The Sting of Justice by Cora Harrison

Author:Cora Harrison
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Published: 2012-06-22T04:00:00+00:00

The church was full of the people who lived around in the parish of Rathborney, attending their usual Sunday Mass, but there was no sign of any additional people for the burial of Sorley. None of the silversmiths from Galway was in the church. They had paid their respects at the wake; obviously they felt that to be enough; they probably had little liking for the man in any case. The mineworkers were there; no doubt the overseer was under orders; they were huddled in the back of the church, while the family of Sorley sat in the traditional mourning place on the left-hand side of the altar.

On the right-hand side, at the top of the church, was a burly figure, leaning back, legs sprawling, head turning from side to side. Mara went up the middle aisle, conscious of the stir of interest that her appearance caused and slipped in beside him.

‘What brings you here, my lord?’ she whispered as she knelt demurely by his side.

‘You, of course.’ Turlough’s smile beamed and his green eyes twinkled. ‘I’ve been visiting Conor and his wife at the abbey – the monk there, Father Peter, has a great reputation for cures for the wasting sickness. He’s looking better, Conor. He’s put on a bit of weight and got a little colour in his cheeks.’

It was early days yet, thought Mara. Conor was Turlough’s eldest son and the tánaiste, or heir, to his father’s position of king of the kingdoms of Thomond, Burren and Corcomroe. In the normal way of things he would be king when Turlough died, but he was sinking rapidly under the onslaught of the deadly wasting sickness that seemed to affect many of the young and strong.

‘That’s wonderful news,’ she whispered back, unwilling to disappoint him by expressing any doubts. She hoped that he was right: Turlough, of course, had an incurably optimistic temperament. Conor could only have been about a fortnight at the abbey; the last time that she had seen him he had looked like a man close to death.

However, Father Peter of the Cistercian abbey in the north-east of the kingdom was famed for his cures of seriously ill people and it might be possible for him to work a miracle and to cure the wasting sickness that racked poor Conor with constant fevers and seemed to strip the flesh from his bones.

‘Will you come back there with me, to the abbey, I mean?’ Turlough’s voice took on a pleading note which she was coming to know well these days. ‘The abbot, Father Donogh, would like you to come for a Sunday dinner. He wants to discuss the wedding arrangements with you.’

‘So that’s the new parish priest.’ Mara stood up with the rest of the congregation as the Bishop of Kilfenora came out from the vestry followed by a very young priest. She wanted to think about this invitation. She needed to collect her mare and Bran from Toin’s hospitable care and she had planned to walk around Rathborney, perhaps to climb the mountains and see Sheedy.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.