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urgently shook his head. Choking back her temper, Caitlyn conceded that Willie was in the right of it again. No purpose would be served by taking a swing at such an old bag of bones as Mickeen. All she would get for her pains would be to get thrown off the cart and left up to her arse in mud.

V
    It was near sunset when Caitlyn got her first glimpse of Donoughmore Castle. Mickeen had been forced to halt the cart where the road turned upward to wend its way over another in a series of rolling hillocks. The little man sat swearing at the errant members of a flock of sheep taking their own sweet time to cross the road. Grinning to herself at Mickeen's ire, Caitlyn looked up and saw the Castle. Situated at the top of an emerald hill some three hillocks over, it looked down toward the steep banks and swift- flowing waters of the River Boyne. Its four round stone towers rose in majestic silhouette against the orange- streaked sky. As the cart began to move again and they slogged inexorably closer, Caitlyn could not drag her eyes from its centuries-old grandeur. Clearly the Castle had been designed as a fighting fortress. Round battlements with slits in the stone through which arrows could be fired upon besiegers below crowned the towers. The windows, small and close together, were set higher than three men standing on one another's shoulders could reach. The peaked roof was of slate to repel fire. It was every bit as tall as Christchurch in Dublin, and Christchurch was the most magnificent building Caitlyn had ever seen.
    "Cor!" Willie said, as awed as she.
    "He lives here?" Caitlyn could not hold back the question.
    "His lordship, to the likes o' you," Mickeen muttered, casting Caitlyn a nasty look. Then he added, "Nah. The farm. Though his lordship and his brothers were birthed at the Castle, and their mother died here. As did the old lord, from the Fuinneog an Mhurdair, at the time the Castle was set ablaze."
    "The—the what? Fuen . . . og?" Fascinated, Caitlyn could not respond to Mickeen's surliness with silence as she would have liked. The look the ostler turned on her was disparaging.
    "So you've not the Gaelic," he said, in a tone that implied he had suspected as much. "The Fuinneog an Mhurdair. Murder Window. So called because the old lord was pushed from it to his death."
    "He was murdered?" Willie breathed, his eyes huge as they fastened on Mickeen.
    "Aye, for the land. The thrice-damned Penal Laws hold that a follower of the True Church cannot inherit. The old Earl was of the true religion, as was his wife by conversion, but his wife's mother was Anglican, niece of the Viceroy. Lady Ferman she was, and she used her influence at Court to prevent Donoughmore's seizure under the Penal Laws as long as she was alive. She died only days before the old Earl was murdered. Doubdess they thought wresting Donoughmore from the d'Arcys would be easier when it belonged to a lad instead of a tough old devil like the old Earl, but there they miscalculated. The old Earl, always being one to hedge his bets and foreseeing that Anglos would try to take Donoughmore from the d'Arcy family who has held the land from the time of Brian Boru, took steps. He had his lordship the present Earl schooled in the Protestant religion and registered him as such, though it fair broke his heart to do so. Aye, the old Eari loved his land more than his God, and is certain paying for it now. But Donoughmore is still in the hands of the d'Arcys as it rightfully should be, so it's my guess the old Earl would say that the torments of Purgatory are a small price to pay. But then, there's Protestants and there's Protestants, and I'm sure the good Lord is knowin' the difference."
    This last cryptic comment sailed over the heads of his audience. "Who murdered the old Earl?" Caitlyn was as fascinated as Willie.
    "Ah, now that we don't know, though there are some . . . But if his lordship knew for certain, you can be sure he'd have been avengin' his da afore now. Aye,