Wild Roses (25 page)

"Duncan would not be pleased to know you're
here," Maire heard herself say stiffly, almost as much to her astonishment
as Adele's.

"Ah, delightful. A few tumbles in the baron's bed
and now you think you may speak to me as an equal—which is why I thought it
best we reach an understanding, you and I."

"Truly, I see that we have little of which to
speak," Maire began only to be cut off by an angry wave of Adele's hand.

"You insolent Irish whore! If you believe for an
instant I or my brothers will ever tolerate you as Duncan's wife, you are
wretchedly mistaken—"

"And if you think you have so much to say in the
matter, I suggest you'd best share your mind with Duncan and not me! Aye,
considering what you and your fine brothers did to him and his poor mother so
long ago, I can well imagine what sort of answer you'll be hearing!"

Adele snapped her mouth shut, and Maire was even more
surprised at herself, thinking she might have absorbed a wee bit of Triona's
legendary brazenness after all. But she was angry, too, as much as she'd ever
felt at anyone to think of the misery borne by Duncan because of his family.
She even went so far as to yank the blanket around her and rise as gracefully
as she could from the bed; she lifted her chin as she faced Adele, so indignant
now that her cheeks were hot as flame.

"Get out of these rooms and don't ever again think
yourself welcome here. Do you hear me? And mayhap you might consider gathering
your people and taking yourself away from Meath this very day if Duncan's
choice seems so intolerable to you—"

"Enough! I'll not listen to you speaking to me
like this!" Spinning on her heel, Adele walked stiffly to the door while
Maire, feeling all the more flushed-faced and emboldened, followed a few steps after
her.

"Aye, you deserve to be tossed into the moat for
all the terrible things you've done, you . . . you heartless witch!"

Imagining the look on Triona's face if her outspoken
sister-in-law had heard her, Maire wouldn't allow herself to think she'd gone
too far, no matter Adele turned at the door to face her. The woman's eyes
glittered, her voice ice-cold.

"Me in the moat? Take care, Rose, that you don't
find yourself drowned—"

Adele didn't finish, the young serving maid Ona
suddenly appearing behind her—much to Maire's relief. Adele turned and pushed
past the poor girl so callously that Ona nearly dropped the pitcher she
carried, water sloshing down the front of her apron. At her cry of dismay,
Maire at once went to her, fearing the serving maid had been scalded.

"Ona . . . ?"

"No, no, miss, I was startled, is all."

Smiling almost sheepishly, Ona bobbed her head in a
deferential manner Maire wasn't accustomed to at all; the serving girl had done
so last night, too, as had the other woman who'd accompanied her with the food
tray. It seemed Duncan's announcement that she was to be the Lady of Longford
had affected most everyone . . . including Adele.

Disbelief suddenly struck Maire that she could have
spouted so angrily. She went back to sink onto the edge of the bed as Ona
filled the washbasin with steaming water.

Jesu, Mary, and Joseph, what madness had overcome her?
The woman had caused the slaughter of her clansmen! And had Adele's last words
mayhap held some veiled threat?

"I'm sorry, miss, but there wasn't enough hot
water yet to fill a tub. The kitchen's still in an uproar—so many people to be
fed—"

"It's fine, truly," Maire said softly,
grateful once again that Ona had arrived at such a timely moment. As the
serving girl laid the fresh towels she'd carried under her arm onto the table,
Maire felt her face grow warm as Ona then bent to mop up the puddle on the
floor with the towel discarded there.

"Have . . .
have
any
begun to leave for their homes?" she asked, not surprised she suddenly
felt so flushed again at the memories that puddle evoked.

"No, miss, not yet. Lord FitzWilliam ordered that
all remain until he returned to Longford Castle. It was a large force that went
with him—aye, almost all of his knights."

Maire swallowed hard at this news, imagining they must
have bristled with weaponry. Her only comfort that she felt little fear for
Ronan and her clansmen, evading Normans for rebel Irish as instinctive as
breathing,
she wondered suddenly how the three O'Melaghlins
had come to be captured. Duncan had never said.

It made her wonder, too, how the prisoners fared and if
they'd even been told they had won a three-day reprieve from the noose. If
Gerard de Barry was tending to them, his hatred for rebels was so great that
she imagined he would sooner taunt them with torture and death than tell the
truth. Overcome with a desire to see the O'Melaghlins, if only to offer some
hope, and more than eager to find some distraction from worrying about what
Duncan might soon ask of her, Maire called out to Ona just before the serving
girl disappeared out the door.

"Wait! Do you know the way to the dungeon?"

Ona spun around to stare oddly at Maire. "Th-the
dungeon, miss?"

"Aye. Would you take me there? After I dress, of
course. It won't take me long to bathe. You could sit on the bench and wait for
me."

The serving girl nodded, though she still looked
surprised as she retreated and shut the door. Maire dropped the blanket at once
and went to the basin, her heart already pounding. Yet she doubted any would
stop or even question her, surely not given all seemed to know she was Duncan's
intended bride.

***

"Sweet Jesu, Mary, and Joseph."

"My lady?"

Maire started as the somber-faced guard twisted round
on the narrow steps to face her. "I . . . I meant only—it's so cold down
here," she said quickly, shuddering more for the slimy moss covering the
walls than that she was chilled. The man merely nodded and then began once more
to descend into the dark bowels of the dungeon, a guttering torch held out in
front of him.

Already having reconsidered her decision to visit the
O'Melaghlins several times since Ona had brought her to the far tower, her
strongest urge to turn back had come when a half dozen guards had looked at her
as if she were mad when she'd made her request to them. Surprisingly and much
to her relief, the only reservation expressed to her was that the steps were
many and steep, and she'd assured the thickset commander of the guards who led
the way now that she would be more than up to the task, if a little slow.

Already he'd moved ahead of her, his shadow eerily
elongated upon the dank, curved walls as they descended farther, Maire
imagining he would grow impatient indeed with her on the way back up. She'd
counted forty steps, forty-
one,
forty-two . . . saints
help her, were they descending to the very gates of hell?

Relief filled her again when she saw that the commander
had finally stopped and waited for her in front of a bolted wooden door. It
didn't take much for her to conceive what she might see after Ronan had
described that other dungeon to her, yet she prayed she wouldn't be confronted
with any rotting corpses. Nearly overcome at once by the musty air reeking of
sweat and urine, she feared to breathe as they stepped inside a vast chamber
lit by oil lamps set into the walls.

"This way, my lady."

She wanted to lean just a moment and rest, but couldn't
bring herself to touch the thick support timbers they passed or the walls
glistening with moisture. Nor did she want to study overmuch the filthy straw they
walked upon for the rats she feared she might see, or the iron implements of
torture she glimpsed about the chamber. It was all so horrible.

If Duncan ever learned the truth about her clan, would
she be dragged to this place? She couldn't imagine he would do such a thing
now, but she had only to remember the hatred in his voice when speaking of the
O'Byrnes to still wonder, her heart aching at the thought.

"Up on your feet, the lot of you! You've a
visitor—soon to be the Lady of Longford, so mind your tongues!"

As the guard thrust the torch toward what at first
appeared an empty corner, Maire felt her throat tighten at the three prisoners
who struggled weakly to rise, the heavy scraping of chains at their ankles
accompanying their movement. "No, no, please, they can stay where they
are, truly."

In spite of her words, the commander of the guards
didn't amend his order but stared with disgust at the O'Melaghlins who squinted
uncomfortably at the torchlight. Maire stared too, stricken by their haggard
appearance, all three stripped to the waist and clearly having suffered a
severe lashing from their bloodied shoulders. And the O'Melaghlin's grandsons,
brothers she could see now from their shared features and dark curly hair, were
no more than boys!

The long-haired harper looked as if he'd fared the
worse though, no matter his advancing years, one eye swollen shut, his bearded
face bruised though he still lifted his head proudly. Saints help them, had
Duncan recently seen these wretched souls?

"I doubt Lord FitzWilliam would be pleased you
linger here, my lady," came the commander of the guard's voice to distract
her. "You can see the prisoners fare well enough—"

"I see one old man and two boys sorely
mistreated," she cut him off, amazed at herself again for the hard glint
of reproach in her tone. "If I may speak to them for a few moments . . .
alone."

The guard looked at her with some affront, then
shrugged and moved away, but not before depositing the torch into a wall
sconce. Maire's gaze flew back to the O'Melaghlins, and at once she gestured
that they must sit. Yet they continued to stand, staring at her not as much
warily as in confusion, and she quickly sought to explain her presence.

"I'm sorry, I—Jesu, Mary, and Joseph, this is
terrible what's been done to you! Have you been given food and drink?"

The three seemed so surprised at her outburst that they
glanced at each other first before answering, the old harper finally nodding
his head.

"Aye, miss, a wee bit of food, some water.
'
Tis kind of you to ask—"

"A wee bit? Enough to fill your bellies?"

Again they looked at each other, their silence telling
Maire much. Determined that she would ask Duncan that the O'Melaghlins be
better fed, the situation reminded her so much of when Caitlin MacMurrough was
abducted from her home and held by Ronan in Glenmalure, Triona boldly standing
up to him to secure her gentler treatment. Would Duncan hear her out? Reminded,
too, by what Flanna had said of him wanting to do anything to please her, Maire
resolved at least to try and do some good while she still remained at Longford
Castle.

That thought once more making her throat grow tight,
she heard the commander of the guards cough with impatience some distance
away
and she rushed on.

"Do you know that three days more have been
granted to the O'Melaghlin to come to Meath to talk peace?"

Maire got no ready answer, her words seeming to have
fallen on deaf ears as the three rebels simply stared at her. It was the harper
whose spindly legs suddenly gave way beneath him, and he sank to the straw
while one youth, the sturdiest-looking of the three, caught his arm to help him
while the other boy still stared in disbelief at Maire.

"W-we're not going to hang today?"

Chapter 24

Maire's heart going out to the O'Melaghlins that they
hadn't been told the news just as she suspected, she shook her head and drew
closer. At once all three seemed to notice her awkward gait, but their eyes
quickly jumped back to her face as if she were an angel who'd appeared to
deliver them.

"There may be little I can do to ease your way
here, but at least you know all is not lost—"

"Why do you care to help us, miss? Why?"
came
the harper's incredulous voice, while Maire tried to
swallow the sudden lump in her throat.

She couldn't answer, not with anything close to the
truth. Instead she glanced over her shoulder to see the commander of the guards
had begun to pace near the steps, and she knew she didn't have long.

"Tell me, please. How did you come to be
captured?"

Again the three looked at each other, and it was the
boy who'd asked if they weren't to hang who finally spoke. "We'd gone to
the place where the cattle were slaughtered—my grandfather Rory O'Melaghlin and
our clansmen. It was not of our doing—"

"Aye, but we've borne the blame!" interrupted
the harper, his red-rimmed eyes ravaged.
" 'Twas
Normans that killed the beasts, their own accursed kind burning the baron's
fields, too, and so we've been blamed no matter we seek only to live in peace
on what land's left to us."

"Aye, so it's true, but ease yourself,
Finian," urged the youth who'd sunk to his knees beside the harper while
he glanced with apology at Maire. "Go on, Tynan, tell her."

The boy nodded, a name now to him that made Maire all
the more deeply
feel
their plight.

"We hoped to salvage the meat before it began to
rot—to see such waste after so harsh a winter. We were nearly done when we saw
the Normans coming upon us. My grandfather cried for everyone to ride into the
hills, there weren't enough of us to fight them. But Finian fell from his
horse—"

"I told the young fools to ride on,"
interjected the harper. "To leave me—"

"Aye, and who then would play the harp and sing
the ancient legends in Grandfather's hall?" the other boy demanded
gruffly, clearly fond of the old man.

"Innis and I" —Tynan glanced at his brother—
"went back to help him but by then it was too late to escape. The Norman
called de Barry taunted us to run, to take up a sword, but I knew he wanted
nothing more than to cut us down."