Lord of the Isle (25 page)

Morgana opened her eyes and studied the last bolt with care. Suddenly she knew where the best place to put pressure was, and how to wield a knife to do the job necessary. She bit down on her lip as she pushed. Rust drizzled out of the frozen bolt and the iron guard. She pushed harder, putting her shoulders to the task, bracing her legs apart to have the most leverage.

The iron gave way all at once, with her fingers curled around the handle and the blade, shoving the bolt free of its home. It snapped into the iron guard so hard, Gerait Og’s blade flew from Morgana’s hands. The knife spun through the air, twisting and spiraling end over end. It struck hard on a corner of the stone steps at the entrance of the great hall.

The knife shattered, breaking in two. The golden handle skidded to a stop against the bottommost step. The blade kept flying until it was embedded in the wooden base of a standing suit of armor.

Awed, Morgana made a mental leap, recognizing the broken knife as a symbol of her life. That it was broken in two meant the spells were all broken. That knife meant more to her than any possession she owned. It had protected her for the past six years, when she had no one but herself to rely upon. She didn’t need that knife any longer.
She had Hugh O’Neill to protect her.

She turned to the wicket door, and pulled on the handle. It creaked open on rusty hinges. The song of the bodhran ended. It wasn’t Loghran O’Toole hammering on the door for admission. It was Hugh O’Neill.

Hugh stepped back and opened his arms. “I knew you wouldn’t let me down, love.”

Morgana fairly leapt out the wicket into his embrace. “Oh, Hugh,” she said as her arms closed around his shoulders. “I love you.”

Hugh caught her against him, spinning her around, and kissed her. He took two revolutions before he tore his lips from hers to say, “I thought I’d never hear you say that, love of my heart. Now answer me this, while I have witnesses listening. Will you marry me, Morgana of Kildare, or am I going to have to send for the pope himself to coerce you to the altar?”

“I will marry you, Hugh O’Neill.” She threaded her fingers into his hair and bent her head to kiss him again.

“Done!” Hugh shouted in triumph as he hitched her higher in his embrace and twirled her around to the cheers of his kerns.

Loghran O’Toole grunted disgustedly as he sheathed his long sword. He waited impatiently for the cheers to die out and the smooching to end. Hugh clapped him on the back once he’d set Morgana to her feet again.

“Congratulate me, old man,” Hugh commanded.

“Not before the both of you have confessed your sins and said your vows before God. I’ve told you plain and simple, I’ll no’ countenance wickedness and sin, not in you, not in anyone else.”

“What kind of talk is that before my bride?” Hugh bristled up, temper edging his manner.

“Straight talk. I won’t mince my words to you today, any more than I ever minced them in fifteen years in England. Banish me if you dare, O’Neill. I’ll go back to the monastery at Dungannon and live out the rest of my days in peace and tranquillity.”

“The devil you will,” Hugh responded. “You’re sworn to me by a deathbed vow, O’Toole. I won’t release you from it until I lie on my deathbed, hearing you recite the last sacraments over me. I’ll never get into heaven without your help.”

“Without my help, you won’t see the cool side of purgatory. Lady Morgana, welcome to clan O’Neill. Now, can we
go inside? I’m fair starved, and ready to drop in the traces for a cool drink of ale.”

“There’s going to be trouble now. Who opened the wicket?” Cara Mulvaine asked from the wicket door. She blinked her unusual pale gray eyes when Loghran O’Toole turned to face her. Then she gasped a small scream, turned and ran from sight.

“Who the devil is that?” Loghran asked, dumbfounded by the small, dirty girl with the bold mouth.

Hugh exhaled a deep, deep sigh and rubbed his hand over his face. His arm tightened around Morgana’s waist, keeping her body close to his. “Don’t be mad, either of you.”

“About what?” Morgana asked.

“Why?” O’Toole growled with a shift of mood as dangerous and dark as Hugh’s could be. “Don’t tell me that brat is the heiress Queen Elizabeth ordered you to marry when you got home to Ireland.”

H
ugh’s hand made a rather frantic pass across his face and plunged through his hair. “I would not have stated Queen Elizabeth’s orders exactly like that.”

Morgana’s jaw sagged. “Queen Elizabeth commanded you to marry that child?”

“Now, Morgana,” he began lamely, “The queen doesn’t exactly realize the Mulvaine is just eight years old. Really, Elizabeth thinks Cara much older…uh, that is…old enough to be married.”

“But you’re under orders to marry her. You’re not denying that?” Morgana gasped.

“No, well, I can’t. Exactly.” Hugh shot a killing look at Loghran for bringing up this subject at the most inopportune time. He put his hand to Loghran’s shoulder and pushed him to the wicket. “Go on! Go in, damn your black Irish heart!”

He turned his scowl on his hooting kerns. They were doubled over with laughter, slapping their knees and howling at the fix Hugh found himself unable to explain.

“Shut yer faces,” Hugh growled. He followed that order with a promise to do bodily damage if the lot of them didn’t show him the respect he was due.

Morgana was decidedly tight-lipped when she ducked back into Sorely Mac Donnell’s hall via the too-short wicket door. Her step was brisk and determined, guaranteed to take
her away from Hugh O’Neill. She paused only long enough to snatch the handle of her grandfather’s broken knife from the floor.

“I can explain, Morgana.” Hugh caught her elbow and yanked her back when she tried to stalk away. “Give me the chance to wet my throat, then I’ll explain the whole situation to you, away from these laughing louts.”

“I’ll just bet you can explain,” she answered through tight lips. She jammed the broken knife into the pocket of her skirt, wishing it was whole and she could sink the blade into Hugh O’Neill’s heart.

“And I’ll just bet he can’t,” O’Toole interjected unnecessarily.

“That did it.” Hugh swelled like a bull inhaling the dust it scored underfoot before a maddened charge. His hand dropped from Morgana’s elbow, and the sound of steel scraping out of a scabbard cut through the smoke-tainted air inside the hall.

Loghran spun around on his heel, facing Hugh. “Don’t do it, lad, unless you mean to finish it.”

“What is the matter with you two?” Morgana demanded.

She put herself between the two of them. If she’d only had the power to do so, she’d have knocked both their hard heads together. She wanted some sort of explanation. Loghran O’Toole was doing his best to incense Hugh to the point of blind anger.

“Stop it! Stop this right now! I don’t know why either of you is trying to make the other so bloody furious you could kill each other!”

She put her back to Hugh, confronting Loghran. “You! You’re supposed to be a priest. When, dear God, are you going to act like one? Quit goading Hugh. We’ve been to hell and back inside this castle tonight. Look around you. There are men that need sacraments, and words to ease their pain. Go and do something to help.”

Loghran swelled up worse than Hugh had. Morgana saw his fingers twitch at the grip of his sword. She didn’t know what saved her from having her head lopped off on the spot for daring to yell at that barbarian. If he was truly a priest, then she was eligible for canonization!

“Lady, step aside,” Hugh said from behind her, his voice darker and more dangerous than she’d ever heard it. “No woman fights my battles. Be warned, Morgana. I won’t repeat an order—not even to you.”

Morgana turned, very slowly, to face him. Her blackened face showed the shock his words registered deep inside her. “So that’s the way of it, is it, my lord Tyrone? And if I don’t stand aside to let you kill a man that loves you like a son, will you strike me? Cut me down with your sword to get to him?”

She took a deep breath to try and calm the erratic beating of her heart inside her chest. Her lungs hurt. The pounding of her heart dislodged a deep cough. Releasing that didn’t calm her.

“Let me make one thing perfectly clear before I give the ground you demand, my lord O’Neill. You owe me no explanation of your queen’s command. I, too, am subject to her will, an obedient, albeit reluctant, subject of the crown of England. Marry the child you’ve been ordered to wed. Do so with all haste, or put it off, as you see fit. Make no allowances for the inconvenience I may have caused you. I will not swear any vow to you, or place myself under your dominion to become your obedient servant.”

With all the grace and nobility inborn within her, Morgana gripped the edges of her skirt and spread the scorched and filthy fabric as she bowed deeply to the earl of Tyrone. “Good night, O’Neill. I beg your leave to withdraw.”

She didn’t wait for him to give that leave. She turned and ran from the hall.

Hugh slammed his half-drawn sword back into its sheath. “Morgana! Come back here! Let me explain!”

Donald the Fair caught him and pushed him back. “Let her go, friend. She won’t listen to a word you say now. Give her time to shed her first tears, then try to talk to her. If she’s truly important to you, don’t rush in spewing half truths and words she’ll never believe. Courting a worthy woman is as difficult as taking a castle. Wait. Know your heart and your mind when you speak to her.”

Hugh knew sound counsel when he heard it. He didn’t want any misunderstandings to exist between Morgana and him. He didn’t want there ever to be times of discord, strife or separation. He even realized how unreasonable that need to always be with her was.

The reality of life decreed that there would be times of strife and separation. Their marriage would not be without opposition. The selfsame forces that pulled them apart now would exist as far into the future as he could see. They must learn to handle the disappointments and hurts others caused them, and learn how to overcome them together.

Hugh nodded his head, signaling to Donald that he’d heard his advice and would live with it. Donald’s one restraining arm tightened in an almost hidden show of acceptance and brotherly concern. Hugh turned to Loghran. For once, all his words failed him.

What could he possibly say to this man who had raised him? Taught him? Trained him in the ways and manners of an honorable man? Hugh’s throat seemed to choke and tighten on itself, making speech impossible, even if he had known what to say.

Hugh shook his head and exhaled, letting all the tension out of his chest. Doing so, he found his voice. “We keep going over the same ground, old man. And I keep thinking things are settled once and for all between us. Then I find they are not. Am I the one in the wrong? Have I not learned all the lessons of life you wanted to teach me? Or is it you who won’t let the boy stand on the feet of the man?”

“It’s all of that and more, my lord,” Loghran said with total honesty. “It hurts me to see you make mistakes that you shouldn’t.”

“The Lady Morgana is not a mistake.”

“She will betray you.” Loghran stated what he believed.

“Respectfully, sir, I will tell you that is not a subject for any man to discuss with me. I know my heart. I believe I know what lies in hers.”

Loghran took a deep breath, expanding his chest with the tainted air inside the hall. He didn’t want to believe the conclusions and sureties logic led him to see. But he knew his duty to Hugh. So he made himself speak the truth, as he saw it.

“I am not saying she will do it apurpose. It will happen because her loyalties will always be divided. She is a Fitzgerald, born to her kin, pledged to them. Her father will come with his French allies and an army of Scottish foot soldiers. Ireland will be plunged into war. I know your heart, Hugh O’Neill. You will never pledge your sword to the earl of Kildare to make a Norman king of this land. That’s the truth. Marry her, and you will betray yourself and the people of Tir-Owen, who believe in your leadership.”

“Of all the men I know, old friend, I expect you to rise above the issue of race, because you are a priest and you minister to all of God’s people. I know no one more Irish in his thoughts, his moods, his eloquence and demeanor, than you. Yet any who looks at you sees you for the stalwart Viking your ancestry made you, just as those who look at me know I am a Celt and in Morgana see the Norman conquerors of this land. When are we going to get past this? When will all of us born on this island become one people, the
Irish?”

“Well, this is just perfect!” James Kelly sneered.

He stood on a promontory midway between Portrush and Dunluce, glaring at the smoking remains of Sorely Mac Donnell’s wharf. The sun had yet to rise, but fires in the
harbor and the barn burning within the castle’s ward gave him ample light to view Drake’s destruction.

“Wouldn’t you know that bastard Drake would get in my way.”

Kelly’s new adjutant, Corporal Williamson, knew when to keep his mouth shut. So did the rest of the patrol. They were all raw recruits just arrived from England to join the regiment bivouacked at Portstewart. Captain Kelly had conscripted six men to fill the vacancies in his patrol.

None understood the hatred Captain Kelly bore his prey, an Irishman named Hugh O’Neill. Yet every soldier among them understood the fierce nature of the competition between the army and the navy. Captain Drake had gotten to Dunluce first and scored the crippling blow.

That stuck in Captain Kelly’s craw so badly he refused to press England’s advantage and assault the rebel compound from the ground. Kelly claimed he had not enough troops to overwhelm the rebels left in the enclave. Yet everyone of them knew that five miles west in Portstewart, an entire regiment idled.

Kelly swung around from the view overlooking Antrim’s raw shoreline. “There’s no point in our lingering here. We’ll return to Colraine. If O’Neill has lived through that fire storm, he’ll be making tracks for Dungannon soon enough. I want to know who each of those redheaded boys were they picked up in Colraine. We’ll bide our time and lay a trap there. Remember, all of you, it’s the woman I want taken alive. So don’t any one of you blunder into killing her. I’ll cut your bloody heart out if you do.”

It took Maurice a long, long time to find his sister. She was hiding and didn’t want to be found. Maury knew that when he slipped under the drape of the curtains that kept the high bed warm. She was weeping. Maury knew Morgana didn’t like for anyone to know that she could cry.

He thought that very strange. Girls were supposed to cry when they hurt, when words spoken made them sad, and when people died.

It was easier for women to show their emotions than for men. Men had to be strong, brave and fearless. Men weren’t supposed to be hurt by death or the loss of a friend. The way Maury understood it, men had to fight on in battles even when their best friends went down before them. So men couldn’t ever cry like women did.

He hoped when he grew up he could be strong and brave, and not cry just because something made him feel sad.

Hearing Morgana cry made him feel the saddest of all.

So when he saw her sitting on the middle of the bed, her knees drawn up and her head bent to them, sobbing so deeply, he couldn’t stop himself from climbing into the bed to be with her.

“What’s wrong, Morgana?” Maury asked as he laid his hand on her shoulder.

She looked up and wiped her hands over her face, rubbing her fingers under her nose and across her mouth.

“Don’t cry anymore, please.”

Morgana brought a cloth to her face to wipe away the tears. “What are you doing here?” she said sternly. “Inghinn told me she wouldn’t tell anyone where I was, so that I could have a bath in peace. How did you find me?”

Maury shrugged both shoulders and made a face and pushed her damp hair away from her shoulders. It was still wet and it smelled very nice. “I went looking behind every door. Don’t be mad at me. I was lonely for you.”

“It’s late. You should be asleep.” She dabbed the cloth at her eyes one more time, and then the tears stopped.

Maurice sat down beside her, certain she wouldn’t be sending him away. “The fires are all out.”

“Good.” Morgana nodded.

“The Mac Donnell burned his foot. The Mulvaine says he’s going to be crippled and will need to walk with a blackthorn staff even after the burns heal. And she says they
are all going to be very poor for a long, long time. All of the caravels are gone. The fire storm consumed them. Are we poor, Morgana?”

Morgana wondered how to answer that. She took a deep breath and blew it out her lips, then made a Maury face. “I don’t know, Maurice. What do you think poor is?”

“I don’t know.” He fingered the golden medallion of Saint Colm Cille on the gold chain at his throat. Morgana ran her fingers through his damp curls, settling them back from his brow.

“You had a bath?”

“Oh, aye. Inghinn said we all smelled like the fire storm and she wouldn’t have us in her beds. We had to troop out to the bathhouse and scrub with the soldiers. The maids took all of our clothes to wash them first thing in the morning and gave us these sarks to wear in the meantime. Sean says Fitzgeralds look stupid in saffron. He looks like a flame in his, but my hair is darker, like yours. Is Papa coming for us?”

“Ah.” Morgana sighed, realizing he’d come to the important question. “I thought I explained that Grace was coming for us. She’ll take all of us to France, where Papa is.”

“You can’t go to France, Morgana. You have to stay here. Sean says you have to marry the O’Neill. Our father will be very unhappy if you go to France instead of doing what you should do, ‘cause the church has to be obeyed.”

“Sean has a self-important opinion of the things he says, Maury.”

“You better not tell him that. He’ll smack you and remind you that he’s the next earl.”

“Speaking of which, I did not tell you Father would be on Grace’s ship. You shouldn’t be expecting to see him if Grace does come. It’s too dangerous for him to travel here.”

Maury sighed sadly. “I wouldn’t mind going back to Captain Tanner’s farm. It’s fun to live on a farm. I had my
own sheep, two goats and a pony. Sean and I liked living there.”

Morgana clicked her tongue. They’d come to the hard part. “I’m afraid I couldn’t take you back there. You would never be safe with Captain Lucas, now that others know you were there.”