Writ in Stone by Cora Harrison Page B

entered the church, it would look as though the king were there.’
    ‘I see,’ said Mara soothingly. ‘So you felt no surprise when you woke and found that he was gone.’
    There was a short silence as Father Peter, carrying a stool, inserted himself like a small sparrow just behind Mara. Soothingly he took Banna’s wrist in small frozen hands and felt the pulse.
    ‘I’ve sent a young brother for some poppy syrup,’ he said, looking at her moon-like face, ‘but the best medicine for you now would be to talk about everything that is on your mind. Free yourself from the heavy weight of sorrow and of worries.’
    ‘Well, I am a bit worried.’ Thus encouraged, Banna began to reveal her concerns. ‘I know so little about these things. What happens now? God did not bestow the gift of children upon us, so I don’t know what my position is now. Will that last piece of madness, and I don’t think my dear husband was in his senses when he did it . . . What could he have seen in that girl . . . ?’ She gulped and drank some more wine.
    ‘Perhaps he just wanted to ensure an heir for his property,’ murmured Father Peter tactfully.
    Banna ignored him. She shuddered hugely, the mound of flesh on the chair moving like an upturned bowl of jelly, before continuing bravely, ‘that girl, whatever her name is, that girl young enough to be his daughter . . .’ She closed her eyes with the air of one turning faint and then opened them and fixed them intently on Mara. ‘I just wonder whether that girl can take what is rightfully mine.’
    ‘I don’t think that you need to worry,’ said Mara gently. Was this also in Frann’s mind, she wondered? If it were, then she would be disappointed. ‘Yours was a marriage of the first degree,’ she continued. ‘It is called a union of equality. Most of Mahon’s possessions and wealth will go to you and although the land goes back to the clan, you will have about twenty acres for your lifetime. After your death this, also, reverts to the O’Brien clan. However, your own Brehon will tell you more about all of these matters.’
    Banna was listening intently, even suppressing her sobs in order to hear correctly. However, as soon as Mara finished speaking the small, sharp brown eyes welled up with tears again.
    ‘I’ll never forget this morning,’ she wailed. ‘He went out and he did not come back.’
    ‘It was a terrible shock for you, poor soul,’ said Father Peter solicitously. ‘Did you hear him going out at all?’
    Banna paused for a moment. She looked around her. Turlough was engaged in a loud conversation across the table with his cousin Teige O’Brien, the abbot and Ellice still had their heads close together, one of the brothers, a heavy burly young man, at a tall desk was reading in a strong rough Galway accent from the Life of St Columba and the sound of busy knives on wooden platters created a barrier of sound which made it almost impossible to be overheard.
    ‘I did see him go,’ she confessed hesitantly. She swallowed some more wine and Mara hastened to refill her cup from the flagon, eyeing the woman with interest. Did Banna really see her husband go out? And, if so, why did she lie about it earlier? Perhaps, though, she was just extracting the last ounce of drama from her sad situation. That was possible from the way Banna looked all around at the interested faces before turning her attention back to the table, gulping down some more wine and mopping her eyes with the corner of the flowing linen that now swathed her shoulders.
    ‘I didn’t know where he was going, then. I thought that he was leaving my bed for that harlot, that Frann,’ she muttered.
    ‘Not something you could accept easily,’ murmured Mara.
    ‘I quarrelled with him.’ Banna looked as if she were about to burst into tears again, but fortunately took another sip of wine. ‘I told him that he was dishonouring me, that it was barbaric to take another wife when he had one living, I