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that case, you are absolved from the condition and you may go alone.’
    Fidelma hesitated. Her brother’s words suggested that he had no doubt Eadulf would come.
    ‘We shall see, then.’
    Later, in her chamber, Fidelma sat alone and reflected on the situation. She had to admit to herself that she did hope Eadulf would come but Eadulf was a stubborn man and she had been particularly caustic with him during that last argument. She gazed moodily at the fire in the hearth as she remembered their parting. He had called her arrogant and accused her of being too concerned with her own wishes and having little or no concern for others. He had even told her that she was unwilling to tolerate other people’s opinions or beliefs. That was partially untrue. She knew her own faults.
    It was when Eadulf had said that she had too much pride in herself and scorned others that she had lost her temper and told him to leave. It was true that she would not tolerate ignorance or false pride in others but her own pride … she did not think of it as pride to have faith in her knowledge of law and to pit that
knowledge against others. She did not tolerate fools gladly. That was not arrogance. She was not full of unwarranted pride or self-importance. It was only when she came up against those who would not treat her with the respect her knowledge of law warranted that she was forced to remind them that she held the second highest degree it was possible to obtain from the law schools. If they had no respect for that, then she reminded them that she was the daughter of a king and the sister of a king. It was so easy to be overwhelmed by the dictates of others that she was determined to repulse anything that she saw as an infringement of her independence. Was that being overbearing and haughty, as Eadulf pointed out?
    Fidelma sighed deeply. She was aware that she was trying to justify her faults and that made her more irritable. At the same time, she tried to examine her feelings for Eadulf. He was only the second man she had allowed into her life. The first had been a young warrior called Cian who had awakened her sensuality as a girl and then brutally discarded her for another. She had barely been eighteen years old when she had met the handsome warrior of the High King’s bodyguard, the Fianna. Cian’s pursuit of her had been frivolous and her life had become a turmoil of conflicting emotions. The memory of Cian had haunted her until she had met him again on a pilgrim ship and events had caused her to realise the folly of the bitter-sweet intensity of her youthful affair.
    And Eadulf ? Eadulf was very different to Cian. When she had first met him at the great synod held by King Oswy at Streoneshalh, she had not liked him but, by the end of the council, she reluctantly felt that he had become a friend. It had taken a long while before she had come to accept that friendship could become the basis of a partnership in marriage. Even then she had been cautious, first agreeing to a trial marriage of a year and a day, as was the custom of her people – to
become his ben charrthach under the law of the Cáin Lánamnus, and see if things worked out. She respected Eadulf’s intelligence; after all, he had once undertaken her legal defence when she was accused of murder and he had shown her to be innocent. She trusted him. They had been through much together. It hurt her when he did not realise just how much the profession of the law meant to her and out of this hurt she had been bitter in her attack on his proposal that they should remove from Cashel and join a community solely devoted to religious pursuits.
    She stirred again and sighed.
    And there was their son, little Alchú. She suddenly felt guilt as she recalled her emotions following his birth more than three years ago. They had bordered on the resentful. Initially she had felt confined by the presence of the child and a responsibility she did not want. When she was called to investigate a