Yet Fitzmaurice had himself told me in effect that he was not sure of Desmond, and this before he knew anything of Grace O’Malley. Perchance, however, he had persuaded himself that he believed what he wished to believe.
And de Vilela? He had sprung to the defence of my mistress, but if he knew what had occurred, why had he not spoken out? No doubt, I told myself, it was because, while he was ready to uphold her honour, he deemed that his duty towards his master, the King of Spain, was paramount, and he had therefore submitted to Fitzmaurice, who was his leader, and who had enjoined silence upon him. This, I surmised, was the explanation.
How much did they know?
Could they say, I wondered, where Desmond had put my mistress?
Where was she at this moment?
The tire-woman had now entered the tent, but, although she was most willing to tell us all she knew, she had no knowledge, it appeared, of the place to which Grace O’Malley had been taken.
“A castle a few miles from Limerick,” and no more could we get from her. And Desmond, or the chiefs who regarded him as their prince, had more than one castle answering this description.
The important matter was that Desmond had not at once delivered her over to the President of Munster.
First, he was trying to convince her that his was no empty threat; and, second, to bend or break her spirit. But I knew that, while he might succeed in the one, he never would in the other. And he would see this so soon that I had no doubt whatever that at most not more than two or three days would elapse before she had been lodged in the prison of Limerick, for I was now certain of the complete perfidy of Desmond.