My Lady Judge (28 page)

Read My Lady Judge Online

Authors: Cora Harrison

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

BOOK: My Lady Judge
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‘You had better depart now while it is dark,’ she said stonily. ‘If you stay you risk being seen and someone might know that you caused my death.’
He said nothing; in the fetid darkness of the burial tomb she heard his breath come in short, quick pants. He seemed to be stirring, making some kind of movement, and suddenly she was filled with a sick disgust and more fear than she had ever felt before in her life. Why had she not taken Bran with her, at least? He would have defended her against this madman. She took a deep breath. She would fight. He would not do this to her.
But at that moment Father Conglach hissed, ‘The Lord bids me to take the devil out of you, too,’ and launched himself at her, fumbling at her
léine
. She felt his dry, hard hands on her leg and she smelled the sour smell of his breath in her face.
Mara’s father had trained her voice from a very early age. Even when she was only seven years old he used to take her to Poulnabrone and stand a hundred yards away and get her to practise
projecting her voice until the surrounding hills gave back the echo of her words. Time and time again she had gone to practise, and all the years of training now came to her rescue. Her scream came out with such force that it seemed to shake the little cairn. She continued to scream, but she prayed also.
Surely there was a voice, an answer! She stopped screaming and listened. Father Conglach seemed to hear nothing. He still struggled with her clothing and she continued to resist, kicking violently; but she was sure she had heard something. A faint light seemed to fill the empty space of the entrance to the cairn. Perhaps the moon had re-emerged from the clouds, or perhaps, she hoped with desperation, a man with a lantern had approached. She screamed again. And then came a bark that rang like a bell off the limestone. Only one dog barked like that! And then there was a thud of heavy paws and a huge shape blocked the faint misty yellow light at the doorway. The smell of blood, and the smell of mould, and the smell of the man were all overwhelmed by the heart-warming smell of warm dog fur as he hurled himself on the figure beside her.
And then the priest shrieked. The dog was growling now. Growling with the ferocity of his father, the wolf, and holding on with the intensity and tenacity of his mother, the sheepdog. The priest screamed again. Mara struggled to her feet and tried to keep her balance as she shook her clothing into order.
‘Call your dog off, Diarmuid,’ she said. ‘I don’t want this man killed. I want him to stand before the community and confess to his crimes. Good boy, Wolf,’ she added. She was close to tears and she bent down and hid her face for a moment in the soft warm fur and laid her cheek next to the enormous head. ‘You come and see me at the law school, Wolf, and you will have all the sausages that you can eat.’
‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph,’ gasped Diarmuid, holding his lantern up and looking at the frothing, gibbering creature on the ground.
‘The dog’s bitten the priest. Look, he’s bitten him on the arm. He’s bleeding.’
‘He’s a good judge, that dog,’ said Mara, filled with a desire to giggle wildly. ‘He did the right thing. If you and Wolf had not come along at that moment, Diarmuid, I might be dead by now … I hoped you were coming … I kept thinking about Wolf … he’s a good dog, Wolf … Tie him up, Diarmuid … tie him up for heaven’s sake … He tried to murder me … the man, I mean … not the dog … Tie up the man … not the dog … the dog is an honest dog; the king himself said so.’ Suddenly she realized that she was sick and giddy and that an icy coldness was coming over her.
‘You’re bleeding! You’re badly hurt,’ said Diarmuid. He set his lantern on the ground and bent his head over Mara’s wrist.
‘Tie something over it as tightly as you can, Diarmuid,’ said Mara, forcing herself to remain in command of the situation. ‘He tried to murder me by slitting my wrist … he wanted me to bleed to death so that I would not be able to accuse him of the terrible crime of the rape of the young girl, Nessa … I’m telling you this now, Diarmuid, in case anything happens to me … If I die, you must bear witness to my last words … this man … this priest violently raped that child.’ She struggled to sit up, but collapsed back on to the ground. ‘Diarmuid,’ she gasped, ‘you must take this as a sacred trust … you must go to Thomond and tell King Turlough Donn what happened … promise me, Diarmuid … this man must be punished.’
A black mist seemed to be welling up before her eyes and the orange light from the lantern was shifting and spreading out into a strange haze. Her lips were cold and suddenly the pain from her wrist was unbearable. She lay quite still for a moment; it seemed tempting just to let go and slide into the cold darkness. But she couldn’t do that; she had too much to do. Once again she struggled up and this time she placed her head between her knees,
and a moment later a rush of hot sweat spread over her. She waited for a moment, but the icy faintness seemed to have passed. She leaned her head upright against the rough stone and tried to breathe deeply and steadily. She felt very ill and she was conscious of a strange vagueness and remoteness from her present situation. Only Diarmuid’s warm hand on her cheek kept her from losing consciousness completely.
‘The bastard,’ muttered Diarmuid as he tore one of the loose flowing sleeves from his
léine
and bound her arm tightly. Mara took several more long, deep breaths. She touched her wrist. The blood was not seeping through yet. She allowed herself to hope that all would yet be well. Diarmuid was kneeling beside her, his hand on her wrist, his thumb firmly over the bandage.
‘Mara,’ he said urgently. ‘Are you all right?’
She smiled slightly with cold lips. Although she always called him Diarmuid and had known him since she was a child, Diarmuid had not called her Mara for almost twenty years. She was always
Brehon
to him. There was a depth of anguish in his voice and somehow it steadied her. She tried to open her eyes and look at him.
‘I’m feeling better now, Diarmuid,’ she said, conscious that her voice still sounded weak and faint. ‘Just tie him up while he is still unconscious. I think he has had some sort of fit.’
Diarmuid lifted his thumb and shone the light from his lantern on to her wrist. She looked down. The rough bandage was still white; no ominous red stain spread over it. The dog, Wolf, ceased his heavy panting and seemed to hold his breath, looking with interest at her wrist. Diarmuid gave a satisfied nod and went over to the unconscious man on the ground. The dog gave a low menacing growl, but then grew quiet when he could see that there was no threat to his master. Diarmuid took off his leather belt and buckled it around the priest’s legs, tying them securely. Then he used the other sleeve of the
léine
to knot the arms behind the
back. The priest muttered and groaned but he still appeared unconscious. Despite his harsh words, Mara noticed that Diarmuid handled him with care. The priests in the community were treated almost as gods – the news of Father Conglach’s crime would be an enormous shock to everyone.
Just as well if the tale travelled around before judgement day. The people would have the time to get used to their shock and their horror at the guilt of the privileged and the sacred; and would be able to turn their minds towards justice for the weak and the unimportant, thought Mara. She waited until Diarmuid had finished trussing up the priest. From time to time she glanced down at her wrist, but the wrappings still stayed white. Her spirits began to rise.
‘Go and get help, Diarmuid,’ she said. ‘It will only take you a few minutes to go to Caherconnell. Tell Malachy the whole story. Get him to bring some men and a cart. We will send this … this man back to the bishop at Kilfenora. Let the bishop look after him now. He is his responsibility.’
‘Will you be all right?’ asked Diarmuid. He lifted the lantern and cast a quick worried glance at her wrist. She looked also; some blood had leaked through, but not much.
‘I’ll be fine,’ she said decisively. ‘The bleeding must be quite slow now. Malachy will be able to stitch it. Tell him he’ll need to bring something. Ask him to bring a piece of parchment and pen and ink, also. I’ll write a note to the bishop of Kilfenora and explain everything. Tell him not to bring Nuala,’ she added urgently. ‘Tell him I said that Nuala was not to come.’
Diarmuid grinned at her. ‘You’re feeling better,’ he observed mildly. ‘I know you are yourself when you start giving me strings of instructions. You were always like that even when you were five years old.’
She was surprised to hear herself laugh. ‘Go on, then,’ she said lightly. ‘Go quickly. I’ll be all right.’
‘I’ll get you out of here, first of all,’ said Diarmuid. ‘You won’t want to be staying here with him. Just stay still for a moment; let me carry you.’
‘I’m heavier than I was when I was five years old,’ said Mara, but he had picked her up in a minute and carried her outside. The night was still very black and there was a slight mist blowing in from the Atlantic. Mara tasted the salt on her lips and was suddenly filled with an overwhelming joy that she was still alive.
‘Put me down, Diarmuid,’ she said curtly. ‘I’ll just sit with my back against that stone; I’ll be fine.’
‘I’ll leave you the lantern,’ said Diarmuid.
‘No, take it,’ said Mara. ‘I don’t want you falling and breaking your leg in the darkness. I need Malachy here quickly and I need to have that priest moved off the Burren as soon as possible.’
‘Come on, Wolf,’ said Diarmuid. He was a man of few words, she thought, and, yes, he had always obeyed her instructions to the letter even when they were both five years old. She had absolute confidence in him.
 
 
Mara half wished that he had disobeyed her instruction and had left the lantern or else had relit her own lantern. The time seemed long to her. She watched the light bobbing until he had reached the edge of the high tableland; he would have dropped down over the broken slabs there to the back of Caherconnell, she thought, her mind following his journey through the mounds of ferns unfurling into croziers of palest green. It would take him another few minutes to climb down there, and then perhaps another few minutes to rouse one of the household if they had all gone to bed. And then Malachy, never the quickest thinker, would have to collect his medical bag, give instructions to his men, the cart would have to be harnessed and taken around by the road and across the
flat tableland. She strained her ears for any sound and then heard a mutter from within the cairn.
‘I wish he had left Wolf,’ she murmured. ‘I would feel better then.’ Diarmuid would not have done that because he would have feared the dog might attack her, but Mara had no fear of that happening. She knew that Wolf had accepted her. ‘Dogs are less complicated than human beings; they live by their rules,’ she said aloud and then smiled to herself to hear her usual clear, confident voice ringing against the limestone. Her wrist ached fiercely and she welcomed the pain; anything was better than the clouds of faintness welling up and smothering her mind. She heard a mutter from inside the cairn and hoped that Diarmuid had securely tied
…
that animal,
she allowed herself to call him in the privacy of her own mind. She strained her ears again towards the east, towards Caherconnell, and this time she heard something. There was definitely a slam of a door, and a shout. She prayed that the mist would not get worse; already it was deadening sounds. Surely she should be hearing more noises by now?
Deliberately she jerked her wounded wrist. There was a stab of pain – that would keep her senses alert. She strained her ears, turning her head slowly from side to side, but she could hear no more sounds from the Caherconnell direction. At least her faintness was not worsening. Her mind had to remain alert for the next hour or so. She had to get these two crimes, the murder and the rape, acknowledged and the price paid for them.
Diarmuid was the first to arrive. She could hear his dog panting and the noise of Diarmuid’s nailed boots striking hard against the stone clints.
‘Mara,’ he was saying, ‘Mara, is everything all right?’
‘I’m fine, Diarmuid,’ she said and noted with satisfaction that some of the strength had come back into her voice. Her mind was clear and alert and her wrist would heal. She felt suddenly cheerful. She would never speak of the degradation of the
attempted rape to any person living in the kingdom of the Burren, she decided. There was plenty to accuse the priest of without that. She knew herself, and knew that she would find it easy to put something like that behind her; what she could not bear would be covert sympathy.
‘Is Malachy coming?’ she asked, with a sudden trace of anxiety. ‘He’s not away, is he?’ She suddenly remembered how surprised she was that he had not turned up to escort Nuala home earlier in the evening.
‘No, he’s coming. He had to pack his medical satchel. He’s coming around with the cart and the men. Look, you can just see the lights.’
‘Have you noticed anything, Diarmuid?’ asked Mara after a quick glance had shown her the hazy lights in the distance. ‘Have you noticed anything strange?’
‘No,’ said Diarmuid, gazing all around him and holding up the little lantern.
‘Something strange about the dog?’
‘What’s strange about the dog?’ asked Diarmuid, shining the light on the huge reddish-brown dog sitting with a pink tongue hanging over his chin.
‘He didn’t bark when he came up to me,’ said Mara with immense satisfaction. ‘That’s what’s strange about him.’

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