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Chain of Evidence

A Burren Mystery

Severn House Publishers Ltd

Cáin Lánamna

(The Law of Marriage)

There are nine forms of union:

1. The union of joint property where both partners contribute to the wealth of the couple.

2. The union of a woman on a man's property.

3. The union of a man on a woman's property.

4. The union of a man visiting with the approval of her kin.

5. The union of a man and a willing woman without the approval of her kin.

6. The union of a man and an abducted woman.

7. The union of a man and a secretly visited woman.

8. The union that follows rape.

9. The union of two insane people.

It had been an early spring in the west of Ireland.

In the kingdom of the Burren, mild south-westerly winds from the nearby Atlantic Ocean had put a temporary end to winter frosts by the middle of January. By the second day of February the sunken lanes in its valleys had been filled with pale yellow primroses and dark purple violets. Soon afterwards the willow had begun to quicken and burst forth into fluffy buds, the pink haze of the tiny herb robert spread over the ditches and the grass of the fields was sprinkled with cowslips. An early spring, said the optimists who began making plans for moving their cows to summer pasture.

But by the thirty-first day of March, just as soon as the bare thorny twigs of hedgerows had become covered with white blossoms, the traditional saying 'the little winter of the blackthorn' had come true and the air turned icy. Winds from the north-east scoured the land. Showers of hail and of heavy, icy rain drowned the dry fields and puddles sprang up even on the limestone lands of the Burren. The cattle, over-wintering on the clumps of sweet grass that grew between the heat-retaining limestone rocks of the High Burren, grouped together in the shelter of stone walls and turned their backs on the arctic winds. Farmers slept little on these freezing nights, but continually checked on in-calf cows, trying to bring those near their time into the shelter of the stone barns or cabins close to their houses. Even as April neared to an end, the winds and the rain still continued and the grass made poor growth. The riches of the kingdom lay in its cattle and this late spring was a worry to the farmers. By now the cows should have been taken down from the high limestone plateaux and the mountain sides to feed on the lush grasses of the valleys, but it seemed as though winter still had a grip on the land.

A fit evening to mourn the dead, thought Mara, as she rode her horse up the Carron Mountain towards the MacNamara tower house. The tánaiste (heir) of the clan, an unmarried man in his late sixties, had died and Garrett MacNamara, taoiseach (chieftain) of the MacNamaras was holding the funeral ceremonies at the castle.

As Brehon of the Burren, in charge of law and order, Mara felt obliged to attend every wake – those particularly Celtic occasions when the dead are mourned by a night of singing, dancing and storytelling; and by the consumption of large amounts of food and drink. It was, she knew, a time when the bonds between relatives and neighbours were renewed and she recognised the importance of honouring the life of the newly deceased. However, personally, on this particular evening, she grudged the time. This was a very busy season of the year for her. Tomorrow would be the eve of the festival of Bealtaine, and was traditionally judgement day in the kingdom. She had planned to spend this evening writing up her notes and preparing for the various law cases which would be brought before her on that occasion. Two of her scholars were due to sit their final examination in a month's time and she needed to make sure that they were well-prepared for this.

Nevertheless, it was impossible to evade these ceremonies, so after supper she set out reluctantly. Her assistant teacher, Fachtnan, rode beside her and her scholars followed. The two eighteen-year-olds, Moylan and Aidan, who would be taking their final examinations this summer; seventeen-year-old Fiona from Scotland; fifteen year-old Hugh, whose father was a wealthy silver merchant on the Burren; and fourteen-year-old Shane, son of the Brehon to O'Neill from Ulster, were all in good spirits. These wakes were always entertaining for the young and they looked forward eagerly to the feast that would be provided there.

The attendance at the wake promised to be huge; the steep hill, leading up to the castle at Carron, was lined with people drawing aside to allow the Brehon to pass and calling out greetings in a cheerful manner. There seemed to be little sorrow at this death of a man who was no longer even middle-aged and who had been in poor health for the majority of the time during his office of tánaiste. The general talk seemed to be more about the unseasonable weather; and the lowing of cows cooped up in the huge barn on the hill above the castle called forth a general discussion on the perils of calving in low temperatures. New life, rather than death, was the topic of conversation for the people of the Burren on this evening. And that was how it should be, thought Mara. Look ahead, not back, had always been her motto for life. She found that she could hardly recollect the features of the dead man and sighed to think how in a few minutes' time she would have to gaze respectfully down at the dead face inside the open coffin and say a few dignified and meaningful words about his life and time in the Burren. And later on in the evening she would hear, with a suppressed smile, her words passed from person to person as if they were gospel truth.

What on earth had possessed Garrett, four years ago, to impose upon his clan such an elderly and obviously unfit heir? The thought was in Mara's mind as she greeted the taoiseach and his wife and then shepherded her scholars over to say a quick prayer for the repose of the soul of the deceased. Garrett himself was a man in his middle thirties who had inherited the position from his father a few years ago. At the time people had said that the newly married man had wanted to keep the position warm for his own son and to avoid electing his younger brother, Jarlath, but few had cared to oppose the strong-expressed views of their new leader.

But now? Who would be the new tánaiste?

Just as Mara crossed herself piously and murmured a prayer her eye was caught by a tanned young man accepting a drink from a servant. Surely that was Jarlath, himself, back from his sea voyages. Jarlath MacNamara was a successful merchant with his own ship and little of him had been seen on the Burren for the last ten years or so. He had arrived opportunely, thought Mara. The slim youth that she remembered had turned into a tall, broad-shouldered man with an air about him of command and authority. The clan would be impressed by him. Unobtrusively she dodged a few neighbours looking for a gossip with her and made her way across the room.

'Can it be you, Jarlath? Well, you have changed,' she said with her best smile and he bowed gracefully over her out-stretched hand.

'But not you, Brehon,' he said with a flash of white teeth in his tanned face. 'I swear that you haven't aged a day since I saw you last. You still have your law school, do you? I heard that you have married since I saw you last.' His eyes went to Fiona, and their shade of pale blue darkened in appreciation of the pretty Scots girl with her primrose-fair curls and shapely figure. 'And I hear that you have a girl scholar, now,' he said. 'You must introduce me.'

'Your brother must have been pleased to see you back home again after all those years,' said Mara, ignoring this. If he wanted to flirt with Fiona, later in the evening would be the time for this. For now she would get to know him again. This time the clan would be reluctant to allow Garrett to ride rough-shod over them and to impose his choice of tánaiste. Garrett's father had been an immensely popular man and the clan had been happy to elect his son as taoiseach, but it had not proved to be a success – nor had Garrett's choice of an elderly man in very poor health for his heir been a good one. The MacNamara clan would be cautious this time, and no doubt many of them would be finding an excuse to ask her opinion about young Jarlath. She would take this opportunity to get to know the young man and assess his quality. There was no doubt that Garrett was not a well-loved taoiseach. A popular young tánaiste who could deputise for him, a man who knew how to talk, and how to listen to his people could help to alleviate some of the trivial disputes and complaints which seemed to arise continuously from the MacNamara clan and which took time and attention from her at every judgement day, during the intervening years and months since Garrett's election.

'So will you be staying at home for a while now, Jarlath?' she asked in a tone of innocent curiosity.

He shrugged and grinned. 'Yes, I'm home for a while, perhaps for good. Burned my boat, as they say. At least I sold it to the O'Donnell. Not a great boat, but he seemed happy with it. He was visiting the king of Scotland and we met at Mull of Kintyre. He was good enough to offer me a free passage down to the Burren as he had promised to drop off an Englishman, Stephen Gardiner, who wishes to study the ways and customs of Ireland, down here. And two others, also ...' His voice tailed away and his eyes went to his brother. There was a twinkle in them which intrigued her, though part of her mind was pre-occupied in wondering what part O'Donnell and this Stephen Gardiner were playing in visiting James IV of Scotland when the Scottish king was rumoured to have signed a treaty with Louis of France against Henry VIII of England, master to both of these men.

'You'll be staying with Garrett, will you?' she asked. It would not be ideal so she was not surprised when he shook his head.

'Not for long, not here, not in this castle,' he said. 'Things are none too pleasant here at the moment. I didn't get much of a welcome when I arrived. But perhaps I will build myself a new house on one of the farms that belong to me, that were left to me when my father – may God have mercy on him – died. Anyway, I am home for the moment, not sure what I'm going to do next – in any case, I need to replace my ship; get a few repairs done to the fleet – it will take a while and I don't want to impose too long on Garrett.' His smile broadened. 'Things are a bit tense here. You see two of the three visitors I brought with me have caused a bit of an upset. Let me introduce you to them.'

Without saying any more, he took her arm and steered her across the room and towards the window that overlooked the valley. There were two people sitting on the window seat, almost hidden by the splendid curtains of woven brocade. One was a tall, strongly made woman, probably in her middle thirties, and the other was a thin boy of about fifteen. They were talking – or at least the woman was talking, whispering the words in the boy's ear, while he sat, head averted, sulkily gazing at the ground. From time to time she patted his hand as though he were a toddler, not an adolescent. He didn't look strong, Mara thought. He was very bony and his shoulders were bent over a hollow chest.

But then he looked up and at the sight of his face, Mara stopped abruptly. Not a good-looking boy, though adolescent boys of that age seldom were. But this boy with his fleshy, protruding nose and his heavily swelling lower lip jutting out from the receding chin bore a strong resemblance to someone else in the room. Mara's eyes turned towards the taoiseach, Garrett MacNamara, still greeting the visitors and accepting their condolences on the death of the tánaiste. The boy was the image of him.

'This is my brother's son, Peadar, and his mother Rhona,' said Jarlath with the air of someone enjoying the shock that he was causing. 'They are from Scotland; come and meet them,' he added and then introduced Mara to the woman, Rhona, whose eyes sparkled with interest as she heard Mara's office.

'We have a Brehon in the mountain area that I come from,' she said. 'I clean his house, help to milk his cattle and he gives me food and information. He it was who told me of my rights and what my son could expect.' She laughed suddenly, 'But I have never heard of a female Brehon. It's good to see a woman doing a job like that. Mostly it's the men telling us what to do and we knowing the right way to go before they even open their lips. That's what we say in Scotland, anyway,' she added.

'Well, then, if you come from Scotland, you must meet my scholar, Fiona,' said Mara, smiling. 'She, also, comes from that country and I think she gets homesick sometimes for it.'

'Come on, young Peadar, I'll introduce you to the beautiful girl scholar from your native land and we'll leave your mother to chat to the Brehon.' Jarlath took command in a lordly way, signalling to a maidservant to bring refreshments to Mara and taking his nephew by the arm and steering him across towards the group of scholars.

'You are surprised to see my Peadar!' Rhona eyed Mara appraisingly. Her Scottish accent was stronger than Fiona's but the Gaelic was near enough to the Irish form to make her quite comprehensible.

'Very,' said Mara frankly. 'I did not know that Garrett had a son.' She looked across at Garrett and his wife Slaney. Slaney had come from the English city of Galway, twenty miles away – not from the MacNamara clan or from any of the other three clans on the Burren. They had married quite soon after Garrett had succeeded to the office of taoiseach, but over four years had now passed and there was no sign of a child. Slaney, thought Mara, looked white and ill. She had never liked the woman much, finding her arrogant and intolerant, and uninterested in the customs and laws of her husband's clan, but now she felt sorry for her. This must be a terrible blow to her.

'Garrett has acknowledged Peadar as a son.' Rhona broke into her thoughts. 'And,' she added, watching Mara's face, 'he has invited me into the household as his second wife. There is talk of a divorce from his chief wife, but I don't know whether he's serious about that or not.' She shrugged her wide shoulders with an air of indifference.

I wonder what Slaney had to say about that? Mara suppressed the question and tried to smile in a natural fashion. 'You met in Scotland, did you?' she asked politely.

Rhona shook her head. 'On board ship we met; out in Spain. I was the ship's captain's wife. My husband's dead now.' Her voice was harsh and indifferent when she mentioned her husband's death, but Mara offered a conventional expression of sympathy. Her mind was whirring. Why had she not heard of this before now?

'When did you arrive, you and your son, Rhona?' she asked.

'Just recently,' the woman replied. 'We came on the same ship that Jarlath travelled on – from the north of Ireland. We had crossed over from Scotland a week ago with Jarlath when we heard that he was making the journey. Jarlath had already arranged to sell his ship to O'Donnell and in return to be allowed to journey down to the Burren on one of O'Donnell's boats.'

'So you came with Jarlath?' asked Mara, her mind grappling with the problem of Garrett taking a second wife. It was quite a common occurrence in Gaelic society, especially among the wealthy who could afford the expense, but Slaney had never been part of that society and she would find this even harder to accept than most wives would do.

'That's right,' said Rhona. 'O'Donnell was sending someone down here, and there was plenty of room for three more. Look, there's the man, over there. Jarlath invited him to come to stay with his brother. He's called Stephen Gardiner, that Englishman over there, the one that has gone over to talk to Slaney.' She pointed across the room to where Slaney, rigid and pale-faced, was endeavouring to smile upon the stranger.

Definitely English, thought Mara. This Stephen wore a small pointed beard, instead of Irish moustaches, and he was dressed in tight-fitting brightly-coloured hose, and an elaborate, bulky tunic, with a short cloak swinging from his shoulders. Middle to late twenties, thought Mara, about the same age as Jarlath, his travelling companion, who must now be at least twenty-five; she dismissed him from her mind and turned back to the woman beside her.

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Excerpted from Chain of Evidence by Cora Harrison. Copyright © 2013 Cora Harrison. Excerpted by permission of Severn House Publishers Ltd.
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