Scales of Retribution (6 page)

The law school at Cahermacnaghten was built within the enormously high and thick walls of an ancient enclosure. There were five small thatched, stone houses there: the schoolhouse, the scholars’ house, the farm manager’s house, the kitchen house and the guesthouse. They all had been newly limewashed and gleamed a brilliant white in the sunshine.

There seemed to be a certain amount of horse play going on inside the schoolhouse, judging by the noise. Mara could hear Aidan’s loud adolescent voice, a raucous laugh from Moylan and an exclamation of pain from Hugh. She moved swiftly across the cobbled yard in front of her companion and threw the door open dramatically.

To her amazement the noise did not instantly stop once the door was pulled open. Aidan and Moylan continued their game which seemed to involve rubbing handfuls of ash into Hugh’s red curls. There was no sign of the two oldest boys, Fachtnan and Enda, but eleven-year-old Shane was doing his best to save his friend.

‘Well!’ exclaimed Mara and suddenly the noise stopped. Every head swivelled towards her. The boys quickly moved to their desks and sat very straight and very upright, looking ahead. She moved to the top of the room and took up her accustomed place beside the large desk. Boetius followed her.

‘So this is how you behave when you have been trusted to work alone,’ said Mara, and proceeded to read them a lecture. Where were Fachtnan and Enda? she wondered, and then became conscious that, instead of being subdued by her words, Aidan was sniggering behind his hand and Moylan, who had fixed his eyes on the ceiling with an expression of carelessness, glanced, from time to time, at something behind her. Going on with her lecture she swung around and surprised a large and sympathetic grin on Boetius’s face, who was winding his finger around and around – presumably in some sort of signal that her lecture was going on and on. The man was actually having the temerity to mock her behind her back. Instantly she stopped and stared hard at him. He immediately rearranged his features into an exaggerated expression of disapproval, but his small green eyes twinkled and Mara heard a stifled giggle from Aidan.

‘Could you kindly fetch Enda and Fachtnan to me. Presumably they have gone to work in peace in the scholars’ house.’ She spoke to the man with elaborate politeness, but did not give him his title and kept her eyes fixed intently on him until he went through the door. Then she sat down in her usual chair and looked seriously at her pupils. Every eye fell before hers and she remained seated, hoping that Brigid would not follow her and insist on her going back to bed.

A long silence, Mara had always found, reduced the rowdiest adolescent to good order and this was a silence that she had no intention of breaking until the two senior boys arrived.

Enda and Fachtnan greeted her with such pleasure that she began to feel a little better. Boetius made little attempt to hide his impatience, asking her if there was anything else that he could do for her.

‘Bring a stool for
Ollamh
MacClancy, Hugh,’ said Mara authoritatively. ‘Yes, put it there, just beside Shane.’ Now the young man was seated facing her, almost part of her scholars.

‘Let’s discuss this murder of Malachy the physician,’ she said.

There was a look of surprise from Fachtnan and of pleasure from Enda, and the younger boys sat up very straight and tried to look responsible.

‘My scholars are well used to the procedure that we employ when we go about solving a secret and unlawful killing,’ she said condescendingly to Boetius.

‘And we understand that we are all under a sacred oath not to say anything about our deliberations to anyone outside this room,’ said Shane rapidly.

‘I’m sure that
Ollamh
MacClancy knows all about this; it would have been part of his training,’ said Mara sweetly, and saw Enda give her a long look.

‘May I write on the board, Brehon?’ Aidan raised his arm politely.

But Mara said coldly, ‘I think on this occasion, I will choose Hugh. His handwriting is very clear.’

Hugh’s delicate white skin turned slightly pink as he came out to the whitewashed board and picked up the stick of charcoal.

‘Any comment from anyone?’ Mara looked around the room.

‘I think we should make a list of reasons why anyone might want to kill Malachy,’ said Enda, with a quick glance at Fachtnan. ‘It seems too early in the investigation to start writing down names.’

‘My own feeling exactly!’ Mara beamed at him. ‘This is just the beginning of the enquiry. It would be a great mistake to rush towards picking out something obvious, wouldn’t it? What should we do first?’

‘Explore the means to commit the murder,’ said Shane tentatively. ‘But perhaps you could tell us the facts, first, Brehon. No one has talked to us about the murder. We haven’t had any discussions about it or anything.’ He cast a sidelong look of dislike at the man sitting on the stool beside him and then turned an attentive face towards Mara.

‘Well, the facts are that on the morning of June 11, the physician Malachy was found dead in his stillroom by his wife, Caireen. On a table was a half-emptied glass of French brandy. It is presumed that some poison had been put in the glass – I’m not sure what—’

‘Impossible to tell,’ interrupted Boetius. ‘Could be anything, according to Caireen, the man’s wife.’

Fachtnan raised his hand politely and Mara nodded at him.

‘Nuala, the physician’s apprentice, has told me that she can guess which poison was used.’ Fachtnan tried to keep his voice unemotional, but his dark eyes were worried.

‘Could you fetch Nuala, please, Fachtnan,’ said Mara politely.

‘Interesting that she knows . . .’ commented Boetius, but Mara ignored him and nodded toward Shane who was waving his hand in the air.

‘Should Hugh put a drawing of the stillroom on the board while we are waiting,’ suggested Shane. ‘We’ve all been in that stillroom, so we should be able to remember between us.’

‘Good idea,’ said Mara.

‘Draw a square,’ ordered Moylan. ‘It’s a square sort of room.’

‘D for door,’ said Aidan.

‘W for window,’ said Enda. ‘The window could be important. It looks over the road, doesn’t it, Brehon?’

‘And the door is next to the stairs, isn’t it?’

‘And that sort of couch thing where he examines his patients – that’s over against the wall opposite the window.’ Now the suggestions were pouring in as fast as Hugh could draw.

‘Shelves on either side of the door.’

‘Poisons on that top shelf, by the fire – mark in the fireplace, Hugh.’

‘And the table!’ Enda was as sharp as ever. ‘Does anyone remember where the table was in that room? My own feeling was that it was next to the window. If that’s right, I think that is very significant.’

‘You’re quite right,’ said Mara triumphantly. Suddenly back with her sharp-witted boys, she felt a surge of energy and well-being. ‘And why is it significant, Enda?’ She gave a triumphant glance at the puzzled frown on the face of the stout, self-important figure of Boetius MacClancy, but managed to refrain from suggesting that Enda might explain the significance to the young man.

‘Because the window is by the roadside and anyone, with very little risk, could drop poison into the brandy.’ Enda addressed his words to Hugh, thinking that only to him would this need to be spelled out.

‘Ah, here is Nuala,’ said Mara, as Bran got up with a wag of his long muscular tail and went towards the door.

Nuala looked wretched. Always very slim, she had lost weight in the last week and now appeared quite thin. Her tanned face had a sickly, yellowish tinge and her brown eyes had dark shadows beneath them. Mara greeted her with a brisk, matter-of-fact manner and respectfully asked for her opinion as to the poison.

‘I have been thinking about that.’ Nuala’s voice was dry and her manner professional. Mara turned a composed, interested face towards her, but her heart ached to listen to the child calmly and dispassionately account for her father’s death, and explain about poisons to her audience.

‘I thought of digitalis, made from the seeds of foxgloves. This would cause death by excessively speeding the heart beats until the heart collapses, but there were signs of acute vomiting, burns around the mouth and the dead man had sweated badly – his clothes were quite damp with sweat, so I came to the conclusion that the most likely poison was aconite, wolfsbane it is known as.’

‘And is that a poison that you grow in your herb garden?’ Boetius asked the question in a mild tone of voice, but his green eyes were keen and he raised his sandy eyebrows with an air of mock innocence. ‘Something perhaps that you have handled, made medicines from, is that right?’

Nuala faced him. ‘My father’s herb garden has a section for poisonous plants. But most of them, including digitalis, can be beneficial if given in tiny quantities. Aconite, wolfsbane, was only introduced recently from the garden in Galway belonging to Caireen’s first husband. It was not something that I would have chosen to grow as its only medicinal use is when it is used with goose grease to rub into rheumatic joints – and even then there are better herbs. Aconite is a deadly poison and to my mind the dangers outweigh the benefits. I have never made any medicines from it and I never shall.’

Well done, Nuala, thought Mara with a feeling of pride.

‘But you knew where it grew,’ stated Boetius.

‘It could not be missed,’ said Nuala briefly. ‘It has tall, blue, hooded flowers at this time of the year.’

‘So anyone could have picked them?’ asked Fachtnan, gravely.

‘The poison is made from the root, not from the flowers – in any case, I think that it is unlikely that someone took some from the herb garden,’ said Nuala. ‘It would not be necessary. My father had a large jar of aconite poison which he sold to farmers and shepherds to get rid of wolves. This is why he had it.’

‘And you knew where it was kept?’ asked Boetius.

Nuala nodded in a perfunctory manner and turned to Moylan who was waving his hand in the air.

‘Could you test the brandy to see whether it held aconite, Nuala?’ he asked.

‘No,’ Nuala’s voice was expressionless. ‘Caireen poured out the brandy and rinsed the glass with water from the jug. She said she wanted to give him a drink. Apparently,’ the girl’s voice was dry, ‘Caireen did not realize that he was dead.’

There was a silence for a moment. All the boys looked sympathetic. This was desperately hard for Nuala, Mara knew, but she also knew that nothing would be as hard as brooding silently and not knowing what was going on.

‘Do you know whether any other accidental deaths occurred from farmers putting aconite around their farms? Or from the misuse of medicines?’ asked Fachtnan.

Mara looked at him with interest. He had a fine, intuitive intelligence. He had gone straight to the heart of the matter. Of course, there had been several deaths in the kingdom during the last couple of months and rumour had it that relatives had blamed Malachy’s poor doctoring for these.

However, this was not a matter to discuss in front of Malachy’s daughter.

‘As far as I know, not from the use of aconite,’ said Nuala briefly. ‘That is, not humans, I mean.’

Mara rose to her feet.

‘I fear I must leave you now, boys. I am not fully recovered as yet but I hope to be back at work with you quite soon. Fachtnan, could I ask you to continue with this investigation? Aidan, will you make notes and bring them over to me after dinner?’ She turned to the young Boetius with a smile which she strove to make friendly.

‘Perhaps I could ask you to go across to Caherconnell and to make an inventory of all the medicines on Malachy’s shelves. It is not a task which I would like to entrust to any of my scholars when it’s a case of handling jars containing poisons.’

And that, she thought, as he bowed without comment, should keep him busy for the rest of the afternoon.

‘Come with me,’ she said to Nuala.

Five

T
he sun shone with the intense heat of mid-June as Mara and Nuala walked together down the road towards the Brehon’s house. The day was hot with that particular scent which was, in Mara’s experience, found only in the Burren. It was a scent of damp vegetation mixed with the clean, slightly acrid aroma of baking limestone. The clints that paved the fields as far as the eye could see sparkled almost silver in the sunlight, and the deep grykes, or cracks between the slabs, were filled with bright colour from the clear, intense magenta of summer flowering cranesbill and the delicate pale blue of the fragile harebells.

‘So it was just Caireen that was there when your father’s body was found, is that right?’ Mara kept her voice unemotional and matter-of-fact.

‘That’s right.’ Nuala used the same tone. She stared across the grykes towards the distant pale blue swirls of Mullaghmore mountain.

‘No sign of Ronan or of any of his brothers, then,’ stated Mara, and then when Nuala did not reply she said quietly, ‘Just tell me everything that you remember about that morning.

‘I know what you’re thinking—’ began Nuala.