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Updated: June 11, 2025
When he came up the road was full of men; but the devil slew two and wounded two of my own men, cut his way through the rest, and as I fled north my horse flung me and bruised my head. Has the castle fallen?" "Yes," laughed Brian, and related what had happed at Bertragh. "Have I time to bide here and eat?" Turlough yeasaid this and sent the inn-master bustling for food and wine.
"Then I will to follow your rede, divide my men as you say, and when we have slain the Dark Master, we will cut off the last of these O'Donnells of his, ride to Millhaven and take that hold, and send word to the Bird Daughter that she may keep Bertragh Castle and send Cathbarr north to me.
His intention is to gather a storm of men and hold an independent place near Galway. He forms an alliance with Nuala O'Malley, known as the Bird Daughter because of her carrier pigeons, for the purpose of recovering her castle, Bertragh, which O'Donnell had won years before from her parents by black treachery.
"Fetch either of the twain to Bertragh, dead or alive, and you have the loan of twoscore men for three months, free. Is it a pact?" "It is a pact," answered Brian, and at that the other galloped back to his men. Brian swung his sword and flung it high into the air; before it had flashed down to nestle in his palm again, his men were scrambling into the road.
If those Millhaven men had four ships driving down before that storm, as seemed probable enough, the Bird Daughter's two little caracks would never land men under the guns of Bertragh. About noon the snow fell less thickly, though the storm had risen to great power, and Brian made out that the Scots were bringing forward that cannon of theirs.
And Brian rode on to Bertragh, not without some forebodings. Outside the castle gates, where cressets flared over the snow, an old seneschal appeared and ordered Brian to leave his men outside. To this the men made some objection, but Brian laughed softly. "Bide where you are," he said. "You shall not be slain unless I am slain inside."
If I am to hold to the little that is left me, I shall need all my strength." "And that is not much, lady. Your coasts are plague-smitten, your men reduced, and Cromwell has not yet won all the country. Galway will be the last to fall, indeed. But as to Bertragh Castle, why should you not sell your rights in it to me?"
Replacing half of Teague's men with O'Malleys, he had the ropes cast off, waved his hand at Nuala, and they drove to the eastward and Bertragh Castle. Teague made so much moan over losing his ship that Brian promised it back to him when they had reached the castle; the stores and wine, however, he accounted good spoils of war.
The commission guaranteed her possession of Gorumna and Bertragh and the lands she claimed, and promised that when the royalists were driven from Galway the grant would be confirmed by Parliament. "I am to answer Captain Peyton to-night, Brian," she finished, her eyes dancing. "And Shaun is going to remain and hold Bertragh for me " "What's that?" cried Brian. "Hold Bertragh?
Cathbarr, do you command fifty horse, with the men from our ships here, and keep the Dark Master in play. With the remainder, we shall wait in whatever spot Brian shall choose, and before many days are sped I think that Bertragh will be mine again."
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