Lord of the Isle (17 page)

And to Morgana’s embarrassment, she realized how easily she could have ridden into another deadly trap. She turned to look at Luke Tanner with some respect. He wasn’t the fool she’d first thought, when she spied him trysting up in the barn’s loft. That, too, had probably been a ruse.

“Now, then, lass.” His grin turned wolfish. “Which one of these fine lads do you intend ta claim is your lost brother, Sean?”

Morgana turned around to discover that the boys had lined up with regimental precision, from the oldest down to the youngest. Every young face mirrored Luke Tanner’s wolfish grin. The smallest could be no more than six years of age, the biggest were as tall as she, and they might have been any age from fourteen years to twenty.

The bottom of the row had only one redhead in it. So did the top. But in the middle range, where the ten-year-olds surely had to be, every boy sported hair the color of a winter fire, as red as Morgana’s own. She blinked, surprised.

Luke Tanner laughed. “Stumped, are ya, then, lass?”

“Yes,” Morgana agreed reluctantly. “Finding a specific boy by only the color of his hair would be like looking for a needle in a haystack in this mob.”

She crossed the short distance to the line, smiling at the boys’ proud postures and grins. The young ones looked healthy and well fed. She had to give Tanner credit for putting on a good show—not that she had time now for theatrics. She nodded to each boy as she walked up the long line, then came to a stop in front of the smallest redhead in the lot.

A pair of solemn pale eyes looked back at her without so much as a blink from underneath a shock of brilliant red elflocks that hadn’t seen a trim in months. The small boy’s neck was very thin, and he stuck out by the fact that his large head seemed too big for what clearly was a frail body beneath his woolen tunic.

He was much too young and small to be Morgana’s ten-year-old brother, Sean. Still, his solemn, freckled face brought her to a dead halt in her progression up the line. Morgana dropped to one knee, grasping the boy’s shoulders, her eyes moving over his face and down his body to his toes. Her heart slammed to a stop inside her chest.

Lucas Tanner just barely caught the lady’s whisper: “Sweet Saint Brigit, Maurice, is it you?”

The boy cast a fearful look up to Tanner’s grave face. All trace of his affable smile was gone. Tanner nodded once, a silent signal that released the boy from his previous orders. Maurice Fitzgerald threw his arms around his sister’s neck, crying, “I thought you’d never come, Morgana! Me and Sean gave up!”

The line broke as Sean Fitzgerald bolted out of his place in the ranks and ran to his sister to embrace her as hungrily as Maurice did. Both boys swamped Morgana with their arms, hugging her for all they were worth.

“Well, now, will ya look at that?” Luke Tanner drew a handkerchief up from a pocket and blew his nose, moved by the loving reunion playing out before his eyes. “Come now, come now, get out of the sun, all of ye. What have I told you lot? You never know who watches who in the hills.”

Dazed and overwhelmed by emotion, Morgana was led inside the cottage by her brothers. Her head was spinning dizzily. Her heart was pumping hard. She kept Sean and Maurice at her sides. Their arms remained tight around her waist. In the cool darkness of the cottage kitchen, they found a bench and sat. Her head throbbed from the survey of faces she loved so much, but had almost forgotten in their long separation.

“You’ve grown so much I’d have never recognized you,” Morgana told Sean as she ruffled his sun-glazed red curls. “But I’d have known Maurice anywhere.”

She hugged the youngest to her heart, rubbing her cheek against the top of his small head. “How? How did you get here? I was told you were dead, and shown your grave.”

“I was bad sick,” Maurice said solemnly.

“Aye,” Sean added. “They gave him the last rites, Morgana. Tanner and me decided it was best to let the word out Maurice had been killed.”

Morgana shook her head. “And I believed it. Do you know what a start you have given my heart?”

Maurice put the blame for the lies Morgana had been told on his older brother’s head. “’Twas Sean’s idea.”

“And it makes good sense,” Sean declared righteously. “That way, if something happened to me, Maurice would be there to carry on Father’s name.”

“So it would,” Morgana had to admit. She looked up at Luke Tanner, further respect for the grizzled old man shining in her eyes. “I don’t know how you did it, Tanner, but I thank you from the bottom of my heart.”

“Humph,” he grunted. “No thanks necessary, lady. I fulfilled my deathbed oath to O’Malley. A man’s to be judged by the bond of his word, that’s all. Now, you boys get. You’ve chores to do before supper, and we grown-ups have need for words. All of you, scat!”

He ordered every lad out of the cottage’s huge kitchen with a wave of his hand, including Sean and Maurice. Morgana let her brothers go reluctantly. Luke Tanner was correct. It was time the adults had a talk.

After the bright, sunny day, Morgana’s eyes refused to adjust to the kitchen’s cavernous shadows. Overhead, a deep loft intensified the strong contrast by allowing a direct ray of brilliant sunlight in through two unshuttered windows.

She couldn’t see into the loft, except to pick out bunches of herbs that hung from the rafters to dry. The kitchen smelled of musty, damp thatch, coriander, garlic and thyme. The stone floor was dry underfoot.

A goodly fire blazed on the floor of a wide hearth. Huge, blackened iron pots hung from swinging iron hooks over the fire. It was a simple room. Utensils hung from crowded racks suspended from the joists supporting the loft.

Tanner invited Morgana to his table. They joined a white-bearded old man already seated at a bench there. He held a crust of bread in one of his thin-skinned blue-veined hands. His most curious feature was his clothes. He wore a linen tunic bearing the red cross of a crusader knight. Under that, Morgana saw an ancient coat of chain mail. The blackthorn walking staff of a pilgrim lay across his lap.

His great age not withstanding, he stared at Morgana with intensely alert eyes. Spellbinding eyes that made her feel as though they penetrated her skin, to seek out her soul. The longer he stared at her, the less aware of the busy workers in the kitchen Morgana was.

“Do I know you, sir?” Morgana asked quietly.

“Somewhat.” His noble head inclined in acknowledgment of her greeting. “I am Almoy, the preceptor of the temple of Ireland.”

“Oh?” Morgana said, surprised. “Then I do know of you. We have corresponded in the past.”

Before she fled Dublin, Morgana had carried out the terms of her father’s final letter. The vast library of the Fitzgeralds was to be consigned to Sir Almoy of Dunrath Temple. Morgana’s last contact with Grace O’Malley had been on board the
Avenger,
where every document and history had been carefully packed away, stowed for the journey around Ireland. “Why are you here, sir?”

He nodded gravely. “I am here at Carrew Cottage to bring you a warning.”

“Warning?” Morgana frowned. “What sort of warning?”

“The deed you carry that is signed by your father, bequeathing Gerait Mor and Gerait Og’s library to the priory, must be destroyed. There must be no record found of what became of that library, least it fall into the hands of Lord Grey.”

“Well, that’s easy enough to do,” Morgana replied. “It can be burned the moment I hand it to you, if you can prove you are Sir Almoy to me.”

“I do not have to prove anything to you, lady,” Sir Almoy declared. The young woman’s temerity in challenging his identity rankled him. “I cannot touch the document. Were I to do so, I could not destroy it. Tanner will agree to do that, do you give it to him. In the scheme of things, it will be better if you do not know specifically what happens to the document.”

“This is very strange. I cannot destroy such an important document on an old man’s whim. It goes against my father’s instructions to me.”

“Cantankerous whelp!” Sir Almoy sputtered. “My instructions supersede your father’s.”

The Templar raised his right hand in a gesture Morgana recognized—thumb, index finger and little finger raised in a powerful hex. Knowledge of what he was struck her. He was a wizard. As powerful as her grandfather! She ducked reflexively, as though he were about stone her.

“Do not dare me to cast troubles on your head, daughter of Fitzgerald,” Almoy told her solemnly. “You have troubles enough facing you.”

“Yes, I do.” Morgana took a tankard of ale in hand and calmly sipped its contents. She told herself she wasn’t rattled by old men gone far beyond their prime. This man across the table from her looked frail enough to be blown away by her breath. But powerless he wasn’t!

God help her, she didn’t want his hand raised against her. She tilted her chin proudly and challenged him. “Give me sufficient reason to destroy the deed, and I may do as you say.”

She was really asking for sufficient proof that he was Almoy of the Knights Templar, and Almoy knew it. He dropped his hand to the trestle. Morgana gasped as that same hand appeared to sink in and out of the wood. He studied her reaction somberly. “You do not frighten easily.”

“That depends,” Morgana admitted. “What is it you want of me? The library is yours to do with as you like. I am
a messenger, naught else. As the deed belongs with the collection, proving your ownership of the whole, what is your point?”

It was instantly obvious that the old man didn’t like the question. Prepared to wait him out, Morgana brought the cup to her mouth and drank deeply.

Almoy chose his moment to speak well. “You must bring the O’Neill to Dunrath Temple.”

Morgana choked on the strong ale. She set the tankard down with a snap, sputtering, wiping spilled ale from her bodice.

“What are you talking about?” she said, unable to hide the shock of his demand from her face. There was something most peculiar about the way Almoy stared at her. He couldn’t possibly be reading her thoughts. She looked at Luke Tanner and found his face about as confused as her thoughts. “What’s this about? There is no O’Neill, Sir Almoy.”

Almoy interrupted with soothing words that had the effect of settling Morgana back on the bench opposite him. “You have a destiny to fulfill, beyond the security of your family name. A child is involved, and only Hugh O’Neill has the power to bring that child into the orbit of my teachings. Hence, you, Lady Fitzgerald, must bring me the O’Neill.”

Morgana wanted to say that she had enough trouble on her hands worrying about the safety of her brothers. She didn’t need the added burden of Hugh O’Neill and some unnamed child.

“None of this makes sense,” she argued.

“Neither does the Holy Trinity make sense in your woman’s head. Some things you must leave to faith. In good time, you will see and understand the purpose of my request. I speak of things that come to pass in the distant future. Bring me the O’Neill. That is all I have to say. Good day, milady.”

Sir Almoy rose to his feet, passed his blackthorn staff before Luke Tanner’s blank face and murmured, “You will forget my visit, sir.”

Almoy shuffled slowly to the door of Carrew Cottage. He left unanswered questions in Morgana’s head. How did he know that she knew Hugh O’Neill? A shiver flashed up Morgana’s spine as she, too, got to her feet.

Luke Tanner put a hand to Morgana’s elbow to steady her. “Are you leaving so soon, Lady O’Malley?”

“I fear I must,” Morgana replied, turning her thoughts to the business at hand. “I trust you have horses, Captain Tanner. Daylight is wasting.”

“Aye. The lads should have the boys’ ponies saddled. Mind Maurice’s cough. He’s not as strong as Sean.”

T
he sense of urgency that had propelled Morgana throughout her journey north returned the moment she crossed the threshold and saw how far the sun had shifted in the balmy afternoon sky. Spring days were not all that long. She did not want to be on the road after dark, traveling alone with two young boys.

She realized she couldn’t protect Sean and Maurice’s lives all by herself. She must ride back to the woodlot where she’d left Hugh O’Neill and his kerns. They would be rested now. They would also be available to protect her brothers.

She came to that final decision while standing on open ground between the cottage and the barn. She turned a full circle, searching for Sir Almoy. He had vanished from sight, which was very odd, because he’d stepped out the door of Carrew Cottage only a moment before she had. “Where did Sir Almoy go?”

“Beg pardon, milady?” Luke Tanner asked. His face was as blank as a chalk slate.

“The old man.” Morgana shaded her eyes with one hand, searching the road winding downhill to the village. She turned to look at the paths that wound into the beech and pine trees topping the rise.

A host of young lads bustled about, attending to their chores. But no ancient knight walked the fields or shambled between the hedgerows.

“Where did he go?”

“Where did who go?” Luke Tanner asked with beetling black brows. “Lady O’Malley, I am the only man in this vicinity. Who are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about the man who was just in your kitchen, that’s who I’m talking about.” Morgana said exasperated.

“There was no one in my kitchen save old Mab, who cooks for the lot of us,” Tanner answered. “She gave you ale and kept her mouth shut while we discussed the boys. Lady, are you certain you are in fettle enough to finish this journey? You may tarry here the night, and ride out in the morning.”

Morgana snapped her mouth shut, her brows lowered in concern. She was not given to imagining things. All the same, she pinched her arm, making doubly certain she was awake and not dreaming this strange encounter. As slowly as the old man had walked, proving his great age, she knew he had to be somewhere in plain sight.

He was too gaunt and too old to stoop to hide behind a hedgerow, which was silly anyhow, because there wasn’t a hedgerow situated on the downhill slope that couldn’t be seen perfectly from where she was standing at this exact moment.

“Tell me I am imagining seeing an old man in a Templar’s tunic and chain mail, then,” she quipped lightly.

Thoroughly confused, Luke Tanner laughed. “Lady O’Malley, there are no living Templars. The last died seventy years ago, at Stranhurst Temple in Tir-Connail.”

A cool wind sent a chill across Morgana’s neck. She turned to the barn. A tall lad came forth, leading Ariel and two ponies. Maurice and Sean came running after saying goodbye to their friends.

“Seventy years ago?” Morgana repeated. “Is that so?”

“Aye,” Luke Tanner said emphatically. “Don’t know why you should ask about that. Here are the boys, ready to go, as I promised ya.”

Tanner bent to pick up young Maurice and carry him to the ready horses.

“I’m going to miss ya, sprout,” he said affectionately. “Ya won’t be forgetting everything I’ve taught you, will you?”

“Och, no.” Maurice threw his arms around the huge man’s neck, hugging him in return. “You’ve been a right nice bear of a man, Captain Tanner. Haps I’ll come back and visit you when you’re ready to put to sea again.”

“Won’t be doing that until this crew is trained properly.” Luke Tanner pinched Maurice’s nose playfully. “That’s some time in the future, I vow. Still, you know how to find me, correct?”

“Aye, aye, Cap’n.” Maurice saluted as he sat on his saddle. “A whistle over the bounding main.”

“And you, too, Sean.” Luke turned to make his farewells to Sean. The boy put out his hand and grasped Tanner’s meaty palm firmly.

“A thousand and one thanks to you, sir. We stand in your debt forever.”

“Och, don’t go maudlin on me, boyo. Mind the lady, and keep a good watch on Maurice. He’s not as strong as he looks.”

“I’ll take my most excellent care of both, Captain,” Sean said proudly. “And I’ll speak to the powers that be regarding your pardon.”

Tanner chuckled, clapping Sean on his back fondly. Then he turned to boost Morgana onto Ariel. He found that the lady had opened a saddlebag and removed a dark cloth from it. She unrolled it partway, then paused and looked at Tanner with eyes full of gratitude.

“I can’t repay you for your loyal service adequately, Captain Tanner, but I can give you this.”

“You owe me nothing, lady.” Luke Tanner shunned any reward. “O’Malley gave me payment enough a long time ago. He was a good man for the sea.”

“Take this anyway. It was Greg’s. He’d want you to have it as a token of his appreciation.” Morgana shoved a jeweled brooch into his hand, covered by several folds of crackling parchment, the deed to her father’s library. She took a deep breath, as if she might be plunging headlong into deep and unknown waters. “You’ll know what to do with it, I believe.”

Tanner unfolded the crackling parchment and saw the gold brooch lying inside it. His eyes were glistening with tears when he looked up at Morgana again. “Damn my foolish eyes, but I recognize the crest, lady. ’Twas Greg’s favorite brooch. I’ll cherish it always. Keep the paper, though. I’ve no use for it. I send the boys down to the abbey for their lessons with the friars. Me, I can’t read a word. Never could and never will. I’m too old to learn at my age.”

“Then do what you like with it, as well,” Morgana answered confidently.

If Tanner had no conscious recollection of the ancient man’s words, he’d likely follow every suggestion the wizard had planted in his head. Just as Morgana was going to do. Powerful magic such as Almoy possessed wouldn’t go unheeded. Tanner boosted her up onto Ariel, then stood back to watch them go. A phalanx of lads escorted them to the gates and waved them goodbye.

Outside the gates, Morgana turned back to look at the cottage and the strange crew that inhabited it. Tanner waved an enthusiastic goodbye. Morgana had a momentary vision of him lighting a candle with twists of torn parchment.

That image made her smile.

“So.” She turned to her brothers, saying, “Tell me all that has happened to the both of you. I want to know each and every adventure that you have had in the past year and a half.”

Hugh O’Neill was not a happy man. Loghran O’Toole knew there was not a thing he could do to improve Hugh’s sour mood. So Loghran chose to give Hugh something else
to do in the face of a woman’s deceit. Loghran galloped uphill to the promontory overlooking both the Maghera and Kilrea glens. Hugh stood there, scouring the countryside with his spyglass. His expression darkened with unreleased temper.

Loghran drew in his reins and dismounted, saying, “She didn’t go south, O’Neill.”

“Aye, damn your sleepy head, O’Toole.” Hugh snapped closed his spyglass and swiveled on his heel to glare at O’Toole. “Some fine gillie you turn out to be, protecting me and mine with your life, you do.”

“My lord…” Loghran began.

“Don’t grovel, damn it. She didn’t go west. She didn’t go south. She didn’t go north. Yonder she comes with Rory and Brian from the east. Now what did I tell you when we woke up? East, I said. East to Landsdowne Abbey! Would you listen to my laudable reasoning? No! So I’ve stood here wearing this hill to a nub. I’ve paced, while all my fine kerns travel yonder and back, bringing me empty hands and foolish reports. You’re an old worrying ass, O’Toole, admit it.”

“My lord,” Loghran sputtered. “I was thinking of your safety. It was imperative that you remain here, waiting. There’s an English fort, unchallenged, east of Ballymena. You know perfectly well that Kelly must have headed there, since we didn’t find him south of the Abhainn Mor.”

Hugh raised a silencing hand. “Don’t say it!”

Loghran said it anyway. “I couldn’t let you go there.”

“Augh!” Hugh shouted, pushed beyond his patience by Loghran’s misplaced sense of loyalty, which made him treat Hugh as though he were an unweaned boy. “When are you going to get it in your head that you don’t
let me
do anything? I’ve had all of your mothering I can stand, man!”

“Oh? So it’s mothering that I do, is it?” O’Toole snapped. A delicious grin lighted his face, because Hugh had taken the bait. He dropped his hands to his sword belt and unfastened it and cast it to the earth. He put up his fists in a defensive stance. “I’ll show you what mothering is,
then, whelp. You’ve gone daft over a skirt, you have, you fool.”

Provoked past any point of reason, Hugh threw his own sword to the ground. “Think you can take me down, old man?”

“I do! I’ll mop what’s left of this worn-down hill with you, lad.”

Hugh didn’t bother answering. He acted.

Launching his whole body at his mentor, he wrestled Loghran to the ground. The time had come to prove who was the boss between them once and for all.

They scuffled for a good while. Not even the sound of numerous horses’ tramping hooves disturbed the wrestling match on the top of the hill. Shouts began to add spice to their grunting and huffing wrestling match.

Rory O’Neill cleared his throat loudly. “Milord Hugh, there’s a lady and children present.”

“Hold yer damned tongue behind yer teeth!” Hugh grunted ferociously. “I’m not stopping till I’ve pinned this miserable Viking get’s ears to the bloody earth!”

Hugh’s kerns took up sides, cheering their favorites. Hugh and Loghran rolled over and over in the dirt. Whoever wound up on top tried to pin the other, and failed miserably. Morgana scowled darkly at the two men wrestling like bad boys in a village square.

One minute Hugh was winning. The next it was Loghran O’Toole who’d gained the upper hand. Sean jumped down instantly and got involved in the fracas, calling encouragement to whoever was on top.

Only Art Macmurrough made any remark about Morgana’s sudden reappearance in the fold. He cut her a chilly yet fatherly glance and said, “You’ll be answering to himself for running off like that.”

That spoken, Macmurrough jumped into the circle around the fighters. He shouted, “Pin his ears back, O’Toole. Teach the whelp to respect his elders!”

“That will be the day!” Donald the Fair called out as he offered a hand to Morgana to help her dismount. “Mind you, you’ll be wishing you hadn’t started this, come time to mount up and ride again, lady.”

Ignoring the handsome kern, Morgana stomped to an opening in the circle around the fighters. On her way, she snatched up a good-size stick from the ground. She watched the fierce struggle for a moment or two before deciding this was a pointless show that certainly wasn’t fit exercise for her young brothers to watch.

O’Toole grunted as he flipped Hugh onto his back, pinning his shoulders in the dirt as he roared, “Tell me when you’ve had enough, boy!”

Morgana lifted her stout stick. Kermit Blackbeard saw her do that, and lunged for her. He wrapped a brawny arm around Morgana’s arms, trapping her stick in midair. “Ah, ah, ah…No, ya don’t, milady.”

“Unhand me, you miserable cur. I intend to stop this nonsense immediately.”

“Nonsense it isn’t!” Blackbeard roundly argued. His arm tightened, and he wrenched the stick from Morgana’s hand and tossed it far down the hill. “Next to me, O’Toole’s the strongest man in Ulster. Hugh beats him fair and square, or he doesn’t. No interference from you.”

“One of them is going to be hurt!” Morgana shouted in the kern’s face.

His black beard split wide open in a brilliant grin. “Aye, so one will. But one of them is going to win. My bet is it’s going to be O’Toole. You’re not changing the outcome, you aren’t.”

“Let my sister go, you beast!” Maurice shouted, launching an attack Morgana hadn’t expected.

Stung by the delivery of a hard shoe to his shin, Kermit looked down and spied a small red-haired boy flailing at him. His laughter roared in Morgana’s ear as he caught Maurice up in his other arm and stood holding the two of them helpless prisoners in his fast grip.

As Maurice let the whole world know his opinion of that, the fight ended. Hugh held O’Toole’s shoulders pinned to the earth while the kerns counted a loud chant to ten in a unified, triumphant voice.

“I’ll be damned,” Kermit Blackbeard said in amazement. “He did it, fair and square.”

Hugh got up, dusting his clothes off and glared at Kermit. “Of course I did it fair and square, ya senseless lout! Let go of my woman!”

He let his fist fly at Kermit’s face, pasting him a good one. Then Hugh caught Morgana as she was dropped to her feet when Kermit toppled into the dirt. Maurice had to fend for himself.

“Are you all right?” Hugh demanded, concerned only for Morgana and what ills she might have suffered while she was out of his sight.

Breathless from having all the air squeezed out of her, Morgana stared up at Hugh’s dirty, sweaty face and threw her arms around his head. “You’ve been hurt! Loghran O’Toole, how dare you strike the man you’ve sworn fealty to! I’m tempted to murder you with my bare hands!”

Every kern on the hill roared. Even Kermit Blackbeard laughed as Donald the Fair hauled him from the dirt where he’d landed.

“Who’s this?” Donald wanted to know, pointing to the small boy trapped under Kermit’s leg.

“My brother!” Morgana yelled. “And don’t any of you hurt him! He’s been sick!”

Hugh grinned wolfishly. He turned back to Loghran O’Toole and taunted him. “Hear that, old man? That’s exactly what you sound like, with your womanish plaints assaulting my ears. Have you got it in your head now that I’m capable of defending myself?”

O’Toole ignored that remark as he got to his feet, beaten fair and square. Art Macmurrough shook his head, as though he’d taken the beating instead of O’Toole. Hugh laughed in triumph and returned his attention to Morgana.

Her hands stroked over each lump on his face and fussed with the tears in his doublet and sleeves. Hugh knew he’d never feel more like a king among men than he did at this very moment, with Morgana’s hands comforting him.

“You came back,” he said, amazed by that truth. “I thought I’d lost you for good.”