“You will go at once, Ruari?” asked Grace O’Malley, but her question was a command.
“At once,” I agreed; then a thought came to me. “Richard Burke should be told of this,” said I.
“All Ireland will have heard the news within a week,” said Desmond impatiently, “and the MacWilliam among the rest.”
This was true enough, but I made sure that he knew, for I sent a trusty man to his camp who told him what had taken place. I did this later that night.
As I was taking my leave I asked my mistress if she were satisfied that all was going well, and she replied that she was.
“You will stay on here till I return?” asked I.
“Surely!” It was Desmond who spoke.
I had half a mind to suggest to her that it might be better for her to go back to her own galley, but it seemed like a presumption on my part, and I held my peace.
But once we were on board The Cross of Blood, swinging down the stream in the hours of the morning, I wished that I had been bolder.
Yet, what was there to fear? So I repeated to myself, but the fear came again and again. For there were Grace O’Malley and Eva in Desmond’s power, the guard they had with them being of the slenderest now that Richard Burke was out of Askeaton with his gallowglasses, and I myself, with de Vilela and some of our choicest men, going further away with every mile.