Sean O'Byrne's face remained very calm. That was his way. But he wasn't pleased. A damp March breeze ruffled his hair. He glanced up at the pale blue sky, then stared at their accusing faces: how superior they thought themselves.

As it happened, the accusation was true. He'd slept with the girl. But they couldn't possibly know. That was what annoyed him. They were accusing him on the basis of suspicion and of his reputation. And as far as he was concerned, that made it unfair. In fact, it was intolerable. In the curious mind of Sean O'Byrne, that made them more at fault than he was.

Not that he could really blame his wife. God knows, he'd given her enough to complain about, down the years. And he probably shouldn't resent the friar, since the friar was a good and holy man who, so far at least, hadn't said a word. The priest, however, was another matter. In a little place like this, people needed to stick together.

Sean O'Byrne never forgot that he was of princely blood. Four generations ago his forebear, the younger son of the chief of the O'Byrnes, had been given some desirable lands on the eastern side of the Wicklow Mountains. Much of that inheritance had gone by now; the portion which remained was called Rathconan; and Sean, who was known as O'Byrne of Rathconan, loved it.

He loved the small, square stone tower-four storeys high, one room per floor-that had once been the fortified centre of his family's local rule and was now, in truth, no more than a modest farm. He loved the tufts of grass that grew everywhere from its crumbling masonry. He loved to look out from its roof at the great, green sweep down towards the coast. He loved the gaggle of farm buildings where his untidy children were playing at this moment, and the tiny stone chapel where Father Donal administered the sacraments. He loved his few fields, the little orchard, the pasture where he kept the cattle, which were his main occupation, in winter; and above all, he loved the open ridges of the hills behind where, in summer, he drove his herds and where he could wander, free as a bird, day after day.

He loved his children. The girls had grown up strong and were turning into beauties. The eldest was dark, her younger sister fair. Both had their mother's blue eyes. He'd already had a few offers for the dark one.

"You'll hardly have to give more than a token dowry to see them well married," a neighbour had said to him recently. He was pleased to hear that and hoped that it was true. His only concern was his eldest son, Seamus. The boy was a good worker, and he knew his cattle. But he was sixteen now and Sean could sense that he was restless. He had the idea that he should give him some responsibility, but he didn't yet know what. His little son Fintan was only five. There was no need to worry about him yet.

Sean also loved his wife. He'd chosen her well.

She was an O'Farrell, from the island's Midlands, out past Kildare. Cattle country. A fine, upstanding, fair-haired woman. He'd wooed her and won her in the old-fashioned way; and treated her in the old-fashioned way ever since. And that was the trouble.

"It is pride that is causing you to behave as you do,"

Father Donal was saying to him now. "The terrible sin of pride."

He was not only a princely O'Byrne; his ancestor who had been given Rathconan had noticed the dark-haired, green-eyed little girl who used to run errands for his father down to the harbour at Dalkey or the fort at Carrickmines. He'd fallen in love and married her. Sean knew that the blood of Walsh of Carrickmines had flowed in her veins, and even the blood of the half-remembered Ui Fergusa of Dublin, too. For as part of her meagre dowry, she had brought into his family an ancient drinking skull with a gold rim-a strange and fearsome memento of that clan's princely past. Was he proud of his descent from all these rulers of the land? Certainly. And did this make him think he had the right to every woman he could find? No, the priest was wrong about that.

It had been greed, when he was younger, that made him chase after women. Simple greed. He knew it very well. Wasn't every woman proof that life was being lived to the full? If he had sometimes gone from one to another, two in a day, he was like a man at the banquet of life, seeing how many of the dishes he could taste. It was greed. And vanity. He had a reputation to keep up. "Sean O'Byrne of Rathconan. Ah, he's a devil with the women."

That's what they all said about him. He was proud of his reputation, and he wasn't going to give it up-not as long as he could still get the women. And then, of course, there was one thing more. Perhaps it came as you grew older, but it seemed to Sean that it had been there from the beginning. Fear of death. Wasn't every woman proof that he was still young, still alive-not wasting a single one of the precious moments of life remaining? Yes, that was it. Live to the full before you die, before it's too late.

As for the girl, she wasn't bad. Brennan's wife. Brennan had been a tenant for five years now, farming a part of Sean O'Byrne's land. His little house-it was hardly more than a hut, really-lay on the other side of a small wood about half a mile away down the slope. Brennan was a reliable sort of man, paid his rents on time, was a good worker. Like many such tenants, he had no security; under Irish law, O'Byrne could turn him out any time he wanted to; but good tenants weren't so easy to find, and Sean had been glad enough to have him, even if he was a dull, ungainly sort of fellow. Strangely enough, Sean had never taken much notice of Brennan's wife until the previous year. He supposed Brennan must have kept her out of sight down in the hut. But then one evening at harvest time, he had noticed her alone in a field and gone to talk to her.

She was a pretty little thing. Broad faced.

Freckled. She smelled of farm, of course, but there was another, subtle scent about her, something in the quality of her skin. By the autumn, that scent, and everything else about her, had become an obsession with him. Before winter began, she was his. But he'd been careful. He'd never had a woman quite so close to home before. He was sure that his wife had never seen them. Whether Brennan had any idea about the affair, he wasn't sure. The girl said he didn't know. If he did, he was certainly giving no sign of it. Afraid of losing his tenancy, probably. As for the girl, she seemed willing enough; he supposed she must be bored with Brennan.

Of course, it might be that she was only keeping him happy because he had power over them, but he preferred not to think of that. She and her husband would be down at their hut now, unaware of the shameful interrogation taking place at the entrance to the tower house.

"It isn't true," he said to his wife, ignoring Father Donal entirely. "There's nothing more to say."

He wondered why his wife should have chosen to attack him now. The Brennan girl was too close to home, he supposed: that would be it. His wife's eyes had a steady, fixed look, as though she'd made up her mind about something. But what? Was there pain concealed in the cold stare of those eyes? He knew very well there was. She was just hiding it. He had no doubt that he would bring her round again, as he always had before; though he supposed he might have to give up the girl. Well, if it came to that, so be it.

"You deny it?" Father Donal cut in.

"Do you seriously mean us to believe that?"

There had been one or two times when his own absences had been unexplained, and when Brennan had come looking for the girl. Once, just once, his wife had seen him with his arm round the girl, but he had explained that away. There was nothing they could prove.

Nothing. So why should the tall, bare-boned priest be giving him the accusing eye in the doorway of his own house?

He'd been good to Father Donal. In a way, they were lucky to have him there. Unlike many of the priests in the smaller parishes, he was a man of some education, something of a poet even. And he had taken proper orders: he was able to administer the sacraments. But also, like many priests in the poorer Irish parishes, he was forced to work for his living as well. From time to time, he would go out with the fishermen at Dalkey, or one of the other harbours in the region, to earn some extra money. "Saint Peter himself was a fisherman," he would growl. And like many priests in the Irish Church, he had a wife and several children. "Down in the English Pale, you couldn't do it," Sean O'Byrne had remarked to him on more than one occasion. "It has always been the custom in the Irish Church," Father Donal had replied with a shrug. And indeed, it was said that the Holy Father himself was aware of the custom and did not choose to make an issue of it. Sean did not know whether a marriage ceremony had ever been performed between the two, and had never asked. All he did know was that he was good to Father Donal's children, gave them little errands to do, and helped to keep them fed.

So it hardly seemed right that the priest should be taking this stern moral tone with him about his own shortcomings now.

"Are you ready to swear to it?" Father Donal's eye was piercing him from under his iron brow. It was disconcerting. And then suddenly Sean thought he understood. Was the priest offering him a way out? Perhaps that was the game. He glanced at his wife, silently watching. He must answer, now, to his watching wife.

"I am indeed," he said without a blush. "I swear it on the Blessed Virgin."

"Your husband has sworn," the priest declared to Eva O'Byrne. "Will that satisfy you?"

But she had turned her face away.

She couldn't look at him. Not just then. It was too painful.

Sometimes, when she looked back, Eva blamed the trial marriage for the problems in her life. It was not uncommon, outside the English Pale, for couples to live together for a time before committing to formal marriage. Her father hadn't approved, but Eva had been headstrong in those days; she had gone to live with Sean O'Byrne. And they had been the happiest and most exciting months of her life. If only, she thought, I'd paid more attention to studying his character and less to the joys of our love life. Yet how could she have felt otherwise, when she thought of his splendid, athletic body, and his skilful caresses? Even now, after all these years, his magnificent physique had hardly changed.

She still wanted him. But the years of pain had taken their toll as well.

When had he first started to stray to other women? At the time their first child was born. She knew such things were not uncommon. A man had needs. But she had been terribly hurt at the time. Was it her fault that he had continued to stray ever since? For a while she had supposed that it might be, but as the years went by she had decided that it really wasn't. She had taken good care of her appearance. She was still attractive, and her husband clearly found her so. Their married life together was entirely satisfactory: she supposed she should thank God for that. And above all, she had been a good wife. The land they had left at Rathconan was only just enough to keep them. The chief of the O'Byrnes might be their kinsman, but like most of the Irish local rulers, he exacted heavy payments for his rule and protection, just as he, in turn, had to pay heavy taxes to the Earl of Kildare. The system might be English in name, but for all practical purposes, Kildare's rule over the O'Byrnes was that of a traditional Irish king. It was she, as much as her straying husband, who made sure these obligations could always be fulfilled each year; she who made sure the harvest was brought in when he was wandering, often as not, with the cattle on the ridges above; she who kept an eye on the Brennans and the other dependents of the place. That was why it particularly angered her that he should have started a relationship with the Brennan woman.

"How can you be so stupid?" she had stormed. "You have a good tenant, so you go and play the fool with his wife."

But above all, how could he humiliate her like this, practically in her own house? Nearly two decades of marriage, a loving wife, children-didn't that mean anything to him? Had he no respect for her? It wasn't just the woman she objected to so much. It was the lie that hurt. He knew she knew, yet he could lie to her face.

Didn't he even realise the profound contempt for her that he was showing? That was why she had persuaded the priest to make him swear: in the hope that, for once, she could force him to tell the truth. She just wanted to break through to him, to make something change.

She had thought he would hesitate to lie to the priest.

Especially when there happened to be a friar there as well. For whatever his behaviour might be, she knew that her husband had a respect for his religion. She had seen him giving extra money to the travelling friars when he thought she wasn't looking. And she had loved him for that. Like most people, even those who were cynical about the worldly priests, or the sedentary monks, he liked to give alms to the poor friars who preached and tended the sick, and led a simple life.

And he wasn't without reverance, either. Once, when they had gone into the Cathedral of Christ Church to see the Bachall Iosa and the other sacred relics there, she had seen him gaze at them with awe and fear in his eye. Sean O'Byrne might like to give out that he was a bold fellow, but he was still afraid of the sacred relics, like anybody else.

Yet he'd just lied again. He'd sworn a sacred oath as casually as he had seduced the girl. It had probably been a mistake to choose Father Donal for the task, she decided. The priest was too familiar to him. He somehow thought he could lie to Father Donal, and that it did not matter. As for the friar, he was just a bystander who could hardly be involved. And so after this embarrassing scene, she was no better off than she had been before. She knew very well that he was looking at her, even now, with a smile of triumph on his face. It was too painful. She had failed to get anywhere at all.

No wonder she had turned away.

The friar, who had been brought to the house by Father Donal, was on his way to visit a hermit who lived over at Glendalough. Her husband was turning to the friar now, inviting him in. Of course, the good friar should be fed. She took a deep breath and prepared to do her duty. But even in defeat, she secretly vowed that she was not done with Sean O'Byrne yet.

Cecily was just walking through the Dame's Gate that same morning when they seized her. Two men grabbed at her arms; the third marched in front, looking pleased with himself. For a moment when it happened, she had been so taken by surprise that she could only give a little scream. By the time she had understood what they were doing, they were triumphantly marching her up the slope. "You can't arrest me," she protested, "I've done nothing wrong." "We'll see about that," the man in front replied, "at the Tholsel." The ramshackle old town hall with its heavy gables was not a building the Dublin corporation could be very proud of. Every year someone among the aldermen would declare that the place must be refurbished, and everyone would agree; but somehow the funds were never available. "We'll get to it next year," they always said. Nevertheless, as its battered old face gazed sleepily towards Christ Church, the Tholsel had a kind of shabby dignity.

And today, from their confabulations therein, a group of city officials had decided to send out parties of men to sweep the city streets in search of offenders-and useful fines. They were waiting for Cecily in an upper chamber.

Her offence-and it was a minor crime-was that she was wearing a saffron-coloured scarf over her head.

"Your name?"

She gave it. Cecily Baker. A straightforward English name, misleading only to the small extent that, like plenty of other people with English names in Dublin, she had an Irish mother-an O'Casey, as it happened. She was English officially though, resident in Dublin, and therefore not allowed to wear the saffron-coloured scarf that was popular amongst the native Irish.

It wasn't only the long-prohibited Irish dress that the guardians of the law had been looking for that day. In Dublin, as in London and other cities, there were plenty of ancient laws regulating what people could wear. Craftsmen weren't to dress themselves up like aldermen, who were their betters; nuns were forbidden to wear fine furs. It was all part of the business of maintaining social order and morals. Some of these laws were more observed than others, but they were there to be remembered whenever the authorities decided to assert themselves or needed to collect some money. In answer to their questions, she told them that she was unmarried, though betrothed, a seamstress, and that she lived a short distance outside the city's southern gate.

"Can I go now?" she asked. If they wanted to prosecute, they knew where to find her. But to her irritation, they still wouldn't let her go.

Someone had to come and answer for her, they insisted. So she gave them the name of the young man she was to marry: Henry Tidy, the glover. And they sent a man off to fetch him. Then they told her she could sit on a wooden bench while she waited.

Cecily Baker was a serious young woman. She had a round face, red cheeks, a pointed nose, and a sweet smile. She was a very nice young woman.

She also had some very strong opinions.

It was Cecilys opinion that Holy Church was sacred; others might criticise the shortcomings of some of the religious orders, but it was the faith that was important, and the faith should be firmly defended.

Those people in other countries-she had heard of Luther and the so-called Protestant reformers on the Continent- who wanted to upset the order sanctified by the centuries were wreckers and criminals as far as she was concerned; and if sound Catholic monarchs like King Henry VIII of England wanted to burn them, she had no objection. She thought it was probably for the best. She went to mass regularly, and confessed her sins to her priest; and when once he forgot how many Ave Marias he had given her as a penance for a small offence the previous month and allotted her too few the next time, she gently but firmly reminded him of his mistake. She also had very clear ideas about what a young couple, like herself and Tidy, once they were betrothed and soon to be married, should do together. And these ideas were physical and unrestrained-so much so that young Tidy had been quite startled. The fact that these sins of the flesh should then be confessed to her priest was, as far as she was concerned, a very proper part of the process.

And perhaps it was the confidence of knowing she'd fulfilled all her religious obligations that gave Cecily an equal conviction that the secular authorities had no right to impose on her unjustly. She knew perfectly well that her arrest-just for wearing an old scarf of her mothers-was an absurdity. She knew about the rule, but she could see that the men at the Tholsel were simply trying to collect a few fines. She wasn't impressed, and she certainly wasn't afraid. But she did wish that Henry Tidy would turn up. After a while, she began to feel quite lonely, sitting on the hard bench.

She had to wait nearly an hour. When he finally appeared, he wasn't alone. And he was looking worried.

She rose to greet him. The young man she loved. She smiled. She took a step towards him, expecting at least a kiss. But to her surprise, he made no move towards her at all. He stood where he was, his face strained, and his blue eyes gazing at her reproachfully.

"You gave my name."

Of course she had. Weren't they getting married?

Wasn't he supposed to protect her?

"They said they needed someone to answer for me."

"I brought MacGowan."

"So I see." She nodded politely to the merchant. Why did he make her feel uncomfortable? Was it his searching eye? Or was it just the fact that he had the reputation of being clever, and she could never make out what he was thinking? Yet she knew that many people trusted MacGowan and went to him for advice.

"He has the freedom," Tidy explained.

Having the freedom of the city was an important matter of status in Dublin. Being a freeman of the city entitled you to vote for the city council, to trade freely without paying tolls, and even to trade with merchants from overseas. Henry Tidy, ready to set up on his own as a master craftsman, was due to be considered for the freedom quite soon; a committee of aldermen would decide whether it was granted or not. The fact that he had brought a freeman of the city with him now showed that, in his mind at least, this foolish arrest was a serious matter.

MacGowan had already moved over to talk to the men who were sitting comfortably behind a trestle table. They seemed to treat him with more respect than they had used towards her. She heard them murmuring.

Meanwhile, Henry Tidy wasn't being very nice.

He was gazing at her as if there was something about the business that he couldn't believe.

"How could you do it, Cecily? You know the law." Of course she knew the law. But the arrest was absurd.

Couldn't he see that? "You know the law, Cecily." He'd said it again. His attitude was starting to hurt her. Did he have to be so timid?

The men at the table had finished their conversation. She saw MacGowan nod. A moment later he came across and told her that she could leave. But when Tidy glanced at him questionably, MacGowan shook his head; and as soon as they were outside, he announced, "They won't drop it."

"What shall we do?" asked Tidy.

"My advice? We should go and see Doyle."

"Doyle." Tidy looked thoughtful. She knew that he had known the alderman slightly for many years, because he had told her about the fact with some pride.

She also knew that Henry was in some awe of him. He turned to her. "I suppose," he said doubtfully, "that you'd better come, too."

She stared at him. That was all he had to say? Still not a word of sympathy? Did he really think this was all her fault?

His shoulders stooped forward slightly. She had never noticed it much before, except to think that it made him look determined. A sign of strength. Now she suddenly wondered: did it make him look like a hunchback? His little, pointed yellow beard jutted forward. It irritated her, though she couldn't exactly say why.

"There's no need," she said abruptly. "I'm going home." She turned and started to walk away.

And he didn't even try to stop her.

The alderman's house was close by. Doyle was out, but his wife was at home. So MacGowan left Tidy with her while he went to find the alderman.

Sitting in the alderman's big house in the company of his attractive, Spanish-looking wife, Henry Tidy felt a little awkward at first. He had known Dame Doyle, as he respectfully referred to her, ever since he was an apprentice, and secretly he had always admired her; but he had never kept company in her house like this before. She was in her parlour, sitting quietly at her spinning wheel with one of her daughters; they did not talk much, but from time to time she would ask him a question, to which he would shyly reply. After a while, she sent her daughter out on an errand, so that he was alone with her.

Then she gave him a kindly smile.

"You're worried, aren't you?"

It didn't take long for him to confide in her. The trouble wasn't just the arrest, he explained; he knew Cecily had been roughly treated, and he wanted to defend her. But it wasn't as simple as that. Word travelled fast in Dublin. He knew what people would be saying: "Young Tidy's got himself a foolish girl. A troublemaker." Didn't Dame Doyle feel Cecily should have thought about that? He didn't want to be angry, but shouldn't Cecily have shown him more consideration? It worried him also that she hadn't displayed much wisdom. During all this complaint, Joan Doyle watched him carefully.

"You're betrothed, aren't you?" she asked. He nodded. "And you're having doubts? It's not unusual, you know."

"It's not that," he confessed. "But you see," he went on awkwardly, "I'm up for the franchise soon."

And now Dame Doyle understood entirely.

"Oh dear," she said. "That is a problem."

In Dublin, as in most cities, there were several ways to become a freeman of the city. One was through guild membership; the other, just as frequently used, was by a direct grant from the city fathers. What made Dublin unusual, however, was the role it allowed to women. Perhaps it reflected the traditionally high status of women on the island, but they certainly had more opportunity in Dublin than they had in any English city. Not only did a widow take over her husband's freedom if he died; women in Dublin, married or single, could be granted the freedom in their own right. More remarkable still, a man who married a woman who had the freedom was then given it as well. Doyle had already promised his wife that he would obtain the freedom for each of their daughters. In addition to the dowries he could afford, this would make them highly desirable brides.

But if a man's widow would succeed him in the freedom of the city, then it seemed to Tidy that the city fathers might reasonably consider what sort of woman a man was marrying when that man was applying for the franchise. And judging by today's performance, he wasn't too sure what they'd think of Cecily.

Indeed, he could hardly blame them if they thought she was unsuitable. What could have possessed her to behave like that?

"I'm wondering if I should be marrying her," he confessed miserably, "after what she did to me today."

"I'm sure she didn't mean to hurt you," the alderman's kindly wife assured him. She observed him carefully. "Do you love her?"

"Yes. Oh yes." He did.

"Good." She smiled. "Ah," she cried, "here comes my husband."

The alderman entered briskly, kissed his wife, and gave Tidy a friendly nod.

"You're not to worry about this stupid business," he said to the glover firmly. "MacGowan's told me what they did. I can get the charges dropped, though she'll be given a warning, of course.

She must expect that." He looked at Tidy a little more severely now. "If you have influence over this young woman, you should persuade her to be more careful in future." The alderman's dark hair was grey at the temples nowadays. It added to his authority.

The interview now being over, as far as Doyle was concerned, he smiled pleasantly to indicate that Tidy was free to leave.