Karen Robards - Dark of the Moon

Mickeen's rebuke left Caitlyn and Willie silenced. As the cart slogged through the mud, taking a meandering path that led finally around the Castle's outer wall, Caitlyn saw that the structure was indeed no more than a burned- out shell. Sheep grazed in the overgrown bawn, the keep inside what was left of the fortifications. As she watched, one of the flock outside leaped baa-ing through a hole in the tumbledown wail to join its brethren feasting within. Three of the round towers were intact, but the fourth was crumbling, leaving a gaping wound in its side. Caitlyn stared at the high-set windows, shivering as she wondered which one was the Fuinneog an Mhurdair. Black streaks scorched into the gray stone gave mute testimony to the conflagration that had once raged within. The cart rounded the far side of the Castie, and Caitlyn saw that dozens of timber shacks leaned against its charred masonry. Living quarters for the peasants who worked the farm, she deduced from the presence of the women who sat in open doorways watching their young children playing nearby. Sheep grazed apparently at will on the green velvet slope leading to the Boyne. Rough-clothed peasants, both male and female, walked among the sheep. On the other side of the stone wall that bisected the grassy meadow, a group of peasants labored together with the scythe and slane, cutting turf.

"Is this the farm, then?" Willie's question was subdued. Mickeen's harsh recital and the devastation they had just passed had obviously shaken him as they had Caitlyn.

Mickeen snorted, bitterness twisting his face as he stared at what lay before them. "Aye. The farm. Connor d'Arcy, descendant of the first king of Ireland, true son of Tara, Lord Earl of Iveagh, a sheep farmer! His da would spin in his grave did he know. But as they say, needs must when the devil drives. And the devil drives his lordship for certain sure."

Caitlyn shivered upon hearing that, remembering those devil's eyes. Sure, and if his lordship were possessed of the devil she and Willie were in the soup, and no mistake. They'd likely escaped the hangman only to fall prey to Hellfire. With a sideways look at her companions, who were paying her no mind, she crossed herself and prayed that as protection that would suffice.

A magnificent view of the Boyne lay before them. It slashed like a silver whip deep into the valley separating the d'Arcy family holdings from the woodlands across the way. The hiss of the water as it rushed past rocky banks formed a muted background to the plaintive bleating of the sheep and the rhythmic thud of falling scythes. As the cart creaked downward toward the river, Caitlyn became aware of the manor house nestled in a grove of mighty oaks. Compared with the Casde, the house was small and poor, but as they approached she saw that, taken on its own, it was a neat residence, two story and solid, made of stone with a corbeled roof. Behind the house lay two bams and a smaller shed. Chickens scratched in the yards of both barns. A calico cat washed herself on the front steps of the house, while what appeared to be a very old dog sunned itself in a side yard. There was a well-cared- for air about the place that Caitiyn immediately liked.

As the cart approached, the dog got stiffly to its feet and began to bark, tail wagging. The cat looked up and then disappeared into the bushes at the side of the porch. Two men standing in a walled patch of fresh-tilled land midway between the house and the first barn looked up, squinting. With an air of disgust one threw down the staff with which he had been prodding an unresponsive sheep and headed toward them. The other shook his head and, abandoning the straggler, waded in among a tight-bunched group, flapping his arms in an attempt to herd them as they milled about, clearly paying his antics no mind. A dozen or so of the baa-ing creatures had apparenUy wandered into what was almost certainly the kitchen garden, and the men had been trying to get them out with what appeared to be little success. As the first man strode to- ward the cart, Caitlyn got the impression that he was glad for an interruption to their task.

"Mickeen, thank the lord you're back! Mayhap you can get the blatherin' sheep out of the bloody garden! Rory and I are havin' no luck at all, and Connor's sure to come out of the stable any minute and chew the hide off the pair of us. You know he thinks we're all natural-bom sheep fanners, as he is, if we'd just try a little harder."

"And right he probably is too. I ain't noticed either you nor your brothers givin' tending sheep the care it deserves. If sheep farmin' is good enough for his lordship, it should sure be good enough for the likes of you, Cormac d'Arcy.''

Given Mickeen's recent comments on the awfulness of an Earl of Iveagh's having sunk so low as to become a sheep farmer, Caitlyn could not repress a grin at this lecture. The young man who had greeted them so frenziedly turned his attention to her and Willie as Mickeen stepped laboriously down from the cart.

"And what have we here?" He was taller than Mickeen by half a head. His loose linen shirt and breeches could not conceal that he was gangly in the way of lads who have not yet achieved their full growth. His black curly hair, carelessly tied, dubbed him unmistakably as one of his lordship's brothers. But the narrow, even-featured face was not so striking, and as Caitlyn pondered the difference she realized it lay in the eyes. Those devil's eyes of his lordship's were dominating, unfoigettable. This lad's eyes were a laughing hazel.

Mickeen looked back at them, his expression as sour as Caitlyn was coming to believe was habitual to him.

"I know not their names. Your brother took pity on 'em in Dublin, and here they be. Runnin' a bloody orphanage, we are, it seems."

"I'm Willie Laha." Willie jumped down from the cart, his freckled face apprehensive as he looked up at Cormac d'Arcy. "We're to be farmhands, his lordship said."

Caitlyn climbed down more slowly, giving Willie a censorious look as she did so. He was practically slavering his gratitude already. She didn't trust these people, any of them, his lordship included, despite Mickeen's sad tale.

They were strangers, with no reason to feel kindly toward Willie or herself. After all, why should these d'Arcys and their hangers-on share even a meager part of what was theirs with anyone else? In her experience, a body hung on to what he had. In their place, that's what she would do.

"What's your name, then?" Cormac turned his measuring gaze from Willie to Caitlyn. A grin lurked around the corners of his mouth, and his eyes looked as if he were always laughing. Caitlyn estimated his age at perhaps two years more than her own, which would make him around seventeen. She stood mute, contemplating him with a scowl. Such open friendliness made her warier than ever.

"He's O'Malley. A bit of a temper he has, but a good lad." Willie poked her in the ribs with his elbow as he spoke. Caitlyn shot Willie a look that should have silenced his tongue forevermore.

"I can speak for meself," she said, her eyes meeting Cormac's with more than a trace of belligerence. He lifted his eyebrows at her expression and whistled comically. She scowled at him.

"His lordship must have been all about in his head, is all I can tell ya. This one's a real hothead," Mickeen muttered, spitting. Then, to Cormac, "Let's go get them sheep out o' the garden afore his lordship sees where you've let them get." He moved off with Cormac following, adding over his shoulder to Willie and Caitlyn, "You may as well come along and make yourselves useful. No point in just hangin' about."

Willie loped off after them. Caitlyn followed more slowly. With all of her other worries, another had just lifted its ugly head. She had a sneaking suspicion that she was not going to like sheep…

By the time she reached the walled garden, the others had managed to get the sheep rounded up into a tight little group and were herding them toward the open back gate, which led to the velvety meadow where sheep were apparently intended to be. A renegade cut and ran as Willie, following Cormac's example, flapped his arms at it. Baaing wildly, it headed straight for Caitlyn, who had just stepped through the front gate, its sharp little hooves churning the manure-rich, rain-wet furrows into thick black mud as it went.