Lord of the Isle (19 page)

Loghran took the boy from O’Neill’s grip. “You’re supposed to be frightened out of your wits when I growl at you, boy. Can’t you see that I come from Viking stock?”

“Am I supposed to know that because of your hair?” Maurice asked as Loghran set him on his pony.

“No, because of his size!” Sean corrected. “Don’t be a goose, Maurice. Use your eyes.”

“Well spoken.” Loghran gave Sean a boost onto his pony, too. “Come, lads, we’ll take the lead this time. Laird O’Neill can spell himself guarding our rear. My old heart’s not up for another trampling.”

Hugh’s men all mounted and rode out after Loghran. Boru and Ariel were left behind. So were he and Morgana. She hurried across the stone to her horse. Hugh followed.

“Are you intending to mount unaided?” he asked silkily, letting Boru stick his nose ahead of him and butt the mare. Hugh thought that a very direct way of securing a sulky female’s attention.

Morgana definitely ignored him. She put her back to Hugh as she untied Ariel’s reins. Then she deliberately turned the mare between them so that her horse bumped Hugh back a pace or two.

“Your tactics are obvious, milady.” Hugh grinned, admiring the fetching flowers crowning her head.

“Are they?” Morgana paused at a break in the stones, climbing onto the taller as she drew Ariel before her. She was in her saddle when she spoke again, fitting feet firmly in the stirrups. “We must go, milord. I wouldn’t want to get separated from the troop.”

“Liar,” Hugh called as he swung up onto Boru’s back. Ariel shied away from the randy stallion. Morgana took the lead, so Hugh offset his stallion two paces behind Morgana’s mount. The Arabian sidestepped away from the stallion, as tetchy as her mistress.

The climb up the next hill was just as steep as the ride down it had been. Crowded on the path, Morgana had to give her concentration to Ariel’s footing.

“Careful,” Hugh cautioned, when the mare slipped on moss adhering to the rocks. He put out a hand to quiet the mare, then let Morgana take the lead on the steep ascent to the top, for safety’s sake.

“I am always careful, my lord—” Morgana tossed the taunt over her shoulder “—when the danger is as apparent as the nose on
your
face. Keep that wild horse away from my mare.”

“If that was supposed to sting me, it went far wide of the mark.” Hugh laughed again at her high dudgeon, which she went to such lengths to keep hidden from others.

Her sparring words pleased him, and so did the tempers that simmered just under her control. She kept their battles between the two of them, leaving others out of the fracas. Hugh liked that trait of hers very, very much. It made her all the more desirable in his eyes.

He waved a magnanimous hand at the riders in the distance. “Go then, catch up with the pack. I’m content to bring up the rear. Remember, Morgana, what you promised a little while ago. You will share my bed tonight.”

As tempting as it was to spite him, Morgana held her peace again, not saying a word. She scanned the bluff for the rest of their party and put her heels to Ariel’s sides. She knew when to pick her battles and when to save her breath. Hugh O’Neill didn’t.

They dismounted at Colraine’s largest inn, a tired troop of Irishmen at dusk. Maurice had long since given up the ghost. He slept in Shamus Fitz’s lap, his small head bobbing over the big kern’s arm.

Kermit Blackbeard dismounted first and reached up to quietly take the sleeping boy from Shamus’s arms, so that he could also dismount with ease. The kern flexed his left arm, restoring its circulation. He’d carried the sleeping boy for the past hour, since the sun had begun dropping into the hazy sky over Lough Foyle.

Morgana was glad to have Hugh’s help when she dismounted. They had ridden almost nonstop since their short rest at the brook. For some unspoken reason, Hugh O’Neill had insisted they make it to Colraine before full dark set in.

Torches flickered in iron stands, well away from the inn’s doors and thatched roof. Loghran O’Toole went inside to arrange for accommodations. Sean sidled up to Morgana to tell her he was hungry.

A groom came out of the stable and collected their horses. Hugh slung Morgana’s saddlebags and his own on his shoulder, then took her arm and walked her up the steps into the low-roofed common room. Young Sean proceeded them, his curiosity about this new place dampened by wellschooled caution and road-weariness.

The day’s haunch of venison was roasting on the inn’s hearth fire, crackling and spitting grease at a boy not much older than Sean who was turning the spit. The smell of whiskey and ale flavored the inn’s common room. Barrels of ale were stacked against one wall, whiskey the other.

Few patrons showed any interest in their arrival. Always cautious, Morgana searched the room for redcoats and found none. She got no more than a first look before Hugh resolutely hustled her through a narrow door leading to the second floor. The innkeeper opened a door on a small room and stood aside to let them enter.

To Morgana’s eye, the bed looked woefully inadequate. She insisted on inspecting the sheets before she allowed Maurice to be laid down in the center of the bed. She sat beside him, unlacing his shoes, removing stockings and rumpled tunic and shirt.

He needed a bath, but she wasn’t going to wake him for one now. A wash in the morning might do. Sean sat himself on a stool and did the same, took off boots and stockings, cast off his cloak and tunic. He stood, hitching his trews to his waist, and turned to Hugh O’Neill as the innkeeper’s girl brought a supper tray into the chamber.

“Will you be joining us, sir?” Sean asked.

Hugh noticed that the boy’s earlier camaraderie was gone from his demeanor. Now Sean Fitzgerald appeared as formal as one who had been trained at the queen’s court. The lad looked years older than his actual age.

That reminded Hugh of his own past, and those first years he’d spent in England, learning the hardest lesson of life—never to trust anyone.

“Nay.” Hugh waved the serving girl, Loghran and Kermit out of the room. When he was alone with the Fitzgeralds, he said, “I’ll sup below, with my men. The privy is behind the kitchen, if you need it, lad, but take a man of mine with you, should you go out. Lady Morgana, content yourself here with the chamber pot. Colraine is known for river rats and thugs that linger about its alleyways, waiting to rob the unsuspecting.”

He set Morgana’s saddlebags on the floor beside the bed. Then, with a meaningful look to Morgana, Hugh departed, closing the door behind him.

Sean didn’t know whether he’d been slighted or not, and told Morgana so. “Nonsense,” she told him. “He’s a man grown, and would prefer to sup with his soldiers rather than a boy, Sean. Rank has nothing to do with that.”

“Are you certain?” Sean asked. “I am an earl.”

“Father is the earl,” Morgana reminded him. Their father was still alive, though in exile.

Morgana shed her cloak and went to the basin to wash her face and hands. Sean stuck a pose and repeated Hugh’s orders several times, mimicking Hugh’s delivery. “The O’Neill commands well, wouldn’t you say, Morgana?”

“Aye, he’s mastered that art.” Morgana soaped her throat and the back of her neck. Sean’s voice lacked the depth and power of Hugh’s. It wouldn’t when he came of age. Morgana’s father was a terror in his own right.

“I could learn a lot from a man like O’Neill. Haps I’ll ask him to squire me.” Sean pulled off his undershirt and dragged a stool to the table and sat.

“You’re not sitting to the table to eat like a barbarian,” Morgana gasped as she folded the towel she’d used and hung it on the washstand. “Put on your shirt!”

“Aw, Morgana,” Sean complained round a mouthful of bread and venison. “I’m fair starved, and tired, too.”

Morgana took the bread and meat out of his hand. “Put your shirt on, you little heathen. Don’t insult me. I don’t care how far we Fitzgeralds sink in the world, you’ve been taught manners, and you’ll use them.”

“What makes you think my stomach knows the difference between eating while wearing a shirt or going naked?” Sean grumbled. He got up and grabbed his shirt, jerking it onto his skinny arms. He didn’t go so far as to tuck it in before he sat once more. “Let me eat in peace.”

Morgana handed him the biscuit she’d taken from his hand. She saw no point in telling him she’d let him skip some polite rules. He hadn’t washed before he ate, but he would wash before he went to bed, or the two of them would be going head-to-head. If it came to that, Morgana vowed, she’d come out the winner.

Morgana took the damp towel to the bed to mop up Maurice’s face and hands, then washed his feet before settling him under the covers. She kissed his brow, marveling anew at the miracle of his existence. His quiet breathing was a gift from God. Thinking that, Morgana sat to the table, but did not eat.

“Now what’s wrong?”

Morgana looked at Sean for a moment before her troubled gaze went back to Maurice. “I don’t think I can put my thoughts into words, Sean. I haven’t had time to reflect upon what it means to me to have Maurice alive and well. I mean…the last I heard, he was dead.”

Sean cast a glance over his shoulder to the boy in the bed, speaking between hungrily wolfed bites of food. “He pulled through the worst of it, but he’s still sick. Can’t eat sometimes. He’s just a little boy, Morgana, but he’s very brave.”

“I know.” Morgana nodded. “You are too, Sean. I’m sorry for my curt words a few moments ago. I forget what’s most important sometimes.”

“Aye.” Sean mopped his plate with a wedge of bread. “God’s truth, Morgana, sometimes I’m scared out of my wits. Suppose one of those kerns comes to kill us when we sleep?”

“You don’t mean Hugh’s men, do you?” Morgana asked softly. Her trust of the O’Neill extended to his band of men, with one exception. She didn’t trust Loghran O’Toole, who would just as well have been done with her several nights ago. She hadn’t forgotten his order to cut off her hand. She wanted to know whether Sean felt the same unease regarding Hugh’s gillie.

“I don’t know who I mean,” he replied. “We can’t trust anyone who knows we’re Fitzgeralds. I wish I was anyone but John Gerald Fitzgerald, the outlawed heir of Kildare.”

Morgana could think of no platitudes to offer her brother. Hollow words of comfort did neither of them good. Sean would know them for the lies they were, anyway. “You’d best wash and sleep awhile, then. I’ll watch over you.”

Sean cast the remains of the loaf on the platter and stood. He stretched, then ambled to the washstand and completed his ablutions with a ten-year-old’s lack of enthusiasm for the task. As for going out to the privy, he declined, making use of the chamber pot.

“Say your prayers,” Morgana said, from old habit.

“To who?” Sean asked. “There is no God.”

Morgana stared at him, momentarily stunned. That he should feel the same way she did astounded her. He dared to voice his blasphemous doubts out loud, proving he had more courage than she. “They say we must keep our faith and hold on to our beliefs even in the darkest moments, Sean.”

“That’s another lie they’ve fed us,” Sean responded. He climbed into bed and sat there, staring at Morgana with old, old eyes in his too-young face. “Gods and saints, fairy tales
and legends—this whole land is full of them. Everywhere we go there are shrines and crosses and monuments to leprechauns and Little People and the Tuatha de Danann. It’s all a bunch of nonsense. You don’t believe any of it, do you, Morgana?”

The test was to say she did when she didn’t. That would prove she still had some faith left within her. But at this moment, with the most uncertain of all tomorrows facing them, Morgana wouldn’t compound her errors by lying to her brother. “Sleep on your thoughts, Sean. We’ll talk about it in the morning.”

She thought perhaps Hugh O’Neill, who could explain why and how the sun rose each morning, could prove to Sean that a kind and benevolent God ruled the cosmos. She couldn’t. Not any more than she could swear to the boy that, come tomorrow morning, they would wake to see the new day.

Hugh found Morgana seated at the small table with one candle lighting the remains of her meal when he came up to bed. The boys sprawled like littermates on top of each other, fast asleep.

Morgana, on the other hand, looked as miserable as could be. She lifted her face up to Hugh’s as he took hold of her hand. “Come with me,” he urged.

Her head dropped in a tired nod of acquiescence, and she rose, accompanying him to the adjoining chamber. Loghran O’Toole got to his feet, his face a mask of grim, tight-lipped shadows. Morgana felt the disapproval of his glare before he gave her his back and slipped into her brothers’ room and firmly shut the door.

Morgana stared at the closed door, even as Hugh’s hands unlaced her short bodice and freed the ties of her skirt to let both garments fall to her feet.

“Hey.” Hugh caught her chin, turning her face to his. “I’m here, lady.”

“He disapproves of me.”

“Who? Loghran? He disapproves of everyone who gets close to me. Don’t let it bother you.”

“No, it’s more than that.” Morgana shook her head. Hugh’s deft fingers released her braids, and they fell down across her shift. “He makes me feel guilty.”

“He makes everyone feel guilty. That’s what priests do best.”

“He is a priest?” Morgana stepped back. “A Catholic priest?”

“As Catholic as they come—an Augustinian.” Hugh’s wolfish grin nowhere near appeased her shock.

“That Viking—” Morgana sputtered “—warmonger is a priest?”

“Would I lie about something like that?” Hugh caught her shoulders and pulled her to him. “Forget Loghran.”

“But he rides into battle with you. He paints himself blue from head to toe and wields a sword and a battle-ax. He can’t be a priest. They aren’t supposed to kill people.”

“So he takes the term
soldier of Christ
literally.”

“Don’t joke about this.”

“All right, then.” Hugh held her at arm’s length. His fingers were tight on her upper arms, and his gaze was direct and solid. “You tell me where it is written that a priest cannot be a warrior? Pope Julius was a better general than a pope. Jesuits manage to blend the two, else the church would have no inquisitors to put heretics to death.”