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bringing the Fianna to heel, you’ll win your own life, and that of your daughter.”
    “You’ll have to put that in writing,” Wesley snapped, his mind galloping ahead. Seeing the expression on Cromwell’s face, he gave a bitter smile. “I’m well aware that you’ve been offered the throne, which means you’ll be guarding your reputation like the crown jewels. I want your sworn and witnessed statement that if I do as you bid, neither I nor my kin will be harmed.”
    Reluctant admiration glinted in Cromwell’s eyes. “The Lord Protector always keeps his promises. You’ll have your statement. But if you fail...” His voice trailed off and he backed toward the door, pausing in a flood of sunlight through the hatchway so that Wesley could have a last glimpse of his beloved child.
    “You accursed son of a—”
    “Don’t let me down, Mr. Hawkins. You know what’s at risk.”
    * * *
    She had failed again. Caitlin had searched the high meadows for the bullock she’d promised Logan Rafferty. But the shaggy beast had vanished like St. Ita’s stag beetle.
    Now Caitlin would have to endure more of Magheen’s strident complaints about being set aside by her bridegroom. Stabbing a shepherd’s staff into the loamy ground, she made her way back to the stronghold.
    Springtime blew sweet upon the heaths. On the morrow would come the feast of the planting, and Seamus MacBride had decreed it a high holiday. But what sort of holiday would it be without food?
    She found her father in the kitchen, a vast stone room connected to the great hall by a narrow passageway.
    “More sage, Janet,” he said, peering over the cook’s shoulder into a bubbling iron pot. “Don’t skimp, now. It’s a feast to be sure we’re having tomorrow.”
    “Daida.” Caitlin rubbed her palms on her apron. “Daida, I must speak to you.”
    He looked up. Vague shadows darkened his eyes, his mind off on another of his mysterious quests. Then he smiled, giving her a glimpse of the handsome lion he had been in his youth. A lion with the heart of a spring lamb.
    “Caitlin.” He spoke her name suddenly, as if he’d just remembered it. “Ah, ’tis a grand day, and praise the saints.”
    “Yes, Daida.” Although Curran’s warning hovered like a bird of prey over her thoughts, she forced herself to smile and nod toward the door. “If you please, Daida.”
    They stepped outside to the kitchen garden. The tops of Janet’s turnips and potatoes reached desperately for the weak rays of the spring sun. The sight of the sparse planting depressed Caitlin, so she looked out across the craggy landscape, the rise of mountains skirted by stubbled fields and misty bogs coursing down toward the sea. The late afternoon sun gilded the landscape in a rich mantle.
    Seamus’s gaze absorbed the view. “Devil so lovely a day as ever you’ve seen, eh, Caitlin? Isn’t it grand, the broadax of heaven cleaving the clouds, and the great skies pouring pure gold into your lap?”
    Why was it, she wondered sadly, that the splendor of the land moved her father to poetry, while the privation of his people affected him not at all? “Daida, about tomorrow—”
    “Ah, it’ll be fine, will it not, colleen? And isn’t it we Irish that are brewed from God’s own still?”
    She rested her hand on his arm. The muscles lay flaccid, the flesh of a man who shunned hard work as a monk shuns women.
    “Tom Gandy says you’ve invited everyone in the district.”
    “Tom Gandy’s a half-pint busybody, and a sorcerer at that.”
    “But you did, didn’t you?”
    “Of course. Your mother—St. Brigid the holy woman keep her soul—always planned the grandest of feasts. Now that she’s gone, ’twould be a sad and cruel thing for us to do less.”
    “Daida, since the English burned our fishing fleet, we can barely feed our own folk. How can we—”
    “Ach, musha, you worry too much. We be under the sacred wing of providence. We’ll feast on fresh meat, see if we