The Faithful Heart (14 page)

 

 

“Seamus, you’re going to get a cargo of fish together down south,
and sell the herring in Spain. In return I need iron and alum for
our hides.”

 

 

“What about the other six ships in dock?" he asked.

 

 

She shook her head and sighed. “We don’t have enough men to handle
them all at present, but with any luck the clan will start returning
soon. When we do, I’ll send them to England for food for the clan
first, and then back and forth to the Continent after that. I want
us to trade more items more profitably and more rapidly than ever
before. Time is the one thing we don’t have at the moment. You just
have to call in at any port you can to make sure the duties are
paid, and that our status is good.

 

 

“These mysterious ships which supposedly belong to us are what has
done this damage, so I want you to be extra vigilant. Talk to the
authorities, other sailors. Try to remember anything distinctive
about the other ships that could help us find out who stole them. If
there is a particular feature of the boat which we can report to the
officials, who can impound them if they turn up. If the MacMahons
are behind this, it is only a matter of time before they’re caught
red-handed,” Morgana finished optimistically.

 

 

“And you, Morgana, what will you do while we’re away?” Seamus asked.

 

 

“Well, Seamus, I’ll have plenty to keep me occupied, don’t you
worry. I'm going to secretly refortify the castles on the lough
shore,” she revealed.

 

 

“But Lisleavan is nearest the MacMahons. It will be their main
target.”

 

 

She nodded. “Which is why my activities at Má Niadh and Tulach have
to be kept secret. They won't know I have reinforcements, and by the
time they find out that the O'Donnells have made peace with me, they
will either have to stop harassing us, or show their hand to stop us
from growing in power once more.

 

 

"Knowing Ruairc's brothers, I'm going to guess they'll do the latter
and pick us of like lambs to the slaughter. So let them think I'm
devoting all my time to Lisleavan, and perhaps they'll make a
foolish move,” Morgana speculated.

 

 

He nodded. “Let's just hope the men return as soon as possible.
Otherwise, you'll pretty much be on your own with a troop that can
barely lift a sword, much less use it."

 

 

"Right, men, we leave at dawn,” Seamus said, rising from his bench.
“Give your father our best wishes, and look after yourself, Morgana.
Whatever you do, be careful.”

 

 

“And you, Seamus. Good luck, and God keep you,” Morgana said as she
waved farewell to her friends, and headed back to the O’Donnells’
castle.

 

 

 

CHAPTER NINE

 

 

Morgana still felt restless, so she returned to the town and sought
out Tomas and Declan. “I would like to accept your father’s
hospitality, you well know, but there are so many things I must do,
that I can’t simply sit idly by today. I need two men whom I can
trust to give me some sound advice and keep my secret.”

 

 

“What do you wish us to do?” Declan asked at length.

 

 

“Tell your father that I will meet him at Lisleavan tomorrow
morning, and come with me to see my abandoned castles?” she
requested quietly.

 

 

Tomas, the eldest of the two brothers, nodded, and gave orders for
food and horses to be got ready. Morgana took pen, ink and paper,
and after making arrangements concerning the minted money and the
delivery of her supplies, she and her two companions rode back along
the lough shore road to Tulach.

 

 

The three storey castle stood on a high promontory which jutted out
into the lough. Morgana had had a jetty built several years before,
and had also created a road of wooden chips to prevent carts from
becoming stuck in the mud which resulted from frequent flooding of
the lough shore in the winter months. Morgana had then built another
large gateway at the south-eastern corner of the bawn, or stone wall
which surrounded the castle, and doubled the walls on the eastern
and north eastern side.

 

 

The new building work had thus created a long fortified corridor
through which supplies could be brought into the castle directly
from the jetty, and also increased the defences. The parapets could
be lined with soldiers in case of attack, and loopholes spaced at
intervals inside the courtyard would also help them pick off with
arrows or shot any enemy who managed to penetrate into the castle
close. A false door concealed the entrance to the cloister, while
the main door opened out into the courtyard.

 

 

The bawn had a tower at each of the other three corners, and Morgana
noted down that she wanted stone masons to build another inner wall
on the west side to match the one on the east.

 

 

Inside the bawn, the rectangular castle had two towers overlooking
the north side of the bawn, and an impressive stone staircase which
led up to the other two floors. Each floor had heavy iron door in
case of attack, and several loopholes through which the defenders
could pick off their assailants. The spiral staircase curved around
the left, making defence for the right handed soldiers easier, and
attack for the enemy more difficult.

 

 

“We’ll go to the top and then work our way down,” Morgana suggested,
leading the way as the brothers paused to examine the doors
carefully.

 

 

“You know, Morgana, you're taking a great deal on trust allowing us
to come hear and look at your defences,” Tomas remarked casually.

 

 

“I am aware of that, Tomas, but you and I were always friends, and I
would hate to think any petty squabbles could reduce us to rivals.
Besides, I’m hoping you’ll see how impregnable this fortress is, and
be deterred from ever attacking,” she added mischievously.

 

 

“That convent can’t have taught you a thing! You’re still a sharp
tongued wench,” Declan laughed. He slapped Morgana on the rump
playfully.

 

 

There was an obvious attraction between the two men and Morgana
based upon youth and mutual respect, but Morgana knew that handsome
though they were, she was not drawn to them in the same way as she
was to Ruairc.

 

 

She wondered how he was taking her absence from Lisleavan, and knew
he would be furious with her for sneaking off without him. But since
when had she ever needed permission to do what she thought best for
the clan?

 

 

The small party climbed to the top of the house, to a snug room over
the stairs with a fireplace and two small windows. Morgana noted
that there were some holes in the slate roof, and scribbled it down
on her list of repairs.

 

 

“How many pallet beds and men can we fit?” Morgana asked as she
gnawed the end of the quill.

 

 

“About ten,” Tomas estimated. Morgana scribbled the figure down.

 

 

There were three other rooms on that level, all about twenty feet
square, with a corridor running along the south wall of the building
for access.

 

 

“The middle one doesn’t have a chimney or fireplace,” Morgana
frowned.

 

 

“You’ll need to put in a few coal braziers, then, to keep it warm,
but in each room you can sleep abouttwenty soldiers,” Declan
advised.

 

 

Morgana wrote down the figures, and thought aloud, “We’ll also have
to make sure the drains are running free. We wouldn’t want the
privies to overflow up here.”

 

 

Declan wrinkled his nose and laughed.“Honestly, Morgana I’ve never
met a woman like you. You think of everything!”

 

 

“Well, there are only two privies, one at either end of the floor,
so if we are going to be putting seventy men up here, we must make
sure we see to their needs,” Morgana said logically.

 

 

Morgana also checked the heavy wooden and iron doors which blocked
off each of the four rooms from attack, and the descended to the
first level. This floor contained the main hall, and two smaller
rooms which both had fireplaces and were situated at the east side
of the castle.

 

 

“Ten men in each of these rooms, and the hall will have to be their
eating and living quarters. We can put up some screens to divide up
the room and exclude draughts, and you’ll need more braziers in here
as well despite that great big fireplace on the west wall,” Declan
calculated.

 

 

Morgana agreed as she sat on the floor and made notes, dipping her
pen into her small bottle of ink hastily as she scrawled down the
details. She checked the four doors on that level to make sure they
were sturdy, and they moved on to the ground floor.

 

 

“The kitchen looks in good repair, and there are two more dry rooms
for storage,” Morgana said as he showed the O’Donnell brothers
around. “That door is the door to the cloister for the provisions to
be sent through from the lough shore.”

 

 

“Those two fireplaces will be handy for cooking, so I think you
should set up the middle room as a guard room, with storage for the
ammunition and arms,” Tomas suggested.

 

 

Morgana nodded and said, “Right, all that remains is to check each
tower at the corners of the bawn.”

 

 

Each tower was two storeys high, and could accommodate twenty men
for sleeping on the upper level, and six men for guarding the tower
and bawn on the lower level. There was also room for storage, and
Morgana added up her figures hopefully.

 

 

“Eighty in the towers, plus seventy plus twenty, is one hundred and
seventy. We will also need to have enough food in case of a siege,”
Morgana added up, as she studied her figures one last time to ensure
they were correct.

 

 

Morgana wandered out into the courtyard then. “I’ll get the
carpenters to make some animal pens for cattle, sheep and pigs, and
we need some stabling for horses as well.”

 

 

“Build your wall on the west side, and the stables on the south
side. The pens can go on the east side,” Tomas indicated, as he took
the paper and pen from Morgana and sketched his ideas in quickly.

 

 

“And they should all be in stone as well, so that the stables will
fortify the south wall, and the pens will give our men and beasts
some protection should anyone actually manage to get overthe wall,”
Morgana agreed enthusiastically.

 

 

She pulled the bucket up from the well and tasted the water. Clean
and fresh was her verdict, and Morgana was at last satisfied that
her job was done.

 

 

“If you’re not too tired, can we head on to Ma Niadh?I want to see
the state of things there and get back to Lisleavan before
nightfall.”

 

 

Tomas and Declan pulled out some bread and wine for the trio to dine
on hastily. After this light repast, they mounted their steeds and
rode on along the lough shore.

 

 

Ma Niadh was different from Tulach only insofar as it was slightly
further inland from the lough shore, and Morgana pointed out the
advantages of digging an underground passage between the jetty and
the castle keep.

 

 

“We can’t build inside the bawn, because the castle is on the corner
of the existing wall. But I think if we built another cloister
passage way running along the whole eastern side, and a new doorway,
that would take the alley right back into the kitchens,” Morgana
calculated after having walked around the handsome gray stone
fortifications twice.

 

 

“You should extend the north wall out as well, and put a tower on
the new corner the same as on the other three corners, and stone
stables and another cloister on the southern and western sides,”
Tomas advised.

 

 

“You’ll have to clean out that moat, and run a causeway through it
for the path to the jetty as well,” Declan pointed out.

 

 

“This castle is a bit more difficult to defend, though, seeing as it
has two spiral staircases instead of only one,” Tomas remarked.

 

 

Morgana shook her head.“No, because the castle is divided down the
middle, with a corridor at either end giving access to the rooms on
each floor. Even if you took one half of the castle, you’d have to
knock down the walls to get at the other half. My men could always
come down and around as well. Another advantage is that it has
central chimneys for each room, so it's a lot warmer than Tulach.”

 

 

“The rooms are bigger too,” Declan observed, as they reached to top
floor and examined each of the four chambers on the eastern side.
“You can fit about twenty men in each, so if all the rooms are the
same, that makes one hundred and sixty on this floor alone,” he
calculated.

 

 

“The great hall is on the east side of the castle downstairs, and
there are four more rooms there as well, and privies on the end of
each corridor on all the floors,” Morgana informed them.

 

 

“That’s another eighty men.What about the downstairs?” Tomas asked.

 

 

“The guard room is between the two towers, and again it is split
down the middle, though they can help defend each other through the
loopholes. There are murder holes above the entrance to the castle
as well, and chutes for pouring down boiling water or oil. On the
eastern side are the kitchens, and on the west are the storage
areas,” Morgana described for them

 

 

“Perfect. Your idea of the tunnel coming up into the cloister on the
eastern side through the tower is just right, then,” Tomas said
enthusiastically.“With the four towers, the three existing ones and
the one you’re going to add, you should be able to house another
twenty men in each.”