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Rardove emitted another series of foul curses, then turned to the matter at hand. “The Irish were to meet with the spy-bastard Red? About what?”
Pentony didn’t bother to comment. How could they possibly know the purpose of the meeting? And in any event, Red was not the outlaw’s true name. No one knew that. But Red’s intrigues were renowned, for all that they usually concerned faraway Scotland and England, and the man had been like a phantom for almost twenty years, foiling plans of King Edward in his campaigns against the Scots. Now Red was turning his attention to Ireland? That could not be good. For King Edward.
“Where were they to meet?”
Pentony shook his head in reply. “We do not know. The Irishman died before he could say.”
Rardove shook his head, perhaps disgusted at his soldiers’ inability to moderate the severity of their beatings with more finesse. He snapped his gaze to Pentony. “What are you waiting for? Send for Balffe. He goes north, to capture O’Melaghlin and the bitch.”
The soldiers were gone within twenty minutes, draped in armor and swords and their lord’s rage. The huge, hulking figure of Balffe, riding at their head, was the last thing Pentony saw as he watched from atop the gate tower.
Thick-quilted gambesons and a layer of boiled bull-hide provided the first layer of protective bulk for the men. Then came the mail hauberks, small, overlapping iron rings that covered the torso and hung to midthigh, slit along the sides to allow for movement. Overlaying this they wore steel breast-plates and backplates, riveted in place. Steel helms covered their heads, saving for the ominous slitted eye openings. Steel greaves and poleyns for covering legs, shins, and feet completed the ensemble.
They were outfitted for war.
Pentony watched until the only upright figures on the landscape were the trees on a distant plain. He wondered what Senna had been wearing when she snuck out of the castle last night.
Chapter 17
The gaping tear in her tunic was the first thing Finian noted through his half-opened eyes. The next thing he saw was the rounded tops of her breasts.
She was kneeling beside him, leaning over him, close to his face. Her hair, freed from its braid, tumbled down like a silken, if slightly dirty, curtain. Instinct kicked in and he stretched his arm out, to pull her down.
“Don’t you think it’s time we start for Dublin?” she asked.
His arm fell away. “What?”
She sat back, knees bent, feet beneath her buttocks. She was bright, her cheeks a bit reddened from the sunshine of the day. “Dublin. Oughtn’t we be on our way?”
He pushed himself up on his elbows and looked around, getting his bearings. Almost evening, closing in on Vespers. He took a deep breath, yawned, and pushed his fingers through his hair.
“We’re not going to Dublin, Senna. I thought I told ye that.”
She gave a clipped nod, as if she were barely up to the task of humoring him. “I recall something of the sort. I thought you were in jest.”
“Is that so? If someone disagrees with ye, they must be joking?”
One pert eyebrow arched up. “When they say ridiculous things, indeed, I suspect a jest.”
He leaned forward until their noses were barely a foot apart. “Listen well then, lass, for ’tis no joke: we’re not going to Dublin.”
She practically flung herself backward. “But why not?”
He sat back. “Use yer fine-looking head. Do ye not suspect the king’s highway is exactly where Rardove will go looking for ye?”
“Well, I—” she began, then paused. “It might be where he’d look for me, Finian, but do you not think this way, deeper into Irish lands, is exactly where he’ll go looking for you?”
He considered her a moment. “Ye must have been a sore trial to yer mum, Senna,” he said, then lay back down and shut his eyes.
“I was a sore trial to me Da,” she snapped, mimicking his Irish accent.
“We’re not going to Dublin.”
“You are serious.”
“As mortal sin.”
She was quiet, but in the ominous way a powerful wind might be, on the other side of a ridge, before it rushed over the top and bent trees beneath its fury.
