Verdict of the Court (21 page)

This time, she reckoned, the boats had managed to get quite near. There was a sudden yell, startling through all the silence that had previously held everyone whispering and moving on tiptoes. Then a heavy splash came, another scream and then another and another. The men holding the chain were right in the line of fire. Screams of agony seemed to splinter the density of the fog. Mara winced. This was warfare, something that, until now, she had only known as a story told after victory. Now every nerve in her body strained to know the fate of these men who were loyal to her husband. Their enemy was better armed – would courage and audacity serve to balance the two.

A shower of throwing knives had answered the gunfire, but no responding cries were heard. These throwing knives, so deadly accurate when an experienced man could pin-point his enemy, were of little use thrown into the dense yellow fog.

‘Get back, back to the castle,’ shouted Turlough. ‘Bring the wounded.’

Mara grabbed her two scholars by the arms. Enda had left her and was plunging recklessly in the water. The guns rang out again and she felt sickened by the answering screams from Turlough’s men. There was nothing that she could do, though. Her duty was to her two scholars and to the others, including her son, who might be tempted out of the castle.

‘Back!’ she shrieked and with such emphasis that Domhnall started to run and he and Slevin now appeared to be dragging her from the place of danger. In a moment they were surrounded and overtaken by men running, swords clapping uselessly by their sides, but each with a throwing knife grasped in his hand.

‘First forty men up on the roof – ten to each tower,’ shouted the captain. ‘Two men go to the drawbridge! The rest stay near the gate. Wounded men should be taken to the main guard hall.’

Mara was soaked in sweat and stumbling by the time they reached the castle. There was a stench of smoke in the air that she had not been conscious of before and still the guns cracked out, almost stunning the ears with their explosive sound. She looked up and saw faces peering down through the murder hole above. Oil, by now, would be being heated on the fire in the kitchen; she shuddered at the injuries that it would cause when poured on the heads of intruders.

The women and children from the small village were crowding the pathway and she was glad to see that the sturdy walls of the castle could give them refuge. They were white-faced and tense, the women drawing the children back so that they did not get in the way of the flying feet of the men-at-arms who thundered past without glancing from right to left, each determined to get a favoured place on the roof of one of the four towers.

Once inside the castle Mara went straight to the main guard hall. Pallets of straw were piled in orderly neatness against the wall and she sent Domhnall and Slevin to pull them out and arrange them in rows. In a minute they were joined by her other scholars and by the twins and they all worked, white-faced and silent.

‘Fetch the physician!’ Mara felt the words almost spit from her as she saw one of the castle servants appear around the door. Why was the man not here already? Donogh O’Hickey must have a store of medicines and bandages and these would be needed soon. The screams of the wounded still rang in her ears and there would have been more since she had left the riverbank. The guns had cracked again and again; firing blind, but finding their mark since less than a hundred men had been crowded into the small space, each believing that a sword and a quiver of throwing knives would be enough to protect him.

Only when the physician had arrived in the hall, accompanied by two servants carrying a small wooden chest, did Mara feel that she could leave the place. Donogh O’Hickey looked perfectly well, she was glad to see, and she welcomed him effusively before leaving. She did not care whether he had feigned illness previously, the important matter now was to see to the wounded men. A trestle table had been set up for him, and Shona, with the twins and the younger scholars, joined him, each of them bearing leather buckets of water and small baskets filled with strips of linen. Shona, thought Mara, had been well trained, perhaps by the Brehon’s sister. She seemed to be competent and efficient, sending Art flying for linen sheets to place over the straw pallets, and Cian to fetch some lengths of kindling wood from the kitchen to act as splints for arms and legs.

The first patient was brought in by Enda and another man. Cormac exclaimed in horror when he saw that it was Rosta. The heavy body was dumped on one of the beds and the two went off to bring in more. Cormac was kneeling beside the cook, holding his hand, but Rosta had mercifully slid into complete unconsciousness.

‘Just a flesh wound,’ grunted the physician as he approached and knelt down beside him. ‘Water, bandages,’ he snapped at Cormac and the boy flew to do his bidding. ‘Let’s get this out of him quickly while he’s out of this world,’ he said as he slashed open the tunic, bared the bleeding chest and used the point to flick out a small lead ball. ‘Quick,’ he said and Cormac, white-faced, clapped a pad of linen to the bleeding wound.

‘Let me bandage it,’ said Shona coming over and winding the bandage around – making a very efficient job of it. By this stage there were more wounded coming in, but there were plenty of woman, all seeming skilled in this matter of attending to the wounded. Mara cast a swift glance around and decided that she could be spared.

As she came out onto the landing she heard a creak of chains and a few shouts, and then a sharp loud bang as the drawbridge was lifted and slotted into its position.

The climb to the roof was a difficult one. Each of the window slots beside the steeply spiralling staircase had at least one man standing beside it, knife in hand and straining his eyes to pierce the fog and pick out an enemy. They stood back and made way for Mara but she felt an intruder on their deep concentration.

‘Any sign?’ she asked anxiously from time to time and each time received a frustrated shake of the head.

‘My lord is up there, Brehon,’ said one of the men as she hesitated outside the great hall.

‘Yes, of course, that tower is nearer the river, isn’t it,’ she said readily. ‘Anything happening yet.’ Her voice did not really hold a query – it was obvious from the stillness and lack of noise that nothing was happening – and he passed on down the stairs without answering, his brow creased in a puzzled frown. Mara continued on up the steps and slipped unobtrusively through the door that led out onto the roof leads. The ten men with their throwing knives still resting in their quivers were standing at the battlements gazing down. Turlough, his lips pursed, was very still, not striding up and down as usual, but standing, hands slightly clenched, green eyes straining through the mist.

‘That’s it again,’ he said suddenly, his voice low. ‘That’s the same sound – wood on wood – I’d swear to it. What the hell are they doing?’

He did not acknowledge Mara’s presence, though she saw his eyes go to her, but remained where he was, looking and listening. Mara listened also, but she could not make sense of the sounds – perhaps they were stacking the oars on the bank – but why?

The door opened again and she saw Enda come in quietly and go to stand beside the King. Turlough turned eagerly to him.

‘How is he? How is Rosta?’

‘Just a flesh wound in the chest near the shoulder,’ said Enda reassuringly. He turned to go back and Mara followed him. He went down quickly, but was conscious of her presence because he waited for her halfway between the great hall and the main guard hall. His hand was on a door to one of the small rooms in the tower and she immediately said, ‘Where are you going, Enda?’

From memory she thought that it led to the musicians’ gallery, but could not see why Enda should go there. He was not a man trained to fight, of course. When other young men of his age were practising with swords and throwing knives, Enda was studying the law. And yet, he looked happier than she had seen him look for all of the time that she had been in Bunratty. His blue eyes were blazing and there was a small confident smile on his lips.

He hesitated at her question but then said, ‘I’m going out, Brehon. It’s one thing I can do. Don’t worry: I won’t be long.’ He opened the door and she followed him in. Two men stood there, a selection of knives laid out on a table by them. Enda stood, and looked frustrated. Mara wasn’t sure what he had intended, but the presence of the men was going to impede his plans and she was glad. The men looked at him suspiciously and in a hostile way and she didn’t blame them. The word had gone around, she was sure, that there was a traitor within the castle walls, and Enda, a man who had not been trusted by his own master, might well be in league with him, so far as these men were concerned.

‘Come, Enda,’ she said and made sure that he went out of the room before her. ‘Let’s go and see how the wounded men are getting on,’ she continued, but he had already gone down the steps ahead of her and had turned in at the door of the main guard hall by the time that she had finished speaking. Slightly surprised, because Enda, even in the difficult years of his adolescence, had always been well mannered, she followed him into the long room. There were still a few groans, but most of the wounded appeared comfortable, with white bandages cloaking the worst injuries. Her scholars were going from man to man offering drinks, and she felt proud of them all. Cormac was solicitously feeding Rosta some of his own cake and the cook, who was now sitting up, seemed able to swallow some. She would tell Turlough, that, she thought. The man had a special place in her husband’s affections.

And then she forgot Rosta. There was no sign of Enda anywhere. This was the second time that she had mislaid someone in this room and now she knew instantly where to look. She wound her way through the straw pallets and came up to the top of the room. Domhnall was there and he had just fastened the latch of the grid. There was no sign of Enda, but she surmised that, young and slim as he was, he had easily slipped down through the tunnel and was now making his way down through the passageway that led under the moat and would shortly be near to the riverbank.

‘Just … just shutting this as a precaution.’ Domhnall met her eyes with a guilty look and she guessed that he had been told to keep his mouth closed about Enda’s disappearance.

Mara sighed. It was hard, she thought, to remember that scholars grow up. She had to stop thinking and worrying about Enda as if he were still about the same age as Domhnall, and the bright temperamental star of her law school, leading the other boys into trouble, but always able to win her forgiveness by his intrinsic honesty and sense of humour.

‘I suppose you should stay there until he comes back,’ she told Domhnall who was now joined by Slevin. ‘You can take turns if he is a long time.’

I hope not, was her private thought. This was an extremely risky undertaking by Enda and she tried to keep her thoughts away from the young man creeping through the fog towards the riverbank in an area of ground that was now occupied by enemies. But what were they doing? Why were they not trying to gain access to the castle? What had been the point of this expedition? Why bribe Maccon to take away his surveillance of the River Shannon estuary just a few miles from its entrance into the Atlantic Ocean? And why bribe him to make sure that Turlough’s precious cannon, the bulwark of his security at Bunratty, was disabled – what was the point of the whole elaborate manoeuvre? It would need an enormous army to storm Bunratty Castle, not just a few men in boats.

‘He’s coming back, Brehon.’ Slevin was at her side and she moved swiftly to the top of the room. It had suddenly occurred to her that Enda might be followed back through this secret entrance to the heart of the castle. She wished that there was a man-at-arms there, but all had left the hall to the care of the physician and his women and children helpers. Domhnall, she was sure, had thought of this also, as he was a little pale and he fingered the knife at his belt as he waited and listened.

But it was only Enda himself and, though filthy, he was composed and with the help of the rope climbed in an agile way out from the hole and then watched while Domhnall latched and locked it carefully. Mara had opened her mouth to question him but seeing his expression she shut it again and went after him as he made his way neatly through the rows of wounded men and towards the door leading to the stairs. She followed him the whole way up, but could not keep the pace of his young legs. By the time she reached the roof where Turlough and his men waited the bad news had been given.

They had indeed heard the noise of wood being unladen and also the noise of joints being hammered together. The Knight of Glin, as well as his cousin’s troops, had apparently brought with him something called a
trebuchet
. The word was echoed from man to man and she saw puzzlement on many of the faces around her.

‘What’s a trebuchet?’ she asked and although it was Enda who explained about this machine, made from wood, which could lob from the sling a stone or stones of up to hundredweight, it was the black despair on Turlough’s face and his laconic: ‘They’ll have the castle down around our ears unless we manage to stop them,’ that made her realize the full desperation of the situation.

There are seven bloodlettings which carry no penalty:

Bloodshed inflicted by an insane person.

Bloodshed inflicted by a chief wife in jealousy of a concubine who comes in spite of her.

Bloodshed by a physician authorized by the family to care for a sick person.

Bloodshed inflicted in battle.

Bloodshed by a man who enforces suretyship.

Bloodshed by a man who takes part in a duel.

Bloodshed by a boy in playing a sport.

I
t was about an hour later that the castle felt the full onslaught. A couple of men had been sent down the passageway under the moat to see whether it was possible to attack, but came back to announce that there was a ring of protectors around the trebuchet, each one of them armed with a dreaded musket. It was, thought Mara, the flash of fire and the explosion of sound that made these guns so terrifying to men who were used to the silent cold steel of knives, swords or pikes. The garrison here at Bunratty Castle was a small one – already one fifth of it had been injured or killed and Turlough, she guessed, did not want any more heavy casualties.