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Overview
When Mara attends mass at Kilnaboy Church, it is just another duty in her busy life as Brehon of the Burren, responsible for the maintenance of law and order in the kingdom. The church holds an important relic: a piece of the true cross itself, housed inside a round tower and heralded by the huge two-armed stone cross on the church gable. Hence, on this special day, the church is packed with locals, as well as pilgrims from all over Europe.
But when fire attacks the tower where the precious relic is housed, and Mara then discovers that one of the pilgrims is a disciple of Martin Luther and a hater of such sacred relics, a Spanish priest threatens the might of the Inquisition and a German traveller takes refuge in the church. However, the next morning, a naked body is found dead, spread-eagled in the shape of a cross, on top of one of the tombs on the hill behind the church. Was it one of the true pilgrims who killed him? Or perhaps the priest of the parish, helped by his grave digger? Or was it even the innkeeper, whose business has been ruined now that the relic, which attracted visitors from all over Europe, has been destroyed?
Once again, it is Mara’s task, along with that of her law-school pupils, to investigate and uphold the power of the law . . .
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781847514929 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Severn House |
| Publication date: | 08/01/2014 |
| Series: | Burren Mystery Series , #10 |
| Pages: | 224 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.50(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.70(d) |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
Uraicecht Becc
(Small Primer)
There are three grades of Brehon (a maker of judgements):
The first grade may only decide on matters which relate to the lowest in society, such as craftsmen. He or she has an honour-price of seven séts, three-and-a-half ounces of silver or four milch cows.
The second grade is learned in law and in poetry and has an honour-price of ten séts, five ounces of silver or five milch cows.
The third grade is named as 'the judge of three languages' and he or she is competent in traditional law, poetry and canon law and has an honour-price of fifteen séts, seven-and-a-half ounces of silver or eight milch cows. This Brehon may administer the laws of a kingdom in the name of its king.
When Mara, Brehon of the Burren, set off on 14 September 1519 from the law school at Cahermacnaghten to attend Mass at Kilnaboy Church, it was just another boring duty in her busy life as the king's representative responsible for the maintenance of law and order in that kingdom in the mid-west of Ireland. Kilnaboy was not her parish church, but the Feast of the Holy Cross was of great importance there as that church held an important relic: a piece of the true cross itself, housed inside a gold shrine, heralded by the huge two-armed stone cross on the church gable. The attendance of the Brehon at the service would be expected by all the parishioners.
The fourteenth was a lovely, bright, very warm September day. Despite having to go to Mass on a Wednesday, her five scholars from her law school in the west of the kingdom were in a mood of wild excitement. It was unusual for them to be back in school before the end of September, but they had all agreed to start the Michaelmas term early on the promise of a fortnight's holiday in the King's palace in Thomond during the month of December. And so they had arrived back the evening before, two weeks earlier than usual and were still busily swapping stories about their summer holidays. Mara had worried they might resent the cutting short of their summer break, but now suspected that they were, in fact, pleased to be back in the companionship of their fellow scholars. She remembered her own days as an only child at her father's law school, and how delighted she was when the holidays were over on the feast of St Michaelmas and the old stone walls rang once more with shouts and laughter.
Slevin, a thirteen-year-old boy from Donegal, was telling some outrageous story about a cattle raid in the mountains near to his home, casting quick looks over his shoulder from time to time and lowering his voice so that the Brehon could not overhear. She smiled to herself and reined back her mare, allowing them to gallop on ahead. Slevin, thought Mara tolerantly, came from a long line of bards and storytellers and she would drop out of earshot and allow him to embroider his story to suit his artistic talents while she enjoyed the scenery at a leisurely pace. Domhnall, her fourteen-year-old grandson, was listening with a grin puckering his lips, but the two nine-year-olds, her own son Cormac and his foster brother Art, were wide-eyed with astonishment. As was twelve-year-old Finbar from Cloyne.
September was a favourite time of the year for Mara. The hedgerows and ditches of the Burren were still full of summer flowers: deep-pink fragrant orchids and yellow hawkweed framed the tall, pure-white, five-petalled marsh maidens on the verge, and the fluffy pincushion flowers cast a purple haze over the fields. Here and there late frog orchids, tiny but vividly yellow, still crouched in ditches, and pale blue harebells arranged themselves, as always, to flower in harmonious contrast beside the clumps of crimson cranesbills.
And yet, despite the summer flowers and the warmth of the morning, there was a slight crispness in the air and already the haws reddened on the hedges and the immature, pale green globes of sloes peeped out from the yellowing leaves of the blackthorn bushes. Swallows, chattering ceaselessly, were beginning to cluster on tree tops and on the roofs of barns, and brightly coloured fieldfares fed greedily from the berries. The sun's heat was like that of summer, but the year was moving inexorably into autumn and towards winter.
The air is very still; we might get thunder tonight, she thought, guiding her mare around a deep hole in the limestone road and walking for a while in the soft grass beside the ditch. There was a sharp sweet smell of water mint crushed by the hoofs and for a few minutes she rejoiced in it. The rounded swirling limestone hills, silver in the sunlight, and the majestic sweep of the stone-paved uplands were her favourite parts of the Burren, but there were times, like now, when she felt that the fertile valleys rivalled them as the most beautiful place on the earth.
'Shall we take a short cut and ride across the fields down through Roughan, Brehon?' called back her grandson, Domhnall, and she nodded her agreement. Domhnall was the eldest boy in the school and a great leader, a boy of brains and decisiveness. All the scholars looked to him for leadership. When the school was in session, the ancient enclosure which held the law school buildings and the fields around rang continuously with the cry of 'Doh-nall' and Domhnall always gave an instant decision. Mara was usually happy to back his judgements. He was very like her own father, Brehon of the Burren until he died, and she guessed that when her time came to retire or to die that Domhnall would make a worthy successor.
In any case, thought Mara, today he had chosen the route well. The fields were dry and Roughan itself was one of her favourite places. The whole hillside was covered with ancient tombs, the slabs of limestone gleaming in the sunshine as though they were made from marble. The place had a special feel of old times, of continuity with the past, of sacred ritual.
'The church bell,' shouted Slevin, interrupting his saga, and Mara was roused from her ponderings about the race of giants who must have built these monuments and lifted the flat slabs to make the sides and tops of those wedge-shaped tombs. She shook her reins and joined her scholars.
'No hurry,' she said. 'Ride sensibly. We have a good quarter of an hour before the service starts. They ring the bell early here so as to alert the pilgrims who are staying in the inn over by the river.'
The church was packed by the time they arrived. She spotted many familiar faces, including that of Ardal O'Lochlainn, her closest neighbour, and friend for ... for forty-six years, she thought with a slight feeling of shock. Ardal was a taoiseach (chieftain) of his clan since he was a very young man, a wealthy landowner and breeder of fine horses. He lived alone in the tower house of Lissylisheen, a quarter of a mile from the law school. For years Mara had tried to find a suitable wife for him, but now that he had turned the age of fifty she had given up in despair. He had become desperately religious, attending Mass on a daily basis, and had recently returned from a pilgrimage to the shrine of St James of Santiago, followed by a visit to Rome to see the Pope and the wonderful churches there. She tried to catch his eye, but he was gazing reverentially up at the small figurine of the crucified Christ, made from gold and alabaster, which hung beside the altar.
Mara gave up and exchanged nods and smiles with other neighbours. The church was full. As well as the local people of the Burren, there was, as usual, a group of badge-wearing pilgrims, come to pay homage to the relic; just six of them today — three women and three men. Most, thought Mara, looking at them with interest, would probably round off their pilgrimage within a few days with a visit to the Aran Island — Aran of the Saints, it was known. If so, they would leave Kilnaboy the following day, take a boat from Doolin to cross the narrow strait between the island and mainland, and then would stay there for another few days, visiting the various shrines and praying at the seven churches. And after that they might go to Galway and take a ship to Spain.
'The three ladies are from Wales,' murmured Nechtan O'Quinn in her ear as he slid to his knees beside her. He crossed himself ostentatiously and muttered a prayer. Mara waited. Nechtan O'Quinn, lord of the tower house just behind Kilnaboy Church, was a distant relative of her husband, King Turlough Donn O'Brien. He was a great gossip. She ought, perhaps, not to encourage him, but she was curious about the three women. Many pilgrims came to Kilnaboy month after month in order to worship the relic of the true cross, but these were the first women pilgrims that she had seen.
'The small, prim-looking one is a prioress,' whispered Nechtan. 'She comes from a convent near to the shrine of St Winifred in Wales. The other two ladies are her sisters. The older one, the big fat one, is a widow and the younger one — looks like a daughter, but she's a sister, too, apparently — very shy girl, terribly scarred, as you can see, after some accident when she was a child, I understand.'
He seemed to know a lot about these pilgrims, thought Mara, but she said no more. Her pupils were lined up in front of her and, although the three older boys, Domhnall, Slevin and Finbar, were devoutly fingering their beads and looking straight ahead at the altar, nine-year-old Cormac was using the squared tiles on the floor beneath their knees as a board on which to play a game of merels with his foster brother Art.
Since Cormac was Mara's son this was doubly reprehensible, but on the other hand, the tiny figures, which the boys were pushing into groups of three, were made from clay so dark that they hardly showed up against the grey tiles on the floor. And they were both kneeling quietly with bent heads. Mara decided to ignore them for the moment, at least until the service began, and allowed her eyes to study the pilgrims with interest.
'Who's the tall blond pilgrim?' she murmured to Nechtan, keeping her eyes fixed on the altar. The priest had not appeared yet. Father MacMahon would still be putting on his special red robes, worn only on this day every year; Sorley, his sexton, would be taking them out from the cedar chest, removing the small sour crab apples which kept the moths away from the silk, hanging them up to air and smoothing out the creases.
'That's Hans Kaufmann. He's from Germany, a rich merchant,' whispered back Nechtan. 'The small, dark-skinned one, the elderly-looking man, is a monk from Italy — Brother Cosimo — and the one with grey hair is a Dominican priest from the shrine of St James of Santiago in Spain. He's called Father Miguel.'
How does he know so much about them? wondered Mara, and then Nechtan's wife came drifting in from the side door that led to the path towards the tower house. Narait O'Quinn was Nechtan's second wife — a very good-looking young woman at least twenty years younger than her husband. It was the voluptuous figure, the dark eyes and the lusciously pouting mouth that had attracted him, and disguised the total absence of intelligence, Mara supposed, but now after a couple of years of marriage, she had the impression that both parties were bored and discontented.
Still, she thought, unlike in England where a wife would have to murder her husband to get rid of him — and risk being burned to death if her crime was discovered — here, Brehon law allowed for a peaceful divorce and an equable division of property. She smiled sweetly at Narait and noted with interest how the girl ignored her husband, but blushed and smiled across at the row of pilgrims, and how her eyes lingered on the pilgrim from Germany.
'We offered them supper last night,' said Nechtan to Mara, following the direction of her eyes. 'Narait met them soon after their arrival,' he continued. 'She thought that the inn would not give them a good meal.' Unlike the jolly, gossipy note of his previous pieces of information, his voice was toneless now and he did not trouble to reduce it to a whisper, but stared belligerently at his wife as she came to sit beside him.
An unlikely excuse, thought Mara. Blad, the owner of the inn, which was built on the banks of the River Fergus, only fifty yards from the church, was a wonderful cook. Even her husband, King Turlough, who loved his food, spoke of him with reverence. She looked around the church for Blad and could not spot him, though his daughter, Mór, was present. She, also, was looking across at the tall, blond young German pilgrim.
Did the German know how many women in the church were stealing glances at him, Mara wondered? He was an unusual pilgrim, very much younger than the customary people who made these voyages from shrine to shrine, across Europe and even to the Holy Land itself. The Italian and the Spaniard were well above middle age — the Italian perhaps approaching old age — and so was the prioress and her plump sister, the widow. Only the German and the unfortunately scarred woman could be called young.
And then all rose for the entrance of the priest, dramatically dressed in the special robes of red damask embroidered with gold thread. He mounted the carpeted steps to the altar, followed by a well-trained troop of altar boys and watched from the doorway by Sorley, the sexton and gravedigger. Mara smiled to herself to see the anxious look of the man. It was said on the Burren that Sorley was so immensely proud of having the responsibility of the round tower with its relic of the true cross in his keeping that he acted as though he were the king of Kilnaboy. Once the priest had genuflected to the altar, saying, 'Introibo ad altare dei,' and the altar boys intoned the response, Sorley retired — no doubt, thought Mara, to make sure that all was in order for the ceremonial visit to the relic in the round tower once the service was over. The presence of a group of pilgrims, though there were disappointingly few today, would add to his consequence. This was usually his big day of the year — and even though the number of pilgrims was small, the people of the Burren, as usual, had turned out to worship the relic.
Mara automatically listened to the Mass and made the appropriate responses, but when the congregation sat to listen to the epistle — one of the many hundreds written by St Paul, a man who was no favourite of hers — her mind wandered back to the pilgrims.
What a strange thing to leave your home and to wander from shrine to shrine. Not something that would appeal to her, she thought, though it would be interesting to see some more of the world. She imagined she might like to go to France one day and to witness how they grow the grapes and make the wine, wander around vineyards, sample different vintages and ... She suppressed a smile. She was a wife and a mother, and with her position as Brehon of the Burren, her responsibility for law and order on the Burren, investigating crimes, drawing up legal documents, counselling couples who wished to divorce, explaining to farmers about boundary obligations, drafting wills, giving advice on problems with common land, sitting in judgement three or four times every year — more often if necessary — and added to all that her teaching commitments to her young scholars, she was lucky if she got a couple of hours to herself, she thought, as she rose respectfully to her feet to listen to the gospel. That young man, that German merchant, she mused, as she solemnly signed her forehead, mouth and breast with her thumb, what was happening to his business while he wandered over lands and seas in the company of three women and a couple of elderly men?
He could not be more than about twenty-eight, she reckoned, as she looked across at him. An intelligent face, but with a slight look of a fanatic about him. Certainly, at the moment, he was not looking at the women who were eyeing him: Narait, Nechtan's wife; Blad's daughter, Mór; the three women pilgrims; and even herself. He was looking straight ahead, staring at the altar and its marble statues, its crimson carpet, the gold figure of the crucifix, the jewel-encrusted monstrance which the priest raised on high with the sacred host in its centre, and there was a stillness, a concentration and, she almost thought, a look of burning passion in his eyes. That was the explanation, she supposed. This man was not going on a pilgrimage for the company or the amusements or to while away the time; some burning belief, some religious fanaticism drove him to sacrifice his time and his money.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Cross Of Vengeance"
by .
Copyright © 2013 Cora Harrison.
Excerpted by permission of Severn House Publishers Limited.
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