Turlough shook his head and tugged at his beard.
“Best take me with you, master, instead of this overgrown ox. You may need brains in dealing with the Bird Daughter, and he has no more brains than strew his ax-edge. Also he is wounded.”
Brian pondered this, while Cathbarr furtively shook a fist at Turlough. There was wisdom in the advice, but on the other hand Brian did not like to leave his precious two hundred men in care of Cathbarr. If the Dark Master attacked suddenly, as he was like to do, brains would be more needed than brawn.
On the other hand, he counted on Cathbarr’s open face removing the evident suspicion that the smooth-tongued Turlough had raised in Gorumna Isle. It had been a mistake, he saw plainly, to send such an emissary on his mission. Picturing this woman who led her own ships to war, he limned her in his mind as a large-boned, flat-breasted, wide-hipped creature—and with good reason. He had seen women fighting at Drogheda and he had seen them in other places as he rode to the rest, for in those days many a woman took her slain lord’s skean fada and drew blood for Ireland before she was cut down. And when women rode to battle there was no mercy asked or given, from Royalist or Confederate or Parliament man.
Nuala O’Malley was a woman of blood, said Brian to himself, and he would give her blood for her help.
So he curtly refused Turlough’s advice, saw that the ten bridles of his bound and mounted captives were lined together, and beckoned to Cathbarr. Before they rode off, however, they doffed their Scot accouterments and took back their own garments, after which Cathbarr led the way over the hills to Kilkieran Bay, and Turlough took command of the force in sullen ill-humor.
The morning was still young, for the attack had taken place a short two hours after sunrise and had soon been quelled. Beyond a slashed thigh and a red-creased neck, Cathbarr of the Ax was unhurt, and Brian had received no scratch. If the ten captives wondered why they were bound and their comrades freed, they said nothing of it.
Even after seeing what he had of the merciless war in Ireland, Brian had much ado in making up his mind to hold to the plan he had formed on the previous evening. These ten ruffians were scoundrels enough, to judge by looks, and yet they were men; and he had been raised in no such school of war as this, where surrender meant slaughter without pity. However, he determined to do what he could for them, and he would have held to this determination had it not been for what chanced when they rode down to the little fishing village where Turlough had met the O’Malley men.
They arrived just as the evening was darkling, after a hard day’s ride.
As they came within sight of the place, which lay at the head of Kilkieran water, Brian made out that a small galley was pulled up on shore, and there were a number of men about the huts. Upon the approach of the two chiefs with their file of captives there was an instant scurry of figures; women ran to the huts, and a dozen or more roughly clad men appeared with pikes and muskets. Brian held up his hand in sign of peace and rode slowly onward, Cathbarr at his side, to within a dozen paces of the huts.
“Who are you?” cried out one of the musketeers. “Be off!”
“Bark less, dog,” said Brian, scorn in his eye. “We seek Nuala O’Malley. Take us out to Gorumna Isle in your boat.”
“What seek ye with the Bird Daughter?” queried the other suspiciously.
“Her business, not yours.”
The seamen gazed at them doubtfully, then a number of other men came from the huts, well-armed. One of these set up a cry, pointing at the captives, and a burst of yells answered him from the rest. Next instant Brian and Cathbarr had their weapons out and were facing an excited crowd of men.
“Be silent, dogs!” bellowed Cathbarr, and his voice quelled the uproar. “What means this attack? Would you have the Bird Daughter strip you with whips, fools?”
The spokesman stood out, his dark face quivering with fury as he pointed.
“That is as it may be, axman, but first those bound men shall die. One is the man who slew my brother, nailing him to his own door till he died; another is he who burned Lame Art’s wife and child last Whit-Sunday—”
“There is he who lopped my husband’s hands and nose! Slay him!” shrieked out a hag as she burst forward. Brian held out his sword and she drew back, but instantly others had taken up the cry.
“And the devil who hung Blind Ulick!”
“There is he who—”
In that brief moment Brian heard things too horrible for speech. The ten bound men had grouped together, some pale as death, others laughing defiantly. But as the crowd surged forward Brian held up his sword, and they paused to listen; he knew now that there was no more pity in his heart for these black ruffians of O’Donnell’s.
“Let the Bird Daughter render judgment upon them,” he shouted. “Friends, take us to the Bird Daughter and let her do as she will, for I bear these men to her alone.”
At that the crowd fell silent, but their leader gave a rapid order, and half a dozen men ran down to the strand. Another order, and the maddened villagers gave back as the seamen closed about Brian and Cathbarr and their captives.
“Come,” said the leader roughly. “You shall go to Gorumna Isle with us, strange men, but I do not think that you shall ever come back again.”
“Nor do I,” grinned Cathbarr in the ear of Brian, as they left their horses to the fishermen, unbound the prisoners from their steeds, and made their way down to the galley. Brian looked at his friend, and they both smiled grimly.
CHAPTER VII
THE BIRD DAUGHTER
“Now, there is a castle worth the taking, Yellow Brian!” said Cathbarr.
Brian nodded, his eyes shining in the starlight. After a pull of a long seven miles down the bay, the galley had rounded into the northern end of Gorumna Isle, guided by a high beacon set among the stars. As they drew nearer Brian made out that this beacon was set on the tower of a high pile of masonry black against the sky, lit here and there by cressets, and it was plain that the Bird Daughter kept good watch since they had more than once been hailed in passing the islands.
Once turned into the harbor, Brian found suddenly that they were among ships, many of them small galleys, but two of good size which bore riding-lights. Again they responded to hails, and without warning a few torches blazed out ahead of them. Then it was seen that the castle was built with its lower part close on the water, and its upper part rising on the crag. In reality, as he found later, it was two castles in one, as of necessity it had to be. Were the opposite isles held by an enemy, and hostile ships in the little harbor, the higher towers running up the crag could dominate all, and the lower castle could be abandoned without danger.
Even in the starlight Brian’s trained soldier’s eye made out something of this. Then the leader of the seamen came and stood beside them, for during the two-hours’ trip he had talked somewhat with Cathbarr and had come to look with more respect on Brian himself. That was only natural, for seamen ever like those men who talk least.
“Strangers,” he said with rough courtesy, “a word in your ear. If you would gain speech with the Lady Nuala, deal not with her as with me. Send in your names and your business, and you may perchance get to see her in the morning, or a week hence, as she may choose.”
“Thanks,” answered Brian. “But my will is not like to hang upon hers.”
The seaman shrugged his shoulders, the oars were put in, and they floated up to where the torches flared. Here there was a landing-place of hewn stone, with a gate lying open beyond it, and armed men waiting. One of these, from his bunch of huge keys and air of authority, Brian knew for the seneschal.
“M’anam go’n Dhia!” he growled, peering down into the boat as it ground on the stone, “what fish have you there?”
“Two salmon and ten herring, Muiertach,” laughed one of the men. Brian and his friend stepped out while the ten prisoners were prodded after them, and Brian found the seneschal looking him over with some wonder, hands on hips.
“Well! A gia
nt with a devil’s ax, and Cuculain, the Royal Hound, come to life again! Who are you, yellow man, and who is this axman, and who are these ten bound men?”
Brian was minded to answer curtly enough, but he looked at the seneschal and remembered the seaman’s kindly warning. Under his eye the laugh withered suddenly on the seneschal’s lips.
“These ten men belong to me, Muiertach. Go, tell the Bird Daughter that Brian Buidh and Cathbarr of the Ax have come to her, bringing tribute as she demanded.”
Now it was that Cathbarr, who had asked no questions all that day, perceived for the first time the reason of their fighting and hard riding, and what the manner of that tribute was. He broke into a great bellow of laughter so that the rough-clad seamen stared at him in wonder, but at a word from Brian he quieted instantly.
“In the morning the message shall be delivered, Brian Buidh,” returned burly Muiertach with a glimmer of respect in his voice. “And now render up your weapons, so that we may treat you as guests—”
“So you sea-rovers are afraid of two men, lest they capture your hold?”
Brian’s biting words brought a deep flush to Muiertach’s face.
“No weapons do we render,” he went on, his voice cold as his eyes. “We come as guests, seneschal, and our business is not with you. Take these ten men to your dungeons, take us to guest chambers and give us to eat, and see that we have speech with the Bird Daughter before to-morrow’s sun is high.”
At this Muiertach growled something into his beard, but turned with a gesture of assent. His men closed around the captives, while Brian and Cathbarr followed him into the castle, the giant still chuckling to himself with great rumbles of laughter.
“Let strict watch be kept over these two,” said Muiertach in English to one of the torchmen who accompanied them, thinking he would not be understood.
“You may yet get a touch of the whip for that order,” said Brian in the same tongue.
Stricken with amazement, Muiertach turned and stared at him, jaw dropping, while Cathbarr glanced from one to the other in perplexity. Brian smiled.
“Lead on, and talk less.”
With tenfold respect, the seneschal obeyed. Now Brian saw that this castle was indeed a stronghold, and might easily be defended by fewer men than it had. The inner walls of the lower castle were well lined with falcons and falconets, while on the towers above peered out heavier cannon, which he took for culverins from their length of nose. Crossing the courtyard, they entered the building itself, and Muiertach led them through upward-winding corridors, studded with cressets and with here and there a recessed prie-dieu in the wall.
From the snatches of talk behind the doors they passed, Brian guessed that this lower castle was occupied by the garrison. In this he was right, for with torchmen before and behind them they emerged into the cold night air again and climbed upward, coming to a gate in the wall of the upper castle. This stood open, but it clanged shut behind them, and after crossing a steep courtyard they entered a second and broader corridor.
Muiertach led them up a long flight of stairs, then another, and finally flung open a heavy door. It was evident that they were lodged in one of the towers.
“Rest sound and fear not to eat our food,” said the seneschal. “Beannacht leath!”
“Blessing on you,” responded Brian and Cathbarr together, and entered.
For a wonder, Brian found that the chamber was lighted with candles, which Cathbarr examined with no little awe. Also, it contained a very good bed, on which the giant looked with suspicion. The hard stone walls were hung with tattered tapestries, and before they had settled well into their chairs two men entered with food and wine of the best.
“Not so bad,” smiled Brian as they ate. “How come your wounds, brother?”
“Those scratches? Bah!” And the giant gurgled down half a quart of Canary at a stretch. “You are not going to sleep on that bed of cloths?”
“That I am,” laughed Brian, “and soon, for I am overweary with riding. Try it, Cathbarr, and you will be glad of it.”
“Not I! Since there is no bracken here the floor is good enough for me. Eh, but this sea-woman will have a thought in her mind over your message, brother!”
Brian chuckled, but he was too weary with that day’s work to talk or think, and when the remnants of their meal had been removed and their door shut, he gratefully sought the first bed he had known for weeks. After some laughing persuasion he prevailed on the suspicious Cathbarr to blow out the candles, and upon that he fell asleep.
When he wakened it was broad daylight, and Cathbarr was still snoring with his ax looped about his wrist as usual. Brian, feeling like a new man, went to the open casement and looked out.
He found himself gazing through a three-foot stone wall, and as he was doubtless in one of the towers, this argued that the lower walls were twelve feet thick or more. The lower castle was hid from him, but his view was toward the upper bay and included the harbor. The two larger ships, which were small caracks, but large for the west coast in that day, bore six guns on a side, and Brian saw that they were being scrubbed and made shipshape. The Bird Daughter must be a woman of some scrupulousness, he reflected. Beyond the brown sails of two fishing-boats, and low, storm-boding clouds over the farther hills, there was nothing more in sight.
As Cathbarr still wore his long mail-shirt, Brian kicked him awake, and after his first bellowing yawn their door opened and men brought in jars of water. When the giant’s wounds had been dressed, under protest, and they had broken their fast, the seneschal appeared.
“Chieftains,” he said respectfully, “the Lady Nuala has received your message and will have speech with you this afternoon. Until then she wishes that you keep your chamber, since she knows not your mind in this visit.”
“That is but fair,” assented Brian.
Cathbarr grumbled, but there was no help for it, since they were virtually prisoners. The day passed slowly, and toward noon storm drew down on the harbor and snow eddied in their casement. With that, they fell to polishing their weapons; Brian procured a razor and a much-needed shave, and Cathbarr furbished up his huge ax until it glowed like silver.
Finally Muiertach appeared. Brian slung the great sword across his back, and they followed the seneschal down to the courtyard. Here they were joined by the captive O’Donnells and the seamen who had brought them to the castle, and Muiertach led them to the great hall.
The father of this O’Malley woman must have been a man of parts, thought Brian as he gazed around. The hall was scantily filled with, perhaps, three-score men ranged along the walls, and at the farther end was a low dais where a huge log fire roared high. The beams were hung with a few pennons and ship-ensigns, and on the dais were placed a half-dozen chairs. Behind one of these stood two women, and in the chair, calmly facing the hall, sat the Bird Daughter.
Brian caught his breath sharply, and his blue eyes flickered flame as he saw her. Never in his life had his gaze met such a woman—not in all the land of Spain or elsewhere in Ireland.
At this time Nuala O’Malley was twenty years old, and ten of those years had been passed either on shipboard or here in Gorumna Isle. As one chronicler describes her, “She was not tall, but neither was she small of stature, and when she stood on a ship’s deck there was no tossing could cause her to stumble. Her hair was not blue, but neither was it black, and her eyes were very deep and bright, violet in color, and set wide in her head. Her nose was neither small nor large, her cheeks were ever red with the wind off the sea, her mouth was finely curved, but tight-set withal, and she had more chin than women are wont to have. She was very lissom in body, but her head never drooped.”
And that is a most excellent description of the Bird Daughter, in fewer words than most men might use to-day.
But of all this Brian noted at the moment only that before him sat a girl-woman whose calm poise and confident power struck out at him like a vibrant presence. Like himself, she wore a cloak of dark red, but no steel j
ack glittered beneath it; there was a torque of ancient gold about her neck, and her hair was caught up and hidden beneath a small cap of red.
Brian thought of the woman he had painted in his mind, then laughed softly. She caught the laugh on his face, and comprehended it, and was pleased; then as she watched him very calmly, it seemed to Brian that her sheer beauty was a thing of deception. It must be, for she was surely a woman of blood. He had known enough of beautiful women, who played the parts of men, to know that on the far side of their beauty was neither mercy nor love nor compassion, that their lovers were many steps to ambition, and that they were venomous. So his smile died away, and his blue eyes glittered cold and dark, and this the Bird Daughter saw also.
Now, there was no man on the dais save Muiertach, who mounted the two steps with his keys jangling. As Brian would have gone after him, two pikemen stepped forward to intervene. Brian looked into their eyes and they drew back again. He and Cathbarr mounted to the dais, and he bowed a low, courtly, Spanish bow, of which the Bird Daughter took no note. Instead he heard her voice, very low and penetrating, and she was speaking to the two pikemen.
“Go out into the courtyard,” she said, “and give each other five lashes. This is because you dared insult a guest, and because you drew back after insulting him. Go!”
The two pikemen, rather pale under their beards, handed over their pikes to comrades and strode out of the hall. She turned to Brian, speaking still in Gaelic:
“Welcome, Brian Buidh. You have come to bring me tribute?”
“Yes, Lady Nuala, and the tribute is these ten men of the Dark Master’s.”
She looked at Cathbarr; her eyes swept over his ax. Then she looked again at Brian, and spoke to Muiertach in English.
“Truly, I have seldom seen such a man as this—”
A swift look of warning flashed over the seneschal’s face, and Brian laughed.
“Lady,” he said in the same tongue, “he is Cathbarr of the Ax, and he will be a good man to stand with us against the Dark Master.”
The H. Bedford-Jones Pulp Fiction Megapack Page 64
