Free A Secret and Unlawful Killing by Cora Harrison Page B

figure of Ardal, their taoiseach, a fair number of O’Connors also, and plenty of the O’Brien clan. All of the MacNamaras, of course, that could be taken for granted — or were they all there? Suddenly her attention sharpened. Quickly her eyes went from face to face, all faces were concerned, all grave, but none bore any sign of sorrow, she thought. This was what had alerted her to look for the miller from Oughtmama; she had been looking to see what emotion Aengus MacNamara showed at the news of his enemy’s death.
    But Aengus MacNamara was not there.
    ‘Has anyone else any evidence to give,’ she asked, after
she had thanked the two boys. Silence greeted her. She had not expected anything of importance to be volunteered. Every tongue would be guarded in this public place. No one would want to implicate a friend, a neighbour, a relative, or a member of the clan. These enquiries would have to be made quietly and privately and the truth would have to be discovered as soon as possible for the sake of everybody in the kingdom. For over fifteen hundred years they and their ancestors had lived by this system of justice that relied on the goodwill and the co-operation of the clans to keep the peace within its community. The truth would have to be acknowledged here at Poulnabrone, the fine paid, and then the community could go on living at peace with their families and their neighbours.
    ‘Fachtnan,’ she said when the crowd had begun to disperse, ‘do you see Aengus the miller anywhere?’
    ‘No, Brehon,’ said Fachtnan, standing on a nearby rock, brushing his rough curly dark hair out of his eyes and scanning the closely massed MacNamara clan. ‘He doesn’t seem to be here. Would you like me to ask Fintan MacNamara, the blacksmith? He’s his cousin.’
    ‘No, I’ll talk to him myself,’ said Mara. ‘Would you ask him to come over, Fachtnan?’
    Fintan came willingly. When she had seen him yesterday at the head of the dissident clansmen he had looked like an angry bull, his dark eyes sparkling with rage and his broad chest lifting with the long breaths he sucked in, but his eyes were peaceful now. He was looking tidier than usual, she thought. He had shed the blacksmith’s leather apron, and his high-coloured face was cleansed of the usual spots of soot, though it still bore the scorch marks and scars of old burns.
A hard trade, thought Mara, though a highly valued one, as no community could manage without its blacksmith. Fintan was busy from morning to night with making, mending and repairing. Every house and every farm bore examples of his work, but nothing she had ever seen previously was as fine as that magnificent set of candlesticks. She had only glimpsed them briefly in the bottom of Ragnall’s cart, but they had stayed in her mind. Each candlestick had been moulded in the shape of a gnarled oak tree with the branches springing from it. Every branch ended in a cluster of perfectly formed oak leaves and this cluster held the candle in its midst. A wonderful piece of work, a piece of work to be prized by its maker: but would he have killed to recover it from the clutches of the greedy steward?
    ‘Your scholar said you wanted me, Brehon,’ said Fintan. His voice was habitually hoarse and rough, but was there a shade of truculence in it today?
    ‘Yes, Fintan, I was looking around for the miller, Aengus MacNamara. Have you seen him today? Fachtnan tells me that you are his cousin.’
    Fintan smiled, though there was still a wary look in his dark eyes. ‘The Burren is full of my cousins, Brehon,’ he said. ‘I’d be hard put to lay my hand on all of them. Even Ragnall, God have mercy on him, was a sort of cousin of mine.’ He turned around and scanned the crowd. Mara eyed him sharply. There was something unnatural in his words and movements. She had once seen a group of players enacting a miracle play on a cart outside Noughaval church. The way that Fintan scanned the crowd reminded her of one of those