The Faithful Heart (38 page)

 

Owen’s eyes lit up. “To weaken us, obviously, but also because if
anything were to go wrong with the shipments of arms and soldiers,
we would take the blame.”

 

 

“But who are they? Where are they coming from?” Fintan asked.

 

 

“My guess is that they have to be Spanish, since they only wanted to
take my Irish ships. Plus, the gowns and treasures, all Spanish
made, or coming through the Spanish Netherlands would point there as
well. We know how many people have been offended by the royal
divorce and shcked by the dissolution of the monasteries. I think
they are taking advantage of the situation as an excuse for plunder,
and also to conceal their real ultimate goal. I believe they have
every intention of trying to overthrow King Henry and place Princess
Mary on the throne of England.”

 

 

“My God, we have to warn Lisleavan!” Owen gasped.

 

 

“That’s right, you go on back.I’m going in,” Morgana said firmly.

 

 

“Are you mad? They’ll surely kill you!” Owen protested vehemently.

 

 

“They won't kill me when I could be valuable to them as a hostage.
Plus, if they do take me, it will buy us some time,” Morgana argued
hurriedly. “They will think we're leaderless, and so will consider
their task an easy one. They might get too sure of themselves and
make an error in judgment.Besides, I need to find out if the Spanish
have arrived yet, and if not, when they are going to come. Send to
Belleek and Assaroe and on to Sligo to warn the O’Donnells and
O’Connors not to let any ships through. Tell Tiarnach O’Connor to
send to Galway to warn of an invasion plot, and make sure they
emphasise it is the MacMahons who are responsible.”

 

 

“You can’t go in there!” Owen argued again.

 

 

“Don’t you see, it's the perfect plan? If we fight the Spanish,
we'll be slaughtered by the hundreds, and the MacMahons can try to
kill us all off. If the invasion succeeds, one way or the other we
will be overrun.

 

 

“And even if the invasions fails, we will still be accused of
inviting the Spanish here because our ships were used, and we shall
be attainted of treason. But they don’t know we have discovered
their plans with the help of Ruairc and Anna. Nor can they be aware
of the fact that Sister Joan escaped the slaughter to warn us.

 

 

“There's still time to prepare, but I must go in there to give us as
much time as possible. Tell Finn and Patrick everything, do you
understand?” Morgana argued as she stripped off her doublet and
yanked her habit over her head and down over her men’s clothes.

 

 

“Here, take my sword, Owen. Make sure you look after it. I’ll be
back for it soon, I promise.” Morgana grinned, and hope she at least
sounded confident.

 

 

She pulled her coif over her hair and Owen hugged her.

 

 

“Good luck, and God keep you,” he murmured.

 

 

Fintan and one of the other men lingered in the woods to observe
Morgana’s fate, while the rest rode through the villages in twos and
threes to look for any signs of survivors, and then returned to
Lisleavan.

 

 

Morgana waited quietly, observing how many armed men seemed to be
around the precincts of the convent, and then she mounted her horse
and boldly rode to the convent gates. She rapped on the door
sharply, and said cheerfully, “Let me in, Sister Martha. It’s me,
Sister Attracta.”

 

 

The door opened, but no one appeared. Taking a deep breath, Morgana
pushed the portal open wide and stepped in. Her eyes took a short
time to adjust to the darkness of the cloister, but she could see
piles of weapons and kegs of powder, and several dark-skinned men in
leather jerkins supervising the storage of their supplies.

 

 

Suddenly the door slammed shut behind her, and Morgana turned to
face the glittering sapphire eyes of her sister.

 

 

“You must be a new novice.” Morgana smiled, though her face felt as
though it would crack. “I’m Sister Attracta. Pleased to meet you.”

 

 

Aofa slapped her face soundly with the back of her hand, and then
shouted, “Kill her!”

 

 

The Spanish men storing the armaments paused in astonishment, for
unlike the MacMahon’s English mercenaries, they were unwilling to
kill helpless nuns.

 

 

“She is a holy woman, we cannot!” one of the men argued in broken
English.

 

 

Aofa grabbed his dagger, and hissed, “In that case I’ll do it
myself, you miserable cur.”

 

 

But Morgana parried the blow, and watched anxiously as she saw
Dermot MacMahon enter the cloister. He grabbed Aofa from behind and
roughly removed the dagger from her grasp.

 

 

“What the hell do you think you’re doing, Aofa!” Dermot demanded
angrily.

 

 

“It’s not a nun, it’s Morgana. Kill her now!” Aofa screamed
hysterically.

 

 

“I know who it is. Shut up!” Dermot spat as he shoved Aofa out of
his way so roughly, she hit the wall.

 

 

“Well, well.” Dermot smiled as he approached her, his eyes lighting
up as he drew closer. He tugged off her coif to expose her long fall
of auburn hair.

 

 

“You certainly have turned out to be a lovely young woman, Morgana,”
he murmured admiringly, as he fingered her silky hair and circled
her like a cat stalking its prey.

 

 

Dermot was indeed very much like Ruairc, only his eyes, golden
instead of green, showed a cynicism and bleary eyed dissipation that
Morgana had always found repellent.

 

 

The youngest of the three brothers, Brendan, came in from another
door and said, “The carts are taking a terribly long time! They
should all have been here by now. The Spanish should be landing any
day!”

 

 

Too late Brendan spotted Morgana, and gasped.He was not as tall or
as broad as Ruairc, and his hair was a very dark brown rather than
ebony. His pale blue eyes, like a wolf’s, eventually registered
Morgana’s identity.

 

 

“How did she get here?” Brendan gasped.

 

 

“It doesn’t matter!” Aofa hissed. “The point is she knows too
much.Kill her now, that’s what I say. Then I can return to Lisleavan
and claim the succession, and we can be married, Dermot.”

 

 

Dermot scowled darkly. “You make it sound so simple, Aofa, but I'm
far more cautious and prudent. Our plans have waited for two years.
Surely we can wait a little longer.First there are some things I
need to know.Where is my brother Ruairc?”

 

 

“He’s gone back to Dublin, to the earl of Kildare’s household where
he has worked for the past two years,” Morgana lied desperately.

 

 

Dermot and Brendan both broke into uproarious laughter.

 

 

Aofa sulked and threw herself down on a bench as she complained
petulantly, “I don’t see what is so funny!”

 

 

“The Earl’s son, Silken Thomas, has resigned all the titles and
offices he holds through the English crown, and openly rebelled.
Even as we speak, he is besieging Dublin castle, and his men are
riding through the streets of the city murdering and pillaging,”
Dermot informed the two astonished women.

 

 

“We just learned of this from a special messenger sent by the
O’Reillys down south. This is perfect. If our plans don’t succeed,
we can blame all of this on Ruairc.”

 

 

Brendan smiled evilly. “But our plans
will
succeed.”

 

 

“You look extremely puzzled, my dear Morgana. Trust me, all will be
revealed in the fullness of time,” Dermot said, as he escorted her
over to a bench and pushed her down onto it with one firm hand on
her shoulder.

 

 

“Now, Patrick and Finn, where are they?” he demanded.

 

 

“The last I heard, they were off to Scotland and Spain to trade,"
she lied again.

 

 

“Perfect, perfect,” Dermot murmured, as he began to caress Morgana’s
petal soft cheek.

 

 

Aofa shrieked, “So nothing stands in our way except her! Kill her,
kill her now!”

 

 

Dermot turned to Aofa and snapped, “I take no orders from any woman,
is that clear? So keep a civil tongue in your head! I’ve used you in
the past as the instrument, the tool of my ambition. But with
Morgana here now, everything has changed.”

 

 

Aofa snatched up a long staff that lay near her hand, and with a
swinging blow she smashed it into Morgana’s face before she could
get her hand up high enough to deflect the blow. Morgana flew
backwards off the bench, and her head hit the floor with a sickening
thud.

 

 

Dermot held Aofa’s struggling form as Brendan knelt over Morgana.
She could feel a warm wet stickiness at the back of her head, and
knew it was best to pretend she was more badly injured than she
really was to catch them off guard. She made her eyes roll up into
the back of her head, and lay completely still.

 

 

“How is she?” Dermot asked.

 

 

“The fall knocked her out, damn it. She needs to be seen to,”
Brendan replied as he felt along the line of her throbbing jaw to
see if it were broken.

 

 

“It’s in one piece, but she won’t be able to eat or speak for some
time. Get that she-cat the hell out of here,” Brendan scolded, his
dislike for Aofa evident in his tone.

 

 

“Go down the kitchen, woman, and start preparing some food for the
men. And if it isn’t any more edible than the last burnt mess you
made, you’ll get the same treatment you just gave to your sister!”
Dermot barked, as he grabbed Aofa and threw half the length of the
cloister.

 

 

She landed heavily on both her knees and gasped. Then she struggled
to her feet and limped away, uttering curses Morgana was sure had
never been heard in the peaceful convent before.

 

 

“What are we going to do with Morgana? I mean, there’s no sense in
patching her up if you just want to kill her,” Brendan remarked
quietly, still sounding displeased.

 

 

“No, you’re quite right about that, Brother. And while I know Aofa
desperately wants to kill her, I have a feeling this lovely little
woman could solve all our problems,” Dermot replied thoughtfully.

 

 

“But you’re meant to be marrying Aofa, Morgan’s favourite daughter,
to get hold of the succession. Wouldn’t Morgana just be in the way?”

 

 

“Let’s be honest here, shall we? Can you seriously believe the
Maguires would let Aofa be chieftain of the clan? She may have been
that old fool's favorite, but everyone knows she ran the clan. If
Morgana were to marry one of us now, the story would be very
different.”

 

 

“But she loves Ruairc, or did love him. She would never agree to wed
either of us, even were I willing.”

 

 

“All that changed when we killed Conor, with Aofa’s help, of course.
She hates him now. He left after Morgan died. They even blamed him
for poisoning the old coot. Aofa did her job well there. And even if
she did still care for him, Ruairc’s in Dublin. He is far away, and
probably wouldn’t help her even if he were here, not after the way
Morgana has treated him.

 

 

"No, you patch Morgana up, and I’ll take her back to Carrickdoo, to
see if I can persuade her to see sense and marry me.”

 

 

“Marry you! But Aofa...” Brendan started to protest.

 

 

“Can marry you instead.It can be a double alliance which will turn
our grip on the Maguire lands into a stranglehold,” Dermot gloated.

 

 

“You must be out of your mind, Dermot! I have no intention of
marrying that whining bitch of a whore...”

 

 

“You will do as you are told, little brother. Don’t worry about your
conjugal duties, since Morgana and I as heads of the two clans will
be required to produce the heirs, something I am looking forward to
enormously.” Dermot smirked.

 

 

“Damn it, Dermot MacMahon, you can’t fob off your cast-off doxy on
me! Aofa’s offered herself to me dozens of times over the last few
years, but never once have I been tempted. Nothing, not even all the
Maguire lands, could prevail upon me to take her to wife. Let
me
have Morgana, and all will be settled satisfactorily between us,”
Brendan growled, as he lifted Morgana into his arms and went to find
a suitable chamber for her.

 

 

Morgana had overheard all of their conversation despite the painful
throbbing in her head, and felt physically sick what she had learnt.
To think that Aofa had been in league with them all along, had been
Dermot’s lover. Worse still, she had actually helped kill her own
brother and father, and was now actively plotting the overthrow of
her own clan, maybe even her own country.

 

 

Morgana knew she would never get out alive if she struggled against
the MacMahons. The best she could do would be to playact. She could
pretend she had lost her memory due to the violent blows to the
head, and wait for an opportunity to use what she had learnt against
them.

 

 

Morgana forced herself to lie still as she felt Brendan’s hands
strip away her habit to reveal the trunk hose and shirt underneath.
He tore the gown into strips, and examined her head carefully as he
tried to stanch the flow of blood.He pulled the auburn tresses to
one side, and gently brushed them and then tied them out of the way
into two plaits with several leather thongs.