A Rose in Splendor

by Laura Parker

  With the back of one hand she brushed the tears of the ride from her eyes. The sight before her was so completely alien to her experience that she did not at first recognize what she saw.

  Hanging from the lower limbs like misshapen sacks of grain were nearly a dozen bodies. The tree groaned under its burden, its heavy limbs moving imperceptibly as the dark forms suspended from it swung gently in the wind like ghastly fruit.

  Deirdre opened her mouth and screamed but she could not turn her face away. She sat spellbound by the horror while her mind recorded the horror before her.

  All her life she had heard tales of the atrocities of war, of murders and tortures that turned men like her father silent in the midst of a sentence, but she had never seen a hanged man.

  The victims were men with blackened, swollen faces so distorted that she doubted they would be recognized by their own kin. One by one, she gazed at each in morbid fascination until she came to the last.

  It was a small bundle, its arms and feet not bound like the others. Strung from a lighter limb, it spun dizzily in the wind, its swath of long black hair whipped into a pathetic banner for the girl it had once been.

  The hanged girl was no older than Deirdre herself had been when Killian MacShane first entered her life. Her skin shrank against her bones. Had she, in helping Killian, come so close to this end? What evil could have marked so young a child for that slow torturous death? The horror of it still distorted the child’s face as she seemed to cry out to Deirdre for release. Was there no one who fought for the girl’s life? Would no one even cut her down?

  Deirdre did not heed the cries of the men riding toward her. An anger stronger than fear replaced her revulsion. She was not afraid of death but abhorred the bullying cowardice of men who would hang a child.

  Without waiting for help, she withdrew the O’Neill skean from its sheath on her saddle, tucked it into her belt, and dismounted. The oak was ancient and easy to climb but she was hampered by the heavy skirt of her riding habit. She had gained no more than a few feet when she was plucked from the trunk by a strong pair of arms.

  “No! Stop! Let me go!” she cried. Enraged to be thwarted, she twisted and writhed to break free of the hands that held her back from her purpose.

  “Dee, lass! Dee!” Killian commanded sharply as he struggled to contain her flailing arms and legs He saw the silver flash of a blade in her hand, and when she made a downward slash toward his wrist, his soldier’s training took over. He closed his hand over hers and gave her wrist a quick twist. With a yelp of pain Deirdre opened her hand and the weapon fell to the ground.

  “Deirdre!” he cried as he spun her about.

  For an instant Deirdre gazed unseeingly at Killian and then she became aware that it was he who gazed down at her with concern. “They hanged her! And no one would stop them!” she cried. She gripped Killian hard by the arms. “You must cut her down, Killian! You must!”

  The anguish in her voice overruled the protest Killian was about to make concerning the foolhardiness of her actions. “Aye, Dee, I’ll see it done. Go back to your horse.” He turned to the men who had dismounted beside him and pointed to the body of the child. “Cut her down.”

  “Are ye daft?” the one called Sean questioned in amazement. “The English leave them as a reminder to the local folk. I know the law. Not till they drop from rot are they to be touched. Sean O’Casey will nae dance the jig for an English fiddler.”

  “Aye, we’d best be gone before the English return,” the second man offered. “What with the lady screaming her head off, like as not the bloody English heard her as far away as Dublin.”

  There was sense in all they said, but when Killian looked toward Deirdre she was watching him. He lifted his pistol from his belt and cocked it. “Cut the lass down and bury her or you lie here and rot beneath her.”

  The men stepped back. They did not carry pistols. “You’d nae do it!” Sean challenged.

  Killian leveled his pistol at the man’s middle. “I’ll not have my orders questioned.”

  “He means it, Sean,” the other man whispered.

  “Aye, I do mean it.”

  Sean swore under his breath. “Ye’re nae better than the bloody English, but I’ll be damned afore I bleed me life’s blood for want of a burial!” He turned away and with a jerk of his head signaled the other to join him.

  Killian put away his pistol as Sean shinnied up the oak, a skean clamped between his teeth. After the body of the girl was cut free, Killian retrieved a flagon of wine from his saddle and brought it back to Deirdre, who had moved away from the protection of the oak into the blustery day.

  He laid his cloak about her shoulders to shield her from the heavy gusts of spring rain and held the wine to her lips. “Sip it slowly,” he cautioned.

  Deirdre swallowed a little of the wine before she shook her head and backed away from him. She watched warily as he drank more freely before stoppering it. “I—I have never before seen a hanging,” she offered in a low voice. She looked up angrily. “You must get rid of those men. They’re inhuman. The sight of that poor wee bairn is enough to curdle the blood of any feeling man.”

  Killian considered her words. He had seen so much killing and death in his years that the simple matter of a hanging left him unmoved: Of course, he felt sorrow that a child had died on a gallows tree, but he was not horrified. “There are worse ways of dying,” he offered as solace.

  “Worse ways?” Deirdre echoed faintly. “How can you say such a thing? That—that poor lass was not above eight years of age. How can you be so indifferent?”

  Killian bridled under her incredulous stare. “I’m a soldier, lass. I’ve seen more than you would imagine.”

  Deirdre clasped her hands tightly together. They felt like ice. “I have heard many tales of the horrible deeds that men in battle are capable of. Conall and Darragh spared me little. But if war has made you indifferent to the unspeakable crime that was committed here, I—I…” She could not finish. There was nothing to say if he could gaze upon the sight and feel nothing.

  Killian saw the horror in her face but did not know how to help her. Death was a terrible thing, violent death a horror that each must face in his or her own way. Yet, he longed to reassure her, and he was grateful that she turned into his arms when he held them out to her.

  “I am not indifferent, nor am I unmoved,” he said quietly as he stroked her hair. “But I’ve learned that a man must spend his energies upon those things he can change. My anger will not bring the bairn back. ’Tis done, Dee. You must forget it.”

  Deirdre raised her head, her green eyes shining with tears. “Never!”

  “What will you do, challenge the Englishmen you meet with your skean?” he questioned in sardonic humor.

  “You stopped me from freeing the lass,” Deirdre answered testily and pulled out of his arms. “You would have done nothing, nothing, had I not demanded it of you.”

  “Merde!” Killian turned and stalked away. There was no reasoning with her now.

  “It might have been me twelve years ago!”

  Killian turned back. So that was what had frightened her.

  “She was helping to hide someone from the English,” Deirdre continued. “That’s why they hanged her.”

  Killian shook his head as he came toward her. “You cannot possibly know that, Dee.”

  Deirdre sidestepped him. “I know.” She bent and picked up the O’Neill skean, carefully wiping away the mud with a corner of her skirt.

  Killian watched her a moment longer before giving up and going to where the two men had begun digging in the soggy ground. It had been a strange day. Deirdre was overwrought with fatigue and anxiety. Of course she would be terrified by the gruesome sight she had come upon so suddenly. Things would be better when they arrived at Liscarrol.

  “They could scarcely be worse,” he muttered as the drizzle became a downpour.

  *

  The sun was setting when they rode into Kilronane, which lay
in a valley between dark-shouldered hills. It had not taken long to bury the child’s body, but the rain had continued well into the afternoon, making travel hazardous and progress slow.

  With disappointment Deirdre noted that the village was nothing more than a cluster of dark, mud-walled, thatch-roofed huts. She had hoped to find the welcoming bustle of a busy community.

  At the entrance to the village stood the remains of what had once been a church, one of many such relics from the Cromwellian years. The dim light of sunset softened the contours of the old church, making the ruin seem romantic and mysterious. As they moved toward the center of town, the faint acrid odor of a peat fire carried on the wind gave the only evidence that the silent huts were inhabited.

  “Dark doings,” the man riding alongside Deirdre muttered and drew his skean. Immediately his companion did likewise.

  Killian reached over and grabbed the reins from Deirdre’s hands and drew her horse to a halt beside his. “I do not like the looks of this place.” He leaned toward her. “Stay here till I’ve roused someone. If we are attacked, ride straight back the way we came. I’ll catch up with you.”

  “But I—” Deirdre began, only to have Killian move away.

  “Stay with my wife,” he ordered softly and pointed at Sean. He signaled the other man to follow him.

  Killian walked his horse through the lane that divided the houses into two irregular rows, pausing at the last. It was no better built than the others but it was larger and longer, and though he could not read the sign which hung above the door he surmised that it proclaimed it an inn. “Stay mounted,” he ordered his companion as he dismounted.

  There was no answer to his first hard knock, but the hiss of a fire within was audible. “Open up!” he shouted. “We’re not the bloody English!” It was a risk but one he felt confident in taking. The people of the village were afraid. What had they to fear but the English?

  He heard the sound of bare feet scurrying across the earthen floor. The scrape of a bolt being lifted came next and then the rough-hewn door opened just enough to reveal a single eye. “Who are ye?”

  “My name is MacShane and I’ve my wife with me,” Killian answered in the outlawed Gaelic tongue, though the question had been put to him in English. “We seek lodging for the night.”

  He saw the bright eye move curiously from his face to his boots and back. “Ye’ve the look of an Englishman,” came the answer, again in English.

  “Would English dogs not demand rather than request their lodgings?” Killian asked in Gaelic and touched his coat pocket. “I’ve a coin or two for your effort.” He heard whispers before the door was reluctantly dragged open.

  A gaunt old man stood in the doorway, his back bowed by years of hard labor and his face permanently reddened by the sun. His shaggy hair was uncombed and a rope held his breeches about his waist. He was poor and dirty but the light of defiance shone vividly in his eyes. “There’ll be nothing here befitting the likes of ye…sir.” The last, deferential word seemed to have been dragged from him.

  Killian looked past the man to the glow of the turf fire in the center of the home, around which a ragged woman and four children crouched. Smoke from the fire had gathered in the rafters where it curled in thin bluish white eddies. No wonder he had thought the village deserted. There were no chimneys.

  His eyes quickly scanned the rest of the smoky interior. Along the opposite wall, long boards propped up by whiskey barrels at either end provided a bar. He looked back at the proprietor. “This is an inn. You are bound to give shelter to those who enter.”

  The smaller man bobbed his head once but his eyes were cautious.

  Killian understood the man’s apprehension. “Perhaps I should have said you should give shelter to those who can afford it.” He took two coins from his pocket and held them out. “Will this buy four meals and two beds?”

  The man’s face altered so quickly that Killian nearly laughed. Money kept its virtue, whoever its owner. The innkeeper might detest him but his coins were welcome.

  “’Tis the Blessed Virgin brought ye, I’m thinking. Certain I am that ye’re nae an Englishman to be parting with yer gold so freely,” the man declared, grinning. “If it be true that there’s a Mac before ye’re name, ye’ve come to the right place and I’ll gladly offer ye didean.”

  “The name is MacShane,” Killian reiterated.

  “Cuan O’Dineen is me name. ’Tis of nae use to me but to give the English cause to string me up beside the rest of the poor sodden bastards.”

  “The English have hanged men of your village?” Killian questioned quickly.

  Cuan’s gaze once more became suspicious but after a moment’s reflection relaxed. “Saw the lot, did ye, coming in from the east?”

  Killian nodded.

  “Well then, enough said. Bring yer lady wife in. ’Tis a cool night.”

  Killian hesitated. Deirdre had sobered quickly from her hysteria but she was pale and frightened. If there was to be talk of the hangings, he would rather she not hear it. “Why were the men hanged?”

  “’Twas but a single man they came to hang,” Cuan said grimly. “O’Donovan is his name. If ever a man was born to hang, ’twas him.”

  “I do not know the name; should I?” Killian questioned casually as the innkeeper pocketed the coins. But he did know the name. O’Donovan was the man the duchesse had sent him to find.

  “Were ye a Munsterman ye would,” Cuan answered. “Where do ye come from then?”

  Danger glittered in Killian’s gaze. “What does it matter? A man’s travels do not denote his heart and home.”

  Cuan eyed him suspiciously. “Aye, but a man cannae be too distrustful these days. ’Twould not be revealing much to tell ye what ye could learn in any village between Bantry and Cork. O’Donovan’s hunted by the English.”

  “He’s a smuggler?”

  Cuan grinned. “Were it only that, there’s many an Englishman who would make him as safe as a babe in arms.”

  Killian filed that bit of information away. It might prove very useful later. “Then he must plague the English soldiery.”

  “That he does,” Cuan agreed reluctantly. He looked toward his wife, who had not moved from her crouched position by the fire. “There’s too many rumors about,” he grumbled. “Bring in yer lady.”

  Killian pressed him. “Is one of the men hanging from the gallows oak O’Donovan? Were the others those who sought to protect him?”

  Cuan’s pale eyes lit up. “Protect O’Donovan? God rot their black hearts! ’Twas the English method of flushing him out. They swore they’d hang one man an hour until he showed himself, but they do not know O’Donovan if they thought he’d save another man’s life with his own.”

  Killian thought back briefly to the dead man and a shudder passed through him. “Were they all of your village?”

  “Nae. The English had captured a few of them on the road while chasing O’Donovan. ’Tis no secret Kilronane is his home. They took two of our lads when they came looking for him.”

  “Why the child?”

  Cuan’s gaze slipped from his. “Do nae speak of her! Ye’ve a lady wife chilling in the night. Fetch her in.”

  “I am not that thin-blooded,” Deirdre answered from the doorway. “Do continue your explanation. I, too, would know why the lass died when able-bodied men such as yourself were there as witness.”

  Cuan gaped at the aristocratic-sounding lady in his doorway. Backlit by the dying light of day, she appeared in a golden halo that shone brightly through her hair. “’Twas naught to be done for the lass. She showed an English soldier the sharp edge of her blade. Cut his wrist. He fair bled to death.”

  Deirdre remained framed in the doorway. “Surely there is more?”

  Cuan muttered a curse but saw the look in MacShane’s eye and did not turn his back on the lady. “She were a bastard, one of O’Donovan’s. She thought they’d hang her Da.”

  “Why did you not speak up for her?” Deirdre persi
sted, a sharp edge in her voice.

  “Risk me life for the likes of her?” Cuan lifted his hand toward his family “I’d me own to think of.”

  Deirdre lifted her eyes to Killian’s. “I will not stay in the house of a coward.”

  “Coward, is it? Coward!” Cuan cried, anger making him brave as he advanced on her.

  Deirdre was not afraid of the little man. She drew her skean and held it so that the jewels in the hilt caught the fading light and glowed as warmly as if they had a life of their own. “You do not recognize me, old man, but you will remember a time when this village and all those within twenty leagues belonged by my family. I’m a Fitzgerald and I have come home to claim what is mine. The lass has been cut down and buried. Find yourself a priest and ask for mercy for your cowardice. Then go and erect a stone for the child at the mount near the oak.”

  Cuan stared open-mouthed as Deirdre turned and walked back out into the twilight “That be yer lady wife?” he asked after a moment.

  “Aye, I fear so,” Killian answered grimly as he followed Deirdre out the door.

  “Why did you do that?” he demanded when he caught up with her. “You’ve been unforgivably reckless in proclaiming your lineage and Catholicism to a stranger.”

  Deirdre turned to him. “You cannot expect me to sleep beneath the roof of a man who allowed that child to die.”

  Killian stared at her without pity. “Then know that there’s not a roof within five leagues that will satisfy you.”

  Deirdre looked up at him with tears in her eyes. “How could they, Killian? How could they be so afraid?”

  “They are not to blame entirely,” he answered, and then despite his anger he slipped an arm about her. “They have nothing with which to fight back. A man needs daring and strong nerves to play a winning hand these days.”

  Deirdre wrapped her arms about his neck as he lifted her into the saddle. “Then we must be very cunning.”

  “Aye, like a wolf,” Killian answered heavily. “There’s the ruins of the church. Shall we bed down there?”