Condemned to Death by Cora Harrison Read Free Book Online Page A

itself out, but I don’t think I saw it when we were actually camping. You could ask Domhnall when he comes back with Nuala, but that is my memory.’
    ‘I see,’ said Mara. But surely, she thought, that body could not possibly have lain in the boat on the beach for three days and three nights. Even after the fishing boats had set out to trawl for mackerel and herring, the women and younger children had stayed behind to build up the fires. The beach would have been scoured for every trace of driftwood and dried seaweed. There was no possibility that they could have missed something so startling and so obvious. According to Cormac, little Síle began to scream as soon as she was on the rocks above the small strip of sand.
    Nevertheless, Slevin had a good, clear mind and a very accurate memory so she had no doubt that he was right. She looked back at the rounded shape of the castle with its magnificent view of the ocean, the far islands of Aran and the dark orange sweep of the sandy bay of Fanore. ‘Where did you all sleep?’ she asked idly.
    ‘Domhnall and I slept in the main guard hall, Cael with Síle in one of the wall chambers and the others,’ his grin broadened, ‘the rest of the boys, Cormac, Art, Cian and Finbar, they decided to spend the night in the dungeons and Fernandez allowed them, but made them promise that when they got tired of it they would come up and join us.’
    ‘And they were all right?’ Mara was glad that she had not known, but she supposed that there was no harm in it.
    ‘Well, I must say that I slept like a top that night – and Domhnall, too. We had really comfortable mattresses stuffed with heather and it was nice and warm by the fire. Anyway, when we woke in the morning, there were the other four, lying down on their mattresses with their eyes tightly shut. Strange being in a castle with no men-of-arms there – in fact, most of the time there’s nobody there but Fernandez and Etain, themselves – no servants, nothing. They have the whole big place to themselves – never even lock the front door, either.’
    This could change if the young man was elected by the clan to be their
tánaiste
, thought Mara. In the meantime, the young couple probably enjoyed the peace and seclusion – she rather envied them as she and her husband, King Turlough, always seemed to be surrounded by large numbers of people, whether they were at the law school, Ballinalacken Castle in the Burren, or in Turlough’s main castle, Bunratty Castle, by the River Shannon. Still, it would have been unlikely that either Domhnall or Slevin would have noticed any movements in the sand dunes – after a day in the wind and sun, hauling boats around and building fireplaces, they would have slept soundly all night. The other four might have seen something when they left the dungeons in order to lie in front of the fire, but they would have had the trouble of hauling their mattresses up the narrow spiral staircase and probably would not have bothered to glance out of the windows at the beach below.
    ‘Let’s go up to the spot where we both remember the boat was lying,’ she suggested and led the way up to the gap between the sand-dune hills.
    ‘It would have been here,’ said Slevin with a quick glance around him before pointing to one spot. ‘Look, Brehon, you can see there’s very little grass growing in this spot, just between the sand peaks.’
    ‘I wonder how it was taken away. It was very worn and thin in the timbers, but it still would have needed two men to carry it, I would have thought,’ said Mara.
    Slevin bent down low and then straightened himself. ‘I’d say it was dragged, look at those broken bits of grass, Brehon, but not dragged onto the path. I’d say that it was dragged in the opposite direction, down towards the Caher River. Look at this, and this.’ Slevin pointed towards the dunes leading to the north of the beach and went excitedly ahead of her, following the trail.
    Mara obediently