‘And coming the day after the disappearance of the young bard, Rory,’ she continued. ‘Of course, that would have been shocking for you here at Newtown Castle. He was here a lot during the last few weeks, wasn’t he?’ She watched him carefully and saw his expression change.
‘Quite a lot,’ he muttered with a lack of enthusiasm. Rory had obviously spent most of his efforts on charming the master of the house and had not bothered with the underlings.
‘When was the last time that he was here?’ Mara made the enquiry in a careless manner, walking over to look out of the window where there was a sudden shout of laughter.
‘I suppose it must have been early on Thursday morning.’ The porter came over to join her. Ciara was crossing the courtyard and she had a flagon of the mead-laced hot drink in her hand; he made a quick signal to her before turning back to Mara. ‘I’d say I was one of the last to see him, Brehon; he came to see Mistress Una at dawn and it must have been after he left here that he went up the mountain.’ He accompanied Mara to the door with a show of great courtesy, picking up his cup as he passed the table. ‘There’s the mistress over there, probably looking for you.’ He sounded relieved as he pointed out Deirdre so Mara left him to replenish his drink and walked over to where Deirdre was emerging from a cabin.
So Deirdre is the mistress now, thought Mara. She went over and joined the woman. ‘I’ll go now, Deirdre,’ she said aloud to Sorley’s despised former wife who was sitting wearily on the steps, her long cloak, her elaborate gown and even the linen
léine
soaked wet and making a trail of water behind her. ‘You have enough to be thinking of for the moment without me bothering you. There’s nothing I can do. You have plenty of people here to help you.’
Deirdre smiled. She looked tired but there was a glow of happiness and fulfilment in her eyes. A woman of ability, thought Mara. Why did Sorley ever let her go? She would
have managed his affairs so competently. ‘Everyone has helped,’ she said happily. ‘Even poor Toin has sent to offer assistance.’ She pointed and Mara recognized one of the
briuga’s
men and raised a hand to beckon him over.
‘How is your master?’ asked Mara. The man hesitated. All of Toin’s household must have grown used to those queries during the last few months, but that did not make them easier to answer; Mara knew that and felt sorry that she had asked the question.
‘Not well,’ replied the man after a minute. ‘He gets a bit depressed, and he’s in pain most of the time. The physician came in the middle of the morning and gave him something else and the girl, Nuala, the young physician, she’s wonderful with him; she’s in and out of the kitchen making him soothing drinks, and poultices, too; that’s the latest, Tomas was telling me.’
‘Do you think I could drop in on my way home?’
‘He’d like to see you, Brehon,’ said the man enthusiastically. ‘Tomás was saying the other day that you do him a power of good. Not many come to see him these days; more’s the pity, because company takes his mind off the pain.’
‘So have you solved your murder case yet?’ Toin’s voice was cheerful. He was stretched out before the fire on a cushioned bench, well propped up on pillows, a small linen bag placed over his stomach.
‘That’s my invention,’ said Nuala beaming with satisfaction as she saw Mara’s eyes go to the bag. ‘Toin finds that heat helps the pain, but he cannot bear anything like a hot
brick, so I stitched that bag last night and Tomas and I keep it filled with hot bran.’
‘That was clever.’ Una would not have thought much of the workmanship – the stitches were large and uneven – but Toin looked rested and clear-eyed. Perhaps the bran poultice worked as well as the poppy syrup, thought Mara.
‘I have so many problems to solve connected to this case,’ she said aloud, sitting down beside the sick man. She told him the story of Sheedy and the flooding of the mines and he listened with keen interest.
‘Go down there and see how they are all doing,’ he said to Nuala. ‘You know what an old gossip I am, I love to have news of my neighbours.’
‘Will you be all right while I’m gone, though?’ Nuala looked at him with a worried glance.
‘Of course, I will.’ He was still able to force a note of energy into his voice. ‘The Brehon will look after me. We’ll have a game of chess together, she and I. Let’s use Daire’s fine set.’
‘So you do believe that Daire, not Sorley, made the chess set,’ said Mara as she set out the silver pieces after Nuala had left.
‘Of course,’ said Toin. ‘Give me the black pieces; I enjoy defending. Yes, of course Daire is to be believed. Even without Una’s testimony I would still know that it was Daire. Sorley never told the truth whenever a lie suited his purposes better. How are they all getting on over there, now?’
‘I think they might settle down now,’ said Mara, pushing out her little wolfhound pawn to the king-four position.
‘If Una were out of the way, the boy might have a chance,’ commented Toin slipping out his knight to cover the centre of the board.
‘So which of them did you bargain with to buy the set?’ asked Mara sliding out her bishop in return. ‘This piece is so like Mauritius of Kilfenora I almost feel that I should kiss his ring,’ she added in a light tone of voice. She shouldn’t really burden him with the cares of the self-centred people at Newtown Castle, she thought.
‘I offered Deirdre what it’s worth.’ He edged his queen’s knight’s pawn one place forward and Mara frowned. This was a strange move. She hesitated and then jumped her king’s knight over the solid row of her own pawns.
‘Make no mistake, Deirdre will be the one to run that business,’ he said, watching her face and then slotting his bishop into the empty space in his pawn rank. ‘But you can rely on me to save Cuan’s pride,’ he added.
Mara saw her opening. Courageously she moved out the queen, smiling at the little figure so like herself with scroll in hand. ‘I saw you sent a boxful of silver over there today,’ she said.
‘You don’t miss much,’ said Toin, bringing his second knight over to protect his threatened pawn.
‘Nor do you,’ she replied ruefully. After a moment’s hesitation she supported her central pawn with a second one. ‘But, of course,’ she continued casually, ‘by the look of that box it held far too much to pay for a thousand chess sets, even one as valuable and as beautiful as this one.’
He did not reply. He frowned intently at the chessboard and when he did move eventually it was just an innocuous pawn.
‘It was Ulick’s debt, that you were repaying, on behalf of the king, wasn’t it? I suppose Turlough has just taken it upon his own shoulders.’ She cleared a space in the back row by moving out her second bishop.
He smiled. ‘You play a courageous game,’ he said with amusement. After some thought he moved another pawn, saying, ‘Do you always rush at things like this?’
‘I want you to do me a great favour, Toin,’ said Mara, ignoring the question while rapidly castling. Now her king, with his huge moustaches and his amiable face, was well protected, snugly ensconced into the left-hand side of the board and flanked by the turreted castle on the right.
‘So what’s this favour then?’ Toin sounded wary. His eyes were half closed and he was very still for some time. She wondered whether he had dozed off when his hand shot out and he carefully moved his queen to the back rank.
‘I want you to allow me, instead of the king, to take over this debt,’ said Mara bluntly. She moved the castle’s pawn one step forward and then sat back. ‘I can easily afford it; I have large savings; there is no problem there.’
He was taking a long time to think. He was a strange man to play against. Sometimes he moved very quickly and at other times he took a long time to decide. She had never played against someone like him before, she thought, and then tried to frame the words to convince him to grant the request that was foremost in her mind.
‘Toin, do this thing for me,’ Mara moved a pawn and then regretted it. There was no taking it back, though. The laws of chess, like the Brehon laws, allow for no erasure, just repentance and restitution. She had made a move and she would have to abide by it, as well as by other decisions
of hers. Neither in chess, nor in life, can a move, once made, be taken back.
‘Toin,’ she said gently and softly, looking into his hesitant face, ‘I know this man, this king of ours. I know him heart and soul; I know his faults and his weaknesses, just as well as I know the warmth of his heart and the depth of his nobility. I know how important his friends are to him and how he suffers if one of them prove unworthy. I can’t protect him from that; the truth has to be made clear to him. I just want to protect him from …’
‘From people like me and Ulick and Sorley,’ finished Toin, contemplating her pawn move with a dry smile.
‘From moneylenders like Sorley, certainly,’ she said steadily. She said no more; he was intelligent and sharp-witted; he would know, at least he would know part of, what was in her mind. How long could Toin last? And when he died who would inherit his goods, inherit the king’s debt with them? And what would happen then as Turlough spiralled from one debt to another?
There was a very long silence after that as Toin stared intensely at the chessboard. Was he planning his strategy or thinking of what she said? Or was it some idiotic scruple about confidentiality that bothered him? Or possibly even a resentment that she, a woman, was interfering in an arrangement between two men.
Eventually he stirred, picked up his black bishop and decisively moved it across the board. Mara stared at it in dismay. Now both of his bishops were side by side, a formidable pair, and both were trained on the little cluster of pawns around her king on the other side of the board.
She glanced up at Toin to find that he was watching her with a glint of amusement. Irritated, she shut out everything from her mind. She would concentrate on this game, bring about a speedy checkmate and then force Toin to consider her request.
And then she would go back to Cahermacnaghten and talk to Turlough. He was her king; he had the right to know the truth before anyone else in the kingdom. Together they would make the decision.
Tomas, the reliable manservant, had slipped noiselessly in and out of the room twice, once to replenish the fire and then Nuala’s bran bag, before Mara had worked out a winning combination.
‘Check,’ she said and then, as soon as he moved his king aside, she repeated, triumphantly, ‘check.’
This time Toin countered by moving his castle in front of his king. An unexpected sacrifice, but still everything was possible, thought Mara as she picked up her queen intending to capture his castle. But then she stopped. No, her plans weren’t going to work out. That last move of Toin’s had revealed his whole carefully built defence structure.
Toin was a brilliant chess player. That was the amazing thing. Mara had imagined a comfortable game such as she was accustomed to play with her scholars, where half her mind was on the game and the rest of it involved in conversation. Nothing like that happened with Toin. The next moves were a surprise: a daring sacrifice, then a rapid onslaught on Mara’s queen; the old man began to play fast, so fast that Mara felt
her pulse quicken and she had deliberately to slow herself down and to play at a more circumspect pace. It was almost impossible to guess what Toin was Ithinking. Time after time, he leapt ahead of her step-by-step plan. Time after time, Mara thought to take advantage of an apparently careless move only to find that she had fallen into a carefully prepared trap and the final checkmate was a triumph of savagery and elegance that left Mara staring ruefully at the board, having racked her brains in a futile attempt to avoid the inevitable defeat.
‘Well,’ she said eventually, tipping over her king in acknowledgement of Toin’s victory. ‘I don’t think I have ever had a better game. We must play more often.’
She continued staring at the board for a moment, trying to think how she could have changed her strategy and then looked up.
‘Are you unwell?’ she asked with alarm. Toin opened his eyes and gave a weak chuckle.
‘Well, I am certainly not well,’ he said drily, ‘but don’t worry about me. I haven’t enjoyed anything as much as that game for a very long time. You’re a good player, Mara, you just need to be a little less impulsive and rein in that optimism of yours a little, but you’re about the best that I have ever played and I have played with many people. There was a time when this guesthouse used to be full of people: some of them brought by Cathal the sea captain, people from all over the world. I’ve played chess with them all, French, Spanish, English. Now pour me another cup of the Burgundy and take one for yourself. My little physician will soon be back and you have not had an answer to your question yet.’
Mara poured the wine and came back to her place. Putting the cup down, she carefully packed the finely modelled chessmen back into their box on top of the board of silver and of ivory.
‘So, what is the answer to my question?’ she said with a smile.
‘You’re very beautiful, you know, Mara,’ Toin looked at her affectionately. ‘You are beautiful, you are kind, you are clever. It’s no wonder that the king is in love with you. But let an old man give you a little advice. Don’t try to take the world on your shoulders. You’re not responsible for everyone in the kingdom. You can’t order everything. Just try to relax and let things take their course. Often things work out for the best in the end. Once I had an oak tree that fell down in the storm, completely uprooted with a gaping hole and half of its roots high in the air. Everyone wanted to cut it up for logs, but I said:
just leave it
and it was left, and do you know, that oak tree is living still, and no one, now, could tell that it was originally considered at the end of its life. Sometimes leaving things to settle is the best policy.’