Chain of Evidence (4 page)

I hope I never have to see such a situation here in the Burren during my lifetime, thought Mara and turned a face filled with solemnity towards the crowd. There was an instant silence, a silence that she allowed to last for a long minute before raising her well-trained voice.

‘I, Mara, Brehon of the Burren, by the power devolved on me by Turlough Donn O’Brien, King of Thomond, Corcomroe and Burren; son of Teige; son of Turlough Beg; son of Brian; son of Mahon; son of Murrtough; son of Turlough; true descendent of the
derbhfine
of Brian, son of Cinnéide; now inaugurate Jarlath MacNamara as the new
tánaiste
of the MacNamara clan here in the Kingdom of Burren.’

Jarlath knelt and placed his hands within Mara’s, as representative of the king. This was the ceremony of
imbas
where authority flowed
from king to recipient. And the MacNamara clan broke out in thunderous applause when she released his hands, kissed him lightly on the cheek and turned to Garrett.

‘My lord,’ she said, ‘I present to you Jarlath,
tánaiste
of the MacNamara clan.’

The judgements of a Brehon must be open to all in the kingdom. They should be held in a place where the clans may gather and it should be a place that is sacred, such as an ancient burial site, a dolmen or a cairn. All should be able to see and to hear.

All of the people of the kingdom should hold themselves ready to be called as a witness.

‘G
arrett MacNamara isn’t here, Brehon,’ said Fachtnan. He handed her a satchel, which she placed on the flat surface of the dolmen’s table stone at Poulnabrone, while he set up a desk for himself, arranging vellum, well sharpened quills and an ink horn on a low, flat stone beside the dolmen. Poulnabrone was the ancient judgement place for the people of the kingdom of the Burren. The dolmen was at the southern end of a large, rough field, paved with great slabs of limestone and littered with large, rounded boulders. A place of great solemnity, but also of great beauty, Mara always thought. In the grykes between the clints of limestone the small flowers of the Burren grew abundantly. Delicately pale flowers of the daisy-like mountain avens contrasted with the tight, pink, bud-like flowers of cat’s paw and stiff columns of dark-purple early orchids rose up from between the slabs of rock everywhere. The field was a large one and stretched northwards for a couple of hundred yards, and the stones that littered its surface made convenient seats for the audience. Mara undid her satchel, took from it a couple of scrolls which she placed on the flat table-like surface of the dolmen and then stored the satchel itself beside one of the upright supporting slabs. She looked around. No, there was no sign of Garrett, anywhere. She would have expected
to find him beside her, fussing in his usual fashion and trying
to emphasise his own importance.

‘Rhona and Peadar are coming down the road,’ said Aidan. ‘He’s not with them, though.’

‘Well, it’s the last case to be heard,’ said Mara, casting a quick glance around. Today was the eve of Bealtaine and the custom was to climb the mountain of Mullaghmore as soon as the judgement day cases had been resolved. I’m not waiting for him, she decided, and greeted the people of the kingdom, opening the proceedings with her usual briskness.

The first case, involving a matter of a shared stream, was fairly quickly dealt with, each landowner agreeing heartily to Mara’s suggestion that they both devote a day’s labour to clearing the silt and pebbles from the stream’s pathway, thus ensuring that there was a plentiful supply of water and sufficient for both farms. The second was a divorce – not acrimonious, but a careful division of property had been made and the details had to be checked in public. The third was another straightforward affair of a boundary stone being moved and a long strip of land being stolen in order to plant extra oats. Mara imposed a fine, declared her intention of checking that the stone had been replaced and then looked around.

‘He’s definitely not here, Brehon,’ said Fachtnan in a low voice. ‘Nor is Slaney.’

Mara looked all around. No, there was no sign of Garrett anywhere. She saw Rhona was also looking around, her hand shielding her eyes, so Mara sent Aidan over to fetch her. Already some of the younger men had moved over to the stone wall where dozens of bundles of hazel rods had been laid out, ready for the traditional bonfire and others were shouldering leather bags containing wine from Spain. Soon her husband, King Turlough Donn, would arrive and then all would begin the climb which would culminate in an enormous bonfire lit on the summit of Mullaghmore at the hour of midnight. This business with Garrett and his introduction of a new son and wife to his household would only take minutes, but Garrett had to be there and had to make the formal application.

‘He spoke to me this morning; told me that he would be here, but I haven’t seen him since.’ Rhona looked bewildered, her fair eyebrows drawn together in a frown and her grey eyes full of anxiety. ‘I thought all was settled,’ she said in a low voice.

‘He’s made a fool of you; he’s not going to accept me as his son after all.’ The boy, Peadar, looked sulkily angry. He glared at Mara as if it were all her fault. His dignity had been badly hurt, she guessed, so resisted the temptation to frown and just nodded politely. Boys of that age were very sensitive, she knew and she felt sorry for him.

‘This matter can easily be dealt with on the next judgement day – there is no hurry about it. It’s after all a private matter and just a courtesy custom for the kingdom to be informed,’ she said soothingly. ‘But now we are all going to climb Mullaghmore Mountain for the Bealtaine bonfire. We hold it here every year on the eve of the feast. The bell from the abbey will sound at midnight and then the fire will be lit. Perhaps you and your mother would like to come, Peadar? Hugh, you could do with some help in carrying wood, couldn’t you? Peadar will go with you and Shane. Where is Shane?’

‘He’s talking to that English man, Brehon,’ said Aidan. ‘Come on, Peadar, you come with us.’

Mara waved them away and turned to Rhona. ‘He’ll be better in the company of other boys,’ she said. ‘Otherwise he will just spend the evening wondering if his father has let him down. Will you come, also? You will enjoy it.’ She spoke cordially but was somewhat distracted by searching for Shane. ‘The Englishman’ that Aidan referred to must mean Stephen Gardiner, but what was he talking or interrogating Shane about?

‘There they are, over there.’ Rhona pointed in the opposite direction to where Mara had been looking. The Englishman had, like Fachtnan, used one of the flat stones as a desk. He was seated on another stone and, quill in hand, was making notes while Shane, perched on the table stone in front of him, seemed to be busily talking.

Mara moved quickly and was near them in a moment. Shane was in full flow, speaking fluent English, describing to Stephen Gardiner the studies that he and his fellow scholars undertook.

‘And you study Latin, also, is that right?’ the Englishman asked and then before Shane could answer he continued, ‘ “
Arma virumque cano
.” Do you know what that means?’

Shane smiled with a slight look of disdain as he fluently continued the quotation from Vergil’s first book of the
Aeneid
. ‘ “
Troiae qui primus ab oris Italiam, fato profugus, Laviniaque venit, litora, multum ille et terris iactatus et alto vi superum saevae memorem Iunonis ob iram
 . . .” ’

‘Don’t show off, Shane,’ said Mara, seating herself beside him on the flat stone and looking down at the book filled with exquisitely written notes. ‘You are interested in what my scholars study?’ She raised her eyebrows in a query to the young stranger. Who was he? And what was he doing here in this Gaelic kingdom? And why had Garrett invited him? She turned back a page and grimaced at some sketches of shock-headed men with exaggeratedly huge moustaches, entitled ‘
the wilde irishe
’ in English. Turlough, her husband, had often said that he did not trust Garrett and now she wondered whether he was right. What was this Englishman doing, staying with a Gaelic chieftain in the heart of a Gaelic kingdom?

‘Who are these notes for?’ she asked bluntly when he had not replied to her first question. The book must be at least half full.

‘For my master, Cardinal Wolsey,’ he said, finishing off his note and then shaking some fine dry sand from a small canister over the page. He looked up and smiled engagingly at her.

‘And who is Cardinal Wolsey?’ she asked tartly, annoyed that he had interrogated one of her scholars without asking permission.

Stephen Gardiner looked at her with astonishment. ‘Have you never heard of him? Cardinal Wolsey is the most important man in England – after the king, of course.’

‘And he is interested in Brehon law?’ Mara glanced down at the closely written page of notes. ‘Brehon law is now once again widespread throughout Ireland except for an area of only about ten miles around Dublin,’ she read.

‘Of course; it’s regarded as a big drawback to the civilisation of Ireland,’ said Stephen Gardiner. He smiled disarmingly and added, ‘In the Latin sense, you understand.’

Mara laughed. She liked young men with sharp wits. ‘So you think that Ireland would be improved if it were turned into a country full of city states,’ she said her eyes looking with satisfaction across the landscape of green fields and rounded mountains. ‘Come up the mountain with us and you can fill another page of your notebook about the May Day customs of those strange Irish people.’

‘He’s been telling me about the court of Henry VIII and how no one can come near him without passing through fifty guards, all armed to the teeth,’ said Shane, sounding impressed.

‘Come and meet another king, who walks among his people with no fear,’ said Mara. Her sharp eyes had spotted the tall, burly figure of her husband vaulting the wall from the road and striding forward, carrying a small boy perched on his shoulder. Jarlath MacNamara was with him, she noticed, but he hung back and allowed the king to make his way through the throng of people, greeting them and enquiring about their cows, their elderly relations, their new babies.

Turlough Donn had become king of Thomond, Corcomroe and Burren in the year 1499 so had now held the office for almost fourteen years. He was a heavily built man – in his middle-fifties, though he looked younger as his brown hair, which had given him the nickname of ‘Donn’, was only just beginning to turn grey. He had light green eyes, a pleasant open face and a pair of huge moustaches. He and Mara had married at Christmas in the year 1509 and their son, Cormac, had been born in the following June.

‘I’m climbing the mountain,’ yelled three-year-old Cormac as they came near. He eyed his mother triumphantly. ‘You said I’d have to wait until next year and you were wrong,’ he remarked.

‘And I don’t suppose that you remembered to tell your father that I had already said no,’ remarked Mara.

‘He’s as full of tricks as a barrel load of eels,’ said Turlough with simple pride. He looked inquisitively at the stranger and Mara presented Stephen who made him a courtly bow and then shook hands heartily.

‘I’ve heard of you, my lord,’ he said eyeing the king with curiosity and Turlough beamed happily at him.

‘I suppose it was the Earl of Kildare – I know what he said about me,’ he remarked with a laugh. ‘Do you know what he said about your father, Cormac? He said that I was the most terrible man in Ireland and the greatest enemy to England.’

‘I’m much, much, more terribler that you,’ said Cormac emphatically. He plucked a hazel rod from the bundle carried by Hugh and began whacking it against a rock with war-like cries and then neatly sliced the head from an early purple orchid and looked around for applause. Stephen Gardiner laughed and the people of the Burren, all waiting for their king and their Brehon to lead the way towards the mountain, rewarded him with smiles and murmurs of admiration, but Mara said firmly, ‘No warrior cuts the heads off flowers; just silly babies.’

Cormac, she thought, was getting very spoilt. He was made much of by everyone on the Burren and as he had a lordly disposition he enjoyed the attention that he got. He was still rather too young for school, but the sooner he started with some regular work there, the better for his character. Turlough had adult sons and nephews to inherit his titles – the plan for Cormac was that he, like his mother and her father, Cormac’s grandfather, would be a lawyer, not a king. His foster mother was teaching both him and his foster brother to read and to write – she herself was learning the skill alongside the two little boys – and Cormac was picking it up with great rapidity. He had a retentive memory and would be well able to start memorising law texts and learning some Latin verbs by next September. He was scowling at her now, but then his face cleared as Bran, Mara’s magnificent, pure-white wolfhound, joined them with wagging tail and a rough pink tongue with which he washed behind Cormac’s ears.

‘Me and Bran will go first and lead you all the right way,’ he announced and swaggered off with one hand gripping the wolfhound’s collar.

‘Sorry,’ said Turlough apologetically to his wife, ‘I didn’t know that you had told him he couldn’t go.’

‘He would take good care not to tell; never mind,’ she added in a lower voice. ‘It will give us a good excuse to come back down when we reach the third or fourth terrace. I get bored hanging around waiting until midnight.’ She would leave Fachtnan in charge of the boys – all of whom were old enough and sensible enough, but Fiona was a problem. The girl would be rightly annoyed if she were dragged away before the fun had begun, but she was conscious of her responsibility to Fiona’s father, a one-time schoolmate of hers, to keep his daughter safe from young men who were attracted to her like bees to may blossom flowers. There would be a lot of drinking tonight, thought Mara. Most of the men had leather flasks, filled with rough red Spanish wine, slung across their backs. She wondered what to do.

And then Mara’s face cleared. She beckoned to Fiona, included Hugh and Shane in her gesture and went across to where the Scottish woman, Rhona, once more accompanied by her son, Peadar, was sitting looking rather lonely and
embarrassed
on the edge of one of the huge flat stones or clints which littered the High Burren.