Laws in Conflict (22 page)

‘May the Lord have mercy on his soul,’ she said as she followed him upstairs, and negotiated a sum which would ensure that Sheedy was kept clean, warm and well fed for the few days of life that were still left to him.

On the way out she paused and examined some large dents in the heavy, studded door.

‘What happened to your door?’ she asked innocently.

‘That crowd last night, drunk they were, most of them – trying to keep up the festival for a second night,’ he said. ‘I couldn’t see much myself, inside here, but I can tell you that I feared for my life for a while when I heard the blows on the door. The mayor was good though. Had a troop of soldiers down here before they could do much! He’s just told me that he will send them out to clear the streets at sundown as the curfew bell is ringing, and then they will stand guard outside the gaol for the night.’ He lowered his voice. ‘He’s a hard man, the mayor, but he’s a very just one. The law is the law; that’s what he said to me. The citizens and people like me must be protected from those who would break the law. Even if one of them is his own son! You have to admire a man like that – well that’s my view anyway, but there’s plenty would disagree with me. They say he’ll have to resign!’

The law is the law, said Mara to herself as she walked away. She had lived all of her life as far back as she could remember with that saying. Her father, a man admired by all for his firmness of principle, could well have said that. There was no reason why Walter, though the son of the judge, should not be found guilty by a just law. But was this law just? And had it even been followed? Did English law countenance the holding of a trial hours after the deed was committed? The evidence against Walter was evidence of circumstance only. And even if he had committed the deed, it was obvious that the boy had been drunk and incapable – out of his mind, as her scholars would say. What was it that Fiona had read out from the book of English law? Mara murmured the words to herself: ‘And that man, though found guilty by the judge, being generally considered to possess no greater understanding than a beast, was granted a royal pardon by Ricardus Tertius Rex.’ This applied to young Walter – out of his mind with drink – almost as much as it did to poor Sheedy.

I must do my best for both, thought Mara.

‘Instead of inflicting these horrible punishments, it would be far more to the point to provide everyone with some means of livelihood, so that nobody is under the frightful necessity of becoming first a thief and then a corpse.’

Thomas More (1474–1535), student at Lincoln’s Inn from 1496–1500

F
achtnan was sitting beside the window of a large inn called Blake’s, which was situated across the street from the magnificent Athy tower house and quite near to the back of St Nicholas’s Church. Beside him was a young man and they seemed to be chatting amiably. Mara hesitated for a moment, but Fachtnan smiled a welcome so she went to join them. Fachtnan, even as a young boy, always showed good judgement about the right thing to do and she assumed that he had reached the end of his conversation.

‘This is Anthony Skerrett, law student from Lincoln’s Inn, Brehon,’ said Fachtnan, punctiliously introducing them to each other once she was inside the building.

‘Welcome to Galway, and welcome to Blake’s, the best drinking place in town.’ Anthony was a rather square-looking young man with black hair cut very short, grey eyes and resolute chin. He looked full of character and intelligent. Fachtnan was drinking small beer, but young Skerrett had a cup filled with a dark red wine, which he sipped slowly and with the air of one who appreciates fine wines.

‘Do let me get you something to drink, Brehon,’ he said, seeing her eyes go to the cup.

‘I mustn’t stay,’ she said. ‘We are due back at the Bodkin household for a meal shortly so I must walk up to The Green and escort back Fiona, one of my scholars.’

‘Yes, I’ve heard that you have a girl law student,’ he said with an amused smile. ‘By Jupiter, that would wake up the law school at Lincoln’s Inn.’

‘You would find it hard to keep up with her sharp wits,’ agreed Mara affably. She knew that was not exactly what he had meant, but was unwilling to acknowledge that it was odd for girls to study law. ‘She’s riding with Catarina Browne at the moment,’ she added.

She was not surprised when he immediately tossed back the remainder of his wine and rose to his feet. His face had lit up at the very name of Catarina.

‘You must allow us to accompany you, there,’ he said politely, and shook his head at the girl beside the bar. ‘No more, Anna; we must be off,’ he said, his smile discreet and restrained. Not a young man to flirt with girls in taverns, thought Mara.

Nevertheless, Anna was looking after them regretfully as they left. There were no other customers at the inn and a pair of personable young men was company for her. In fact, thought Mara, there was no other member of staff, either, no male member of the Blake family, here at this inn; just as there had been no males at the pie shop. Even Blake’s blacksmith business at Lombard Street, she had noticed, had held only one rather young boy anxiously tending the fire.

‘That was kind of Catarina to take your girl student riding,’ said Anthony as they went out into the street.

Mara smiled but made no reply. She was busy looking around the streets. Soldiers in pairs tramped around, walking belligerently down the centre of the roadway, looking intently down alleyways and lanes. Constables, armed with short stout truncheons, stood in doorways or else walked slowly amongst the people, eyeing every face that passed as if looking for trouble. She listened with half an ear to Anthony telling Fachtnan about Catarina’s new horse and about her excellence as a rider. There was no doubt, she thought, the young man was very much in love. He was at that stage of infatuation where he found excuses to drag his loved one’s name into everything irrespective of the subject. Fachtnan’s remark about the fine clock outside the tower of St Nicholas’s Church brought forth an anecdote of how he was once late for a meeting and how Catarina had taken him down to the church to prove how late he was; the mention of Lawyer Bodkin reminded him that Catarina had predicted that the lawyer would now import horses of Arab breeding; and the sight of a beautiful length of red silk displayed in the window of a clothier made him stop, with his eyes widening as he told Fachtnan that he thought Catarina would love that colour.

So could it have been he who killed Carlos in order to eliminate the opposition; or was a young man with a steady, square jaw and a pair of intelligent eyes really the type to commit a
crime passionel
? A man who was legally trained and probably schooled to hold his passions at bay.

‘Anthony was telling me about the dinners at Lincoln’s Inn, Brehon,’ said Fachtnan. ‘Tell the Brehon about it, Anthony.’

‘Well,’ said Anthony, ‘as we, the students, are eating our dinners, there is a scroll of vellum, tied with tape, placed in the centre of the table. As soon as the meal is over, one of the sergeants of law stands up, unties the vellum, unrolls it and then reads a case that has taken place that day or on a preceding day. It’s read just once and then all the students have to debate it – some are nominated to defend, and others to prosecute.’

‘And no one has seen the case before?’ Mara thought about this as a teaching method. Her own scholars attended every case that was heard in the Burren and listened to her judgements, but perhaps she could do something like that with cases from earlier years, even the cases that her father had heard.

‘The quality of the debate might be better before the meal than after it,’ she remarked smiling, but Anthony shook his head. ‘Not for me,’ he said with a quiet smile. ‘I always do well at that because I drink very little. I was brought up by my uncle, Edmond Deane, and when I was a boy he sent me to a school in France. I learned to drink good wine there and . . .’

He stopped, and Mara said with a smile, ‘And you learned to appreciate the taste; not to use it just to get drunk.’

‘Too much bad Spanish wine here in Galway,’ said Anthony. ‘Now that . . . well, I can understand a man wanting to swallow enough to drown the taste . . .’ He laughed gently and indulgently as one tolerant of his friends’ excesses. Mara looked at him with interest. She remembered the knife lodged in the chest of the dead man. It had been inserted expertly, slightly upwards at an angle, avoiding the bones of the ribs and aimed straight at the heart. Certainly, it had not been jabbed recklessly. She wished it had been possible to have a physician of her choice examine the dead body, but even without that, somehow she was strongly of the opinion that the knife had not been wielded by a drunken man.

‘Will you come back to Galway to practise law or stay in London?’ she asked as her mind ranged over the possible suspects for the murder of Carlos Gomez. The dead man had been rich, had been enterprising, had been judgemental and had been in love. Someone had killed him for one of those four reasons. The last reason would fit Anthony and she waited with interest for his answer to her question.

He had paused, staring straight ahead of him. There was little spare business for a fourth lawyer here in a city of three thousand, she thought. The sensible thing for him to do was to get some sort of position in London.

‘Come back to Galway, of course,’ he said, and then, almost angrily, ‘Have you ever been to London, Brehon? I can tell you it’s a terrible place to live, a stinking, violent, unpleasant place.’ He laughed slightly, perhaps conscious that his tone had been aggressive. ‘When I am in London, I get lonely for the sea, for my sailing boat and for my friends here in Galway. Ah, here we are at the Gate; don’t worry, the guard knows me well and we can get through and back again with no trouble.’

‘There they are,’ said Fachtnan, and Mara was amused to see how the faces of the two young men, one on either side of her, lit up at the sight of the two girls.

Catarina and Fiona were cantering around the ring on The Green and rode straight over when they saw the party arrived. They made a lovely pair: one tall, dark and goddess-like; the other small, blond and vivacious.

‘Have you had a nice time?’ asked Mara, looking at Fiona’s rather bored face.

‘Oh yes,’ said Fiona. ‘But of course, it’s not like riding back in the Burren where we can gallop for miles. I was saying to Catarina that she should come and visit us.’

‘She would be very welcome; and you, Anthony, if you would like to see a native law school before you return to London,’ said Mara, watching him. He had shaken hands politely with Fiona but when he turned to Catarina his whole expression softened and changed. His sharp grey eyes glowed and his resolute mouth trembled in a smile. He had not even heard her invitation and she did not repeat it.

‘I think that we should return quickly, Fiona,’ she said. ‘Our hosts will be waiting for us. I hear that there is to be a curfew tonight, so the sooner we are off the streets, the better.’

She watched Catarina as they returned. The girls walked their horses and the two young men strode beside them, each at the head of his lady’s steed. Fachtnan was listening with his gentle smile, looking up at Fiona’s animated face as she chattered about Henry Bodkin’s horses and about what his stableman had said about the lawyer’s ambitions to breed horses that combined the strength and endurance of the Connemara horse with the speed and spirit of the Arabs.

Catarina, on the other hand, had nothing to say to Anthony. Her head was held high and she surveyed the crowds in the streets with a haughty, slightly hostile eye. She was not popular; Mara was saluted more often than she was and several indulgent smiles were aimed at Fiona’s pretty face. One young man stopped and seized Fachtnan by the hand and seemed to be claiming undying friendship with him, reminding him of the hour they spent together at the Shrove Festival, while gazing fervently at Fiona.

Anthony, though, acted like an accomplished man of the world, making light conversation and not pressing any unwanted attentions on Catarina.

And why should he rush things, Mara asked herself? He was now left undisputed victor in the field. Carlos was dead and in a few days’ time Walter might be hanged – and even if a miracle saved him, it was most unlikely that Catarina would ever look at him again.

Mara’s thoughts were interrupted by a sudden exclamation from Catarina.

‘There are those brats of Richard Athy and that dreadful untrained dog of theirs,’ she yelled in a voice filled with fury. ‘Get that unmannerly cur out of here,’ she screamed to five small boys, ranging from about three to twelve years old, chasing down the street after an equally muddy dog who was racing ahead, with a large and rather decayed fish hanging from its mouth.

It was the strangest dog that Mara had ever seen – not at all like the tall, lean wolfhounds that she was used to, or like the herding dogs used by the farmers in her kingdom. This dog was massive, with enormous shoulders, a heavy, brutal jaw, a protruding line of bottom teeth and very small, pointed ears. His coat seemed to be brown and white but it was so plastered with mud that this was hard to be sure. It dropped the fish when it came to the butcher’s shop and began barking uproariously, big deep barks from his massive chest. The butcher armed himself with a broom, yelling vigorously, women shrieked and the children yelled commands; the dog snarled at the butcher and Catarina’s horse squealed in terror.

‘Take the horses down Middle Street. Turn their heads quickly. Fachtnan, you go with Fiona. I’ll see to the dog.’

Catarina’s highly strung Arab horse was rearing up and showing the whites of its eyes, and although she didn’t like the girl much, Mara had to admire how quickly her voice changed to a soothing murmur and how courageously she kept a hold of the bridle and coaxed the animal to turn its head away from the ferocious-sounding dog.

‘Jake! Jake!’ screamed the boys. Passers-by huddled into doorways and added their shouts to the confusion of noise.