Writ in Stone Read Free Page B

murder.
    ‘The bodyguards were on duty outside the west door. No one from the outside could have got in. In any case, no one came or went from this abbey last night or this morning,’ said Ardal O’Lochlainn with conviction. ‘You have only to look for yourself, Brehon. I’ve been to the gate and all around the walls. The snow is heaped up and there are no footprints. If an O’Kelly came here last night or in the early morning then he must have flown like a bird.’
    ‘I’ll take your word for it, Ardal,’ said Mara. She smiled at him. He was a handsome figure of a man as he towered above here; his red hair flamed against the whiteness of the snow and his blue eyes were the colour of the sea. A man of honour and principle, she could rely on his testimony; she knew that.
    ‘I must go back to the lodge now,’ she said, ‘but, Ardal, perhaps you could make arrangements for me to talk to any travellers or visitors in the lay dormitory. They may have seen or heard something during the last few hours. Just have a word with the abbot, will you? I’ll be back in a few minutes.’
    As Mara approached the royal lodge she could hear Turlough’s voice coming from the king’s chamber at the front of the building. Probably the two bodyguards were in there with him explaining the events of the morning. That would give her a moment to get changed. She went quietly up the stairs and into her room. Brigid must have been in during her absence. The room was tidied, the bed covers neat and the charcoal brazier in the corner was filling the room with a welcome glow and on top of the iron bars that covered it was an ewer filled with hot water. Quickly Mara washed, then dressed in her warmest wool gown, pulled on thick woollen hose and her fur-lined boots. A tap came to the door and she opened it.
    ‘I brought you some breakfast. Sit down and eat it now, everything else can wait.’ Brigid had been a servant to Mara’s father and she had brought up his daughter after the death of his wife. Sometimes Mara felt irked by her unceasing vigilance, but this morning it was comforting to be mothered.
    There was a large round griddlecake still steaming from the hot plate and a wooden cup of hot spiced ale. Mara drank it gratefully, only now fully realizing how cold she had been.
    ‘So it wasn’t the king after all, praise be to God,’ observed Brigid, seating herself on the window seat.
    ‘How did Fergal and Conall come to make that mistake? And why were they at the church if the king had not gone there?’ asked Mara, with her mouth full of griddlecake. The salted butter was incredibly creamy. No wonder the abbey cows were famous for their milk!
    ‘Well, it was I that thought of waking them,’ explained Brigid. ‘You see we all heard the king the night before – everyone heard him, even the people at the low table at the end of the refectory, they heard him, so when I woke up this morning and I saw all the light in the room, I sat up in bed and I said to Cumhal: “that’ll be the rain turned to snow.” So he had a look and I was right, there was a great fall of it last night and then I sent him to wake up the bodyguards and get them to make a bit of a path over to the church before the king got up, and that was how they discovered the body with the head beaten in. The king’s cousin it was, Mahon O’Brien, is that right?’
    ‘That’s right,’ said Mara, rinsing her hands in the pewter bowl and then combing out her long dark hair and braiding it neatly. She crouched down by the brazier, holding her hands out to its warmth. Two minutes with Brigid would be enough to give her all the background to what was going on, as well as warming her, she told herself.
    ‘And it couldn’t have been anyone from outside,’ continued Brigid with a dramatic toss of her sandy-coloured hair, still in its overnight braids. ‘Cumhal’s been out and had a look. Ardal O’Lochlainn was there when he went. “There’s been no one in and no one