“Not even the fate of your entire clan?” Dermot threatened.
“Now, now, Dermot, there is no need to upset our guest,” Brendan cautioned hastily before Dermot said anything he might regret. “What difference could it make if we're all going to share anyway?”
Dermot scowled darkly. Morgana could see the enormous envy rankling in Dermot’s soul at the thought of his younger brother being head of the Maguire lands and ships, depleted though they believed them to be.
“I am eldest, as is she. The alliance would be forged better that way.”
“It should make no difference,” Morgana contended. “We will be allied, and nothing more could be gained from my being wed to you.Brendan seems to think that you and Aofa have had an understanding between each other for some time, so by all means, marry her.”
Aofa herself had not come to Carrickdoo. Morgana guessed she had been kept at the convent in order to deceive anyone who might by chance come to the establishment in search of food and water.
Morgana could only think with smug satisfaction of the way Dermot had treated Aofa, worse than a slave. The girl had thought she would have everything all for herself, but Morgana had managed to thwart her at every turn. What Aofa would do if she found out Dermot intended to marry Morgana, she dare not guess.
The day of the proposed ceremony dawned and clear, and Morgana, now fully able to see, looked down from the great door at the top of the castle. The rope dangled from its pulley, and extended nearly all the way down to the ground. Satisfied that it was her best chance if no other opportunities presented themselves, Morgana went back to her chamber to ready herself.
Morgana dressed in a gown she had been given by Brendan, which looked very much like one of Aofa’s, and she also managed to secure secretly a shirt and pair of hose to wear underneath. She tied her hair back tightly into a long braid which she pinned up at the crown of her head, and then put on the headdress and veil carefully. Concealed in the folds of the long veil were two daggers she had stitched loosely into them. Looking in the mirror, she was satisfied that they didn’t show. Then she waited until Dermot came to take her downstairs.
At about a quarter to eleven, the few remaining MacMahons began to assemble in the great hall, along with a large guard of the English mercenaries Dermot and Brendan had hired.
Morgana gazed out of the window of the great hall on the second floor and could see many horses in the courtyard outside, and very few guards on the parapets. She knew she had bought some time for Finn and Patrick, but still had doubts about her escape.
The sun shone in through the windows of the great hall, bleaching everything colourless, and Morgana complained to Dermot, “It’s so hot in here. May we have the windows opened?”
Brendan complied with her request, and Morgana saw her best hope fluttering in the gentle breeze outside.
At eleven Ruairc arrived with an entourage of MacMahon and Maguire men, about thirty in all, but Dermot insisted they be kept outside in case of trouble.
Ruairc scowled blackly as he was brought in alone save for Father Doyle, and Morgana’s courage began to fail.
But it was either tell the truth, or go through with her wedding to Brendan, so she had to speak up no matter what.
Brendan entered the hall at last, the picture of a happy bridegroom.
Ruairc and Morgana took their places side by side onthe left of the hall.Ruairc could see no chance of sneaking down the stairs to escape with the entire room lined with mercenaries, and whispered, “I hope you know what you’re doing.”
“Whatever I do, follow me and don’t look back!” Morgana said through gritted teeth as she tried to keep her false smile fixed in place.
Then the signal was given for her to approach the altar on Ruairc’s arm. She instructed, “Whatever you do, don’t let go of me.”
Morgana made a great show of having to be blindly led to Brendan’s side, but at last they were in front of the window, and Father Doyle started to bless the couple as they stood at the small travelling altar.
Ruairc hung onto her arm desperately despite the fact that he was meant to have handed her over by Brendan at the beginning of the ceremony. As the minutes ticked past, he became terrified of losing Morgana to Brendan after all.
But when the priest asked if they knew of any reason why she and Brendan should not be joined in matrimony, Morgana saw her chance.
“I know several reasons, which I wish to declare before this entire assembly,” Morgana asserted loudly for all to hear.
Dermot drew his sword.
Morgana tore off her veil and plucked the long daggers from inside as she and Ruairc moved behind the altar for protection. She handed him a weapon and then stated, “Firstly, Dermot and Brendan are murderers who killed my brother Conor and falsely blamed my true betrothed Ruairc, for his death. Then they suborned my sister Aofa to murder my father Morgan with a most foul poison. The MacMahons have stolen my ships, raided my cattle, and tried to destroy my clan. All of the MacMahon elders here banished Ruairc from the clan, when all the while it has been Dermot and Brendan who have been the guilty parties.
“Dermot and Brendan have even chased your own people from their farms and villages, and had my family not taken them in, many would surely have starved on the roads!
"Yet though I have much cause to seek revenge, I will offer you terms of peace. I am willing to marry Ruairc MacMahon here and now to keep the peace between our clans in spite of all these grave offences against the Maguires, provided you restore Ruairc to the clan and to his own rightful property as the third heir.
“Otherwise, Brendan and Dermot, and any who are willing to defend their actions, shall have to answer these misdeeds through combat,” Morgana concluded boldly.
Dermot shouted, “It’s all a pack of lies!”
He swished his sword at Morgana, sending the altar flying.
Father Doyle went running from the great hall as he had been advised by Ruairc prior to his arrival, as the couple moved to defend themselves.
One of the MacMahon elders, a close cousin called Seamus, demanded of Ruairc, “Is any of this true?”
Brendan, still desperate to marry Morgana to satisfy his ambitions, begged her, “Please, it was all Dermot’s doing!I didn’t know anything about it until it was too late! I thought it was a game. I didn’t mean to kill Conor. By the time I found out about Aofa’s poisoning of your father, he was dead, I swear.”
A shocked silence filled the room, until Dermot roared like a mad bull and swung for Brendan, narrowly missing him.
“Now you know the whole truth, from the schemer’s own lips. I shall issue a challenge to your family to assemble at the great field at Ma Niadh tomorrow for trial by combat,” Morgana declared.
“I’ll see you dead first!” Dermot bellowed, then charged.
Morgana jumped up onto the window seat. “Ruairc, we’re leaving, now!”
In front of the entire stunned assembly, Morgana leapt out the window. She felt herself falling for a terrifying moment, until at last she grabbed the rope. Her arms felt as though they were being ripped from their sockets, but she clung on and began to slide down.
She heard arguments breaking out all over the hall, with a great deal of shouting and clashing of weapons. Morgana shinned down the rope as quickly as she could, not even daring to look up. A huge tug on the rope signalled that Ruairc had indeed had the sense to follow her, as more roars and the clang of steel against steel signalled that pandemonium had broken loose.
Morgana slid down the rope easily, though her hands were raw from the rough hemp. She untied two mounts in the courtyard as soon as she landed on her feet, and leapt into one of the saddles.
“We’ve got to get out of here before they close the gates,” Morgana called to Ruairc over her shoulder.
"I'm right behind you, love!"
They rode around to the front of the castle and called to their men to mount. Just then the alarm sounded.
“Owen, your sword,
quickly!” Morgana called.
Owen threw the sword to her, and she rode straight for the gatehouse. Kicking two guards out of the way, she hacked at the rope for lowering the portcullis, and leaving only a thin strand, she waited for the rest of her group to ride through.
“Come on, Ruairc, hurry,” Morgana shouted, as the MacMahons and mercenaries came running out of the castle with Dermot at their head.
“I’ll cut it. You go on!” Ruairc shouted.
Morgana rode through the archway safely.
Ruairc gave the rope a last swinging blow, but his horse stumbled, and he was unable to get through the gate before it slammed down to block the exit.
“It’s Ruairc. He’s trapped!” Morgana called to Owen.
“We have to leave him!There’s nothing we can do! He’s a MacMahon, in his own castle. Not even Dermot and Brendan would be so evil as to harm him after what they’ve just admitted in front of their entire sept!” Owen urged, as he pulled on Morgana’s bridle.
“No, I won’t leave Ruairc!” Morgana insisted as she struggled to break free.
But a shower of arrows and shot came raining down on them, forcing them to move out of range up the road.
Dermot cursed foully through the grating of the portcullis as he watched the Maguires escape.
Morgana turned back to look for Ruairc one last time. She raised her fist defiantly as she declared, “I shall see you again, Dermot MacMahon, tomorrow at Ma Niadh!”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Once Morgana and the small band of Maguire soldiers were safely back at Lisleavan, Finn and Patrick hugged their young cousin in relief.
“God, I’ve been out of my mind with worry about you.Are you sure you’re all right, and that you can see?” Finn exclaimed.
“I’m well, truly. Brendan didn’t hurt me, though Dermot tried. Ruairc’s been left behind at Carrickdoo, though.He cut the rope on the portcullis so I could escape, but got trapped inside himself,” Morgana informed the brothers breathlessly, and then told them of everything that had befallen her since she had ridden off to the convent on that fateful day.
At the end of her tale, Patrick reassured her, “Don’t worry about Ruairc, Morgana, he’s nothing if not a survivor. They won’t harm him in his own family home, and if I know Brendan and Dermot, they will no doubt try to use him as a bargaining point somehow.”
“I know that too, or at least it is what I try to tell myself so I won’t go out of my mind with worry,” Morgana acknowledged with a sigh. “I will just have to wait for the worst, and hope for the best. Now, tell me how things went at Kilgarven and the other two sites. Did Ruairc understand my cryptic message?”
“Your plan worked like a dream,” Patrick said enthusiastically. “We've taken all three of them over, and fortified them with some of the surplus troops from here. The food and provisions were all there, as you had guessed.”
“Excellent, well done.Time for the next phase of my plan. If Dermot and Brendan and the MacMahon clan respond to my challenge of trial by combat at Ma Niadh tomorrow, they will all have to assemble there. Dermot will try to use it as an excuse for a pitched battle in the field, and I am nearly certain that the Spanish are in Donegal Bay, from a message that they received this morning.
“While we're gathered with our paltry little force,” Morgana said ironically, “I want our men to capture their castles at Carrickdoo and Ardnagreine.”
“There will be much fighting,” Patrick warned.
“Not if we send in MacMahon men. We must explain things to them, about Ruairc being captured, and the Spanish invasion. We must present them with the facts, and let them decide whom they wish to be loyal to. Patrick, you will lead the force, so pick your men, and go see the MacMahons in the village.”
“But I want to be with you, Morgana,” Patrick complained.
“I wish you could be there as well, but this is more important. Trust me, I'll be fine.”
Patrick nodded reluctantly. “I'll assemble the two forces at first light, with me at Carrickdoo and Fintan at Ardnagreine. We will wait around the castle precincts until we see Dermot and Brendan ride off. Then we will enter one way or the other. If I can, I shall come to you to tell you of our success, and see your fight with Dermot and Brendan.”
Morgana turned to Finn and said, “Now you know what to do. If anything goes wrong in the field tomorrow, the men in Ma Niadh and Tulach will have to come out to reinforce us. And if you see the Spanish ships coming, fire off your cannon once as a signal.”
“I’m coming with you, Morgana.Owen can stay with the garrison inside the castle. If Patrick can’t be with you, I want to stand by your side.”
“And of course, if anything goes wrong, you are the new leader, Finn,” Morgana agreed quietly.
Finn shook his head. “Nothing will go wrong. Everything is in place. We have only to wait.”
But as Morgana had predicted, her best laid plans did go awry, for the following morning brought thick fog over the whole of the lough and her entire territory.
Morgana shivered with a deep sense of foreboding as she dressed in a thick warm shirt, and a padded jerkin, with a loose fitting doublet over it. She wore thick leather leggings crossed with leather thongs, and secured her sword around her waist before placing her dagger and pistol in her belt. She tied her warm cloak around her shoulders and took up a small shield as well
Morgana strode down to the great hall, where the MacMahon men had gathered for a hasty breakfast, and accompanied Patrick out to the castle courtyard, where she watched him mount with his troop.
“Good luck! God be with you all!” Morgana called.
She continued to wave until her cousin was enveloped in the swirling fog.
Morgana gathered her own force together soon after, for she intended to be at the field of Ma Niadh long before the MacMahons arrived. She had the largest share of her men conceal themselves in the trees lining three sides of the pitch, and she had also brought along an assortment of weapons which were hastily secreted in small ditches covered with leaves by the Maguire warriors.
To her back was the fortress of Cullen, with Angus on the alert should they need reinforcements, and Finn had alerted Tulach to the west as well. Morgana prayed the Spanish wouldn’t arrive, but her one advantage was that Dermot and Brendan couldn’t be sure how much she had known of their plans, and how well-prepared they were.
Finn came riding up with Aofa, captured from Kilgarven the day before, in chains, and she stood with the rest at the head of the clan. The look of pure venom in her eyes told Morgana that her younger half-sister hadn’t learned any lessons from her mistakes, or from her brutal treatment at the hands of Dermot MacMahon.
Aofa’s face was bruised, and the habit she had stolen from Morgana was in shreds and covered with stains.Morgana could also see that the reason why Aofa still wore a nun’s coif was that someone had raggedly chopped her flaxen hair up to her shoulders, as a shorn lock straggled out of the veil. Aofa’s vanity was such that cutting her hair had probably wounded her more than Dermot’s physical cruelty.
Morgana almost felt sorry for her, but needed only to remind herself of how her father and the villagers had suffered at Aofa’s hands for her to steel her resolve. Aofa might well be her sister, but she had to be brought to justice for the good of all concerned.
Soon the Maguires heard a warning cry, and the MacMahon forces and their English mercenaries began to troop into the field. There were literally hundreds of men mounted in full armour, and at their head rode Dermot and Brendan, outfitted in the finest armour Morgana had ever seen. Unfortunately, there was no sign of Ruairc, but she had to be patient. Perhaps Patrick was rescuing him at that very moment from Carrickdoo.
The brothers’ steeds were also in full knight’s armour, and Morgana suddenly understood Dermot’s game. Both he and Brendan had been trained for some time abroad in France with the two O’Reilly sons, and were skilled in the art of jousting and other knightly talents.
Und
aunted, however, Morgana marched to the centre of the field, with Finn by her side dragging Aofa along.
“I have called you here to answer the charges, that you suborned my sister to lure my brother into a trap. You ambushed and murdered Conor in the forest, and then you paid her to poison my father so that Aofa would become heir, and you would marry her to get your hands on the Maguire lands, Dermot MacMahon,” Morgana boldly accused, wasting no time
Dermot smirked. “Even if what you said is true, is it worth fighting over? We can settle this once and for all if you marry me.”
Morgana gasped, and her eyes narrowed. “It is true, since Brendan admitted it in front of everyone yesterday. But I am willing to adopt peaceful methods to restore good will between our families. I am prepared to marry Ruairc MacMahon, who has been much wronged by you and Aofa and Brendan, in order to unite the clans and avoid bloodshed, but the clans must be allowed to determine the punishment of you three who are guilty,” Morgana stated loudly for all to hear.
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