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Updated: June 11, 2025
Then the snow ceased, though the hurricane howled down behind them with redoubled fury; and as they floated in against a low, rocky shore, silence of wild consternation fell on them all. For they had come to Bertragh Castle, and fifty feet away a score of men were waiting, while others were running down with torches.
From them he got food and wine and two fresh horses, and with the afternoon they rode down to Bertragh in worse shape than they had ridden from it. Brian was the less heartened when he saw two of Nuala O'Malley's ships in the bay, and knew that she must be at the castle. Indeed, before they reached the gates the Bird Daughter rode out to meet them, with Cathbarr striding before her.
The latter drew rein, seeing that the creature under the pine-boughs was some old crone whose grief seemed more bitter still than his own. "What is wrong, mother?" he cried cheerily. "Are you from one of the Bertragh farms?" The tattered heap moved slightly, and a wrinkled, withered face peered up at him.
Brian guessed straightway that pigeons had come from her men in Galway telling of those ridings about the city, and that she had come over to Bertragh in anxiety; and this was the truth indeed. Turlough Wolf hied him away and slept, but Brian sat about a table in the hall with Cathbarr and Nuala.
The upshot of that had been a fight, followed by a delay of two days for investigation; finally the Dark Master had slipped away, his two men had promptly been hung, and Turlough had meantime gone ahead to prepare fresh delays at Bellahy and Tobercurry. He had four men left with him, though he had left Bertragh with ten. "Then O'Donnell has four days' start of me," reflected Brian.
This put the seaman in better mood, and by noon the fast galley had covered the twenty miles to Bertragh, and cast down her anchor in the little bay beyond the castle, that same bay where Brian had come to grief through O'Donnell's sorcery. The men crowded down to meet him joyfully, and Brian found that Cathbarr had come home safe with his beeves and was hungry for fight.
As he ran through the hall he knew that his falcons had punished O'Donnell's men heavily, and that his twenty men had not fallen without some payment for their lives. None the less, Bertragh Castle was now lost to him and to the Bird Daughter; but he thought it likely that he would yet make a play that might nip O'Donnell in the midst of his success.
Brian gets back his Spanish sword, but O'Donnell escapes with some of his men, and Brian loses all of his in chasing him to keep him from joining with his pirate friends. Brian and Turlough get back to Bertragh exhausted. He goes cruising with Nuala, and they meet a small vessel laden with wine and food for some of O'Donnell's men.
"You mistake me, lady," he said earnestly, his blue eyes softening darkly. "I propose this only as a stepping-stone to my own ambition. Soon there will be a sweep of war through the coasts, and I would have a roof over my head. Is it good?" She rose and held out her hands to him. "It is good, Brian Buidh. Give me fealty-oath, for Bertragh Castle alone."
But we must mind this if O'Donnell gets safe into Galway again with either these horsemen or those Millhaven pirates of his clan, he will drive hard against Bertragh." "The Dark Master shall come no more to Galway," said Brian grimly, fingering his ax. "Now finish, and quickly." "I have a plan in my mind, master; but unless we slay the Dark Master, it is like to fail us.
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