Now Sheriff Sully knew he was brave,
And he vowed to stamp out sin!
So he hunted that worthy Gallen O’Day
backed by only a hundred well-armed men!
But who knew
that when his body grew
his heart would stay so damned little?
Yes, he wounds himself when he whittles!
And you never know where he’ll piddle!
And with his sister-in-law he diddles!
And what he calls ‘valor’ is a riddle!”
“Enough!” Sheriff Sully screamed, reaching for his sword. But one of his men, who had been inching in through the open door, grabbed his arm and wrestled it behind his back.
“Oh, I don’t think it’s nearly enough.” Thomas grinned. “I’ve got several more verses.”
“I challenge you to a duel … you,” Sully roared. “You knave!”
“Oh, a duel, is it?” Thomas said. “Well, if you’re going to abuse me with language like that, then I accept.”
Gallen looked back and forth between the men for a moment. Sully was younger, bigger, and stronger than Thomas, and in any match, the minstrel was sure to lose.
“I accept your challenge,” Thomas said, “and since you’ve offered the duel, I shall choose the weapons!”
He walked over to the sheriff, who suddenly was glancing about worriedly, wondering what trick the minstrel was playing. Thomas glanced meaningfully at Gallen’s knives, looked over the swords of a couple of Sully’s men. “It shall be a duel … of tongues,” Thomas said. “You and I shall stand and hurl insults at each other for an evening, and we’ll find out who wilts first under the weight of a good tongue-lashing.”
“You … you bombastic, overdressed …” The sheriff could not think what next to say.
“Ah, how right you are!” Thomas said, looking down at his own peach colored shirt and purple trousers. ‘‘You wound me with your foulmouthed invectives, sir-mortally!”
Thomas plucked at his lute, a tune that was now becoming familiar, and Sully let out a scream of frustration. He shouted at his own men, herding them outside, and rushed from the house, slamming the door behind him. Gallen could hear Sully’s own men guffawing as he passed.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” Gallen said. ‘‘You’ve only infuriated him.”
“No,” Thomas said, putting the lute away. “I’ve done right. Every man who abuses power as he does will come under scrutiny in time. He wants to be your judge and executioner, but his deeds here will be judged by others for years to come. My song only reminds him of this fact.”
“He might kill you for what you just did,” Gallen said.
“Very likely,” Thomas agreed. “And if I died tonight, every minstrel in the land would come to sing of it, and Sully’s fate would be far worse than he fears. Mere mortals cannot withstand the muse.” Gallen stared at the door a moment. “I find it odd that this Mister Sully should hate me so much. As far as I know, I’ve never harmed him or his kin.”
“You’re a great lawman, Gallen,” Thomas said. “And he’s not much of anything. You wound his pride just by being alive. You’ll find that he’s much like small men everywhere.”
Gallen studied Thomas, and found that he felt a new respect for the man. He’d just sliced Sheriff Sully to the core as easily as Gallen would gut a highwayman. There was no remorse, no fear of recourse, and now Gallen saw why Thomas carried himself with a lordly demeanor.
“I don’t mean to sound critical,” Gallen said. “But that wasn’t much of a song you sang. I mean, it was a nice ditty, a catchy tune, but I think it needs some work.”
Thomas looked up at Gallen with disinterested eyes. “You’re a critic, eh? Don’t fear. That bit of bawdy wasn’t meant to immortalize Sully, only intimidate him. In the business we call it a ‘driver,’ for it is meant only to drive a man away from his hometown. The real ballad will have to be much longer, with entire stanzas devoted to Sully’s bed-wetting, and whole movements devoted to exposing his acts of incest. I feel sorry for the man. Few men’s lives can bear such close scrutiny.” Thomas sighed. “And now that my day’s work is done, I think I’ll take a nap.”
He yawned, made his way back outside. The sheriffs hooted and cheered as he passed.
In the early evening, Father Brian rode back on a winded horse with a writ from Lord Sheriff Carnaghan deputizing every man in Clere to make sure that Gallen wasn’t taken from the city, and he forbade the prosecution from securing testimony by torture, and ordered Maggie Flynn to be freed. Because of the fear that open warfare might break out between the northern sheriffs and the locals, the city of Baille Sean was sending a judge in great haste.
Gallen had hardly heard this news from one of the local fishermen, when Father Brian came banging on the door, calling, “Out with you, man. Get on your finest duds, and out of the house with you!”
“What’s happening?” Gallen asked, opening the door enough to see the sheriffs all crowded about, with Father Brian standing there, looking a bit worn.
“Today is to be your wedding day,” Father Brian said. “It seems that Thomas Flynn has taken a sudden fondness to you, and he says that if you so desire, he wants you to marry his niece before nightfall!”
* * *
Chapter 8
Gallen and Maggie’s wedding was perhaps the strangest that ever took place in the village of Clere. By dusk, nearly everyone from as far as fifteen miles away was in the village, so that tents and wagons filled every field within half a mile of town. And over two hundred men came north from Baille Sean, driving hard, hoping to see what all of the hoopla was about.
Between having a minstrel in town, along with a display of a demon from hell and an angel from heaven, and an occupying army of northern sheriffs who’d come down to hang the local hero, an impending trial on witchcraft, and the marriage of Gallen O’Day-it was all too much for anyone to miss. The poor old church couldn’t have held a tenth of the number of people who wanted to view the wedding; and, as Orick grumbled, there was a grand lot of speculation as to the cause of the sudden marriage.
The most evil-minded folks figured that Maggie had come down with a child, and this was all an effort to make it right.
But many a bedazzled maid believed that Maggie loved Gallen, and so she wanted to make him her husband all in one grand gesture before he got hung.
But some old deacon remembered an obscure verse in the Tome of Law, where it pointed out that it was illegal to hang a man within a month of his wedding day, for to do so would not only deny him his life, it would deny him the chance of having posterity.
This last bit of news thoroughly enraged some of the northern sheriffs, who saw this all as some grand scheme to keep Gallen alive for another month, even if they could convict him, ensuring him greater chances of escape.
But the northern sheriffs didn’t cause much of an uproar, for to tell the truth, the majority of them began to join in the festive attitude. While the rest of the sheriffs, seeing how with every wagon that pulled into town they were more and more outnumbered, decided to remain quiet. So the sheriffs paid their shillings to go see Thomas’s angel and demon, and one sheriff, after seeing the demon, said, “Well, if Gallen O’Day fought those monsters, he’s a better man than I am.” And he rode off toward home to much applause.
And so the wedding was held in an open field, just before sundown, Maggie in a white dress that made her look radiant, and Gallen dressed in his finest blue tunic with gray hose.