Cross of Vengeance (6 page)

‘The relic,’ he said dully. ‘The sacred relic of the most holy cross of Jesus. I hardly dare say it, Brehon, but I fear that it may have been injured, probably destroyed.’

Oh, is that all?
Mara bit the words back from the tip of her tongue. ‘As you say,’ she said evenly, ‘we can’t come to any conclusions before the fire is out.’ She eyed his white face with concern and was about to call one of her boys to get him a drink of water when he left her abruptly and went to talk to Father MacMahon, who had just staggered across, his face red with exertion, anxiety, or perhaps, she thought mischievously, just plain over-eating and over-drinking.

She did not join them. Her mind was busy. A fire starting on a thatched roof would have been one thing – these did happen from time to time – but this fire had not started on the roof, but in the small chamber that contained the relic of the holy cross. The chances of a spark being blown in through one of those very small openings, no bigger than arrow loops in castle walls, was small – and, in any case, there was no fire nearer than the kitchen fires in the inn.

So how did a fire start in the round tower? And on the top floor, too, not the bottom. Sorley would have seen that all was well before he admitted the six pilgrims – he would not have taken a chance that anyone could have dropped something that would sully the purity and the spotlessness of the shrine which he had watched over from a boy. All the Burren people would have been suspiciously supervised by him; he even checked that they cleaned their boots before climbing the ladder.

But what, she thought, if he had not bothered to check after the pilgrims left? He would expect them to treat the shrine with the same reverence that he himself felt for the sacred relic. It was quite possible that he had decided that he would do that after the meal was over and the pilgrims had departed.

And, of course, one pilgrim had stayed longer than the others. By the time Hans Kaufmann had descended, Sorley’s stomach was probably beginning to rumble.

And then there was the case of the missing key.

Mara’s eyes went to the top of the tower. By now only wisps of smoke were appearing from one of the windows and the others were clear. There had been no hurried shouts or running figures from the farmers on Roughan Hill, so the fire at Kilnaboy had gone unnoticed by the parishioners. Not much of a fire – there were no marks on the stone outside.

But it wouldn’t have taken much of a fire to destroy the precious contents of the round tower. And the sooner the truth was known, the better. Mara looked across towards the two figures of Father MacMahon and Ardal O’Lochlainn just as Sorley came down heavily from the ladder following young Danann, and they both yielded their place to Ardal. Then she walked across and stood beside the priest. His old face was rigid with horror, his eyes almost starting from his head. Sorley came across and joined them, grey and exhausted as though he had been fighting a tornado for hours. Mara said nothing. Ardal would have to be allowed to check for himself. She would wait until the door was opened and their worst fears confirmed. By now her boys had joined her and she was glad to see that they all stood very quietly with solemn faces.

Ardal moved the ladder and repositioned it so that the top now touched the wooden door – uninjured, noticed Mara. As if by a signal, Sorley put his hand on the key and climbed up without a word. The cords that suspended the key from his jerkin were long enough to permit him to undo the lock without untying. He went straight inside and all held their breath while Ardal climbed up also. They would both now be in the tiny round first-floor room which had seemed so hot a few hours ago at noon. She expected them to pull in the ladder in order to reach the top floor, but they did not do so; the inside ladder must not have been damaged, proof that the fire had been relatively trivial.

Mara, followed by her boys, moved forward and gazed upwards. Yes, they had succeeded in climbing up. Perhaps, she thought, hoping for the best, the relic had escaped. All might still be well and she and the boys could go back to their peaceful law school and get on with their studies without having to spend time working on unravelling a mystery which did not interest her greatly. She strained her ears, hoping against hope, but heard no word from either of them.

Then the sound of returning footsteps came to them. In a moment, Ardal was back down again and one look at his face, drained of all colour, told her what he had found. Father MacMahon groaned aloud and the boys shuffled their feet with embarrassment.

‘I think you had better look at this, Brehon.’ Ardal’s voice was very quiet and he held out a small object to her. The boys crowded around. ‘Don’t touch it – it’s hot.’ His left hand, she saw, had the mark of a burn on the fingers, but he did not appear to notice it, other than by using an unaccustomed right hand.

‘You know what it is, don’t you?’ he asked, and she nodded.

‘A traveller’s lamp,’ she said. Most travellers and pilgrims carried them in the satchels beside their horses. Small rounded lamps, the size of a baby’s fist, with a perforated lid that could be lifted and a spike inside where the stump of a candle could be held upright and safely. It had a small ring of quartz at the base. A quick slash with a knife against the quartz would produce a spark and the candle could be lit and safely enclosed with the perforated lid. Once it had been made from bronze, probably, but now the metal had dissolved and then set into an ugly lump.

And yet, oddly, there inside the lid was something that was not metal.

‘Vellum,’ said Cormac, looking over her shoulder.

Ardal took the tip of his knife and levered up the lid, wincing slightly as the heat from the metal inflamed his burn. The small piece of calf skin had half-dissolved in the heat. Cormac picked it out with his nails and held it up, waving it gently to and fro to cool it.

‘Why put a piece of vellum in the lamp?’ asked Slevin with interest. ‘Though vellum or parchment would burn well, wouldn’t it, Domhnall? I remember we had a small fire in our barn once and a lambskin that was pegged up to dry was the first thing to burn – it’s the fat in the skin, Brehon,’ he added, and Mara smiled an acknowledgement. She liked the way boys of Slevin’s age assumed that she had little knowledge of practical matters. They probably fancied that she did not know the origin of the parchment and vellum which they used in the law school.

‘I think I know why that piece of vellum was used here,’ said Domhnall. He and Slevin always worked well together; the more volatile Slevin often started an idea and Domhnall would then pursue it to its logical conclusion. His dark eyes now showed that concentration that made him such a good scholar. ‘Perhaps it was originally a longer piece of vellum than the bit we’ve got,’ he said slowly. ‘In that case it might have had one end touching that velvet cushion and the rest of it tucked in beside the candle.’

‘And the heat from the candle would warm the fat; it would blaze up quickly – and then the fire would travel along the line of the vellum.’ Slevin looked excited.

‘A clue! That vellum comes from the hand of the villain!’ exclaimed Cormac loudly and dramatically. He lowered his voice as Mara frowned, but whispered loudly in Art’s ear, ‘A pity it’s not a murder. I’d love a murder to solve.’

‘This is worse. A crime against God is a greater crime than a crime against man,’ said Art piously.

‘That’s not true, according to the law. According to the law, the worst crime is the rape of a girl in plaits,’ said Cormac airily.

‘There’s a word here, Brehon,’ said Domhnall. He held up the twisted piece of vellum to the light.

‘A number – the number 90.’ Slevin peered closely.

‘Funny letters,’ commented Finbar.

‘Let us see,’ commanded Cormac, pushing Finbar to one side. ‘T, A, G, E,’ he spelled out the letters with difficulty.

Mara held out her hand for the scrap of vellum. She peered at the ornately curling letters intently. ‘It’s German,’ she said slowly. She glanced over her shoulder but Father MacMahon had already come over and was standing just behind her and peering at the twist of vellum. Still, there was no help for it. The truth had to be uncovered and the matter dealt with by the law. A crime had been committed and restitution had to be made.

‘I think, Father,’ she said, ‘this is an indulgence – an indulgence written in the German language. “90
Tage
”
would probably refer to a remission of 90 days’ suffering in the fires of purgatory.’

‘German!’ Ardal’s voice was harsh with suspicion. ‘Hans Kaufmann?’

‘Or possibly one of the other pilgrims,’ said Mara. ‘These people have been visiting lots of shrines. Indulgences are to be … to be acquired at all of those places – and the language would not necessarily alter their efficacy in the eyes of the pilgrims. Is that not right, Father?’ She spoke from an automatic dislike to give a ruling before an investigation of the facts was completed, but she had little doubt in her own mind now that Hans Kaufmann was a follower of Luther and had destroyed the relic at his master’s behest – perhaps others, also. And had shown his contempt of indulgences by lighting his fire with one of them.

‘Get them back, all of them!’ Father MacMahon’s face was now so red that she feared he might have a fit.

Without a moment’s hesitation Ardal shouted ‘Danann!’, and followed by his steward he set off at a run towards the stables in front of the inn. Nechtan O’Quinn followed him, shouting at his own steward to get other men.

The die is cast, thought Mara. She wondered what would be the end of this. She feared fanaticism of any kind – it upset balances and checks. Who would take charge of this case – a matter of petty arson, really? After all, what was destroyed: a carved shrine blackened with smoke, slightly melted, a few of its ornate decorations slightly damaged – it could easily be repaired; a small velvet cushion burned and saturated with water; and a one-inch piece of wood …

Valueless, or beyond all value? That depended on the belief of the assessor. Or did it depend on the beliefs of the injured party – and did the beliefs of the guilty party play a part also?

Despite herself, Mara smiled slightly. She so loved to wrestle with a complicated problem like this. The Brehons of Ireland had an annual meeting in August of each year, and she thought that the events of this year of 1519, when the world of religion in the European countries was beginning to change, might be a very interesting time for the lawyers of Ireland to debate. In secrecy, of course; the Pope might have a rule against laity discussing such matters. Yes, she thought, there could be an interesting discussion next year.

But in the meantime there was another problem for her to deal with. Her eyes went to Father MacMahon, now striding up and down as though he could not wait for the transgressors to be hauled back in front of him.

The law of the Church or the law of the king – which was in charge of this affair? Mara set her lips firmly. King Turlough Donn was away in the north of Ireland on an important mission. It was up to her, as the King’s representative, to take this matter firmly into her hands and to render justice with mercy according to the tenets of Brehon law. This was a Gaelic kingdom, not England, not Rome. Still, there was no point in anticipating trouble. She turned to her scholars.

‘Let’s go and search the round tower and see if we find anything,’ she proposed.

‘Clues,’ said Cormac enthusiastically, but it was the methodical Art who found the first clue.

At the bottom of the round tower, on its east side, just below where the door stood above head height, Sorley had planted a bush of fragrant lavender. Sheltered from cold winds, exposed to the sun and warmed by the retained heat from the stone wall behind it, the bush had flourished. It had reached a height of about four feet and then stopped growing, but year after year it had thickened and widened. On this fine day in early September the exquisite pale purple of the tightly-budded flowers seemed to glow in the heat and they were full of bees desperately seeking stores of honey before the winter.

But purple wasn’t the only colour to be seen. Lying on the far side of the clump was a small patch of deep rose. Art, careful as always, had not touched it, but called Mara instantly. For a moment she stood there, standing as he had directed her, halfway up the ladder that led to the raised doorway of the round tower, and gazed down. The shape of the object was hidden by the stems and flowers, but the colour was distinctive and she had seen it very recently.

The object, she thought, may have been held in the hand of someone who stood there on the ladder – perhaps taken off in order to hear better and then dropped. Or perhaps the bonnet was removed to show the one beauty – the silky blonde hair of a woman whose other beauties had been disfigured by scars,

But why not picked up? There could, she thought, be two possible reasons for that.

Mara went back down the ladder, skirted the wide bush and picked out the small, neat, finely woven bonnet dyed in that distinctive colour by the combination of blackberries and bilberries. She held it for a moment in her hand, reconstructing the scene.

Could Grace have followed the handsome young German over to the churchyard, climbed the ladder leading to the round tower, stood outside its massive door, perhaps put her ear to the large keyhole, removing her bonnet to hear all the better …?

And then something disturbed her. Perhaps Hans Kaufmann and Mór had shown signs of coming out, or perhaps she could not bear the murmurs any longer. But, of course, there was another possibility.

Could she have wanted to burn the relic in order to please a man who had secretly expressed contempt for it?

Whatever had happened she had fled, leaving the small bonnet behind, hidden by the purple flowers and the clusters of bees until Art’s sharp eyes spotted it.

When next Mara had seen Grace, her head had been demurely covered with the hood of her travelling cloak, her face almost invisible.

‘It’s Fachtnan,’ shouted Slevin, just at the moment when Mara was regretting that her boys, even Domhnall, were too young to appreciate the nuances of adult love and the problems of a woman, badly scarred and yet deeply attracted by a man in whose company she had already spent weeks. Fachtnan, she knew, would be able to bring a mature understanding and compassionate heart to this problem.