The H. Bedford-Jones Pulp Fiction Megapack

by H. Bedford-Jones

  “Lord, O’Donnell sends you these stores with a message. I am Con Teague of Galway.”

  “Let us have it,” ordered Brian, liking the looks of the man not at all.

  “He bade us say that he was leaving Galway to-morrow at dawn with a force of men, and that you should meet him at Bertragh Castle and fall on that place to take it.”

  “That is good,” laughed Brian. “Now learn that you have found the wrong ships, my man. We are not the Millhaven pirates, but I am Brian Buidh, who holds Bertragh; and here is the Lady Nuala, for whom I hold it.”

  At that Nuala came forward, and Teague looked greatly astonished, as well he might, and all the Bird Daughter’s men fell roaring with laughter. But he could make no resistance, and stood chapfallen while Brian talked with Nuala.

  “I must back to the Castle,” he said, “and see if this news be true. Do you go on to Gorumna with my men, and I will let loose a pigeon to you. If the Dark Master is indeed on the way, then come with all the men you can spare, and it will go hard if we do not best his royalists, and the pirates later when the latter come.”

  This was clearly the best plan, so Brian sent Teague down into the galley and followed him, as the light ship was faster than the caracks. Replacing half of Teague’s men with O’Malleys, he had the ropes cast off, waved his hand at Nuala, and they drove to the eastward and Bertragh Castle.

  Teague made so much moan over losing his ship that Brian promised it back to him when they had reached the castle; the stores and wine, however, he accounted good spoils of war. This put the seaman in better mood, and by noon the fast galley had covered the twenty miles to Bertragh, and cast down her anchor in the little bay beyond the castle, that same bay where Brian had come to grief through O’Donnell’s sorcery.

  The men crowded down to meet him joyfully, and Brian found that Cathbarr had come home safe with his beeves and was hungry for fight. No sign had been heard of the Dark Master along the roads, however, so Brian set Turlough in charge of getting the stores and wine-casks off the galley, and fell to work putting the castle in shape for defense.

  Since there was no need of loosing a pigeon until word came that the Dark Master was actually on the way, he sent out men to have a beacon built on the hills at the bay’s head as soon as the enemy was sighted. What with seeing that the bastards and other shot were cleaned and loaded, and stationing his hundred men to the best advantage, he found that the afternoon soon wore away.

  “Those are good wines,” said Turlough when they sat at meat that evening, the men eating below in the courtyard around fires. “But I do not like that ship-master.”

  So far Brian had said nothing of how the galley had been taken, save that they had chanced on it at sea and had heard from Teague that the Dark Master might be on them in another day. As for the O’Malleys, they kept to themselves and talked not at all, so that neither Turlough nor Cathbarr had heard the way of that capture.

  “Is she unladen?” asked Brian.

  “All save a few barrels. That ship-master was so eager to be off,” grunted old Turlough spitefully, “that I stayed the work and put a guard on the galley until morning.”

  “Give the men a cask of the best wine,” ordered Brian shortly.

  Having taken upon himself the duties of seneschal, Turlough departed grumbling. While he was gone, Brian’s tongue was a little loosened with wine, so that he told Cathbarr of how he had taken the galley, at which the giant bellowed with laughter. Presently from the courtyard came shouting and singing, and Turlough appeared with a beaker of wine.

  “The men like it well enough,” he said, “yet to me it seems soured. Taste it, Brian; if it be so, then you have made a poor haul on that cruise.”

  Brian sipped the wine, and in truth it seemed to have soured. Cathbarr made little of that, and would have drunken it except that his clumsy hand knocked it from the table and emptied it all. But as it happened, that mischance saved his life.

  A little after, Brian pulled out a Spanish pipe he had got that day from one of the O’Malleys, with some tobacco, and began puffing in great good-humor, for it was long since he had tasted tobacco. Cathbarr watched in awe, never having seen this done before, so that Brian and Turlough had great fun with him. All his life the giant had lived in the mountains and he knew no more than his ax had taught him; though he had seen men smoke before, he had ever accounted it sorcery of some kind, nor could Brian get him to as much as touch the pipe with his finger.

  Brian was sorry that the wine had proved sour; the butts were huge ones, and he had counted on their lasting him and his men all the winter through. However, he dismissed the matter from his mind and fell to talking with Turlough and Cathbarr over their arrangements in case of an attack. In the midst, one of the men who had been watching from the tower ran in to say that he had caught sight of a beacon on the hills, which meant that the arch-enemy was on the road.

  “Good!” exclaimed Brian, springing up. “Turlough, go fetch me that cage of pigeons. Cathbarr, see that the men are set on the walls—”

  He had got no further than this when there came a strange noise from the doorway. Turning, he saw a man staggering forward, choking as he came, and recognized him as one of the Bird Daughter’s seamen. The fellow held a bloody sword in his hand.

  “What’s this?” cried Brian angrily, noting that there was silence upon the court-yard. “Has there been wrangling again—”

  “Death!” coughed the O’Malley, staring at him with starting, terrible eyes. “Con Teague—I slew him—too—too late—”

  “Man, what is forward?” Brian leaped out and caught the seaman in his arms, for the fellow’s head was rolling on his shoulders.

  “Death!” whispered the man again. “They are—all dead—”

  His head fell back in death, and the sword fell from his hand with a clatter. But from Cathbarr, who had gone to the doorway, came one terrible shout of grief and rage.

  “Brian! Our men lie dead—”

  “I think the Dark Master has sent us a kindly gift,” quoth Turlough Wolf, as Brian rose with horror in his face and let the seaman’s body fall. “Now I know why that wine was sour, master!”

  CHAPTER XVIII

  BRIAN YIELDS BERTRAGH

  “I dare not trust birds alone in this strait, Cathbarr. Go to that galley with the two O’Malleys and hasten to Gorumna. Bid the Bird Daughter stay and wait further word from me; but take those hundred men of mine with her galleys, and hasten back. If the beacon on the tower is burning, I will be here; if not, and if I can make terms, I will meet you at that tower of yours. Now hasten!”

  “But—”

  “For God’s love go, or my heart will burst!”

  Brian sank down on the horse-stone with a groan, and Cathbarr, catching up his ax, fled through the open gates and was gone into the night. Brian gazed up after him, and on the hills he saw that dim beacon-fire heralding the Dark Master.

  The six men guarding the galley, two of them being O’Malleys, and three men who had watched on the tower, were all that remained alive in Bertragh besides Turlough and Brian. The men had drunk deep of that poisoned wine; when Con Teague and his men tried to get away after a few had died, they were slain. But so swift was the poison that only one of the O’Malleys had lived to reach Brian.

  The fires still burned brightly, and before some of them meat was burning. Sitting in blank despair on a horse-block, Brian saw the dead bodies of a few less than a hundred men lying there. Turlough Wolf and his six gave over trying to put life into any of them, and now the old man came and put his hand on Brian’s shoulder.

  “Where has Cathbarr of the Ax gone, master?”

  Brian told him dully, and Turlough nodded approval, having at length learned all the story of how that galley had been taken.

  “Master, there was deep cunning in this. O’Donnell sent that galley to you, or, rather, to the Bird Daughter, and he had spies watching. Had the Gorumna men drunk of that brew, he would have fallen on there; but here c
ame the galley, and now he comes over the hills. And we are few to meet him.”

  “We will be more when the men come in from the hill-roads before him,” and Brian rose up with heavy heart, forcing himself to the task. “Send out a man to haste them in and to warn what men there be at the farms. Also let him send a wagon or two, that these dead may be carried out before the Dark Master falls on us. Send two men to the tower to build a beacon, for Cathbarr will not be back before to-morrow night.”

  Brian went to the stables where the three carrier-pigeons were caged, and fetched the cage to the great hall. Here he wrote what had happened, with his plan, in small space, fastened it under the wing of a bird, and let loose the pigeon from the courtyard.

  Stunned though he was by the sudden and terrible blow, Brian had seized on the only course left him. If he could make shift to hold the castle at all, he would do so; if not, he must make terms and get off to Gorumna that he might take vengeance for this dastardly stroke that had been dealt him.

  Nuala had nigh three hundred men in her castle, and he felt that all was not yet lost, even should he have to yield Bertragh. The Dark Master would hardly have a large force with him, and he would know nothing of those hundred men Brian had loaned Nuala; so Brian reckoned that if he could get away, O’Donnell would think him a broken man who could do no further against him.

  “Well, that’s looking too far ahead,” thought Brian very wearily. “Perchance I am broken, indeed, since I have lost two hundred and a half of men without gain.”

  An hour later rode in a score of men with wagons, and fell to work getting the dead out of the castle, though for burying there was no time. This score, and two more who came in later, were all the men left to Brian; they reported that the Dark Master would be on them by daybreak, with two hundred Scots troopers and one horse cannon.

  “His friends proved niggardly, then,” laughed Brian drearily. “We have but to hold the place till to-morrow night, friends, and the O’Malleys will relieve us. Now, one man to watch and the rest of us to rest, for there is work ahead.”

  Brian, indeed, got some sleep that night, but it was shot through with visions of those poisoned men of his, and their twisted faces gibbered at him, and he thought they shrieked and howled for revenge. When he was roused at dawn, he found the meaning of those noises, since a great storm was sweeping down out of the west, and the farther wore the day, the worse grew the storm.

  “Is Heaven itself fighting against us?” he thought bitterly, watching the sea from the battlements. “Against this blast Nuala cannot reach me, if she will.”

  He got little time to brood, however. Before he had broken his fast the Dark Master’s horsemen came in sight—two hundred braw Scots, with wagons and a cannon following after. It was no large force, but Brian found afterward that it was the best the Dark Master could get, since the Galway Irish cared nothing whether the Scots lived or died.

  They halted and spread out, half a mile from the castle, and Brian saw that the men were being quartered on the farms round about. Bitterly he wished that he had his lost men, for with them he could have sent those Scots flying home again; but now he was helpless.

  With the gates shut and the bastards loaded with bullets to sweep the approach, Brian sent his twenty men to the battlements and watched, with Turlough beside him. It was plain that no offensive operations were under way as yet, and an hour passed quietly; then ten men rode down to the castle under a white flag, and foremost of them was the Dark Master.

  “Now, if I were in your place, master,” said Turlough, slanting his eyes up at Brian in his shrewd way, “I would loose those bastards and sweep the road bare.”

  “You are not in my place,” said Brian, and the Wolf held his peace.

  The Dark Master looked at those bodies piled between the castle and the shore, and it was easy to see that he was laughing and pointing them out to the Scots. At that Brian heard his men mutter no little, and he himself clenched his nails into his palms and cursed bitterly; but he forbade his men to fire and they durst not disobey him. The party rode up under the walls, and the Dark Master grinned at Brian standing above.

  “You have great drunkards, Yellow Brian,” he called mockingly. “Have all your men drunk themselves to death?”

  Brian answered him not, but fingered his hilt; even at that distance the Dark Master seemed to feel the icy blue eyes upon him, for his leer vanished.

  “Yield to us, Yellow Brian,” he continued, shooting up his head from betwixt his shoulders. “I do not think you have many men in that castle.”

  “I have enough to hold you till more come,” answered Brian.

  “Mayhap, and mayhap not,” and O’Donnell laughed again. “Keep a watch to seaward, Yellow Brian, and when you see four sail turning the headland, judge if those two caracks of the Bird Daughter’s are like to help you.”

  “If you have no more to say, get you gone,” said Brian, feeling the anger in him rising beyond endurance. The Dark Master looked along the walls for a moment, then signed to his men, and they rode off through the driving snow again.

  Turlough looked at Brian and Brian at him, and the same thought was in the minds of both. If those Millhaven men had four ships driving down before that storm, as seemed probable enough, the Bird Daughter’s two little caracks would never land men under the guns of Bertragh.

  About noon the snow fell less thickly, though the storm had risen to great power, and Brian made out that the Scots were bringing forward that cannon of theirs. Having some little knowledge of artillery himself, he drew the charge of bullets from a bastard and put in more powder, then put the bullets back, a full bag of them. He did the same with two more of the bastards on that wall, and when the Scots had halted aimed all three very carefully, and set men by them to fire at his order. The Scots were turning their cannon about, a score of men being in their party, and Brian judged that they were eight hundred paces away—just within range of his bastards.

  “The Dark Master lost this hold because he had too many men,” he said to Turlough, “and we shall lose it because we have too few; but we will make better use of these shot than did he. Fire, men!”

  The three men brought down their linstocks and ran for it, having seen that extra charge of powder set in the cannon. But none of the pieces burst, though they roared loud enough and leaped at their recoil-ropes like mad things. When the white smoke shredded down the wind, Brian’s men yelled in great delight, for those Scots and horses about the cannon were stricken down or fleeing, and the piece had not yet been loaded.

  “They will get little joy of that cannon,” said Brian grimly, and went in to meat.

  During the rest of the day the cannon stood there silent, dead horses and men around it; nor was any further attack made. Brian knew well that having found him prepared, the Dark Master would now attack at night and hard did Brian pray that the storm might abate from the west, or at least shift around, so that Nuala’s ships could come to his aid.

  Instead, the gale only swooped down the wilder, and seemed like to hold a day or more, as indeed it did. About mid-afternoon Turlough came and beckoned him silently out to the rear or seaward battlement and pointed out.

  No words passed between the two men, nor were any needed; beating around the southern headland were four flecks of white that Brian knew for ships coming from the west with the storm, and he saw that for once the Dark Master had told the truth.

  “I have some skill at war,” he said to Turlough that afternoon when they had seen the four ships weather past them and anchor a mile up the bay; “and since the Dark Master’s troopers are also skilled at that game, they will fall to work without waste of time or men. We may look to have the dry moat filled with fascines to-night and our gates blown in with petards. At the worst, we can hold that tower, where the powder is stored.”

  If he had had more men, Brian would have slung the bastards down from the high walls and set them in the courtyard where they could sweep the gates when these had been blo
wn in. But they weighed a ton and half each, and there was no time to build shears to let them down, even had they had spars and ropes at hand. So Brian set them to cover the approach, and had the smaller falcons brought down to the courtyard, all five, where he trained them on the gates and loaded them with bullets heavily.

  “Turlough and I will fire these ourselves,” he told his men that evening as they made supper together, the men looking forward to the night’s work with great joy. “Do the rest of you gather on either hand by the stables, with spare muskets and pistols.”

  So this was done as he said. Because of the storm Brian did not light his beacon after all, but he stocked the tower with food and wine, and told his men to get there, if they could, when the rest was taken. That tower had Brian’s chamber in the lower part and a ladder in the upper part, where was great store of powder.

  The five falcons were set in front of the hall doorway, where once Brian had come near to being nailed. Brian loosed another of the pigeons, telling Nuala how things chanced, and of the four pirate ships, and set the last bird in the tower in case of need, which proved a lucky thing for him in the end.

  Brian and his men slept after meat, while Turlough Wolf remained watching. It was wearing well on to midnight when the old man woke them all, and Brian went to the walls to hear a thud of hoofs and a murmur of men coming across the wind to him. He sent off men to loose the loaded guns on the outer walls at random, and then suddenly flung lighted cressets over the gates.

  A wild yell answered this, and bullets from the men who were filling the dry moat, while others scrambled across it and charged up to the gates with small powder-kegs and petards ready. This was not done without scathe, however; Brian’s men loosed their muskets, and one by one the heavy bastards thundered out across the snow, though the result was hard to see in the darkness.

  There came a ragged flash of musketry in reply, and that abandoned cannon roared out lustily, though its ball passed far overhead. Brian stood on a demi-bastion that half flanked the gates, and after firing his pistol into the men below, he leaped down the steps into the courtyard and joined Turlough behind the falcons.