Read Online Condemned to Death by Cora Harrison - Free Book Online Page B

that they could be used to forecast the weather – if they were stiff, then we were in for a dry spell and when they went limp we could expect rain.’
    She looked resolutely at the mouth of the corpse and saw what Nuala meant. Someone had deliberately closed the upper jaw so that it held the tongue between both sets of the yellow teeth.
    ‘Wait here,’ she said to Nuala. Her indignation at this treatment of a dead body, at this deliberate attempt to mimic a judicial procedure, was so great that she hardly noticed the difficulty of climbing back across the rocks and onto the orange sands of Fanore beach.
    The meal was over as she came back up the sands. No one had resumed work, though. The fishermen, their wives and their children stood in a group and she noticed that Michelóg the farmer stood amongst them. Fernandez, Etain and Brendan were a little apart. They were deep in conversation but moved away from each other as Mara came up the sands.
    ‘We were thinking, Brehon, that since the tide is on the turn, we should bury the body,’ said Fernandez. There was a hint of diffidence, of unsureness in his voice and she ignored his suggestion.
    ‘Call everyone to come down and inspect this boat,’ she said abruptly. She waited until he beckoned and until there was a line of about thirty people in front of her. ‘I want every man, woman and child to look at this boat, and at the man in it, of course. I want you to tell me whether you have ever seen either before.’
    It would be, she thought, noticing the closed-in faces, a waste of time. Even the children had been warned to say nothing.
    Nevertheless, it had to be done so she stood beside it patiently as all filed past, efficiently managed by Domhnall and Slevin. Her other five scholars, were, she thought, not showing themselves to be much help. Their loyalty, for the moment, appeared to be with their fishermen friends, although she did see Cael shoot an enquiring look at her brother, as though asking a question, which was silently answered, Mara reckoned, as after a glance from Cian, his sister’s face became as hooded and expressionless as the others. Still this could not be helped for the moment. Mara watched the faces as they filed past the body in the boat and sorted out the words that she would use when the procedure was over. To each one she asked her questions – asking for information about the boat and the man. Nothing but head-shakes answered. She waited until all the family groups stood uncertainly before her and then she signalled to Liam to cover the body again.
    ‘I am not satisfied about this death,’ she said, raising her voice to contend with the roar of the wind and the waves, and the high melancholy calls of the white and grey seabirds. ‘The matter will have to be investigated, but in the meantime, the body will have to be moved; the tide threatens it. I would like it if someone,’ here she looked directly at Fernandez, ‘could bring a cart to the top of the path through the dunes, and then we’ll take the body to the church. It can lie there in the church and within the boat as its coffin until I can establish the identity of the dead man.’
    No one dared ask her how she was going to do that, so she waited until they had gone back up to their fires again, Fernandez stopping to assure her that a cart would be with them in ten minutes and then when they were out of earshot she turned to Domhnall. ‘Do you think that we could possibly ask your father to come here to Fanore,’ she asked. ‘I have to be sure of the identity of this man before I investigate what did, in fact, happen to him.’
    ‘I’m sure that he will, Brehon,’ said Domhnall readily. ‘Shall I ride over to Galway and ask him to come back.’
    ‘If you wouldn’t mind, Domhnall, and do tell him that I am very sorry to disturb him – and give my love, and my apologies, and to your mother, also.’ Sorcha, her daughter, she knew was so pleased about how well her eldest son