Hugh laughed bluntly. “That is wishful thinking on their part. I am most certainly not the O’Neill. If I were, I’d have run my sword through James Kelly’s belly and left him staked out for the carrion crows to pick the meat off his bones. I am no more than Hugh O’Neill, lately the good-conduct hostage of clan O’Neill at Her Majesty’s court in London.
“Thanks to interference from the powers across the water, there will never be another revered as the O’Neill. As I, might add, there will never be another Fitzgerald earl of Kildare. A right pity it is, too.”
Digging into the soup, Morgana asked, “How so?”
“It took the English five hundred years to establish a toehold on our island. But it has taken we Irish only two generations to destroy ourselves. Lift your goblet, Morgana of Kildare, and drink with me to a dying land. Erin’s death throes surround us. Yet no one sees what is as plain as the noses on each other’s faces.”
Morgana swallowed and carefully laid the silver spoon down on the table. “I don’t follow you.”
“I think you do.” Hugh picked up her full goblet and put it in her hand. “Tell me, Morgana, late of Kildare, when someone asks you what country you claim allegiance to, what do you say? ‘I’m Irish’? Is that your answer?”
“No. Of course not,” Morgana answered immediately. “I’m not Irish, I’m English.”
“Yet you were born in Maynooth castle in county Kildare, Ireland. Your father was also born at Maynooth, and his father and his father going back twelve generations, to the year 1069. How much more Irish do you have to be?”
Morgana broke the small loaf of bread in her hands and bit into it, chewing on the tough bread as if it were dried meat. “You Irish don’t accept us.”
“And the English do?” Hugh lifted a skeptical brow. “You told my housekeeper that you’ve never been to England. Is that true?”
“And if it isn’t, am I to be cast out into the night? Will you take the food from my mouth and the clothes from my back?”
Hugh brought his fist down on the table, making candles jump and goblets totter. “Woman, don’t you dare sit there accusing me of cruelties to you! It was not by my hand that you were stripped of your dignity and raped this day. I have given you nothing less than fairness, generosity, and the hospitality of my home. When in truth I owe you nothing, for your kind are the usurpers of all that was and is good in Ireland.
“Well, by God’s grace, I’m Irish. Since the dawning of all memory on this island—from the great battle between the Firbolgs and the Tuatha de Danann—an O’Neill king has ruled over the rocks of this lake and the hills that surround it. We’ve been overrun by Vikings, Scotchmen, Normans, Englishmen. We Irish savages have been converted by saints to Christianity, saved from eternal damnation by kings who proclaim they rule by divine right and lesser kings who rule only by the might of their own hand. But, by God, I’m Irish. I know exactly who and what I am. Can you say the same?”
Morgana picked up a slice of salmon with her fingers and laid it between the bread in her hand, folding it into a convenient bite-size morsel. “Obviously, I can’t speak with the same eloquence and passion to answer your question. But, yes, I do know exactly who I am and what I am.”
She shoved the whole bite into her mouth and chewed hard, as though his bread were made of gravel, not milled grain. Hugh sat back in his chair, drinking his wine, his eyes glittering as they assessed her.
“Then tell me, Morgana of Kildare. Who are you, really? What are you doing here in Ulster, where you are not welcome and not wanted? For what reason do you travel to my liege man in Dunluce?
“If you are an English spy hired by Walsingham, sent here deliberately to tempt and compromise me, I have the right to know the truth.”
Morgana almost choked. The bread stuck in her dry throat and wouldn’t budge past her windpipe. She raised one hand to her throat and reached for the goblet with the other.
Hugh made no move to assist her. In fact, he didn’t even blink as he stared at her, watching her gulp down swallows of wine as she tried to dislodge the wedged bread and salmon. Her color was quite high when she set the goblet aside and finally brought her pale eyes back to his.
“You think I’m an English spy?” she whispered, her voice barely a croak. “Sent here by Walsingham?”
“Circumspectly, I believe that what I witnessed today was just a little too patent to be real. I find it curious that in the heat of his passions James Kelly would confess his crimes to you. Forgive me if I tell you it doesn’t ring true. I won’t be set up to fall victim to Walsingham’s treacheries.” Not this O’Neill.
“Now, young woman…” Hugh reached forward and took the hourglass on the table in hand and turned it over.
“You have exactly ten minutes to tell all and convince me that every word you utter is the Gospel according to Mark, or else you will find yourself locked away in the same pit in the earth that James Kelly occupies this very moment. Begin at the beginning.”
Morgana sat back, staring at him blank-faced, appalled. Every word he’d uttered rang as a true and dangerous threat, to her ears. She closed her lips, which had parted with dismay, and folded her hands into her lap, saying nothing.
The fine sand trickled through the glass, making a minuscule white hill on the bottom. Morgana looked once at the hourglass, then back at the O’Neill’s cold and heartless face. She wasn’t going to engage in a test of wills with him. There was no purpose in doing that. She’d lose.
In fact, she realized belatedly, she’d already lost.
She would rather die than spend one minute in the same space as James Kelly. Morgana rose to her feet and crossed the room to the fireplace, picked up her boots and yanked out the crumpled tissue Brigit had stuffed inside them.
Hugh watched her jerk each boot onto her bare feet and deliberately tie the laces. He did not bother telling her she could not leave the room.
Loghran O’Toole guarded one door, Kermit Blackbeard the other. Did she try to run, she’d not live to regret it. Either would cut her throat before she had the chance to let out a single scream.
Bored with watching her fumble with the laces of her boots, Hugh looked at the hourglass, counting the time that remained. “Your ten minutes are rapidly running out, lady. Personally, I find your silence at this critical moment appalling.”
“Go to hell, O’Neill!” Morgana muttered as she got to her feet again. She barely retained control of her rage.
“Do you play the game to suit me, my rewards to you will prove more generous than Walsingham’s ever would be. I might be amenable to allowing you to remain at Dungannon as my mistress for a time. Do you serve me well, you’ll be adequately pensioned after.”
Morgana paused at the mullioned windows to take a deep, calming breath. She glanced back over her shoulder as she twisted the lock on the window and pushed it open. A cold breeze caressed her cheek. Hugh O’Neill sat on his chaise as if it were a throne, watching her with the dispassionate eye of a Roman emperor.
Oh, his cold black eyes moved coveteously over her person, cataloging each movement that she made; but he was as blind to what she really was as the stones of his castle. Morgana swung her head and stared out the open window. The sky had cleared from the north to the east. A pale moon hung like a battered pewter cup in the dark, starless sky.
Beyond the window frame a soft, formless shape floated on the rising mist. Two hands stretched out opened palms of welcome to Morgana. The shade’s soft, keening voice brushed across Morgana’s eardrum, not registering any audible sound.
Don’t trust him, cried Catherine Fitzgerald. He is the O’Neill. All his people think it so. I have waited long years for a kinsman to come. You must help me, Morgana. Blood must stand for blood.
