Kitabı oku: «Lord Of The Isle», sayfa 2

Chapter Three

No redcoat escaped Hugh O’Neill’s retribution. In short order, five curs fell under the stroke of Hugh’s sword. Only Kelly remained alive, his heart still beating, as Hugh dismounted from Boru and tossed the war-horse’s reins to his young nephew, Owen Roe.

“What farce be this, O’Neill?” Kelly demanded. He hid his fear behind a mask of sarcasm—that of a bureaucrat accustomed to wielding threats against lesser men than he. “Think you this some London stage, and you a hero of some play, wherein you ravish the maiden yourself?”

Hugh’s cold smile sent Kelly staggering backward. He came up short, pinned to the point of Kermit Blackbeard’s sword.

“Your sarcasm ill suits you, Kelly,” Hugh crooned. He handed Loghran his sword to clean the blood from it. James Kelly and Hugh O’Neill went way back, fifteen long years, to Hugh’s first days at the court of Elizabeth Regina. Kelly had been the bully of the queen’s court then, just as he was the bully of Ireland now.

The soldiers were dead, but not the traitor. Hugh stepped around the broken body of the woman, drew back his fist and let it fly into James Kelly’s face, dropping him like a stone at the feet of Shamus Fitz and Donald the Fair.

“Truss him and tie a rope around his neck. If he doesn’t wake up, I’ll drag him by his throat to the stone of O’Neill.”

Hugh turned his back to the traitorous Kelly as he stripped off his gauntlets. He flicked a cold glance to the kerns milling all over the vale, examining the soldiers Hugh had dispatched. Before a one of them had so much as lifted a finger, Hugh had lopped off three heads and gutted a fourth.

Stoic Loghran O’Toole’s only participation in the melée had been to make certain Kelly remained Hugh’s prisoner.

A deep silence settled over the kerns as young Hugh O’Neill turned to face them.

“Macmurrough!” Hugh shouted. “Present yourself!”

At one time, Art Macmurrough had been a general under Shane the Proud, in command of a division of five hundred foot soldiers. He commanded no one now. Bereft of the heart of their leadership, the army of O’Neills had not marched anywhere since Shane’s death. The old soldier came forward reluctantly.

“So your admiration for fine horseflesh exceeds your attention to duty, does it, Art?” Hugh asked in a controlled voice, though the angry edge was there. Every living soul near Benburg bridge heard it.

“My lord,” Macmurrough answered in a voice as aged by the years as Loghran’s, “’twas a fine mare. I couldn’t let it drown in the river. Not a horse like that.”

“So you gave my position away, then, for a piece of horseflesh? Good thinking, man. What if this had been the justiciar, Lord Grey’s, vanguard, bringing siege to Dungannon’s abbey? Did you turn your back on Shane as you just turned your back on me? Did you leave Shane vulnerable? Here at this bridge? Send him alone to his slaughter the last time the English tried to bring Tyrone to its knees?”

“Nay, Lord Hugh. I didn’t.” Macmurrough’s grizzled face broke out in sweat. “It was winter then. You were in England. I was at Tullaghoge. Shane ordered all of us to stand down for Epiphany.”

Seeing that Lord Hugh did not believe him, Macmurrough fell to his knees, his empty hands up, beseeching Hugh’s forgiveness. “My lord, I swear to you on the souls of my five sons, we knew nothing of the attack before it happened. I loved Shane. He was my heart, my blood brother. I’d have given my life for his, if I could have done. I swear on my sainted mother’s soul, I’ll never fail you again, O’Neill. I’ll carry out every command you give me, trusting you as Abraham trusted God. Hail, Hugh O’Neill!”

The kern’s hands clasped Hugh’s. He kissed Hugh’s battered knuckles and the signet ring of his earldom. Donald the Fair strode forward and extended his sword to Hugh, hilt first, as he, also, dropped to his knee in salute.

“I, too, am your man, O’Neill. My soul and my sword lie in your hand, to command as you will.”

Loghran O’Toole’s eyes misted as he watched sword after sword being placed in Hugh’s strong hand as each kern knelt before Hugh O’Neill, giving him a solemn oath of fealty. Loghran had gone to England, gillie to the baron of Dungannon’s son, the only Irish influence in Hugh’s long sojourn at the queen’s court. It was abundantly clear to O’Toole that the queen of England’s court had failed to breed the Irish out of Hugh O’Neill.

Loghran’s heart swelled with pride, loving Hugh O’Neill as the son he would never have. Now, at five-and-twenty, his charge had all the qualities necessary to become the next O’Neill—leadership, intelligence, compassion, courage and fierce loyalty.

One by one, they all came, twelve men and one boy, pledging their lives and souls to Hugh’s hand. Hugh was stunned and humbled. Before tonight, not a one of them had trusted a kinsman raised in England as far as he could throw him.

These twelve were not all O’Neills. Numerous and varied kinsman, cadres and families made up Tyrone. The trust and loyalty of all the others remained to be gained by Hugh at some future date. But these twelve were Hugh’s men now, and Hugh belonged to them. It was a start.

Hugh turned to Macmurrough and bade him run down the soldiers’ scattered horses and transport all seven, and the Arabian mare, to Dungannon. He ordered Kermit to gather the dead soldiers’ weapons, and any wealth or valuables they carried on their persons. Bounty was forever the tribute of war. Whatever was gathered would be divided fairly, each to his own needs.

Donald the Fair and Shamus Fitz volunteered to bury the remains. Loghran O’Toole handed Hugh back his sword, cleaned. He took out his breviary, stole and rosary, saying he would recite the Te Deum over the bodies and consign their souls to God’s eternal judgment.

Satisfied that all was done that should be done, Hugh O’Neill unfastened his plaid from his shoulder and went to the woman’s body. As he opened the cloth to spread it over her and cover the gaps in her gown, it occurred to him that he might never know who she was.

That, he thought, would be a great pity. A woman with her courage should be remembered, immortalized in the bards’ songs and revered in the ages to come. Hugh closed his eyes, remembering the sight of her kicking Kelly in his naked arse, sending him sprawling facedown in the mud. She might have been murdered, but her spirit hadn’t been broken.

Bending his knee to the ground, Hugh gently pried her swollen, cold fingers from the handle of her knife. He tucked it inside the sheath holding his dirk for safe transport. Then Hugh gave her other hand and her neck a cursory examination for identifying jewels or ornaments. She wore none.

Rain had washed some dirt and blood from her damaged face. Matted curls clung to her cheek and clumped in the mud underneath her. He could not help looking at her full breasts. They were exquisitely shaped, heavy and firm, the kind of flesh that filled a man’s hands with pleasure and joy in the touching. Her soft white belly gleamed like fine porcelain beneath the mud smeared across it.

Before he covered her with the plaid, he thought to close her gown and return some dignity to her.

Her flesh was still very warm to the touch, resilient and supple as his knuckles passed over it to draw the rent cloth closed. She’d been wearing a stomacher over a rather finely woven linen kirtle. The laces of that close-fitted outer garment had been cut, though the buckramed garment itself was whole and could be relaced. He loosened the lacing of his doublet and pulled it free, thinking to thread the stomacher at least partway closed.

He had no sooner begun that difficult task than he felt that soft, malleable, womanly flesh move against the backs of his knuckles. Hugh jerked his hand back, stunned by the sensation of feeling a nipple pucker.

Her kirtle slid back off that plump mound of flesh. It was full dark. There was no moon. His sight was good. She’d looked dead to his eye from the distance, even this close a moment ago. He laid his palm over that breast, certain that a woman’s nipples should have no reaction to any touch after death occurred.

As he gently formed her pebbling nipple between his fingers, definitely feeling it react to his touch, he brought his right ear close to her open lips, cocked to catch any sound of actual breathing.

“My lord Hugh!” Owen Roe shouted. His bare feet made squishy sounds as he ran down from the river. “Shamus Fitz says we best cross the Abhainn Mor with all due haste. It will crest any moment now.”

“Be quiet!” Hugh scolded him. “I think the woman may be alive. Stand still and let me listen.”

He dropped his ear to her breastbone, listening for sound inside her throat. Positive that he heard something, Hugh slid his arm under the woman’s shoulders and lifted her. Her head dropped back on his arm, moist lips flexed open and parted. Both breasts spilled out of the kirtle, full and luscious and splendidly beautiful, lifting quite high as her lungs inflated with air.

“Splendor of God!” Owen gasped. He dropped to his knees, his eyes as perfectly round as the gold sovereigns minted at the Tower of London. “Please God, make her alive.”

Hugh shot the boy a quelling look and hastily spread his plaid where he should have some time ago. He felt the woman’s ribs contract, completing the cycle of breathing. Hugh spread his fingers across her exposed throat, easily finding a steady and even pulse. “She is alive.”

“What are we going to do with her?” Owen Roe wanted to know.

Hugh’s mouth twitched over the boy’s inclusive and decidedly possessive pronoun. “We are going to take her to Dungannon, do you fetch my horse to me.”

“But, my lord Hugh,” the boy said, confused, “do you dare to take her there? Doesn’t she have to be cast out by all the clans, now that she’s a whore for the English?”

Hugh blinked, so stunned by the nine-year-old’s assessment of Irish custom that he didn’t notice the woman had roused. His tone was severely reprimanding when he did speak. “She is the victim of a crime, nothing more. That doesn’t make a woman a whore, Owen Roe.”

“Shall I sing hallelujah that you’ve said that?” Morgana asked, her voice a rasp, as she took a firm hold upon the sodden cloth laid up to her throat.

Startled, Hugh jerked. The woman regained her strength all at once, twisting away from his supporting arm. “Milady,” Hugh sputtered, reflexively tightening his arm across her back, “Be careful.”

“Oh, I intend to be,” Morgana said with assurance. She tried to scoot away from him, seeking safety in distance, but failed to gain that advantage. Her head turned slowly right, then left as she tried to gain her bearings. Her last conscious thought returned—of fainting from the fear that she’d called forth a phalanx of demon warriors from the beyond.

Her eyes returned to Hugh, and her hand came up to stroke his cheek. “Are you real?”

“Real?” Hugh asked, confused by that question. Trembling fingers traced his jaw and splayed across his cheek. “Aye, I am real.”

“You’re not a ghost?” Morgana whispered. She swallowed hard. “Not the spirit of Shane O’Neill?”

“Nay, lady. Shane is dead. I am Hugh of the O’Neills.”

Morgana exhaled unsteadily. A touch of the mad irony that had gripped her before she fainted returned. Wryly she said, “Hugh of the O’Neills, then. Has anyone told you you look just like Shane?”

“Not that I can recall, they haven’t. Who are you?”

Morgana wet her lips. She took time to count the crumpled bodies of the queen’s soldiers and the number of Irish kerns milling around in the night shadows. She took a second deep breath, this one shuddering inside her lungs.

Shock was beginning to set in. Her mind wasn’t anywhere near as clear as it should be. Her fingers on his shaved cheek proved he was a man of flesh and blood, not an apparition. She swallowed, then said, “My name is Morgan.”

Hugh repeated her word. “Morgan?”

“Aye, Morgana,” she repeated, stopping herself from saying anything more clarifying.

“Morgana, then.” He grasped a trailing corner of his plaid and wiped at the mud on her face. “What great error on your part made you the prey of an English patrol this stormy night?”

He saw the whites of her eyes flash, but she made no move to stop his hand.

Morgana wasn’t looking at her savior so much as she was looking to see where her attackers were before she answered that loaded question. She noted that there was no one standing to contradict her.

“Truly, sir, I have no idea what their intentions were. Savagery, I suppose.” Her voice shook on her last words, and that much was no act on her part. “Are you certain we are not dead? Is this the afterlife?”

“No, I assure you it is not. You have not gone on to your reward.” A pair of distrustful and confused eyes looked everywhere but at Hugh O’Neill. She drew back from the casual, servicing touch of his hand as he mopped up her face. “By your language, I assume you are not of Tyrone.”

Morgana grimaced, recognizing her first mistake. “You’re right. I don’t speak Irish.”

“Then you are from the Pale, from Dublin, possibly?”

“Kildare,” Morgana corrected. She could not afford to say more.

“And what brings you to Ulster, Morgana of Kildare?”

“I am on pilgrimage to Dunluce.” Again, Morgana looked to the river, seeking Ariel. She exhaled a deep and tired sigh. “Now that I’ve lost my horse, I shall have to go back to Dublin and start all over.”

Hugh could see her distress. He stroked his fingers over her throat, soothing her as he would a frightened animal. “Nay, you haven’t lost your horse. It is safe on the other side of the Abhainn Mor. One of my men took pity on the beast and rescued it from the flood.”

“One did?” Morgana turned her face back to the man, her eyes wary. “Are you certain?”

“As certain as I am of my own name.”

“God and Mary be praised,” she whispered reverently. A great gush of relief over that news nearly caused Morgana to burst into tears. If Ariel had made it across the river, her saddle and bags intact, then all was not lost. Morgana could continue to Dunluce with nothing lost beyond the cost of her escort. Given any luck, she could hire more men. She could use some of her ready coins to have masses said for those she’d lost.

Hugh did not urge her to quiet. A woman’s tears after an ordeal were a good thing. He embraced her gently, waiting for the calm that would come soon enough.

“Tell me,” Hugh asked as he sat her up, mindful that she had injuries other than the ones he could see in the limited light. “Do you think you can stand or ride?”

“Possibly.” Morgana used her left hand to touch the back of her neck. She encountered mud, matted hair and excruciating pain. This wasn’t the time to start cataloging her injuries. She nodded in the direction of Kelly’s trussed body, easily distinguished from the others because of his silver-gray hair. “Is Kelly dead?”

“Not yet,” Hugh murmured. “By your question, I take it you are acquainted with him.”

“Enough to wish I wasn’t,” Morgana replied tartly. She busied her hands, making order of her clothing, and what she couldn’t order she wrapped securely under the sodden tartan to cover the gaps.

The curious boy kneeling at Hugh O’Neill’s side took off his own belt and offered it to her as a means to hold the plaid secure.

“That was kind of you, Owen. Now go and fetch my horse,” Hugh said, dismissing the boy.

“At once!” Owen popped to his feet, bowing deeply. Hugh thought the show of respect attributable more to the English lady’s breasts than to any sign of hero worship honoring Hugh.

“May I have my knife back?” Morgana asked as she fastened the belt buckle at her waist.

Hugh swung his eyes from the departing boy, back to the woman. Her intense gaze was leveled, pointed at his waist, where her blade rested in the same sheath as his dirk.

“Until I know you better, Morgana of Kildare, I think the blade had best rest where it is. I applaud your skill with it. One man of six dispatched to his Maker, three others wounded. My gut tells me that you are a dangerous woman.”

“A desperate woman, sir.” She challenged him without compunction, proving that she was no stranger to speaking her mind. “I would feel far safer if the blade rested in my own sheath.”

Hugh leaned over her, deliberately sliding his hand under her skirt to find the deadly dagger’s sheath, neatly buckled below her left knee. She was an Englishwoman from the Pale, and not to be trusted. His eyes met hers. “You will be safe in my care without it.”

The rhythm of Morgana’s heart arrested. Her breath caught in her throat. The flesh on the inside of her thighs quivered. The touch of his hand was intimate and warm. The implication of that sheath at her knee might have gone unsaid, but his proprietary attitude needed no more vouching for. She knew exactly what he was telling her—he was the one in control, not she.

Trying to take control of matters between them, Morgana grasped his wrist and removed his hand.

“I find, sir, my personal security never rests well in anyone’s hands but my own. I repeat, give me back my knife.”

“Not now, Morgana of Kildare. Not before we know who you are and what you are doing in Tyrone. Come, I will help you to stand.”

As Hugh assisted the woman back onto her feet, Kermit Blackbeard turned the contents of a filled water skin out on James Kelly’s head and chest. The moment the traitor roused from his stupor, Kermit kicked hard toes into Kelly’s ribs.

Kelly awoke spitting and cursing, shouting against the bonds restraining him. “God damn you, I’ll have your head for striking me!”

He sat up, blinking his eyes, and glared at the man assisting Morgana to her feet. “Untie me, O’Neill!”

“O’Neill!” Morgana gasped. She jerked against the young man whose kind arm gave her the support she needed to remain on her feet. “You’re the O’Neill?”

“Aye, lady, so he is,” Kermit Blackbeard assured her. He dug his fist into Kelly’s collar and hauled him onto his feet.

“Those are their words, not mine, lady,” Hugh crooned softly into the woman’s ear, to calm her.

“On your feet, man!” Shamus Fitz dug his heels into his mount’s ribs, putting hard tension on the rope tied between his saddle and Kelly’s fat neck. Kelly struggled, choking, his wild eyes searching for Hugh.

“O’Neill! Tell your men to desist! O’Neill!”

Morgana of Kildare reacted. Her hand shot out to snatch her blade from the sheath at the O’Neill’s waist. He stayed her hand, gripping her fingers firmly, adding a command to desist. “Nay, lady. This is my land, and he’s my prisoner, now. Unless you want to join Kelly in the ranks of the unwelcome, obey me.”