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Set out sentries against an attack from O'Donnell, and scatter a score of men out along the roads to watch for other parties. You might pick up another score of recruits, Turlough Wolf." Turlough shook his head and tugged at his beard. "Best take me with you, master, instead of this overgrown ox.
"If we cut off those pirate ships on their way south he is not like to get much help from Galway." "Oh and I never thought of it!" cried Nuala, staring at him. Turlough chuckled. "That was spoken like a woman, mistress! If the rede seems good we could lay aboard men from here for fighting, and sail out with those two ships of yours."
"That was ill done, Turlough Wolf. If you had not served me so well, you would repent that work. By my faith, I am minded to hang you at their side!" Brian meant it, for the torture of men made him furious. "I am no fool to spare mad dogs," muttered Turlough sullenly. "It was the Dark Master who lopped these ears of mine eight years gone."
Had they taken Turlough Wolf with them or had Brian been less close-mouthed on his return from that cruise, the evil that befell might have been averted.
And when Turlough had ridden somberly away, Brian felt a strange sense of desertion, of loss, that was no whit inspired by Turlough's gloomy last words. He shook it off, however, at gripping hands again with Cathbarr.
Brian had it in mind to beset the Dark Master by sea and land at once, for all the O'Malley clan had been seamen and rovers from time immemorial, while he himself preferred men and horses at his back. In calmer mood now, he reflected that Turlough might not return for a week, and there was food and fodder for seventy men and horses to be obtained.
However, what remained of Vere's five hundred pikemen were in the castle, joined to the Dark Master's men; and Turlough's advice was that since there must be some seven hundred mouths to feed, the safest plan was to bide close and force the fight to come to them, rather than to take it to O'Donnell. "There is reason against that, Turlough Wolf," said Brian quickly.
Sitting in blank despair on a horse-block, Brian saw the dead bodies of a few less than a hundred men lying there. Turlough Wolf and his six gave over trying to put life into any of them, and now the old man came and put his hand on Brian's shoulder. "Where has Cathbarr of the Ax gone, master?"
Of the Dark Master they heard nothing until they were fording the Clare north of Tuam, when two men gave them word that a scant half-hour before some two-score horsemen had fled past them toward Tuam. "Good!" cried Brian. "Now, Turlough, lead us around Tuam, and I think we shall finish this thing long before the day comes."
They soon had the door of the lower chamber fast barred and clamped, and Brian flung himself down on his bed, panting, but unwounded to speak of. "Now sleep, master," said the old man. "They will search elsewhere, and finding this door closed will do naught here until the morning." Brian laughed a little. "It is not easy to sleep after fighting, Turlough.
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