I couldn’t eat and didn’t dare sleep, for fear that what I had seen would return in my dreams. So I spent most of that same night sitting with my grandmother in her hut, talking about what had happened and what I should do next. She agreed that Finian was a prime suspect in all four murders, but that we had no proof of his guilt. We talked about asking the king to arrest him immediately, but we knew this would be a gross violation of Irish law. It was a fundamental principle of the legal traditions of our people that no man or woman could be deprived of their freedom without evidence, preferably in the form of sworn testimony from a person of high status. I heard early the next morning that Sister Anna had sent one of the guards to the king during the night to report on the latest killing. The man was back by dawn with ten more warriors and orders from the king to bring the remaining nuns back to the monastery whether they wanted to come or not. I decided to go to my cousin Riona immediately in hope of avoiding a scene between her and the king’s men.
