by Karen Harper
I sucked in a sigh of relief. So easily accomplished? Had the tide turned for me? But what dreadful news I had to tell Uncle James. I beat down my anger that he’d handed this area over to the bastard English, but he had no armaments with which to fight, and we’d heard he’d pledged all his men to Thomas’s army.
“Will Liam take us there now?” I asked. “Do you think what he said can be trusted?”
“Do we have a choice?” she countered. “Come, then.” She began to whisper even more, so I almost had to read her lips. “He’s awaiting us just off the path to the falls, and I tell you again, Lady Gera of Kildare, that Saint Brigid of Kildare is holding her cloak above us.”
It was all I could do to walk slowly instead of run. I could have hugged Liam the rhymer, for he led us directly to a place where one of Uncle James’s men dropped from an oak tree and blocked our way, then led us on into the thickening forest. Father and Gerald had been to the hunt lodge, but never any of us women. After we told the two men what had happened at Maynooth, Liam said but one thing. I have always remembered it, though it meant naught to me at the time: “Even Ireland’s little people—leprechauns and fairies—are not immortal or important, but they too weep and die.”
More men guarded the small hunt lodge. Someone summoned Uncle James, who burst through the front door with his arms open wide when he saw it was truly me. Thanks be to God—and yes, Saint Brigid—I was in the strong embrace of my favorite uncle, telling him the terrible tidings from our castle and the village too.
Living in a small but cozy hunt lodge in the woods, I saw three months blur by. It was a blessing to be with Uncle James, who sorely missed his family too and reminded me so much of Father. He sent secret word to my mother that I was safe and would be delivered to her as soon as possible. Finally, we heard through Uncle James’s covert communications that Gerald and Collum were not with the family of the traitor of Maynooth—part of Christopher’s plan to betray us all, I feared—but that Thomas’s sister, Mary O’Connor, was hiding them at her home, from whence they would be passed on to others until they could escape to France. Magheen and I rejoiced when we heard that good news.
We also learned that Silken Thomas, whose name was on everyone’s lips, had been bested in battle and was in hiding too. Once things had turned against him, many had deserted his cause and crept to their homes, hoping to claim they were loyal to England. Yet we heard nearly a hundred were tracked down and imprisoned or executed. I felt so torn about Thomas: I admired his defiance and bravery—or was it all foolhardiness and bravado? He had not been patient or planned well enough. Father had used his personal charm and negotiation skill for years, and Thomas had exploded it all in one brash act.
In the sweet summer weather—for the green, green beauty of Ireland blossomed no matter the perils of politics—a letter was smuggled in from Mother, bemoaning that the English were calling our uprising not the rebellion of the Irish but of the Geraldines. She wrote that she feared for all of us and was endeavoring to earn our way back into the English king’s good graces.
When I read that, I thrust the letter into the flame of the single lantern at the hunt lodge. No matter how chilled we were, we lit no hearth fire that would send up smoke. I frowned as the letter turned crimson-crisp on its edges, then burst into flame as I dropped it in a pewter dish on the small table.
“Best to burn covert correspondence, I suppose,” Magheen muttered as she bent over her needle and thread to take in the seams of a plain russet gown for me, one Uncle James’s men had brought us over these long weeks.
I almost told Magheen that Mother had turned traitor too, to want to appease England’s killer king, but I held my tongue even with her. Uncle James had also preached peace to me, insisting that the English might was too forceful to fight. But he had praised me for taking The Red Book of Kildare when I fled. It lay wrapped in a thick sheepskin under the floorboards of the lord’s bedchamber he had given to me and Magheen the first day we’d arrived.
I was ready that very warm mid-June day to take a walk in the woods, guarded by a one-eyed man of Uncle James’s retinue, when a knock sounded on our door. “Enter!” I called out, and my uncle swept it open to rush in. He held in his hand another letter, one that must have come for him in the same packet as Mother’s. His smile lit the room as he picked me up and spun me about madly.
“What? What? Tell me!” I shouted as Magheen clapped and jumped up to dance a little jig. “Gerald is free in France? Everyone is pardoned?”
“Maybe neither or maybe both—soon!” he said, and put me down. “The Gunner has died of some disease, and in his stead King Henry has named your mother’s brother and her host, Lord Leonard Grey, as the new deputy of Ireland! A man of the Kildare clan by blood ties will soon be here in the Gunner’s place, God curse his black soul!”
“Is King Henry mad, or has he changed his mind toward us?” I cried. My pulse pounded, and I could have soared.
“It seems he’s extending an olive branch,” Uncle James said, as he bent over the letter to skim the words again. “Of course, Lord Grey knows Ireland, for he was here over twenty years ago as marshal of the English army. This appointment has been made by the king’s henchman Cromwell. Perhaps the loss of life at Maynooth was the price Thomas paid for his rebellion, and Lord Grey will patch things up now.”
“Oh, I pray so. No doubt Mother has beseeched him and even the king to make amends for us.” I regretted that I’d just burned her letter. After all, I’d recently decided clever, covert ways might be the best path to revenge.
“But here’s the next thing,” Uncle James went on, his handsome face aglow. “A truce with your five Fitzgerald uncles in attendance! All five of us have been invited to meet your uncle Leonard at Kilmainham Castle in Dublin next month as soon as he arrives. So, my pretty, your Irish and English uncles shall be there to put things aright.”
“And Thomas?” I asked.
“I don’t know. I hear he’s holed up somewhere, but perhaps at Kilmainham we can sue for favorable terms for him. Everything is possible now, including a safe way to send you to your mother. We’ll take you with us to the castle, and Lord Grey can send you to her. Finally, finally, a way out of this wretched situation!”
“See, Magheen,” I said that night in bed, quite late, for we had all sat up to celebrate. “That is sheer superstition about five earls going to England in a cow’s belly and never returning. I warrant Mother did manage to pull some strings to at least pretend to mend things with the king who as good as killed her husband and ruined her castle. She no doubt used her court connections, clever deceit, even feminine wiles; I just know it.”
“Best you not think such, milady, for it would be too easy and too dangerous with your fair face that’s blooming to maidenhood now and will flower full over the years. Beauty is as beauty does, you know, so best leave both the peacemaking and plotting to men.”
I still felt I was spinning with joy and, for once, didn’t fear I’d have my frequent nightmare of being trapped in Maynooth’s cellar in a small boat afloat in a river of blood with heads bobbing in it. Nor was I in the mood to heed Magheen’s subtle scolding or superstitious stories. Five earls in the belly of a cow upon the water, indeed! And Saint Brigid’s cloak growing so large it covered acres of land?
Nor did I believe in turning the other cheek when one—and one’s entire family and people—were sore smitten. Even if the king of England gave us back Maynooth on a silver platter, made reparations for those slaughtered, and pardoned every last Fitzgerald to boot, someday, somehow, I was going to make him pay.
CHAPTER THE SIXTH
July 1535
I was so thrilled that I could hardly sit still on my horse as we six Fitzgeralds with several retainers and guards were passed through the English-guarded gates into Dublin town. Dressed in a fine peach-hued velvet-and-brocade gown trimmed with golden ribbons and a gauze cap lined with pearls, I felt like the princess Father had always said I should be. My attire was
a bridal gown that belonged to Uncle James’s daughter, one of my many cousins, one who had been wed at age fifteen. With its tight bodice and tiny waist, it fit my slender form perfectly.
I only fretted that my cloak concealed the gown’s grandeur from the people who recognized us or heard we were coming and carefully, quietly, from alleyways or upstairs windows, cheered us on our way with the familiar cry, “A Geraldine! A Geraldine!” They dared not make much ado, since English soldiers were about in the cobbled streets. But one man’s voice called out as if in warning, “Remember the Pardon of Maynooth!”
Dublin town always amazed me with its tall, protective walls and cheek-by-jowl tumble of buildings overhanging narrow streets. I could smell the sea from here, and terns and gulls screeched overhead. The big bay lay beyond, sadly, we had heard, now crowded with English ships. How I had loved the several times Father or Uncle James had taken me sailing on the bay. I had reveled in the toss and sway of the big ship and wished I could help steer her myself. Now I wondered how Father’s fine town house had fared, but I dared not ask.
“Today at the banquet we are to attend,” I had heard Uncle Walter tell his brothers, “peace will be bargained for and the future of the Fitzgeralds and of all Erin settled for years to come.” We could only pray that, since our family had helped keep the peace for nearly a century, it would be settled in the Fitzgeralds’ favor.
Our party clattered through a great park and up a gravel lane toward the venerable old castle of Kilmainham with its nearby Saint John of Jerusalem Knights Hospitallers’ priory. Lying on land south of the Liffey, the castle had long been the residence for the English viceroys in Ireland, so it seemed the right place for this conference today.
But above all, I was excited to be with my five Fitzgerald uncles, for they were the ones who now represented my father, the former earl, and Thomas, the current earl, albeit he was in hiding with a price on his head. Surely, all of that would be rectified today. Uncle Leonard had recently arrived with English reinforcements and several more ships, yet I had no doubt he would want a truce. I knew full well that Christopher had been rash and wrong to be overly certain that the English would parley at Maynooth so they would not have to spend more money and time in what I had heard they called “wild Ireland.” But with the Gunner dead and Uncle Leonard charged with calming the Pale, praise be, the outcome now partly hung on family loyalty, not just politics and power.
Yet something else made me feel important today. For the first time in my life that I could recall, Magheen was not with me as if I were some child to be tended and corrected. Although she was coming to Dublin later today, she was back at Leixlip, packing what things she could assemble for our voyage to join my mother, which had been arranged through messengers between my English uncle and my Irish ones.
And, with my petticoats wrapped around it, Magheen was enclosing The Red Book of Kildare in the false bottom of my specially made traveling chest. Even if the English knew of its existence, they might assume it was with Gerald and not with a young woman, a colleen, as the village folk would say. So that was one of the few benefits, as far as I could see, of my feminine gender. Although I did miss my family, I was loath to leave Ireland. Still, I had always wanted to sail the Irish Sea, so I tried to buck myself up.
As the six of us dismounted, Uncle James helped me off my palfrey and gave me a wink. “With our Fitzgerald brains and brawn and your beauty, Lady Gera, we shall win the day.”
We were greeted by one of Uncle Leonard’s lieutenants and escorted into a banquet chamber with a fine table laid out, even silver saltcellars and glass goblets. Servants and guards with yeomen’s halberds stood about, and then we heard men coming, boots on the stone floor. Flanked by at least a dozen men, Uncle Leonard Grey—I assumed it was he, and he did vaguely resemble Mother—entered through the arched entry.
Yet as he looked us over, he seemed a hawk of a man, with sleek brown hair and slanted eyebrows over sharp, gray eyes. A blur of bows and greetings followed; for a moment I was lost in the hubbub of tall men. Finally, Uncle Leonard, lean and angular in physique, turned and looked down at me. He clicked his bootheels and nodded as his eyes took me in.
“Ah,” he said, his voice a bit breathless, “a lovely young Geraldine.”
I curtsied, staying down until he raised me. His fingers were thin but strong; he kept hold of my hand. “Your mother has missed you greatly, Elizabeth,” he said. After being called Gera for so long, I started at the unfamiliar use of my real Christian name. “You certainly favor her,” he went on, turning me about once as if to assess my merits, “but are even more . . . indeed, more radiant with that gold-red hair and your sea green eyes. A rare beauty indeed, though yet a maid, and I have promised your mother, among other things, that I will dispatch you to her forthwith.”
How relieved I was—I warrant we all were—to hear he had promised Mother certain things. “Uncle,” I said, smiling up at him, “we are glad you are here to make peace for us and with us.”
“Ah,” he said, loosing my hand. “My dear, would you be terribly distressed if I asked to speak with your uncles privily? I shall see you are feted in a chamber just off this one, and your Irish maid has been sent for. The very ship that brought me hence is returning on the morrow, and I will have you on it. Men’s business, king’s business, here now, you know.”
I must have looked crestfallen, for Uncle James stepped forward and put his arm around me. “It’s for the best, Gera,” he told me. “Fitzgerald business too.”
I did not want to leave them, but I knew I must obey. I curtsied to each of my Irish uncles and then to Lord Leonard Grey again. A tic jumped at the side of his narrowed left eye, where he had a puckered scar. Surely I could trust this man. He had taken my family in and given them safe haven and was sending me to them. He had the king’s power on his side and had come to help mend a dreadful, bloody mess by negotiating with my Irish uncles.
Fighting back tears of disappointment at my dismissal, I followed a woman who had suddenly appeared from a side room and gestured to me. Why had not Uncle Leonard introduced us? He was speaking to the others already, and I had been as good as forgotten.
Inside the small chamber she led me to, a sumptuous table was set for one, so she must not be eating with me. She introduced herself simply as Alice, and I discerned at once from her voice that she was English. She was dressed too well to be a servant. Suddenly two long-eared lapdogs sleeping on small pillows in the room cavorted about her feet, which made me miss Wynne terribly, and for a moment I did not trust my voice. I sat at the table as she uncovered several succulent dishes for me.
I was amazed at the array of food for just myself but realized these were the same delicacies the men must be sitting down to, so their grandeur comforted me. Mackerel in gooseberry sauce, huge prawns, ale cake and carrot pudding and a Venetian glass decanter of ruby red wine.
“This is one of my favorites, milady,” she said, indicating a small silver tureen. “Poached sea urchins, hedgehogs of the sea, we English call them.”
Before I could stop myself, I blurted, “And we Irish call them granneog na farriage.”
Alice’s brocade gown bespoke wealth. Was she of my uncle’s household? I had a spate of questions to ask, but she took the dogs, one under each arm, and left me.
And I heard her lock the door.
I jumped up to be certain I was locked in. Yes, curse it. The latch would not budge. I pressed my ear to the door but could hear nothing, not footsteps nor voices. Did Uncle Leonard think I would interrupt their king’s business? I wanted—I needed—to trust him, but this reminded me too much of being shuffled off to the Maynooth cellars while horrible things happened. Someone had called in the street earlier, Remember the Pardon of Maynooth, and that was no pardon at all.
My blood hammered in my head, and I could hear my heartbeat. Breaking into a sweat, I darted back to the table and seized a fruit knife. Once Gerald and I had put one of his pet snakes in Cecily’s sewing bo
x in retribution for her telling Mother we had stuffed ourselves with pilfered yuletide comfits. And we had gotten into the pantry where Cecily had locked her box and books by sticking a knife point in the lock, then twisting and jiggling it.
I worked like one possessed to move the mechanism and free the lock. Finally, something clicked. The latch lifted. Would they have a guard at the door? I poked my head out and saw no one. Again, a female, and a young one at that, was of no concern to them, even if she be a Fitzgerald, fearful but spitting angry.
It seemed the nightmare of Maynooth again. Men’s raised voices, the clank of sword on armor. Cries of protest: “Deceit! The worst sort of betrayal!”
I tore down the corridor toward the banquet room as Uncle James’s voice rang out: “We came in trust and faith! Can you not honor family ties, or is there no honor left in England?”
And my English uncle’s distinct voice cutting through it all: “Put them in irons! Their cells are prepared. The king has ordered you to London to face charges and—”
I had silently cursed Thomas, Earl of Kildare, for losing control and not biding his time and reining in his hatred, but now a raving fury took over my body and voice. Holding up my skirts, I ran into the hall where guards were dragging out my uncles. James and Walter were already manacled behind their backs.
“No!” I shrieked, and launched myself into Lord Leonard from behind. He did not go down but was thrown forward, nearly to his knees. A guard grabbed me about the waist and yanked me back, twisting my wrist until I dropped the knife I realized only then I still held.
But I wasn’t to be cowed. “We came to you in peace at your invitation!” I screamed at him. “We are related by marriage and blood! Stop it! Let them go!”
My English uncle did not even deign to answer but, with a jerk of his head, had me carried away, thrashing and shouting. I was shoved back into the room where I was to have feasted—or be poisoned, I knew not—while the male Fitzgeralds were as doomed as my father had been—no doubt as Thomas would be. When the guard seized the other two knives from the table and slammed the door on me, I could not help myself. Cursing with every vile word I had ever heard my father or Thomas use, I threw dish after dish of food and Venetian glass against the door, then beat my fists upon the walls and fell to sobbing so hard I could barely breathe.