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not pay the compensation and fines judged against them. These are deprived of all civil rights but not excluded from society. They are placed in a position where they have to contribute to its welfare. Of course, they could not bear arms or be elected to any office within the clan.’
    Eadulf pulled a face.
    ‘It sounds like slavery to me.’
    Fidelma showed her annoyance.
    ‘The “unfree class” are divided into two groups. One group can rent and work on the land and pay taxes while the other are those who are untrustworthy and in constant rebellion against the system. Anyone in either position can redeem themselves by working until the fines are met.’
    ‘And if they are not met?’ queried Eadulf.
    ‘Then they remain in that position, without civil rights, until they die.’
    ‘So their children become slaves?’
    ‘Not slaves!’ Fidelma corrected again. ‘And the law states “every dead person kills their own liabilities”. Their children become full citizens once again.’
    She caught the smile of amusement around Eadulf’s mouth and wondered whether he was using her tactic of playing devil’s advocate in order to provoke her. She had often used this stratagem to bait Eadulf in the past about his beliefs. Could it be that Eadulf had finally learnt a more subtle humour? She
was about to say something when the girl, Scoth, intervened.
    ‘I was not of the “unfree class”,’ she said hotly, reminding them of the origin of the discussion. ‘Muadnat was simply my legal guardian and had control of me until I reached the age of choice. He had no hold on me after that but I had nowhere to go. I left his farmstead but there was nowhere I could get work and so I had to return.’
    ‘Things will be different now,’ Archú insisted.
    ‘Well, I would caution you to beware of Muadnat,’ Fidelma advised. ‘He struck me as a man who harbours grudges.’
    Archú agreed emphatically.
    ‘That I do know. I shall be watchful, sister.’
    The track along which Fidelma and Eadulf guided their horses began to rise more rapidly up into the hills, away from the stately pushing river, upwards towards the more towering rounded bald peaks of the mountains, which poked up from the skirting forests. The lower periphery of the hills was thickly forested but the track across the mountain had been used for countless centuries so that the trees fell away on either side leaving a fairly clear roadway which even a good sized wagon could traverse in dry weather.
    The air was still, the quiet broken only by the heavy snorting breath of the horses as they moved upwards. Now and again they could hear the excited yap of wild dogs and the protesting howl of a wolf, warning against intrusion into its territory.
    The sun was already dipping below the peaks to the west and long shadows were spreading rapidly. As the sun began to disappear, the air turned chill. Fidelma was reminded that tomorrow would be the feast in remembrance of Conlaed of blessed name, a skilled metalworker of Kildare who had fashioned the sacred vessels for Brigid’s monastery. She must remember to light a candle in his name. But the thought caused her to acknowledge that they were already into the month regarded as the first month of the summer period which ended with the feast of Lughnasa, one of the popular pagan festivals which the new Faith had been unable 30
to abolish. The horses climbed slowly and deliberately and Eadulf began to cast nervous glances towards the glowing tip of sunlight behind them to the west.
    ‘It will be dark before long,’ he observed unnecessarily.
    ‘It is not far now,’ Archú assured him. ‘See that bend in the road to our right? We take the small path there, leaving this main track, and moving higher into the mountains along the side of the stream which crosses our road there.’
    They fell silent again as they turned into the dark oak forests where there was now room for only one horse to tread the clearly unfrequented path. One