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Diarmuid who had been devastated at his failure to keep him safe.
    ‘It usually works very well,’ she said defensively. ‘Unfortunately the man who was caring for Sheedy when he disappeared, a most compassionate man, has a rather fierce dog – half wolf in origin – and Sheedy took a great dislike to that dog and managed to escape from Diarmuid’s custody. The people of the Burren hunted for him, but eventually were forced to believe that he had died in some mountain cave.’
    ‘But he made his way to Galway,’ mused Henry. ‘I suppose we will never know how, or even when he arrived. There was no mention of the man being insane as far as I can tell; Lawyer Joyce is acting for the shopkeeper, of course, but . . .’
    ‘But no one is acting for the accused man, I suppose,’ interrupted Mara. ‘And the shopkeeper who brought the charge, who is he?’
    ‘His name,’ said Lawyer Bodkin, eyeing her in a troubled fashion, ‘is Stephen Lynch. He is a first cousin to the prosecuting lawyer and to the mayor.’
    ‘And the mayor is the judge,’ stated Mara.
    ‘And Mayor Lynch is the judge,’ he confirmed.

Three
Do Dhrúthaib & Meruth & Dásachtaib
(On Idiots, Insane Persons & Lunatics)
    A person who is deemed to be an idiot, insane or a lunatic is not liable for any penalties even if he or she breaks the law. The penalty will be incurred by the guardian or nearest kinsman unless it can be shown that every effort was made to restrain the person. The care of a person who has been deemed by the court to suffer from any of these conditions is the responsibility of the clan and its
taoiseach
(chieftain) must make provision for the safety and well-being of such persons.
    T he streets were still very crowded when the party from the Bodkins’ tower house set out to walk the short distance to Blake’s Castle. Jane Bodkin, to Mara’s relief, walked between Hugh and Shane. Hugh, though not outstandingly intelligent, was a gentle, sweet-natured boy and Shane, whose father was Brehon to the O’Neill, lord of most of Ulster, had very courtly manners. Both of these could be relied to be polite to their hostess. Fiona had been instructed to keep Henry Bodkin occupied and she slipped her arm into his with such a sweet maidenly expression that he beamed down on her paternally. This left Mara free to walk with Fachtnan.
    ‘Tell me about poor Sheedy,’ she said in a low tone.
    He looked at her with a troubled expression.
    ‘I’ve never seen anything so awful – even pigs are much better housed than he is. Filthy straw on the ground – hadn’t been changed for a week, by the look of it – no means of relieving himself; the poor fellow is shackled and manacled.’
    ‘How did you discover him?’ Mara fought back the anger and distress. Now she had to think clearly and cleverly.
    ‘Well, I was getting Hugh to ask the names of all the streets that we passed through – you know you said that he needed to practise his English – so when we found that we were in Gaol Street we went looking for the prison, and then we saw it. The warder was outside so we went up to him.’ Fachtnan glanced down at Mara and said unexpectedly, ‘You know, Brehon, Aidan is very clever really. He is just so humorous, so funny, and he was talking and laughing with the warder who was bored, of course, just standing there, scratching himself.’
    Mara nodded. Every school had to have a clown and Aidan was the clown at Cahermacnaghten law school.
    ‘And then Aidan challenged the warder to a proverbs contest and the winner was to have a pint of ale from the nearest tavern. So Aidan started off with that old one in that Latin book that your father brought back from the time he went on his travels to Rome –
Linacre’s Latin Grammar
– “Where is no fyre, ther is no smoke”. And the warder said, “One good turne asket another”, and Aidan said, “Many hondes maken lite werke”, and they went on like this for ages until Aidan came out with