Writ in Stone (29 page)

‘He went into the church,’ she continued. She was accustomed to holding attention by her voice, but it was a long time since she had tried so consciously to use every trick of oratory. She raised her voice dramatically, ‘He lifted the hammer, his own mason’s hammer; he swung it and then battered in the head of the man who was kneeling in prayer. It was a violent and hate-filled attack,’ she finished. Now Ardal had one foot on the stone flags of the chancel.

‘I call on Dualta, the mason, to answer this case,’ she said loudly. Surely he would say something now. For twelve years he had been part of Cahermacnaghten Law School. This procedure must be imbedded in his mind.

There was a quick exclamation from Shane, which tore at her heart. He would never cry out unless he was hurt. He was a courageous, strong-willed child. Dualta must have pressed the knife a little further into his throat.

‘What do you say, Dualta the mason, are you guilty or not guilty?’ she called out quickly and loudly. These words should have been saved for judgement day at Poulnabrone, but she did not care that she was going outside the legal procedure. Patrick now had started to move. She could understand that; he was, after all, the father, but he was heavily built, elderly and unfit; it would be best to leave it to Ardal.

And then everything went wrong. Dualta suddenly swung around. He had caught the movement from Patrick and had then seen Ardal.

‘Stay still,’ he roared. ‘Stay still, everyone, or this boy will be killed here on the altar. Get back!’ he signalled frantically to Ardal. ‘Get back, get back into the nave.’

Ardal moved back instantly. A man who had worked all of his life with highly strung thoroughbred horses, he recognized the dangerous note of hysteria in Dualta’s voice. Patrick became quite immobilized, like a marble saint standing with his back against one of the stone columns.

‘Lock the west door, Father Abbot,’ shouted Dualta. His voice rose to a hoarse scream. ‘Lock it, I say. Lock it immediately. Yes, that’s right. Don’t stop. Go straight down. Lock it. Let me hear the noise of the key turning.’

The abbot hesitated for a moment and then strode down the centre of the nave and locked the door, the click sounding very loud in a silence where people almost forbore to breathe. He returned up the centre of the church and approached the altar.

‘Stop there,’ shouted Dualta. ‘Don’t come any nearer. Stay where you are. That’s right. No one else move.’ Like a maddened bull, he swung around from the right side to left. No one moved.

‘Dualta,’ said Mara calmly, her voice high and steady. ‘Remember what I said to you. For the sake of that marriage that once existed I will take your debt upon me. You have nothing to fear.’

‘Throw the church keys up here on the altar, Father Abbot,’ shouted Dualta. ‘I am going now by the cloister door and I will lock you in. I don’t want any pursuers.’

‘I shall not give you the keys,’ said the abbot, his voice steady and low.

Dualta ignored this. ‘I’ll leave the keys somewhere outside the gate. Sooner or later someone will release you. But I am taking the boy with me. He’ll be my safeguard, I may leave him, also, somewhere, or I may cut his throat on the way. I don’t know.’

From the corner of her eye, Mara knew that Ardal, once again, was braced and ready. Cumhal had begun to steal softly from the back of the church and was directing his noiseless route towards the cloisters’ door. Turlough had his dagger out and the bodyguards had moved a silent step forward. There was no way that Dualta could leave the church unscathed. But what about Shane? No one wanted to put his life in danger.

‘Throw the keys,’ suddenly screamed Dualta with a hasty glance around. ‘Throw the keys now. No more talking, no more waiting.’

‘Give him the keys, Father Abbot,’ said Mara in a loud clear voice. Anything to keep the talking going, she thought! Surely the man had enough wit to throw them awkwardly, to make Dualta shift, bend down, move that deadly dagger from Shane’s neck. She turned to look at the priest and her heart sank. His face was set in obstinate lines and his grey eyes were ice-cold.

‘No,’ he said loudly. ‘No, I will do nothing to allow this man to escape. This man has murdered my brother. This man must hang.’

‘I will kill the boy.’ Dualta’s voice was hoarse, but everyone in the church heard the words and there was a low murmur and a restless stirring of feet.

‘Keep still!’ The scream was so loud that the sound echoed through the stone church. Instantly the church was as silent as if it were empty of all but the graven saints.

‘I tell you once again,’ Dualta’s voice was all the more sinister for the low tone in which he now spoke. He stopped and then started again. ‘I tell you that I must leave this church now. I will take a horse from the stable and I will never be seen in the Burren again. Now I give you one last chance. Throw those keys to me, or I shall come and get them from you, but before that I will leave another dead body in this church.’

‘No,’ said the abbot. ‘You will not escape. You are one man against many.’ Quickly he went over towards the cloisters’ door and locked it rapidly. ‘Put down that knife and let that child go.’

‘Give him the keys, Father Abbot,’ said Mara urgently. ‘Stand back from the door, everyone.’

‘No,’ said the abbot. ‘I will not allow the man who killed my brother to escape. Brehon law holds no sway here; this case must be judged by Roman law and the culprit punished according to its rules.’ Deliberately he reached up to the full extent of his very tall figure and placed the keys on top of the fluted column, where they rested on the frieze of poppy heads.

‘Now you have left me no way out; now the boy will die,’ said Dualta. His voice was deep and resolute. With his left hand he grabbed the heavy
glib
of black hair that overhung Shane’s brow and bent the child’s head back so that his skull rested on the altar and his white throat was exposed to the knife.

Eighteen

(The Great Tradition)

The nave of the church was almost in darkness. It was only a couple of hours past noon, but it was a dark day and very little light entered the church, just one pale gleam slanting in through one tall, narrow window at the end of the south aisle. The chancel, however, with its rows of candles, was now brightly lit and all eyes were focused on the altar with the two figures in front of it: the man with the knife and the boy with the dangerously exposed throat. There were nearly sixty people in that church and yet the silence was intense. No one moved, no one spoke; hardly a breath disturbed the air.

There had been no noise, nothing to alarm: no creak of a door, no whisper of wood sliding on wood, no rippling of string.

So the sound, when it came, was startling in its intensity: almost like a jangled chord from a lute, a sudden, ping-like sound that made all heads turn, all except one.

From the altar came a scream.

Mara, like the others, had turned, saw, and then instantly turned back. In a moment she had reached the steps to the altar and held Shane in her arms for a minute before handing him to Patrick.

Dualta’s body, face down, lay slumped on the steps. In the centre of his back, slightly to the left, protruded a large arrow, feathered with a short, harsh pinion from a raven’s side. A steady stream of blood dripped down upon the steps.

Mara felt herself gently moved to one side and stood back, allowing Father Peter to approach the body. She felt her heart thud against her ribs and she took a couple of deep breaths.

‘He’s dead, poor soul,’ said Father Peter, feeling the wrist, and then turning the white head gently to one side and placing a finger over the lips beneath the white moustache.

‘Dead,’ echoed the abbot, stepping forward and waving the others away with an impatient wave of his hand. The untidy huddle of brothers and laity stepped back and then parted, turning around to stare at the white-faced girl who advanced up through their centre with the bow in her hand.

‘Well done, Ellice,’ said Mara firmly. She averted her eyes from the body at her feet and looked keenly at Shane, now struggling to free himself from his father’s embrace.

‘Are you all right?’ she questioned, noticing the trickle of blood from his neck that had already stained the top of his white
léine
.

‘I’m fine,’ he said, embarrassment flooding his face with crimson and then retreating to leave him unnaturally pale and shaking from head to foot. ‘That was a good shot, Ellice,’ he called, steadying his voice with an effort. ‘That was
iontach
!’

No higher praise could be bestowed, thought Mara, trying hard to distract herself. Despite her brave words she, also, had begun to shiver. A feeling of sickness welled up within her and she hoped that she was not going to faint. She still kept her eyes from the body on the floor, clenching her hands so that the nails drove painfully into her palms. Her eyes burned with unshed tears and she breathed slowly and deeply, fighting for control as she turned to face Turlough.

‘The boy had to be saved,’ he said quietly, answering the unspoken appeal in her eyes as he grasped her hand in his large warm palm. ‘It was the only way. No words of yours could have stopped him. He was a bitter and disappointed man who probably didn’t want to live. Thank God Ellice had the presence of mind to do what she did.’

Mara nodded. He could have said nothing better to help her to regain control over herself. She looked lovingly across at Shane, now in Brigid’s arms, and then at Patrick, standing there, eyes no longer hooded, but gazing intently at his youngest son. The whole church seemed filled with the relief of all. Everyone clustered around wanting to touch Shane, the women to hug him, the men to slap him on the back, even Frann and Banna were smiling at each other with relief. Conor proudly put his arm around Ellice and she responded by moving closer to him. Even the carpenter, a man who had worked side by side with Dualta, had given a satisfied nod when Father Peter had pronounced the mason to be dead.

‘Put down that bow!’ The abbot’s fury-filled words erupted from white lips.

Ellice turned to him in a puzzled way and then glanced down at the bow that still hung from her right hand. Ardal courteously took it from her and looked enquiringly at the abbot.

‘You have profaned the house of God!’ The words were spoken quietly, but the whole church immediately fell silent. Brigid took her arms away from Shane, turning towards the abbot, her freckled face blazing with indignation, but no one spoke.

‘Thou shalt not kill.’ Now the voice rang out and reverberated against the stone.

‘This man had already killed and was about to kill again, Father Donogh,’ said Turlough mildly, but Mara felt how his hand had tensed.

‘“Vengeance is mine,” saith the Lord.’

‘That would not have been much consolation to us all if the boy had been murdered as well as your own brother,’ thundered Turlough.

They faced each other like two bulls in the same field, these two members of the O’Brien royal family, shoulders squared, heads slightly lowered, eyes locked on eyes.

‘All things, that are unjust in this world, shall be made right in the next world,’ said the abbot loftily.

‘And yet,’ said Mara, taking a step forward, ‘you yourself said that the man who killed your brother, Mahon O’Brien, should be hanged.’ It was time to put a stop to this. Turlough would not fare too well in the swapping of pious quotations. The abbot turned to her furiously.

‘That is the law; ‘“thou shalt give a life for a life, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth”. So says the law, and the Church espouses that law. But only the law can authorize that death. Two wrongs do not make a right.’

‘The Church may think as she pleases,’ said Mara dryly. ‘This is the territory of the Burren and Brehon law prevails.’ Has the man gone mad? she wondered. Is this visit from the high-ranking monk from Tintern Abbey of such tremendous importance to him that any threat to an orderly picture of praying monks and distinguished guests is enough to make him lose sight of reason? Was the prospect of being abbot of Mellifont enough to make him offend his sovereign?

‘And you will impose a fine on this woman,’ sneered the abbot. ‘What is that in comparison with a God-given human life?’

‘There will be no fine.’

He was silent then, gazing at her with his raven-grey eyes.

‘If needs be, I will judge this case at Poulnabrone,’ said Mara clearly, looking around to make sure that her words reached all ears. She looked away from the abbot and fixed her eyes on Ellice’s thin white face. ‘But I can tell you now, according to the best of my knowledge and recollection of the judgement texts, that no fine will be imposed; no crime has taken place. The law is quite clear; blood may be spilled in order to save a life. The boy was in grave danger; we all saw the knife and can, even now, see its track on his neck. Ellice deserves the thanks and praise of us all.’

‘Well said,’ burst out Turlough. ‘She’s a girl of high courage. We’re all proud of her.’ He dropped Mara’s hand, enveloped Ellice in one of his bear-like hugs and then slapped Conor lightly on the shoulder.

‘Lucky lad,’ he said. ‘If I wasn’t going to be married to the most beautiful, most wonderful woman in the world then I’d be envious of you.’

There was a ripple of laughter at that and Mara hastened to put an end to it. There would be time for all of this afterwards; first Dualta must be given his due.

‘Father Abbot, will you give orders for a grave to be dug in the cemetery; I know that you have a strangers’ corner and this will be appropriate. Master Carpenter, will you be able to make a coffin; I will pay you for that work?’

‘No need for that,’ said the carpenter quickly. ‘We worked together for many years, and when he could keep away from the strong liquor there was no better worker. I would do it at my own expense, but it happens that there is a rough coffin of soft pinewood ready; I made it so that Master Mason, may God have mercy on him, could use it as a guide for making the stone tomb. I’ll take one of these young brothers and we’ll fetch it.’