Eye of the Law (8 page)

‘I don’t like this, Brehon,’ he said after a moment. ‘In a way, though I don’t honestly think that boy was my son, I still feel a certain responsibility for him. He came here in good faith, on the word of his mother, and he was murdered. I don’t like the thought of burying the poor fellow without friend or family near to put the clay over him. I think I’d like to take him back to Aran and bury him beside his mother; that’s where he belongs and that’s where he should go. Would that meet with your approval, Brehon?’

‘I can understand your feeling, Ardal.’

Mara was conscious of a warm feeling. There were times when Ardal annoyed her; he could be tiresome and stubborn, but there were other times, like now, when she had to admire the essential nobility of the man. The wind was strong and it would be no light thing to embark on a journey in this weather on the turbulent seas between the mainland and Aran, but he would undertake that without a thought if he felt it to be the right thing to do. ‘However,’ she continued, ‘I really don’t think that would be necessary. After all, if his sisters had any feeling for him they would have crossed over for the funeral. You don’t know what they are feeling. Perhaps they regard him as no relation of theirs. Also, we don’t really know whether Becan will come after all. He might have got a passage in one of the fishing boats. That would have been cheaper for him. I don’t suppose that he has any silver to spare.’

‘Anyway, let’s go back to the problem of the murder.’ Ardal, as always, was efficient and precise. ‘We thought it might help, myself and Liam, to get statements from everyone while they all had supper in the barn.’ As he spoke, he carried a table over and placed it close to her chair.

‘Yes, of course. That was a good idea,’ said Mara.

Ardal had the custom, carried on from the days of his father, of supplying a substantial supper for all of his workers at the end of each day. It probably worked out well for him, she thought. It united the men, gave each a feeling of ownership in the O’Lochlainn land and it meant that farming matters could be discussed and work allocated for the morrow in an efficient way.

‘So we took the opportunity, while they were all there, to write down where every man was and whom he saw during yesterday morning.’ Ardal unrolled the scroll of vellum, columns carefully ruled and all the relevant information written in Liam’s small neat hand. He flattened it on the table, placing the inkhorn and a heavy iron ruler on top of two corners and quickly fetching a couple of law tomes for the others. Mara bent over it.

‘Of course,’ said Ardal delicately, ‘you may wish to question these men in private, but we thought this might save you a certain amount of time.’

‘This is wonderfully helpful, Ardal.’ Mara rapidly scanned the list. She was very sincere in her thanks, but a slight doubt did come into her mind about the value of the testimony of those who asserted that their master and
taoiseach
, the O’Lochlainn, was occupied on the Ballymahony lands, to the west of Lissylisheen, between daybreak and noon. Still, it would be hard for all three men who were with him to have testified to a lie and there would have been little chance that they would not have noticed his absence. His horses and foals were of huge importance to Ardal and the men would have been consulting him every few minutes.

‘But nobody saw Iarla after he left the kitchen house, soon after daybreak,’ she said in an exasperated tone. ‘You’re sure that everyone was telling the truth, Ardal? It wasn’t that they were holding something back, unsure as to how it might affect someone else.’

This was the problem of not investigating herself, she thought. Over the years she had developed the skill to hear the hesitation behind a statement, to notice how a voice might falter, or how a pair of eyes could glance away from her gaze. Ardal could give her the facts, but not the impressions. Still, it was valuable evidence that he was bringing to her in this neatly collated form.

‘I was thinking about that,’ said Ardal, taking out another piece of vellum and leaning over her. ‘Look, I got Liam to make a little sketch here of the townlands around Lissylisheen and, of course, Lissylisheen itself. You can see that we’ve put in names of those who were there on Thursday morning.’

‘So Fiachra was ploughing on this side of the road to get the land ready for oats.’ Mara pointed. The townland of Lissylisheen lay on the north as well as the south side of the road to Kilcorney.

‘That’s right, and his father was ploughing on the south side of the road.’ Ardal indicated the sweep of the townland border, obviously established before the road to Kilcorney was built. ‘They were having a bit of a competition to see who would make the best job of it.’

Ardal’s voice was amused, easy-going, the voice of a man who has nothing to fear and for whom life is good. ‘And here, at Craigaroon,’ he continued, pointing to the townland south of Lissylisheen, ‘I had five men on this large field forking dung from the carts and spreading it over the land here. These are my best grasslands so we always get the winter dung out on them as soon as we get a good wind and some dry weather in March.’

‘And, of course, if Iarla was going towards Balor’s Cave, he would either have had to go by the road or else cross the field at Craigaroon.’ Mara looked at the little sketch with puzzlement.

‘Not a chance of him not being seen,’ said Ardal emphatically. ‘The men were spread right across the field in a line so as to make sure to cover everything. And then there were the carts coming and going and with the dry weather a couple of men were clearing the ditches on the road between . . .’

‘And there were four men working in the courtyard with Liam.’

‘That’s right. At this time of year we always get out the storage barrels from the barn and the cellars; we check and clean and repair them all. Then they are ready for the tribute at Bealtaine and at Michaelmas.’

‘And what about the townland of Ballymurphy? There’s no name here.’

Ardal smiled. ‘Well, that’s exactly what Liam said. This is the only possibility: Iarla came out of the kitchen house, at a moment when Liam and the other men were in the barn. Iarla could have gone over the wall of the courtyard, through Ballymurphy and down south towards Noughaval.’

‘But why on earth should he go towards Noughaval? Anyway, it’s the wrong direction for Kilcorney and Balor’s Cave.’ A sudden thought struck Mara. ‘Ardal, on Monday night, how did you take Iarla and Becan back from Lemeanah Castle?’

Ardal looked at her with a puzzled expression. ‘How? Well, Teige lent us a couple of horses.’

‘I don’t mean that. I meant what route did you take?’

‘Oh, I see. Well, we just went through the fields. Just went direct.’

‘Through Noughaval?’

‘That’s right.’

Ardal looked puzzled, but Mara said no more. An idea had just come to her. Tomorrow, once morning school was over, she would use the Saturday half-day to pay a round of visits. She would take her mare, Brig, she decided. She would not gallop, or even trot; just a slow walk sitting side-saddle on the horse’s back could not do her any harm, despite all the old wives’ tales.

She had to see Malachy and Nuala at some stage and ask them if they were certain about the time of death. But first of all she would go to Glenslade, the home of Ardal’s brother, and heir, Donogh O’Lochlainn. She would see Donogh, and also his son, Donogh Óg, and his daughter Mairéad. And then she would go to Lemeanah Castle. If Iarla had memorized the route on that Monday night and did leave Lissylisheen through the Ballymurphy townland and then down to Noughaval, the most likely possibility was that he was going to visit Lemeanah.

And if the man from Aran had arrived there on Thursday morning, what sort of reception did he get from the outraged father?

Five

Bláthmac, the poet, compares the relationship between a
taoiseach
(chieftain) and his clan to that between God and the Jewish people. A
taoiseach
must care for all members of his clan, especially if old, sick or handicapped, and he must be just in all dealings with them and protect them against any threats.

‘
I
’m just going to use the mare to walk the road between here and Glenslade. I won’t even trot, I promise!’ said Mara apologetically.

She had sent Moylan to tell Seán to saddle Brig, but Brigid, of course, always knew everything that was going on. Now she was gazing at Mara, her thin lips compressed and her green eyes sparkling with annoyance.

‘What do you have to go to Glenslade for, when you will have to go to Poulnabrone to make the announcement at vespers?’ Brigid’s voice was sharp with anger. ‘If you want to see anyone there, just send for them. That’s what your father would have done. He didn’t do all this journeying around. He sat in the schoolhouse and saw people there.’

‘Well, I just want to see Donogh O’Lochlainn and, well . . . well, I thought it was better for
me
to go to see him, than . . .’

Brigid nodded resignedly. She had noted the emphasis on the word ‘me’. What Mara had not said – and you know how touchy he is – would not be mentioned by Brigid, but they were both aware of the truth.

‘The
taoiseach
could have brought the man over for you,’ she muttered, ‘but I suppose you don’t want to cause any more trouble between the two of them. I remember when they were young, there used to be great trouble. Donogh was always fierce jealous of his brother.’

‘Brigid, what were they like when they were quite young, the two of them?’ asked Mara curiously. ‘I didn’t know Donogh too well. Ardal was nearer to my age so I knew him better. Donogh had gone off and was farming over in Glenslade by the time that I was growing up.’

‘Not too different to the way they are now,’ said Brigid thoughtfully. ‘Ardal was a beautiful child, big and strong, could talk to anybody. In fact, even though he was four years younger, he could talk before Donogh – used to talk for him, I remember. And when Donogh did talk, nobody much had time to listen to him. He wasn’t good-looking, even as a child. There was talk for a while of sending Ardal to the bard school, but I think that Finn always wanted him for his heir.’

There was a silence as Mara turned over the picture of the two brothers in her mind. It was something that most people had forgotten by now – that at the death of the
tánaiste
(heir) to the O’Lochlainn clan, twenty-five years ago, when Ardal was fifteen and Donogh was nineteen, the clan had decided that the younger brother was more fit to be the new
tánaiste
than the elder. Brigid was probably right, suspected Mara; no doubt Finn, himself, had preferred the tall, handsome, fluent and clever Ardal to the unfortunate Donogh and had quietly made his preference known to his clan. There would have been no doubt in anyone’s mind that, of the two brothers, Ardal would make the better
tánaiste
and subsequently
taoiseach
. Glenslade, with its extensive lands and tower house, was given to Donogh and with that he had to be content.

Glenslade tower house was built on a square craggy platform of rock overlooking the deeply sunken glen of Slaoide. This was a depression of about two hundred yards wide and two hundred yards long. The stone of the sides of this pit was squared-off, almost as if it were cut stone and the whole hollow resembled a roofless giant’s castle whose proportions made the real four-storey-high tower house appear like a child’s toy.

As Mara rode at a slow walking pace across the familiar road between the law school and Poulnabrone, she pondered on the man she was about to meet. This would be a difficult interview – not because she really suspected Donogh of having a hand in the murder of the young man who had turned up claiming to be the son of his brother Ardal, but because every interview with Donogh was difficult; a long, drawn-out agony of stuttered words and unfinished sentences.

He was standing at the back of the tower house, gazing down the sheer drop of the glen, when she arrived. An ugly man, she thought compassionately as he turned at the measured sound of her mare’s feet on the stone road. He had the red hair of the O’Lochlainns, but where his brother Ardal had a head of crisp, copper curls, Donogh’s hair was faded and hung sparsely around a bare crown. Ardal was tall and well made. Donogh was small and barrel-shaped with very long arms and rather short legs.

‘B-b-b-rehon,’ he said, but said no more when they met together at the gate into Glenslade.

How we do rely on words to smooth our daily intercourse with our fellow human beings, thought Mara, hearing her own voice chattering on, commenting on the weather, expressing hope for the good health of Donogh’s wife, Sadhbh, and of his son, Donogh Óg, and of the four younger children. Donogh, in comparison with his brother Ardal, always seemed to be abrupt and ungracious. But if the fluent, mellifluous speech of Ardal had been granted to Donogh, who knows what difference this might have made.

‘I just want to talk to you, Donogh, and to Donogh Óg, about this young man from Aran who was murdered. Shall we go inside?’

He opened the door silently and ushered her into a small chamber just inside the entrance. Mara was surprised. This room would normally be just used to receive goods from a messenger or to talk to an unimportant guest. She would have expected Donogh to take her upstairs to the hall and to offer refreshment. However, this suited her better. She still had to visit Lemeanah and then go on to Poulnabrone so the shorter her visit to Glenslade the better. She seated herself on a hard stool near to the window and turned to him.

‘You were there at Lemeanah for the wedding feast,’ she asserted. No point in any unnecessary questions. He was there; she had seen him herself. She hardly waited for his nod before she went on. ‘Were you told of the young man’s, of Iarla’s, claim to be the son of your brother Ardal?’

He nodded again.