The Maid of Ireland

by Susan Wiggs

  “We’re going on a cattle raid,” he said.

  Caitlin’s spoon dropped with a clatter. “A cattle raid, is it?”

  “That’s what I said.” Feeling the heat of a dozen pairs of eyes on him, Wesley explained, “We’ve less than a week’s worth of stores. There is only the milch cow left in the byre. Mudge’s payment in sheep will be gone long before Michaelmas. If we don’t do something, we’ll have to start slaughtering the horses.”

  The outraged protests came as expected.

  “That’s why I propose the raid.” He allowed himself a look at Caitlin. He wished he could pluck the moment from time and hold it forever in his heart. Unaware of the true nature of his plan, she gazed at him with admiration shining in her eyes and a heartfelt smile sweet upon her lips.

  “The Fianna will ride against the Roundheads again,” she said in triumph. “Oh, Wesley, I knew you’d side with us.” She frowned; he could almost see the thoughts cavorting behind her eyes. “It’ll be a riskier venture than we’ve ever attempted since he’s so well dug in at Lough Corrib, but with—”

  “Wait.” He wished he didn’t have to shatter her illusions. He forced himself to say, “We can’t take English livestock.”

  Her admiration froze to anger. “I should have known.”

  “So whose cattle are we after raiding?” Rory demanded.

  “Logan Rafferty’s herd at Brocach.”

  Silence dropped like a wet blanket over the gathering.

  “Never,” said Caitlin. “You’re mad if you think I’d stoop to thieving a fellow Irishman’s cattle.”

  “He’s got more cattle than a tinker has lice.”

  “Caitlin,” said Tom, “I think you should hear Wesley out.”

  “Logan Rafferty is my lord and my sister’s husband besides. For pity’s sake, Wesley, you just swore fealty to him. Besides, Magheen’s there now. She’ll not be letting us starve.”

  “Logan might not give her a choice,” Tom said.

  “Rafferty’s also a traitor to the Irish,” Wesley added. A silence even heavier than the first descended on them. With flat regret, he told them his suspicions about Logan.

  Blazing with fury, Caitlin jumped up. “None of us will be a party to any of this!”

  “Now, Caitlin,” said Rory. “Let’s at least hear his plan.”

  She scowled at him. “Not you, too.”

  “Times are hard,” Rory said. “A body has to eat.”

  “And you call yourself an Irish warrior,” she said. “You’d steal from your lord like a common poacher instead of going to war like a proud Irishman.”

  “There’s no harm in listening to the man. Didn’t he settle Magheen and the tinker’s brood, and Mudge besides.”

  “God, Rory, do you remember nothing? He lied to us from the moment he stepped foot in Clonmuir. Now you’ll listen to him deride Logan Rafferty?”

  “The lord of Brocach is rich on the slainte paid to him by his Irish tenants. The English haven’t touched his estates. I’m after wondering why.”

  Caitlin felt sick with the suspicions that pushed into her mind. “Wonder all you like. I’ll have no part of it.”

  She bolted outside, across the yard and to the wall walk looking out to sea. Traitor’s Leap framed a view of the waves rushing up to the shore, flinging themselves against the rock in an explosion of translucent foam.

  A cold wind gusted over her, chilling her to the marrow. But the cold in her bones was not nearly as icy as the sense of betrayal that froze her heart.

  She was losing her grip on Clonmuir. The smooth-tongued Hawkins lured her people to his side. He was the high, shifting wind off the Atlantic, driving them from the old ways.

  She gazed steadily at the silvery horizon. She used to stand here and think of Alonso. But even then he had seemed a distant dream, hazy and indistinct, far out of reach.

  “Caitlin.”

  Refusing to turn, she braced her hands against the wall.

  “It has to be this way, Caitlin.” Wesley stepped up behind her so that she felt the warmth of him. “I cannot let the Fianna ride against the English again.”

  She whirled and found herself caught in his strong arms. “You cannot?” she demanded, pushing against his chest. “You talk as if you’re the MacBride.”

  “No,” he said, “I’ll never, ever take that from you.”

  “Then why do you insist on this raid? How can you live with us, break bread with us, and still give your loyalty to England?”

  He pressed his lips into a thin, angry line. “I only want you to see that there is more than one way to solve our problem.”

  “Such as raiding a neighbor.”

  “Aye.”

  “I’ll not have it, do you hear me?”

  A sweet, regretful smile played about his lips. He leaned down and softly kissed her forehead; then the touch of his lips descended, closing over hers with a silkiness that she felt in places he wasn’t even touching.

  Calling up the strength of will that had made her the MacBride, she drew back. “You shall not dismiss me like a chastened child!”

  “Cait, I don’t mean to, but—”

  “I say you will not raid Brocach. I forbid it. The Fianna will ride again.”

  He grasped her shoulders. “Hammersmith knows your secret now. More than ever, he’ll be on the alert. The men of Clonmuir would follow you if you commanded it. They’d die for you, Caitlin, if you choose to make it come to that.”

  She shrank from the truth in his words. “I’ll warn Logan.”

  “Then you’d be signing the death warrant of your men.”

  She bit her lip and looked away. She felt torn, her loyalty to Logan pulling against the sick truth that had planted itself implacably in her mind. A moan of frustration escaped her.

  Wesley caught her chin and drew her gaze back to his. “Could you bear seeing Rory betrayed by your own, maimed or killed? Or young Curran? How would you face his mother if anything happened to the lad?”

  “The risk has always been there,” she snapped.

  “I offer you a solution that carries very little risk.”

  “I won’t have you stealing from the Irish. From my own sister, for heaven’s sake.”

  “Magheen would cheer us on. Logan Rafferty has stores to spare, and you know it, Caitlin. You’re his family, by God. He owes you. Besides, he has ties to the English. To Hammersmith. It would behoove us to drive a wedge between those two.”

  The ocean spray leapt up from the breaking waves. Somewhere in a distant part of the keep, a baby cried. Caitlin winced, weighing anguish over her people against the beliefs of a lifetime. Finally she took a deep breath of the briny air. “Do what you must, Wesley. But I’ll have no part of it. The sin’s upon your head.”

  * * *

  In the deep, mysterious heart of the night, six men emerged from behind a booley hut. The cold blackness enclosed Wesley like an iron gauntlet. Burdened with halters and ropes, he led the way up the summer pastures of Brocach.

  A cowherd’s peat fire burned in the lee of a hill. A man sat by the embers, playing a lullaby on a whittled flute. The shaggy hulks of sleeping cattle dotted the landscape. Concealed in the shadows some yards away, the men drew into a huddle.

  “St. Peter swoop my soul up to heaven,” Conn whispered. “There’s more cattle here than saints in my canon.”

  “He’d have you believing he’s as poor as the rest of the district,” said Wesley. “Get those helms in place.”

  The quiet clicking of metal buckles sounded as the men donned Roundhead garb, cuirasses and helms seized in raids. Wearing the costumes of murdered Englishmen raised cold prickles on Wesley’s skin. But his plan required the disguise.

  “Remember,” he said, “don’t hurt the cowherd or knock him senseless. We want him to see exactly what we’re about. And for God’s sake, don’t speak unless you’re sure you can sound like an Englishman.”

  Round iron helms bobbed in accord. In the distant hills, a wolf howl
ed, and another answered.

  Wesley begged in silent prayer for success. Even more than food for Clonmuir, he needed to prove himself to Caitlin.

  “Let’s go.” With the stealth that in years past had gained him success as a thief taker, he crouched low and headed for the light. Booted feet crept along the pasture.

  He climbed to the crest of the hill above the fire. The howling of the wolves had brought the cowherd to full alert. A robust, stocky man, he stood with his staff dug into the ground and a bog pine torch held aloft.

  “Now,” Wesley whispered. He leapt down onto the cowherd’s back and took him in a choke hold from behind.

  The man gave a grunt of surprise. He waved his arms at his attackers. Wesley eased the pressure on his throat, and the cowherd spoke brusquely. “Here now, you’re not supposed to take this lot.”

  The statement confirmed Wesley’s darkest suspicions. He tightened his grip. “Look, you Irish devil, you’ll spare us a few of your cattle, and we’ll spare your life.”

  The man made a strangled sound of accord.

  “Come help me bind him, Ladyman,” Wesley ordered.

  Curran Healy made deft work of the task. Meanwhile, the others raced down to the pasture, haltering cattle and leading them off toward the coast.

  Three hours later, dripping cold water from their swim with three dozen head of cattle, the raiders slogged ashore at a protected grazing island.

  After another three hours, news came from Brocach that Rafferty’s estate had been raided by Roundheads. Logan threatened a counterstrike at the garrison of Lough Corrib.

  That evening, drunk to the tips of his tonsils, John Wesley Hawkins staggered into his wife’s private chamber. Sounds of revelry still drifted from the hall.

  Startled, Caitlin upset the ink bowl, spraying walnut ink over the letter she was writing. A letter to His Holiness the Pope himself, begging for an annulment.

  The sight of Wesley made her glad the ink had spilled. Candlelight flickered over his lopsided grin. She bit her lip to scare off an answering smile.

  He staggered over to her, plucked the quill from her fingers, and set it on the table. Taking both her hands, he drew her to her feet.

  “Well?” he demanded. He smelled of poteen and peat smoke and salt from the long swim.

  “Well what?”

  He carried her forefinger to his lips and kissed it. “I’ve gotten your sister back to her husband where she belongs.” He kissed the next finger. “I’ve gotten us enough beef to last th’ winter.” His lips moved on to her ring finger. “Rafferty’s finally broken faith with th’ English.” He brought his mouth against the flat of her palm and buried it there, inhaling as if she held in her hand the very essence of life.

  “Is it enough yet, Cait? Is it?”

  Another unspoken question haunted his shadowy green eyes. Now will you accept me as your husband?

  Part of her—the womanly part, the lonely part—wanted to shout, Yes! But another part screamed a denial.

  “You overrode my wishes. You turned my men from me.”

  “For th’ sake of Clonmuir, my love. But if it’s not enough, I’ll do more, I swear it. Slay dragons, brave th’ fires of hell.” He rubbed his hands up and down her arms. “Ah, Cait, you are intoxicating in your loveliness.”

  “’Tis the drink, not me.”

  He leaned forward. “No drink could so sweep a man’s reason away like you do.” His mouth drew closer and closer. Her lips tingled in anticipation of his kiss.

  He hesitated, a breath, a heartbeat away.

  His eyes glazed over, and he slipped to the floor, out cold almost before he hit the rushes.

  Torn between rage and amusement, Caitlin shook her head.

  What the devil would her husband do next?

  * * *

  “We’re going fishing,” he announced the next day. Still bleary eyed, he blinked in the smoke that pervaded the great hall. A new family had arrived from the Twelve Bens. Getting them settled in promised to take all day.

  Wesley’s welcoming grin brought smiles to faces not used to smiling.

  Caitlin frowned at the men, who formed a half circle around her husband. “But we’ve only the one curragh and the hooker. Besides, the herring aren’t running.”

  “We’re not after herring,” said Rory, buckling on a sword.

  “Then what would you be after fishing for?” she demanded.

  Blowing her a kiss, Wesley led the way out of the hall. “Priests,” he said.

  * * *

  “Magheen, I’m so confused.” Sitting in a well-furnished solar at Brocach, Caitlin took a sip of imported tea, let the liquid slide over her tongue, then put down the cup. “One minute I think he’s all I’ve ever desired in a husband, and the next, I feel certain he means to hand Clonmuir over to Hammersmith.”

  Magheen smiled sympathetically. Since returning to Logan she had grown even more beautiful—rounder, softer, draped in a veil of womanly contentment. She patted a glossy yellow curl. “How long has he been gone?”

  “A week.”

  “Well, I’m after thinking that your feelings are natural.”

  “Then natural is a sickness.” Caitlin took an oat cake from the tray and bit into it. The food might have been pasteboard for all she could taste it.

  “You’re resisting your feelings for Wesley.”

  “The only feeling I have for him is contempt.”

  Wisdom kindled in Magheen’s eyes. “I think you love him.”

  Caitlin tried to deny it. But with a wave of sadness, she realized that everything had changed. She was no longer the girl who had lost her innocent heart to a handsome Spaniard. The sweet idealism of their youthful pledges had turned bitter.

  War and privation had forced her to become hard and calculating. With a great sigh, she bade farewell to a long-cherished dream.

  “Here, blow your nose.” Magheen handed her a handkerchief. “I haven’t seen you weep since Ma passed. You must have a bad case of it.”

  “Of what?” Caitlin sniffed into the fine linen.

  “Of love,” said Magheen. “Wasn’t that what we were speaking of?”

  “How can I love Wesley? He’s Sassenach. He abducted me—”

  “Logan abducted me, and I loved every minute of it.”

  “I’m not like you, Magheen. I can’t excuse a man’s actions simply because my heart tells me to.”

  “You’d be a lot happier if you’d listen to your heart. Tell me, did you expect to rule Clonmuir alone forever?”

  “No, I thought—” She broke off. Lord, but she had not even had time to think. She stared out the window. Bristling yellow-brown hayfields rose toward the hills to the east. She turned Magheen’s words over and over in her mind.

  And stopped when she came to the truth.

  All her reasons for abandoning her feelings for Alonso paled to weak excuses. It wasn’t the years, nor even his betrayal, that had slain the dream.

  It was John Wesley Hawkins.

  Aye, from the first moment she had seen him walking toward her through a tangled twilit garden, he had invaded her soul.

  Each time she had tried to remember her Spanish gentleman, a tall Englishman with blazing red hair and a rakish grin strode into her mind.

  Each time she had tried to recall Alonso’s courtly caresses, she became enveloped in memories of Wesley’s frankly sensual affection.

  And each time she searched her heart for the bright glow of love she had once believed she’d felt for Alonso, she found only the burned-out embers of dead feelings.

  I will drive him out of your heart as surely as the sun will rise. Wesley’s declaration on their wedding night whispered across the weeks to her.

  At the time, she had declared it a patent impossibility.

  Now she realized it had been true even before she had learned of Alonso’s betrayal.

  God, where was Wesley now? He could get killed rescuing the priests.

  “Here, you’ve gotten that one wrin
ging wet,” said Magheen. “Take another handkerchief, and do stop crying. This is my last one.”

  But Caitlin wept on, for the naive girl she had been and for the confused woman she now was.

  “You need something more potent than tea.” Magheen went to the sideboard and returned with a crystal decanter and a small glass. A medallion bearing the Rafferty badger hung around the neck of the decanter.

  Caitlin took a large gulp of the amber liquid, then choked into the handkerchief. “What the devil is this, Magheen?”

  “Brandy. Logan brought it back from Corrib.”

  Caitlin’s heart sank, and she set aside the glass as if it contained poison. “I’d hoped Logan would return with Hammersmith’s head on a pike.”

  “That was his intent when he set out after the cattle raid. But he and the Roundhead came to an accord, just as they did when Father Tully—” Magheen broke off. A mortified flush stained her cheeks.

  “When Father Tully what?” Caitlin demanded. Her vision swam red with fury. “How long have you known?”

  “R-right from the start. But I—oh, God, Caitlin, I’m sorry!” Sobbing, Magheen reached out with a shaking hand. “It’s myself who’s needing the handkerchief now.”

  Caitlin slapped her face.

  With a yelp of pain and horror, Magheen stood and backed away. “Logan had no choice.”

  “He betrayed Father Tully, didn’t he? He sold our chaplain to the priest catchers for the price of tea and brandy, didn’t he?”

  “It—it wasn’t like that. Logan arranged to have him transported for his own good. The English would have put him to death.”

  Rage surged through Caitlin faster than the brandy. “How can you abide it, Magheen? Your husband is Hammersmith’s pet spaniel. He can be bought off with a juicy bone while everyone else in Connemara starves.”

  Magheen sighed miserably. “But at least he keeps the peace and feeds his people.”

  Bleak awareness crept over Caitlin. She thought of Wesley, a Sassenach, braving peril to save the Irish priests. While Magheen consorted with a traitor.

  “Can’t you persuade Logan to join us?” she asked. “Think how much stronger we would be if we were united.”

  “I’ll try. Haven’t I already promised to keep you in plenty of food for the winter? But Logan—”