Irish Lady

by Jeanette Baker

  I could see his expression change from dangerous determination to dawning wonder. “Nuala,” he breathed. “My God, Nuala. Tell me this isn’t a vision. Tell me ’tis really you.”

  I laughed, and the frozen stone that was my heart began to thaw. I raised my hand to stroke his cheek. “I’m here, my love. ’Tis Nuala. I’ve waited so long to have you home again.”

  With that he stood, lifting me against his chest, and carried me through the open doors, up the stairs, and into the bedchamber where I had spent so many nights alone.

  His body was thinner than before, and the scars marking his skin were new. I clung to his animal-sleek leanness, my fingers circling and probing, acquainting myself all over again with the corded muscles of his back, the strength of his arms, the width of his shoulders, the taste of his skin.

  His lips feathered across my forehead and down my cheeks to my mouth. I opened for him and he kissed me as if we were new lovers again, his hands exploring what his lips had already tasted.

  Without speaking, Rory knelt over me, his eyes moving across my breasts, my hips, my stomach and then to the secret place below where the lives of our children had started. I saw the blood leap in his throat, the cords of his neck tighten and felt the hard length of him against my thigh. I burned to take him inside me, and when he finally did, his entry was slow, delicious torment. Too soon, I felt the pulsing of my own heat and the greater one of his seed flooding the emptiness of my womb.

  I can no longer remember the words we shared during that first of many long nights of coupling, but I know that we were spent with lovemaking. It was near dawn, the firelight etching our bodies, separating them from the darkness, when I first noticed his feet. Rory slept like a dead man. I slipped out from under the bedclothes and lit a candle from the grate. Holding it close to his feet, I examined them carefully.

  Only the big toe on each foot prevented them from looking like stumps. Three toes were missing on his left side and two more on the right. Mutilated skin had grown over the wounds, and I wondered how he could walk with such a deformity.

  His voice came out of the darkness. “Do you find them repulsive, Nuala?”

  My voice would not come. No matter. Words would not comfort Rory and make him understand what I felt. Instead I balanced the candle against the bed, circled his ankles with my hands and lowered my lips to the holes that once were toes. One by one I kissed them.

  I heard the harsh intake of his breath, felt the slight jerk as he tried to pull away, but I refused to release him until I had paid tribute to every missing toe. When I raised my head, I lifted the candle and met his unblinking gaze. “Listen to me, Rory O’Donnell, and listen well,” I said fiercely. “I have never loved you more, nor thought you more a man than I do now when I see what you have endured to come home to me.”

  His smile was very gentle when he pulled me close and wrapped the bedding around us so that we lay swaddled in the warmth of wool and bare flesh. “We shall deal with this together, my love,” he whispered through my hair, “and, as God is my witness, I shall never leave your side again.”

  It was a promise he would break many times over. But I knew it was the nature of men to raise their weapons against an enemy. Elizabeth was evil, and she intended to strip every Irish family of its estates. The time would eventually come. Everyone saw it, I sooner than most. But first English blood would spill, generations of English blood, until our country stood alone, no longer subject to an English parliament and an English monarch.

  ***

  Meghann still had library privileges at Oxford, and its humanities library was the most complete in all of Europe. With shaking hands, she clicked the computer mouse on the subject title Hawke of Eske and waited. Seconds later, pages scrolled across the screen. She read quickly, discarding one page, printing the next. Sixty pages of the entry The Life of Rory O’Donnell and twenty of The Treasure of Tyrone were already stuffed inside her briefcase.

  Two hours later she stood before the reference librarian’s desk. “Are you sure there isn’t more?” Meghann asked. “Could there be a cross-reference I’ve missed?”

  The librarian shook her head. “I’m afraid not. This is it, even the translations. There’s fiction, of course, but these are the facts, history as we know it.”

  Meghann nodded and turned away. The small tearoom across from the park was still serving food, and most of the summer crowds were in the souvenir shops. She made her way to a table in the corner and ordered a pot of tea, a cucumber sandwich, and chips. Milk-colored sunlight filtered through the window, illuminating the pages she’d pulled from her briefcase and set on the table. She ate her sandwich first, decided against the chips, sugared her tea, and picked up the first page of The Life of Rory O’Donnell.

  Her tea was cold by the time she finished. She looked at her watch and her eyes widened. Leaving a generous tip along with the amount of the bill, she hurried to her car and drove around the one-way city center to the motorway exit. English motorways were not like Irish roads. Speed limits were not observed. Unless one drove in the slow left lane, great concentration and steady nerves were required to overtake other automobiles. Meghann needed to unscramble what she’d read today. She decided to stay in the slow lane.

  O’Clery’s Life of Rory O’Donnell was a dry, uninspiring view of sixteenth-century Ireland. Battles, intrigues, betrayals, motivations, even peculiarities of dress and manner had all been meticulously documented, but that was all. There was none of the color and vibrancy, the rich pageantry, the sounds, the music, the smells, the pride and anguish of the world that came to Meghann as she slept.

  What she couldn’t explain away and what she had previously refused to face squarely was something that had no place in logic or scientific phenomena. She knew details, colors, odors, fragments of conversation. She had seen rain dripping on the stone stairways, smelled herbs scattered on a sickroom floor, heard words twisted in accents that had never been encountered in the twentieth century. She had seen moonlight color a boy’s hair to liquid silver, watched the reverence in his eyes as he held his newborn son. She had felt his bitterness as the blade sliced through his flesh and watched the pain in his eyes as, one by one, his blackened, bloodless toes fell to the stone floor.

  Where was the historian who had recorded such scenes? And if there was none, why had she seen them so clearly?

  Thirteen

  Nuala, Tirconnaill, 1595

  My prayers were answered, and the children born to Rory and me came in rapid succession, first Brian, then Sean and the joy of my heart, tiny, golden-haired Kathleen. The boys were redheads with tempers to match and as similar in feature and character as twins though they were a year apart. They fell into constant mischief, but Rory could no more bring himself to punish them than I could. I feared they would be terribly willful. Looking back on those perfect, golden-lined days I cannot be sorry for the decisions we made regarding the small beings created in images of ourselves.

  Tirconnaill was a tiny sanctuary far away from the whispered horrors of those around us. The Irish were suffering terrible persecution throughout the country but at Dun Na Ghal Castle, life was the same as it had always been. In Tirconnaill there were no evictions and no man, woman, or child went hungry. We simply ignored Elizabeth’s Irish Policy, and since we were far to the north, there was no one to enforce it.

  Still, the stories filtered to our gates, and they were as unbelievable as they were outrageous. Mass was forbidden lest one be stripped of his belongings. Tithing to the English church was required. Catholics were taxed and rents raised if tenants improved a landlord’s property. Prisons and prison ships were filled with men and women destined for the penal colonies of the New World, charged with nothing more heinous than feeding their children rather than paying taxes.

  In those first months after Rory’s return I feared that Elizabeth’s troops would come to take him back. But they did not, and after a year had passed, I stopped waking in the night. The English queen had more
on her mind than the escape of a single Irish prisoner. She worried over Catholic Mary Stuart of Scotland, Catholic Philip of Spain and, to a small degree, the Catholic earls of Northern Ireland.

  She was right to worry. While she fretted over Spain and Scotland, Rory broke with tradition and armed his peasants, training them to fight. They were known as the buannada. In three years he had fifteen hundred horsemen, one thousand pikemen, and four thousand foot soldiers carrying arms, rolling cannons, and leading packhorses. Almost every Irish family was angry over the Ulster Policy and joined Rory and my father in their fight.

  In 1595, Sir William Russell proclaimed my husband a traitor and in 1596, Rory appealed to His Most Catholic Majesty, Philip of Spain.

  Only because I loved Rory O’Donnell could I understand what moved him to the lunacy of following his instincts rather than his intellect. Rory was a true Irish chieftain, his reputation embellished by ancient prophecy: When two O’Donnell earls, father and son, lawfully and linearly succeed each other, the last Rory shall be a monarch of Ireland and banish hence all foreign nations and conquerors.

  He was a man who fired the imagination of our clansmen, now turned soldiers. He gave the Irish what no English earl ever could, the figure of a popular folk hero, rooted in prophecy, born to lead them against the enemy.

  The common folk turned to him with delight. They lifted him to their shoulders. They wove him into legend, reminding themselves of his destiny over and over. By ancient law and his own worthy muscle, he brought back the magic of the raider-made-king. He gave our people hope of an Irish world as familiar and warm as the glow of Irish whiskey. He was impulse and instinct, brilliance and bravery. Like a twist of lightning, Rory danced among the downtrodden, whipping them into a frenzy not seen since the days of Brian Boru.

  And so, slowly, he destroyed what I had worked so hard to achieve, a detached and unemotional but intrinsically loyal facade to fool the queen. I walked the floor night after night, bargaining all that was mine, fine words, blazing temper, threats, and even my body, until finally Rory agreed to swear his loyalty to Elizabeth at Dundalk.

  It was a farce, of course. Rory meant none of it. Thankfully, Elizabeth refused to give up the sophistication of London for Ireland and sent a representative in her place. Crafty with age and experience, she would have immediately seen what was in Rory’s heart and in the hearts of all the Irish chieftains who swore their allegiance to her that day.

  After Dundalk, there was a period of calm. Once again my belly swelled with the child I carried and my mind, usually so clear and focused on its purpose, could fix on nothing more than the babe that would come and the children I had.

  I wanted a girl. Sons clung to their mothers for only a short time. Sons were born to the sword. Sons were fostered out and fell in battle. Sons cut their teeth on the hearts of their loved ones. Not so daughters. Daughters grew to womanhood beside the women who bore them. Daughters brought home their babes to be comforted in arms too long without the feel of a downy-haired infant. Daughters were safe. Deirdre I would name her, after the first of Brian Boru’s wives.

  Rory met more often now with my father and all the O’Neills, with John O’Dogherty, Ever MacMahon and others I knew nothing about. It was during one of his absences that Niall Garv, Rory’s cousin, came once again to Dun Na Ghal.

  I did not care for Niall. Perhaps it was my own conscience that troubled me. When we were young we had promised to wed, a children’s promise made when both of us were innocent of the power of desire and the price of love.

  The children and I were outside the castle gates near the copse of trees leading to the river when he found us. The clouds, a mixture of white and dark, boiled above the turrets, but the sky was blue and clear of rain. My boys played by the water while I rested on a blanket nearby, holding a sleeping Kathleen in the curl of my arm. I was only one season gone with child, but already my pregnancy was very evident.

  “Da duit, Nuala.” Graceful as a cat, Niall leaped from the back of his stallion, tethered him to the ground and walked to the blanket where my daughter and I rested. His eyes, dark and piercing as shards of obsidian, missed nothing.

  I was unable to remedy my vulnerable position without disturbing Kathleen. Because I felt awkward, my cheeks burned and my voice was sharper than usual. “You are welcome here, Niall, but I fear your journey is without cause. Rory is away.”

  He stretched out beside me locking his arms behind his head, his eyes closed against the sun. “You underrate yourself, Cousin. ’Tis you I came to see.”

  There was movement beneath his eyelids. I dared not show my discomfort. “My husband will know how solicitous you are. I speak for him and thank you.”

  Niall’s mouth twisted bitterly. “Were he to know my thoughts, I doubt he would speak so. Keep his thanks to yourself, Nuala.”

  There could be no answer to such a statement, and I remained silent.

  “Tirconnaill looks well,” he remarked, “no thanks to Rory.”

  I pitched my voice low so as not to wake the child, but Niall could not mistake its ferocity. “I’ll not have you insult my husband in my presence.”

  He swore and flung back his hair impatiently. Fascinated, I watched it fall to his shoulders, shiny-straight, black and alive as a crow’s wing. If he had been anyone other than Niall, I would have reached out to touch it.

  “Holy God, Nuala.” His bitterness had grown worse with every passing year. “’Tis you who care for Tirconnaill. He comes home to rut and spill his seed, getting you with another child to bear alone, and then he leaves again. How can you do it year after year?”

  “What choice do I have?” The words came out before I could stop them. I knew immediately that he would not hear what I had intended.

  He sat up, resting easily on his haunches, and placed two fingers under my chin, forcing me to look at him. “You had a choice. I offered you all that was mine.”

  Only a woman devoid of all compassion could ignore the pain in his eyes. He was handsome enough, with the sharp, cold features common to those descended from centuries of Celtic inbreeding. Not so tall as Rory, his lean, broad-shouldered frame would catch the eye of many a young woman in search of a husband. Were it not for Rory, I would have looked with favor upon his suit.

  “You do me great honor, my friend,” I said gently, “but the time has come for you to put these feelings aside. My choice was Rory from the moment I first set eyes upon him. It was the same for him.” I pulled his hand from my chin and held it in mine for a brief moment. “Take yourself a wife, Niall, and get your heirs upon her. I promise you that happiness will come.”

  He shook off my hand and stood. Staring across the river, he watched my fiery-haired sons skimming stones across the current.

  “They should have been mine,” he muttered and strode to where his horse grazed. Unaided, he leaped to his back and pulled up the reins. “There is no one for me but you, Nuala,” he called out. “Someday soon I shall claim you whether or not you are widowed.”

  His threat, clear and loud, rang through the afternoon air and ruined the sweetness of my outing with the children. I waited for Niall and his horse to disappear over the rise before lifting Kathleen into my arms and calling the boys home.

  Despite my brave front, I could not forget the look of purpose in Niall’s eyes. Neither could I ignore what he had said about my husband’s frequent absences. Where was Rory when I needed him?

  When he did come home he brought unwelcome news.

  “By the fires of hell, Nuala. What ails you? It is customary for a noble to foster out his sons. Sean is too young, of course, but Brian is nearly of an age to consider it. Fostering strengthens the bonds of friendship and loyalty. Brian will be chieftain of Tirconnaill. This coddling will not help him. Why must you be so stubborn?”

  The thought of losing my child so early was like a knife blade in my chest. I refused to look at Rory as I reasoned with him. “I have no objection to fostering as long as the family and th
e time are right.”

  “Niall Garv is an O’Donnell, my cousin, and a fierce warrior. His half-brothers are close in age to Brian. What possible objection can you have to his family?”

  “There is no woman in the household.”

  “There are a hundred women.”

  I shook my head. “Only servants and children. There is no lady to oversee the castle. ’Tis a filthy hold. Many die during the fever season. I do not wish my son to be sent to such a place.”

  I still wouldn’t look at him. He moved to my side and lifted my chin. Rory knew me as well as I knew myself. Would he see that I hid the truth? I shook off his hand. “I am the countess of Tirconnaill. Until they are grown, all matters dealing with the children will be ruled by me. ’Tis the law and, willing or not, you must abide by it.”

  With a curse, he left the room. It was unlike Rory to make such a demand. I wondered if he was not hiding something as well.

  He found me in the kitchens instructing the maids in the making of perfume. The smell of roses wafted through the air. By the look on his face I saw that he had not given up his notion. Leaning against the door frame, he waited until I finished.

  “Is there something you wanted, my lord?” My words were conciliatory, but my mind was not. As much as I wished to avoid arguing, I knew this conversation could not be postponed.

  He cleared his throat nervously. “I would speak with you on a matter of some importance.”

  My eyes met his from across the room. “Can it wait until evening?”

  “Not this time.”

  I wiped my hands on a towel and followed him from the kitchen. He waited for me at the castle gates. There, he linked his arm through mine and led me down the path by the river. “It seems I am at an impasse, Nuala,” he said. “I need your help.”