"Ah, he's naught but a lad, Cormac. Let him up." Rory walked over and looked down at Caitlyn. Heaving her body in an attempt to dislodge Cormac proved useless. He was far too heavy for her to buck off. She lay stiff with fury, spewing out a stream of curses that should have shamed the devil himself. Cormac merely chuckled.

"He's soggy as day-old cake, Rory. My breeches are all wet from sitting on him."

"Well, he wouldn't change."

"Do you suppose he's shy? Or does he have some sort of deformity he can't bear anyone to see?" Devilishness sparkled out of Cormac's eyes. Catching the spirit of the thing, Rory grinned back at his brother.

"We should find out. We'd be doing Conn a favor if this lad turned out to be a freak. Or maybe he's got the mark of the devil on him somewhere. On his backside, say."

"That's a possibility. Or, wet as he is, he could catch the fever and die. We'd be doin' him a favor too."

"Aye, that we would." They nodded solemnly at each other. Caitlyn, catching the drift of this, began to struggle violently, calling them every filthy name she had ever learned on Dublin's streets. They were laughing as Rory squatted to keep her wrists pinned while Cormac straddled her ankles. Caitlyn shrieked imprecations at Cormac's head as he reached up to untie the lacing of her breeches. She writhed wildly but couldn't evade his hands. The worst panic she had ever known in her life seized her.

"No! You bastards, you bloody buggers, no! What are you, the kind that likes boys? I'll kill you! I'll kill you!" But all her screaming, cursing, and fighting were in vain. She managed to get one ankle loose just as Cormac jerked her breeches and her drawers with them down to her knees. Viciously she kicked him, sending him toppling backward while she squirmed over onto her front. Rory's grip on her wrists went curiously slack. She pulled free, then flung her coat over her bare bottom as she grabbed at her breeches and drawers. She was uncovered for no more than a moment.