Free Writ in Stone by Cora Harrison

his last opportunity to try to persuade Mahon O’Brien to nominate the lad as abbot of Knockmoy.’
    ‘And did it succeed?’
    ‘Not a bit of it,’ he said with emphasis. ‘There was a big quarrel yesterday morning. I was in the chapter house writing up the big book and I heard every word of it.’
    ‘I can’t imagine the abbot quarrelling.’ And this, thought Mara with surprise, was actually true. The abbot was always so icily cold, so remote, so sure of himself, that it was hard to imagine him condescending to quarrel. Still perhaps love for one’s child can change natures. Her feelings warmed slightly towards him.
    ‘And what did he say?’ She took a companionable sip from her cup and Father Peter responded instantly.
    ‘He yelled at him, really yelled at him. “You’ll regret this, Mahon O’Brien,” that’s what he yelled.’ Father Peter lowered his gaze for a moment and then looked at her. She could see that struggle between loyalty to his abbot and the desire to round off his tale struggling on his small pinched face, but then the love of a good story won almost instantly and he ended triumphantly: ‘“You’ll regret this, Mahon O’Brien; you’ll regret this at your dying moment.” And that’s what he said, Brehon.’
    Mara considered this for a moment. It probably didn’t mean too much, just the war-like O’Brien blood triumphing over the layer of Christianity, she thought dispassionately. However, there was no doubt that not much more than twenty-four hours later Mahon O’Brien was lying dead in the abbey church. It would probably have been about half an hour after the service of prime that he had been killed, she thought. She tried to picture the scene.
    ‘Do you remember this morning, Father Peter, at the service of prime, do you remember the monks filing out of the church? It would have been very dark, I know, but you would have had candles, wouldn’t you?’
    Father Peter nodded emphatically. ‘That’s right, Brehon, every choir monk has a candle; even the abbot has his own candle.’
    So each face would have been lit up, thought Mara.
    ‘Just describe the scene for me, Peter,’ she said slowly. Her concentration was so intense that she called him Peter, as did Ardal.
    He was quick-witted and did not question her.
    ‘Father Abbot went down to the back of the church and he unlocked the west door. Then he went to the cloisters’ door, on the south side, as always – mostly he goes out first, but this morning he just stood there so we all stood up. I was the first, because I am by way of being second-in-command. We turned and went towards the back of the church. We go up the night stairs, you know, the stairs that lead to the monks’ dormitory.’
    ‘And you went up first?’
    Father Peter shook his head. ‘No, I stood there and allowed them all to go ahead of me. That’s the custom; it’s my responsibility to see them all safely into their beds.’
    ‘And there was no one in the church for the service of prime, except the choir monks, the abbot and Father Denis O’Brien,’ asserted Mara, expecting a ready agreement, but Father Peter hesitated.
    ‘Well, that’s what you would expect,’ he said hesitantly, ‘but it was strange, because as I walked down with my candle, I half-thought I saw a movement at the back of the church.’
    ‘But you didn’t recognize anyone?’
    Father Peter shook his head. ‘Far from it; I wouldn’t even be sure that there was a person there, just a movement or a shadow, a bat perhaps.’
    She did not pursue it. She would allow him to turn it over in his mind. He was sharp and clever and would come back to her if anything awakened his memory to a more certainty. ‘And then?’ she asked.
    ‘Well, we all went down the church and turned to the left once we reached the night stairs.’
    ‘And the abbot had already gone?’
    ‘No,’ said Father Peter, and his voice sounded startled. ‘No, and I’ve only just realized that. No, he didn’t