Nuala O'Malley

by H. Bedford-Jones

"That is but fair," assented Brian.

Cathbarr grumbled, but there was no help for it, since they were virtually prisoners. The day passed slowly, and toward noon storm drew down on the harbor and snow eddied in their casement. With that, they fell to polishing their weapons; Brian procured a razor and a much-needed shave, and Cathbarr furbished up his huge ax until it glowed like silver.

Finally Muiertach appeared. Brian slung the great sword across his back, and they followed the seneschal down to the courtyard. Here they were joined by the captive O'Donnells and the seamen who had brought them to the castle, and Muiertach led them to the great hall.

The father of this O'Malley woman must have been a man of parts, thought Brian as he gazed around. The hall was scantily filled with, perhaps, three-score men ranged along the walls, and at the farther end was a low dais where a huge log fire roared high. The beams were hung with a few pennons and ship-ensigns, and on the dais were placed a half-dozen chairs. Behind one of these stood two women, and in the chair, calmly facing the hall, sat the Bird Daughter.

Brian caught his breath sharply, and his blue eyes flickered flame as he saw her. Never in his life had his gaze met such a woman—not in all the land of Spain or elsewhere in Ireland.

At this time Nuala O'Malley was twenty years old, and ten of those years had been passed either on shipboard or here in Gorumna Isle. As one chronicler describes her, "She was not tall, but neither was she small of stature, and when she stood on a ship's deck there was no tossing could cause her to stumble. Her hair was not blue, but neither was it black, and her eyes were very deep and bright, violet in color, and set wide in her head. Her nose was neither small nor large, her cheeks were ever red with the wind off the sea, her mouth was finely curved, but tight-set withal, and she had more chin than women are wont to have. She was very lissom in body, but her head never drooped."

And that is a most excellent description of the Bird Daughter, in fewer words than most men might use to-day.

But of all this Brian noted at the moment only that before him sat a girl-woman whose calm poise and confident power struck out at him like a vibrant presence. Like himself, she wore a cloak of dark red, but no steel jack glittered beneath it; there was a torque of ancient gold about her neck, and her hair was caught up and hidden beneath a small cap of red.

Brian thought of the woman he had painted in his mind, then laughed softly. She caught the laugh on his face, and comprehended it, and was pleased; then as she watched him very calmly, it seemed to Brian that her sheer beauty was a thing of deception. It must be, for she was surely a woman of blood. He had known enough of beautiful women, who played the parts of men, to know that on the far side of their beauty was neither mercy nor love nor compassion, that their lovers were many steps to ambition, and that they were venomous. So his smile died away, and his blue eyes glittered cold and dark, and this the Bird Daughter saw also.

Now, there was no man on the dais save Muiertach, who mounted the two steps with his keys jangling. As Brian would have gone after him, two pikemen stepped forward to intervene. Brian looked into their eyes and they drew back again. He and Cathbarr mounted to the dais, and he bowed a low, courtly, Spanish bow, of which the Bird Daughter took no note. Instead he heard her voice, very low and penetrating, and she was speaking to the two pikemen.