Cross of Vengeance Read Online Free PDF Page B

hurriedly. ‘Go back to your meal, boys. We’ll discuss this later. We’ll show you a sample, Blad, and then you can see if you like what we do.’
    The boys returned quickly as the two kitchen maids were now bringing in the sweetmeats: honey cakes and apple and pear pies and succulent mouthfuls of blackberries sitting inside pastry baskets. Mara took one for politeness and then a long hour ensued during which everyone ate and drank and talked – mostly about relics and pilgrimage shrines. Father MacMahon embarked on a long, complicated description of the history of Kilnaboy and the monastic site, and proudly explained to Herr Kaufmann how the right to sanctuary was still retained by the church.
    ‘Sanctuary from what?’ Cormac was leaning back, patting his stomach, and the word had caught his attention. ‘Isn’t “sanctuary” a sort of refuge – a holy place that shelters people? Didn’t we have something in our Latin, something about Ajax …?’ he finished vaguely.
    ‘They have “sanctuary” in St Nicholas’s Church in Galway,’ said Domhnall. ‘If you are in danger of being hanged or something then you can go to the church and stand beside the altar and demand sanctuary – I think that it only lasts for forty days and that you have to stay beside the altar for all of that time. Is that right, Brehon?’
    ‘What about if you have to go … well, you know …’ queried Cormac with interest, and Mara sighed and thought about moving her son to another law school.
    ‘No one hangs people on the Burren so sanctuary is no good here,’ observed Art.
    ‘Except that the English ruled here for a while a couple of hundred years ago, before they were defeated at Dysart O’Dea,’ put in Domhnall. ‘They might have needed sanctuary then. The English hang people even for stealing a loaf of bread.’ Thankfully he spoke in Gaelic to Art and the rest of the company just looked at him with polite interest. Mara hastened to intervene.
    ‘It will be an interesting subject to discuss when we go back to the law school,’ she said emphatically, and was glad to see them look distracted by a fresh tray of tiny stuffed figs which had just been brought in by a kitchen maid. Domhnall was the only one of the boys who had ever tasted one before, and he gave such an enthusiastic account that Mara could guess that the other boys’ mouths were watering before the tray came to them.
    She was glad to see, after the trays of sweetmeats began to empty, that the remaining pilgrims were beginning to look out through the windows to where the sun had begun to move into the south-west. Like everyone on a journey they would want to move on to the next stage. And Mara wanted to get back to the reality of her life in the law school and leave relics to those who liked them. She pictured her husband’s face when he heard, as he undoubtedly would from Cormac, about the vial of the Blessed Virgin’s milk, and she bit her lips to disguise the sudden smile.
    ‘You’ll have a good crossing to Aran,’ she said politely to the prioress. ‘The sea can be rough sometimes, although the island is only about six miles from the port at Doolin. There may be a storm tonight, but tomorrow will be a lovely day – or so my farm manager tells me, and he is a great judge of the weather. He plans haymaking tomorrow, so it will definitely be dry and calm,’ she continued, seeing the alarmed look on the faces of three women. The Irish sea between Wales and Ireland was notorious for storms, high winds and rough waves; the pilgrims probably already had an unpleasant crossing. They would have been worrying about the trip to Aran. The other pilgrims finished their meal hastily but waited for Father MacMahon to say a solemn Latin grace after meals before standing up also.
    ‘I’ll take leave of you now, and wish you God speed,’ said Mara graciously, exchanging bows with the three ladies and then with the two clerics. Not a very interesting or, except for