Susan Wiggs - The Maiden of Ireland

But it was too late; the torch flared high, filling the air with the smell of pine pitch.

Ladyman reached for the beer bottle. “Let him comfort himself with it. I say the captain’s imagining things.”

“Did he imagine the shamrock?” Wesley challenged. “The shorn lock?”

Ladyman shrugged, his armor creaking. “I have a keen nose for the stink of Irish. I don’t think there’s an Irishman within miles of this place.”

“Fianna! Fianna e Eireann!”

The full-throated bellow burst from the darkness.

A rumble of hoofbeats pounded, the sound of a stampede out of control, coming at them from all sides. The man who had lit the torch fell, an arrow protruding from his neck. The bundle of torches caught fire, sizzling on the damp ground.

“Jesus Christ,” whispered Ladyman, wheeling his horse back toward the ridge. “Jesus Christ!”

Wesley gripped the hilt of his sword. The blade hissed from its scabbard.

As one, the party started back in the direction they’d come. A company of black-clad horsemen blocked the way.

“To the woods!” Ladyman yanked his horse back around. He disappeared into the darkness. The other Englishmen drew swords and pistols.

“We’re surrounded!” Ladyman’s desperate cry drifted across the field as he reappeared.

The men on the ridge stood sentinel, fists raised, horses blowing mist into the moonlit night.

“Fianna!”

The shouts and hoofbeats drew nearer. An almost forgotten feeling rose inside Wesley. In a flash he recognized the taut sense of anticipation, the feel of the sword in his hand, the cold sense of purpose that closed over his soul.

John Wesley Hawkins was ready to do battle. At the seminary at Douai, the priests had taught him to abhor violence. Yet all those values were scrubbed away by the dark, pounding thrill of impending action.

For the past five years his battles had been fought in secret against an enemy he could not meet face-to-face. His only weapons had been words and deeds done in shadow. Now he rode with that very enemy as comrade.

But now, oh, now, he was about to pit himself, sword to sword, against a flesh-and-blood foe. That he had no particular quarrel with the Irish mattered little. His daughter’s life depended on defeating these wild warriors.

And defeat them he would. Unthinkingly he sketched the sign of the cross.

Ladyman gasped. “What the bloody hell—”

His words drowned in another flood of Gaelic shouting and galloping horses. Wesley’s gaze snapped from shadow to shadow at the fringe of the clearing. Their numbers too small to match the English, they had culled away this search party, ringing them on three sides and the ice-cold lake at their backs.

The Irish came like nightmares borne on a foul wind, black-clad and licked by firelight, their old-fashioned helms bobbing with the rhythm of their horses. All wore breastplates emblazoned with a golden harp, and many had veils flowing from their helms.

The Englishmen scattered. Gaelic shouts boomed across the field. The Irish ponies were more fleet and agile than the cavalry mounts.

A large Irishman on a thick-limbed pony galloped to the fore. Rafferty? Wesley wondered, admiring the man’s skill.

The warrior guided the horse with his knees alone. In one hand he held a short-handled ax, in the other, a large hammer. He swung the weapons with the ease of a reaper wielding a scythe. The hammer clapped against an English helm. The ax rived into an English breastplate. A hoarse bellow of agony rolled across the chill flat water.

Wesley rode toward the aggressor. If it were Rafferty, he must be stopped. Leaderless, the Fianna would scatter; lives would be spared.

The huge warrior on his dark horse spied Wesley. Sawing at the reins, he galloped across the uneven ground.

“Oh, my God,” Wesley whispered. His sweat condensed inside the round helm, flooding him with the rusty iron taste of fear.

The ax swung toward his head. Wesley ducked. “Jesus!” he yelled, wrestling his helm back in place.

Wheeling the horse, the warrior charged again. Wesley swerved. The motion carried him out of the saddle and onto the hard ground. His horse ran away in panic.

The warrior drew rein and turned for another charge.

Wesley grasped one of the torches. Running backward, he ducked the ax and hammer and retreated toward the lake.

Panting hollowly inside his helm, the warrior followed. Wesley waded in to his waist, his tender parts shrinking from the icy water. The bloody ax blade arced toward Wesley’s head.

At the last possible moment, in that cold slice of time that determines whether a man lives or dies, Wesley thrust the flaming torch at the horse’s face.

The beast skidded, splashing to a halt. The heavy rider pitched over the horse’s head and into the water. Wesley heard the dull snap of a breaking bone. The Irishman’s helm fell into the lake. In a blur, Wesley saw a mop of earth-colored hair. So his opponent hadn’t been Rafferty, after all.

The horse sidled away, its reins trailing. Wesley vaulted into the saddle. Leaving the Irishman floundering in his heavy armor, Wesley galloped the horse out of the lake and into the fray.

Some of the Roundheads had retreated into the water. Others made desperate attempts to flee into the woods. Two lay motionless on the ground. Those who remained had long since discharged their pistols and muskets, then flung them down, for they had no time to reload.

The Irish fought with lusty vigor, howling and singing in their ancient tongue.

Wesley rode toward them. An arrow buzzed past his head. Across the clearing sat a small man on a pony, nocking another arrow in a short bow. Wesley recalled the slit in Hammersmith’s tent; he’d lay odds he had found the culprit.

Several yards away, another Irishman fell. With relief and astonishment, Wesley realized the Gaels were flagging. For all their fierce bravado, their numbers were small.

He reined the horse toward another pocket of fighting. A motion caught his eye. He turned to see a warrior on a sleek horse sail across the clearing. Centaurlike, he rode with both hands free; one wielding a sword and the other a mace.

Wesley sensed a strange power in the horseman. Perhaps it was a trick of the uncertain firelight, but an aura seemed to hover about the warrior, drawing the eye and evoking a feeling of awe mixed with dread. The very sight of the warrior brought fresh war cries springing from the enemies’ throats.

Bending low over the horse’s neck, Wesley charged.

Lithe as a dancer, the leader of the Fianna guided the beautiful horse in an expertly carved loop. Wesley’s swinging sword hissed through empty air. The iron-spiked mace crashed against his shoulder.

Ignoring the numbness that spread down his arm, Wesley aimed the big Irish pony head-on at the willowy stallion. The beat of hooves kept pace with each quick-drawn breath. The smell of damp metal made his eyes water.

In a trick that had served him well in his cavalier days, he waited until the animals were nearly nose to nose, then hauled sharply on the reins.

The horse stopped while Wesley vaulted forward, wrapping his arms around the warrior, ripping his opponent out of the saddle and flinging them both to the wet ground.

The warrior had a small man’s quickness, twisting lithely beneath him, bringing his foot up toward Wesley’s groin.

Deflecting the strike with his own leg, Wesley grasped a flailing arm. Who is this? he wondered. Surely not the heavyset, broad-shouldered Logan Rafferty.

They tumbled and rolled, breath rasping and hands grappling for discarded weapons. Nearby, the pitch fire had risen to a roaring blaze. Heat lapped at Wesley’s back and singed the ends of his hair. Irish shouts and running feet sounded behind him, coming closer.