Red Hugh

by Lisson, Deborah;

  ‘Where are your friends?’ demanded Maplesdene.

  He shut his eyes.

  A fist thudded into his face. ‘Irish filth! Answer the Constable when he speaks to you.’

  His head cracked against the wall. He gasped and spat blood from his bitten tongue. His eyes focused slowly on Maplesdene. The Constable was watching him, appraising him, despising him for his cowardice. Shame almost drowned out his terror. And then, in a blinding flash, the truth hit him. It didn’t matter! This wasn’t about his courage or dignity. It was about lives – Dick Weston’s, Róis’s, Hugh mac Ferdoragh’s. He did not have to be brave, all he had to be was silent.

  They hammered him with questions – ‘Who helped you?’ ‘Who brought you rope?’ ‘Who guided you?’ ‘What part did the Earl of Tyrone play?’ – and each time he refused to speak, they beat him again. His ribs cracked, his legs buckled, white lights exploded inside his head. He sobbed, screamed, vomited repeatedly. But not one coherent word escaped his lips.

  Finally there was a pause and a voice said in English, ‘We waste our efforts, my Lord. The brat has all the impudence of Satan. Shall I heat the irons?’

  Hot irons! Worms of terror crawled through Hugh’s guts. There was a ghastly silence. Then Maplesdene’s voice said peevishly, ‘No. Throw him back in his cell. Cold and hunger will loosen his tongue soon enough.’

  He had won, but it didn’t feel like a victory. The fetters were unlocked and he collapsed on the flagstones. Hands jerked him to his feet and half dragged, half carried him back to his cell. He lay where they dropped him. Iron rattled as they shackled his wrists and ankles. The door closed, plunging him back into darkness.

  The cold was the worst part. He was still naked and there was nothing in the cell with which to cover himself. Dampness crept into every fibre of his body. Sleep was impossible, except for stray moments of exhaustion, and even then the cold followed him into his dreams. He saw the dead Spaniards – the men of the Trinidad Valencera – stripped naked and hunted across the bog by their murderers. Their white bodies drifted round him, pale as ghosts. Their dark, corpse-like eyes stared at him hungrily. ‘A life for a life,’ they seemed to say. ‘A death for a death.’ There was a terrible logic to it.

  Am I in hell? he wondered. The priests, in their sermons, always described it as a fire – but they were wrong. Hell was cold. Hell was a dark crypt, where water dripped down the walls and light never penetrated and blackness froze the marrow in your bones. Hell was a dungeon beneath Dublin Castle.

  Day and night became meaningless. Every now and then someone brought food and asked was he ready to answer questions. When he said nothing, they took it away again. After a while he did not care. He was wandering further and further from reality. The cold was interspersed with bouts of raging heat and he no longer knew when he slept or when he woke.

  It came to him that he was dying. How bold of him. The Lord Deputy would be outraged, and Róis O’Toole – would she ever forgive him for bringing all her fine prophecies to nothing? He should go to her, tell her he was sorry; but it was such a long way to Castlekevin, and he had no energy for walking.

  A voice from far away broke through his delirium – the same wearisome, English voice. ‘Well, brat, are you disposed to be reasonable yet?’

  He ignored it – soon it would go away again.

  A foot prodded him in the ribs. ‘Go to, Master O’Donnell, you cannot sulk for ever. Eventually you will have to eat.’

  He rolled his head away from the sound.

  ‘I mislike this,’ said the first voice. ‘He looks sick to me.’

  There was a laugh. ‘Nah, he is just moping. They’re all the same, these so-called Irish princes – put them in chains and they whimper like beaten curs.’

  ‘Even so …’ A hand touched his face. ‘God’s blood, he’s burning up with fever. Fetch the Constable, quickly.’

  There was a confusion of activity – feet, voices, ebbing and flowing like the ripples on Lough Swilly. Water was put to his lips, something warm was wrapped round his shoulders. ‘Bring him out of there,’ ordered a voice he recognised, and hands fumbled at his wrists and ankles. He wanted to laugh. How did Maplesdene expect to revive him now – order him to get well again? You’re too late, he thought wearily. I’m after cheating you.

  Two sets of hands hoisted him to his feet, but he couldn’t stand – his body was all arms and legs and none of them worked properly. He looked down and saw himself from a distance, dangling naked between them like an injured heron; and then he blacked out.

  He was warm and lying in a bed. He shouldn’t be there, but he couldn’t remember why and the effort was wearisome. The warmth seduced him. It ran through his veins like whiskey. He lay in a cocoon, lapping it up as a cat laps up cream. Presently he slept, and when he woke there was a face looking down at him. A round, Irish face – a face that seemed to wish him well. It smiled at him, and he smiled back, vaguely aware that he had not the faintest idea who it belonged to. ‘God save you,’ he mumbled.

  The plump features creased with laughter. ‘“God save you,” indeed. And a fine greeting that is, to be sure, from one returned almost from the dead. Didn’t we think it was burying you we’d be?’

  ‘We?’ even as he formed the question, a second voice chimed in from somewhere out of sight. ‘And no great loss either,’ it growled. ‘Is it ourselves to be keening for an O’Donnell?’

  The friendly face turned away. ‘Ah, shut your gob, Henry. What harm is the lad after doing you? Save your anger for the Saxons.’

  The unseen Henry muttered something incomprehensible. His companion turned back to Hugh. ‘You must excuse my brother,’ he grinned. ‘Didn’t he get out on the wrong side of his bed this morning.’

  Hugh’s head began to spin. None of this was making any sense. Where was he? How had he got here? Who were these two men, one of whom seemed to dislike him so heartily? ‘Do I know you?’ he asked at last.

  The round-faced man laughed. ‘You do,’ he said, ‘though, in truth, I think you never saw me before. I am Art mac Shane, and the bull with the bad manners over there, is my brother Henry.’

  Art and Henry mac Shane! Shane O’Neill’s sons! The mortal enemies of both The O’Donnell and Hugh mac Ferdoragh! Hugh stared at the man, dumbfounded. Art chuckled. ‘Rest easy, Hugh Roe. I bear you no ill will, for all that you are an O’Donnell.’ He leaned closer and the corner of his mouth twitched in a wry grin. ‘After all, isn’t it cousins we are – you and I – in a manner of speaking?’

  In a manner of speaking! Hugh shuddered, remembering the story. Thirty-odd years ago it was, after another clash in the traditional O’Donnell–O’Neill feud. His uncle Calvagh O’Donnell lying prisoner in Shane O’Neill’s dungeons, and Shane upstairs in his bedchamber with Calvagh’s wife. Hugh looked at Art mac Shane – the product of that shameful coupling – and tried to think of something to say, but it was beyond him. Blood sang in his ears. Art’s face danced before his eyes. He felt himself sliding back into darkness.

  He slept on and off for most of that day, waking only to eat and drink. From time to time, a little man whom Art said was the apothecary, scuttled in like a frightened crab to fuss over him and give him cordials. Hugh tried to piece together what had happened.

  ‘How long am I after lying here?’ he asked Art. ‘I … I don’t remember … Did I have a fever?’

  ‘A fever!’ Art chuckled. ‘Mother of God, will you listen while I tell you. Three days ago they brought you in here – and you with a fire in your head fit to bake bread on. Three days, muttering and moaning and threshing around on that bed, and Maplesdene in and out, roaring like a bull and putting the fear of death into your man there, and he not keeping you alive.’

  Memories began to filter back. Hugh shuddered. ‘I wonder they did not let me die,’ he said bitterly.

  ‘Ha! And you the best pledge on all Tír Chonaill – are they the fools? Small value they’d gain from a dead hostage.’

  ‘More
’s the pity,’ chipped in Henry mac Shane caustically.

  Art turned on his brother. ‘Ah, will you hold your tongue, Henry, haven’t we troubles enough without fighting among ourselves?’ He winked at Hugh. ‘Ignore him. It’s as sour as a sorrel leaf he is at the whole world, and it’s not this week or last it happened him. It’s my belief he is not after forgiving his mother yet for giving birth to him without his permission.’

  Hugh had to smile. Despite everything, he was beginning to like this plump, good-natured man. Prison made a mockery of freedom’s quarrels. The enemy of my enemy is my friend, and could Art help it if his father had been a monster?

  Henry was easier to dislike. He was surly by nature and imprisonment seemed to have brought out the worst in him. He snarled at everyone – even his own brother – and appeared to hold Art responsible for their present misfortunes. Art had escaped briefly the previous year and since then, both brothers had been made to wear leg irons.

  Hugh could understand Henry’s anger – keeping a man in chains was about the greatest humiliation you could inflict on him; but to blame Art seemed grossly unfair. Wouldn’t Henry have tried to escape, and he having the opportunity? Hugh lay on his sick-bed and watched them bickering, and wondered what the future held in store for himself.

  As soon as he was strong enough to walk again, Maplesdene ordered that he, too, should be put in chains. It was a crushing blow, even though he had expected it, and he was hard put not to struggle as the fetters were locked round his ankles. He looked afresh round his new lodgings and his heart sank. This was a far cry from the room he had shared with Eoghan and Donal in the gate-tower. It was large enough – it even had its own privy in a small side chamber – but the windows were all barred and the door permanently locked. For all its size, this room was a prison cell.

  ‘Do they never let you out?’ he asked Art fearfully.

  The older man smiled. ‘Ah, they do,’ he said kindly. ‘They let us take exercise in the courtyard every now and then.’

  ‘And … and these?’ Hugh looked down at his leg irons.

  Art shook his head.

  It was hard to sleep with chains on your feet. Tossing and turning on his straw in the underground cell to which they were removed each night, Hugh recalled with bitterness Róis O’Toole’s brave prophecy. How little she had known. All the magic of the otherworld would not spirit him out of this place.

  In the darkness he could hear Art and Henry talking. Henry was grumbling as usual, but Art, for some reason, seemed buoyed up with optimism. ‘Will you leave the lad be,’ he told his brother. ‘Hasn’t he friends working even now to break him out. And where one goes others may follow – I’m telling you he may yet be the saving of us.’

  ‘Ha! And when the sky falls we’ll all catch larks. Why do you think Fitzwilliam is after foisting him on us?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Think man, who engineered his last escape?’

  ‘Doesn’t everyone know it was Hugh mac Ferdoragh? And …’

  ‘And Hugh mac Ferdoragh is as crafty as a fox. He may want O’Donnell’s son out of prison, but there is one thing he wants even more – and that’s his own foot on the inauguration stone of the O’Neills when old Turlough Luineach dies. And who are the men best placed to thwart that hope – and they safe back in Ulster again?’

  ‘Chreesta! You mean …’

  Henry mac Shane laughed maliciously. ‘I’m telling you, Art, Fitzwilliam is after chaining this brat to us like a donkey to a cart. It will be an icy day in hell before Hugh mac Ferdoragh gives a means of escape to anyone and he to be sharing it with the sons of Shane O’Neill?’

  Twelve

  THREE THOUSAND POUNDS,’ said the Earl of Tyrone. ‘Think about it. It is a great deal of money.’

  He cupped his wine glass in his hands and swirled the contents gently. His eyes smiled over the rim at the Lord Deputy. Fitzwilliam shifted uncomfortably. Every instinct warned him to stop this conversation before it went any further, but Hugh mac Ferdoragh O’Neill was a hard man to deny. He was charming and persuasive; his voice had the smoothness of warm honey – and what he had said was the truth, three thousand pounds was indeed a very great deal of money.

  ‘And a man in your position …’ continued O’Neill. He smiled again and did not finish the sentence. He did not need to. They both knew very well what he meant. Everything cost money in this wretched country. Supplies, information – even loyalty – had to be bought. A Lord Deputy without money was a Lord Deputy without power, and Fitzwilliam was not a wealthy man.

  Why didn’t they understand that in London? Time and again he had begged for more resources. But even after the Armada – even after he had personally saved this miserable island of hers from hordes of marauding Spaniards – the queen still had not appreciated his worth. ‘Reward?’ she had thundered, when he made his modest submission. ‘Must we remind you, Sir William, that the post of Lord Deputy is a preferment, not a service. There are others who would be only too eager to accept the honour, should you wish to surrender it.’ After all he had done for her! It was bitterly unjust. He felt his face twist into a scowl.

  ‘They do, indeed, treat you shamefully,’ murmured O’Neill, almost as though he could read his thoughts. ‘I, on the other hand, am generous to those who accommodate me. And I do not even ask you to free the young man – only to move him to a more … shall we say … congenial prison.’

  And one from which he could escape without the encumbrance of the Mac Shanes! Fitzwilliam was not a fool. He knew what would be expected of him when the time came. Nevertheless, it was tempting – three thousand pounds was a small fortune and the brat had always been more trouble than he was worth. But the risk … ‘They would have my head,’ he murmured.

  ‘Ah, well!’ O’Neill shrugged. ‘If you have no stomach for it … But hostages have escaped before and no blame falling on the Lord Deputy. No prison is utterly secure. Jailers pass in and out – can they all be trusted? And the lad is still permitted visitors.’ His eyes narrowed, fixing Fitzwilliam with a steady gaze. ‘They tell me your Constable is unwell. Sick men sometimes make errors.’

  Again Fitzwilliam wavered. The man was right, mistakes did happen, prisoners did escape; and it was true, Maplesdene had been unwell for some time now. If the old fool grew negligent in his illness and young O’Donnell slipped through his guard again, could anyone suspect the Lord Deputy of complicity?

  ‘And both The O’Donnell and his wife would know whom to thank for their son’s freedom,’ suggested Tyrone. ‘So would the young man himself.’

  That was something he had never considered. The O’Donnell in his debt, the Scottish she-dragon eating from his hand – Fitzwilliam’s imagination took flight. Why, Tír Chonaill would be his to command. He would be doing the state a favour. And three thousand pounds … He smiled. He was on the very point of saying yes – but then, just in time, he remembered something else. He recalled his interviews with O’Donnell’s son. Submission? Gratitude? In a pig’s ear! That red-headed brat didn’t know the meaning of the words. He embodied all the perversity of his accursed race.

  Exasperation swept over him. What made the Irish so intractable? One could bend over backwards to be charitable to them, yet they remained wilfully entrenched in sedition and arrogance. Loose Red Hugh O’Donnell? – it would be like loosing wildfire on the country.

  He looked at his visitor and a little shiver ran down his back. How close he had come to forgetting. He saw afresh that the Earl of Tyrone was probably the most dangerous man in Ireland. Young O’Donnell wore his barbarism like a flag, but O’Neill had all the trappings of civilisation. He spoke English, he dressed in civilised clothes, his hair and beard were neatly clipped after the English fashion. His manners were elegant and his big hands toyed with his goblet as delicately as any courtier’s. He was so nearly the English gentleman. It was only now and then, when his guard was down, that something gave him away. It might be the merest gesture – a facial
expression, a flicker in the eyes – but if one looked closely enough the veneer would fall away and one would see what lay behind it: that primitive, untamed otherness that infected all the native Irish and that no amount of kindness or coercion could ever eradicate.

  Fitzwilliam thanked God for his narrow escape. ‘I am sorry,’ he said firmly. ‘I will continue to petition Her Majesty for the release of your young kinsman, but I will not – I dare not – connive at his escape. Hugh Roe O’Donnell will remain in the Bermingham Tower, and Art and Henry mac Shane will bear him company.’

  ‘And that was his final word,’ Hugh mac Ferdoragh said sadly. ‘He was immovable – and I blue in the face from arguing.’ He looked round the little group assembled in the hall of Rathmullen Castle and made a small gesture of helplessness.

  There was a silence while his audience digested his words. ‘He fears for his own skin,’ said The MacSweeney Fanad at last. ‘And, faith, who wouldn’t, with yon old red Morrigu breathing down his neck? So, what is to be done now?’

  ‘For the moment – nothing. There is nothing we can do and he in the company of the Mac Shanes. For I dare not …’

  ‘Dare not?’ There was a roar from the end of the table. The Iníon Dubh came to her feet, her eyes blazing. ‘God damn you, Hugh mac Ferdoragh. God damn you and you a gutless coward. My son, my beautiful Hugh Roe, lies rotting still in that stinking castle, chained like a criminal and sharing a cell with the hell-spawn of that monster, Shane O’Neill, and you tell me you dare not help him?’

  ‘A coward, is it?’ O’Neill also came to his feet. ‘By God, woman, those words would be your last and I not a guest in this hall.’