Fugitives! Read Online Free

an encouraging whistle, she lifted him high, released his jesses, and tossed him into the air.
    Up, up, up he went as she squinted into the sunlight, then up, up, up she went too, taking flight with him in her imagination. The voices of the boys faded. This was her escape from earth-bound things. There was Saoirse soaring above her, waiting for her to catch up with him. Then, with a wild mew, he peeled off, circling the butts, and Sinéad could feel the draft of air that picked them both up as they soared away towards the castle. Nothing mattered to her now but the next stroke of his wings.
    The grim walls of the castle – her home but also her prison – slipped away below her. A drift of smoke rose from the chimney above the battlements, where on its topmost tower fluttered the de Cashel flag, a single splash of colour. They soared higher and higher until the castle looked no more than a child’s model below her. The polished armour of the watchman on the tower glinted bright. Beside him hung the Great Horn of the de Cashels – a bull’s horn, too heavy to be carried at the belt, and as cracked as the sound it made. It had belonged to a Gaelic chieftain long before the Normans had set foot in Ireland, and had been taken by her father’s ancestors as a spoil of war. Ever since the castle had been built, the horn had been housed in the tower, ready to be blown in times of emergency.
    Sinéad imagined swooping down on the unsuspecting watchman and seeing him raising his cross-bow in alarm as she screeched past.
Oh no you don’t!
She laughed as Saoirse swept out of range, but sheknew he wouldn’t shoot. Falcons were protected from the likes of him by both the English laws and the Irish Brehon laws. Falcons were a privilege of princes. In winter, when the wind hammered on the castle walls, or when Dr Fenton threatened to send them all to sleep, she would imagine herself flying, storm-tossed on some splendid journey, and she would be free!
    From up here she could imagine the whole layout of the castle – the castle tower and the cluster of houses and buildings that made up the castle village. Around all was the palisade, a ditch topped with stakes hammered into the ground. This was their first defence against cattle raiders, but also in winter a protection against wolves that would happily run off with a lamb, or a chicken, or even a human baby. Outside the palisade was a circular mound ringed with hawthorn trees, where fairies danced on midsummer nights. Father told such scary stories about the fort that nobody – not even the boys – ever went near it.
    Now for one last long sweep as far as the ridge with its clump of Scots pines.

    The boys were still arguing below. Fion was at his wit’s end.
What’s the matter with James? He’s been at me since we came to the butts, needling me, sneering at me. I’m fed up with him. I came down here to fly falcons, not to defend Uncle Hugh!
James wasn’t usually a needler nor a jeerer, but he was being both just now.
One more jibe and I will flip
, and Fion could feel his anger rising, small tongues of flame seeking something to catch on to.
Where the hell’s Sinéad?
    He called her name. No response. He turned, and there she was, standing at Saoirse’s perch, head up, arms out, in a trance, a smile playing on her lips as she followed the sweeping curves of Saoirse’s flight.
    ‘Why don’t you call her Jane? That’s her proper name,’ taunted James.
    ‘Because Sinéad’s the name she likes, that’s why. I’d call you Séamus if you wanted – it’s Irish for James.’ It was just tit-for-tat, but it got to James, who was advancing on Fion, fists ready.
    ‘Look, Fion O’Neill! I’ve had enough of your Irishness being forced down my throat. I’m James, James, James – and nothing else! I’m a Norman. Do you hear?’ His nose was an inch from Fion’s face. ‘I’m finished with you, with your Uncle Hugh, and all your tribe. There’s another way.’
    Fion