Cross of Vengeance by Cora Harrison Read Free Book Online

courtyard.
    But their cries had gone before them and Sorley was hurtling through the gate before they reached it.
    ‘Fire! Fire!’ they yelled. ‘The round tower is on fire!’

Three
Bretha Forloischthe
    (Judgements of Arson)
    When judging a case of arson a Brehon must first decide whether the fire was caused by malice or by accident. The former merits a heavier fine.
    Next the judge must consider whether death or injury to either people or animals was caused – if so, the appropriate fine is imposed.
    Burning buildings such as mills, barns and animal pens will result in a heavier fine than other buildings.
    Fire is violent and terrifying and the effect on the owner should be calculated as well as the amount of the loss. Recompense must be paid for both.
    M ór was the first to react.
    ‘Buckets!’ she shrieked. Immediately her kitchen staff, who had followed her to the door when she restored the key into Sorley’s anxious hand, dashed back into the kitchen. The stable boys, who were dining on a large basket full of left-overs from the lavish meal, up in the loft space above the horses, came vaulting down and grabbed more leather buckets from the store in the stable. Fire was an ever-present risk in stables and they automatically began to run towards the river.
    ‘No, the round tower, in the churchyard!’ Slevin’s voice was hoarse with the effort of bawling across the field.
    ‘The round tower!’ Sorley’s voice was a roar filled with despair. He began to run and Ardal O’Lochlainn followed and overtook him.
    ‘The well, you numbskulls; there’s a well in the churchyard,’ shouted Mór, hitching her
léine
up through her belt. ‘Get the water there.’ And she set an example by seizing two empty buckets and sprinting through the gate.
    ‘God and His blessed saints aid us in our hour of need!’ prayed Father MacMahon.
    Mara left him to his prayers, resolving not to display as much leg as Mór, but at the same time determined to reach the burning building before any of her scholars got themselves into a dangerous position. Surely, she thought, as she sped through the gate and across the field, a solid stone building like that would not be too vulnerable to fire. Until a couple of hours ago that churchyard was full of people, and even after all had viewed the sacred relic and Sorley had, as she was sure, carefully locked the tower, many people drawn by the annual Feast of the Holy Cross would have stayed in order to pray at the gravesides of dead relations and friends. The fire, she reasoned, could not have been going for more than an hour.
    When she reached the church, she began to relax. Someone, probably Ardal O’Lochlainn, who was always good in a crisis, had formed the helpers into a line leading from the well to the tower. The thatched roof was not on fire, but there seemed to be a fire burning fiercely in the top room of the little tower, flames darting out through the small window slit on the south side of the tower. Sorley was on the top of the ladder, Ardal halfway up, and another man at the bottom was passing up the leather buckets filled with the water from the sacred spring of the daughter of Baoith, patroness of the church. Even as Mara arrived, the bright orange tongues of fire in the east window slit were replaced by a cloud of smoke.
    Mara’s heart ceased to beat so rapidly. Her scholars were in the back of the line, nearest to the well. Ardal, on the ladder, looked supremely in command and confident; a couple of his men were on the bucket-bearing chain nearest to the ladder, she noticed, and realized that the fire would soon be under control.
    Sorley worked on doggedly, pouring bucket after bucket through the narrow opening and flinging the flat empty leather containers down on to the ground. Cormac, who liked to be on the move, now left his post and was darting to and fro, picking up the buckets and sprinting back with them to the more docile Art, still standing at the well. However, he