Morgana’s heart made a fierce racket under her ribs, banging against her breastbone. She swallowed and stared straight through the ghostly shape between the window frame and the distant hills. She refused to look down at the water in the lake. Water frightened her so. It always had and always would. If she was lucky, she’d hit the rocks and she wouldn’t have to suffer the agonizing death of suffocating by drowning.

You must help me, sweetling, Catherine wailed, her lament sadder than the keen of little Maoveen when she had mourned the passing of Shane O’Neill. I’m so lonely and lost.

Agitated by the unaccountable rising of the wind, Hugh unclasped his hands, which had been deliberately laced to passive stillness over his flat belly.

He raised his voice to gain the woman’s immediate attention. “Shall I point out to you now, woman, that your silence serves only as an admission of guilt to all the charges I’ve laid on you?”

He baits you. Don’t listen to him! Catherine swirled in through the open window, circling her great niece as she spun on angry heels to confront the man. Listen to me!

“You are free to point out anything you like to a lowly creature such as I, O’Neill,” Morgana said. “Count yourself right about one thing. There will never be a thirteenth Fitzgerald earl of Kildare. Without me, Sean’s life is forfeit. I pray God you are right about one more thing. May there never be another O’Neill of Tyrone to strike terror into the hearts of the women and children of Ireland.

“Now I understand why Aunt Catherine chose to take her own life rather than live in this castle, married to an O’Neill!”

No! Catherine wailed. I didn’t! Stop! You foolish girl! Stop her, Hugh O’Neill!

Morgana bounded onto the window ledge, crying out, “Goodbye, O’Neill! Till we meet each other in hell, sir, I bid you farewell!”

Hugh uncoiled from his chair. “What in God’s name do you think you are doing?”

His shout reverberated off the coffered ceiling. Loghran and Kermit burst through opposite doors of the chamber instantly, dirks drawn and ready, expecting to find Hugh in a struggle for his life.

They ran past each other in the center and spun round, back-to-back, visually sweeping each dark corner.

“Jesus, Mary and Joseph!” O’Toole sprang to the open window and threw his long body across Hugh’s kicking legs to anchor him inside the room.

“What?” Kermit bellowed. “Have you lost your mind, O’Neill?”

“Don’t stand there jawing!” hollered O’Toole. “Help me pull him back in! The bloody woman jumped out the window!”

“Is she mad?” Kermit wasted words and breath, but no time, as he threw his own crushing weight over Hugh’s hips, pinning them to the window ledge.

“Christ Almighty, are you trying to emasculate me?” Hugh thundered. “Get off my bloody cods and give me a hand out the bloody window, you fool. I’ve got her. I just can’t pull her back.”

Dumbfounded, Kermit pulled back enough to yank open the other window. He bent halfway out over the sill, stretching, trying to reach Hugh’s hand. The woman spun by one arm, twisting back and forth, her wild feet kicking her skirts in the wind. Hugh’s fingers were as white as Dover chalk where they clenched the bones of her wrist.

“Cut her loose,” Loghran ordered, telling Kermit exactly how to wield the long knife he still clasped in one hand. “Chop off her hand. Save the O’Neill!”

“You do, and so help me God, I’ll throw both of you down on top of what’s left of her body,” Hugh growled ferociously. A mighty shout followed as he jerked the woman up, catching hold of her clothing with his other hand. The laces on her vest held. “Morgana! Give me your left hand!”

Kermit groped down Hugh’s sleeve, feeling for his wrist, stretching as far as he dared. His eyes bulged like the tendons in Hugh’s forearm. Just beyond his fingertips, a clump of bunched cloth tore audibly.

The woman’s fingernails scraped and clawed at Hugh’s hand. The bloody-minded creature tried to pry his fingers from her wrist.

Kermit closed his eyes and clamped his fist on that talonlike hand of vicious, clawing fingers. The fingers crushed under his. He slapped his other hand over her wrist and grunted, hauling what resisted up to him. She felt like ten hundredweight of stone.

“I’ve got her.” Hugh gasped. “Loghran, for the love of God, give me some help. I can’t hold her much longer.”

“Don’t! Let me go!” Morgana snarled. She kicked her feet and spun around, only to twist violently back to where she’d begun.

Taller than either Hugh or Kermit, Loghran shifted his weight no more than necessary to keep Hugh from following the stupid woman to her death on the rocks. He unhooked his belt and positioned himself carefully, never taking most of his body weight from O’Neill’s legs.

“All right,” he said as he leaned over Hugh’s straining body. “When I give the signal, the two of you hoist her as high as you can.”

“Just do it! Now!” Hugh gave the signal. Both he and Kermit grunted deeply, jerking Morgana upward. Loghran snapped the leather around her body and caught the whipping tail, pulling both ends taut over her back.

“Got her!” He grunted. They pulled. She fought like a hooked marlin, cursing, raining blasphemies on the wet air and the castle walls.

Loghran got hold of her hair. Hugh found a leg. Kermit got an eye gouged by somebody’s elbow. She shrieked more viciously than the banshee Maoveen when they hauled her over the ledge.

All four of them hit the floor—a heap of sweating, shaking tangle of arms and legs.

“God the Father Almighty, forgive us,” Loghran croaked.

Panting as hard as a winded horse, Hugh clutched the woman to his chest and fought to catch his breath. Sweat ran freely down his cheeks and onto his neck. He swallowed twice, then put out his hand when Loghran moved to untwist his belt from its tight constriction beneath Morgana’s ribs.

“Leave it,” Hugh commanded raggedly. “I’m going to beat her to death, when and if I can ever move my arms again.”

Kermit, who could not move his brawny arms at all, said, “When you finish, O’Neill, I want to murder what’s left. She could have killed us, one and all.”

Loghran raised his fingers over the woman’s heaving back and made the sign of the cross. He found his voice and used it to beseech God to forgive all of them.

As the priest raised his hand in a sign of forgiveness and blessing, Catherine Fitzgerald put her hands to her face and faded into the tower’s stone walls, weeping, as lost as she had been since the night of her death.

Morgana listened to the litany in Latin, numb with shock, unable to tell her tears from the sweat that coursed down Hugh’s neck and throat onto her brow and cheek. His hand gripped her head, tightly holding her head flattened against his chest. His heart pumped erratically.

At some point, the cadence evened. Hugh’s voice rumbled like distant thunder, repeating the same order twice. “Leave us.”

Loghran got up and extended a hand to Kermit, hauling the soldier to his feet.

“Thank you.” As Hugh gave vent to his gratitude, Loghran grunted and closed the windows, twisting the brass hasps so tightly the metal screeched.

The soft swish of their boots retreated across the wooden floor. Morgana tried to use her hands to wipe her face. The right one felt as if it were never going to work again. Hugh caught hold of her fingers and tucked them down between their bodies.

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