Its blade was just a trifle too wide, but she managed to wedge it into the opening by holding it in her left hand and using the heel of her right hand as a hammer. Finally she had it positioned, its point just below the latch. Holding her breath, she forced the letter opener upward. After much maneuvering, the point of the letter opener caught the center of the latch. The latch slid up, then with a faint clatter fell back against the shutter outside. She pushed at the shutters, and they opened with a creak of rusty hinges. She found herself looking over the side of the house toward the way she had come. On the horizon Donoughmore Castle was silhouetted against the nearly dark sky, black and huge as it brooded high above. Caitlyn looked down, saw that the yard around the house was shadowy and deserted, and swung her leg over the sill. It was a goodly drop, but she had survived worse. Hanging by her hands from the sill, she let herself fall to the ground. Hitting on the balls of her feet, she staggered forward, caught herself, then dropped into a low crouch. After satisfying herself that she was unobserved, she was off and running. Toward what she didn't know; she only knew that she had to get away.

VIII

For two days Caitlyn was forced to lie low. The d'Arcys had bands of peasants scouring the countryside for her. Connor himself rode with Mickeen and Cormac back down the road they had traveled the very night she disappeared, and twice a day thereafter. Caitlyn had hidden in the ruined Casde the first night, and as one day and then the next passed with no apparent letup in the search, she was afraid to leave it, afraid that she would be taken up by Connor along the road or by his minions in the fields. She thought it was best to let the pursuit die down a litde before making her way back to Dublin and the life she had always known.