Scales of Retribution (10 page)

‘How is my little fellow?’ Mara leaned over and picked up the baby.

‘Doing well,’ said Nuala in her best professional manner. ‘He is making good use of his food. Look at him.’

Mara peered into the baby’s face. She had feared to hope too much, but now there was no doubt that the infant was beginning to look less fragile. The transparent look was beginning to go and his skin was creamier, with even a slight suggestion of plumpness about the cheeks. She pressed her lips to his tiny face and smiled as his fingers closed around her thumb.

‘He’s going to be like Turlough,’ she said with satisfaction. ‘He’s got the very same shape of eyes and, yes, I think they are beginning to turn green. Got the same chin, too.’ Immediately she was filled with longing for Turlough to come home soon and to see his baby son. What was keeping him?

‘No one is keeping any news from me about Turlough?’ she asked, and Nuala shook her head firmly.

‘No messengers have come in the last week.’

‘I’ll send someone if we haven’t heard by tomorrow,’ said Mara decisively, knowing inwardly that it had been a weakness on her part not to have done that before now. ‘Seán should be back by then,’ she said aloud. She met Eileen’s eyes. The woman was looking at her with curiosity. Mara looked back with interest. It was not often that one of the farm workers on the Burren looked at her like that. To them she was something apart – Mara, Brehon of the Burren, judge and lawgiver – something immoveable and unchanging, like the huge boulders that lay here and there, perched on the stone pavements of the rocky fields. Eileen, however, looked as though she were weighing her up. Mara winced slightly. Perhaps Eileen thought she was a poor mother.

There was no doubt, though she tried to disguise it, that she was jealous of Eileen, who had nothing to do but feed the baby – her baby – and cradle him in her arms for as long as she wished. This reminded her of something and she turned to Nuala.

‘Walk down with me to Blár O’Connor’s place,’ she said to the girl. ‘He was making a cradle for me. Of course, no one expected this young man to arrive in the middle of June, but I’m sure that news has reached the wheelwright’s place. We’ll see if he has it ready.’

‘Why go to a wheelwright for a cradle – Cumhal or one of the men on the farm could have made one for you?’ Once medical matters were no longer under discussion, Nuala’s mood turned sour and argumentative, again.

‘It was Turlough’s idea. A wheelwright had made a cradle for his eldest daughter and Turlough swore that no cradle ever rocked better. He came with me to Blár O’Connor last Easter and we planned it together.’ Mara decided to ignore Nuala’s moods and to talk naturally and cheerfully.

Blár O’Connor was a highly qualified wheelwright, skilled not just in wheel making but also in wagon building. He lived and worked within the walls of an ancient enclosure called Lios na Binne Roe, a small farm not far from Cahermacnaghten, near the Kilcorney crossroads. It was easy to see why the enclosure was named ‘Binne Roe’ (red cliff) as it was just beside a steep cliff face whose surface was covered with the orange-red, jellylike mass that oozed from iron deposits in the soil.

‘I always think that this place should be in Corcomroe, not in Burren,’ said Mara as they turned off the road and went down the lane to the wheelwright’s home. ‘What is it in that old poem? – doesn’t it go like this – “
Burren’s stone is light and bright; Corcomroe is black and red
”, something like that anyway, isn’t it?’

‘I wouldn’t know. I hate poetry,’ said Nuala moodily. ‘Ardal is always trying to suggest to me that it would be better to be a poet like my mother, than a physician like my father.’

Mara laughed. ‘And poor Mór, your mother, was never allowed to be a poet, except in secret. She badly wanted to go to Bard School, but your grandfather was completely against it, and she was married off to your father by the time that she was fourteen years old.’

‘And then she had me the following year. What a disaster to have a child like me!’ Nuala sounded so miserable that Mara was relieved when there was a shout from the enclosure.

‘You’re very welcome, Brehon, I was just going to send a lad up to you to tell that all was ready. Come and look at your cradle.’

Blár O’Connor was a small man – surprisingly small for a man who lived by the labour of his hands. He was a clever man, though. Mara’s nearest neighbour, Diarmuid O’Connor, had once remarked, in his quiet way, that since Blár O’Connor was the smallest in the family he had to have brains to survive. ‘You watch him,’ Diarmuid had said. ‘While everyone else is wasting time fussing and flexing muscles, Blár has worked out the neatest and quickest way to move a piece of wood, or which part to saw that needs the least labour.’

He came forward now, moving lightly and quickly, and said in his quietly confident way, ‘I think you’ll be pleased with it. We made it from oak as the king, God bless him, ordered.’

‘The oak tree is a special symbol for the O’Brien clan; the O’Brien king is always named under the oak tree at Magh Adhair,’ replied Mara, still trying to interest Nuala and distract her from her gloomy thoughts. It didn’t work. Blár O’Connor, though courteous, looked surprised as this was something that everyone knew, and Nuala just stared straight ahead, her black eyebrows contracted to a straight line, her brown eyes wary and opaque.

Even Nuala unbent a little when she saw the cradle. It had been exquisitely crafted, the curved hood scalloped with a tiny carved creature at the inside edge of each of the four scallops. Mara could just imagine the delight of any baby who discovered these tiny companions – there was a fox, a cat, a hare and an owl – and she made up her mind that she would not point them out to her little son, but allow him to make his own discovery.

‘The rockers are perfect,’ she said aloud, stroking the carefully waxed wood, planed to a satin-like smoothness. ‘My lord will be pleased by these. He knew that you would do this wonderfully.’

Blár O’Connor’s face clouded over. ‘It was Bláreen, God have mercy on his soul, who did these, poor lad. He was a great workman, God be good to him. He had these oak felloes laid by for over a year – all ready they were to make a set of wheels, but nothing would suit him but to take two of them for the cradle. “It’ll be something to have made the cradle where the king’s child will lie”, that’s what he said. It was he that carved those little creatures too. I can just see him doing it with a smile on his face, he was a handsome lad, Brehon, as you know . . .’ He shot a quick glance at Nuala’s averted face and then shut his mouth firmly.

Mara, also, glanced at Nuala. For a moment she hesitated, but then laid her hand on Blár’s arm and said the words that had come into her head. ‘The kingdom will be a poorer place without your son, Blár. He was a craftsman and an artist and I never knew a single person to say a bad word about him. His memory will live on as long as the carts and wagons that he made with such skill roll down our roads. Every time that I rock my baby in this cradle I will think of him. I can’t wait to put him in it,’ she finished in a lighter tone of voice. ‘I’ll send one of my men with a cart to fetch it before the evening.’

‘He was the light of his mother’s eyes,’ said Blár O’Connor, his face still dark and brooding. ‘Still “the Lord giveth and he taketh away”. . .’ He paused but did not finish in the usual fashion with the phrase ‘blessed be the name of the Lord’. He was gazing at the dense woodland that lay between him and the sea, his pale blue eyes filled with rage and his mouth was tight with anger.

And then he looked at Nuala and an expression of embarrassment came over his face.

‘Don’t you trouble yourself, Brehon. I have a cart going that way this afternoon. One of my men will drop the cradle off for you. The wife wants to give it a last polish – great woman for making polishes. Gets the beeswax from the beekeeper Giolla at Rathborney and she mixes it with some lavender.’

‘I can smell it,’ said Mara burying her nose in the scented wood. She was glad, for Nuala’s sake, that the interview was ending on such an amicable note. It was hard on the girl to be made to feel responsible for her father’s sins and at the same time be suspected of causing his death.

Bláreen O’Connor, the only son of the wheelwright, had been a magnificent son. He had the height and breadth of shoulder that his father lacked, but was blessed with a happy, easy-going temperament that meant, unlike most young men in their early twenties, he never got into fights or drank too much. Everyone liked the lad and his father and mother were reputed to adore him.

And then, one day in the middle of last month, Bláreen had taken a short cut home through one of Lorcan O’Connor’s fields. Unknown to him there was a particularly vicious bull there and the boy had been tossed. When he managed to get home he was bleeding severely. His father immediately sent for Malachy, but Malachy did not come, instead sending a message that he was owed money by the household and was not going to attend before his fee was paid. Almost immediately after the messenger returned the young man had died.

‘I shouldn’t have gone there with you,’ said Nuala abruptly as they walked back down the long avenue to the gate.

Mara looked at her. The girl’s cheeks were flushed and her eyes were full of tears.

‘You’re upset to hear your father spoken of, is that it?’

Nuala’s mouth twisted in a wry grin, making her seem older than her fourteen years.

‘I suppose it would be nice to hear him spoken of, as you spoke of Bláreen. But you know yourself that the kingdom won’t be a poorer place without Malachy O’Davoren. Do you know why Blár didn’t pay his bill to my father?’

Mara shook her head, but Nuala wasn’t even looking at her; she was still staring ahead with that flush of anger – or was it shame? – on her cheeks.

‘Blár O’Connor did not pay his bill because Malachy had been treating a cut on his arm for months with the wrong ointment. The cut had gone bad. It needed to be opened to allow the sepsis to escape and then kept open until it was clean. Malachy had been treating it with comfrey . . .’

Mara turned an attentive face towards the girl. Comfrey, she knew well. It was a herb that grew on damp meadows – in fact she could see some of its tall, pale pinkish-purple flowers in the field on their left-hand side. Nuala, herself, had often gathered some from the meadows near Cahermacnaghten.

‘And was treating it with comfrey correct?’ she asked.

Nuala shook her head vigorously. ‘No, it was the wrong thing. Comfrey is good for healing, but it is too good. What was happening was that the wound was healing superficially but leaving all of the bad stuff inside. It was absolutely the wrong herb to use.’

‘And Malachy did not realize that?’

Once again Nuala shook her head, the black braids flying out at angles from her head. ‘He did,’ she said bitterly. ‘I found one of my grandfather’s medical notes open on his stillroom table – just at the page where he had written: “Comfrey may be used externally to speed wound healing and guard against scar tissue developing incorrectly. Care should be taken with very deep wounds, however, as the external application of comfrey can lead to tissue forming over the wound before it is healed deeper down, possibly leading to abscesses.” And beside it was a small jar of paste made from comfrey – I knew it was comfrey when I smelled it. And then Malachy came rushing in and took the jar, closed the book, put it back on the shelf, asked me what I was doing there and then rushed out again. I followed him and saw him give the jar to Blár’s man and tell him to remind his master that he owed him two pieces of silver.’

‘So what did you do?’ asked Mara.

‘Took a jar of St John’s wort from the shelf – I, myself, had made most of these ointments and pastes, so I didn’t bother to ask for permission – and that afternoon I called on Blár’s wife and asked her to try this out on her husband’s cut. She did and it healed up fast. Blár is clever and he realized that Malachy’s medicine had been worse than useless – and that’s probably why he decided not to pay the latest bill.’

‘So Malachy gave the wrong medicine – and knew it was the wrong medicine – and this kept the wound from healing. But why?’ Mara had begun to understand.

Nuala shrugged. ‘Didn’t much care. Just grabbed a jar of comfrey – perhaps he didn’t read all of my grandfather’s notes. Or perhaps . . .’

He probably did read the note, thought Mara sadly, suspecting that Malachy had deliberately kept the wheelwright’s injury from healing so that he could continue to get silver from him. Blár O’Connor must be one of the richest workers in the kingdom. He would be able to afford to pay a physician any fee that was requested. Money had been Malachy’s god ever since he had made his second marriage a few months ago.

But did Blár realize the full extent of Malachy’s treachery?

And would he have been prepared to kill one whose greed for silver had allowed a boy to bleed to death while he waited for the father’s payment?

The talk with Nuala could be postponed. There was an urgent question to be asked and she could find the answer to it at her own law school.

‘Go in to the baby,’ she said to Nuala when they arrived at the Brehon’s House, ‘I just want to ask the lads a question.’ And then she sped down the road to the law school

Everyone was busy when she opened the door. Bran was on his feet in an instant, greeting her with a violently wagging tail. The boys turned smiling faces towards her as she struggled for breath.

‘Fachtnan and Enda,’ she said urgently. ‘When you go on wolf hunts with Donogh Óg O’Lochlainn, have you ever gone to Binne Roe? Recently, I mean.’

‘Blár O’Connor’s place,’ asked Fachtnan in puzzled tones, but Enda was quicker. His very blue eyes blazed with excitement as he replied.

‘Not recently, Brehon. Blár O’Connor poisoned all of the wolves around his place.’ He stopped and then said dramatically, ‘He poisoned them with wolfsbane, aconite, I should say. He showed me the great big jar of the stuff that he got from Malachy O’Davoren.’