She betrayed no surprise, except that a little tinge of red crept to her temples.
“I did not know you spoke English, Brian Buidh. Still, it was not to Cathbarr that I referred.”
At that it was Brian’s turn to redden, and mentally he cursed himself. There was no evil in this woman’s heart, he saw at once. For an instant he was confused and taken aback. Then she smiled, slowly rose, and tendered him her hand. Going to one knee, he put her fingers to his lips.
“Now sit, Yellow Brian,” she said, “and let us talk. First, these captives of yours. Do you in truth bring them as a tribute? How do I know they are O’Donnell’s men?”
“Ask these seamen of yours,” laughed Brian, seating himself beside her. Cathbarr remained standing and leaning on his ax, looking like some giant of the old times.
She took him at his word, and when she had heard from the seamen certain tales of what cruelties the ten prisoners had done, her violet eyes suddenly turned black and an angry pallor drove across her face.
“That is enough,” she interrupted curtly. “Take them out and hang them.”
The men were led away, and Brian saw that her hands were tightly clenched, but whether in fury or in fear of herself he could not tell. Then she turned to him, looking straightly into his face, and on the instant Brian knew that if this girl-woman bade him go to his death, he would go, laughing.
“Tell me of yourself, Brian Buidh. Of what family are you? By the ring on your finger you are an O’Neill; yet I have heard nothing of such a man as yourself leading that sept. When your messenger came to me, I read cunning in his face, and took it for a trap set by the Dark Master; but now that I have seen you and Cathbarr of the Ax, I will take fealty from you if you wish to serve me.”
Brian smiled a little.
“Serve you I would, lady, but not in fealty. I take fealty and do not give it. My name is indeed Brian Buidh, and as for that ring, it was a gift from Owen Ruadh.”
“Owen Ruadh died two days since,” she said softly, watching his face. “I had word of it this morning.”
At that he started, and Cathbarr’s eyes widened in fear of magic. Owen Ruadh had lain on the other side of Ireland, and three months would have been fast for such news to travel. But Brian nodded sadly.
“Carrier pigeons, eh?” he said in English and paused. He knew not why, but his loneliness seemed stricken into his heart on a sudden; he who neither explained nor asked for explanation from any man, felt impelled to open his life to this girl-woman. He crushed down the impulse, yet not entirely.
“Perhaps, Lady Nuala, there shall be greater confidence between us in time, and so I truly desire. But know this much—I am better born than any man in Ireland—aye, than Clanrickard himself; and I am here in the west to seek a new name and a new power. It is in my mind to take O’Donnell’s castle from him, lady. I have some two hundred men, of whom the Dark Master himself lent me twoscore, and in alliance with your ships we could reduce him.”
“How is this, Brian? You say he lent you twoscore men?”
He laughed and explained the fashion of that loan; and when he had finished a great laugh ran down the hall, and the Bird Daughter herself was chuckling. Then he waited for her answer, and it was not long in coming.
“There is some reason in your plan, Brian Buidh, but more reason against it. The castle that O’Donnell holds was formerly my father’s. If you held it, there would be no peace between us, unless you gave fealty to me, which I see plainly you will not do. I claim that castle, and shall always claim it.”
“Then it seems that I am held in a cleft stick,” smiled Brian easily, “since I will give fealty to none save the king, or Parliament. You are allied with the Roundheads, I understand?”
She nodded, watching him gravely.
“Yes. Cromwell is master of the country, and I am not minded to butt my head against a wall, Brian Buidh. If I am to hold to the little that is left me, I shall need all my strength.”
“And that is not much, lady. Your coasts are plague-smitten, your men reduced, and Cromwell has not yet won all the country. Galway will be the last to fall, indeed. But as to Bertragh Castle, why should you not sell your rights in it to me?”
At his first words a helpless anger flashed into her face, succeeded by a still more helpless pride.
“No, I will not sell what I have been unable to conquer back, Brian Buidh. If there were any way out of this difficulty with honor, I would take it; for I tell you frankly that I would make alliance with you if I could.”
Brian gazed at her, reading her heart, and fighting vainly against the impulse that rose within him. Twice he tried to speak and could not, while she watched the conflict in his face and wondered. He wished vainly that he had Turlough’s cunning brain to aid him now.
“Lady,” he said at last, biting his lips, “I will do this. I will give you fealty for the holding of Bertragh Castle, keeping it ever at your service, but for this alone. When we have taken it, it may be that I shall render it back after I have won a better for myself; yet, because I would sit at your side and have equal honor with you, and because we have need of each other, I will give you the service that I would grant to no man alive. Is it good?”
For an instant he thought that she was about to break forth in eager assent, then she sank back in her chair, while breathless silence filled the hall. She gazed down at the floor, her face flushing deeply, and finally looked up again, sadly.
“I do not desire pity or compassion, Brian Buidh,” she said simply, and her eyes held tears of helpless anger.
Then Brian saw that she had pierced his mind, for which he was both sorry and glad. He knew well there were other castles to be had for the taking, and there was nothing to prevent his riding on past Slyne Head and winning them—except for his meeting with this girl-woman. Therefore he lied, and if she knew it, she gave no sign.
“You mistake me, lady,” he said earnestly, his blue eyes softening darkly.
“I propose this only as a stepping-stone to my own ambition. Soon there will be a sweep of war through the coasts, and I would have a roof over my head. Is it good?”
She rose and held out her hands to him.
“It is good, Brian Buidh. Give me fealty-oath, for Bertragh Castle alone.”
And he gave it, and his words were drowned in a roar of cheers that stormed down the hall, for the O’Malleys had heard all that passed.
An hour later Cathbarr of the Ax was despatched in a swift galley to bear the tidings to Turlough, and bid him make ready for a swift and sharp campaign.
Through the remainder of that afternoon and evening Brian sat beside the Bird Daughter, and he found his tongue loosened most astonishingly, for him. He told her some part of his story, though not his name, while in turn he learned of her life, and of how her father and mother had been slain by O’Donnell through blackest treachery.
The more he saw of her, the more clearly he read her heart and the more he gave her deeper fealty than had passed his lips in the oath of service. As for her, she had met Blake and others of the Roundhead captains on her cruises, deadly earnest men all; but in the earnestness of Brian she found somewhat more besides, though she said nothing of it then. It was arranged between them that in three days they would meet before Bertragh Castle, by sea and land, and the Dark Master would be speedily wiped out.
With the morning Brian set forth to join his men in the largest sailing galley, for a wild gale was sweeping down from Iar Connaught. But the O’Malleys were skilled seamen who laughed at wind and waves, and Brian kissed the hand of the Bird Daughter as he stepped aboard, with never a thought of the storm of men that was coming down upon them both, and of the blacker storm which the Dark Master was brewing in his heart.
CHAPTER VIII
HOW BRIAN WAS NETTED
The Dark Master sat in his dark hall, brooding.
It was a bad morning, for there was a sweep of wind and black cloud mingled with snow bearing out of the north; and since the gre
at hall, with its huge fireplace, was the warmest part of the castle, as many of the men as could do so had drifted thither, but without making any undue disturbance over it.
For that matter, they might have passed unseen, since the hall was black as night save for a single cresset above the fireplace. Here sat the Dark Master, a little oaken table before him on which his breakfast had rested, and at his side crouched a long, lean wolfhound that nuzzled him unheeded. On the other side the table sat the old seanachie, who was blind, and who fingered the strings of his harp with odd twangings and mutterings, but without coherence, for O’Donnell had bade him keep silence.
“Go and see what the weather is,” commanded the Dark Master. A man rose and ran outside, while other men came in with wood. Their master motioned them away, although the fire had sunk down into embers.
“A gale from the north, which is turning to the eastward, with snow, master.”
“Remain outside, and bring me word what changes hap, and of all that you see or hear. Waste no time about it.”
The Dark Master drew his cloak about his humped shoulders, and in the flickering dim light from overhead his face stood out in all its ghastly pallor, accentuated by the dead black hair and mustache. But his eyes were burning strangely, and when they saw it the men drew back, and more than one sought the outer chill in preference to staying.
Now O’Donnell Dubh stared into the embers and muttered below his breath, while, as if in response, a little flickering whirlwind of gray ash rose up and fell back again, so that it blew over the embers and deadened them. The muscles of the Dark Master’s face contracted until his teeth flashed out in a silent snarl.
“I could have slain, and I did not,” he whispered as if to himself. “But there is still time, and I will not be a fool again!”
The watching men shivered, for it seemed that the wind scurried down the wide chimney and again blew up the gray ash until the embers glowed through a white coating. But the wind wrought more than this, for it brought down from the gray clouds a whispering murmur that drifted through the hall, and in that murmur were mingled the sounds of beating hoofs and ringing steel and shrieking men.
“Are watchers posted over the hills and the paths and the Galway roads?” spoke out the Dark Master as he gazed into the ashes.
“They are watching, master,” answered a deep voice from the darkness.
Suddenly the wolfhound raised its head and stared into the ashes also, as if it saw something there that no man saw, for the bristles lifted on its neck, and it whined a little. O’Donnell dropped his hand to the thin muzzle, and the dog was quiet again. But after that the men stared at the fireplace with frightened eyes.
“There is still time, though one has escaped me,” said the Dark Master, looking up suddenly at his sightless harper, who seemed to fall atrembling beneath the look. “The one who has escaped matters not, for his bane comes not at my hands. It is the other whom I shall slay—Brian Buidh of the hard eyes. Then the Bird Daughter. But it seems to me that one stands in my path of whom I do not know.”
He brooded over the ashes as his head sank between his shoulders like a turtle’s head. Then once again the wind swooped down on the castle, and whistled down the chimney, and filled the great hall with a thin noise like the death-rattle of men. The cresset wavered and fell to smoking overhead.
The Dark Master reached his hand across the table and caught the hand of the blind harper and spread it out on the oak. A little shudder shook the old man, and as if against his will he spread out his other hand likewise, his two hands lying between those of the Dark Master. Then there fell a terrible and awestruck silence on the hall.
The stillness was perfect, and continued for a long while. Slowly occurred a weird and strange thing, for, although no blast whimpered down the chimney, the ashes fell away from the embers, which began to glow more redly and set out the forms of the Dark Master and the blind harper in a ruddy light. Suddenly a man pointed to the feet of the Dark Master, and would have cried out but that another man struck him back.
For the ashes had drifted out from the fireplace, flake after flake, and were settling about the feet of the Dark Master beneath the table. They rose slowly into a little gray pile; then one of the men shrieked in horror at the sight, and the Dark Master threw out his head.
“Slay him,” he said quietly and drew in his head once more, staring at the table.
There was a thudding blow and a groan, then the stillness of death. The ashes were quiet; the fire glowed ruddily. After a little there came a soft whirl of soot down the chimney, blackening the embers. The soot rose and fell, rose and fell, again and again; it was as if an eddying draft of wind were trying to raise it. Finally it was lifted, but it only whirled about and about over the embers, like a shape drawn together by some uncanny force.
The Dark Master raised his head as a clash of steel and the voice of the watcher came from the outer doorway.
“Master, the blast thickens with black fog!”
“Remain on watch,” said O’Donnell, and his head fell.
But through the hall men’s hands went out to one another in the darkness. For storm-driven fog was not a thing that many men had seen even on the west coast, and when it did happen men said that a warlock was at work. There was not far to seek for the warlock in this case, muttered the O’Donnells.
Now the Dark Master looked into the fireplace and that whirling figure of soot raised itself anew and began its unearthly dance over the embers. After no long time men saw that the pile of gray ashes under the table was lifting also, lifting and whirling as though the wind spun it; but there was no wind.
“There is a man to be blinded,” said the Dark Master. “Let him be blinded with fog and snow, and the men with him, and let the wind come out of the east and drive him to this place.”
Slowly, so slowly that no man could afterward say where there was beginning or end, the whirling figure of soot dissipated; and little by little the dancing stream of gray ashes drifted back into the fireplace; then it also dissipated, seeming to pass up the chimney, so that the embers glowed red and naked.
“Seanachie,” said the Dark Master in a terribly piercing voice, “who is this standing in my way, standing between me and Brian of the hard eyes?”
The blind harper began to tremble, but again came the clash and the watcher’s voice from the doorway.
“Master, there is snow mingled with the fog, and the wind is shifting to the eastward.”
“Light the beacon and remain on watch,” said the Dark Master. But at the watcher’s word new terror seized on the men in the hall.
“Seanachie, who stands in my way? Speak!”
The beard of the blind harper quivered and rose as if the wind lifted it, but men felt no wind through the hall. Then the old man began to writhe in his chair, and twisted to take his hands from the table, but he could not, although only he alone held them there. Suddenly his mouth opened, and a voice that was not his voice made answer:
“Master, two people stand in your way.”
“Describe them,” said the Dark Master, and those near by saw that sweat was running down his face, despite the coldness of the hall. After a moment’s silence the old harper spoke again; he had lost his eyes twenty years since, yet he spoke of seeing.
“Master, I see two people but dimly. One is a man, huge of stature and standing like Laeg the hero, the friend of the hero Cuculain, leaning upon an ax—”
“That is Cathbarr of the Ax,” broke in the Dark Master. “His bane comes not at my hands. Who is the other?”
Again the old harper seemed to struggle, and his voice came more faintly:
“I cannot see, master. I think it is a woman—”
“That is the Bird Daughter,” quoth the Dark Master.
“Nay, it is an old woman, but she blinds me—”
And the harper fell silent, writhing, until horror gripped those who looked on. O’Donnell leaned forward, his head sticking straight out and his eyes b
lazing.
“What do you see, seanachie? Speak!”
“I see men,” and the old harper’s voice rose in a great shriek. “A storm of men and of hoofs, and red snow on the ground, and fire over the snow, and the man of the ax laughing terribly. And I see other men riding hard; men with long hair and the flag of England in their midst—and Cuculain smites them—Cuculain of the yellow hair—the Royal Hound of Ulster smites them and scatters them—”
“Liar!”
With the hoarse word the Dark Master leaned forward and smote the blind harper with his fist, so that the old man slid from his chair senseless. Upon that the Dark Master swung around with his teeth bared and his head drawn in like the head of a snake about to strike.
“Lights!” he roared. “Lights! Bear the seanachie to his chamber, and send men to ring in the harbor and build beacons on the headlands. Hasten, you dogs, or I’ll strip the flesh from you with whips!”
Under his voice and his flaming eyes the hall sprang into life, while the men carried out the blind harper and one of their own number who had been stricken with madness at what he had seen. Then the hall blazed up with cressets, logs were flung on the fire, and parties of men set out to build beacons and guard the bay as the Dark Master had given command. And when word was spread abroad among the others of what had chanced in the hall that morning, Red Murrough, the Dark Master’s lieutenant, swore a great oath.
“If that Cuculain of whom the seanachie spoke be not the man Brian Buidh, then may I go down to hell alive!”
And the men, who feared Red Murrough’s heavy hand and hated him, muttered that he would be like to travel that same road whether living or dead, in which there was some truth.
While these things took place in the hall at Bertragh—and they were told later to Brian by many who had seen them and heard them, all telling the same tale—Brian and his sailing galley was making hard weather of it. Six of the O’Malleys had been sent with him to manage the galley, for he was no seaman and had placed himself in their hands; and after rounding into Kilkieran Bay from the castle harbor and reaching out across the mouth of the bay toward Carna, intending to reach Cathbarr’s tower direct, the blast came down on them, and even the O’Malleys looked stern.
The H. Bedford-Jones Pulp Fiction Megapack Page 65