Islands – that time when you, Ardal and Teige went across twenty years ago.’

Mara and Turlough were sitting by the quietly burning turf fire in the Brehon’s house. Brigid had cleared away the remains of the meal and then left them alone. There would be another fire burning upstairs in the bedroom, but for the moment Mara was content to sit there quietly, nursing the wooden cup of hot milk that Brigid insisted she drink every evening.

The night was stormy with sudden gusts of wind rattling the outside shutters of the windows and causing the fire to flicker orange and then subside back to a dull red. Somehow the gale outside made the warm cosiness of the little room seem even more enticing.

‘There goes a tree,’ said Turlough, rising to his feet and trying to peer out of the window. ‘Did you hear that crack?’

‘You’ll see nothing – the night is too dark,’ said Mara peacefully.

She wasn’t worried. Cumhal always made sure that no tree could threaten any building and a fallen tree would be quickly and easily chopped up for next winter’s firewood.

‘Why do you drink that stuff?’ Turlough abandoned the window and came back to his seat by the fire. The chair had been a gift to the married pair from Mara’s daughter, Sorcha, who knew her mother well enough to know that, while the law school was in session, Mara would spend little time at Ballinalacken Castle. Oisín, Sorcha’s husband, had gone to a lot of trouble to get it made in Galway. It was a large, sturdy chair, well crafted from fine Irish oak and upholstered in a royal purple with carved arms and a scrolled headrest and Turlough settled back into it with a sigh of contentment.

‘Fit for a king,’ Sorcha had said when they brought it over and it had become ‘King Turlough’s chair’, dusted daily with great reverence by Brigid.

Mara smiled now. ‘Brigid makes me,’ she said in answer to his query. ‘She tells me that it’s good for the baby. She doesn’t like me to drink much wine either. Her reasoning is that cows and horses don’t drink wine and they have fine babies, able to get up and look after themselves as soon as they are born.’

‘Well, our boy will be better than any calf,’ he said boastfully.

He knelt on the floor by her side and put his arms around her affectionately, laying a large, warm hand on her stomach and bending her head with his other until their lips met. She slipped off the floor and lay on the sheepskin rug by the fire, her head propped against the settle bench. He stretched out beside her, holding her tightly.

‘Have you heard that the Pope doesn’t want anyone to make love during Lent?’ he asked teasingly.

‘Not even married couples!’ Mara raised a delicate eyebrow in amazement.

Turlough chuckled. ‘I don’t suppose that he would even like to contemplate the prospect of anyone other than a married couple making love,’ he said.

‘Why not during Lent? Anyway, why didn’t you tell me of His Holiness’s decree last night?’

‘Just went right out of my mind. I was too busy.’ Turlough leaned over and began kissing her again.

After a moment, she struggled out of his grip and sat up. The bodyguards were out in the kitchen and an alarm might send them in with only a perfunctory knock.

‘I wonder who he will look like, our baby, I mean?’ she said. ‘Or she, of course! Brown haired and light-eyed like you, or black-haired and dark-eyed like me?’ Reminded of her thoughts about Iarla of Aran, Mara tore herself away from this pleasant musing and came back to her question, sitting up a little straighter and smoothing her hair.

‘Well, go on, tell me about that visit to the Aran Islands.’

‘It was probably about this time of the year, a little later, perhaps.’ Turlough mused over the past, adding, ‘I was a fine figure of a man then.’

‘Just like now.’ Mara smiled affectionately at him, but inwardly she was impatient. Her mind was very active and would remain like that until she had solved the mystery of the brutal murder of Iarla from Aran.

‘It was stormy, too, just like tonight.’ Turlough got up, poured himself another cup of wine and threw a few more sods of turf on to the fire from the basket at his feet. ‘I remember we were stuck at Doolin for a couple of nights – no boat could cross the sound in that weather. The alehouse keeper there kept apologising every few minutes and we kept telling him not to worry as he was bringing us more of his
uisce beatha
all the time and telling us that it was made from the best oats. Strong stuff too.’ Turlough gave a long, low whistle.

‘So you were fairly merry by the time that you arrived at the island. Now tell me about the blacksmith’s wife. When did she arrive on the scene? Try to remember her. She had red hair and grey eyes. Ardal told me that.’

‘I remember her all right,’ said Turlough with a chuckle. ‘They had a big party for us that first evening. It was in the alehouse because that was before the tower house on that island was built. She got pretty wild as the night went on! The blacksmith was snoring happily in the corner so she was enjoying herself. I can just see her there in front of the fire – they have a custom over there that when they lay the flagstones on the floor of an alehouse, they bury an old cracked iron cauldron under the flag near the fire and that’s the place for the best dancer in the room. It makes a great echo and her feet must have been as hard as iron because I can still hear them tapping the tune out as she danced to the music of the fiddle.’

‘Dancing by herself?’

‘In the beginning – that’s right. She was wearing that red petticoat that all the island women wear, you know they have that custom, there, of dyeing the women’s
léinte
with the madder plant – they say it is so that the men, out fishing, can spot their womenfolk against the grey of the stone, but it’s a lovely colour and she was a lovely girl. Her hair wasn’t the colour of Ardal’s, not that sort of coppery colour. Her hair was the colour of her petticoat. No, not that either, you know that garnet ring that I have? Well, her hair was that colour. And she wore a bunch of yellow primroses, just tucked behind one ear.’

‘And what were you all doing? Were you dancing?’

‘No, we were just standing around the walls of the room, clapping. Everyone was clapping. Clapping in time to the sound of her feet. And then, fool that I am, I finally realized what everyone was waiting for. They were waiting for me to start the dancing so I went out and took her hand and we danced a few reels and jigs. Everyone joined in then.’

‘And Ardal?’

‘Well, when I got winded, Ardal took my place – or was it Teige? I can’t remember. I know that the girl never tired.’

‘And then Ardal slipped outside with her? Out to the barn?’

‘To be honest,’ said Turlough with a grin, ‘there was a lot of slipping outside that night. The storm had completely died down by that time and the weather had turned suddenly very hot. And there were plenty of places to go to. Not me,’ he added, quickly seeing the inquisitive look on her face. ‘I couldn’t afford to do that. There had been enough fuss about a girl in Thomond . . . remember I was reliant on my uncle King Conor na Srona and he’d have flayed my hide open if there was any trouble between me and one of the island girls – especially a married woman like that blacksmith’s wife. It was always a tricky sort of place, Aran. They resented Thomond. I don’t think that they even liked being ruled over by the O’Lochlainns of Burren, but once the O’Briens came on the scene, well, that started a rebellion. It caused big problems that took quite a while to settle down. Even at this stage things were quite edgy. No one wanted any difficulties with Aran. And I certainly didn’t want any problems with Conor na Srona. As well as having a big nose, he had a terrible temper. So that boy was nothing to do with me, I can assure you. To me, at that stage, hoping to be Conor’s and the clan’s choice of
tánaiste
, no woman would have been worth sending him into a rage with me. Not even the beautiful wife of the blacksmith.’

‘I believe you,’ said Mara thoughtfully. ‘But somehow I can’t believe that young Iarla is Ardal’s son. They’re just too unalike and from what you and Ardal say, Iarla doesn’t resemble the mother either. Anyway, the fire is dying down, let’s go up to bed now.’

Turlough took the candle from the table beside the fireplace, lit it and walked out through the doorway. Mara covered the fire with some damp sods of turf and then followed him. He had only gone three steps up the stairway when he paused suddenly, giving the candle in his hand a sudden jerk and dropping a winding sheet of hot wax down its creamy sides.

‘Étain, that was her name. I’ve just suddenly remembered.’

‘Étain the beautiful,’ said Mara thoughtfully, remembering the old legends.

It was a pity, she thought, as she followed Turlough and the candle up the steep stairs to the bedroom, that Iarla of Aran had not inherited the grace, beauty and charm of his mother; no doubt, he looked like his father.

Eight

‘
I
’d like us to think about a woman’s right to have a baby under Brehon Law,’ said Mara.

It was eight o’clock, the beginning of the school day and the boys looked, as usual on a Monday morning, slightly sleepy and very disinclined for work.

They sat up very straight as her words penetrated to their drowsy brains. Aidan shot a quick glance at Mara’s waistline before looking with an air of deep thought at the blazing logs of pine in the fireplace.

‘I was thinking about this when I was considering the case of the blacksmith’s wife and her son, Iarla.’

They gazed at her in an interested way, even Aidan abandoning the fireplace to give her a startled glance. She looked back at them blandly and added, ‘Étain was her name. And I understand that she was a very beautiful girl with red hair and grey eyes back in the dim and distant days of 1489 before any of you were born.’

‘Twenty years ago,’ said Hugh brightly.

Moylan gave him a pitying glance, but stopped short of saying anything as he saw Mara’s gaze rest upon him.

‘You see,’ went on Mara, ‘the blacksmith’s wife swore on her deathbed that Iarla was the son of Ardal O’Lochlainn,
taoiseach
of the O’Lochlainn clan.’

‘What if he swears that he isn’t?’ asked Aidan.

‘Let’s go back to the law, shall we?’ said Mara. ‘Fachtnan, could you hand me
Trencheng Brétha Féne
.’

Fachtnan carefully carried over the huge tome of Triads of Irish Law and placed it carefully on the table in front of Mara. She placed her hand on the cover and then looked around enquiringly.

‘Triad 165, I’d say,’ said Enda quickly.

Mara concealed a triumphant smile. He was certainly one of the best pupils that she had taught. He was gifted with brains and a good memory, but he also had a sense of fun, and an appreciation of the drama of the law. She felt proud of him and sorry to think that she would probably lose him at the end of the year.

‘Let’s see,’ she said, though she knew that he was right. She opened the page and read solemnly from the triad: ‘The oath of a woman on her death bed is one of three oaths which cannot be countersworn.’

‘Not fair,’ muttered Aidan. ‘The O’Lochlainn should have a chance to deny it. I wouldn’t like all the dying women of the countryside going around saying that I was the father of their child.’

‘You have a hope!’ scoffed Moylan.

‘Do you believe it, Brehon?’ asked Enda. ‘I mean that Iarla from Aran is Ardal O’Lochlainn’s son.’

‘I find I am puzzled about the subject,’ admitted Mara. ‘I have a feeling that there is some mystery about Iarla’s parentage. Why was she, this Étain, so sure that the blacksmith could not be the father? After all, she was a married woman at the time. I met Becan yesterday and I talked with him and I got the impression that Étain had named, to her sister, Becan’s wife, someone else, not Ardal, but not the blacksmith, either, as the father of this young man. I’m inclined to believe that whoever the father was, it was not the blacksmith.’