Writ in Stone (31 page)

Brigid nodded.

‘I think there is a rule among the Cistercians that they have to lend their herbalist when there is need of his skills,’ said Mara thoughtfully. ‘You and Cumhal go and load the cart, Brigid. Do it as quietly as you can and say nothing to anyone. I’m going to talk to the king, now.’

Turlough was chatting genially with Father Peter, but broke off when she came to stand by his side.

‘God bless you, Brehon. Isn’t it good we had you here,’ said Father Peter, smiling his toothless grin. ‘I was just saying to my lord here that you always find the answer.’

‘I think you helped me to find it, Father Peter,’ said Mara modestly. ‘You told me that I probably knew the truth, that I just had to look into my heart. It was true; everything was known to me, I just had to fit the pieces together.’

‘Well, it’s been a sad and difficult time for everyone. I hope the boy is all right.’

‘That’s just what I was going to talk to you about, Father Peter,’ said Mara quickly, seizing the opening. ‘I’m a little worried about Shane. I wonder would it be too much of a trouble for you to go over to the Royal Lodge and have a look at him? Brigid is there and she will get you anything you need.’

‘What are you getting rid of him for?’ asked Turlough with an amused smile after Father Peter had scuttled away. ‘No need to raise your eyebrows so innocently at me, I know you when you are planning something.’

‘I just want to get him out of the abbot’s way until my plan comes to fruition,’ said Mara. ‘Turlough, do you remember what you said this morning, about spending Christmas at Cahermacnaghten? Were you serious?’

‘Of course I was serious,’ said Turlough emphatically. ‘Let’s go there now, just the two of us. After all, the murder is solved. I don’t want any more boiled cod. We’ll go, shall we? Just the two of us?’

‘I think,’ said Mara thoughtfully, ‘some others must come, also. I’m a bit worried about a few things.’

‘I thought it was too good to be true.’ Turlough spoke in resigned tones, but Mara knew it was half-feigned. He was a sociable man who enjoyed the company of family and friends. They would have a good Christmas.

Nineteen

(Small Primer)

‘I fear that we must leave you now, Father Abbot. Father Peter is of my opinion that the young boy, Shane, needs to be taken away from the place where his life was threatened. He is very shaken by the events. Perhaps in your kindness you will allow Father Peter to come with us and to stay until we are sure that the boy is well, again? His father, the Brehon from Tyrone, would be very grateful. I would not ask this favour were it not that Malachy, my own physician, has taken his daughter to Galway for the festive season.’ Time enough, later on, for him to realize that the king, his sick son, Conor, and Ellice were all going to spend Christmas at Cahermacnaghten.

The abbot bowed graciously and then cleared his throat, a two-note sound filled with embarrassment.

‘Of course, there is no reason now why a marriage service cannot be performed between yourself and the king, tomorrow morning,’ he said tentatively. ‘I’m sure that Father Richard Wyche from Tintern would be delighted to witness the ceremony.’

Mara shuddered slightly. An artistic shudder, she congratulated herself inwardly.

‘Let’s not talk of weddings on this sad day of burials,’ she said gravely. She extended her hand graciously. ‘We will meet again in happier times. And thank you so much for allowing your herbalist, Father Peter, to come with us in order to care for my young scholar.’

‘And, of course, Banna, I will pay to you the fine that is due to you as compensation after the death of your husband.’ Banna looked as if she were about to demur and then looked uncertain.

Mara hastened to reassure her. ‘No, no, I would be uneasy if I did not take it upon myself to do this.’

Hopefully this would soften the blow when Banna found out that she had been disinherited by her late husband and that all of the wealth that was his to dispose of had been willed to his wife of the second degree, the fertile Frann, while his wife of thirty years was left with only a house and land fit to graze seven cows.

‘Well, if you’re sure that is the right thing, Brehon.’ Mara felt a certain shifting of guilt from her shoulders when she saw the woman bow her head with acquiescence. Fortunately Banna knew little of the law and did not realize that divorce ended all liability, and, of course, even if Mara and Dualta had still been married there would have been no obligation. As Fithail put it: ‘
Marbhaid cach marbh a chinta
– every dead man buries his offences.’

‘And what of yourself, Banna? What will you do now?’

‘Well, I’ll spend Christmas at the abbey and then I suppose I will go home,’ said Banna with a weary sigh. She looked better today, thought Mara. The dramatic events of the last couple of hours seemed to have stemmed her tears.

‘And you will go and see your late husband’s Brehon on your return, won’t you? Now I will wish you the best and may your sorrow become bearable in the months to come,’ said Mara solemnly, with an eye on the sun which was moving into the south-west. They should be on their way as soon as possible to ensure that they reached Cahermacnaghten before sundown and there were two more farewells that she needed to make before departing. Across the garth, she could see that Murrough and Turlough had made their farewells and from the abrupt way that each man turned his back on the other, she guessed that it had not been an amiable meeting.

‘So you are off again, Murrough? A long journey for such a short visit.’

‘It was worth a gamble,’ said Murrough with a shrug of his broad shoulders. He made as if to go away, but then turned back. Mara looked at him warily. He had his ingratiating, small-boy smile on his face and his green eyes appraised her carefully before he spoke.

‘You’re a woman of sense, I know,’ he began.

‘Thank you, Murrough.’ Mara was amused, but willing to make an effort to part on friendly terms.

‘I know that I can put my trust in your discretion.’

‘I think you may,’ said Mara warily.

‘And you will try to make my father see the right way forward.’

‘The right way?’ she queried, raising an eyebrow.

‘You know what I mean.’ His tone was impatient.

‘No, I don’t,’ said Mara. ‘But if it worries you, I think I can assure you that your father will always take the right way – the honourable, decent way – without any advice from me.’

‘Or from me, either, I suppose you mean,’ he said, with an undercurrent of mockery in his voice.

‘That’s true. Surely it should be the other way around, shouldn’t it? It’s for a wise and experienced older man to give advice to a younger.’

‘I bet you didn’t think that when you were my age.’ The sudden grin made him look so like his father that Mara could not resist smiling back.

‘No,’ she admitted. ‘I don’t suppose that I did. I suppose we all have to make our own mistakes and go our own way until we find wisdom for ourselves.’

They stood smiling at each other for a moment, while in the background the noise of the heavy cart with Cumhal and Brigid, surrounded with baskets and crates, trundling through the gates and down the paved road leading from the abbey died away. Both of them followed its progress with their eyes and then turned back to face each other. More needed to be said; Mara waited and saw how Murrough’s face darkened.

‘Well, everything has worked out well for you; you can get married now with the blessing of Rome on your union; I suppose I should wish you happiness.’

‘Only if it comes from the heart,’ said Mara indifferently and then, as he turned away, she called after him, ‘Tell me something, Murrough, why did you come dressed as a pilgrim? What was the point of that?’

‘I knew you would be against me.’ There was a spurt of malice in his voice, the tone of the spoiled boy. ‘I thought I would try to get my father on his own away from you; if I did that I might have a better chance of convincing him. I planned to get into conversation with him, still disguised.’

‘And then came the news of the death.’

Murrough nodded. ‘Actually, when I heard him announce the vigil the night before, I had planned the meeting. I thought that, first thing in the morning, in the church, alone, would be an ideal time to see him, but when it came to it, well, I didn’t want to leave my bed. If I had done so, I would have been the first to discover the body and then you would have been certain of my guilt.’ He laughed suddenly: ‘Like father, like son,’ he said. ‘Both of us saved by laziness.’

‘So why did you try to stop the marriage? Was it because you thought I might interfere with your plans?’

‘Of course I had to try to stop that marriage.’ Now his voice rang with sincerity. ‘I suppose that was the real reason for coming. It would have disgraced my father to have married you, a woman lawyer – I could just imagine what they would have thought of that in London.’ He gave a short laugh. ‘They wouldn’t be able to imagine such a thing as a woman lawyer; you would have been burned as a witch – and then you were a divorced woman! In England no woman could divorce her husband. You were no fitting match for a nobleman like my father. The Great Earl has a niece, a young girl of just fourteen; he would be pleased to give her to my father if he made obeisance to King Henry VIII.’

‘Possibly your father does not want a fourteen-year-old given to him; perhaps he would prefer to choose his own wife,’ said Mara mildly. She was getting tired of this egotistical boy; it was time to put a stop to this. ‘Well, Murrough, you have chosen your path, tied your chariot to the wheels of the Earl of Kildare, and I do believe that you are sincere in your beliefs, so I will wish you a good future and may the road rise up with you, as the old people say. I must leave you now because I want to see Ardal O’Lochlainn before we go.’

‘We’re leaving now, Ardal. I want to get Shane away from the abbey as soon as possible.’ It was always best, Mara thought, to keep to the same story. ‘Would you like to ride with us and have a Christmas Eve supper at Cahermacnaghten?’

‘You’re very kind, Brehon.’ His tone, as always, was full of courtesy, but his eyes went restlessly across to the doorway where Frann was demurely taking leave of the abbot. ‘I have some business to attend to in Kinvarra so I thought I would escort Mahon O’Brien’s widow to her home at Dunguaire,’ he concluded.

‘How very kind of you,’ said Mara sedately. ‘I’m sure she will appreciate your company.’

And they will make a handsome pair, she thought, looking from one to the other, Ardal with his red-gold hair and blue eyes and Frann with her alluring charm. What a pleasant Christmas they would have. And then she thought of her own plans for Christmas and smiled mischievously. She would not confide in anyone for the moment, she decided.

‘She’s a wonderful woman, that Brigid of yours,’ said Turlough as they rounded the last corner before reaching Cahermacnaghten Law School. ‘Look at that; there’s smoke from every chimney and I swear that I can smell cooking already.’

‘Well, she has Nessa full-time to help her these days; you remember Nessa from Kilcorney? That case we heard at Poulnabrone last Bealtaine? Nessa has had her instructions to keep the fires going until we returned; we had intended to do that tomorrow, anyway. We wanted to have everything to be warm and welcoming, then.’ Mara surveyed her home with satisfaction. She had complete confidence in Brigid; no doubt, there would be a meal fit for a king served up at suppertime, but in the meantime, she herself had a few things to organize.

‘. . . So would you and Shane cut lots of holly and ivy and decorate the schoolhouse, Fachtnan? I’ll send Séan to help you,’ she added as a shriek from the kitchen house warned that Brigid was already losing her temper with the slow-moving, slow-thinking Séan.

‘Could I help, too? You’ll need a rest, won’t you, for a while.’ Ellice turned her dark eyes on to her husband’s weary, white face with an awkward semblance of wifely concern.

‘Yes, you go along now,’ said Father Peter, ‘leave the
tánaiste
to me. A rest for an hour or two and then a good supper; that’s the best thing for you, Conor.’

‘That’s great, Ellice. You’ll be able to show Shane and myself where to put the holly and ivy; we’re neither of us very good at decorating,’ said Fachtnan with his usual easy courtesy.

After speaking to Turlough, Mara crossed the yard towards the schoolhouse. It was now quite dark, but she found her way easily by the light from a candle that had been placed on the stone window seat by the unshuttered window. She pushed open the door and stood smiling with pleasure. The boys, assisted by Séan, had worked hard to bring the evergreens in from the little woodland next to the law school, but she guessed that Ellice had decided the artistic arrangements. Great branches of sweet-smelling pine and red-berried holly were tied with pink linen tape to the crossbeams and doors; windows and the wooden press were garlanded with long, graceful trails of ivy. The placid fire of slow-burning peat had been fed with discarded pieces of pine and the orange and crimson flames leaped high into the chimney.

‘That’s perfect,’ said Mara appreciatively. ‘Ellice, could you just spread this linen cloth on my table and you others set out the benches. Arrange them in a semicircle around my table. That’s right. Shane, run and get some cushions, Fachtnan, just go and see if there are a few snowdrops out there at the entrance to the wood.’