He sobbed as he turned and smiled at her. ‘But what Sir Jolly Jack doesn’t realise, or doesn’t care, is that young Red Hugh is the brother to one of the wives I have when I’m wearing my O’Neill hat. He is my brother-in-law, my vassal from time immemorial. He is a foolhardy, hot-headed young pain in the arse, but he happens to trust me.’
He closed his eyes. ‘So there he is, in Dublin prison along with his friends, Conn O’Hagan and Art O’Neill.’ He opened them. ‘And your grandmother.’
No grandmother of mine, no grandmother. Nothing to do with me. I don’t want to be involved with you or your aliens. Let me go away.
‘But I’m dealing with that,’ said O’Neill, brisk again. ‘What I am trying to demonstrate is how difficult Elizabeth makes it to be her loyal subject and a Gaelic chieftain. One day I may have to choose, and I may choose wrong. And if I choose wrong my people are not going to be reduced to eating shit and shamrocks. We’ll go out like true Celts, blowing the Saxon to hell along with us.’ He smoothed her hair back from her face. ‘And that’s why I need guns.’
‘Please,’ said Barbary, desperately, ‘I’m not your man… woman. Admitted I was found in Ireland, but there were orphans swimming around the place like minnows. I could be anybody. I don’t feel Irish. I don’t want to feel Irish. Ulster-Munster hocus-pocus, it’s not my business. I’m a cony-catcher. That’s what I’m good at. Stop telling me things. How do you know I won’t go to Sir John and tell him?’
‘Ah, Connaught, Connaught,’ sighed the O’Neill. ‘I am Ulster. I have known you for two thousand years. I have married you, fought you, killed you, we have danced together to the tune of one blood. I am your Ard Rí, your High King. You won’t betray me.’
‘No,’ said Barbary, ‘I won’t. And I won’t get you guns either.’
‘Oh yes, you will.’ He smiled down at her. ‘You stay in Ireland long enough and they’ll force you to choose. And you’ll choose wrong. And that’s when I get my guns.’
He told a servant to take Spenser back to the Castle stables and sent her home in a satin-quilted sedan chair. He didn’t say goodbye, he just said: ‘And for the love of God, will you find something decent to wear.’
* * *
It was still only afternoon, though it seemed a century later, when she got back to the house on Wood Quay and crutched herself up the stairs to her attic, leaving Cuckold Dick to explain to a Maccabee already impressed by the sedan chair that the State business had been so tiring that Barbary must be left alone until morning.
The exhaustion was mental, as if her mind had been abused. Why, though? He’d been serious enough, the poor mad sod, but she hadn’t; she’d no more than flirted, a sort of investigation really, a look at his cards. Then why this response? It wasn’t his atrocity stories of Irish people; they weren’t her people.
‘He treats you like you were important, that’s all.’
So did Lord Burghley.
‘Yes, but Burghley wanted something of me.’
O’Neill wants guns.
‘Yes, but O’Neill asks as if he’s calling on some ancient debt, deep commanding deep.’
Krap on him.
She went to sleep and dreamed her face had turned green.
In the morning she stayed in the attic, telling Maccabee she had to discuss yesterday’s State business with Cuckold Dick. It was an excuse of endless usage. The attic was grey and very cold, a reflection of the weather outside, much of which seemed to be blowing through the ill-fitting window. There was less activity down on the quay as the threat of a bad winter kept more and more ships away. But it was still preferable to Maccabee’s parlour.
‘What did you think of him yesterday, Dick?’
He sat on the end of her bed, brushing dandruff off his doublet as he considered. ‘What I think, Barb, is he’s going to spring that O’Donald, or whatever his name is, and all the rest in Dublin Castle. And I think, Barb, if we’re going after that treasure, it better be now.’
She gaped at him. He’d cut through all the atavism, the attraction, the atrocity, and reached the nub. He’d listened for only what concerned the matter in hand. And he was right. ‘But I’m dealing with that,’ O’Neill had said; his pride or his honour or whatever the Irish nobility called it wouldn’t allow his friend O’Donnell to stay in gaol. He’d get him out and, probably, the others with him. Including Grace O’Malley.
‘Dick,’ she said, ‘have I ever told you you’re not the fool you look?’
They spent the rest of the morning working out ploys, happy to be back on sure ground and using their skills again. Counterfeit crank, the whipjack, the palliard, ruffling, esen-dropping, every traditional way of couzening the location of her treasure out of Grace O’Malley was considered, and discarded. They had one advantage unique in their experience: they had the authorities on their side, up to a point. After that point they had to couzen them as well.
‘As I see it, Barb, we spring her out of the queer-ken, and then cony it out of her.’
‘No, the cony first. Why spring her at all?’
‘Well, she’s your grandmother, Barb.’ He drew back because her face had become distorted. Love him as she did, she nearly spat at him.
‘You stupid bastard. I’ve told you, haven’t I? These people are nothing to do with me. They’re… they’re disgusting. They kill each other, they die and keep on dying. Like animals. They’re filth, losers. They’re a joke.’
‘All right, Barb, all right.’
‘It’s not all right. She’s no grandmother of mine, don’t you understand? She’s some stinking old Irish trug and I won’t have her. I won’t have her.’
‘All right, Barb. Don’t blow your stack. All right.’
She unclenched her fists. ‘All right. But that’s how it is.’
He sat hunched and unresentful until she’d stopped shaking. ‘So,’ he said, ‘what we got to do is, we got to cony the whereabouts out of her while she’s still in the clamps. And for that she’s got to think you’re her long-lost kinchin – I know you’re not, Barb, I’m just saying.’
She was discouraged. ‘Not likely, is it? Kinchin or not, these Irish betray their own mothers. There’s heads of rebels as thick as lollipops up at the Castle that got sold to the Lord Deputy by other Irishmen. She’d reckon I’d steal the treasure anyway.’
‘She might, Barb,’ said Dick gently, ‘if she thought she was going to hang and the secret go with her.’
‘She ain’t.’
‘She don’t know that. Remember how John Graye the Little got hisself put into the Clink so’s he could cony Swanders out of the whereabouts of the pearls he’d lifted from Lady Hoby’s ken? Told Swanders he was going to marry Swanders’ sister, and as how Swanders was going to hang wouldn’t he like to testament the pearls first? Remember?’
‘Swanders hanged anyway.’
‘Barb, concentrate.’
She pulled herself together and thought about it, then leaned over and patted his knee. ‘You’re getting on my nerves,’ she said, ‘being right all the time. Now then…’
The next day a large wicker hamper of clothes arrived ‘For Mistress Barbary’, brought by a porter who didn’t give his name nor that of the sender. There was no chance of opening it quietly; Maccabee was beside herself with manic accounts of the birthday surprises provided for her by the late Merchant Chylde.
‘I haven’t got a birthday,’ said Barbary.
‘You have now, Barb,’ said Dick. ‘Look at these duds.’
Even to Barbary, who wasn’t susceptible to female fashion, the items in the hamper were mouth-watering. The largest was a gown of orange-tawney velvet, its V-shaped stomacher so thickly embroidered in white, yellow and gold it was impossible to guess at the base material. There was a hat, silk knitted stockings, pumps, a pair of Spanish leather buskins lined with lamb’s wool, garters, girdles, muff, gloves, cloak, handkerchief, petticoats – and a gold chain with a locket. While the others were occupied with exclaiming and unpacking, Barb
ary opened the locket, shut it quickly and hung it round her neck.
Maccabee translated her envy into taking charge of Barbary’s attiring. Cuckold Dick was sent away, Barker made to hover in a corner, and Barbary endured what seemed hours while Maccabee showed off a knowledge of style which she had certainly never applied to her own clothes.
The stomacher was more restricting to the bosom than the wooden stays of Maccabee’s hand-out but, Barbary felt, even though she was not yet permitted to look in a mirror, more fun. ‘Bit low, though, isn’t it?’ she asked nervously. She was showing bits of her frontage that had never been on display before.
‘Then we’ll put in the partlet.’
‘What’s a partlet?’
‘Oh, my soul, don’t you know what a partlet is… And this is the ruff, we call it a rebato. Now this is a girdle, nice bit of metalwork, and it should have hangings; here they are, a pomander and a mirror. Now this is the latest version of the court bonnet. We call it a “pipkin”.’
Whatever it was called, it was the sauciest bit of head-gear Barbary had ever seen, a tiny, round piece of felt in popinjay green with an ostrich feather held on by a gold clip. Beneath it her hair was stuffed into a caul of gold thread.
‘Have you got a lover?’ asked Maccabee suspiciously. ‘Who could have sent these things? Let’s see what’s in the locket.’ She shut it in disappointment. ‘Empty.’
It was empty because the oval bit of card that fitted it was hidden up Barbary’s sleeve. There was no writing on the card, no portrait, just an inked drawing of the Red Hand of Ulster.
‘Well,’ said Maccabee reluctantly, ‘I suppose you’d better see yourself. Barker, fetch the mirror.’
She wasn’t given long in front of it. ‘Female vanity is abhorrent to the Lord,’ Maccabee said and snatched it away, but in those few seconds Barbary saw not standard beauty, but an audacity of colour and form that trapped the eye and kept it. The blazing creature in the mirror cocked her head with its rakish hat at Barbary. ‘’Swelp me,’ it said, ‘I’m it.’
‘That will do,’ said Maccabee. ‘Whoever sent them obviously meant them for wear at Sir John’s investiture. Take them off.’
‘I’m going to show Dick,’ said Barbary. Even on crutches the creature in the mirror moved differently, upright, swaying the stiff folds of velvet which hung from its hips and back, its neck held high to avoid the prickles of the ruff. The outfit wasn’t brand new, she could smell the perfume of whichever of O’Neill’s wives or mistresses had worn it before, and felt gratitude to her, allied as she was in a new sisterhood of stylish women.
Before she could reach Cuckold Dick’s door Maccabee called to her: ‘I believe I know who sent the gown, Cousin Barbary.’ There was a new, coquettish tone to her voice.
Barbary leaned over the stairwell. ‘Who?’
‘Wouldn’t you like to know?’ Maccabee was bridling with her idea and couldn’t keep it. ‘I’ve just thought. Sir Walter.’
‘Oh.’ Sir Walter Raleigh was visiting his estates in Ireland at the moment, and the Spensers were so enamoured of their patron that they were inclined to attribute every good, even fine weather, to his beneficence. Barbary was relieved that the real donor was unguessed at, but curious as to why Maccabee should think Sir Walter Raleigh would be showering gifts on a woman he’d hardly seemed to notice. ‘What the hell for?’
‘I’ve told you about that word, cousin. Because,’ Maccabee wriggled her shoulders, ‘because Edmund says you’re allied to an Irish noble house and might be marriageable property.’
‘Marriageable property?’ It was ludicrous. ‘He wouldn’t be allowed to marry me. The queen would kill him if he married anybody. Good thing she doesn’t know about Alice Goold and her baby down in Lismore.’
‘That’s just gossip,’ said Maccabee crossly, who had herself imparted it to Barbary. ‘Well, I think he’s interested and I think he sent the gown.’
Barbary let her go on thinking it, and swung through the door of Dick’s attic and propped herself against the wall, prinking the puffed tops of her sleeves: ‘How’s this to knock ’em off the perch?’ Then she stopped. ‘Oh Dick, don’t.’ Appallingly, he’d begun to cry. She hopped across the room and plumped on the bed to sit beside him and take his hand.
‘Never had no mother, Barb,’ he said, wiping his nose on his hand.
‘I know. I know.’
‘If I had’ve, I’d want her to look like you do now.’
She tried not to laugh. Or cry. She sat with him until he’d got over it, her arm round his shoulders, dandruff falling on her orange-tawney velvet.
That night in her dream she was all green; green skin, green hair, green clothes, indistinguishable from the grass of the field in which she was pinioned. Somebody was ploughing the field and heavy hooves were plodding in her direction. She kept shouting to the ploughman that she was there. He saw her, but shouted back, ‘Marriageable property,’ and set the team forward over her.
* * *
Sir John Perrot’s investiture as Lord Deputy of Ireland took place in St Patrick’s Cathedral amid scenes of grandeur and farce. The ceremony had been delayed because Treasurer Wallop had taken its most important symbol, the Sword of State, home with him and it took time to fetch it back. Archbishop Loftus, not a military man, got the pieces of ritual armour mixed up as he placed them on the Lord Deputy, and was accordingly sworn at. The Master of the Rolls had trouble deciphering the queen’s letters patent and umm-ed and ah-ed all through his reading of them.
The lords and ladies, burghers and burghers’ wives of Dublin didn’t mind; they had come to show off their best robes and hats and, except when commanded to be still in the name of the Lord, milled about chatting. The trumpets and choir and the cathedral itself were splendid.
Barbary sat on a stool just inside the Lady Chapel which now had a bust of Elizabeth in what had once been the Virgin Mary’s niche. As the lords of Ireland trooped through the nave to take their seats in the choir, she spotted O’Neill among them, pompously grave-faced as the rest. She caught his eye – in the orange-tawney she was catching a lot of eyes – and bowed her pipkinned head. He turned away as if he’d never seen her, but not before one eyelid had batted down.
The next day Barbary had a private interview with the new Lord Deputy and outlined as much of her plan as she was prepared to give him. He was blustery. ‘Stratagems and wiles, the Devil take us,’ he said. ‘I tell you, mistress, if that sister of mine had not commanded this enterprise I should have nothing to do with your feminine treachery.’
She wasn’t having that. ‘Feminine treachery my arse. I’m told Red Hugh O’Donnell was tricked aboard a ship and kidnapped on your orders, Sir John. What sort of wile was that?’
‘Political,’ he said and grinned at her. He was a big man in more ways than physical and could always be disarmed by a show of spirit. ‘Those Ulster tribes must learn the lesson that I am in command of this country. Not the O’Donnells, not Tyrone. Me. What say you? The spies are reporting odd stories about Tyrone. Questioning his loyalty. If I don’t keep Ulster to heel I’ll have my own administration ripping my throat out and the whole damned slaughter will begin all over again. Already Wallop is writing to Burghley that I’ve gone native because I won’t countenance more hangings. What would you have, eh?’
The treasure, thought Barbary, and the hell with the lot of you. She said: ‘When can this plaster come off? I can’t do much with this contraption on my leg.’
‘Third week of Advent.’
‘Very well. And we’re agreed on my stratagem, Sir John?’
‘Yes, you hussy, we are. And, mistress, see that it succeeds. Elizabeth has set her heart on that treasure, money-grubbing besom that she is. In that bonnet, yours is too pretty a head to lie in some executioner’s basket.’
‘I’m grateful for your encouragement, Sir John.’
* * *
The prospect of being a prison warder gave Cuckold Dick sleepless nights. ‘Are you sure I can d
o this, Barb?’
‘Dick, you’ve been in more queer-ken than I’ve had hot dinners. You know how the key-turners talk. You know how the bastards think. You can do it.’
‘All right, Barb, but you promise me. Promise me they’ll never hear about this back in the Bermudas.’
She missed him when he took up his post at the Castle. For one thing, his absence left her more open than ever to Maccabee’s verbal attrition. But it was necessary for him to be accepted as part of the Dublin prison scene before she appeared on it, and she couldn’t play her part until her leg was properly mended. Besides, she wanted Dick to keep an eye open for any attempt by O’Neill to engineer the prisoners’ escape. Her odd relationship with O’Neill was one she valued, but not enough to be deprived of treasure for it.
‘Where has Master Dick gone?’ Maccabee asked, who missed him too.
‘He didn’t tell me.’
Nobody was to know of the plan except Sir John Perrot. In Dublin secrets had the quality of eels and tended to wriggle away from those who held them. Philip Sidney had told her that what enraged Sir Henry when he was Lord Deputy was that the Irish frequently knew the contents of State despatches from England before he did. Trusting only Sir John Perrot with knowledge of the arrangement was a safeguard, but it was also a risk. Barbary woke up sweating at the thought that Sir John might drop dead while she was incarcerated, and she’d have to serve the sentence for a crime of which, for once, she was innocent.
The days crawled by. No confessing Christian, Barbary decided, had ever longed for the advent of his Lord as she did now. The weather got colder. There was ice on her washbasin when she woke up, shivering, in the mornings. Down on Wood Quay the dockers swore warm oaths as their fingers fumbled with frozen bolts and ropes.
Only one incident interrupted the dreary tenor of Spenser life. The servant Barker disappeared. She went out to buy hot pies from the stall on the bridge and never came back. Maccabee and Barbary went looking for her. Edmund instituted enquiries among the watch and issued a fly-sticker giving her description, but she was never found.
The Pirate Queen Page 21