The folkmoot was well attended by Lord Hugh’s tenants, for it promised good entertainment as well as justice. There was the time one cottager’s pigs had strayed onto a plot of grass reserved by his neighbor for a future planting of pumpkin and squash. Made a right mess of it, they had, and if Ned Thatcher couldn’t keep his pigs in, then they should be taken off him and turned into sausages, and he, One-Eyed Bill, would be the first to do it, the moment Ned let them get out again. Had a nice sharp knife ready, he did. Ned chipped in at this point to express a heartfelt wish that Bill would go back to Elvington where he came from, and take his lovely wife and his six children with him. If he didn’t know pigs was pigs and had a mind of their own, he didn’t know much. Besides, all his porkers had eaten was a few wild oats and an old lump of dried-up porridge Bill’s wife had tipped over the wall, slattern that she was.

Red was diplomacy itself. He calmed the two parties with a few well-chosen words about their undoubted talents and expertise in their own fields. He pointed out the advantages of a block of land turned over and fertilized in advance, so all you had to do, when the time was right, was pop in your seeds and wait. He then explained that in return for the use of the land for his pigs until planting time, Ned might expect a few fat pumpkins, a basket or two of turnips and squash later in the season. His wife could make an excellent soup from that, flavored with a ham bone. Of course, the pigs must be off the property by the first warm day of spring. He would send out help to build a stronger wall. All parties retired satisfied.

There were more serious disputes. A fight over a woman, in which one man had received a serious head wound and another a broken arm. A wild brawl after the rapid consumption of a barrel of ale, which left two families shouting abuse whenever they passed. I noted Red’s fairness and also his authority. He could be hard enough, when it was warranted. But not once did I see his decisions challenged. I thought, these people are lucky. This was what my brother Finbar wanted, this was what we needed at Sevenwaters. But my father was caught up in the same bitter feud as Lord Richard. This cause gripped them, body and spirit, and it left no room for anything else. So our cottagers had gone hungry, and their walls had crumbled, and they had feared Lord Colum, not respected him. I wondered how they were faring now. My brothers had begun to take some steps to redress the balance. But my brothers were gone. There was only my father and the lady Oonagh.