“It’s fine, truly,” Maire said softly, grateful once again that Ona had arrived at such a timely moment. As the serving girl laid the fresh towels she’d carried under her arm onto the table, Maire felt her face grow warm as Ona then bent to mop up the puddle on the floor with the towel discarded there.
“Have … have any begun to leave for their homes?” she asked, not surprised she suddenly felt so flushed again at the memories that puddle evoked.
“No, miss, not yet. Lord FitzWilliam ordered that all remain until he returned to Longford Castle. It was a large force that went with him—aye, almost all of his knights.”
Maire swallowed hard at this news, imagining they must have bristled with weaponry. Her only comfort that she felt little fear for Ronan and her clansmen, evading Normans for rebel Irish as instinctive as breathing, she wondered suddenly how the three O’Melaghlins had come to be captured. Duncan had never said.
It made her wonder, too, how the prisoners fared and if they’d even been told they had won a three-day reprieve from the noose. If Gerard de Barry was tending to them, his hatred for rebels was so great that she imagined he would sooner taunt them with torture and death than tell the truth. Overcome with a desire to see the O’Melaghlins, if only to offer some hope, and more than eager to find some distraction from worrying about what Duncan might soon ask of her, Maire called out to Ona just before the serving girl disappeared out the door.
“Wait! Do you know the way to the dungeon?”
Ona spun around to stare oddly at Maire. “Th-the dungeon, miss?”
“Aye. Would you take me there? After I dress, of course. It won’t take me long to bathe. You could sit on the bench and wait for me.”
The serving girl nodded, though she still looked surprised as she retreated and shut the door. Maire dropped the blanket at once and went to the basin, her heart already pounding. Yet she doubted any would stop or even question her, surely not given all seemed to know she was Duncan’s intended bride.
***
“Sweet Jesu, Mary, and Joseph.”
“My lady?”
Maire started as the somber-faced guard twisted round on the narrow steps to face her. “I … I meant only—it’s so cold down here,” she said quickly, shuddering more for the slimy moss covering the walls than that she was chilled. The man merely nodded and then began once more to descend into the dark bowels of the dungeon, a guttering torch held out in front of him.
Already having reconsidered her decision to visit the O’Melaghlins several times since Ona had brought her to the far tower, her strongest urge to turn back had come when a half dozen guards had looked at her as if she were mad when she’d made her request to them. Surprisingly and much to her relief, the only reservation expressed to her was that the steps were many and steep, and she’d assured the thickset commander of the guards who led the way now that she would be more than up to the task, if a little slow.
Already he’d moved ahead of her, his shadow eerily elongated upon the dank, curved walls as they descended farther, Maire imagining he would grow impatient indeed with her on the way back up. She’d counted forty steps, forty-one, forty-two … saints help her, were they descending to the very gates of hell?
Relief filled her again when she saw that the commander had finally stopped and waited for her in front of a bolted wooden door. It didn’t take much for her to conceive what she might see after Ronan had described that other dungeon to her, yet she prayed she wouldn’t be confronted with any rotting corpses. Nearly overcome at once by the musty air reeking of sweat and urine, she feared to breathe as they stepped inside a vast chamber lit by oil lamps set into the walls.
“This way, my lady.”
She wanted to lean just a moment and rest, but couldn’t bring herself to touch the thick support timbers they passed or the walls glistening with moisture. Nor did she want to study overmuch the filthy straw they walked upon for the rats she feared she might see, or the iron implements of torture she glimpsed about the chamber. It was all so horrible.
If Duncan ever learned the truth about her clan, would she be dragged to this place? She couldn’t imagine he would do such a thing now, but she had only to remember the hatred in his voice when speaking of the O’Byrnes to still wonder, her heart aching at the thought.
“Up on your feet, the lot of you! You’ve a visitor—soon to be the Lady of Longford, so mind your tongues!”
As the guard thrust the torch toward what at first appeared an empty corner, Maire felt her throat tighten at the three prisoners who struggled weakly to rise, the heavy scraping of chains at their ankles accompanying their movement. “No, no, please, they can stay where they are, truly.”
In spite of her words, the commander of the guards didn’t amend his order but stared with disgust at the O’Melaghlins who squinted uncomfortably at the torchlight. Maire stared too, stricken by their haggard appearance, all three stripped to the waist and clearly having suffered a severe lashing from their bloodied shoulders. And the O’Melaghlin’s grandsons, brothers she could see now from their shared features and dark curly hair, were no more than boys!
The long-haired harper looked as if he’d fared the worse though, no matter his advancing years, one eye swollen shut, his bearded face bruised though he still lifted his head proudly. Saints help them, had Duncan recently seen these wretched souls?
“I doubt Lord FitzWilliam would be pleased you linger here, my lady,” came the commander of the guard’s voice to distract her. “You can see the prisoners fare well enough—”
“I see one old man and two boys sorely mistreated,” she cut him off, amazed at herself again for the hard glint of reproach in her tone. “If I may speak to them for a few moments … alone.”
The guard looked at her with some affront, then shrugged and moved away, but not before depositing the torch into a wall sconce. Maire’s gaze flew back to the O’Melaghlins, and at once she gestured that they must sit. Yet they continued to stand, staring at her not as much warily as in confusion, and she quickly sought to explain her presence.
“I’m sorry, I—Jesu, Mary, and Joseph, this is terrible what’s been done to you! Have you been given food and drink?”
The three seemed so surprised at her outburst that they glanced at each other first before answering, the old harper finally nodding his head.
“Aye, miss, a wee bit of food, some water. ‘Tis kind of you to ask—”
“A wee bit? Enough to fill your bellies?”
Again they looked at each other, their silence telling Maire much. Determined that she would ask Duncan that the O’Melaghlins be better fed, the situation reminded her so much of when Caitlin MacMurrough was abducted from her home and held by Ronan in Glenmalure, Triona boldly standing up to him to secure her gentler treatment. Would Duncan hear her out? Reminded, too, by what Flanna had said of him wanting to do anything to please her, Maire resolved at least to try and do some good while she still remained at Longford Castle.
That thought once more making her throat grow tight, she heard the commander of the guards cough with impatience some distance away and she rushed on.
“Do you know that three days more have been granted to the O’Melaghlin to come to Meath to talk peace?”
Maire got no ready answer, her words seeming to have fallen on deaf ears as the three rebels simply stared at her. It was the harper whose spindly legs suddenly gave way beneath him, and he sank to the straw while one youth, the sturdiest-looking of the three, caught his arm to help him while the other boy still stared in disbelief at Maire.
“W-we’re not going to hang today?”
Chapter 24
Maire’s heart going out to the O’Melaghlins that they hadn’t been told the news just as she suspected, she shook her head and drew closer. At once all three seemed to notice her awkward gait, but their eyes quickly jumped back to her face as if she were an angel who’d appeared to deliver them.
“There may be little I can do to ease your way here, b
ut at least you know all is not lost—”
“Why do you care to help us, miss? Why?” came the harper’s incredulous voice, while Maire tried to swallow the sudden lump in her throat.
She couldn’t answer, not with anything close to the truth. Instead she glanced over her shoulder to see the commander of the guards had begun to pace near the steps, and she knew she didn’t have long.
“Tell me, please. How did you come to be captured?”
Again the three looked at each other, and it was the boy who’d asked if they weren’t to hang who finally spoke. “We’d gone to the place where the cattle were slaughtered—my grandfather Rory O’Melaghlin and our clansmen. It was not of our doing—”
“Aye, but we’ve borne the blame!” interrupted the harper, his red-rimmed eyes ravaged. ” ‘Twas Normans that killed the beasts, their own accursed kind burning the baron’s fields, too, and so we’ve been blamed no matter we seek only to live in peace on what land’s left to us.”
“Aye, so it’s true, but ease yourself, Finian,” urged the youth who’d sunk to his knees beside the harper while he glanced with apology at Maire. “Go on, Tynan, tell her.”
The boy nodded, a name now to him that made Maire all the more deeply feel their plight.
“We hoped to salvage the meat before it began to rot—to see such waste after so harsh a winter. We were nearly done when we saw the Normans coming upon us. My grandfather cried for everyone to ride into the hills, there weren’t enough of us to fight them. But Finian fell from his horse—”
“I told the young fools to ride on,” interjected the harper. “To leave me—”
“Aye, and who then would play the harp and sing the ancient legends in Grandfather’s hall?” the other boy demanded gruffly, clearly fond of the old man.
“Innis and I” —Tynan glanced at his brother— “went back to help him but by then it was too late to escape. The Norman called de Barry taunted us to run, to take up a sword, but I knew he wanted nothing more than to cut us down.”
“Aye, he’s no love for Irish rebels,” Maire heard herself say softly while Finian, Tynan, and Innis stared at her now in silence. “Nor does Lord FitzWilliam …” She fell silent, too, her heartache suddenly so fierce that she looked down at her hands, tears stinging her eyes. Only a low grunt of impatience from the commander of the guards made her start, and she glanced up to see him striding toward her.
“I must go,” she murmured to the O’Melaghlins, who stared at her still, especially the harper whose eyes held a curious light as if mayhap he had read her mind, her very soul. Unsettled, she had wanted to assure them that she would do whatever she could to help, but the commander of the guards was already upon her.
“Enough, my lady, I know the baron would not be pleased—”
“Aye, so you’ve said.” Unable to speak to the man anything but stiffly as she wondered how many stripes he’d laid upon the O’Melaghlins’ backs, Maire brushed past him without another word. She heard him pull the torch from the wall sconce, not having to glance behind her as increasingly angry tears burned her eyes to know that Finian, Innis, and Tynan had once more been swallowed by darkness.
***
“Rose?”
The sunny bedchamber disconcertedly empty and quiet, Duncan felt unease grip him. His gaze flew to the open doorway leading to the opposite room, doubts filling him no matter he knew the castle had been searched exhaustively for any more intruders.
As if he were reliving those horrible moments of the night before, he strode into the passageway with his hand upon the hilt of his sword, but he sensed at once that he wouldn’t find Rose in his private room either. And she wasn’t, a quick scan of the shadowy interior, the floor still strewn with books and maps, making him curse vehemently under his breath for the terror she must have suffered.
He had been a hairbreadth from striking the Norman from the panicked horse when that arrow had flown out of the dark, yet to this moment Duncan didn’t know if he would have been in time to save Rose. He, too, had seen the knife descending, his heart beginning to pound and his hands to sweat at the vivid memory.
The long hours spent waiting for an attack last night had been torture, as much for the thought of how close he’d come to losing her as that her clansmen might appear en masse at his gates in the morning to demand her release. But they hadn’t appeared, and a thorough search of the countryside within a half league of Longford Castle had shown no evidence of a large force … only a small one, perhaps eight to ten horses, at the point from where he guessed the arrow had been shot.
Duncan swore again as he strode back through the passageway, more convinced than ever that some O’Melaghlins had been lurking in the trees, and no clansmen of Rose’s. His strong suspicion that the arrow hadn’t been aimed at the Norman as much as himself did not bode well for his hopes for peace. Yet if he believed that to be so, why, then, did it plague his mind still that Rose’s captor had been skewered so squarely in the back?
Forcing down instincts that told him it was no mere accident of chance, Duncan looked to the rumpled bed and told himself he would have done nothing differently no matter he no longer believed Rose’s clansmen had come—yet—to try and wrest her from him. And now they wouldn’t have her; she was his wife just as he’d said in all ways save the Church’s blessing.
God’s teeth, he would wed her now, this very day if Clement hadn’t advised him to wait to speak to her clansmen. That Duncan had taken the matter fully out of their hands was likely to endear them even less to the present circumstances. Yet Clement had said also, clearly chagrined to speak of such a delicate matter, that if Rose be gotten with child, what more could her clansmen wish for her sake than to see her properly wed?
Duncan scanned the room, at the crumpled towel dropped across the washbasin, at the blanket pooled on the floor, and sensed Rose had been in some haste to leave the tower.
He had hoped to find her still abed, where he had planned to join her, needing no red-faced encouragement from Clement. He’d burned to take her in his arms again even as he kissed her good-bye early that morning and whispered he’d return by midday, stunned by the force of his feelings for this one woman. To have babes with her … by the blood of God, a family? Only days before he had thought never to take a wife, and now he couldn’t imagine his life without her!
Overcome by the vision of a future he’d never dreamed he would possess, Duncan lingered no more but left his apartment, wondering anew where she might have gone. He fairly ran down the steps, feeling more a callow boy than ever before, so eager to see her, so eager to once more hold her in his arms.
The castle was alive with commotion, tenants and villagers clearing the great hall in droves to return to their homes; he’d deemed it safe to do so given no large force of vengeful Irish lay in wait to wage battle beyond the fortress walls. And if a small contingent of O’Melaghlins was nearby and intent upon fomenting trouble, Duncan imagined they would hear soon enough from their chieftain to desist if the O’Melaghlin was wise and had taken his latest offer to heart. For the sake of peace, he hoped so—
“Duncan!”
He grimaced, trying to avoid Adele in the bustling throng even as her voice shrilly rose once more to accost him.
“Duncan, wait!”
He stopped reluctantly, bracing himself for the onslaught as soon as he saw the white, pinched look around his half sister’s lovely mouth. For the first time, he wished she were amusing herself with Gerard if only to spare him having to listen to her.
“Duncan, I insist you speak to Rose as to her manners toward her guests.”
He stared at Adele almost stupidly, her words to him making little sense. “Manners? Guests?”
“Myself, of course, and my retainers. A short while ago she had the gall to ask me to leave Longford Castle … and she called me a witch!”
Again Duncan could but stare, wondering if he and Adele were speaking of the same sweet Rose. He couldn’t imagine her calling anyone a
witch or demanding anything of anyone.
“Well, brother, have you nothing to say? She also threatened to have me thrown into the moat! Clearly she has no idea of hospitality, of civility, which is all the more distressing to me considering you plan to take her for your wife. No proper Norman girl would speak so to guests.”
“And what did you say to encourage this … this tirade?” he demanded, more to appease Adele so he could be done with their conversation than that he believed a word of what she’d claimed. “I can well imagine—”
“I went to give her my good wishes.”
“Went?”
“To your rooms, of course. She was still abed—”
“Dammit, did you say something to upset her?” As Adele clamped her mouth shut, two bright spots of color appearing at her cheeks, Duncan suspected then that Rose might have fled his apartment because of his half sister, which made him scowl deeply. “Have out with it, woman—”
“Very well, I will, since I had no chance to say my piece last night when you made your grand announcement. This wretched idea of yours to take her as your bride cannot stand! She’s not fit to be your wife—an Irish chit of what family we haven’t a hint! And a cripple as well, why, she looks as if she’s sure to topple just to take a step—”
“Enough, Adele, you go too far.”
“And I say you go too far! You have a duty to the name of FitzWilliam to marry well and in a manner the family can be proud—”
“Proud? By the blood of God, woman, have you forgotten thanks to my family I’m known throughout the realm as a bastard? What matters then whom I wed?”
She’d fallen silent at his fierce roar to gape at him as had anyone in earshot, servants, knights, and tenants alike, most stopping in their tracks until Duncan gave a look that sent them hurrying on their way. As for Adele, she wasn’t daunted for long. Her voice sank to a hiss.
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