Laws in Conflict

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First world edition published 2012

in Great Britain and in the USA by

SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD of

9–15 High Street, Sutton, Surrey, England, SM1 1DF.

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

Harrison, Cora.

Laws in conflict.

1. Mara, Brehon of the Burren (Fictitious character) –

Fiction. 2. Women judges – Ireland – Burren – Fiction.

3. Burren (Ireland) – History – 16th century – Fiction.

4. Detective and mystery stories.

I. Title

823.9'2-dc23

ISBN-13: 978-1-78010-288-7 (Epub)

ISBN-13: 978-0-7278-8178-6 (cased)

ISBN-13: 978-1-84751-434-9 (trade paper)

Except where actual historical events and characters are being described for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to living persons is purely coincidental.

This ebook produced by

Palimpsest Book Production Limited,

Falkirk, Stirlingshire, Scotland.

Prologue

T
he early part of February 1512 was spent by Mara the Brehon in the alien society of the city of Galway, whose laws were in conflict with the laws which she practised. This resulted from a chance meeting at a horse fair.

Mara had been born into the law. Her earliest memories were of the chant of scholars in her father’s law school at Cahermacnaghten on the Atlantic coast of western Ireland. She became a qualified lawyer when she was sixteen, an
ollamh
(professor) of Brehon Law by the time she was eighteen, and a Brehon (judge) at twenty-one. For the last eighteen years she had been in sole charge of the law in the one hundred square miles of the limestone-paved kingdom of the Burren.

If it hadn’t been for Fiona, the only girl scholar at the law school of Cahermacnaghten, Mara would not have attended the horse fair at the end of January. The scholars had returned for the Hilary term at the beginning of the year 1512, the third year in the reign of Henry VIII. They had been looking tired and the work, that relentless memorizing of thousands of laws, was dragging. On the day in question, spring had suddenly arrived. On her morning walk between her house and the school enclosure, Mara glimpsed a pale primrose in the hedge and noticed how the leaves had burst through the twisted stems of woodbine above it, while small brown linnets sang melodiously as they bustled about foraging for nesting material among the straw-like remains of last summer’s flowers. She was as reluctant as her scholars to shut the school-house door and order work to begin.

Fachtnan, the twenty-year-old trainee teacher, was patiently endeavouring to coach fourteen-year-old Hugh in the decrees of hospitality, the two seventeen-year-olds, Moylan and Aidan, were groaning over a piece of Latin translation and even Fiona herself, with all her brains, was struggling with some of the more obscure passages of medical law in
Bretha Crólige
. The sound of horse hoofs on the stone road outside caused every head to rise.

‘They’re going to the horse fair, Brehon,’ said Moylan wistfully. Though sharp and quick-witted, he was not someone who worked for the love of his subject.

‘Wish we could go,’ muttered Aidan under his breath. He glared at his Latin grammar with an expression of disgust.

‘I think we should go,’ declared Fiona. ‘As Fithail says: “Full Mind Brings Good Understanding
.
” When we are qualified we may have to judge a case that took place at a horse fair. If we haven’t attended one we may judge wrongly.’

Aidan looked up from his Latin hopefully and Moylan eyed his companion with respect. The thousands of sayings of Fithail, a ninth-century scholar, had been drummed into them from the age of five onwards and to quote his words always added weight to an argument.

Mara glanced out at the pale January sunshine, and relented. She herself loved horses and she was wise enough to know that little work would be done if the minds of her scholars were elsewhere.

‘Perhaps we should go after all,’ she said. It was a great event in the Burren and the scholars would be disgruntled at missing such a sociable occasion.

Every year a great horse fair was held at Aonach in the centre of the Burren. And every year the three fields surrounding the small lake were crammed to bursting point with people who came to buy the horses raised in that small kingdom. The Burren was famous for the quality of its horses as well as for its cattle. There, amidst the shelter of the encircling mountains, young horses drank the lime-rich water, ate the lush grass and grew into magnificent animals. Buyers came not just from the city of Galway, only thirty miles distant across the hills, but also from the north, the east and the south of Ireland, and even from England itself.

On that day at the end of January 1512, therefore, it was no surprise to see many strangers among the familiar faces of the four clans of the Burren: the O’Lochlainn, the O’Brien, the MacNamara and the O’Connor. The buyers conversed in a multitude of languages – resorting from time to time to the use of sign language. There were numerous dialects of Gaelic to be heard, spoken by men from the five provinces of Ireland, as well as a few English speakers, and here and there a Spaniard tried to make himself understood.

But this man looked alien among the sea of horse-traders.

Mara had not met Lawyer Bodkin from Galway for two years but she recognized him immediately. He hadn’t changed much during those two years, she thought as she looked at him; a tall, thin, distinguished-looking man, dressed in a black lawyer’s gown. A clean-shaven face was set off with a small pointed beard tinged with grey and a pair of intelligent pale blue eyes.

‘I wonder what he is doing here?’ she said half to herself and half to Ardal O’Lochlainn. Ardal was not just the
taoiseach
(chieftain) of the most numerous clans in the kingdom of the Burren, but he was also famous as a breeder of fine horses.

His eyes followed hers and he chuckled. ‘You’d be surprised at the number of unlikely people who deal in horses,’ he said. ‘Of course, living in Galway, with the ships going to and fro to Spain . . .’ He stopped then as the lawyer began to make his way across to them. Mara, also, moved forward and met him with a smile.

He had recognized her instantly, his eyes lighting up with pleasure as he extended a well-cared-for slim hand. There was no surprise for him, of course, in the fact that Mara, Brehon, or, in his own language, judge and law giver of the Burren, should be present at this most prestigious horse fair in that stony kingdom on the edge of the Atlantic.

‘Brehon,’ he exclaimed, ‘how well you are looking. I hear you have become a wife and a mother since I saw you last.’

He did not use the word ‘king’ in his language when enquiring about her husband, she noted with amusement. Galway, of course, though a city state, was ruled under English law, and owed allegiance to the young King Henry VIII. To the inhabitants of that city, King Turlough Donn, Lord of the three kingdoms of Thomond, Corcomroe and Burren, was just an Irish chieftain ruling with an outmoded and alien set of laws.

‘Turlough is very well, I hope,’ she said now. ‘He has deserted me for a couple of weeks. At the moment he is visiting Ulick Burke, Lord of the Clanrickard – you remember Ulick from the time when we met at Newtown Castle? And your sister, Jane, how is she?’

‘Jane is very well, also,’ he said. ‘And before I left she charged me with a message for you. Do you remember when last we met we discussed the workings of the court at Galway. Why not come to visit us for a few days – you and your young scholars? We have a big, empty house – I no longer take pupils so there is plenty of room for your boys. It would be interesting for them as well as for you.’ He pulled his beard with a slight smile adding, ‘We can argue about the differences and merits of our respective law systems over some good wine during the evening.’

‘
Conflictus legum
, in fact
,
’ said Mara, and he laughed.

‘You have the advantage over me, my lady judge,’ he said. ‘That’s something that I have forgotten since my days in Lincoln’s Inn in London. You know your Roman law as well as your Brehon law. What do you say? Will you come?’

‘And what is—?’ Mara broke off to turn to her youngest scholar, twelve-year-old Shane, who had approached with a polite bow at Lawyer Bodkin and an appealing look at her.

‘Excuse me, Brehon, but the
taoiseach
wants to know whether Hugh and I have permission to ride a couple of his young horses – just to show their paces.’

Mara nodded permission – the word ‘
taoiseach
’ could have been applied to any one of the leaders of the four clans on the Burren, but when used in conjunction with horses, it had to be Ardal O’Lochlainn, near neighbour to the law school at Cahermacnaghten. Her scholars would come to no harm with him. However, never being able to resist a little showing-off about the excellence of her scholars, she detained the boy with a hand on his arm.

‘Shane, will you tell Lawyer Bodkin what you understand by “
Conflictus legum
”,’ she said and watched with amusement as his eyes, though staring ahead at the busy scene of horses trotting up and down the emerald-green swathe of grass, were obviously looking inward, sifting through the accumulated store of facts in his young brain.

‘
Conflictus legum
is a set of procedural rules that determines which legal system, and which jurisdiction, applies to a given dispute,’ he said promptly, speaking correct and fluent English. Then he added thoughtfully, ‘I seem to remember reading somewhere that the acts of people, valid in their own country, should be recognized under other jurisdictions unless they are contrary to the morals and the safety of the foreign country.’

‘Well done!’ exclaimed Lawyer Bodkin as Shane ran back to the coveted ride on Ardal O’Lochlainn’s strawberry mare. ‘What a clever boy. How old is he?’

‘Not yet thirteen,’ said Mara proudly.

‘He’d surprise them in Lincoln’s Inn in London; he should be sent there when he’s a bit older.’

‘Remind me,’ said Mara coolly, ‘who teaches Brehon Law at Lincoln’s Inn?’

Lawyer Bodkin laughed quietly, smoothing a hand over his well-kept beard. ‘Do say you will come. For the sake of these clever boys of yours. They should see the world, not one tiny kingdom.’

Mara hesitated. She had been about to refuse, but it was true that these boys, growing up in a divided country, would need to know far more about English and Roman law than she could teach them.

‘There is another factor that might influence you,’ said Lawyer Bodkin. ‘The case is coming up in two weeks’ time – you could time your visit to be there for the hearing. A fellow countryman of yours, accused of the crime of theft, seems unable to speak English and with no means of defending himself.’ He tugged his beard and added so quietly that only her ear heard the words, ‘The Mayor of Galway – or
the sovereign
as he is still known as – a man called James Lynch, is very keen to uphold the law against theft. It makes him very popular with the shopkeepers of the town.’

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