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Updated: June 10, 2025
Also Turlough had hopes that many of Brian's men would win home from that riding of his yet, since a large part of them had dropped out by the way or had been left behind with wounds. And in the end, indeed, fifty or less did find their way back. Before night they made Gorumna Castle, and Brian found why they had come here first.
When we had this news of you from Galway, a week since, I sent off a galley to find Blake at the Cove of Cork and seek aid of him. Also my kinsmen will return to Gorumna before going home to Erris, and we are not in hard case here. So now get rested, Brian Buidh, and afterward we will see what may be done.
The Dark Master seemed to be playing his cards well, and was doubtless thinking of throwing off the cloak and openly allying himself with the royalist cause. In this way he could secure help against Gorumna in the shape of Galway ships and men, and it was like to go hard with the Bird Daughter in such case. However, Vere had no power to treat of such things, as Brian well knew.
However, Turlough proceeded to set forth the reasons for such a message, as he had conceived them within his shrewd mind. First, it seemed that the pestilence had visited Gorumna in the absence of its mistress, and that the Dark Master had caught a score of the O'Malleys who had been wrecked in Bertraghboy Bay, promptly hanging them all.
With her Kerry recruits, Nuala had a hundred and eighty men, so she had set to work to build a tower and small keep on the opposite island, that Gorumna itself might be more easily defended. Also she had taken some falconets and two bastards out of a large French ship, and had set about building a battery outside the castle that would overlook the harbor.
If the Dark Master attacked suddenly, as he was like to do, brains would be more needed than brawn. On the other hand, he counted on Cathbarr's open face removing the evident suspicion that the smooth-tongued Turlough had raised in Gorumna Isle. It had been a mistake, he saw plainly, to send such an emissary on his mission.
Having thus assured himself of both food and stock for his farms, he rode home again, to find great news awaiting him. First, there had come a galley from Gorumna with wine and stores. Nuala sent word that her men in Galway had informed her the Dark Master was there, but in no high favor with Lord Burke and the other commanders.
At that the crowd fell silent, but their leader gave a rapid order, and half a dozen men ran down to the strand. Another order, and the maddened villagers gave back as the seamen closed about Brian and Cathbarr and their captives. "Come," said the leader roughly. "You shall go to Gorumna Isle with us, strange men, but I do not think that you shall ever come back again."
The rowers twisted about with shouts of joy, and Brian perceived a faint, ruddy light against the sky. Also, the fog began to lessen somewhat; and upon making out that the beacon undoubtedly came from a high tower or crag, the shout passed around that they had headed back to Gorumna with the shifting wind.
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