My Lady Judge by Cora Harrison Page A

were of that intense dark blue, but some were as pale as harebells. She went along the bed with a sharply pointed trowel and dug the pale-coloured flowers up, placing them in a willow basket filled with cool damp soil.
    ‘Cumhal,’ she called, seeing Brigid’s husband come back from milking her cows. ‘Cumhal, could you spare a moment? Could you just get your mallet and pulverize this rock for me, this big flat one at the end of the flowerbed. I just want to make a bit of
a hollow in it so as I can put some of those pale blue gentians in here. That’s if you are not too busy,’ she ended politely. She always tried to keep in mind that probably Cumhal privately believed that a garden used for anything other than vegetables was a strange piece of eccentricity.
    ‘I’ll get it straight away,’ he said obligingly and was back in a few minutes balancing the heavy iron mallet in one hand. ‘Brigid said to tell you that the lads are up and having their breakfast,’ he said.
    ‘Really!’ Mara was astonished. After a late night she would have thought they would have been happy to sleep in. ‘Just there, Cumhal, right in the centre, just make it look natural.’
    The limestone split easily and a few blows of the mallet made a good deep hollow. Mara looked at it with satisfaction.
    ‘Perfect. Thanks, Cumhal,’ she said. She cast a quick conscience-stricken glance at the law school, but there were very few sounds coming from it. Brigid could handle them for another five minutes. Quickly she scraped the soil from the basket into the hollow and then carefully planted the pale blue gentians in an irregular circle. Now it looked like a pool of pale blue, almost as if the river of deep blue had splashed some of its water on top of the grey rock. She gazed at it with satisfaction for a moment and then rose to her feet and dusted the earth from her fingers.
    ‘Tell Brigid I will be over once I have washed my hands,’ she said.
     
     
    The boys were very quiet, very quiet and very docile, sitting up straight on their benches in the schoolroom, and answering all the questions earnestly. They were all pale, she noticed. Hugh had heavy black shadows under his eyes and Shane was biting his nails nervously. She would give them a couple of hours’ work, she decided, and then release them for the rest of the day. Perhaps it
was just the late night. Perhaps they would all be back to normal after the weekend.
    ‘Shane, what is the crime of fingal?’
    ‘The crime of fingal is the worst crime of all, Brehon,’ recited Shane, rising to his feet politely. ‘The wisdom texts say that it strikes at the heart of society. The crime of fingal is the slaying of a member of your kin-group. The punishment for fingal is to be placed in a boat with no oars and to be cast out to sea. If God spares the life of the murderer, he or she can never come back to the kingdom again, but must live out their life as a cu glas, a grey dog, or outcast.’
    ‘Well done,’ said Mara heartily. ‘Fachtnan, what are the twelve doors of the soul?’
    ‘The twelve doors of the soul, Brehon,’ said Fachtnan, rising slowly to his feet and tugging at his black thatch of hair, ‘are twelve spots on the body where it is dangerous to hit a man. One of them is …’ He looked around for inspiration. Aidan was making gulping sounds and Fachtnan’s face brightened in gratitude. ‘One of them is the Adam’s apple,’ he said quickly, ‘and the others are … the navel … and the …’ He looked around, but no further help seemed to be forthcoming. All faces were blank, blank and worried.
    ‘Well, perhaps we’ll get out Bretha Déin Chécht and go over that again on Monday,’ said Mara, ignoring a groan from Enda. Bretha Déin Chécht was a weighty tome full of obscure medical facts; most law students dreaded it. She looked around at the tired faces and she resolved to end by giving each boy one more question and then let them have a break. A game of hurling