Eye of the Law Read Online Free PDF

horseback.
    ‘This is a shocking thing, Brehon.’ Ardal swung his leg neatly over the horse’s back and tossed the reins to Liam. His face looked concerned, not devastated, but then he had no real reason to mourn the death of this unexpected new arrival.
    ‘What happened? Was it a fight?’ He walked straight over and stood looking down. ‘Poor lad,’ he added, not waiting for an answer to his questions. There was a genuine-sounding note of pity in his voice.
    ‘Shall we bring him to Kilcorney Church, Brehon?’ Liam had now dismounted. ‘There’s no reason to bring him over to Noughaval, is there? What do you think, my lord?’
    ‘What do you think, Brehon?’ Ardal looked at her doubtfully.
    Noughaval was the church where the O’Lochlainn family were buried. No, thought Mara, there was no real reason to bring this young Iarla to Noughaval. Nothing had been ratified about his birth and his birthright. That would have been done at Poulnabrone. Now there was no necessity to send Fachtnan and Enda over to Aran on a fact-finding mission, no necessity for Mara to consult her law texts and, perhaps, to be forced into giving a verdict that went against her commonsense and intuition. Things had worked out well, except for the awful reality of a brutal and unacknowledged killing and a young life cut short.
    ‘Kilcorney seems the obvious place,’ said Malachy quietly.
    Liam looked at him with an approving nod. Ardal glanced from one to the other and then back at Mara, waiting for her consent.
    ‘Yes, I agree, Kilcorney is the obvious place.’ Mara looked keenly at Ardal as she said that, but his handsome face showed no strong emotion, whether of relief or regret; Ardal was his usual sensible, practical and energetic self, prepared to do anything that would help to tidy up this situation.
    ‘Why do you say a fight?’ she asked quietly.
    Ardal looked startled. ‘Well, I assumed that was what had happened. It looks like that. Someone has stuck a dagger into him.’
    Malachy, she noticed, did not mention Nuala’s assertion that the man had been killed by a blow to the head. Mara had found Nuala’s argument convincing, but she said nothing; it was for her, as Brehon of the Burren, to gather the evidence and to find the truth. For the moment she would just listen and observe. After all, it was a reasonable guess that it had been a fight. Most deaths in the kingdom occurred as a result of fights between hot-headed young men from rival clans.
    ‘There was some trouble at the wedding the other day.’ Liam joined them at the side of the body. ‘You remember, Brehon – the wedding at Lemeanah on Monday. This lad got very drunk. He was fighting mad. I saw him myself. The O’Brien steward told me that a couple of them had to hold him down. They doused him with a pail of water . . .’ His voice tailed off and he dropped to his knees beside the body.
    ‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph.’ Liam’s voice was loud and harsh. He crossed himself rapidly. ‘Lord save us and bless us. Here we have a man lying outside Balor’s Cave and him with only one eye. It couldn’t be . . .’
    ‘You mean Balor, don’t you? Just what I was thinking myself,’ said Malachy with a quick sideways glance at Mara.
    ‘Not that I believe in these old stories or anything . . .’
    ‘No, I wouldn’t either, but . . .’
    ‘Strange things happen though,’ said Liam with relish. ‘There was a fellow down at Ballymurphy – this was a long time ago. Anyway, this man dug up a thorn tree in the centre of a field, a lone thorn tree, and, you wouldn’t believe this, but he was found dead in the very same field seven days later.’
    ‘That’s right,’ said Malachy. ‘I’ve heard that story. Of course you’ve heard the story about the man who was so drunk going home. He was seen going down this lane. People thought afterwards that he went down the cave thinking that it was his own house. Whatever happened, he never was seen again in the