Cora Harrison

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Cora Harrison's Michaelmas Tribute, the second Burren mystery

Published by Pan Macmillan in 2008

Prologue, chapter one and two below

Prologue

The kingdom of the Burren was then an isolated place with the Atlantic Ocean guarding its northern and western coast, and the broad sweep of the River Shannon encircling its eastern and southern sides.

Then, as now, it was a place of contrasts: rounded mountains flanked its borders, fertile valleys lay between the mountains and in the centre, on the High Burren, was a broad expanse of shining, bare limestone pavement. Then, as now, it was a land of grey stone, almost black in the winter rains and fogs, but sparkling silver in the sunlight, with tiny jewelled flowers and ferns growing in the grykes between the clints, and, in summer, the vivid green of the valley meadows was stitched with yellow, pink and purple flowers.

Its people, the Burren clansmen, lived according to the ancient customs and Brehon laws of their ancestors. Their way of life, in this isolated spot, had hardly changed during the last one thousand years, but the end was drawing near. The threat to their traditions was not far away: the city of Galway, with its English laws and English-speaking, Anglo-Norman people, was only twenty miles across the bay.

Nevertheless, it was King Turlough Donn O’Brien, not the aging Tudor king, Henry VII, who still ruled those western kingdoms of Thomond, Corcomroe and the Burren when, in the spring of 1509, the elderly taoiseach of the MacNamara clan died and the tánaiste, his son Garrett, took his place.

On the ancient Celtic feast of Imbolc, at the beginning of February, the MacNamara clan gathered outside the old tower house at Carron. Garrett MacNamara, dressed in a white léine and a mantle made from pure white lamb’s wool, was led in procession to the cairn, a burial mound covered with small white quartz pebbles and a sacred place to the MacNamara clan. At the foot of the cairn, King Turlough Donn touched him on the head with a newly peeled white rod from the ancient ash tree that grew nearby. In a loud, steady voice, Garrett swore to be the king’s vassal in accordance with the ancient Brehon laws, to maintain his lord’s boundaries, to escort his lord to public assemblies, to bring his own warriors to each slógad, and, in the last hour of his lord, to assist in digging the gravemound and to contribute to the death feast.

Then Garrett bowed to King Turlough Donn and encircled the cairn three times sunwise before climbing nimbly to the top of the mound. He lifted up the white rod and held it high above his head. The clan of MacNamara named him in a thunderous shout as the MacNamara and Garrett swore to serve his people and to protect them in return for a just rent and a fair tribute. Thus was Garrett MacNamara inaugurated as taoiseach of his clan.

No one, then, could have foretold the murderous events that happened almost eight months later, on the day of the Michaelmas tribute.

Chapter One

As soon as dawn broke on the morning of Michaelmas, the mist rose over the stony land of the kingdom of the Burren. It clung to the sinuous curves of the swirling limestone terraces on the mountains and filled the valleys with its thick, soft, insubstantial presence; it swathed the crenellated tops of the tower houses and wrapped the small oblong cottages in its feather-light folds; it encircled the walls of the great fortified dwelling places: cathair, lios, or rath and rested softly over the stone-paved fields.

Mara, Brehon, or judge, in the kingdom of the Burren, a tall, slim, dark-haired woman, wearing the traditional léine, a creamy-white linen tunic, under her green gown, stood at the gate of the law school of Cahermacnaghten and for the fortieth time that morning peered hopefully through the heavy mist. She was expecting her six scholars back from their holiday and not a single boy had arrived yet.

‘You might as well stay warm inside, Brehon,’ said Brigid, her housekeeper, coming out from the kitchen house inside the law school enclosure. ‘The chances are that none of them will come today,’ she continued, brushing the drops of mist from her pale sandy-red hair. ‘The fog is bad enough here. It will be worse on the hills and the mountains. There’s even some frost about: Cumhal said that the grass was white on the north field when he and Seán were doing the milking.’

‘I suppose you’re right, Brigid,’ Mara replied. Normally she could see for miles across the flat tableland of the upper Burren but today she could barely make out objects only fifty yards ahead of her. The small sunken lanes that ran between the fields were blotted out and their red-berried hedges had become part of the grey landscape. There was no sound. Even the swallows, which only yesterday had been chattering busily on the rooftrees of barns and houses, had now fallen silent.

‘Why don’t you come inside?’ urged Brigid. ‘They won’t come today. Cumhal brought a load of turf in and there is a good fire in the schoolhouse if you want to work there. It’s freezing weather.’

Brigid and Cumhal had been the servants of Mara’s father when he had been Brehon of the Burren and now served the daughter with the same respect, commitment and fidelity as they had shown to the father. Nevertheless, Mara usually found herself obeying Brigid as if she were still four years old, so she turned obediently to go indoors. Then she stopped. Her quick ears had heard a creaking sound. She started to walk down the road, and Brigid trotted rapidly after her.

‘It’s just a cart,’ said Brigid after a moment.

‘It’s Ragnall MacNamara, the McNamara steward,’ said Mara.

‘Out collecting the Michaelmas tribute for the MacNamara, I suppose,’ Brigid muttered sourly. ‘There was a lot of talk about that, last night, at the Michaelmas Eve céilí (party). The word was that the MacNamara is not content with the tribute that his clan usually give; he’s telling them what he wants from them. Giving them orders, no less!’

‘Really!’ Mara said no more because Ragnall, mounted on his white horse, was now quite near, but she was astonished. The annual tribute to the taoiseach, hallowed and shaped by custom and tradition, was normally conducted with grace and courtesy on both sides. The clansmen gave what they could afford from their year’s produce and the taoiseach thanked them and promised his favour and protection in return.

She saluted Ragnall with the usual blessing. He muttered ‘and St Patrick,’ without looking at her. Obviously he still resented the fine she had imposed upon him at the last judgement day for hitting Aengus, the miller, with a heavy stick.

‘I was wondering if you had seen any of my scholars, Ragnall,’ Mara asked him calmly. ‘I’m expecting them today, but none has arrived yet. Are the roads very bad over towards the east of the Burren?’

‘Bad enough,’ he grunted, without replying to her query.

‘But you’ve managed to get around,’ she persisted. ‘You came over the Clerics’ Pass?’ Her eye went to the heavily laden cart. She counted seven bags of wheat flour there, each with the milling date, September 25, and over-stamped with the MacNamara insignia of a prancing lion. This meant that Ragnall had managed to get up the slopes of Oughtmama to take the annual tribute from Aengus the miller. It would have been a pleasure to him, she thought, to watch the miller load the bags of unbleached linen with his precious flour. Wheat grew only in a few favoured spots here in the cool, moisture-laden, stony environment and wheat flour was highly valued.

He grunted again, but still said nothing. He clapped his heels to the sides of his white saddle horse and jerked his head at Niall MacNamara who was driving the cart and continued on down the road without a backward glance.

‘Did you ever see such a man as that!’ exclaimed Brigid, her green eyes flashing with anger at the discourtesy. ‘You mark my words, Brehon, one of these days that man will get what’s coming to him.’

*

By mid-afternoon the mist had begun to lift. Suddenly colour, shape and sounds came back to the landscape. The wet flagstones that paved the fields shone with a gleam of silver in the autumn sun, the magenta-coloured cranesbill glowed, beads of moisture dropped from the delicate, drooping heads of the pale blue harebells and the swallows gathered in large chattering flocks.

Twelve-year-old Hugh, the son of a prosperous silversmith in the Burren, had arrived at the law school around midday, but there was still no sign of the other scholars. Now Hugh was getting restive and uneasy in the company of three adults without the other boys for company. Mara found him moodily kicking a stone on the road outside her house and cast around for something to make the day seem less long for him.

‘Shall we go to the market at Noughaval?’ she asked. ‘That might be fun. We’ll take Bran as well. Bran,’ she called and a magnificent white wolfhound bounded out of the stables, tail wagging vigorously. ‘Run in and get his lead, Hugh. We’ll walk in case the mist comes down again at sunset.’

Noughaval was a short walk to the south of Cahermacnaghten. It was a small settlement of a few houses; a church and a fine market cross at the edge of the market square. The market square was crowded today. It seemed as if every trader in the three kingdoms of Burren, Corcomroe and Thomond had set up stall. Their wares were varied: the usual butter and cheese, fish fresh from the nearby Atlantic waters, leather stalls selling belts and satchels, wool stalls with lengths of rough fustian, honey cakes and hot pies for the hungry, and more exotic stalls selling silks and laces brought in from foreign countries. In one corner of the square, near to the entrance gate, the O’Lochlainn steward, a big, genial man, was collecting the annual Michaelmas tribute from the many O’Lochlainn tenants. He was mounted on a tall box so that none could miss him and beside him, outside the market wall, was a cart piled high with sheepskins and firkins of butter and rolled hides of fine calf skin or goat skin.

‘God bless the work, Liam,’ called Mara and he grinned in answer as he stowed away some silver in his leather pouch before turning to greet her.

‘You are well, Brehon?’ he inquired. ‘The taoiseach is over there talking to the O’Brien. He’ll be glad to see you. He was saying last night that he was going to consult you about some point of law.’

Mara groaned inwardly. Ardal O’Lochlainn always did want to talk about some point of law. ‘Here’s some silver for you, Hugh,’ she said. ‘You go and enjoy yourself while I talk to the taoiseach. Bran, go with Hugh,’ she added with a quick pat on Bran’s narrow hairy head, and Hugh and Bran galloped off through the crowds towards the honey cakes stall.

‘You are collecting the tribute here at the fair,’ she asked Liam.

Liam shrugged. ‘It’s the easiest way. Let them come to me.’

‘I met Ragnall MacNamara out on the road this morning,’ Mara told him. ‘He must have been out since dawn, his cart was already piled.’

‘Well, the MacNamaras don’t have too many families here on the Burren,’ Liam said dismissively. ‘If I were to do that, I would be on the road for weeks going from farm to farm. Besides, the O’Lochlainn likes it best this way; he wouldn’t want it to seem as if he was asking for anything; the tribute is for the clan to give.’

Mara nodded. The O’Lochlainn clan had been kings of the Burren in former days and the unconscious dignity of royalty had descended to the present chieftain, Ardal O’Lochlainn.

‘Anyway,’ continued Liam with an amused look, ‘it’s just as well that Ragnall is not here today. It gives his daughter, Maeve, a bit of time for courting. There’s going to be trouble about these two,’ he whispered, pointing to a young couple in the churchyard. ‘The O’Briens and the MacNamaras don’t get on too well. Ragnall MacNamara will never agree to a marriage between his daughter and the son of Teige O’Brien.’

Mara’s eyes followed his pointing finger. She knew young Donal O’Brien by sight; he and Fachtnan, the eldest of her law school scholars, had become great friends in the last few weeks of the Trinity Term. Donal was a hot-tempered boy inclined to drink too much and to get into fights, probably basically a nice boy, she thought indulgently, just the spoiled only son of a wealthy taoiseach. Maeve MacNamara, she didn’t recognise. No doubt, I have seen her before, thought Mara, but she was probably one of those girls who had suddenly blossomed into beauty with the dawning of adolescence and now was unfamiliar. She was quite small, but with a pretty, well-rounded figure and a face that reminded Mara of a heartsease pansy with its wide kitten-like eyes, delicate pink and white complexion and small pointed chin. Donal was bending over her, holding her two tiny fragile hands in his large ones and looking at her with adoration.

‘I suppose the O’Brien wouldn’t think it was a good match for his only son,’ she said sympathetically, but Liam shook his head.

‘No, it’s not that at all,’ he said emphatically. ‘That boy gets his own way about everything; his father would agree, but Ragnall won’t consent. He would have to give too many cows to settle his daughter with the son of a taoiseach. The man is so mean that he would skin a mouse to get the fat off it.’

‘Was it a good evening at the céilí, yesterday, Liam?’ asked Mara, changing the subject. After all, it was up to Ragnall to arrange a suitable marriage for his daughter. Liam, as she had planned, was immediately diverted.

‘The craic was mighty,’ he said, smiling happily at the thought of the fun and the conversation and the sallies of wit, which would have been accompanied by large amounts of ale and mead.

‘No trouble?’

‘Ah well,’ he said with a hasty glance in Ragnall’s direction. ‘There was a bit of a fight between Aengus and Ragnall, again. There’s bad blood between these two. The MacNamara should sort it out before it gets any worse. They’ll be killing each other if this goes on. And then, of course, that young fool, Donal O’Brien had to put his oar in.’

‘On Aengus’s side?’ asked Mara.

‘No, would you believe it. And after Ragnall turning him down when he wanted to marry the daughter! I suppose that Donal thought Ragnall might get to think better of him if he spoke up for him. Anyway, he took hold of Angus, but Aengus flattened him. Donal was pretty far gone in drink, of course. Aengus cleared off after that and the O’Brien steward persuaded young Donal to go home.’

‘Oh, well, as long as no harm was done,’ said Mara tolerantly.

‘Brehon,’ called Ardal O’Lochlainn, making his way through the crowd that opened up respectfully to allow him to pass. ‘You are looking well,’ he added with his usual courtesy.

‘I’m very well, thank you, Ardal,’ Mara replied. ‘Liam was saying that you might want to consult me on a point of law,’ she added, with her usual directness.

‘It’s just a matter of the MacNamara mill at Oughtmama,’ he said, He sounded a little uncomfortable at having to approach the matter without the usual enquiries about health and comments on the weather. ‘I just wanted to check with you. My understanding of the law is that no man can alter, without consultation, the flow of a river or stream that goes through a neighbour’s land Well, the stream that turns his millstone goes through my land on the mountain, and now Garrett MacNamara has ordered his tenant, Aengus MacNamara, the miller, to divert a few of the other streams on the top of mountain, above my land, so now my stream floods my land from time to time. Has he any right to do that?’

‘He should certainly have consulted you and perhaps paid compensation if it has done any harm to your land,’ Mara told him cautiously. ‘The law is quite clear on that matter.’ What a fuss about nothing, she thought. The stream only went through a hundred yards, or so, of O’Lochlainn land.

Ardal O’Lochlainn’s face brightened. ‘So can I bring a case against him on the next judgement day?’

‘I think it would be best to talk it over with Garrett, first,’ said Mara hastily, having spotted a disturbance over at the market cross. A fight would break out there soon, she thought, if someone did not intervene quickly.

‘And he has done the same thing on the other side, on Teige O’Brien’s land,’ Ardal continued, oblivious to the commotion occurring behind him. He was a man of single mind. He reminded Mara of a dog, she had once, who was so obsessed with digging holes that he would even ignore a rainstorm and stay digging rather than retreat to his cosy bed in the stables.

‘I’ll consult my law texts and let you know,’ she promised and hurriedly made her way to the market cross.

The crowd had gathered around a trader selling linen. He was a small man with a thin face and a back that looked permanently bowed by the weight of his pack.

‘What’s the trouble?’ she asked crisply.

The crowd immediately fell into a respectful silence and parted to allow her to go through. She took a quick glance around. A large roll of coarse unbleached linen was lying on top of an open pack on the ground and beside it a pair of iron shears. The trader picked them up hastily and stuffed them into his pack. Then he began to roll up the linen.

‘Diarmuid, what is happening here?’ Mara quickly picked out a neighbour of hers, a man she could trust.

‘Well, Brehon,’ said Diarmuid, his freckled face worried and his sandy brows drawn together with a frown. ‘It seems as if a lot of people have got short measure from this man, Guaire O’Brien from the kingdom of Corcomroe.’

Corcomroe was only a mile or so from Noughaval, but the people of the Burren were intensely clannish. The O’Brien clan of the Burren were liked and respected by their neighbours, as were O’Lochlainn, O’Connor or even MacNamara, but it was a different matter with an O’Brien from Corcomroe. Traders from Corcomroe were scrutinised carefully and any small infringements of the laws of weights and measures pointed out instantly. However, there seemed to be more than a small infringement here. There was an immediate chorus of assent to Diarmuid’s words. Women were pulling out lengths of linen from their baskets and holding them up in front of her and indignantly clamouring to be heard.

‘How is this?’ asked Mara. ‘The measuring line is here, on the market cross. It is plain for everyone to see. There is the inch line and there is the yard line. Haven’t you been using that?’ she demanded sharply of the trader. He had the face of a thief, she thought. His eyes were sly and his mouth was tight.

‘He pretends to use it, Brehon,’ said Áine O’Heynes, ‘and then at the last moment he moves the cloth. I was watching him, because when I took the cloth out to show it to my daughter, I thought it looked short-measure so I came back and watched him carefully.’

‘Let me have the cloth, Áine,’ said Mara, stretching out her hand.

‘That was supposed to be four yards,’ Áine told her, ‘that was what I asked for and that was what I paid for.’

‘Measure the cloth for me,’ Mara firmly requested, holding it out to the man, Guaire. He took it from her and held it stretched between his two hands as he lined it up with the stark black horizontal lines on the well scrubbed base of the market cross. It was almost half a foot short of the four yards.

‘I’ll throw in an extra foot,’ he said hastily.

‘You won’t,’ said Mara severely. ‘You will cut a new piece of that same linen and you will make sure that it is exactly four yards in length. Is there anyone else who needs their cloth to be re-measured?’

A crowd of women surged forward and Mara groaned inwardly. She didn’t relish the thought of standing there, overseeing, for the next hour. In any case, down the road from the market square she could see a crowd of young men following a trundling cart. The air was still, and slightly fros ty, and the sound of angry voices carried well. She fixed a stern eye on Guaire and announced clearly: ‘Anyone with any further complaint come and find me.’

Rapidly she moved to the outer wall of the market. She could see that the heavily laden cart was accompanied by a man on horseback – Mara narrowed her eyes against the low sun and then tightened her lips. Yes, it was Ragnall MacNamara, on his white horse, and behind the cart was a group of men led by a huge giant of man, an angry man judging by the tone of his voice. Mara stopped and stood very still. Fintan MacNamara, the blacksmith, was a great bull of a man and now he was roaring his disapproval and anger. She could hear his voice clearly now rising over the gruff voices of his supporters.

‘You can tell the taoiseach that I’m not paying this extra tribute. Why should we pay a tribute to the ban tighernae? It’s never been done before in the MacNamara clan and if I have anything to do with it, it will never be asked for again. I’ll tell the MacNamara that to his face, himself.’

So that was it. Garrett MacNamara was a man in his thirties who had recently succeeded his father as taoiseach to the MacNamara clan. He had taken a wife in the early summer and now the tenants were expected to pay for the lady’s expensive tastes. It was strange having an extra tribute for the ban tighernae, the lord’s lady, but not unknown. Mara took another step forward and then continued waiting, standing in the exact centre of the laneway. She had not seen Garrett MacNamara at the fair, but, no doubt, he was expected there. Like the O’Lochlainn steward, Ragnall MacNamara would expect to gather some of the tribute from the members of the MacNamara clan who thronged the market and it was customary for a taoiseach to come and publicly thank his clansmen on those occasions. In the meantime, it might be possible for her to avert a fight by means of her authority.

‘Tell me what the trouble is, Fintan,’ she said crisply as the cart drew near. With one hand she signalled to Ragnall to stop the cart and then turned a listening attentive face towards Fintan.

‘Well, this is the way it is, Brehon,’ said Fintan in a conciliatory tone. ‘I paid my tribute to the MacNamara early this month. He was telling me that he wanted a pair of new gates for his tower house at Carron. I supplied them and I fitted them. Fifteen feet high and ten foot wide, they were.’

‘Yes.’ Mara nodded. ‘I’ve seen them, Fintan, and they do you credit.’

‘Well, as you can imagine, Brehon,’ Fintan continued in mollified tones, ‘I thought that would be enough of a tribute for any reasonable man, but when I was off at Caherconnell shoeing the physician’s horses, Ragnall comes along and takes those four candlesticks from my forge and tells my lad that the taoiseach required them as my tribute for the ban tighernae.’

‘Let me see the candlesticks,’ said Mara. She moved closer to the cart.

The branched candlesticks were at the bottom of the cart and surrounded by firkins of butter, baskets of eggs, linen bags of goose down and a few large round cheeses. There seemed to be no doubt that the MacNamara was exacting a very large tribute from his clan this Michaelmas. The candlesticks were beautifully made; each one of them branched to hold eight candles. Fintan had probably hoped to sell them to the king, surmised Mara. They were too fine for most people on the Burren.

‘And that’s not the whole of the story,’ went on Fintan. ‘He went to Eoin’s farm and took three, instead of the usual two, bags of sheep’s wool and he took them while Eoin himself was up Abbey Hill. He shouted at Eoin’s wife and made her give it and she with six small children there on her own!’

Mara frowned; it sounded as if Ragnall MacNamara had been unnecessarily autocratic.

‘You may take your candlesticks, Fintan, if you wish,’ she said grimly. ‘They should not have been taken from your forge without your permission. However, you may wish to see your taoiseach and talk over the matter with him first,’ she added. Garrett MacNamara already had a reputation for bearing a grudge for a long time and Fintan, despite his brave talk, would hesitate to incur his enmity. ‘Eoin,’ she added, turning to face the tall young farmer, ‘since your wife gave the extra bag I cannot authorise you to take it back now. The law says that she has equal rights to the property that you both work on. What you must do, and what I would advise all of you to do, is to send a request to your taoiseach to meet you and to lay down the tribute that will be expected of you in the future. If you wish, the meeting can take place today and I will be present to tell you what the law will, or will not sanction. Will that content you?’

There was murmur of talk and Mara waited patiently. There was a look of sour triumph on Ragnall’s face. Would his master reward him adequately for the hatred that he incurred on the Burren, she wondered, or did the man enjoy his unpopularity? It made her wonder what sort of life that kitten-like daughter of his enjoyed cooped up with a sour and hated father in the remote house at Shesmore.

‘We’ll stick together,’ announced Fintan. ‘I’ll leave the candlesticks for the moment – for the moment only,’ he warned bringing his large fist down heavily on the side of the cart. ‘And you, Ragnall, tell the MacNamara that we need to meet with him and to talk to him.’

‘He will be here at the market soon,’ said Ragnall sourly. ‘You can tell him yourselves then.’

‘Well, that’s ideal, then,’ said Mara firmly. ‘I’ll wait with you.

*

By the time Garrett arrived the crowd of MacNamara clansmen had grown larger and more menacing. Mara felt irritated with herself. The right thing to do would have been for her to have invited Garrett to come to the law school at Cahermacnaghten and to have talked with him privately before he met with his aggrieved clan. He was a new taoiseach, recently married, touchy about his rights and immensely ambitious. He would not take kindly to being told his duty in public.

‘Here he is,’ said Fintan, his deep strong voice cutting across the market place chatter.

Quickly Mara moved across to talk to Ragnall. If she were busy chatting to the steward when Garrett arrived then her presence would be less formal, less of a challenge to an insecure and newly appointed taoiseach. Niall MacNamara, she noticed, was no longer beside the cart. Perhaps his duties were over for the day. Perhaps Ragnall would find someone else to take the cart to the tower house at the end of the afternoon. He had the reputation of being a skinflint and he would not want to pay Niall any money over the minimum necessary.

‘How’s your daughter?’ she asked chattily, after a quick glance around to make certain that Maeve MacNamara was nowhere to be seen.

‘She’s well,’ Ragnall answered sounding bewildered.

‘How old is she now?’ asked Mara with one eye on the tall figure of Garrett who was now making his way through the cluster of his clansmen. She noticed that he did not greet them with the elaborate courtesy of the O’Lochlainn, or the joking friendliness of the O’Connor, but contented himself with a few curt nods.

‘She’s sixteen,’ said Ragnall, after a long pause in which he managed to convey that the Brehon should mind her own business.

‘Sixteen?’ Mara was genuinely surprised. ‘Well, how time passes! I would have thought she was only about thirteen or fourteen. Is she here today?’ she asked innocently.

‘No, she has plenty to do at home,’ said Ragnall dismissively. ‘Now if you’ll excuse me, Brehon…’

Mara did not move but stood there smiling: Garrett MacNamara had arrived. He looked as if he expected trouble, she noticed, but then, perhaps, with his fleshy, protruding nose and his heavily swelling lower lip jutting out from the receding chin, he always did look like a man about to start a fight. He could not have failed to notice the atmosphere of tension and how his clansmen had formed themselves into a solid crowd at his back. He did not waste time greeting Mara, or his steward, but turned and faced them.

‘Well?’ he asked.

Fintan, the blacksmith, came to the front.

‘My lord, we are finding your taxes too heavy,’ he said bluntly. ‘More has been taken from us in tribute than has ever been taken before.’

Garrett frowned at him and allowed a long silence to develop and to fill the space after the angry words. Several of the clan shifted uneasily and looked as if they wished they had not come along. The reliance of the clan on the leadership and protection of their taoiseach was absolute. The taoiseach was elected from the ruling kin-group and once elected they had great power – unless, of course, there was a rebellion against them.

‘The tribute was too low under the rule of my father,’ said Garrett eventually. ‘He was a very old man and he had made no changes for a long time.’

‘And what about my candlesticks?’ asked Fintan angrily. ‘I had already paid my dues with that pair of gates for your avenue. Ragnall came and took four candlesticks while I was out.’

‘Did you do that, Ragnall?’ Mara asked innocently. She moved decisively forward and every eye turned towards her. ‘Well, in that case, I would say that you put yourself outside the law.’

Garrett turned inquiringly to Ragnall and the steward did not hesitate.

‘The blacksmith lies, my lord,’ he said. ‘He had left instructions with his man to give them to me as the second half of the tribute that was owed by him.’

‘What!’ roared Fintan. ‘I left no such instruction.’

Clever, thought Mara. The man who worked for Fintan, a distant cousin of his, was as strong as Fintan himself, physically, but mentally he was a child. He would not be able to stand up to cross-questioning. His classification was that of a druth and his evidence would not be acceptable in a court of law. However, did a druth have the authority to allow the steward to take goods from his master’s storeroom? Certainly not, she decided, and intervened quickly.

‘This is a case that I must hear at Poulnabrone,’ she said firmly. All courts were held in the open air beside the ancient dolmen at Poulnabrone about a mile from Noughaval.‘ I will hear the case at twelve noon on tomorrow, Tuesday September 30,’ she went on raising her well-trained voice so that it carried all over the market place. ‘The case is between Fintan MacNamara, blacksmith, and Ragnall MacNamara, steward. Fintan MacNamara accuses Ragnall MacNamara of taking four valuable candlesticks from his premises without any authority.’ She paused and then lowered her voice and looked inquiringly at Garrett MacNamara, ‘and the case of the tribute,’ she said evenly, ‘do I understand you to say that this was a special, one-off tribute which was meant to compensate for some years of under-payment? Will the tribute on Michaelmas next year be the same as before unless it has been renegotiated with the clan?’ She paused again, looking at him steadily. To her surprise she noticed a faint sheen of perspiration on his high sloping forehead. Eventually he nodded.

‘Yes, Brehon, that is the case,’ said Garrett. He pushed his way back through the crowd and mounted his horse. There was a subdued movement from the MacNamara clan, which she feared might explode into a cheer so she added rapidly: ‘Go, then, all of you. Go in peace with your family and your neighbours.’

They moved obediently at her bidding, but few left the market place. Like a flock of starlings, that had been scattered by a stone but soon coalesced back into a tight throng of scintillating black; the crowd dispersed, but then came together again at the market cross, resentful eyes glancing over towards the impassive figure of the steward, Ragnall, who was carefully counting the silver in the pouch that he wore on his belt.

Chapter Two

The morning of September 30 dawned with a slight veil of mist, but this soon dispersed in the warmth of the autumn sun and the sky at sunrise was a brilliant tapestry of orange and gold behind the rounded purple heights of Mullaghmore Mountain.

‘You might as well enjoy yourself for now, the two lads from Thomond will be here by midmorning,’ said Brigid, finding Mara busy in her garden an hour later.

But the first arrival from Thomond was King Turlough Donn himself, and he came bringing gifts.

‘She’s too beautiful!’ said Mara, gazing anxiously at the superb Arab mare. It was truly a gift from a king, but gifts often brought a price with them. Turlough was getting impatient; she realised that. He would expect an answer from her soon: four months had now passed since his surprising offer of marriage. She had pondered the matter during the quiet days of the summer, but she still could not make up her mind. She looked up into his pleasant face with those gentle pale green eyes, which belied the pair of huge, warlike moustaches that curved down from either side of his mouth. A man of warmth and integrity, she thought, a man that any woman would be proud to call a husband. But was she any woman? Her present life was a happy and satisfactory one. Did she want to change it for all that was entailed by being his queen? ‘I don’t know how to thank you enough,’ she continued.

‘Well, that half-bred garron, you gallop around on, wouldn’t do for a king’s wife,’ he said gruffly, eyeing her hopefully.

She rose to the bait immediately. ‘Oh, who is this king’s wife, then?’ she asked, pretending to scan the Brehon’s house and garden, where her neighbour, Diarmuid, was waiting patiently for her. She had inveigled him into breaking a few pieces of limestone for her new flowerbed just before the king arrived. Her eyes surveyed Diarmuid with affection, now. He would be the perfect husband for her, she thought. Tolerant, easy-going, he could move in to her house, carry on with his farm half a mile down the road, and she could continue with her busy life as Brehon of the Burren and Ollamh, professor, of the law school at Cahermacnaghten. Turlough Donn O’Brien, king of the three kingdoms, Thomond, Burren and Corcomroe, was an altogether different matter.

‘You know that I want us to get married as soon as possible,’ said Turlough lowering his voice slightly.

He stopped at the distracted look on her face. Mara’s quick ear had caught the sound of ponies galloping at break-neck speed up the lane from Noughaval.

Still holding the reins, she moved away from him with a worried frown as she recognised two of her law school scholars once they rounded the corner. ‘That’s a couple of my boys,’ she exclaimed. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘Brehon,’ shouted Aidan, as soon as he had caught a glimpse of her.

‘Brehon, we saw a man,’ shouted Moylan, desperate to get the information in before his friend could speak.

‘And he was dead,’ screamed Aidan.

‘Dead!’ echoed Mara. She hastily handed the reins of the new mare to Cumhal, her farm manager, and moved quickly down the road to meet them.

‘Slow down,’ she commanded as she came towards them. ‘You’ll kill your ponies; the news will keep for a few minutes. Now jump down and walk them sensibly.’ The boys’ faces were bright with excitement and both looked perfectly well so her initial worries were soothed. Her mind was clamouring for a name to this dead man, but her instinct, especially when dealing with the dramatic young, was to meet each crisis with calm.

‘Take some grass and rub down the poor beasts,’ she scolded. ‘They’re both covered in sweat. You shouldn’t have ridden them like that. I’m sure they are tired after your long journey.’

She waited quietly while the two boys tumbled to the ground and snatched up handfuls of the bleached, dry grass from the side of the road and started to rub down the ponies.

‘Where did you see the dead man,’ she asked, her tone light and casual.

They looked at her, startled, and then Aidan said:

‘At Noughaval.’

She waited. Moylan would fill in. This was the way they always talked: each taking turns.

‘He was in the churchyard.’

‘Someone had buried him.’

‘Well, half-buried,’ amended Moylan. By now there was an interested audience of the bodyguards and the king himself, to whom the boys made rapid sketchy bows, before returning to their exciting news.

‘Not enough earth to really cover him properly,’ said Aidan with relish.

‘Some soil had been taken from another burial pile.’

‘It was fresh earth,’

‘That would probably be from the burial of old Domhnall,’ said Mara calmly. Her mind was seething with questions and suspicions, but she would let them tell their story. ‘He died on Friday and was buried on Sunday.’

‘The shovel was still there, stuck in the ground.’

‘We thought it was two new graves, but then we saw his feet sticking out.’

‘We were tossing a hurley ball to each other as we were riding along and Aidan missed it. It went over the wall and we got down off our ponies and went into the churchyard. We were hunting for the ball and then we saw the feet under the trees.’

Mara thought for a moment and then decided what to do.

‘When you’ve seen to your ponies properly,’ she said in steady, quiet tones, ‘go inside and Brigid will give you breakfast and help you to put your things away. Hugh is here already and the others will be along soon.’

The two boys stared at her open-mouthed. ‘But you’ll need us to come with you. We know where the body is,’ said Aidan.

Mara looked back. Cumhal, as always, had anticipated her need and was walking up the road with the horse and Diarmuid was coming out of the gate. She would have plenty of assistance without Moylan and Aidan.

‘Now go inside, you two,’ she said.

They looked at each other in desperation.

‘We know who it is,’ blurted out Moylan. ‘We uncovered the face.’

And he didn’t just lie down there and cover himself with soil,’ added Aidan with emphasis.

‘There’s a big lump of dried blood on his forehead.’

‘You’d better let us come with you. You’ll get a shock when you see him.’

She gazed at them with an air of mild interest and they couldn’t resist the final piece of information.

‘It’s old Ragnall MacNamara,’ Moylan announced.

‘The MacNamara steward,’ said Aidan.

‘The MacNamara steward,’ echoed the king.

Mara stood very still for a moment. Ragnall was unpopular; many hated him; she had seen that yesterday. But enough to kill him?

‘Cumhal,’ called Mara. ‘Go back and get the cob, and bring the leather litter with you. We need to go Noughaval churchyard. Now see to your ponies, you two, and then have your breakfast.’ She looked at their downcast faces and then took pity on them. Her warm heart could never resist her young scholars. ‘You know your ponies are blown,’ she said gently. ‘You have to see to them, now and I’m sure that you want something to eat, yourselves. Anyway, you are the first, except for Hugh, to arrive for the Michaelmas term, so you can tell the news to everyone else when they arrive and, of course, you two will be important witnesses when I announce the death at Poulnabrone dolmen this noon.’

They knew there was no use in further pleading so they went dejectedly through the great iron gates into the law school enclosure. The door to the scholars’ house stood ajar and smoke was rising from the kitchen house. Brigid would give them a good breakfast, avidly listen to their news, see that they emptied their satchels into the chest at the bottom of each bed and then they would have the excitement of telling the dramatic story to each new arrival. Mara felt she had enough to deal with without their presence.

‘My lord, I will have to leave you,’ she said to the king.

‘I’ll come with you,’ he said, with a quick gesture of command to his two bodyguards.

‘You may need somebody to send on an errand, Brehon.’ Diarmuid was at her side. As always quiet and unobtrusive, he swung his leg over his horse while the king assisted Mara to mount her mare. She smiled her thanks to both while her mind ran through the steps that she had to take. As Brehon she was responsible for all crimes on the Burren and this looked like a case of a secret killing. She looked regretfully back at her garden and at the exquisite flowerbed that she had been making. It was laid out in a series of small diamond shapes, each one outlined by the dark blue strips of limestone and filled with flowers of all the richest autumn hues. There were clumps of cranesbill, their intensely magenta flowers velvet-soft, then a patch of pale blue harebells and then in the next some purple knapweed.

Mara paused for a moment looking at the effect and watching how the colours blurred and merged with each other. She had once seen a stained-glass window in an abbey church in Thomond and the glory of the jewel-bright colours, each in its black-edged diamond, had stayed with her and this was the effect that she aimed at.

‘There’ll be a lot of fuss and bother from young Garrett MacNamara if someone has killed his steward,’ said Turlough. ‘Who do you think did it? Weren’t you telling me that there had been some bad blood between Ragnall MacNamara, the steward, and the MacNamara miller – what was his name? Aengus wasn’t it?’

‘Yes,’ she said absentmindedly. ‘I judged the case between the two of them at the last judgement session at Poulnabrone. I fined Ragnall for hitting Aengus a blow on the leg. It was just a drunken quarrel, but the miller was still limping after a month.’

There was another matter troubling her, though she tried to thrust it, for the moment, to the back of her mind. The situation yesterday, on Michaelmas Day, at the Noughaval Fair, had been dangerous and perhaps should have been resolved that afternoon instead of being postponed for judgement at Poulnabrone today. Anger had been seething in the MacNamara clan over the unjust tribute imposed upon them, and that anger had focused upon the steward, rather than on their taoiseach, chieftain. She feared that she bore a certain responsibility for this killing. She had made the wrong decision. This happens, she tried to tell herself. She had done what seemed to be the best at the time; nevertheless it was a terrible thought that a death should have occurred because of a failure on her part.

‘Don’t look so worried,’ said the king, watching her affectionately. ‘You know you are looking very beautiful this morning. I love that gown – royal purple, just right for you. You don’t look a day over eighteen!’

‘I’m thirty-six,’ she replied tartly, but she couldn’t help a quick, satisfied look down at her new gown. The rich purple, over the creamy white of her léine, suited her dark hair and hazel eyes and it had been made according to the latest fashion, closely fitting with a row of small buttons at the front, its flowing sleeves caught tightly in at the wrist. The admiration in the king’s eyes warmed her, but she had a task to do.

‘Cumhal,’ she called over her shoulder to her farm manager who was riding respectfully behind them. ‘Go ahead to Niall MacNamara’s farm. He was with Ragnall yesterday when they were collecting the Michaelmas tribute. Get him to send a message immediately to his taoiseach and then to come and meet us at the churchyard. Actually, no,’ she amended with a rapid change of plan. ‘Tell him to bring his horse and meet us at the churchyard, first,’ She would have to see the body for herself before she sent for Garrett MacNamara; she could imagine his fury if he were dragged from his tower house at this early hour of the morning because of a wild rumour from two fourteen-year-old boys.

‘I’ll go for Niall, Brehon,’ said Diarmuid, riding forward. ‘You may need Cumhal with you and Niall knows me well. His lands march with mine.’

Mara gave him a quick nod and a smile. That would be best. Niall MacNamara, the illegitimate son of Aengus MacNamara, the miller, was a nervous, timid young man. She could rely on Diarmuid to bring him along without causing him any undue worry. And, of course, it still might be just a false alarm so the least fuss, the better. Aidan and Moylan were not the most reliable of witnesses.

*

It was no wild rumour, though. As reported, the body in the churchyard had been left uncovered, a shovel hastily thrown on the ground beside it. The dead face stared wide-eyed at the sky and a cluster of flies buzzed sacrilegiously around the clotted blood on the narrow brow. It was Ragnall MacNamara. Mara bent down and touched the hand. Stone cold. Yes, it appeared likely that he had been killed last night. She sighed sadly. There was something infinitely pathetic about a dead face shorn of all its defences, she thought. In life, she had not much liked the man, but in death she mourned him and breathed a prayer for eternal rest for his troubled soul. She straightened up then and walked back to the gate where she had asked the others to wait. Turlough dismounted his horse as soon as he saw her and came to join her, while Cumhal and two bodyguards stayed at a discreet distance.

‘Yes, it is Ragnall, the MacNamara steward, and he is definitely dead,’ she said, before he could ask. He took her hand and held it between his own two large warm hands.

‘Is there anything I can do?’ he asked quietly. ‘Do you want me to get Malachy, the physician?’

Mara shook her head. ‘He’s in Galway. In any case, I don’t think that there is much that he can tell me. It seems obvious that the blow to the head killed him.’

‘Would you like me go up to the castle at Carron and let the taoiseach, let Garrett know about this? I can easily do it on my way back to Thomond.’

She shook her head, again. ‘You go on with your journey. I’ll have Cumhal and Diarmuid here with me,’ she assured him.

‘You’re not going to prefer to accept help from that bóaire instead of from me, are you?’ grumbled Turlough.

Mara smiled with amusement. She enjoyed Turlough’s occasional growls of jealousy.

‘It’s more fitting for a farmer to be running errands than for a king,’ she told him demurely. She felt she sounded like a parody of her housekeeper, Brigid, who always had a keen notion of what was, or was not, fitting for various members of society to do, but Turlough continued to look at her suspiciously. He had not liked finding her alone with Diarmuid in the garden earlier.

‘Go n-éirigh an bothair leath, (may the road rise up with you),’ she said smiling a farewell and, despite the presence of the bodyguards, she reached up and kissed him on the lips.

‘I’ll be back as soon as I can,’ he said, holding her tightly in his arms for a few minutes. Then he climbed back onto his horse and, followed closely by his bodyguards, made his way down the road towards the east.

Mara stood quietly, her thoughts lingering on Turlough and the complications, as well as the pleasures, that had resulted from his love for her. Her mind strayed back to her first husband; she had sworn never to marry again. Should she remain firm, or accept Turlough’s offer of marriage? Then she dismissed matter from her mind. This was not the time or place for speculations of this nature. Now she had to banish them from her mind and put all her energies and her intelligence into solving this unexpected death.

*

Niall was the first to arrive. He was mounted on a heavily built workhorse and he thundered along the road from Rusheen well ahead of Diarmuid on his slow-moving cob. Niall had obviously been told that something was amiss and his young, thin face was drawn and apprehensive as he swung his leg over the broad back of the horse and then came slowly across to her. He did not show any shock at the sight of the dead body of the steward, but his lips tightened. Mara noticed that he did not mutter the customary prayer, either. She found that strange.

As you can see, Ragnall MacNamara has been killed,’ she said quietly.

Niall moistened his lips and opened them as if he were about to say something and then shut them again.

‘When did you leave him last night?’ Mara asked. She had thought to postpone questioning until after Garrett had been called and the body removed to the church before being decently buried, but often a question when someone is shocked could provoke the truth when time for thought only produced silence. However, she was surprised and puzzled to note how shaken Niall looked. True, he was only in his early twenties, but he must have seen many dead people in his time; the Gaelic custom was to hold night-long wakes after every death and young children were routinely brought to these events.

He raised troubled eyes from the corpse at their feet and looked at her. ‘I didn’t see him after I left him at the market square, Brehon,’ he said. ‘You were there yourself. You probably saw me go. I never saw him after that until this very second.’

She frowned. ‘But what about the cart?’

‘Well, I was a bit late coming back for the cart. A cousin of mine was at my house. He had come all the way from Tuamgréine to see me so I didn’t want to rush away. I thought Ragnall would stay until the end of the market. He always likes to make sure that he gets the last ounce …’ his voice trailed away and his eyes went once more to the silent body on the ground.

‘So what time did you come back?’ asked Mara.

‘The sun was still up…well, I suppose it was setting…but it was before sundown…I remember my shadow being very large on the ground ahead of me as I walked towards the fair’ said Niall defensively. ‘There were plenty of people still there. I passed the merchant from Corcomroe, Guaire, on the road when I was leaving Rusheen.’

‘And Ragnall had already gone?’

‘The cart was there and no one was with it.’

‘And his horse?’

‘That was gone, too.’

‘And what did you do then?’

‘Well, I waited for a while and then I crossed over and had a word with Liam O’Lochlainn, the O’Lochlainn steward. He was still on that box of his, collecting the Michaelmas tribute from all the O’Lochlainns. He said that Ragnall had gone some time ago. So I took the cart back to my own place at Rusheen. That had been the arrangement: I would keep it overnight, and then drive it over to the tower house this morning.’

‘So it’s in your barn now?’ Mara asked thoughtfully. ‘Did you check it before you stored it?’

Niall shook his head. ‘No, Brehon, I just put it in the barn, locked the door, released the dog and then went back indoors. That dog of mine is a great barker; no one could near the place without him rousing me.’ He turned his head as the clatter of horse hoofs sounded on the stony road.

‘Here comes Diarmuid,’ said Mara. ‘You go now, Niall. Just knock on the door of the priest’s house and send him over here. Once we have brought Ragnall to the church, you must ride as fast as you can and bring your taoiseach back here. He will want to make the arrangements.’

She watched him carefully as he hurried across the churchyard. There seemed to be something always rushed and apprehensive about Niall. His early life as the illegitimate son of Aengus, a sour, difficult old man, and his servant, Cliodhna, probably accounted for that. Nevertheless, there seemed to be something unusual about the jerky way that his long thin legs crossed the churchyard, and he waited for a moment, standing with his head bowed, before pulling the bell rope.

‘Did you tell Niall that Ragnall was dead?’ she asked Diarmuid quietly as came down the path to meet her.

He shook his head. ‘No, I didn’t, Brehon, I just said that you wanted to see him and that you were by the church. He didn’t ask anything, just jumped on his horse straight away and was off down the road nearly before I had finished speaking.

Almost as if he knew what I had found, thought Mara. Aloud she said, ‘Diarmuid, would you be able to spare the time to ride over to Carron and tell Garrett MacNamara about this killing? Would that be asking too much of you? I think I need to speak to Niall and I would like to send Cumhal back to the school as soon as possible. You know what Aidan and Moylan are like, and Enda and Shane will be arriving soon. I don’t want to leave Brigid alone with them for too long. I hate to disturb your morning, though,’ she added looking dubiously at him. Diarmuid, she knew, would always hasten to carry out her lightest wish and for that reason she didn’t like taking too much advantage of his affection.

‘No trouble at all,’ said Diarmuid briefly, his freckled face lighting up with pleasure. ‘I’ll enjoy the ride and I’ll be glad to do something to help.’

Mara looked after him fondly as he rode down the path, his red-blond hair glinting in the late September sunlight. He was a trustworthy man, she thought, a good neighbour, loyal to his clan and good to his animals. He lived alone on a farm in North Baur, about a mile from Cahermacnaghten with only his ferocious dog, Wolf, to keep him company. What a shame that he never married and a wife and family!

*

The parish priest at Noughaval was an elderly man. As soon as Mara saw him emerge she went hastily to the churchyard gate to break the news to him.

‘I’m afraid this is a sorry sight, Father,’ she said. ‘Ragnall MacNamara has been killed and his body has been left in the churchyard.’

The priest nodded heavily as if such things were a daily occurrence in his life. Perhaps he was so old that nothing now came as a surprise to him. He put the black stole around his neck, followed her and without hesitation knelt on the damp grass beside the body. Quickly he anointed the five senses: feet, hands, the two ears, the mouth, and the nostrils and then just above the widely opened sightless eyes, murmuring the ancient Latin words.

Mara crossed herself perfunctorily as the priest rose to his feet, but her mind was already busy with the arrangements for the next stage.

‘I think, Father,’ she said, ‘that it would be best if we took him into your church for the moment. He can repose there until we see what the MacNamara says. And, of course, there is his daughter, Maeve. We’ll have to see if she wants to have his wake back at the house, or if it will take place in the tower house.’

‘Poor child, poor child,’ said Father O’Connor compassionately. ‘She lost her mother three years ago and now her father. What a sad thing. She has no brothers or sisters either, to help her bear the burden. It was a late marriage between Ragnall and his wife. Just the one child.’

And where was Maeve, Mara wondered as she followed Cumhal and Niall as they bore the body into the church. Her mind was working busily. Why had Maeve not informed anyone that her father was missing? Surely she would have noticed and been concerned when Ragnall had not come home that night.

‘Would you like me to go and see her afterwards and break the news to her?’ asked Father O’Connor, getting out his prayer book as they followed the body into the church.

‘No, Father,’ said Mara thoughtfully. ‘I think I will do that myself.’ She said a brief prayer over the dead man and then walked back out to the graveyard. Niall and Cumhal followed her.

‘Niall,’ she said gently. ‘I’ve changed my mind. I’ve sent Diarmuid to fetch the taoiseach. You and I will go back and check on the cart and then I’ll go to Shesmore to see Maeve MacNamara and break the news of her father’s death to her.’

Niall said nothing, just looked at her apprehensively. She gave him a reassuring smile and then turned to her farm manager. ‘Cumhal, you can go back to the school, all the scholars should have arrived now and Brigid will have her hands full with them,’ Despite the serious and tragic situation, her lips curled in an irresistible smile at the thought of the excitement at the law school as Aidan and Moylan told their dramatic story over and over again.

‘Yes, Brehon,’ said Cumhal obediently. He went towards the cob, and then hesitated, looking questioningly over his shoulder at her. She joined him instantly. Cumhal said little, but when he spoke it was always worth hearing. As he and Brigid had been her father’s servants from their youth, there was little they didn’t know about the Brehon’s business.

‘Did you notice that Ragnall didn’t have a pouch, Brehon,’ he said in a low tone when she joined him.

‘No,’ said Mara. ‘I didn’t, Cumhal.’

‘His mantle fell back when we were lifting him onto the litter, so that’s why I noticed. It had been cut from his belt,’ continued Cumhal, still in an undertone with a quick glance over his shoulder to where Niall was standing, waiting at a discreet distance from them. ‘I saw the marks where the leather had been cut. Niall put the mantle back around him before we carried him in. That’s why you wouldn’t have seen it.’

‘Thank you, Cumhal,’ said Mara quietly. She returned to Niall and smiled at him. ‘One minute, Niall, I must just have a quick word with Father O’Connor.’ She went rapidly back into the dim chill of the stone church and knelt beside the priest, her eyes scanning the body lying quietly on the mortuary slab.

‘I’ve sent Diarmuid O’Connor for the MacNamara,’ she said. ‘I am sure the taoiseach will take charge of all the funeral arrangements.’ She spoke mechanically, deftly disturbing the dead man’s heavy outer garment while the priest’s face turned towards the church door. Now she could see for herself that Cumhal was correct. Ragnall wore a heavy broad leather belt beneath his mantle. The belt was black with age and usage but the edges of the tags, which would have supported his pouch, showed almost white. They had been cut recently with a sharp knife and the pouch stolen. After death? Or before death? Impossible to tell, thought Mara, but she was sure of one thing. By late afternoon that pouch would have been crammed full of pieces of silver. It had even begun to bulge when she had seen Ragnall in the early morning of Michaelmas. It had been stupid of her to miss the pouch, she thought. It was as well that Cumhal had his wits about him. She looked more closely at the dead body, determined not to miss anything else. The bone of Ragnall’s forehead was splintered, but there was also a dark purple bruise above the left ear. Possibly the man was first stunned, fell to the ground and was then killed. She rose from her knees. The priest was oblivious of her, still muttering prayers, whether for himself or for the dead man, she did not know. She did not disturb him, but slipped quietly away and joined Niall outside the church.

*

The journey down the lane towards Rusheen was a silent one: Mara riding ahead, and Niall trotting quietly behind her. For the last hour Mara had been too busy to value the present given to her by the king, but now as the horse moved smoothly beneath her she realised the true worth of the gift. This was a gentle mare of superb breeding. The late September sunshine lit the pale gold of her mane and seemed to give her a look of a magical horse, one that had been given by the sun god, himself. Mara leaned forward and stroked the narrow head and the small neat ears and the mare turned her head and looked at her with wise understanding eyes.

I’ll call you ‘Brig’, thought Mara. The renowned female Brehon, Brig, had been like a beacon to Mara from her early childhood. Her father had often told her the story of how a young male judge, named Sencha, had delivered an unfair judgement against a woman. Blisters had come out upon his cheeks and they had stayed until Sencha had sought out Brig and the female Brehon had put him right. ‘You must not judge a woman as if she were a man,’ Brig had said. ‘A man brings horses to take possession of a property; a woman brings her goats. A man brings a richly jewelled drinking cup; a woman brings her kneading trough.’ So Sencha had gone back and reversed his judgement and the blisters had disappeared from his cheeks.

Mara had always loved that story and had been determined to become as wise a female judge as Brig. Her father had smiled indulgently, but she had persisted with her studies and he had been amazed and proud of the speed with which she learned. She had become an aigne, (lawyer), at sixteen, the year of his death, and he had left the law-school in her hands. When she became an ollamh (professor) two years later and Brehon of the Burren five years after his death, she had hoped that her gentle father was looking down at her from Heaven and was happy at her success.

*

Niall had a small farm of twenty acres about a mile away from Noughaval. As they approached, Mara looked over the hedges with interest. The young man was obviously a good farmer. The fields were brightly green; fat, contented cows cropped the luxuriant growth of late summer grass and neat well-thatched haystacks, each as large as a cottage, were grouped in a sheltered spot near the barn. The stone walls that enclosed the fields were well-built and kept in good repair; hedges were neatly clipped and kept thick and stock-proof. The small cottage and the surrounding cabins gleamed with fresh limewash.

‘You’ve a great farm here, Niall,’ she told him appreciatively.

‘I’ve had a lot of help from good neighbours,’ Niall said modestly. ‘Your own Cumhal has always been ready to lend a hand and Diarmuid O’Connor has been like a father to me, better than any of my own clansmen,’ he added with a faint touch of bitterness.

Mara considered this. Niall’s was only the only MacNamara farm in the south-western edge of the Burren; most of the MacNamara farms were to the east of the kingdom, so it would be natural that Niall’s nearest neighbours would be the ones to help him rather than far-off cousins. However, the fact that he was the son of an unacknowledged and secret tie between Aengus the miller and his elderly servant might have something to do with his lack of contact with the MacNamara clan.

Niall MacNamara’s dog barked and then wagged a welcome when they came to the gate. Mara bent down to give him a quick pat before following Niall as he unlocked the barn. It was dark and shadowy and smelled of the dry dust of old hay.

‘Could you take the cart outside, Niall,’ she said. ‘We will never be able to check the goods in this bad light.’

She waited while Niall pulled the shafts of the cart and steered it out into the yard. He immediately went through the goods, obviously remembering each tenant’s contribution to the lord’s tribute. Mara only half listened to him. There was something missing. She had known that as soon as he had begun to lift the bags of wool and the firkins of butter.

‘The four iron candlesticks that Ragnall took as tribute from the smithy are missing,’ he said when he had reached the bottom of the cart. He searched around the few things left and then looked at her, his face shocked out of its usual ruddy colour.

‘Fintan,’ he whispered. ‘Lord save us, I never would have thought it of him. Why would he do a thing like that just to get back a few scraps of metal?’

There was more than a few scraps of metal involved, thought Mara. All of Fintan’s talents as a smith had gone into the making of those magnificent candlesticks and he would not have been able to bear to be cheated out of them. Would that mean that he had killed, though? Mara did not know him well enough to be sure of the answer to her own question. And, of course, the candlesticks were not the only missing goods from the tribute.

‘I suppose you noticed that Ragnall’s pouch was also missing, Niall, didn’t you, when you put his mantle around him?’ she said casually.

He looked at her with seemingly unfeigned surprise in his light-coloured eyes. ‘No, Brehon,’ he said quickly. Surely, that must be a lie, thought Mara. Niall had been with Ragnall for most of the day. He would have noted how, piece-by-piece, the silver would have been carefully stowed away in the pouch. Cumhal had immediately seen that it was missing.

‘And yet, you put his mantle around him,’ she pointed out.

‘I m…might have done,’ he stuttered. His face had gone very white. He stared at her for a few minutes. Even his lips were blanched and bloodless, she noticed. She waited patiently, looking at him inquiringly.

‘I was very upset when I saw the body,’ he stated finally, after visibly racking his brains for an explanation which would content her.

‘I see,’ said Mara gravely. ‘Well, I think the best thing would be for you to keep the cart here until your taoiseach tells you what to do with it.’

He nodded silently, bending down to do the task immediately.

‘Not a word to anyone else of this, in the meantime, Niall,’ she warned as he replaced the goods into his cart. She waited while he wheeled it back into the barn again and locked the barn securely. He walked to the gate with her.

‘What’s my best way to get to Shesmore, Niall?’ she asked.

‘You’d be quickest if you go through Noughaval churchyard and then down the path between the fields of Ballyganner,’ he said. His voice was still low and shaken, she noticed, but he made an effort to steady it before he spoke again. ‘When you pass the tower house at Ballyganner, just turn left and take the lane over towards Shesmore. It’s a narrow lane, but wide enough for a horse. When you see the farmhouse, you can cross two fields and you’ll be there.’

‘I’ll leave you to go back to the church, then, Niall,’ said Mara. ‘Stay with Ragnall’s body until your taoiseach arrives.’ She clicked her tongue at the mare, shook the reins lightly and the mare responded instantly with a quick glance over her shoulder and a sparkle in her fine eyes.

On arriving back at Noughaval, Mara dismounted at the gate and led her mare through the churchyard, stopping for a moment to look at the spot where the body of Ragnall had lain. She could see the scattered earth where Aidan and Moylan had uncovered the body. There was very little of it; not enough even to cover the body properly. There was no intent at concealment, then. Surely the murderer could have easily dug a hole in the soft, friable soil that had been continuously re-worked over the centuries. Perhaps the murder had taken place when there were still plenty of people at the market square, when the possibility of discovery was too high for a risk like that to be taken. But why cover the man at all? Why not just leave the body lying on the ground after the fatal blow had been struck? Could it be that the murderer could not bear to see the accusing, wide-open eyes of the dead man? Did that show some relationship between killer and killed? And what had been used to strike the blow? Something heavy, surmised Mara and she looked around wondering if there was anything in the graveyard that could have been used as a weapon.

Not far from the scattered earth lay a small roughly fashioned stone cross. It was only about two feet long. It had nothing engraved upon it, but it probably came from one of the many graves dotted around. Holding her reins in one hand, she bent down and picked it up. It was heavy, she thought, but not too heavy to be swung and used as a weapon. One side of it was covered with moss and lichen – that would have been the side facing the north west, she surmised. However, the vegetation at the top of the cross was broken off leaving the surface, not white as would be expected, but a rusty brown. For a few minutes she stared at the mark. Her years of experience had taught her to identity this particular stain. It was definitely dried blood. Carefully she placed the heavy cross back on the ground and then stopped as the sunlight glinted on an object loosely covered with soil. She knelt down and sifted the soil, allowing it to run through her hands until her fingers met something. She tightened her hand and then opened it. There was something hard there which sparkled: it was a brooch still pinned to a torn piece of grey cloth. A piece of a brat, a mantle, she surmised, finely woven from the wool of the sheep that filled the mountains and the uplands of the Burren. It was the brooch, however, that held her attention. It was, a valuable brooch, made from gold, circular, and in the centre, inlaid into red enamel, were the figures of three lions. The three lions, she thought, inspecting the brooch with its tell-tale piece of grey cloth still attached, and then turning it over and over in her hand. This was the badge of the O’Brien clan. These three lions snarled from every flag and every banner of the O’Briens. She looked at the brooch thoughtfully and then placed it carefully within her pouch. She hadn’t found the answer to her question: only another question. She sighed and then looked around. Yes, there was a gate at the far side of the churchyard.

It was interesting, she thought, as she went to collect her mare, that this secret hidden path, with its high hedges, led from the churchyard at Noughaval to the farm at Shesmore and from thence to the O’Brien tower house at Lemeanah.

Picture album of the Burren