The Maiden of Ireland. Susan Wiggs
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on my chest while I sleep they don’t!” Titus Hammersmith roared. “Some sneaking Irish left it as a sort of sign, or—or—”
“Warning?” asked Wesley. He moved toward the rear of the tent, which faced the rock-rimmed lake. He touched the canvas and saw where it had been slit with a knife. A grown man could never fit through the opening.
Puzzled, Wesley entered the tent through the front. Torchlight from outside threw eerie shadows on the canvas. Hammersmith’s cot stood several feet from the opening. It was not simply a matter of reaching inside, then.
“Here’s where the intruder entered.” Wesley indicated the sliced-open canvas. “Was anything else disturbed?”
Hammersmith gave a cursory glance around. “No, I—” He tugged distractedly at a sausage curl. “Cut!” he roared, making Wesley jump. “By God, the Irish devil has cut a lock of my hair!” He stumbled back as if he’d been mortally wounded. “I’ve heard the old Celts use human hair in their spells.”
“It could have been worse,” Wesley murmured. “The intruder could have slit your throat.” But he was beginning to understand the Irish character. They were warriors, not cold-blooded murderers.
“Jesus, Captain,” said his lieutenant. “D’ye think one of ’em’s havin’ ye on?”
“Shut up,” snapped Hammersmith. He whirled on Wesley. “Find the devils. Find them now.”
* * *
Wesley led a score of mounted warriors northward. The darkness hung thick around them, and the urge to light one of the pitch torches they had brought along was voiced by more than one soldier.
Like the troops of cavalry, Wesley wore a buff coat of thick leather over back and breast armor, and the menacing iron headpiece which gave the Roundheads their name. In addition to the torches, they carried swords, pikes, and pistols.
The latent sense of decency that had driven him to the seminary at Douai tiptoed up behind him and tapped him on the shoulder. With an effort, he shrugged it off. Now was no time for scruples.
They came to a great spill of rocks that rolled down toward the lake. The horses balked and had to be led around the rockfall. Wesley paused to search for a sign. Squinting in the gloom, he studied the dead grass that grew in the crevices.
Before long he discovered a barely discernible depression in the mud, made by a small, broad foot. Christ, had the Irish enlisted children now?
An owl hooted a breath of song into the night. A badger rooted in the damp leaves.
“We’re going the wrong way,” muttered one of the men.
Wesley leaned down to inspect a gorse bush. One branch had recently been broken. “No, we’re not,” he said.
The hill rose to a ridge along the lake. The rocks formed a bowl around a small clearing, sharp peaks thrusting through the mist with a weird, stark beauty that captivated Wesley. For a moment he fancied himself gazing at a castle fashioned by giants. The lake lapped with a steady swish at the reedy shores.
And over all hung a thick, pervasive, unnatural quiet that Wesley didn’t like in the least. As he reached up to pluck a swatch of flaxen fabric from a low-hanging branch, he understood why. He straightened and turned, apprehension clutching at his belly.
His gaze darted over the area. Most of the Roundheads had descended to the clearing. Moonlight threw their shadows against the wall of rock opposite the lakeside. Directly ahead grew a thick forest, nearly as dark and impenetrable as the granite.
The wind keened across the lake, carrying the smell of fresh water and something else, a faint animal scent. Guiding his horse down from the ridge, he joined his companions.
“Well?” asked Ladyman.
“The trail’s too obvious,” said Wesley.
“Not to me,” said another soldier, scratching his brow beneath his round helm.
“They want us to follow them.”
“But why the devil would the bastards want that?” Ladyman demanded.
Another Roundhead uncorked a bottle and took a drink of beer. “Hammersmith’s nervous,” he said. “He’s starting to believe in all those heathen Irish superstitions.”
“I mislike this darkness,” a third man said, grabbing a bundle of torches and striking flint and steel.
“Douse that!” Wesley ordered furiously. “For God’s sake, you’ll give away our pos—”
But it was too late; the torch flared high, filling the air with the smell of pine pitch.
Ladyman reached for the beer bottle. “Let him comfort himself with it. I say the captain’s imagining things.”
“Did he imagine the shamrock?” Wesley challenged. “The shorn lock?”
Ladyman shrugged, his armor creaking. “I have a keen nose for the stink of Irish. I don’t think there’s an Irishman within miles of this place.”
“Fianna! Fianna e Eireann!”
The full-throated bellow burst from the darkness.
A rumble of hoofbeats pounded, the sound of a stampede out of control, coming at them from all sides. The man who had lit the torch fell, an arrow protruding from his neck. The bundle of torches caught fire, sizzling on the damp ground.
“Jesus Christ,” whispered Ladyman, wheeling his horse back toward the ridge. “Jesus Christ!”
Wesley gripped the hilt of his sword. The blade hissed from its scabbard.
As one, the party started back in the direction they’d come. A company of black-clad horsemen blocked the way.
“To the woods!” Ladyman yanked his horse back around. He disappeared into the darkness. The other Englishmen drew swords and pistols.
“We’re surrounded!” Ladyman’s desperate cry drifted across the field as he reappeared.
The men on the ridge stood sentinel, fists raised, horses blowing mist into the moonlit night.
“Fianna!”
The shouts and hoofbeats drew nearer. An almost forgotten feeling rose inside Wesley. In a flash he recognized the taut sense of anticipation, the feel of the sword in his hand, the cold sense of purpose that closed over his soul.
John Wesley Hawkins was ready to do battle. At the seminary at Douai, the priests had taught him to abhor violence. Yet all those values were scrubbed away by the dark, pounding thrill of impending action.
For the past five years his battles had been fought in secret against an enemy he could not meet face-to-face. His only weapons had been words and deeds done in shadow. Now he rode with that very enemy as comrade.
But now, oh, now, he was about to pit himself, sword to sword, against a flesh-and-blood foe. That he had no particular quarrel with the Irish mattered little. His daughter’s life depended on defeating these wild warriors.
And defeat them he would. Unthinkingly he sketched the sign of the cross.
Ladyman gasped. “What the bloody hell—”
His words drowned in another flood of Gaelic shouting and galloping horses. Wesley’s gaze snapped from shadow to shadow at the fringe of the clearing. Their numbers too small to match the English, they had culled away this search party, ringing them on three sides and the ice-cold lake at their backs.
The Irish came like nightmares borne on a foul wind, black-clad and licked by firelight, their old-fashioned helms bobbing with the rhythm of their horses. All wore breastplates emblazoned with a golden harp, and many had veils flowing from their helms.
The Englishmen scattered. Gaelic shouts boomed across the field. The Irish ponies were more fleet and agile than the cavalry