My Lady Judge by Cora Harrison

dreamily.
    Mara smiled. ‘That was my memory, also,’ she said. Young love, she thought indulgently. The picture of the first beloved never fades. There was now no doubt in her mind, but she would ask a few more questions so as to satisfy her audience.
    ‘Muiris and Áine,’ she said. ‘Can you confirm that Rory and Roderic brought your daughter home that night?’
    Muiris stepped forward. ‘Yes,’ he said, shortly. ‘They brought her home. They stayed until daybreak. They stayed with me after Aoife and her mother had gone to bed.’
    All of them fairly merry after the amount of mead they had drunk, surmised Mara. The drink, made from fermented honey, was heavily alcoholic and, from what she had seen, there was plenty of it consumed that night.
    ‘Brehon,’ said Colman courteously. ‘May I question?’
    ‘Yes, certainly,’ said Mara. She went back and sat next to King Turlough Donn.

    ‘You trust your assistant to conduct the investigation?’ asked the king in a low voice.
    ‘Let him talk for a while,’ she whispered. ‘This will drag the case out and save the faces of poor little Nessa and her parents.’
    ‘But you don’t think that Rory the bard did it?’
    ‘No,’ Mara shook her head firmly. ‘If Rory had seduced Nessa that night, he would have had to entice her away from her mother. She would have remembered what he was wearing. She didn’t, but Aoife did. Girls always remember what a person is wearing if he is important to her. I don’t think Rory was anywhere near Nessa that night.’
    ‘Can you remember what I was wearing the first time that you saw me?’ whispered Turlough Donn in her ear.
    ‘My lord, I was blinded by your brilliance,’ whispered back Mara. In fact, her only memory of that day, fifteen years ago, had been the thrill of being appointed Brehon of the Burren by Turlough’s uncle, the then king of Thomond.
    What was Colman doing? she thought with annoyance. Rory was almost losing his patience. The same questions were being asked over and over again. Now Colman had summoned Roderic and was trying to get him to admit that he had separated from Rory at one stage in the evening. Roderic, however, with an uneasy glance at Daniel, Emer’s father, stood firm. No, he declared. The four young people had spent the evening of Samhain together. They had danced and sung; they had eaten supper, they had drunk some mead – a small amount, to be sure – and then he and Rory had taken the two girls home. First they had taken Emer to her home at Caheridoola, where, Mara gathered, Daniel had shut the door on them, and then they had taken Aoife home to Poulnabrucky where Muiris had proved more hospitable.
    Mara rose to her feet again and smiled sweetly at Colman. He had done his best, she thought, trying hard to be fair to him. It
was strange how such sharp intelligence could be married to a complete lack of common sense.
    ‘We have heard all the evidence in this case,’ she said evenly. ‘I find this case as not proven against Rory the bard. Nessa, is there anything else that you would like to say? Is it possible that you made a mistake and that Rory the bard was not responsible, but that perhaps someone else was?’
    Nessa shook her head silently.
    ‘There is just one other witness, Brehon, if you will excuse me,’ said Colman suavely. ‘I call on Father Conglach.’
    Mara’s lips tightened and her eyes narrowed. She had not expected this. What was the priest going to say? She looked around. He had been standing on the far side of the dolmen but now he advanced towards her. The people drew back courteously and made a long clear passageway for him. He advanced without a glance or a nod of acknowledgement. Mara did not sit down, but stood facing the priest, her dark eyes fixed on him.
    ‘Yes, Father?’ she enquired, her voice as chilly and hard as she could make it. With her left hand she signalled to Colman to sit down. She would conduct this interrogation herself.
    ‘I saw Nessa