A Secret and Unlawful Killing Read Online Free PDF Page A

took pity on them. Her warm heart could never resist her young scholars. ‘You know your ponies are blown,’ she said gently. ‘You have to see to them, now, and I’m sure that you want something to eat, yourselves. Anyway, you are the first, except for Hugh, to arrive for the Michaelmas term, so you can tell the news to everyone else when they get here and, of course, you two will be important witnesses when I announce the death at Poulnabrone dolmen this noon.’
    They knew there was no use in further pleading so they went dejectedly through the great iron gates into the law school enclosure. The door to the scholars’ house stood ajar and smoke was rising from the kitchen house. Brigid would give them a good breakfast, avidly listen to their news, see that they emptied their satchels into the chest at the bottom of each bed, and then they would have the excitement of telling the dramatic story to each new arrival. Mara felt she had enough to deal with without their presence.
    ‘My lord, I will have to leave you,’ she said to the king.
    ‘I’ll come with you,’ he said, with a quick gesture of command to his two bodyguards.
    ‘You may need somebody to send on an errand, Brehon.’
Diarmuid was at her side. As always, quiet and unobtrusive, he swung his leg over his horse while the king assisted Mara to mount her mare. She smiled her thanks to both while her mind ran through the steps that she had to take. As Brehon she was responsible for all crimes on the Burren and this looked like a case of a secret killing. She looked regretfully back at her garden and at the exquisite flowerbed that she had been making. It was laid out in a series of small diamond shapes, each one outlined by the dark blue strips of limestone and filled with flowers of all the richest autumn hues. There were clumps of cranesbill, their intensely magenta flowers velvet-soft, then a patch of pale blue harebells and then, in the next space, some purple knapweed.
    Mara paused for a moment looking at the effect and watching how the colours blurred and merged with each other. She had once seen a stained-glass window in an abbey church in Thomond; the glory of the jewel-bright colours, each in its black-edged diamond, had stayed with her and this was the effect that she aimed at.
    ‘There’ll be a lot of fuss and bother from young Garrett MacNamara if someone has killed his steward,’ said Turlough. ‘Who do you think did it? Weren’t you telling me that there had been some bad blood between the steward and the MacNamara miller — what was his name? Aengus, wasn’t it?’
    ‘Yes,’ she said absent-mindedly. ‘I judged the case between the two of them at the last judgement session at Poulnabrone. I fined Ragnall for hitting Aengus a blow on the leg. It was just a drunken quarrel, but the miller was still limping after a month.’
    There was another matter troubling her, though she tried
to thrust it for the moment to the back of her mind. The situation yesterday, on Michaelmas Day, at the Noughaval Fair, had been dangerous and perhaps should have been resolved that afternoon instead of being postponed for judgement at Poulnabrone today. Anger had been seething in the MacNamara clan over the unjust tribute imposed upon them, and that anger had focussed upon the steward rather than on their taoiseach. She feared that she bore a certain responsibility for this killing. She had made the wrong decision. This happens, she tried to tell herself. She had done what seemed to be the best at the time; nevertheless it was a terrible thought that a death should have occurred because of a failure on her part.
    ‘Don’t look so worried,’ said the king, watching her affectionately. ‘You know you are looking very beautiful this morning. I love that gown — royal purple, just right for you. You don’t look a day over eighteen!’
    ‘I’m thirty-six,’ she replied tartly, but she couldn’t help a quick, satisfied look down at her new gown. The