"Fiona, do not—"
"And as for stealing your accursed cow, what about all you stole from Daire when I was still too much a child to stop you?"
"Girl, close your mouth, or I vow I will close it forever!" Gormley's face washed red. "I will not be accused by the likes of you!"
"Anyone with eyes can see through the window—chairs with my parents' initials intertwined. A bridal bench my father carved with his own hands during the winter they were first wed."
Caitlin saw the guilt flash for a moment inGormley's face, not out of remorse but because he had been caught. Then he sneered, puffed up with the knowledge Fiona was helpless to do anything about his crimes.
"The cow should be mine! Payment for what you stole, old man!"
"Then why do you not summon your famous brother to do battle over the wrongs done you, little rat? You always claimed he would when you were a stripling girl! Remember how you would howl threats at us? Niall is coming soon! My brother will flay you—"
"Be quiet, old man, or I swear I will see you dead!" Fiona's voice broke, her face ashen, and Caitlin's heart bled for her.
Gormley gave a cruel laugh. "It was most amusing all those years past. But now you know what we knew even then, do you not, Fiona of Daire! Your brother, the bold champion of Glenfluirse does not care if you starve and rot here any more than I do!"
"That is not true! Niall is even now—" Caitlin could not keep from protesting, then almost bit her tongue. Had she not already made enough of a mess of things? Gormley must not know Niall was here! But it was too late. Gormley's eyes glowed. "The great champion has come to takethe scrapings of Daire's pot at last, has he? He will not tarry long here. All Ireland knows he despises every stone in this place—aye, and cares not if you and your mother starve as well, eh, Fiona?"
Caitlin wanted to argue, wanted to fling angry words back at him, but it would only make matters worse if this cur realized just how much Niall now cared.
"No one cares what happens to Daire scum, and you should know that above anyone, Fiona!" He sneered. "All Ireland knows you deserved what befell you, after what Ronan did."
Fiona's eyes burned with murder, and Caitlin made a last, desperate attempt to deflect that rage before any hope of striking a bargain was gone.
"You said that if we paid for the cow, you would let Fiona go," she reminded him levelly.
"Perhaps so, but after what she has been saying, it would take a king's ransom to equal the pleasure I would get from making her pay."
Caitlin reached for the bracelet, felt the gold warm her skin one last time. "Would this be enough?" she asked, slipping the exquisite circlet from her wrist. She held it out to him, the gold mellow in the dim light.
The man's eyes nearly popped from his head. "That is a finer piece than ever I saw in my life, girl. Where did you get such a thing?"
"It does not matter." Caitlin swallowed hard. "Will you accept this as payment for Boann?"
"Caitlin—" Fiona gasped.
Gormley licked his lips, greed extinguishing his rage. "Have you lost your wits? You could buy a herd o' beasts for such a price. Yet you are willing to trade it for just one?"
"Aye." Caitlin squeezed the word through a throat tight with unshed tears. She could scarce bear the feel of his hungry gaze upon the circle of gold, wanted to wrap her fingers tight about the bracelet, hide it away from this slavering pig. But he snatched the bracelet away from her, smudging the gold, running his fingers over the magnificent craftsmanship with sickening avarice.
Gormley spit, nearly striking the tip of Fiona's toes. "The little rat can live for all I care." He polished the bracelet against his grimy sleeve. "A thousand thanks, fairy queen," he said with a nod toward Caitlin. "You can be certain I will not be forgetting you if I live longer than the sun itself." He chuckled. "When your brother comes back to Daire, Fiona, be sure to send him to this lady'sfairy lair. Is that not the kind of quests Niall of the Seven Betrayals is said to perform? Slaying fairy kings and giants while he lets his sister rot alone?"
"You have what you came for," Caitlin snapped, unable to bear the torment on Fiona's face. "Leave before I decide to take the bracelet back."
Gormley chuckled. "As if you could take this from me!”
But then, as if thinking twice about losing his treasure, he flung Fiona to the floor and disappeared into the hall. The girl sprawled across the floor, the rough stone raking her left cheek. Blood welled in the wake of a nasty scrape. Caitlin tried to help her up, intending to dab the blood away, but the girl jerked her arm free.
"What did you do that for?" Fiona demanded, scrambling to her feet. "I owed that fat wretch nothing after all he stole from Daire!"
"That may be, but he did not agree with you. He would have seen you dead, Fiona. God knows what he would have done to you!"
"The day I cannot outwit a knave like Gormley is the day I will cast myself from the castle roof. What were you thinking, plunging in like a witling? Now look what you have done!"
"I know I should not have let him see me, but—"
"See you? You might as well have had heralds announce your presence to half of Ireland when you gave him that bracelet. No one hereabouts has anything half so fine since Castle Daire fell into ruin. And for someone here to be casting such a treasure into someone else's hands—thunder and fire, the whole countryside will be talking about nothing else soon, what with Gormley, braggart that he is, thrusting the thing under everyone's nose!"
