Condemned to Death by Cora Harrison Page B

seemed to bisect one large flat boulder of black limestone. There had been a lot of excitement, she remembered hearing from Ardal O’Lochlainn when gold had been found on the west coast of Galway in a seam of this soft quartz. Men had laboured night and day but there had been only a small amount of gold found, and the interest had soon faded. She told the two boys about it and Domhnall nodded his head wisely.
    ‘Of course, if ever there was a man who knew the rocks of Fanore well, then it must be Brendan. He’s been scouring the rocks here for samphire ever since he was the height of a rabbit – or so he keeps telling me,’ he added and Mara smiled her appreciation of the dry humour and shrewdness of her grandson.
    ‘You’re right, of course. That makes a double link.’ She thought about the matter. This case, if Nuala confirmed what she suspected, could turn out to be unexpectedly complicated. She looked out to sea, turning over the various possibilities in her mind.
    ‘Dinner!’ shouted Cormac. ‘Dinner, everyone!’ He stuck his two fingers into his mouth and shrilled out a whistle in the direction of his mother and she smiled, raised a hand in acknowledgement and, with her two oldest scholars, made her way to the top of the beach where the cooking fires burned.
    There was plenty of deliciously fresh fish for lunch and Brendan had generously added some of his morning’s gathering of samphire, though he had not stayed for the meal but had set off for Galway.
    ‘The tide is coming in and there’s a nice fresh, south-westerly breeze so he will be in time for the evening meals in the inns and pie shops in Galway,’ Etain explained to Mara. ‘They like to have the samphire as fresh as possible and, of course, it only takes minutes to cook – you put it straight into boiling seawater if possible, if not ordinary salt water, boil and then taste.’
    Mara ate it with relish. If it were not for the dead body only a hundred yards away, she would be enjoying this out-of-doors meal, the fresh mackerel, the chunks of buttered soda bread and the delicious salty taste of the samphire.
    ‘You and Brendan have a good trade with the City of Galway, haven’t you?’ she asked.
    ‘Brendan has been very clever,’ said Etain enthusiastically. ‘My parents used to gather samphire, but they just bartered it for fish from the fishermen and the people around here were not that interested – they could easily gather their own seaweed. Brendan was the one that thought of getting a boat and taking some to Galway City where all of those rich merchants live – people who like to have their food tasty, who like to try different flavours, different dishes.’
    And, yes, it had been clever, Mara thought. Surprisingly there was no provision for the worth of a merchant in the list of honour prices that Brehon laws provided, but yet, here in the sixteenth century, this buying and selling was a new livelihood, something which was as paying, as lucrative as the age-old trades of fisherman or farmer, of weaver or carpenter. An urban society such as Galway City was dependent on traders and merchants to supply its table. Traditionally the wines came from France and from Spain, the exotic fruits and spices from far-flung places, but the simple pleasures of oysters, fresh fish and samphire could come from the nearby Gaelic communities. Doubtless, this was a flaw in her beloved Brehon laws. There should be an honour price fixed for a merchant, something that echoed his or her status in the community, and there should be laws that regulated the trading of goods for profit and for a livelihood rather than a mere bartering of produce produced on the farm or lands. Brendan’s venture into the world of trade had been profitable to him. She could see the boat that he used these days, moored to the short new makeshift pier made from a line of rocks, well padded with narrow tree trunks, that jutted out into the sea, no fishing boat, but a Galway