Prince Oran’s eyes narrowed just a little. If I’d been Brocc I would have been starting to feel uneasy at this point. ‘What exactly stands to reason, Brocc?’

‘Bound to be slip-ups, errors, things going wrong. Too much for a woman, keeping up a big place like that.’

‘That is opinion, not fact,’ said the prince, ‘and irrelevant to the matter in hand, though I know Niall thinks highly of Cliona’s breeding stock; we’ve acquired some of her young ewes for our home farm, I believe.’ He glanced over at a tall man clad in the household colours, and the man gave a nod and a half-smile. ‘Brocc, unfortunate as your losses are, without further evidence this cannot be proven one way or the other. I assume you are seeking compensation. On the basis of what we know to be fact, there are insufficient grounds for me to rule that Cliona should pay it.’

I agreed with him. But I could see how a failure to resolve this type of petty dispute might lead to unrest in the district, with a continuing series of challenges and counter-challenges setting neighbour against neighbour.

‘May I speak, Prince Oran?’

It was the richly dressed lady with the lap dog. She put the creature down and rose to her feet. Murmurs from the assembled crowd; this was as much of a surprise to them as it was to me.

‘Please do, Lady Sochla.’ The prince looked toward the crowd. ‘My aunt is a renowned breeder of terriers, and something of an expert on canine behaviour.’

‘You say this can’t be proven one way or the other,’ said Lady Sochla. The prince’s aunt; that made her a sister to the king or queen, and went a long way to explaining her authoritative manner. ‘But if the attack took place such a short time ago, and if you have the surviving ewe in your barn, Brocc, I believe it can be. Were the dead ewes butchered for the pot? What became of the skins?’

‘I’ve got the skins, my lady,’ Brocc said. ‘But a bite’s a bite. One big dog’s the same as another. Makes no difference if it’s a wolf or a herding dog.’

‘To you, perhaps not.’ Lady Sochla managed to convey that she thought him something of a fool. ‘Show me the skins, show me the injured ewe, and show me this lady’s farm dogs, and I’ll tell you if they did it. I can’t help you any further if they didn’t; I’m not planning to examine the teeth of every dog in the district and then start on the wolves.’ A ripple of laughter from the crowd. ‘But if her animals were responsible for the attack, I can confirm it. I’ve done this many times before.’

A short silence. Cliona looked at Brocc; Brocc looked at Cliona.