Free Songs of Love and War by Santa Montefiore Page A

they came upon them, ragged, unwashed, wild-looking wanderers. The woman carried two pheasants and a partridge by the neck while the men were standing staring into a bush, presumably
having spotted something worth poaching. Bridie noticed that one of the pheasants in the woman’s grasp looked like it was still alive, twitching every now and then in a vain attempt to
escape. She glanced at Jack and saw his face contort with outrage. When the tinkers noticed Mr Mills and his men they swung round and froze to the spot like animals trapped with nowhere to run.
There was no point hiding their spoils; they knew they’d been caught red-handed. Two skinny men and one woman were no match for Mr Mills and his burly boys. ‘You’re trespassing on
Lord Deverill’s land,’ said Mr Mills sternly.
    ‘Lord Deverill’s land. Well, we didn’t know,’ said one of the men, grinning toothlessly.
    ‘I’ll kindly ask you to put down those birds and leave at once.’ The men narrowed their eyes and looked Mr Mills up and down as if calculating the risks involved in a fight.
Sean held up his pitchfork and the look on his face left them in no doubt that they’d be the worse off. They scowled and ordered the woman to drop the birds.
    ‘Curse you!’ she screeched at Mr Mills, but he wasn’t alarmed by the feeble words of a tinker woman.
    ‘Be off with you now before we call the constabulary and have the three of you locked up,’ he said with the authority of a man who has the full weight of Lord Deverill behind him.
The woman reluctantly threw the birds to the ground and the three of them slowly walked away.
    Mr Mills patted Jack on the head. ‘Good stuff, lad,’ he said. ‘And Bridie, where would she be got to?’ Mr Mills searched through the semi-dark for Bridie. When he saw her
cowering behind her brother he nodded his appreciation. ‘You too, Bridie. I will tell Lord Deverill. I’m sure he will want to reward you.’ Bridie’s eyes widened and she
caught Jack’s eye. ‘Now be off with you, too, before it gets too dark to see the end of your nose.’
    The night was drawing in, bringing with it bitterly cold winds. Jack and Bridie made their way back to Ballinakelly with a skip in their step. They had had quite an adventure
and looked forward to a generous reward from Lord Deverill. When they reached the town they were horrified to find themselves face to face with the tinkers, preparing their horses for departure.
Glancing about them they saw the street was quiet, except for the golden light inside O’Donovan’s public house opposite. Seeing the children the tinker woman pointed at them accusingly
and shouted something in a dialect that neither Jack nor Bridie understood. Before Jack could register what was happening he felt a blow to his jaw and fell backwards in the mud as one of the men
dealt him the full might of his fist. Bridie let out a scream, so loud and piercing that the pub door opened, throwing light across the place where Jack lay inert. A moment later Bridie’s
father Tomas hurled himself into the street. Just as one of the tinkers pulled back his arm to give Bridie a similar blow, Tomas grabbed him by the shoulder and thumped him on the nose. Blood
spouted from the tinker’s face and he recoiled, landing on his backside in the mud. But the other man came at Tomas from behind and he had a knife. With one thrust he dug the blade through
Tomas’s ribs.
    Somewhere deep in the woods came the distant shriek of the Banshee, carried on the fairy wind that had suddenly risen.

Chapter 6
    Ballinakelly was shaken to its foundations by the foul killing of Tomas Doyle. Mrs Doyle wailed so loudly she might easily have outdone the Banshee herself. ‘When I was a
young girl at a regatta in Bantry,’ she said, pressing her handkerchief to her nose, ‘an old tinker woman told me my fortune and she said that my life would be a vale of tears. Never a
truer word spoken, God help us.’ Bridie was