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bowed his head in shame. Sorley looked from one to the other, but no one offered to translate the Spaniard’s bitter words. However, the blazing anger in his eyes and the bitter note in his voice told its own story and Sorley, also, began to look shamefaced.
    And yet there was a smugness about Father Miguel, thought Mara, which made her wonder whether the commercial success of the Spanish shrine was not also in his mind at that moment. Then she dismissed the thought. If the relic had been stolen, then the other pilgrims might have fallen under suspicion, but the destroying could only have been done by a person who rejected relics and all that they stood for.
    Mara’s eyes rested gravely on each of the pilgrims in turn, ending with Hans Kaufmann, and only then did she speak.
    ‘I must ask each of you to dismount and to take your satchels into the church here,’ she said. ‘My assistant, Fachtnan, will accompany you. Could you,’ she turned and aimed her words at a space between Ardal O’Lochlainn and Nechtan O’Quinn so that she would not appear to be favouring one over the other, ‘escort the pilgrims and get them to wait until I come.’ She watched the six go off between the two men, following Fachtnan into the church, and sighed. The balance of power was going to be a difficult one in this case, small though the crime was. Feelings, she guessed, would run high and the different players would be keen to maintain their power. Ardal was a
taoiseach
, the chieftain of the second largest clan on the Burren, and Nechtan was not. However, his tower house was situated beside the church of Kilnaboy and his family had been, since ancient times, the
coarbs
, the ancient heirs of the monastic lands, and still received rents from them.
    Kilnaboy was an interesting place. She remembered her father telling her about the significance of that ancient site on the south-eastern corner of the Burren. It had belonged to a group of monks and they had held sway in the lands there, had owned the rich fertile river meadows, the hillside with its ancient tombs, and their sway had even superseded that of the ancient kings. The monks had held out against Turlough’s ancestors on numerous occasions.
    ‘Come, boys,’ she said to her scholars once the door of the church had been closed by Ardal, ‘the pilgrims’ luggage will have to be examined and this is where you will all be so useful to me. Each of you must observe one of the pilgrims and never move your eyes from that person. Afterwards we will talk together and discuss our impressions, but in the meantime you must be silent and observant.’
    Quickly she allocated the pilgrims to the boys: Domhnall had Hans Kaufmann; Slevin, Father Miguel; Finbar, the Italian monk, Brother Cosimo; and she, with the two younger boys, were to observe the three women – the nine-year-olds, she reckoned, were young enough to cause no offence to the prioress. And then she led them swiftly over into the cool shadiness of the church from which the noontime sun had departed. One by one the pilgrims had placed their leather satchels on a bench at the back of the building and one by one she demanded to see their travelling lamps and they fumbled in their bags and produced them.
    Interesting, she thought, to catch glimpses of the contents of those satchels: something silk and trimmed with lace peeping out from Madame Eglantine’s satchel – surprising from such a religious lady as the prioress; Cosimo, the Italian friar vowed to poverty, had an extremely valuable cross studded with precious stones that gleamed from the depth of his bag – Mara saw Finbar’s eyes widen at the sight of it; and Father Miguel had a huge bundle of correspondence from something called
Tribunal del Santo Oficio de la Inquisición
.
    However, all of this was none of her business.
    What was her business was that Hans Kaufmann could not produce a travelling lamp. He shrugged with a pretence of coolness, but his eyes watched