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coming. ‘I didn’t realize that I had lost it until I came home.’
    ‘And where were you hunting?’ asked Mara.
    He shrugged. ‘Can’t remember really — it was a few weeks ago — all over the High Burren, I think … You know, from Slieve Elva over to Carron.’
    She considered this. ‘Did you go through Noughaval?’
    ‘Yes,’ he said eagerly. ‘Yes, we went through Noughaval.’
    ‘What about the churchyard? You didn’t go through the churchyard at Noughaval, did you?’ she asked, looking at him keenly. It would be strange for a hunt to go through the
churchyard. There was a great respect for the bodies of the dead on the Burren. Even if the hounds went through the churchyard, the riders would usually circle outside calling off their dogs.
    He hesitated for a moment and then bowed his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘We didn’t go through the churchyard.’
    Mara allowed the silence to linger for a few moments before turning the mare’s head towards the north.
    ‘I must go now,’ she said. ‘I will see your father at Poulnabrone. Are you coming too?’
    He shook his head. ‘No, Brehon,’ he said warily. ‘I have tasks to do here.’
    After Mara had ridden through the gatehouse and had turned her mare’s head towards the north, she turned back. Donal O’Brien was still standing, very still, in the spot where she had left him. He looked, to her, like a man who was bearing a heavy weight of anxiety on his broad shoulders.

FOUR
    BERRAD AIRECHTA (COURT PROCEDURE AND JUDGEMENTS)

    A court shall be held in a place that is sacred within the kingdom. That is to say it should be by a great rock, known as the Brehon’s chair, or on the top of an ancient mound, or beside an ancestral burial place.

     
     
    T HE FIELD AROUND THE dolmen of Poulnabrone was full of people when Mara arrived. It was almost as if the birds of the air had carried the news of the secret and unlawful killing of Ragnall MacNamara. It would have been natural for the MacNamara clan to be there, she had appointed this time to hear the case about the blacksmith’s candlesticks, but the other three clans, the O’Lochlainns, the O’Connors and the O’Briens were there also, in strong numbers. With one of the rapid weather changes so customary in the west of Ireland, the sun had disappeared and the
sky had turned the colour of polished pewter. There was no wind, but the atmosphere held the ominous promise of a storm to come. The air had turned chill, but no one in that huge crowd moved.
    The ancient dolmen with the four upright stones and the jagged tip of the soaring capstone was silhouetted against the leaden sky, dwarfing the humans who surrounded it. It had been the burial mound of the ancient inhabitants of the Burren and then the hallowed place where the people of the kingdom came to hear the judgements and pronouncements of their king and of his Brehon. Mara had already been Brehon of the Burren for fifteen years, but when she spoke at Poulnabrone she never failed to feel thrilled and yet humbled by the strength of the tradition in this sacred stony place.
    Cumhal, her farm manager, was there, as he always was whenever he was needed, and he took the mare from her as soon as she dismounted. The six scholars, neat in their white léinte and polished leather sandals, were lined up beside the dolmen. Mara smiled at them as they bowed to her. There was an air of suppressed excitement about them; judgement days were often tedious, filled with small wrangles over boundary stones and cattle trespass, but this one would be full of drama. However, she was glad to see their faces were grave. She always insisted on the highest level of decorous behaviour in public, but inside, she knew, they were bubbling with anticipation. As her scholars they would be closely involved in the investigation. What an exciting start to the Michaelmas term for them.
    ‘Brehon, this is a terrible, terrible thing to happen.’ Garrett MacNamara pushed himself through