Eye of the Law (30 page)

‘You see, Malachy is a man of strong passions . . .’ He began fluently enough and then tailed off looking at her appraisingly as if trying to decide whether she would understand.

‘Yes, I believe you are right,’ she said in a manner which she tried to make matter-of-fact as well as encouraging.

‘You remember, of course,’ he said, ‘that Mór had child after child and that all of them, except for Nuala, the first-born, were born dead.’ Mara nodded again. It was something that she could hardly bear to think of. The small, grey bodies and the beautiful, distraught young mother. ‘Well, then Malachy discovered that Mór was ill, that she had a large lump in her breast. He knew from one of his medical texts that to be pregnant was the worst possible thing for a disease like this so from that day onwards Malachy forewent the pleasures of his wife’s bed – that was two years of abstinence and then there were another two years after her death . . .’

‘And then he meets Caireen.’ Mara nodded her head. ‘I understand what you are telling me, Ardal. Caireen now means the world to Malachy, and his daughter’s needs are very much second place. But you can see why I don’t think that Nuala should go back into that household for the moment. She is very unhappy. I would have her myself, but she would have to stay in the guesthouse and I really need to keep that for guests and for Turlough’s men when he is living at Cahermacnaghten. In any case, this isn’t a suitable place for her with all those boys around. She’s growing up and she needs someone to care for her. It should be her father, but if he is occupied with different responsibilities . . .’ She allowed her voice to trail away. Despite Ardal’s explanation, the thought of Malachy still filled her with fury, but she was too diplomatic to allow it to show.

‘Of course, she can come.’ Ardal’s response was immediate and vigorous. ‘I told Malachy that. Caherconnell is no place for her at the moment.’

‘I have another favour to ask.’ Mara studied his face and sought to find the right words. ‘I ask this favour, not just for myself not just for Nuala, but also in memory of your sister Mór. Mór had all the gifts that nature could bestow on her,’ she went on carefully. ‘You remember her burning intelligence, her desire to study, to learn, her wish to go to bard school, but she was not allowed to bring those gifts to fulfilment. I think her daughter should be given the chance that Mór was denied: I think that she should finish her training as a physician.’

‘Stay with Malachy?’ Ardal looked puzzled.

‘No, that won’t work, not with his new marriage. I was wondering if we could find a tutor for her, someone who could live for a while at Lissylisheen, perhaps some physician who is now too old for the hard life of journeying out to distant farms in bad weather and during the night, but who would be willing to take on a pupil. I was thinking that the king could perhaps find someone like that in Thomond. The income from Nuala’s property at Rathborney will easily cover the expenses. But the question is, would you be willing to do that, Ardal? To house both?’

He was taken aback; she could see that, but she waited quietly. After a moment, he bowed his head.

‘I can refuse you nothing, Brehon,’ he said, and a small triumphant smile crept to his finely formed lips. ‘I can refuse nothing today, on the day of the birth of my son and my heir.’

‘I’ll talk to Nuala,’ said Mara. She rose to her feet and went to the door with him. She looked after him as he strode down the road to where Donie stood patiently walking the mare up and down. There was a spring to Ardal’s step and a buoyancy about the way that his arms swung from side to side. She had never seen him in such high spirits before.

So, she thought, as she watched him; a little baby had been ready to be born from within the body of a woman that Ardal had loved for years when Iarla had arrived with his claim to be Ardal’s son. What a disastrous moment for the young man from Aran to choose after twenty years of silence.

Fifteen

M
ara was up early the following morning, but she wasn’t the first to rise. The mist of the grey dawn still hung around the fields and that, oddly enough, seemed to create a greater emptiness in the landscape than if the usual, far-reaching view had stretched out before her eyes. The cows in their meadows were hidden, the hedges cloaked by the grey vapour and nothing was visible except one figure.

‘You’re out early, Nuala.’ Mara approached the girl as she sat on the mounting block beside the Cahermacnaghten gates.

‘I couldn’t sleep well,’ said the girl. Her eyes were deeply shadowed. Mara felt regretful that she had not sought her out the night before. She had been deceived by the bold front that Nuala had put on as she joked and laughed with the law-school boys. I should have realized, she reproached herself. The girl was heart-broken by her father’s rejection and sick with worry about her future.

‘I spoke with Ardal last night, Nuala, and I think that between us we have worked out a temporary solution to your future.’ Mara’s tone was matter-of-fact and businesslike. Nuala was no child and would not relish being treated as one. ‘The first thing I have to say is that you need not worry about your inheritance; that is yours and yours alone. No one can take it from you. Toin’s will was perfectly valid and he had a complete right to leave the house and farm at Rathborney to you.’

Nuala said nothing, but she heaved a sigh of relief. Her eyes were still troubled though.

‘Secondly,’ said Mara briskly. ‘It may be beneficial for you to study under someone other than your father and I intend to ask the king to look out for a suitable tutor for you – perhaps someone who wishes to give up the practice of medicine, but is happy, and capable, to pass on the results of his experience and knowledge to a young pupil.’

‘What! A school!’ Nuala was open-mouthed.

‘A school would be good, but, as yet, I don’t know of one,’ admitted Mara. ‘However, Ardal has promised that he will house you and your tutor and I think that will work out very well.’

‘Live with Ardal.’ Nuala’s tone was thoughtful. She was very still. Mara also did not move. The girl had to be given time to absorb the arrangements for her future. A missel thrush flew down on to the bush near the gate, cocked his head to look at them and then broke out into a melodious song. Nuala waited until he had finished and flown away before she spoke again.

‘Ardal’s happy for me to go on studying?’ she queried.

‘Yes,’ said Mara with conviction. ‘He is happy to do that.’ She waited for a moment watching the downcast face in front of her. Fachtnan was right; despite the difference of colouring, Nuala’s face was the face of her mother Mór. Like Mór, who never rushed into speech, Nuala was now taking her time, turning the matter over in her mind.

Mara watched her affectionately. ‘Nuala,’ she said eventually. ‘I think you should take this as a great opportunity. Ardal is a man of importance and he has many distinguished and interesting visitors from all over Ireland. You go to live with him, be his hostess, learn to greet his guests, to make conversation with them and your confidence will grow and you will become a woman. You’ve been trying to pretend to be a boy; you’ve sensed, rightly or wrongly, that your father would have preferred to have a boy, but there is nothing superior about being a boy. You be yourself, a beautiful woman with brains and knowledge, and be glad to be yourself. Then you will have a happy life. Does this all make sense to you?’

For a moment Mara wondered whether she had been too frank. Nuala, after all, was only fourteen years old. Perhaps it was too much to expect that she would understand all that Mara had been saying to her; perhaps it would have been better to have approached the matter from a simpler line, said that Ardal was lonely, that he would like his niece to live with him, promised her that all would soon blow over and that she would be reinstated as her father’s daughter and apprentice.

Suddenly and quite unexpectedly, Nuala laughed. She reached forward and impulsively kissed Mara on the cheek.

‘You’re trying to make me like yourself, fit to be a wife to a king,’ she said with a humorous quirk to the side of her mouth. ‘Well, I think I’ll ride around to Lissylisheen now and give big, fat Liam a surprise when I turn up for breakfast. It will probably all be rather fun.’

And with those brave words, she strode off to the stables and Mara heard her talking cheerfully to her pony as she saddled her.

‘Only five more days to go to the end of the Hilary Term,’ said Aidan boisterously, slapping Bran on the side of the wolfhound’s lean shoulder as he came into the schoolhouse on Saturday morning. ‘You’ll miss us, old fellow, won’t you?’

‘Do you think that we will solve the secret and unlawful killing before we go home, Brehon?’ asked Shane with a worried air, as he in turn stroked Bran whose long, whipcord tail was wagging as vigorously as if he had not seen the boys for a whole year, rather than for just one night.

‘I think we should,’ said Mara cheerfully. ‘Everything seems a lot clearer now.’

‘What made it clearer, Brehon?’ asked Enda curiously. ‘Was it going to Aran?’

‘That and other things,’ said Mara. ‘You see, solving a murder is a matter of clear, logical thinking and a lot of hard work. I’m lucky to have you all because you have helped me very much. We’ve managed to eliminate a lot of people and that just leaves some possibilities on the list still.’

‘I’ve got a
taoiseach
on my list,’ said Enda, smiling mischievously.

‘And so have I.’ Moylan was not to be outdone.

‘Is it the same one?’ asked Hugh with interest while Mara cast a hasty glance to make sure that the door to the yard was closed. The shutters were open, but the window was screened by a heavy piece of sacking.

‘Speak quietly when you mention names,’ she said.

‘I don’t think it was a
taoiseach
; I think it was the basket maker,’ said Aidan suddenly. ‘He’s got a turf barrow that he uses for his willow rods. I saw it there. And Iarla was messing about with Orlaith . . .’

‘Well, I don’t believe that the basket maker had anything to do with it,’ said Enda with a scornful glance at Aidan. ‘For one thing, the man has ten children hanging around. It would be hard for him to sneak off and go over to Lissylisheen and murder Iarla and find some way of bringing the body back to the cave. It’s silly to say that he would just crouch down so that he couldn’t be seen from the fields – the hedges aren’t that high and he would just attract attention to himself.’

‘Go on then,’ said Aidan truculently, ‘if you’re so clever, say who did it and how.’

‘Ah, well, there you have me. I don’t know how it was done, but I still think that Ardal O’Lochlainn did it. He is the only one who has a real reason. Anyone could see that he didn’t like a son aged twenty suddenly turning up. But I haven’t managed to work out how he could have done it.’

‘And what about you, Moylan?’ Mara turned to the younger boy. ‘Is your
taoiseach
also Ardal O’Lochlainn?’

‘I think it was Teige O’Brien.’ Moylan’s tone was nonchalant.

‘But he’s my uncle!’ Hugh sounded outraged.

‘Doesn’t mean that he couldn’t kill someone.’

‘But why?’ Hugh was still indignant.

‘Because of what Iarla did to Saoirse, birdbrain. That was a deadly insult and Teige avenged his family’s honour.’

‘And how did he get the body to Balor’s Cave, Moylan?’ asked Mara.

‘Well, you know that Donogh Óg was building the new gatehouse at Lemeanah. There was a cart coming and going all the morning with stone from the quarry near Kilcorney; perhaps something could have been managed with that, couldn’t it? The body could have been put into the cart and then taken out and hidden in the quarry.’

‘That’s quite clever,’ said Enda enthusiastically. ‘But it makes it more likely that it was Donogh Óg. I vote that we put him back on the list. He would have had much more opportunity to do it. Shall we go over to Lemeanah, Brehon, and make enquiries.’

‘I think not.’ Mara looked regretfully at the eager faces, but shook her head. ‘We’re going to have to work now. We’ve lost two days from your studies by going to Aran and we are almost at the end of the Hilary Term. Fachtnan and Enda, you have important examinations at the end of the Trinity Term. I’ll see on Monday afternoon, but for now we must study.’

Mara waited until the boys had eaten their dinner and disappeared in the direction of Doolin – sailing and rowing were now huge interests with them all and she guessed that she would not see them for the rest of the afternoon. Once the sound of the ponies’ feet departing down the road had vanished, she quietly ordered Seán to saddle her horse. Brigid was scrubbing out the kitchen house and was now resigned to seeing Mara going out at a walking pace on the back of her mare.

The blackthorn was beginning to unfurl, she noticed as she ambled down the lane. There was not the profusion that she had seen on her way to Doolin, but the black twigs with their pointed ivory-coloured buds, each emerging from a small, pale-green sheaf, were almost more beautiful than their full-blown cousins in the warmer air near to the Atlantic. As she neared Lemeanah she could see how the grass was beginning to take on that deeper hue of spring green in the well-drained pastures around the castle, and beneath the grey stones walls a few purple and yellow gilly flowers sent out their sweet fragrance.

‘Is the
taoiseach
at home today?’ she said to the porter. She half hoped that Teige would be bustling around the courtyard, or somewhere nearby but the answer came instantly.