My Lady Judge (24 page)

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Authors: Cora Harrison

Tags: #Fiction, #Historical, #Mystery & Detective

BOOK: My Lady Judge
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‘So you were on the fifth terrace. One of my scholars saw you there.’
Lorcan hesitated and then smote himself on the forehead. ‘What a mind I have,’ he said with false humility. ‘I’ll forget my own name next. Yes, I was on the fourth terrace and then I climbed up to the fifth when the light came from the bonfire. Well, I hope I have been some help to you, Brehon, and now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll be getting the cows in for milking.’
The cows didn’t look as if they had much milk to give, thought Mara as he vaulted the wall, knocking down a few loose stones as he did so, and went across the muddy field calling
loudly. Had he given her something to think about? she wondered. Could Emer and Roderic have murdered Colman? Unlikely, but certainly possible. Would Daniel really allow Emer to marry Roderic, even with Colman murdered? Emer was his cash crop. He would have got a large amount of silver from Colman as a bride price. Colman was dead now, but there were other men around — Ardal O’Lochlainn was a possibility. A
taoiseach
would be a wonderful prize for a beautiful girl like Emer, or for Daniel, rather, who would not care that the bridegroom was thirty years older than the bride. Emer, with her perfect figure, her cloud of black hair and her delicate wild-rose complexion, would grace the tower house of Lissylisheen and would provide Ardal with the sons that he needed. Despite the king’s offer, Roderic was still landless. Would Emer really have hoped that Daniel would settle for Roderic if Colman were off the scene?
Mara remembered their cheerful faces this morning and shook her head. This crime, she thought with a sigh, was committed by a man who had sunk into the depths of despair, who had no resilience, no self-belief left within him.
 
 
‘Brigid, have you got any sausages?’ Mara asked, coming into the kitchen house where Brigid was busy making cowslip wine.
Brigid turned around, her hands full of the fragrant yellow pips. ‘Sausages?’ she said, her sandy brows raised in surprise. ‘Yes, I have plenty, Brehon. I was going to cook some for tonight. Are you hungry? Would you like me to cook you some now?’
‘No, no,’ said Mara. ‘They’re for a friend – at least, I hope he might become a friend and I think, to be honest, he would probably prefer them raw.’
Brigid stared at her bemused and Mara smiled sweetly. She always enjoyed keeping Brigid guessing. There were times when
it irked her to feel that Cumhal and Brigid were always so sure of what she needed and what she was thinking. During the past few days Brigid had dropped a few nostalgic reminders of Mara’s father, and of how proud he would be of his daughter’s success. Obviously they were both quite worried about her relationship with the king. ‘Are they out in the larder here?’ she continued, moving swiftly across the kitchen. ‘Don’t disturb yourself, I’ll get them.’
There was a small leather bucket in the larder and Mara filled it with some of Brigid’s tasty sausages. Bran had gone to the beach at Fanore with the youngsters so she did not feel guilty about bestowing these on another dog. Quickly she took a couple of pork pies for herself, also. She needed food while her brain was working so actively.
 
 
‘Diarmuid,’ she said when she arrived at Baur North to find the farmer wrestling with an overgrown hedge in the lane outside his farmyard. ‘I have come to make friends with your dog.’ He looked at her with a startled open-eyed gaze and she smiled at him serenely. ‘You carry on cutting your hedge,’ she ordered. ‘Just let him out and don’t take any notice if he barks.’ She could see questions and objections trembling on his lips.
‘Yes, I’m sure!’ she said quickly as she brushed aside the thorny clippings from the hawthorn hedge, seated herself on the bank and placed a sausage at a short distance from where she sat. When Diarmuid unlatched the gate Wolf bounded out, barking fiercely. Mara ignored him and sat gazing into the distance. Wolf stopped his forward rush. He looked rather uncertain, Mara thought, watching him carefully out of the corner of her eye. His bark tailed away and then his nose began to twitch. Little by little he came nearer and then in one quick movement he snatched the sausage and then backed away with a few short defiant barks.
Quickly Mara threw another sausage from the leather bucket and this time Wolf snatched it up eagerly. The next sausage fell a little nearer to Mara, but Wolf did not hesitate to come up for it. Then Mara put the sausage on her hand and held it out, still gazing straight ahead. This time Wolf took longer to make up his mind, but when Mara felt his mouth on her hand she knew she had won. Surprisingly, for such a big, aggressive dog, he took the sausage almost delicately, his sensitive lips just touching the palm of her hand. Diarmuid let out a long breath in a muted whistle and grinned broadly.
‘Put him back now, Diarmuid,’ said Mara quietly. ‘That’s enough for today. We’ll do more another day. You need to get him out and about with people,’ she insisted. She had told him what to do for all of their lives and she could not resist it now. ‘Let him see that people are not a threat,’ she continued. ‘Walk him at night for a while — that would be best. Why don’t you walk him around Athgreany, where the stone circle is?’ That will disperse the young lovers before too much harm is done, she thought with amusement, imagining Wolf’s deep bark interrupting soft murmurings of love.
‘I’ll do that,’ said Diarmuid obediently. ‘I’ll do that this very night.’
‘And then take him on the same walk at daytime after you’ve got him used to it for a few nights,’ she called after him with a smile, but already her thought had returned to the two crimes that had taken place here on this pleasant land of the Burren: the rape and the murder.
She had thought of them as completely separate. But were they? Was there a connection? What was the significance of the name that was missing from the sketch of Mullaghmore on the schoolhouse wall?
‘Well,’ said Diarmuid when he returned from putting the dog in the yard. ‘I wouldn’t believe that if I hadn’t seen it, Brehon.
You’re great with dogs. Look at him! He’s not even barking now. There’s not a person on the Burren except myself or Lorcan who would dare to come near to him the way that you did.’
His words filled her with a rush of triumph. She loved to pit her brains and her courage against overwhelming odds. This taming of Wolf was something of importance to her. He was a dog that was worth getting to know; loyal, and exclusive, not everyone’s dog, but a dog whose love once given was there for life.
Then Mara remembered her real purpose in coming. She had wanted to talk to Diarmuid about his cousin.
‘The dog is devoted to Lorcan, isn’t he? I saw that at
Bealtaine
judgement day. I always think there can’t be too much wrong with a man if a dog really loves him.’
‘He’s not as bad as he is painted,’ said Lorcan’s cousin tolerantly. ‘I’m not saying that he would be above a bit of cheating or a bit of lying, but he wouldn’t hurt anyone, not kill someone from the law school. Not that!’
‘Oh,’ said Mara, rather taken aback. ‘You would imagine that to be especially wrong? To kill someone from the law school?’
‘Well, it wouldn’t be the right thing for him to do,’ muttered Diarmuid.
She looked at him with a puzzled frown. ‘What do you mean, Diarmuid? Surely no murder is right, is it?’
‘Well,’ said Diarmuid, turning rather red, ‘I mean that Lorcan wouldn’t take the risk of murdering someone belonging to you. After all, you can’t rest easy now until the murderer is found, can you?’
‘I see what you mean, Diarmuid,’ said Mara carefully. ‘But it’s not just me; it is the whole community who must know the truth. Cost what it may to the individual or to the clan, the truth must be known, and the community cannot live in peace unless this is done. You know that’s true, Diarmuid.’ He nodded solemnly
and she suppressed a smile. He was always so easily impressed by her. Still, her little lecture might induce him not to shield his cousin.
‘So you were standing near Wolf’s Lair before the bonfire was lit, Diarmuid. Was Lorcan near to you?’ She looked at him keenly.
He shook his head reluctantly. ‘No, he wasn’t with me. He was climbing up on to the terrace above Wolf’s Lair. I saw him there clearly when the bonfire blazed up. He was turning around to talk to the physician who was coming up behind him.’
‘And the priest?’ asked Mara. ‘Did you see the priest?’
‘I saw him just after that; he was on the fourth terrace, but he was further over. He was saying something to young Nessa. To be honest, I think he was shouting at her. He sounded in quite a fury with her. I didn’t like to hear him shout at her; the poor girl has suffered enough. But her own parents were there on the terrace below so it was not for anyone else to interfere.’
‘I see,’ said Mara. ‘Diarmuid, I was going to ask you about Oscar O’Connor. I know you gave your evidence to Hugh and Shane.’
‘So I did,’ he said with enjoyment. ‘Just like a little pair of Brehons, they were. Clever as anything! You should have seen them cross-examining me!’
He wore the proud smile of a father and Mara thought, once again, what a shame it was that Diarmuid had never married. He had a prosperous farm here and he should have sons to help him with it.
‘I read it all,’ she said. ‘I just wondered if you’d tell me a bit about Oscar O’Connor, his background and why he went to Galway instead of working with his father.’
‘Well, the father wasn’t an easy man to get on with,’ said Diarmuid. ‘A good, hard-working man, but he expected a lot from these lads of his and of course, Oscar, being left-handed, was a bit clumsy, like, and he was always being criticized.’
‘And what about the fight with the sailor? Lorcan told me about that, is it true?’
‘Yes, that’s true,’ said Diarmuid. ‘They say that young Oscar lost his temper terribly. Someone told me that he looked half mad when he did it. I was going to tell you about that. I didn’t want to mention it to Hugh and Shane, of course.’ She could see him scanning her face; he was a kind man, but if it were a case between his blood relation, Lorcan, and a stranger from Corcomroe then Diarmuid would certainly want to incriminate Oscar O’Connor.
‘I see,’ said Mara. She got up from the bench and, keeping her face turned away, she walked over to the gate to Diarmuid’s yard. She pulled another sausage out of the leather bucket and held it through the iron bars of the gate. In a moment she felt it taken from her, again with great gentleness. This time she risked a quick pat, through the iron bars, on the furry head.
‘Good boy, Wolf,’ she said triumphantly. ‘Now, Diarmuid, I must leave you. I’ll go down to where they are shearing in the valley. I might as well meet a lot of people at the same time and see what they can remember of
Bealtaine
Eve. This will save my legs.’
‘God be with you, Brehon,’ said Diarmuid, but she could feel his unease and he did not go back to clipping his hedge, but stayed watching her as she started to go down the road.
She stopped. There was no sense in rushing these people. Time after time she had to remind herself of this. Not everyone spoke and thought at the speed that she did everything. She stooped, picked a tiny rock rose and smelled it. It had no scent, but she guessed that Diarmuid would be quite unaware of this. She placed it carefully inside the pin of her brooch and dusted her hands before she spoke.
‘Did you know that he was dead? Did you know he had died by the time you all came down the mountain that night?’
He hesitated.
‘I suppose lots of people knew,’ she said casually. ‘I was thinking that the body could not have been missed. It would have been easy to see if you came down on the western path.’
He thought for a moment. He had the look of a man who was choosing his words carefully. ‘I didn’t see him myself,’ he said, ‘but the word went around the next day. I hadn’t heard it before I went to Cahermacnaghten.’
‘And who told you?’ she asked.
He hesitated and then said, ‘Well, Lorcan told me, he was waiting for me when I came back from my chat with you at the law school.’ He smiled and added, ‘I suppose I was told about it on the
Bealtaine
night, but I didn’t know it at the time. It was that strange boy of Gráinne MacNamara’s, young Feirdin. He came up to me and he said: “The lawyer who talks to everyone is not talking any more.” “What do you mean, Feirdin?” I said to him. He’s a strange lad, you know. Most of the time he makes sense, but then at other times you wouldn’t know what he was talking about. Anyway, he just stared at me as if he had forgotten what he had said and he walked off, picking up stones and rubbing them against each other.’
‘And Lorcan also knew that night that Colman was dead.’ Diarmuid nodded reluctantly. ‘He wasn’t the only one, though,’ he said hastily. ‘There were others whispering as we went down at daybreak so Lorcan wasn’t the only one who knew. I heard the name “Colman” lots of times, but I didn’t take any notice. To be honest, I thought that people had discovered that he was a blackmailer. It was only when Lorcan told me the story on Friday that I knew what Feirdin meant. Lorcan told me to say nothing for the moment, until the body was discovered.’
‘Strange,’ said Mara. ‘Feirdin said no more, did he?’
Diarmuid shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘He didn’t say another word.’

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