Princes of Ireland - Edward Rutherfurd [343]
But before she reached the door, she heard a shout. It came from Maurice. He was running towards her. She saw Father Donal just behind him with the old bard.
“Troops!” Maurice called. “Butler’s men. Coming up the valley.”
She saw them herself just a moment later: a party of men, some on horse and some on foot coming towards Rathconan. They were not two miles away.
“You think they are Butler men?” she asked Father Donal.
“Who else?” he replied.
“I’ll have horses ready in a moment,” Maurice told her. “Then we must go up into the hills.”
“They’ll take the cattle,” she pointed out.
“I know.” The young fellow didn’t look happy about it. “But those were your husband’s instructions.” He paused. “Perhaps,” he suggested, “if we can get you and the women to a place of safety, Father Donal could stay with you and I and the men …”
She smiled. There looked to be twenty armed men approaching. Was this brave and handsome boy really proposing to tackle them with the aid of the old cattleman, the stable boy, and the bard? “No,” she told him. “We’ll stay together.” Yet it was a terrible thing, to abandon the house and the herd to the raiders. The cattle were their wealth, their livelihood, their status. Deep within her, generations of her forefathers, cattlemen all, rose up in anger. Sean might have foolishly left the herd at risk, but if she could possibly do so, she meant to save it, or part of it, anyway. Could the herd be split and some of the cattle hidden? Was there time? And it was then, remembering something she had once seen in her childhood, that Eva had an idea. It was daring and dangerous. And it would also take skill. She looked at Maurice Fitzgerald.
“Would you like to try something with me?” she asked. “It’s a risk, and if it doesn’t work, they’ll maybe kill us.” Then she explained what would have to be done.
How strange it was, she thought, as she watched his face. Moments before, torn between his desire to do something and his duty to follow Sean’s instructions, the handsome, dark-haired boy had looked so anxious. Yet as he listened to her proposal, which might cost them all their lives, his face seemed to relax. A light came into his eye. An expression she had seen once or twice on her husband’s face in his youth suddenly appeared on Maurice’s—a look of fine, devil-may-care excitement. Yes, she thought to herself, these Fitzgeralds were Irish, right enough.
“Listen then,” she said, “and I will tell you what it is we need to do.”
At the time when the Butler raiding party was approaching Rathconan, Sean O’Byrne and his men were high in the mountains and far to the south. The party now consisted of eleven riders. All of them, including young Fintan, were armed.
Not that Sean expected a fight—a brief scuffle was more likely. They’d be attacking in the dark, with the advantage of surprise; there was a limited and clearly defined objective; and it was quite probable that their quarry would only be accompanied by two or three men. The main thing was to find the right place for the ambush before dark, and to rest the horses. He thought he knew the place. A quiet spot with some trees for cover on the road that led to Dalkey.
It had certainly surprised him when the Walsh woman had turned up like that. He’d remembered her from the time he’d gone to take the oath from her husband, the lawyer; but he hadn’t paid much attention to her then. Her proposal that he should kidnap the alderman’s wife had surprised him even more.
Why was she doing this? he had asked. She had her reasons, she told him. That was all she would say. But she must hate the Doyle woman considerably, he thought, to take such a step. Why do women feud? Over a man, usually. You’d have thought she’d have been a bit old for that, really, he mused; but perhaps a woman was never too old to be jealous. Anyway, whatever