Elizabeth Mayne - Lord Of The Isle

“I’ve got her.” Hugh gasped. “Loghran, for the love of God, give me some help. I can’t hold her much longer.”

“Don’t! Let me go!” Morgana snarled. She kicked her feet and spun around, only to twist violently back to where she’d begun.

Taller than either Hugh or Kermit, Loghran shifted his weight no more than necessary to keep Hugh from following the stupid woman to her death on the rocks. He unhooked his belt and positioned himself carefully, never taking most of his body weight from O’Neill’s legs.

“All right,” he said as he leaned over Hugh’s straining body. “When I give the signal, the two of you hoist her as high as you can.”

“Just do it! Now!” Hugh gave the signal. Both he and Kermit grunted deeply, jerking Morgana upward. Loghran snapped the leather around her body and caught the whipping tail, pulling both ends taut over her back.

“Got her!” He grunted. They pulled. She fought like a hooked marlin, cursing, raining blasphemies on the wet air and the castle walls.

Loghran got hold of her hair. Hugh found a leg. Kermit got an eye gouged by somebody’s elbow. She shrieked more viciously than the banshee Maoveen when they hauled her over the ledge.

All four of them hit the floor—a heap of sweating, shaking tangle of arms and legs.

“God the Father Almighty, forgive us,” Loghran croaked.

Panting as hard as a winded horse, Hugh clutched the woman to his chest and fought to catch his breath. Sweat ran freely down his cheeks and onto his neck. He swallowed twice, then put out his hand when Loghran moved to untwist his belt from its tight constriction beneath Morgana’s ribs.

“Leave it,” Hugh commanded raggedly. “I’m going to beat her to death, when and if I can ever move my arms again.”

Kermit, who could not move his brawny arms at all, said, “When you finish, O’Neill, I want to murder what’s left. She could have killed us, one and all.”

Loghran raised his fingers over the woman’s heaving back and made the sign of the cross. He found his voice and used it to beseech God to forgive all of them.

As the priest raised his hand in a sign of forgiveness and blessing, Catherine Fitzgerald put her hands to her face and faded into the tower’s stone walls, weeping, as lost as she had been since the night of her death.

Morgana listened to the litany in Latin, numb with shock, unable to tell her tears from the sweat that coursed down Hugh’s neck and throat onto her brow and cheek. His hand gripped her head, tightly holding her head flattened against his chest. His heart pumped erratically.

At some point, the cadence evened. Hugh’s voice rumbled like distant thunder, repeating the same order twice. “Leave us.”

Loghran got up and extended a hand to Kermit, hauling the soldier to his feet.

“Thank you.” As Hugh gave vent to his gratitude, Loghran grunted and closed the windows, twisting the brass hasps so tightly the metal screeched.

The soft swish of their boots retreated across the wooden floor. Morgana tried to use her hands to wipe her face. The right one felt as if it were never going to work again. Hugh caught hold of her fingers and tucked them down between their bodies.

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