Writ in Stone Read Free

hose and boots.
    ‘And the church?’ The abbot, she was glad to note, had responded meekly to the note of authority in her voice.
    ‘The church must be locked until I have time to look thoroughly around it,’ said Mara, decisively holding her hand out for the large key which the abbot wore around his waist. He gave it to her with less reluctance than she had expected. His brother’s death must have shaken him more than had appeared initially. She waited calmly while the crowd dispersed and then beckoned the bodyguards to go ahead of her. She had perfect confidence in her own ability to preserve an air of dignified solemnity, but Turlough, when faced with the anxious queries from his bodyguards, might not be able to resist sidelong glances at her while he declared that his night’s rest had been unbroken.
    Once everyone had left the chapel, though, she was suddenly seized with a violent attack of shivering. Her feet were cold, but it was not that so much as the sudden realization that this blow was undoubtedly meant to kill Turlough. Everyone, whether noble or humble, lay or monastic, had been gathered in the refectory for supper the night before and everyone would have heard the king’s booming voice, declaring that he, and he alone, would keep the first hour of the vigil in front of the tomb of his great ancestor, Conor Sudaine. Mara’s knees felt weak and she sank down on the low seat beside her. The smell of blood was making her feel sick, but she tried to ignore it. She shut her eyes and tried to concentrate on the scene the night before.
    They had all been there, all the principal members of the O’Brien clan. There was Turlough, of course, in the seat of honour, and she herself on his right-hand side. To his left was Conor, his ailing son, and beside him his wife, Ellice. On the other side of Mara was the abbot, and next to him his brother, the king’s cousin, Mahon O’Brien. Mahon O’Brien’s wife of the first degree sat opposite and also at the table, to the great amusement of Turlough, was a pretty young girl Mahon had introduced as his wife of the second degree. Of course, Brehon law allowed this. A wife of the second degree was a woman who brought no property and was completely under the control of her husband. Banna, who had brought her husband rich land in Galway, was not looking too pleased at the addition of Frann to her family circle. Then there was Teige O’Brien, and his placid plump little wife, Ciara, from Lemeanah Castle on the Burren. Teige was Turlough’s first cousin and a possible choice as the next tánaiste if anything happened to the delicate Conor. There were also the other three taoiseach s on the Burren: Ardal O’Lochlainn, Finn O’Connor, and his wife, Mona, sister to Ciara O’Brien, and Garrett MacNamara.
    Oddly enough, it was Conor, the sickly Conor, who had provoked his father last night. Conor had been ill for a long time, but he had made a great effort to attend the pre-wedding ceremonies, probably, thought Mara, because he knew how heart-sore his father would be at the absence of his other son, the disgraced Murrough. Nevertheless, it may have been some jealousy of Murrough that caused him to make the unfortunate remark.
    ‘People live in the past too much,’ he had declared in his thin, breathless voice. ‘I don’t believe that any man gains a jot of nobility by reason of his ancestors.’ Here he was interrupted by a violent fit of coughing and his dark-haired wife assisted him from the refectory, her sharp-featured face impatient and sulky. Ellice and her father, a younger brother to the Duke of Ormond, had thought to make a good match when she was betrothed to the son of the king of Thomond, but it began to look as if Conor would not live to succeed to his father’s position.
    Turlough had opened his mouth to make an angry retort, but shut it hastily as he saw the red stain spreading across the white linen handkerchief pressed to Conor’s mouth. Gloomily he