"You have food in Gorumna—send me some. When I am well again I shall ride with most of them, which will lessen the burden. With the spring I will take lands between here and Slyne Head, for now I am strong enough to defend what I take."
"I shall also send you some of my pigeons, Brian. They are born and bred on Gorumna Isle, and if you tie a message to them they will—"
"I know," nodded Brian. "I have seen them used in Spain."
With that she described how she used these pigeons, and Brian saw that it was not by strength alone that this girl had maintained her position. She kept men in Galway, Kinvarra, and elsewhere, as far south as the Shannon and as far north as Erris, with others at Limerick and Tuam and Castlebar. In this wise she got news of what was passing in Connaught and Munster before most men had it, and more than one foreign ship had found her caracks waiting for it through the same means, since she held a privateer commission given her by Blake to legalize her sea-roving. Also, she had pigeons which carried return messages, chiefly to her kinsmen in Erris.
"And what is your goal, Bird Daughter?" Brian turned to her, his blue eyes clinching on her violet ones. "What will the end of all this wild life of yours be?"
"I do not know," she answered him, and turned away from his eyes to stare down into the fire. "In the end I may be forced into marriage, though I think not, for I have some will of my own in that regard." She laughed out suddenly and looked up. "Two years ago Stephen Lynch sent me a fair screed in all the glory of his chevron and three shamrocks and wolf crest, saying that he was coming in one of his ships to marry me."
"And did he ever come?" smiled Brian.
"Yes; but I took his ship from him and sent him home again by road, tied to a horse," she rippled out merrily. "Poor Stephen! The Bodkins never let the Lynches hear the last of it until Stephen fell fighting against Coote, and there was an end of it and him, too. When are you going to tell me your name, Brian?"
At the sudden question Brian was tempted, but forbore.
"When I have slain the Dark Master," he laughed.