Nell

by Jeanette Baker

  Voices on the stairs disturbed his reverie. It was time. They had come for him, before he was ready. He almost smiled at the absurdity of his own mind. Was a man ever ready to die?

  In the courtyard, his eyes burned from the sun’s glare, and he lifted his hand to shade himself. His uncles stood in a line between two rows of guards. Averting his eyes, Silken Thomas embraced them quickly. His guilt was nearly a physical thing.

  They were forced to lie spread-eagled and bound tightly on top of the horse-pulled hurdles. The portcullis was raised. Across the evil-smelling waters of the moat into the city of London, by way of Tower Street and into the Shambles, they came.

  Crowds gathered to watch. The spectacle was not an unusual one. Since King Henry’s break with the Church, the citizens of London and the surrounding countryside had witnessed many a noble’s execution, although one family had never before been so unfairly represented.

  The hurdles rolled through Newgate and Snow Hill. At Tyburn, the crowd had swelled to more than a hundred. It was February. A cold wind had risen from the Thames. Five ropes swung against a pewter-colored sky, and a butcher’s block stood atop a high platform.

  Silken Thomas looked at the ropes, and a curious trembling took hold of his body. Garrett, the uncle closest to his own age, laid a hand on his shoulder and squeezed. “Dear Jesus, forgive me,” Thomas whispered.

  Garrett nodded and looked toward the ropes. “It will be over soon.”

  John was the first to be hanged. The executioner climbed the stairs of the platform and lifted two knives and a cleaver above his head. A collective murmur rose from the spectators, as if it came from one throat. John was dragged up the stairs. The rope was placed around his neck. Slowly, he was hoisted until his feet left the ground. Silken Thomas saw his uncle’s body jerk and closed his eyes.

  He missed the lowering of John’s nearly unconscious body to the block, missed the first cut of the knife. He did not miss John’s inhuman shriek of pain, the crowd’s roar, the smack of limbs as they were tossed into the wooden bin. He did not miss the scent of fresh blood.

  Five times the procedure was repeated. Five times Geraldine limbs were cut off, heads severed. When it was his turn, Silken Thomas had entered that state of mind where pain did not go. He welcomed the executioner’s blade, welcomed his passing into a place where there was no sight, no sound, no smell.

  While his entrails still lay on the wet boards of the block, the executioner held up the golden head of Thomas Fitzgerald. Silently, the crowd looked on. A woman bowed her head and wept.

  ***

  To the north, in the cold dampness of Donore Castle, Gerald Fitzgerald, tenth earl of Kildare, awoke without the fever. Rubbing his eyes, he looked around the dim chamber. “I’m hungry, Nell,” he said. “Where are we?”

  For the first time in weeks, Nell laughed. “We are at Donore, love. Lie still and I’ll bring you food.”

  Gerald managed most of the weak gruel that Nell spooned down his reluctant throat before he fell back upon his pillow and slept again. Relieved and hopeful that her brother might live after all, Nell stirred the fire, added kindling, and considered the possibility of a bath. It would not be a satisfying one. She was not strong enough to lift the many buckets it would take to fill the wooden tub in the corner of the room. But at least she would be clean.

  More than an hour had passed, and the first bucket of snow she’d lugged up the twisting stairs and heated to boiling was now stale and tepid, but it would be comfortably warm when she added the one that had just now begun to steam. Working quickly, Nell untied the soft leather coil from around her hips, lifted her gown over her head, and dropped them both on the floor. She glanced over at Gerald. He hadn’t moved. Shivering, she pulled off her shift, stepped into the tub, and sat down. Disappointingly, the water only came up to her belly, but the feel of its delicious warmth against her skin was an unexpected shock of pure pleasure. She moaned and leaned back. Gerald would sleep for hours. There was no need to hurry.

  ***

  A rider with only five gallowglass pushed his mount through the February snow, toward the men camped in the clearing outside Donore Castle. The man’s short cape, velvet doublet, and low flat hat proclaimed him an Englishman.

  Donal O’Flaherty sat on his haunches before a smoldering fire. Only the tightening of his jaw and the casual movement of his hand toward the dirk at his waist gave away his prejudice. He rose as Leonard Gray approached. The man was out of breath, and his face was very red. Silently, Donal waited, offering no welcome, until the king’s deputy dismounted.

  “My God, O’Flaherty, ’tis sad news I bring.”

  “Speak, Lord Gray.”

  Sweat ran down his florid cheeks. “Three weeks past, the Geraldines came under the executioner’s knife by order of the king.”

  Donal nodded. “It was expected. We heard the news of their sentencing nearly a month ago.” He left unsaid the words that burned in his brain. But for your interference, they might still be alive.

  Leonard Gray shook his head. “’Tis not for old news that I risked this journey. Henry demands the boy. Gerald is heir to castles and land. The king will not rest unless he is dead. ’Tis an old Tudor story, to murder the rightful heir and steal what is his.”

  “Your sentiment does not sit well on the lips of the king’s deputy,” Donal said contemptuously. “Why are you here, my lord?”

  Gray whitened. “I swear by all that is holy that I believed the king when he offered clemency. I am not the enemy, O’Flaherty. Gerald is my kinsman. Do you think I relish thoughts of dead schoolboys? I came only to warn them.”

  “There is pox at Donore,” said Donal. “The boy may not live.”

  “If he does, will you take him?”

  Donal met Leonard Gray’s pale gaze steadily. “No,” he said at last, offering nothing more.

  Gray backed away. “Keep him far from the Pale, O’Flaherty. Trust no one, especially the countess of Ormond. The king’s eyes are everywhere.”

  Donal waited until Gray and his entourage were no more than dark specks against the snow. Ormond’s countess was Margaret Fitzgerald, Nell’s sister and a most powerful adversary. He needed answers, quickly. Swinging himself up on his horse, he ordered his men to their saddles before heading for the gates of Donore.

  Nell stared out the small slitted window of her chamber at the men camped in the snow. It was something she did every day, as much to alleviate her boredom as to reassure herself that they were still there. Donore was the most spartan of her father’s estates, and she’d brought nothing with her but a change of clothing, her brushes, and a small jeweled dirk that she kept tucked inside her girdle.

  Today there had been more activity than usual in the O’Flaherty camp. Several riders had approached, stayed only a moment, and departed again. Now a single rider was making his way toward the gates. He was too far away for her to see his features, but Nell was sure he was Donal. Color rose in her cheeks. She was clean, her gown was fresh, and Gerald’s fever was gone.

  Pulling on her cloak, she moved swiftly down the stairs and across the courtyard to throw back the bolt on the heavy gates. Then she hurried into the small hall and lit the fire. By the time he arrived, the worst of the chill was gone. Candles flickered on the mantel, reflecting the jewel-bright colors of the stained-glass windows lining the room. On a small table, twin goblets bearing the crest of the Fitzgeralds were filled with mulled wine.

  Donal stepped into the room, stripped off his gloves, and rubbed his arms against the cold. He looked around appreciatively. Even a remote Fitzgerald outpost like Donore was appointed with more luxury than Aughnanure. Lured by the warmth, he walked to the hearth and held out his hands to the licking flames. Where was Nell?

  As if in answer to his silent question, she stepped out of the shadows. “Welcome, Donal,” she said softly, and smile
d.

  He turned quickly, all thoughts of comfort forgotten. His mouth dropped, and the cool implacability for which he was known disappeared entirely from his face. It had been nearly a year since he had really seen her, and now he looked his fill.

  Her face was thinner than he remembered, the bones sharp and clean under her skin. Her mouth was wide, her teeth even and white. Winged brows slightly darker than her hair framed hazel eyes that carried equal amounts of green and brown and gold, harvest colors, the same gold as her hair that hung loose, thick, and straight to her knees. He had never seen her hair loose. He imagined it wrapped around his hand, and his fingers curled. She was small, but no man alive would find fault with her figure. Donal could see the pulse moving at the base of her throat. Christ. Had celibacy affected his brain, or was she truly the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen?

  “Nell,” he whispered hoarsely.

  “Gerald lives,” she said, not moving from her place.

  She would not be coming with him to Aughnanure. Donal willed his expression into smooth lines of pleasure. “Thank God.”

  “You will take us to Desmond?”

  “Aye.”

  Why were they discussing this? She was his betrothed. They hadn’t seen each other in a year, and they were alone in a warm, comfortable room.

  Nell frowned. “Donal, are you pleased to see me?”

  He looked startled. “Of course. Why would you ask such a question?”

  Her eyes widened innocently. “Are your legs made of wood that they can no longer move?”

  He turned his back to her and stared into the fire. A smile played at the corners of his mouth. She was very good with words. He’d forgotten that. But he’d driven his men through the thick of winter to protect her, and still she insisted on taking Gerald to Desmond. If the great earl of Desmond cared so much for his cousin, where was he? Donal had every intention of keeping his promise, but first Nell must come to him.

  “Donal?” She sounded worried.

  “I can hear, Nell.” He turned around. “Perhaps ’tis I who should ask the questions.”

  She frowned. “I don’t understand.”

  “Are you pleased to see me?”

  The color left her cheeks. She nearly ran across the room to where he stood and clutched his arm. “I’ve thought of nothing but you for months. Our marriage is fated, Donal. There is no one else for me.”

  He lifted her chin and stared steadily into her eyes. “Why, then, will you not bring the boy and come home with me?”

  She answered honestly. “You are not Geraldine. Henry has no quarrel with you. I would not risk your house for mine.”

  His hand tightened on her chin. “Leave Gerald with Desmond and come with me. He is of an age to be fostered.”

  Her hand rested on his chest. All at once, Donal found it difficult to breathe. “I will,” she said, “as soon as he is well.”

  He released his breath. “Leonard Gray came to me this morning. Henry demands Gerald’s surrender.” He squeezed her hand. “Your father and Silken Thomas are dead, Nell.”

  She nodded. “I have already mourned. ’Tis Gerald I must think of now.”

  “We must leave immediately.”

  Nell rested both hands on his chest and looked up at him through her eyelashes. “Surely not immediately, Donal,” she said softly. “I have wine, the room is warm, and it has been such an endless length of time since I have seen you.”

  The ball of warmth that had begun in Donal’s chest when she agreed to come with him radiated into every part of his body. He blazed with heat. Taking care not to frighten her, he slipped one arm around her waist and drew her to him. His free hand slid up her throat and around the back of her neck. Slowly, he bent his head and kissed her. Her mouth, inexperienced at first, found its place and then opened. She pressed against him, filling the places only a woman could fill.

  Donal forgot that the king’s men were nearly upon them. He forgot that an eleven-year-old boy slept upstairs, that Gray had warned him of the countess of Ormond, and that his men waited impatiently in the snow for his return. All he knew was that silver-gold hair smelled of sunlight, that a woman’s lips and hands were all that he wanted of heaven, and that the fires in his body, long dormant since his betrothal to Nell, had leaped to life with an intensity that would not be quenched.

  Six

  Kildare Hall, 1974

  “Trout aren’t stupid, Jillian,” Frankie said gently. “Y’ve got to keep quiet.”

  Stung by the rebuke, Jilly climbed over the rocks and headed upstream to find her own spot. She hadn’t mastered the art of fly-fishing yet, but she could cast as well as anyone. Stepping into the current, she found her balance and with a quick flick of her wrist sent the line far out into the water. She didn’t need Frankie Maguire, thank you very much. He could just keep his comments to himself.

  Two hours later, he found her barefoot, asleep in the sun, her catch staked nearby in the running water. Deciding not to wake her just yet, he spread the blanket and laid out the lunch Mrs. Barbour had prepared for them. He was nearly finished when she opened her eyes.

  “I hope y’re hungry,” he said. “There’s enough food here for a banquet.”

  Keeping her mouth shut, Jilly nodded and reached for a deviled egg.

  “Are y’ not speakin’ t’ me, Jilly?”

  “You said I talk too much.” There was no mistaking the frosty note in her voice.

  “You were scarin’ the fish.”

  “I wasn’t. They’re underwater. No one can hear anything underwater.”

  Frankie struggled to keep a straight face. “I’m sorry, Jilly. I didn’t mean t’ upset you.”

  She ate her egg without speaking, wiped her fingers, and poured lemonade into her cup.

  Frankie bit into a sandwich. “Y’ll be glad t’ hear that I’ll be away for a while. I’m goin’ int’ Belfast with Willie McLeish for my A levels.”

  “When are you coming back?” Her vow to remain silent disappeared.

  Hiding a grin in his cup of lemonade, Frankie shrugged his shoulders. “A week, maybe two. My auntie lives there. I’ll be stayin’ with her.”

  Jilly bit her lip. It was summer, and this would be her last before she left for boarding school. She had expected to have Frankie to herself. “There’s trouble in Belfast,” she said.

  “I know.”

  “Why are you going?”

  Frankie turned to her eagerly, their quarrel forgotten. “The British are settin’ up a government where power is shared between the Protestants and Catholics. I want t’ be where it’s happenin’, and the place is Belfast.”

  Leaving her lemonade untouched, Jilly turned to stare out over the stream, showing him only her profile. “Do you think our lives will be any different, Frankie?”

  Struck by the maturity of her question, he stared at her, noticing for the first time the way the morning light outlined the delicate edge of her cheek and chin, the shape of her nose, and the pure clean line of her throat. He remembered that she was only thirteen, and a wave of color swept across his face.

  Turning away, he considered her question. “Maybe not so different, but at least we’ll have hope for somethin’ better. That’s more than we have now.”

  Slowly, she turned to look at him with that new maturity he had never noticed before. “What could be better than this?” She waved her arm to encompass their surroundings.

  “For me, this is the exception,” he said, keeping his gaze averted. “You wouldn’t know about that.”

  “It’s not always like this for me, either, Frankie. Would you care to change places and see?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “Answer the question. Would you want to go home to my family, to Terrence, my mother, and my father?”

&n
bsp; “Perhaps not Terrence,” he said, attempting a note of levity.

  “I didn’t think so.”

  She stood and walked toward the stream to dip her feet. Frankie couldn’t take his eyes off the slender curves of her bare legs under the rolled-up overalls or the way her body dipped in at the waist and flared slightly at her hips. Christ, what was the matter with him? This was Jilly. She was a schoolgirl, and he was nearly seventeen. There were plenty of girls in the village for what he had in mind, even more in Belfast. His spirits lifted.

  Tomorrow, Monday, was the day he would leave. By Wednesday, his examinations would be over, and he would have seven days to himself, seven days of freedom, of pubs and films, of Guinness and music, seven days of museums and theater, of shops and craic and women. Sheer heaven to one who measured the success of his entertainment by the size of the crowds in Kilvara on market day. Tomorrow, he would have forgotten all about his sudden fascination with a tomboy with too many freckles, a girl who thought fishing for trout was the best life had to offer, a girl he had no business noticing in the first place.

  ***

  The streets of Belfast were dirtier and more crowded than Frankie expected. But they weren’t a disappointment. Disappointment would be too strong a word. A Catholic from a town like Kilvara was born into disappointment. Like original sin, he was weaned on it, raised on it. Disappointment was trudging to the privy in February, thirty frozen meters from the house. Disappointment was oats for breakfast, oat cakes for tea, and potatoes for dinner. Disappointment was going so long without meat that the smell of it cooking raised the saliva in a boy’s mouth. Disappointment was working until bones ached and muscles burned and eyes were too tired to do more than stare blankly at school books, their black print blurring across the pages.

  Catholic Belfast was dirty and busy and exciting. Divided from the Protestant Shankill by the winding Springfield Road, the Clonard was a mix of row houses, pubs, shops, grade schools, churches, vendors, and news agents. Nuns walked freely down streets with odd-sounding names like Kashmir and Bombay. At Mackie’s, the foundry bordering the Shankill, Protestants on their breaks traded insults with unemployed Catholics loitering on the corner. Men cursed and drank and sang with a reckless abandon not found in small towns like Newry and Kilvara. Priests from the Redemptorist Monastery frequented the streets Monday through Friday, calling out greetings to their cursing, spatting parishioners. They drank in the tea shops, read in the reading rooms, and on Saturday, cloaked in the dark anonymity of confessionals, wiped sins clean for the celebration of the Eucharist on Sunday morning.