NINE

SILKEN THOMAS

1533

THE YEARS that followed her marriage should have been happy for Cecily; and in a way they were. She loved her husband. She had two pretty little girls. Tidy’s business was thriving: he made some of the best gloves in Dublin; MacGowan and Dame Doyle recommended him to all their friends; he already had a boy apprentice in the workshop. He had also become a busy and rising member of his craft guild; on feast days, Cecily would watch him go off dressed in the guild’s bright livery, so pleased with himself that it was touching to see. And, of course, he had the freedom of the city.

“Your husband is making quite a name for himself,” Dame Doyle remarked to her with a smile when they met in the street one day. “You must feel very proud of him.”

Did she? She knew she should. Wasn’t he everything a good Dublin craftsman should be? Hardworking, reliable. When she saw him sitting in his chair in the evening, with a little girl on each knee, she felt a deep sense of joy and contentment; and she would go to him and kiss him, and he would smile happily up at her, and she would secretly pray for more children, and hope that she might also give him the son for whom—though he denied it—she knew he longed. Yes, her husband was a good man, and she loved him. She could go to her confessor with a clear conscience, secure in the knowledge that she was never cold towards her husband, never denied him her body, scarcely ever showed anger, and always made amends if she did. What could she possibly confess except that, from time to time—perhaps quite frequently—she wished he were different?

Yet the occasion for their first serious disagreement had nothing to do with their own lives at all. It had to do with events in faraway England.

To most people in Dublin, the last eight years had seemed like business as usual. The rivalry between the Butlers and the Fitzgeralds had continued. Building on King Henry’s suspicions of the Fitzgerald family’s foreign intrigues, the Butlers had persuaded him to give them the office of Lord Deputy for a while, but the great pincer of Fitzgerald power had soon squeezed them out again. Dublin itself had been quiet enough, but out in the hinterland, the Irish allies of the Fitzgeralds had been extorting protection money from the weaker chiefs and landowners—Black Rent, they called it—and on one occasion they had kidnapped one of the Butler commanders and held him for ransom for several months. Even in Dublin, these shenanigans were viewed with some wry amusement. “The cheek of those fellows,” people said. For in Ireland, there was always an element of sport in these skirmishes. Hadn’t brave young Celtic warriors been raiding their enemies since time immemorial?

But blunt King Henry in London and his order-loving officials never saw the joke. “I have told you before that if you will not govern yourselves, we’ll rule you from England,” he declared. And so, in 1528, an English official arrived to take over the ordering of the island. Nobody wanted him, of course; but he also came with one enormous handicap.

As far as King Henry was concerned, if he sent a royal servant to govern in his name, then that servant was invested with his kingly authority, and should be obeyed, no matter who you were. But that wasn’t how things were seen in Ireland at all. The genealogies of Irish chiefs, whether real or imagined, stretched back into the mists of Celtic time. Even the English magnates like the Butlers and Fitzgeralds had been aristocrats when they first came to the island more than three centuries ago. Irish society was and always had been aristocratic and hierarchical. Irish servants in traditional Irish houses might eat and sleep beside their masters, but the family of the chief was treated with reverence. The thing was mystical.

The new Lord Deputy was the king’s Master of Artillery. A bluff soldier, whose blood was fiery red but not blue. “I have come to bring English order,” he let the Irish know. “Has he indeed,” they responded. “Princes of Ireland bow the knee to this lowborn fellow?” they protested. “Never.” The Gunner, they contemptuously called him. And though he did his best, and though Kildare himself, on King Henry’s orders gave him a grudging support, it wasn’t long before they undermined him.

King Henry was furious. And had there not been other larger problems to deal with in his realm, he might have taken sterner measures. But as he had neither money nor energy to involve himself more deeply with Ireland just then, he impatiently gave the island back to Kildare. “Let him rule there for the time being,” he declared grumpily, “until we can think of something better.” To the Irish it seemed that, once again, they had proved that the English king could never impose himself upon them. For better or worse, Kildare was back. It was business as usual.

But in England, greater changes were now beginning.

When, around the time the Gunner came to Ireland, King Henry had let it be known that he wished to annul his longstanding marriage to his Spanish queen, Catherine of Aragon, there were riots in London, where the pious queen was popular. But few people in Ireland had been much concerned. In the territories outside the Pale, divorce had never been viewed as such a shocking business. Even in the stricter English Pale, most people knew that annulments were commonly granted to aristocrats and princes; and the king believed he had valid grounds for an annulment anyway. This was a matter between the English king and the Holy Father. Besides, everyone in Dublin was too busy trying to get rid of the Gunner to worry about Queen Catherine very much.

Why then should King Henry’s business have been the cause of a quarrel between Cecily and her husband? The truth was that she hardly knew herself. It had begun so innocently, too, with a chance remark from her one day that it hardly seemed right that the king should be putting away his loyal wife after all these years.

“Ah,” he had looked at her with a trace of condescension, “but you must consider his difficulty. He only has a daughter, and he needs a son.”

“So if I only give you daughters,” she demanded, “will you be putting me away?”

“Don’t be foolish, Cecily,” he said. “I am not a king.”

Why was it that his manner irritated her? Was it the trace of smugness in his voice? Since he had been making a name for himself in the guild, he had become a little bit self-important sometimes, in her view.

“His daughter could be queen. There have been reigning queens in their own right before now,” she pointed out correctly.

“You don’t understand the situation in England,” he replied, dismissively. There was no doubt of it now. He was talking to her as if she were a fool. She stared at him furiously. Who did he think he was? But then hadn’t there always been a trace of contempt in his attitude towards her, ever since that foolish incident with the saffron scarf, before they were even married? However, she had no wish to quarrel with her husband, and so she did not reply.

As time went by, the events in England became more shocking. Every kind of pressure was put on the poor queen to make her give up her position, but her Spanish pride and her piety made her declare, quite rightly, that she was King Henry’s loyal wife until the Holy Father told her otherwise. Meanwhile the king, it was said, was bewitched by a young lady called Anne Boleyn, and wanted to marry her as soon as possible. But though the Pope agreed to look into the matter, he still had not granted King Henry his annulment even though the king had begun to hint that he might go ahead anyway. Cecily had been shocked.

“How can the king even think of marrying his whore”—this was how many people referred to Boleyn, despite Anne’s well-known refusal to give her body to the king without a wedding ring—“until the Holy Father has issued his ruling?” she asked.

“You have not considered the Pope’s position,” Tidy replied, in a somewhat pompous tone. And he explained how the new King of Spain, who was Queen Catherine’s nephew, had also inherited the huge Hapsburg family dominions in other parts of Europe, together with the title of Holy Roman Emperor. Hapsburg family pride was too strong. The Emperor would never allow his aunt to be cast aside by the upstart Tudor king of little England. “The Pope dare not offend the Emperor, so he can’t give Henry his annulment,” Tidy explained. “Everyone knows that,” he added, unnecessarily.

But to Cecily, this wasn’t the point. King Henry was defying the Pope. And when King Henry declared that he was Supreme Head of the English Church instead of the Pope, and told the Holy Father that if he excommunicated him “I care not a fig,” her outrage and contempt for the king were complete. The English Chancellor, Sir Thomas More, resigned at once. “More at least is a true Catholic,” she declared. But what of the rest of Henry’s subjects? What of the English Catholics of Dublin and the Pale?

“It was you and your friends,” she pointed out to her husband, “who told me I was too Irish. Wasn’t it to defend the true Church that the English came to Ireland with a papal blessing in the first place? Yet it’s I who protest at this infamy, while I don’t hear a word from any of you.” And seeing that he had no answer to this she continued, “They say the Boleyn whore is a Lutheran heretic as well.”

“That doesn’t make it true,” Tidy snapped. But she knew he’d heard the stories, too. And when a rumour came to the port that the Emperor might invade the English kingdom and seek help in Ireland, she irritably remarked, “Let him come, I say.”

“Dear God don’t even think such things,” he cried in horror. “That would be treason. How can you say such wickedness?”

“Wickedness?” she retorted. “And is it wicked of poor Queen Catherine to refuse to deny her wedding vows and the Holy Father, and to make herself a heretic like King Henry’s whore?”

For it seemed to Cecily that she saw the matter very clearly. She imagined the poor queen’s pain. Didn’t Tidy think of that? She saw the cruelty of the English king. Did such things count for nothing? Not in the harsh world of politics. The unhappy queen in England was being put upon, just as, in her insignificant way, she had been put upon that day years ago when she’d been so stupidly arrested. It was all the same thing, the tyranny of men who would never be happy until they forced every woman to submit to their foolishness. She admired the queen for standing up for the truth and for her rights; and she admired, certainly, the few like Thomas More who had the courage of their convictions. But as for the rest of the men, whether in England or in Dublin, who thought they knew everything, she saw now that behind their pompous bluster, there lay only cowardice. And it was painful to think that her husband was no better than the rest of them. As the years of these stormy events in England went by, therefore, in her heart—though she never admitted it to her confessor and scarcely even to herself—she loved her husband less.

It was soon after this last conversation that Cecily began to want a new house.

Their lodgings lay outside the city walls in the Liberty of Saint Patrick and consisted of a workshop and two rooms. They had been happy enough there, but the rooms were not large and were overlooked by everyone else in the little courtyard; the children were growing, and so it was not unreasonable that Cecily should one day tell her husband, “We need more space.” During the last two years, Tidy had become aware of Cecily’s occasional irritation and dissatisfaction, but he had never quite known what to do about it; so he was only too glad of the chance to do something that would apparently make her happy. He started to look for something at once. But after a month, he had still not found anything that seemed satisfactory, and he was wondering what to do, when one day as he and Cecily were walking into the old walled city, she suddenly remarked, “I wish we could live in one of the towers.”

There were numerous towers nowadays in Dublin’s city wall; each century seemed to have added a few. There were gate towers at the five big entrances in the outer wall, not counting the various river gates along the waterfront. Besides these, there were numerous small towers at intervals between the gates, some of which were habitable. A number of these gates provided lodgings, mostly for city functionaries of some kind, but some were let to craftsmen.

“It would be nice to look out on something, instead of being overlooked,” she sighed.

“If you had one of those towers, do you think you would be happy?” he had asked.

“Yes,” she said, “I believe I should.”

“I shouldn’t think there’s much chance,” he said; but secretly he set to work to secure one if he could, applying to Doyle himself for help. It would be a wonderful way to surprise and delight her.

The months that followed had been particularly trying. Several times he heard that there might be a tower becoming available, but each time it proved to be a false report. He was so determined to surprise her that he never told her about his efforts, with the result that she would often badger him to find lodgings, and several times went out to look for something herself. In the meantime, events in England were going from bad to worse. Not only had King Henry made all the clergy submit to him, but he had appointed his own archbishop, who declared his marriage void and obligingly married him to Anne Boleyn who, whatever her earlier scruples, was now visibly pregnant. The final shocking event came in May of that year, when, with every pomp and ceremony, Anne was formally crowned queen. Cecily was beside herself with disgust.

“If I don’t find her a tower soon,” Tidy confessed to Alderman Doyle one day in June, “my life won’t be worth living.”

“As it happens,” the alderman replied, “I have news for you. There is a tenancy coming free and I can secure it for you. You could have it quite soon. On the Feast of Corpus Christi.”

If Margaret Walsh looked back over the last eight years, she could feel reasonably pleased with herself. The worst years had been the first, when Butler had been in charge. It had come as no surprise that Doyle should have become a member of the Irish Parliament at that time while her own husband had not; but it had hurt all the same. On the rare occasions when she encountered Joan Doyle, the Dublin woman would always greet her warmly, as if they were friends, but Margaret had perfected a technique of smiling enigmatically and as soon as she politely could, moving away.

But two years later, when the Gunner was made Lord Deputy and Kildare was allowed to return to the island on condition that he supported the artilleryman, Walsh’s hopes of a seat in the Parliament had revived. Whatever suspicions had been raised about Walsh at the time of his visit to Munster, the passage of a few years and the changes in administration had been enough to erase them. “I’ve been told that the Gunner has nothing against me,” he reported to Margaret, “and Kildare’s on my side. I think it’s time for another try.” The opportunity to help him came one day in spring.

“I need you,” Walsh announced, “to come to Dublin Castle and be nice to the Gunner.”

The entertainment took place the following week. Though the grey old castle was normally dark and rather shabby, Margaret could see that an effort had been made to smarten up the big courtyard, and the great hall, decked with hangings and lit by a thousand candles, looked quite festive. She had gone to endless trouble over her appearance. She had taken out her best gown, hardly worn for many a year, and made some cunning alterations, adding a panel of fresh silk brocade down the centre so that it looked like new. Thanks to the judicious use of dye, carefully applied by her eldest daughter, she entered the hall with hair that was restored to almost the same shade of red that it had been a decade ago. She had even put on scent, from a little phial of oriental perfume which she had guiltily bought some years before at Donnybrook Fair. And when her handsome, distinguished husband turned to her and said with admiration, “Margaret, you’re the most beautiful woman in the castle,” she actually blushed with pleasure.

“All you need to do is make a good impression on the Gunner,” he had explained. “Most of the nobles make it clear that they despise him, so he’s glad enough if anybody’s civil. You can even flirt with him, if you like,” he added with a grin.

As it happened, she had rather liked the Gunner. He was a short, sharp-eyed, bristling man; she could imagine him directing his cannon with great effect. For a moment, as they approached and saw that the group around him included the Doyles, she had felt her heart sink. Nor had it helped when Joan Doyle, seeing her, had smiled and declared, “It’s my friend with the wonderful red hair. It looks better than ever,” she had added, while Margaret smiled back and thought: if that’s your way of saying I dyed it, you won’t succeed in embarrassing me. But when she was presented to the little Lord Deputy, he made her a very handsome bow. And a few moments later, when a visiting English nobleman joined the group, he introduced the alderman’s wife as “Dame Doyle,” whereas Margaret, as the wife of a gentleman landowner, he introduced as “The lady Walsh”—a distinction which pleased her considerably.

She must have made a good impression anyway, for some time later, when she happened to be standing alone, she saw the Gunner coming briskly in her direction to engage her in conversation. The military man certainly made himself very pleasant. He asked her questions about her house and her family, and she took good care to stress her origins amongst the loyal English gentry of Fingal. This seemed to reassure him, and soon he was telling her very frankly of the difficulties of his position.

“We must have order,” he declared. “If only all Ireland were like Fingal. But look at the troubles we suffer from. It’s not only the Irish chiefs who raid and plunder. Look at the killing of poor Talbot, or the kidnap of one of our own commanders not a year ago.” As Margaret had applauded the first, and knew very well that the Fitzgeralds had been behind the second, she contented herself with murmuring tactfully that something must be done. “Money’s the problem, Lady Walsh,” he confessed. “The king gave me cannon and soldiers but no money. As for the Irish Parliament …”

Margaret knew how the Parliament, like all legislatures, hated paying taxes. Even when the former Butler deputy had got his own men like Doyle into Parliament, they had still kept him short of funds.

“I’m sure my husband understands your needs,” she said firmly. This seemed to please the little Englishman, and he soon turned to the political situation.

“You know,” he explained, “with this business of the king’s divorce, we truly fear that the Emperor might try to use Ireland as a place to foment trouble for His Majesty. The Earl of Desmond, for a start, can never be trusted not to intrigue with foreign powers.”

He was giving her a hard look. Had he heard about her husband’s trouble over Munster? Was this a warning?

“My husband always says,” she answered carefully, “that the Earl of Desmond seems to live in another world from the rest of us.” This seemed to satisfy him, because he nodded briskly.

“Your husband is a wise man. But privately, I can tell you, we are watching all the merchants, in case any of them are in contact with the Emperor.”

And now Margaret saw her chance.

“That must be difficult,” she said. “There are so many merchants in Dublin trading with Spain and other ports where the Emperor has agents. Look at Doyle, for instance. Yet you surely wouldn’t imagine that the Doyles would be involved in anything like that.”

“True,” he conceded; but she saw him look thoughtful, and she felt a little thrill of excitement at what she had done. For hadn’t she just put the idea into his mind in the same breath as she assured him that the Doyles were innocent? She had never done such a thing before and it seemed to her to be a masterpiece of diplomacy. She could play Joan Doyle at her own game. Soon after this, the Gunner moved on, but not without giving her hand a tiny squeeze.

Two months later, William Walsh had heard that he would have a seat in the next Parliament, and she felt justified in taking some of the credit. Though whether the Gunner ever investigated the Doyles during his remaining time in office, she never discovered.

Another success for the family had been her son Richard. It had been his father’s idea that he should go away to Oxford. At first she had opposed the plan—partly because she hated to part with him, but also because, charming though he was, he had never shown much interest in study. “He has a good brain, all the same,” his father had insisted, “and since he’ll have no inheritance to speak of, he’ll have to make his way in the world. He must get an education. And that means going to England.” For although there had been high hopes for the Fitzgeralds’ new college at Maynooth, it had never developed into anything approaching a university. It was still necessary to go overseas for that.

Walsh had prepared the boy himself, teaching him every day that he could spare and driving him on firmly. And Richard had applied himself manfully and made such progress that after a year his father had told Margaret, “He’s ready.” And hiding her tears behind a smile, Margaret had watched him sail away to England. He had not returned. From Oxford, he had proceeded to the Inns of Court in London, to train as a lawyer like his father. “If he can make his way in London, so much the better,” William told Margaret. “And if not, he’ll return with excellent prospects here.” Margaret hoped he would return. It was hard, never to see him.

But these successes brought one problem. As William rose to a higher position in society, he spent more time in Dublin, and it was sometimes necessary for Margaret to accompany him. He dressed more expensively; he bought Margaret new clothes—things that were necessary, but did not come cheap. Richard in England was also a greater drain upon the family resources than Margaret had expected. As a poor scholar at Oxford, he spent a lot; but once he went to the Inns of Court, his letters requesting money had become frequent. To Margaret, who sometimes worried that her husband was working too hard, it had seemed strange that he should need so much, but William would shake his head with wry amusement and tell her, “I remember how it was when I was there. Living with those young bloods …” When she had wondered if her favourite child couldn’t lead a quieter, less fashionable life, her husband would only say, “No, let him live as a gentleman. I wouldn’t wish it otherwise.” There were hints in his letters that he was popular with the ladies, and Margaret remembered how, even as a boy, he had so quickly charmed Joan Doyle. But such things involved expense. Shouldn’t he be paying for himself now, she asked? “It’ll be a while before he earns much,” William explained. “Meanwhile he must have decent lodgings and be seen in the world.”

How like her own dear father he sounded when he said that. She could almost hear her father declaring that her brother John should not go to England as a common foot soldier. Poor John, who never returned; poor father, with his desire to be a gentleman. And looking at her husband now, she understood that Richard in London was an extension of himself, and she felt a wave of affection for them both. “He could live as a gentleman and be a credit to you in Dublin, too,” she pointed out, “for less expense.”

So great was the flow of money out that, although Walsh was doing well, she knew that their income could not possibly be meeting their expenses. Once or twice she raised this with William, but he assured her that he had matters under control; and since he had always been a careful manager, she supposed it must be true. Yet it seemed to her that her husband was more preoccupied than usual. One hope for increasing their income would have been to acquire another Church estate on easy terms. Walsh was well placed to do this, and he had already let it be known that he was looking for something. But here a new difficulty had arisen. It came from no less a person than the Archbishop of Dublin.

Now that King Henry had made himself Supreme Head of the English Church, his eye had soon fallen on its huge, underused wealth. The Church needed reform, he declared, by which he did not mean a move towards Protestant doctrines—for King Henry still considered himself a better Catholic than the Pope—but that it should be better organised and yield more revenues. The rumour was that the royal servants were also casting hungry eyes at some of the rich old monasteries whose huge revenues were used to support only a handful of monks. So it was not surprising if Archbishop Alen, an English royal servant who also held the post of Chancellor, and who was naturally eager to please his royal master, should have announced, “No more of these easy leases. Whoever they are, Irish tenants must start paying the Church the proper rents for their land.”

“Of course,” Walsh conceded to his wife, “he has a point. But it’s the way things have always been done in Ireland. This won’t be liked by the gentry.” He made a face. “I can’t say I like it much myself.”

“Will we manage?” she asked a little anxiously. But though he assured her that they would, she could see, by the spring of 1533, that William was worried.

It was sometime around midsummer that she detected an alteration in her husband’s mood. He appeared to walk more lightly. The worry lines on his face were not so deep. Had he word of a Church estate, she asked? No, he told her, but his business affairs were looking better. Yet it seemed to Margaret that there was a new happiness, almost an excitement in his manner. He had been a distinguished, grey-haired man for many a year now, but in some strange way, as she remarked, “You look younger.” Nearly three weeks after midsummer, they received a long letter from Richard describing the entertainments at the house of a gentleman in the country, where he had evidently been staying, promising to come to see them in Dublin soon, and asking for a substantial sum of money. It frightened her, but William seemed to view it with perfect equanimity—so much so that she honestly wondered if his mind might be elsewhere. And then a week after the letter, MacGowan came to call.

Margaret liked MacGowan. His position in the merchant society of Dublin was special. Most of the Dublin merchants bought and sold their goods within the Dublin markets; yet they also needed to buy commodities like timber, grain, and cattle from the huge hinterland beyond the Pale. There were a number of merchants, therefore, who traded freely across these borderlands, acting as go-betweens for the English and Irish communities. They were known as grey merchants, and MacGowan was one of the most successful. His specialty was in purchasing timber from the O’Byrnes and O’Tooles in the Wicklow Mountains, but he carried out all kinds of business, and frequently carried out commissions for Doyle. As a result of his travels, MacGowan not only made an excellent living but he was also a mine of information about what was going on in the country. William, who happened to be at home on the day he called, was also delighted to see him.

He arrived in the middle of the day. He had just spent the night, he said, at the house of Sean O’Byrne of Rathconan, farther to the south. Margaret had heard of Sean O’Byrne as a man for the ladies, but did not know him. She tried to persuade MacGowan to stay with them, too, but after taking some light refreshment he said that he must be on his way to Dublin, and William had gone outside with him to see him off. It was completely by chance that she should have gone up into the big bedchamber and happened to hear the two men talking below the casement.

“Your business with Doyle goes well?” she heard William enquire.

“It does. And yours—your private business, I mean, with his wife?” This was said in a low tone. “She thinks you very handsome, you know. She told me herself,” the traveller added with a chuckle.

William’s private business with Joan Doyle? What could that possibly be?

“You know everybody’s secrets,” Walsh murmured. “That makes you a dangerous man.”

“If I know secrets,” MacGowan answered, “I assure you it’s because I am very discreet. But you did not answer my question about the lady.”

“All is well, I think.”

“Does Doyle know?”

“He doesn’t.”

“And your wife?”

“No. God forbid.”

“Well your secret is safe with me. And have you brought matters to a conclusion?”

“On Corpus Christi day it shall be consummated. She has promised me.”

“Farewell.”

She heard the sound of MacGowan moving off.

She stood there, transfixed. Her husband and the Doyle woman. They might both be quite long in years, but she knew her husband was physically capable of consummating an affair. Entirely so. But that he would ever do such a thing to her: that was what stunned her. For a moment or two she could hardly believe what she had heard. They seemed like voices from another world.

Then she remembered: the Doyle woman thought him handsome. So he was. But what had he said about her, all those years ago when they had met at Maynooth? That he thought she was pretty. They were attracted. It made sense. The voices had not come from another world. They had come from her own. And her own world, it seemed, had just collapsed in ruins.

Corpus Christi. That was in two days. What was she going to do?

When Eva O’Byrne considered the last eight years, one thing was clear to her. She had done the right thing when she had called in the friar. For the years that followed had been some of the best in her life.

If Sean O’Byrne had other women, he kept them out of sight. When he was at home, he was an attentive husband. A year after the Brennans left, she had another baby girl, who kept her busily occupied. The baby seemed to delight Sean as well; watching him play with her on the grass in front of the old tower, she experienced moments of pure joy. Meanwhile Seamus had made a great success of the Brennans’ place. He’d practically rebuilt it with his own hands; and two years ago he’d found a wife as well—not a great catch, perhaps, the daughter of one of the lesser O’Tooles, but a sensible girl whom Eva liked.

As for Fintan, the boy became her special companion. It was almost funny, she knew, to see her with her youngest son; for it was clear by now to everyone that he both looked and thought like her. They would go for walks together, and she would teach him all the plants and flowers that she knew; as for the cattle and livestock, he was a born farmer. He often reminded her of her own father. And he gave her affection, constantly. Every winter he would make something for her—a wooden comb, a butter press—and these little gifts became like treasures, bringing a smile to her face when she used them every day. She and the boy were so close that she had almost feared that her husband might become jealous. But Sean O’Byrne seemed more amused than anything and glad that the boy should bring her such happiness. As for his own relationship with Fintan, it was very simple. “Thank you,” he would say, “for giving me a son who’s such a good cattleman.”

And he, in his turn, had brought his wife one other wonderful gift in return. Their baby girl was two years old when Sean arrived back from a journey into Munster one day and casually asked her, “How would you like an addition to our family?” And she was wondering what he meant when he explained: “A foster son. A boy of Fintan’s age.”

Though the practice of fostering went back into the depths of Celtic history, it was still very much alive amongst the noble families, English or Irish, on the island. When the son of one family went to live with another, it formed a bond of loyalty between them almost like a marriage. To send one’s child into the house of a great chief was to give him a step up in the world; and for an important family to confide their son to your keeping was a huge compliment. Assuming that her husband was doing a favour to some poorer family, Eva did not look overjoyed; but seeing this Sean only grinned.

“It’s one of the Fitzgeralds,” he calmly informed her. “A kinsman of Desmond.”

A Fitzgerald, related to the mighty Earl of Desmond. Quite a distant kinsman, from a modest branch of the southern Fitzgeralds. But still a Fitzgerald.

“How did you manage that?” she asked in frank admiration.

“It must be my charm.” He smiled. “He’s a nice boy. You’ve no objection?”

“It would be a fine thing for Fintan to have such a friend,” she answered. “Let him come as soon as he likes.”

He came the following month. His name was Maurice. He was the same age as Fintan, but dark where Fintan was fair, slimmer, a little taller, with finely drawn Celtic features that served to remind you that the Fitzgeralds were as much Irish princes as English nobles, and beautiful eyes, that she found strangely compelling. He was very polite, and declared that her house was exactly like that of his parents—“Except,” he added, “that ours is beside a river.” Though slim, he was athletic, knew his cattle, and seemed to slip easily into Fintan’s life as an unassuming friend. But you could tell, she observed, that he came from an aristocratic household. His manners, though very quiet, were courtly. He always referred to her as “the lady O’Byrne”; he obeyed her husband with instant respect, and said “please” and “thank you” more than they were used to. He could also read and write considerably better than Fintan, and played the harp. But beyond all this, there was a fineness about him that she couldn’t quite describe, but which marked him out, and privately she confessed to her husband, “I hope that Fintan will learn from him.”

Certainly the two boys became good friends. After a year, they seemed as close as brothers, and Eva came to think of Maurice as an extra son. Sean was a good foster father. Not only did he ensure that the boy came to know all that there was to know about the farming and the local affairs of the Wicklow Mountains and the Liffey Plain, but he would send him out with MacGowan sometimes, to visit the farms and houses of people like the Walshes, or to go down to Dalkey or even to Dublin itself with the grey merchant.

Eva had supposed that perhaps the boy would wish to meet his Kildare kinsmen also on these occasions. But Sean had explained to her that with the suspicions attaching to the Earl of Desmond recently, this might not be wise. “His parents will make those arrangements when they see fit,” he said. “It’s hot for us to introduce him to his relations.” And Maurice seemed perfectly content with his quiet life in the O’Byrnes’ household.

Yet, in some strange way, he was also a being apart. It was not only his love of music—for sometimes, when he played his harp, he seemed to drift away into a sort of dream. It was not only his aptitude for the things of the intellect—for Father Donal, who taught the two boys, would sometimes wistfully remark, “It’s a pity he is not destined to become a priest.” It was his melancholy moods. They were rare, but when they fell upon him, he would wander up into the hills alone and be gone for perhaps a day, not striding vigorously over the mountains like Sean, but walking alone as if in a trance. Even Fintan knew better than to offer to accompany him at such times, but left him alone until the mood had passed. And when it had he would emerge, it seemed, refreshed. “You’re a strange fellow,” Fintan would say affectionately. And it surprised no one that, when the friar had passed once or twice on his way to visit the hermit at Glendalough, he had sat for hours with the boy and upon departing given him his blessing.

Yet none of this seemed to affect the Fitzgerald boy’s friendship with Fintan. They worked together, went hunting, and played practical jokes exactly as other healthy boys of their age would do; and once, when she had asked Fintan who his greatest friend was, he had looked at her in astonishment and said, “Why Maurice, of course.”

As for Maurice’s relationship with her, it was like that of a son to a mother except that, with the faint reserve of a priest, he always held himself just a little distant from her—a fact which after a year or two had almost grieved her until she had realised that he was doing so to ensure that he did not encroach upon her relationship with Fintan; and she admired his fineness.

Though no one could say quite when or why, the atmosphere in the house of O’Byrne of Rathconan subtly changed with the coming of Maurice Fitzgerald. Even Sean seemed gradually to become more thoughtful towards her. And what better proof could there be than the fact that, as the day of her birthday approached in the summer of 1533, he invited all the neighbours to a feast at the house. There was a fiddler, and dancing, and a travelling bard recited tales of Cuchulainn, and Finn mac Cumaill, and other heroes of legend in the old way, while Sean and Fintan sat beside her; and Maurice also played his harp for all the company. And then Sean made her a present of a pair of Henry Tidy’s finest embroidered gloves together with a length of silk brocade, which pleased her no less because she guessed that they had been chosen by Maurice on one of his journeys to Dublin with MacGowan.

So they feasted and sang and danced late into that night, which was the eve of Corpus Christi.

There were several great days of pageant in the Dublin calendar. Some years there was the Riding of the Franchises; there were always parades upon Saint Patrick’s Day and Saint George’s, the patron saints of Ireland and of England. But the greatest pageant of all came in July, four Fridays after midsummer, at the Feast of Corpus Christi.

Corpus Christi, the Body of Christ, the celebration of the miracle of the Mass. What better day for the city’s corporate bodies, religious fraternities, and the guilds to celebrate themselves. For if the mayor, aldermen, and freemen of the city were the rulers of Dublin, nearly all of them were members of one or another of these. There were the great religious fraternities, like the mighty Holy Trinity to which Doyle belonged, which had its chapel in the Christ Church and concerned itself with charity and good works; and there were the numerous guilds—merchants, tailors, goldsmiths, butchers, weavers, glovers, and many more—which regulated their own trades and most of which had modest chapels in the lesser city churches. And on Corpus Christi day, they had their great pageant.

It had followed a set pattern for generations. Each guild had its carnival float, with painted scenery like a little stage. Eight feet wide, so that they could just pass through the Dame’s Gate, drawn by six or eight horses, they were proudly maintained to make a splendid show. Each one depicted a famous scene from the Bible or from popular legend. The order of procession was laid down in the Chain Book of city regulations kept in the Tholsel. First came the glovers, depicting Adam and Eve; then the shoemakers; then the mariners, who represented Noah and his Ark; then the weavers, followed by the smiths—nearly twenty pageants in all, including a splendid tableau of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table performed by the city auditors. Finally, making its way like a two-man pantomime horse, and nodding in a stately manner to the crowd, came the great dragon of Saint George, the emblem of Dublin corporation.

Congregating in the early morning on open ground near Ailred the Palmer’s old hospital outside the western gate, the procession would make its way through the gate, up the High Street to the High Cross by the Tholsel, past Christ Church and the castle, and then down through the Dame’s Gate, finishing by the archery practice grounds on the edge of Hoggen Green, where some of the guilds would perform short plays from their floats.

Tidy was excited. This year he had been selected by his fellow glovers to play the part of Adam. During the procession he would be standing on the float in a white hose and vest, wearing a huge fig leaf of vaguely indecent design; but afterwards he had a spoken part to learn, and for weeks Cecily had listened to him solemnly rehearsing such lines as, “Oh foolish woman, what have you done?”

The sun was already bright when Tidy set off, looking pleased but determined. An hour later, Cecily left the children with a neighbour and went into the city to watch him.

It seemed to Margaret as if the entire region had converged upon Dublin that day. So thick were the crowds that she was obliged to leave her horse at a tavern near Saint Patrick’s, for an outrageous charge, and to join the throng making its way on foot through the southern gate. This had the advantage of making her inconspicuous, but she wondered if she would ever catch sight of her husband.

Walsh had left at dawn. She had waited an hour, then telling the groom that she’d be back that evening, she had ridden after him without a word of explanation. She had wondered if she might catch sight of him ahead, but he had been too quick for her and she had failed to do so. As for how she would explain her absence from home on her return, that would depend upon what happened today.

She had wondered whether to confront him with his affair with the Doyle woman, but decided against it. She had no proof. If he denied it, where would that leave her? In a state of perpetual uncertainty. Some women, she knew, would have ignored it, and no doubt that made life easier. But she didn’t think she could. Nor did she have any other woman she could confide in: faced with this unexpected crisis in her life, she found herself alone. So she had decided to follow him into Dublin. She knew it was foolish. She knew she might not catch sight of him. And if she did, if she saw him with the Doyle woman, what was she going to do? She didn’t know that either.

How cheerful everyone was. The colourful crowd flowed through the gateway laughing and chattering while Margaret, her hair pushed under a black velvet hat, her face looking solemn and gaunt, was carried along in its flow like a stick in a stream. Up Saint Nicholas Street they went, past Shoemaker Lane, and thence to the big intersection with the High Street where the tall gables of the old Tholsel could be seen. The crowd at the crossing was too thick to get through but fortunately the stewards let a group, including Margaret, surge across the street into the precincts of Christ Church where there was more room for the crowd to stand. Moments later the street was cleared again. The procession was coming.

A party of horsemen, sergeants of the city, and other officials led the way. Then came a band with pipes and drums. And, lumbering slowly behind, came the first of the floats.

The glovers certainly got the carnival off to a good start. In the middle of the float stood a tree made of board painted with green leaves and golden apples. Adam and Eve, both men, were wearing the appropriate fig leaves; Eve sported a pair of huge breasts, held a golden apple the size of a pumpkin, and made lascivious movements to the cheers of the crowd, while Adam looked solemn and cried out from time to time, “Oh foolish woman, what have you done?” The serpent—a tall, thin man—wore an ingenious headpiece which, with the aid of a string, he caused to writhe from side to side or dart its head in a frightening manner towards the crowd.

Margaret watched it pass with a grim smile. She started to inch her way eastwards through the crowd. Another float rumbled by: Cain and Abel. Soon after this she reached the place she wanted, and finding a spot on a low wall where some children were standing, she was able to enjoy a good view, over the heads of the spectators, of the doorways of the houses on the other side.

The section of the High Street opposite the cathedral was known as Skinners Row. The big gabled houses there were the Dublin residences of some of the nobility and gentry, including the Butlers. Others belonged to the greatest merchants. Alderman Doyle had moved there from Winetavern Street on his marriage. Their timber-framed upper floors overhanging the street provided perfect galleries for viewing the pageant and all the windows were crowded. The place Margaret had chosen was opposite Doyle’s house.

It was certainly impressive; four storeys high, built of stone at street level, timber and plaster above, with two gables and a slate roof—it was a permanent pageant of the alderman’s wealth. Margaret stared up at its windows, full of faces: servants, children, friends at every one. At the biggest she could see Doyle and his wife. Was her husband in there, too? She couldn’t see him.

The floats went by: Noah and his Ark, the Pharaoh of Egypt and his army, several Nativity stories; Pontius Pilate accompanied by his wife. Just after this, Doyle’s face disappeared from the window, and as King Arthur and his Knights came by, she saw the alderman, in his scarlet robes of office, emerge from the street door and walk towards the Tholsel. She continued to watch until the splendid green-and-red dragon of Saint George, which also had silver wings, brought up the rear of the pageant, together with another band of pipes and drums.

As the end of the procession passed, many of the crowd were falling in behind. Realising that she might become conspicuous, Margaret retreated a little to a small tree in the precincts from which she could still watch the Doyle house. The faces had already left the windows and people were starting to come out of the street door, presumably to follow the pageant to Hoggen Green and see the plays. It looked as if the entire household might be leaving, servants and all, but though she watched carefully, she didn’t see Doyle’s wife. By the time the door closed, the big house appeared to be empty. She waited while the people following the procession reduced to a trickle. Had Joan Doyle left after all? Had she missed her? She wondered what to do.

And then, walking jauntily along the street, she saw her husband. He paused in front of Doyle’s door, glanced about, and seemed about to knock on it when the door opened and there, smiling in the entrance, stood Joan Doyle. He stepped in and the door closed behind him.

Margaret stared. Her heart missed a beat. It was true then: her husband and the Doyle woman. She felt an icy coldness strike her in the chest. She was suddenly breathless.

What should she do now? Were they really alone? Surely there would be a servant, at least, in the house. Unless the Doyle woman had deliberately sent them all away. That might be it: the Corpus Christi pageant was the perfect excuse. They would go to watch the plays while her husband slipped into the empty house. She looked along the street in the direction in which the procession had gone. The ebbing tide of people was just drawing away from the pillory which stood alone at the end of Skinners Row. She heard the distant blast of someone blowing a trumpet down by the Dame’s Gate, a haunting warning like a tocsin sound.

She must go in and confront them. It was now or never. But what excuse could she use? That she happened to have raced into Dublin that day? That she had just caught sight of him entering the house? What if his visit had some other purpose, purely innocent?

It would be, to say the least, embarrassing. And as she tried to formulate what she should say, she realised the uselessness of it. For if they were in fact making love, the door would certainly be bolted so that they wouldn’t risk being caught in the act. If she hammered on the door, William would either vanish through a back window or, more likely, be found there fully dressed with a plausible excuse. She’d be left looking a fool and perhaps none the wiser. She wondered whether to go across to the house and try to peer in through the windows.

She decided to wait a little and see what happened. Time passed. But she was so distressed that, after a while, she realised that she had no idea how long she had been watching. A quarter of an hour? Half an hour? It seemed like an eternity. She was just trying to work out how long it might have been when the door opened and William came out. He turned and walked swiftly towards the pillory as the door closed behind him. Margaret stayed where she was. More time passed. The door did not open again.

The pageant floats had come to rest near the edge of Hoggen Green where there was a small chapel dedicated to Saint George. While their horses grazed on the green, a group of five floats had been arranged in a large semicircle on the grass; and these were to give a succession of short plays, starting with the glovers’ Adam and Eve.

Cecily smiled. It was a charming scene, in sight of the old Thingmount. A few booths had been set up selling ale and other refreshments. The sky was clear blue, the sun hot. There was a smell of horse and human sweat and barley ale that was not unpleasant.

Though it was brief, the glovers’ play was well performed. Tidy’s cry, “Oh foolish woman, what have you done?” was taken up by the crowd who, all together, had bellowed it back with great good humour. Adam, Eve, and the Serpent were duly banished from Paradise to general applause. Shortly it would be the turn of the next group to perform Cain and Abel.

Cecily’s attention had already been drawn to the group of young men standing nearby during the glovers’ play. It was obvious from their bright silk shirts and tunics that these were rich young aristocrats, and some of them sounded like visitors from London. They had also clearly been drinking; but they seemed harmless. And it didn’t shock her that, seeing her watching them, they began to banter with her.

What was a pretty woman like herself doing alone? Where was her husband? On the stage, she told them. Who was he? Adam. This was greeted uproariously. Then she must be Eve. Was she a temptress? Which one of them would she tempt? All this she could take in good part. But as the next play began, and they started to make lewder remarks, she decided she had to put them in their place.

“Attend to the play, Sirs,” she cried, “not to me. Remember,” she added, “that this is still the Feast of Corpus Christi.”

Yet if she supposed that this reproof would quieten them, it had quite the opposite effect. They started making vulgar puns, asking her if she would be “corporal” on Corpus Christi day, until finally she had had enough.

“Do not mock the miracle of the Mass,” she called out sharply, expecting this to silence them once and for all. So she was utterly astonished when one of the young bloods, who was clearly English, made a disparaging remark about the Mass. It wasn’t said very loudly, but it was audible; and even more amazing, some of his companions laughed.

She even forgot the play. She stared at them in disgust. Who did these English fops think they were? And why were their Irish companions letting them get away with it? They might be the sons of great lords—she didn’t know and she didn’t care—but they shouldn’t be allowed to come and utter profanities in Dublin. She stepped towards them.

“You may be Protestants and heretics in London,” she called out firmly, “but you need not bring your blasphemy to Dublin.” Some of them, she thought, looked awkward, but not all.

“Oh, Tom,” called the impudent one, “you have some fiery women in Ireland.” She could hear that he was a little drunk, but that was no excuse. And when he made her a mocking and insolent bow, that only infuriated her more. Why should the foreign fop think he could be condescending to her just because this was Ireland and she was only a woman? “Are we heretics, then, in England, Madam?” he taunted her.

“Since your new queen,” she emphasised the last word with contempt, “is a heretic, you may all be so,” she snapped.

“A hit, Tom, a hit,” the young lordling cried. He clasped his hand to his heart. “I am hit.” He staggered to one side as though wounded. The people around, instead of watching the play, were turning to look at him. But now, switching abruptly from this comedy, he gave her a dangerous stare. “Have a care, Madam, before you accuse the queen of heresy. The king is Supreme Head of our Church.”

“Not of my Church, Sir,” she answered bitterly. “The Holy Father is Head of my Church, thank God,” she added with fervour.

Technically, this was still true. As the matter of King Henry’s supremacy had not been brought before the Irish Parliament, it was not yet the law in Ireland, and Cecily could correctly say that she answered to the Pope. She stared at him angrily. Was there something effeminate about this fashionable young man with his sudden changes of mood? Her look became contemptuous. He saw it.

“Why, Madam,” he called out so that all around should hear, “I believe you do speak treason.” He almost sang the last word. It hung, horribly, in the air. Even Cain and Abel on their stage paused for a moment to glance towards her nervously. But Cecily was by now so angry that she did not notice.

“I would rather be guilty of treason than deny the true faith and the Holy Father,” she cried out. “As for you,” she shouted, “you’ll rot in Hell beside King Henry!”

The play stopped. Everyone turned to look at her, the woman who had just condemned the king to Hell. Outraged though she was, Cecily knew that she had gone too far. This was dangerous territory, the borderland of treason. But even worse than the stares of the crowd was the look on the face of the man who was now striding towards her.

Tidy’s face was as pale as his costume. But his eyes were blazing. He had MacGowan at his side. He came bursting through the crowd. He was still dressed as Adam with the preposterous fig leaf bumping round his midriff. He seized her by the arm.

“Are you mad?” he hissed.

For the young aristocrats, it was all too much. For them, at least, the dangerous tension of the moment was broken.

“Adam!” they called out. “Oh Adam! Look to your wife!” And then, catching the idea from each other, all together, “Oh foolish woman, what have you done?”

Tidy did not say anything. Taking his wife by one arm while MacGowan took the other, he led her away, while the youths called out, in mock solemnity, “Treason. Off with her head. Treason.” He didn’t pause until they had reached the city gate.

So this was the special day. He had planned it all so carefully. After the plays were over, he’d been going to lead her into the city and, on a pretext, take her to the western gate tower where Alderman Doyle was to meet them and deliver them the keys to their new abode. And then he was going to watch her face as she looked round her spacious and airy new lodgings. How joyful she would be. What a perfect surprise. A perfect day. All planned.

“You cursed the king, Cecily,” he said miserably. “People will say we are traitors. Don’t you see what you’ve done?”

“He denied the Mass,” she said bitterly.

“Oh Cecily.” His eyes were full of reproach.

“You know who they were?” MacGowan spoke now, in a quiet voice. “They were English friends of young Lord Thomas. He was with them.” He paused, and seeing Cecily had not yet understood, “Lord Thomas Fitzgerald, the heir of the Earl of Kildare.”

“Kildare’s son?” Tidy cried in dismay.

“Then they shouldn’t have spoken as they did,” said Cecily defensively.

“That may be so,” MacGowan allowed. “But they are young bloods who’d been drinking. It was all in jest.”

Tidy shook his head.

“Now Kildare and the royal councillors will hear that my wife has cursed the king,” he said miserably. And though he said nothing more, at that moment he was frankly thinking: I wish I had married someone else.

It was with a heavy heart, and without any smile of pleasure, that late in the afternoon, he took Cecily to the tower apartment and, showing her the splendid accommodation asked her, “Do you think that you could be more contented now?”

“I believe I could,” she answered. “Yes, I do.”

But he wondered if it was true.

By the time that the Tidys were inspecting their tower, Margaret had arrived home. She had waited over an hour outside Doyle’s house, seen Joan Doyle finally go out, followed her down towards the Dame’s Gate, and then lost sight of her. In the end she had given up and returned home.

William did not arrive until late in the evening. He looked pleased with himself. He said he had dined in the city, and he seemed to have drunk a good deal. Saying he was tired, he went up to the chamber and fell asleep.

The next day he spent quietly at the house. The day after, he had business in Dublin, but was back by early evening. And so for two weeks life continued in the usual way. Was he having illicit meetings with Joan Doyle in Dublin? She couldn’t be sure. At least once, after spending the day in Dublin, he returned and made love to her in the usual way. So what did it all mean? Had something happened on Corpus Christi day in Dublin? Assuming it had, was it being repeated? Margaret found it hard to believe that it wouldn’t be. Yet what was she to do? Share her husband with Joan Doyle until their affair ended? Confront him with something she couldn’t prove? Wait? Watch? She had not known that uncertainty could bring such pain.

Two weeks later he went into Dublin early and returned very late at night. A week after that he was away in Fingal for a few days. There was nothing unusual in these absences, but now all his movements had taken on a new significance. And Margaret hardly knew what she might have done next if, during the month of August, he hadn’t come in looking concerned one day and told her, “The monastery needs me to go down into Munster again; but I hardly know if it’s wise.”

“You should go,” she said, “at once.”

He was gone for three weeks. When he got back, he was so busy that she hardly thought he could find time for an affair.

And besides, during his absence she had made one change in her own lifestyle. She had started going into Dublin.

She did not follow any set pattern. Some weeks she mightn’t go at all. But from the end of that summer, she would ride in to visit the markets and return later in the day. In the city, walking past the Doyle house in Skinners Row, or picking up a casual conversation at a market stall, it was easy to find out the whereabouts of the Doyles; so that when in October William had to spend several days in Fingal, she was able to ascertain that Joan Doyle was safely in her own house and nowhere near William. It was an imperfect check, but it was something. In November, the Doyles both went to Bristol and remained there almost four weeks. Nor, she thought, did William and the Doyle woman meet in December. As Christmas approached, it seemed possible that the affair, if indeed it had begun, might have been abandoned. She could even suppose that the whole business might have been a figment of her imagination.

So it was in quite a cheerful mood that, just a few days before Christmas, she accompanied William into Dublin to attend a winter banquet given by the Trinity Guild.

It was the usual, good-humoured city celebration. A splendid company attended, city fathers in their robes and liveries, gentlemen from the Pale, many of them members of the Trinity Guild or freemen of the city. But the particular interest of the banquet was whether the head of the Fitzgeralds would attend.

It had not been a surprise to anyone when, during the autumn, King Henry had yet again summoned the Earl of Kildare to London. Everyone knew that the king was still smarting from the way that the Fitzgeralds had forced him to give them back the Lord Deputy’s post, and you could be sure that the Butlers were supplying the English court with information to use against him. While Kildare had sent polite excuses to the king, he had muttered to his friends that he would take his own good time before he went to England again; and to remind the English monarch that the Fitzgeralds were not to be trifled with, he had coolly removed the king’s cannons from Dublin castle and put them in his own strongholds. For the last few months Kildare had remained calmly in Ireland while Henry was left fuming.

But recently Walsh had heard that Kildare was unwell. Injuries he had received on campaign had returned to trouble him. He was said to be in great pain, then seriously unwell. “I wondered if it was a pretended sickness, an excuse for not going to England,” Walsh told Margaret, “but the word is that the earl has suffered a real decline.” And indeed, instead of coming to the banquet, Kildare was sending his son Thomas to represent him instead. The Kildare family was large: the earl had no less than five brothers. “But if anything should happen to the earl,” Walsh pointed out, “it’s Thomas and not his uncles who will succeed to the title and the lordship. Few people in Dublin knew very much about the young man, except that he was a fashionable fellow who had appeared with some English fops who got drunk at the last Feast of Corpus Christi. “Silken Thomas, his friends call him,” the lawyer said with some disapproval. But like the rest of the gentlemen of Dublin, he was quite curious to take a look at him.

In fact, young Lord Thomas made quite a favourable impression. He had the aristocratic good looks of his family; he was certainly dressed in the finest silk tunic and belt that would have been the height of fashion in the court of England or France, but his clothes were not gaudy; as he made his tour of the company before the meal began, he treated everyone with the greatest courtesy, and after being called across to speak to him, Walsh returned and reported, “He’s young, but well informed. He’s no fool.”

The banquet was excellent. After they had eaten, the company mingled once more. And it was while she was accompanying her husband round the hall that Margaret suddenly found herself confronted with Joan Doyle. The alderman had just stepped over to talk to Silken Thomas and his wife was standing alone. Seeing the Walshes, Dame Doyle’s face lit up.

There was no way of escaping her. In response to her greeting, Margaret put on her best masklike smile. The three of them exchanged the usual, meaningless courtesies; then Joan Doyle turned to Margaret.

“You really should come into Dublin more often,” she said.

“I come in to the markets sometimes,” Margaret replied quietly.

“Don’t you think she should?” Joan said to Walsh.

“Oh, I do,” he answered politely.

Margaret considered the two of them. The conversation sounded so innocent. But if they were fencing round her, they did not realise how closely she was observing them.

“Perhaps you’re right,” she said. “I should at least come in for the festivals.” She nodded, as though to herself. “Like Corpus Christi.”

Did they, just for an instant, glance at each other? Yes, she was sure they did. Then the Doyle woman laughed. “Corpus Christi was a wonderful day,” she said with a smile to Walsh, who also smiled and nodded.

They were mocking her. They thought she didn’t know it.

“As a matter of fact,” Margaret said brightly, “I came in for Corpus Christi this year.”

There was no mistaking it. Her husband blanched. “You did?”

“I never told you, did I? Just a sudden impulse. I saw the pageants going along Skinners Row.” She gave them both a smile. “I saw all sorts of things.”

It was a perfect moment. The two of them seemed stunned into silence. Joan Doyle recovered first.

“You should have come into the house,” she cried. “We were all up at the window. You’d have had a better view.”

“Oh, the view I had was fine,” said Margaret.

She had them. She felt a wonderful sense of power. It was almost worth the pain. She could see them trying to work out how much she knew, whether her remarks were ironic or not. They couldn’t tell. She had them on the run.

She smiled and took her husband by the arm. “We should pay our respects,” she murmured, indicating a gentleman from Fingal standing nearby, and moved away, leaving the Doyle woman standing alone.

Yet it was a hollow triumph. For if they were left in uncertainty, their awkwardness had told her all she needed to know about their complicity. They had deceived her before; so they probably meant to do it again. That night she turned to him in bed.

“So how attractive is Joan Doyle?”

“You think I find her attractive?” he responded cleverly. He paused, as though considering. “She’s a good woman,” he answered easily, “but I prefer redheads.”

Over Christmas he was especially loving and attentive, and she was grateful for that. Knowing Joan Doyle’s devious nature, she didn’t even blame her husband so much. She had never thought he would do such a thing to her, but now that he had, her main concern was to bring it to an end. She made no reference to their affair, but she did take care to warn him. “You can’t trust that Doyle woman. She’s two-faced and dangerous.”

Her feelings for Joan Doyle, however, hardened into a secret, ice-cold rage. She’s been mocking me and cheating me all my life, she thought, and now she’s busy stealing my husband. She wasn’t yet sure what form her defence was going to take, but if Joan Doyle thought she would get away with it, she promised herself, she would discover the meaning of revenge.

Perhaps it was this state of flux in her own life, but sometimes in the spring of 1534, it seemed to Margaret as if everything around her was changing. There was a sense of instability in the air.

Soon after Christmas there was a heavy fall of snow and the winter weather kept Walsh at home for most of January. In February he made several journeys into Dublin, returning each evening. The situation there, he reported, was uncertain.

“Kildare is undoubtedly sick. He’s finally going to London, but the word is that he’s only going because he wants to persuade King Henry to confirm his son Thomas as Lord Deputy in his place.”

The week after Kildare’s departure, Walsh stayed in Dublin for three days, and Margaret wondered if he was seeing Joan Doyle; but when he returned he was looking grave, and the news he brought put all other considerations out of her mind.

“It’s the lease on our Church land,” he told her. “You know it’s up for renewal this year. I’ve just had Archbishop Alen’s terms.” He shook his head. “It seems,” he added grimly, “that he won’t even negotiate.” The terms were crushing. The rent was more than doubled. “And the trouble,” explained Walsh, “is that as a lawyer and steward myself, I’d do the same in the archbishop’s place. The land is worth what he asks.” He sighed. “But he’s taken away most of my profit.”

For two days he considered the problem from every angle. Then, finally, he announced, “I shall have to go to London to see Richard.” He left at the start of March.

They were not the only ones affected in this way. During the coming weeks Margaret heard of several families who were being forced off their Church estates, some of them even kinsmen of Kildare himself. Under normal circumstances, even the Archbishop of Dublin would hesitate to offend the Fitzgeralds, and she wondered what this meant. Meanwhile, the news from England suggested that events there had reached a crisis.

“The Pope’s excommunicated Henry.” London was secure, but there were fears that there could be risings in the outer regions, especially the north and west, where the traditional loyalties were very strong. It was rumoured, even, that the Hapsburg Emperor might send an invasion from Spain. For all his arrogant bluster, the Tudor king could lose his throne if this came to pass. And then, at the end of the month, William Walsh returned. She would never forget the evening he arrived, standing in the doorway, and announced, “I have brought someone with me.”

Richard. Her Richard. The same Richard, with his red hair, merry eyes, and smiling face, but taller, stronger, even more handsome than when he had left. Richard, the strapping young man, who enfolded her in his arms. If he had felt bitter disappointment at being forced to leave London and return home, he concealed it for her sake. For this, Walsh told her that night, was the conclusion he and Richard had come to when they discussed the business together in London. “We can’t afford to keep him in London anymore. He’ll come and live with us for a while. I can certainly help him get a start in Dublin.” So he was home at last, to stay. Every cloud, she thought privately to herself, has a silver lining. And what, she wondered, was to be done with the Church estate? “I shall give it up,” said Walsh. “In the meantime,” he grimaced, “there’ll be no new gowns for you or cloaks for me for a while.”

The month of April was mainly devoted to Richard. His father did not leave him at home to be idle. For several days he took him up into Fingal. Then they went down into Munster for ten days. He also took him into Dublin where, his father was glad to report, “He charmed all he met.” Margaret had to admire her husband’s activity. By early May, Richard seemed to know everybody.

“And who in Dublin has impressed you most?” she asked her son one evening, as they were sitting by the fire together.

“I think,” he replied after a moment’s thought, “perhaps the merchant, Doyle. I’ve never met a man who knew his business better. And of course his wife,” he added cheerfully, “is lovely.”

If Walsh was pleased with his son, however, the news he was hearing in Dublin caused him more concern. When the Earl of Kildare arrived in London, he had been courteously received. But in mid-May, a number of his household arrived back in Dublin with the news that his health was failing and that King Henry had abruptly deprived him of his governorship and refused to give it to his son. Even worse: “Can you believe it,” they protested, “he’s sending the Gunner again.” Word also came that several of the Butler clan were to have key appointments in the new administration. But perhaps the most ominous rumour was that the Butlers had given a guarantee to King Henry that they would not support any claims made in Ireland by the Pope. “That can mean only one thing,” Walsh declared. “Henry believes the Spanish will invade.”

What would the Fitzgeralds do? Everyone was watching young Silken Thomas and his five uncles. There had already been one furious quarrel with Archbishop Alen over the Church estates. Before May was out, the young Fitzgerald heir had been up in Ulster talking to the O’Neills, and down in Munster, too. There was no sign of the Gunner yet. Would the Fitzgeralds bide their time or start stirring up the provinces right away? The measure of the danger, for Margaret, was the day late in May when her husband arrived at the house carrying an arquebus, gunpowder, and shot. “I bought the gun off a ship’s captain,” he explained. “Just in case.”

So how was it, in the middle of all this uncertainty, that William Walsh found time and energy to pursue his affair with Joan Doyle?

Margaret could hardly believe it, yet this was what he seemed to be doing.

There had been several occasions, since his return with Richard, when she had guessed that her husband might be seeing the alderman’s wife. In early May, he had gone into Dublin with Richard and then—she only discovered later—sent Richard on an errand into Fingal for two days. The same thing had happened the following week, when he had dispatched Richard to Maynooth and a nearby monastery. How could he use their own son to provide his cover, she wondered? But it was no doubt the Doyle woman who’d suggested it, she thought in disgust. If there was any doubt in her mind about what was going on, however, it was dispelled in early June.

A ship had arrived in Dublin with news that the invalid Earl of Kildare had been executed in London. The Fitzgeralds were beside themselves. “It may not be true,” Walsh pointed out. He went into Dublin anyway, to find out more, taking Richard with him. Two days later, Richard appeared back at the house.

“Silken Thomas has just been summoned to London. We still don’t know what’s happened to Kildare,” he told Margaret. “Father says you should hide anything valuable and prepare for trouble. We may even need the arquebus.” Nobody in Dublin knew what was going to happen. Even the king’s men in Dublin Castle seemed in the dark, he reported. “I told Father he should discuss the situation with Doyle,” Richard went on confidently. “He’s got the best judgement. But we can’t,” he said regretfully, “because he’s away in Waterford all this week.”

“Away all week?” Without meaning to, she allowed her voice to rise almost to a shriek. He looked at her, surprised.

“Yes. What of it?”

“Nothing,” she said quickly. “Nothing.” So that was it. She saw their game. It had all been arranged. The Doyle woman had known her husband would be away. Joan Doyle had made a fool of her yet again, and sent her own unsuspecting son to her with the message. What was she supposed to do? Send Richard back? Risk his discovering the truth? The woman’s evil cunning passed belief. But still nothing had prepared her for what came next.

“I’ll tell you a strange coincidence, by the way,” Richard said. “Father and I found out this morning.” He smiled a little sadly. “Do you know who just took up the lease on that Church land we surrendered? Alderman Doyle. Still,” he added philosophically, “I suppose he can afford it.”

Doyle? It took a moment for the full implication to sink in. But then, gradually, it seemed to Margaret that she understood. Wasn’t this exactly what Joan Doyle had done before? First she had lulled her into a false security, the night of the thunderstorm, and then used the information she had so foolishly provided to strike at the family. Now she had deliberately set out to seduce William while her own husband, who was no doubt close to Archbishop Alen, stole away the Walshes’ land. Was there no limit to what she’d do to destroy them? Poor William. She even felt sorry for her husband now. What was any man, after all, in the hands of a really determined and unscrupulous woman? Joan Doyle had seduced and duped him just as viciously as she’d duped Margaret herself before. At that moment, she hated Joan Doyle more completely than she had ever hated any human being in her life.

She saw it all. Even now William, clever though he was, probably didn’t realise that he had been betrayed. The Doyle woman would have had an explanation for everything: you could be sure of that. He was probably making love to her at that very moment, the poor fool.

That was when Margaret knew she was going to kill her.

MacGowan was standing with Walsh and Doyle in front of the Tholsel when the business began. It was the day after Walsh had sent his son back home; Doyle had arrived from Waterford that morning. They had just been discussing the political situation when the commotion started.

It happened so fast. That was what astonished him. The first shouts from the gate that a body of men was approaching had scarcely died away before the clattering and jingling and drumming of hoofs began; and as the three men pulled back into the doorway of the Tholsel, the huge cavalcade of riders, three abreast, came past—there were so many that it took several minutes—followed by three columns of marching men-at-arms and gallowglasses. MacGowan estimated more than a thousand men. In the centre, accompanied by twelve dozen cavalry in coats of mail, rode the young Lord Thomas—not in armour but wearing a gorgeous green-and-gold silk tunic and a hat with a plume. He looked as blithe as if he were partaking in a pageant. Such was the style, the confidence, and the arrogance of the Fitzgeralds.

Arrogant it might be, yet carefully calculated, too. Having ridden through the city and then clattered over the bridge to the hall where the royal council was meeting, Silken Thomas calmly handed them the ceremonial sword of state which his father, as Lord Deputy, had in his keeping, and renounced his allegiance to King Henry. The gesture was medieval: a magnate was withdrawing his oath of loyalty to his feudal overlord. Not only was the English king losing his vassal but the Fitzgeralds were now declaring themselves free to give their allegiance to another king instead—the Holy Roman Emperor in Spain, for instance, or even the Pope. There had been nothing like it since Lord Thomas’s grandfather had crowned young Lambert Simnel and sent an army to invade England nearly fifty years ago.

It only took an hour before all Dublin knew.

MacGowan spent the rest of that day with Walsh and Doyle. Though well-informed, both men had been taken by surprise at Silken Thomas’s radical move, and they looked shaken. Seeing them together, MacGowan could not escape a sense of irony. The grey-haired, distinguished-looking lawyer and the dark, powerful merchant—one tied to the Fitzgeralds, the other to the Butlers—were opposites in politics; Doyle had just taken over Walsh’s best land; as for Walsh’s dealings with Doyle’s wife, MacGowan still wasn’t sure what Doyle knew about that business. Yet whatever reasons these two men might have had to fall out during all these years, here they both were, still courteous and even cordial towards each other. Until today, when young Silken Thomas, whom they hardly knew, had provoked a crisis so serious that it would probably lead to civil war. Would they now be forced into deadly opposition? Perhaps it was this same thought which caused Doyle to sigh, as they parted: “God knows what will become of us now.”

Yet the remarkable feature of the next two months was how little seemed to happen. Having made this point, Silken Thomas and his troops didn’t linger in Dublin. First he withdrew across the river, then sent out detachments all over the Pale. Within ten days they reported that no one was offering any resistance. The countryside was secure.

But not Dublin.

“I can’t think why Fitzgerald let us do it,” Doyle confessed to MacGowan. “Perhaps he just assumed that we wouldn’t dare.” But while the Fitzgerald troops were busy securing the countryside, the city fathers quietly closed all the Dublin gates. “It’s a gamble,” Doyle confessed, “but we’re betting on the English king.”

Were they right? It wasn’t long before news came back that the Earl of Kildare was still alive. He hadn’t been executed, although as soon as King Henry had heard of the revolt he had put the earl in the Tower. MacGowan suspected the earl probably approved of his son’s actions. Kildare was a dying man, but King Henry was clearly rattled. His officials at court were denying that there was any trouble in Ireland at all. As for the Gunner, who should have been rushing to Ireland with troops and artillery, he was showing no sign of wanting to take up his post at all. Meanwhile, a Spanish envoy had arrived, given Lord Thomas supplies of gunpowder and shot, and told him that Spanish troops would follow. This was exciting news indeed. If people had suspected his declaration in Dublin had just been a bluff, the usual Fitzgerald troublemaking to force King Henry to restore them to office again, the news from Spain put matters in a different light.

“With Spanish troops,” young Lord Thomas told his friends, “I can remove Ireland from King Henry by force.” And soon afterwards he issued a startling proclamation. “The English are no longer wanted in Ireland. They must get out.” Who was English? “Anyone not born here,” Fitzgerald declared. That meant King Henry’s men. Everyone could agree about that. Archbishop Alen of Dublin and the other royal servants hastily locked themselves up in Dublin Castle. In a fine gesture, Silken Thomas even turned out his young English wife and sent her back to England, too.

And if many people had been sympathetic to Lord Thomas’s cause, during the summer their feelings were strengthened by events in England. All Christendom knew that King Henry had been excommunicated. Spain was talking of invasion; even the cynical King of France thought Henry a fool. But now, in the summer of 1534, the Tudor king went further. Brave men like Thomas More had refused to support his claims to make himself, in effect, the English pope; now, when the English order of friars likewise refused, Henry closed their houses and started throwing them into prison. The holy friars: the men most loved and revered in Ireland, inside and outside the Pale. It was an outrage. No wonder then that Silken Thomas now declared to the Irish people that his revolt was in defence of the true Church as well. Envoys were sent with this message to the Hapsburg Emperor and to the Holy Father. “My ancestors came to Ireland to defend the true faith,” Fitzgerald declared, “in the service of an English king. Now we must fight against an English king to preserve it.”

At the end of July, Archbishop Alen made a run for it and tried to jump on a ship leaving Ireland. Some of Fitzgerald’s men caught him, there was a skirmish, and the archbishop was killed. But nobody was shocked. He was only a royal servant wearing a bishop’s mitre. The friars were holy men.

As August began, it seemed to MacGowan that young Silken Thomas might get away with it. The city was in a curious mood. The gates were closed by the council’s orders, but since Fitzgerald was out at Maynooth and his troops widely scattered, the small doors in the gates were open for people to pass in and out, and life was proceeding almost as normal. MacGowan had just been on his way to visit Tidy in his gatehouse when he chanced to meet Alderman Doyle in the street, and pausing to talk, expressed the opinion that Dublin would soon be forced to welcome Lord Thomas with his Spanish troops as its new ruler. But Doyle shook his head.

“The Spanish troops will be promised, but they will never arrive. The Emperor will gladly embarrass Henry Tudor, but open war with England would cost him too much. Lord Thomas will have to manage alone. He’ll be weakened also by the fact that the Butlers are already using this opportunity to get favours from Henry. Fitzgerald may be stronger than the Butlers, but they can undermine him.”

“Yet King Henry has difficulties of his own,” MacGowan pointed out. “Perhaps he can’t afford to subdue Lord Thomas. He’s done nothing so far, after all.”

“It may take time,” Doyle replied, “but in the end Henry will crush him. There’s no doubt in my mind. He’ll fight, and he will never give up. For two reasons. The first is that Lord Thomas has made a fool of him in the eyes of all the world. And Henry is deeply vain. He will never rest until he has destroyed him. The second is more profound. Henry Tudor now faces the same challenge that Henry Plantagenet faced nearly four centuries ago when Strongbow came to Ireland. One of his vassals is threatening to set up a kingdom of his own just across the western sea. Worse, it would become the platform for any power like France or Spain which wishes to oppose him. He cannot allow that to happen.”

It was clear to Eva that Silken Thomas had given her husband a new lease on life. Sean O’Byrne had been slowing up a bit in the last year or two. But since the revolt began, he’d been looking ten years younger. Almost like a boy. The chance of action, a fight, excitement, and even danger—she supposed that the need for these things was as deeply ingrained in her husband’s nature as the need to have children was in hers. It was the thrill of the chase. Most men were the same, in her opinion—at least, the best ones were.

Sean O’Byrne wasn’t alone. The excitement had spread throughout the communities in the Wicklow Mountains—a sense that something was going to change. No one could quite say what. The rule of the Fitzgeralds wasn’t so light. The O’Byrnes and other clans like them had no illusions that they would be allowed to sweep down into the Pale and kick the Walshes and the rest of the gentry off their ancient lands. But once the English king was removed from the scene, a new freedom of some kind would inevitably be born. If the Fitzgeralds and the Walshes had been English Irish up to now, henceforth they would be Irish, and so would Ireland.

Sean had thrown himself into the business with gusto. There was plenty to do. He’d been out on several patrols down into the southern Pale, ensuring that the country was solid for the Fitzgeralds. As an O’Byrne, with a Fitzgerald for a foster son, no less, Sean was highly trusted, and this gave him pleasure. He’d taken his sons and young Maurice with him. Eva had been a little nervous seeing them go, but there hadn’t been any trouble. Soon, Sean believed, there would be a big raid down into Butler territory. “Just to make sure they keep quiet,” he told her cheerfully. She wasn’t certain what she felt about that. Would he be taking the boys?

Her boys: she didn’t count Seamus as a boy anymore. He was a family man with his own children now. He’d enlarged the house where the Brennans had lived and built up a cattle herd nearly half the size of his father’s. But Fintan and Maurice were still her boys.

Some children will look like one parent for a few years, and then come to resemble the other. But not Fintan. He still looked so like her it was absurd. “Could you not have let him take after me in some respect?” Sean had jokingly chided her once. “He is like you.

He’s wonderful with the cattle,” she replied. “But so are you,” he had pointed out, with a laugh. Fintan’s hair was as fair as it had been when he was a child, his broad face still broke easily into an innocent smile. He had the same sweet nature. And Maurice, too, was still the same boy, handsome and thoughtful, his fine eyes looking distant and melancholy sometimes. “A poetic spirit,” as Father Donal would say. There had been moments when she had felt almost guilty, half afraid that she loved him as much as her own son; but then a glance into Fintan’s blue eyes would remind her, with a little rush of warmth, that however dear Maurice was to her, it was Fintan who was her own flesh and blood, to whom she had given birth, who was her true son.

It made her smile to watch the two boys together. They were getting so manly—bursting with energy, still a little shy, yet so proud of themselves. She would see the two of them walking together, Maurice slim and dark, somewhat taller, and fair Fintan, as squarely built as a young ox now, sharing their private jokes together; in the evenings, sometimes, Maurice would play the harp, her husband would join him on the fiddle, and Fintan, who had a pleasant voice, would sing. Those were the best times of all.

The patrol in early August was routine. The previous patrols had toured the areas where some trouble might have been anticipated; now it had been decided to go to the houses of even the Fitzgerald supporters. For Lord Thomas wanted to try out a new oath of loyalty; and Sean O’Byrne had been given quite a broad area to cover. Eva couldn’t say why she should have had a sense of unease about this patrol. There was no reason to expect any trouble. All the men were going: Seamus had come up from his house, Maurice and Fintan were ready to go. But just before they set off, she called out to Sean, “Are you taking all my men away?” And giving him a little look, “Am I to be left alone?”

He glanced at her and seemed to guess her feelings. He decided to be kind.

“Which one will you keep?”

“Fintan,” she said, after a moment’s hesitation, and regretted it immediately. She saw his face fall.

“But Father …” he began.

“Don’t argue,” said Sean. “You’ll stay with your mother.”

And I shall be blamed, Eva thought sadly; but she didn’t change her mind, though her heart went out to her son as he came and stood by her side, doing his best to smile at her affectionately. As the party drew away, she put her arm round him.

“Thank you for staying with me,” she said.

Margaret Walsh was already standing outside her door with her husband when the patrol arrived. There were a dozen riders. The Walsh estate was the third that O’Byrne and his men had come to.

So this was Sean O’Byrne who was such a devil with the women. She took a good look at him. He was a dark, handsome fellow certainly. She could see that. There was some grey in his hair now, but he looked lean and fit. She saw his vanity and did not dislike it, though she didn’t think she was attracted to him as he greeted William and herself with cool politeness.

To Walsh’s offer that they should all come in for refreshment, he answered that it was only himself and two of the other men who need detain him inside for a few moments and so, without more ado, Walsh was obliged to go in with them to the big oak table in the hall where, with an official air, Sean O’Byrne took out a little book of the Gospels in Latin, and laying it on the table asked William to kindly place his hand upon it.

“Is it an oath you’re wanting?” Walsh enquired.

“It is,” O’Byrne replied easily.

“And what kind of an oath should that be?” asked Walsh.

“Of loyalty to Lord Thomas.”

“Of loyalty?” Walsh’s face clouded. “I hardly think,” he said with some feeling, and drawing himself up to his full height, “that Lord Thomas would wish to compel an oath from me who has so freely given his loyalty to his father the earl all these years.” He gave O’Byrne a look of gentle rebuke. “You offend me,” he said with quiet dignity.

“There is no compulsion.”

“You come here with armed men.”

“I will tell the Lord Thomas that you gave the oath freely,” O’Byrne answered smoothly, “if that will satisfy you.”

It did not seem to satisfy Walsh, for he looked seriously displeased. Going to the door, he asked his wife to call all the men into the hall at once, and stood by the door until they were assembled. Then with a glare at O’Byrne, he went swiftly to the table, slammed down his hand upon the Gospels and declared: “I swear on the Gospel the same love, respect, and loyalty to the Lord Thomas Fitzgerald that I have always given, and still give, to his father the Earl of Kildare.” He picked up the Gospels and handed them back to O’Byrne with finality. “I have sworn, which given my known affections I should never have been asked to do. But I swear gladly all the same. And now,” he added with some coldness, “I bid you good day.” He indicated with a brief bow that he wished O’Byrne to leave.

“It’s not enough,” said Sean O’Byrne.

“Not enough?” It was not often that William Walsh became angry, but it seemed that this was about to happen. Some of O’Byrne’s men were looking awkward. “Have you come here to insult me?” he cried. “I have sworn. I will swear no more. If the Lord Thomas doubts my loyalty—which he does not—then let him come here and say it to my face. I have done.” And with a furious expression he started to stalk out of the hall.

But O’Byrne placed himself before the door.

“The oath requires that you swear loyalty to Lord Thomas,” he said evenly, “and also to the Holy Father, and also to the Holy Roman Emperor Charles of Spain.”

This triad had been carefully devised. Once you had sworn to it, there could be no going back to the English king. As far as King Henry VIII was concerned, once you had given that oath you had sworn to treason, for which the fearful penalty was to be hung, drawn, and quartered. For those who understood its implications, the oath was awesome in its finality.

But Walsh was so heated now that he was scarcely listening.

“I’ll swear no more,” he shouted. “Let the Lord Thomas come here with a thousand men and I’ll offer him my own head to cut off if he doubts me. But I’ll not be treated like a villain by you, O’Byrne.” He gave the man from the Wicklow Mountains a look of contempt, while he himself had gone red in the face. “To you I’ll swear nothing. Now leave my house,” he shouted in fury.

But Sean O’Byrne did not move. He drew his sword.

“I have already killed men better than you, Walsh,” he stated dangerously, “and burned down houses bigger than this,” he added, with a glance towards Margaret. “So,” he concluded softly, “you have your choice.”

There was a pause. Walsh stood very still. Margaret watched him anxiously. Nobody said a word.

“I do it,” Walsh said, with infinite disgust, “at sword point. You are witnesses,” he looked round the men gathered there, “at how I have been treated by this man.”

Moments later, at the table, O’Byrne administered the oath, and Walsh, looking dignified and contemptuous, with his hand on the Gospels, repeated the words tonelessly. Then the patrol left. It was not until they were safely out of sight that Walsh spoke.

“I’m glad Richard was down in Dublin today,” he remarked. “I hope he won’t have to take that oath.”

“I was afraid for a moment that you wouldn’t,” said Margaret.

“I was trying not to,” her husband explained. “The oath I swore voluntarily, to support Lord Thomas as I had his father, was harmless enough. Kildare, after all, was the king’s deputy in Ireland. But I’d already heard about this new oath of theirs, and I knew what a terrible thing it was. The reference to the Emperor is the worst part. It’s treason pure and simple.” He shook his head. “If he wasn’t going to let me get out of it, then I had to have witnesses that it was extracted from me under compulsion. That’s why I called everybody in. It’s not a complete defence, but if things go badly for Lord Thomas, it might save my neck.”

Margaret looked at her husband with admiration.

“I didn’t realise that was what you were doing,” she said. “You act very well.”

“Don’t forget,” he said with a smile, “that I’m a lawyer.”

“But do you really think that Lord Thomas will fail?” she asked.

“When the Fitzgeralds fight the Butlers it’s one thing,” he replied. “But when they make war on the King of England it’s another. We’ll have to see how it turns out.”

That night, as she fell asleep, Margaret found two sets of images coming into her mind. The first was of Sean O’Byrne with his sword, threatening her husband who, she realised, was the finer and cleverer man. The second was of her brother as she imagined he might have looked, sword in hand, as he went into battle against the Tudor King of England. She slept badly after that.

If Tidy had supposed that finding the new accommodation in the tower might bring greater harmony to his family, by that August he decided that it was the worst thing he had ever done in his life.

In early August, Silken Thomas returned to Dublin, to find the gates closed. He demanded admittance. The mayor and aldermen refused. He told them he would attack, but they weren’t impressed. So Silken Thomas had to sit outside the walls.

The siege of Dublin that followed was a desultory affair. Fitzgerald hadn’t enough troops to rush the walls. He burned some houses in the suburbs, but it did no good. And even if he had been able to cut off all the supplies to the city, the aldermen had already seen to it that there were enough provisions within the walls to last for months. Young Lord Thomas could only make a show of force from time to time and hope to frighten the Dubliners into changing their minds. And this was what he was doing one morning in August when Alderman Doyle came across to inspect the defences at the western gate.

The instructions to the guards at the western gate were simple. The gate itself was double barred. They were not to provoke Fitzgerald and his men, but if attacked, they were to respond with arquebus and bows from the battlements. Just before Doyle arrived, Tidy had seen from one of the tower windows that Lord Thomas and about a hundred horsemen were approaching the gate, and he had gone down to make sure the sentries were aware. As a result, he found himself standing beside the alderman on one side of the gate as Lord Thomas reached the other, and heard quite clearly as the young lord called out to anyone on the battlements or behind the gate who could hear, that if they did not soon open the city to him, he would be forced to bring up his cannon. “Even with what the Spanish envoy gave him, and his own supplies,” Doyle calmly pointed out to the men standing round, “I know for a fact that he hasn’t enough powder and shot to take the city. It’s an empty threat.” And it seemed that Fitzgerald was to get no reply at all, when suddenly another voice was heard. It came from a window somewhere up in the tower.

“Is that the Lord Thomas himself?” A woman’s voice, calling down. It was followed by a pause, and the sound of horses wheeling about. Perhaps Fitzgerald’s men thought someone was going to take aim at him. But Tidy knew better. He froze. The voice belonged to Cecily. A moment later, to his even greater astonishment, the aristocrat replied, “It is.”

Was it true, Cecily called down, that he would defend the Holy Church against the heretic Henry? It was. He didn’t deny the Mass? Certainly not. But now Tidy thought he could hear a trace of humour in Fitzgerald’s voice when he asked if she was the woman who had cursed King Henry at Corpus Christi last. She was, she replied, and she’d curse Lord Thomas and his friends, too, if they denied the Mass.

“No friends of mine, I promise,” he cried. And why was he being kept out of Dublin, he demanded genially. Was he not welcome?

“You’ll be welcomed by all except a few heretic aldermen,” she called down, “who need to learn a lesson.”

Until this moment, Tidy had been so surprised that he hadn’t moved. He’d known how Cecily felt, of course. As the events of that spring had unfolded, she had told him just what she thought of the excommunicated English king. But he had begged her to keep her thoughts private within the home, and though she had seemed rather moody of late it had never occurred to him that she would do anything like this. He glanced at Doyle, his best patron, who had just been called a heretic. The alderman’s face was growing dark.

He raced into the tower and up the spiral stairs. Breathless, he burst into the upper room from which Cecily was calling down to Lord Thomas’s men that they’d find a warm welcome if they broke down the gate, and dragged her away from the window. She struggled, and he struck her, once in anger and the second time in fear—because he thought she might start again—much harder, so that she fell, bleeding, to the floor. Hardly caring, he dragged her to the door and down the stairs to the lower chamber where there was no window that looked out from the wall. Then he locked her in there and went down to the gate again to apologise to Doyle. But the alderman had gone.

Cecily did not speak to her husband very much in the days that followed. They both understood what had happened; there was nothing to say. In front of their children and the apprentice they were quietly civil; when alone, silent. If either was waiting for the other to apologise, the wait seemed to be in vain. Nor did matters improve.

A little later in the month of August, Silken Thomas decided to send a party to raid the farms in Fingal. For the task he chose a contingent of Wicklow men led by the O’Tooles. When the Irish cattlemen got out of hand, burning down and plundering the rich Fingal farms, a large column of Dubliners, many of whom had property up there, broke out of the city and raced northwards to the Fingal farmers’ aid.

Cecily saw them returning from the tower. They were streaming across the bridge. She could tell from the way they rode that they were fleeing, and as they crossed the bridge she could see that many were wounded. It was an hour later that Tidy came back to the house with the awful news.

“There were eighty men killed.” His face was pale as he stared at her solemnly. “Eighty.”

She watched him quietly. She knew this was the moment for her to say something, to express the sympathy that might break the barrier between them. She knew it, but found that she could not.

“I’m not sorry,” she said. And she let the ensuing silence fall and remain like an invisible sea, until it had frozen into finality.

During the days that followed, the city was in shock. There was hardly a family that hadn’t lost a relation or a friend. A growing party in the town was beginning to ask what would happen next. Would Fitzgerald’s troops start killing the people in Oxmantown? Would the O’Byrnes come down and raid the southern farmlands? Doyle and his friends were all for holding out, but even some of the aldermen were wondering whether a compromise with Fitzgerald wouldn’t be wiser. “Let us at least negotiate,” they said. And once they were allowed to do so, an agreement was soon reached. The gates of Dublin would be opened. Lord Thomas and his troops might occupy the city in return for a promise not to harm the inhabitants. Everything would be available to him with the exception of the castle stronghold itself. The royal servants and a section of the aldermen would retire to the castle and take their chances on the outcome of events. It wasn’t what Lord Thomas wanted, but it was an improvement on what he had. So he took the deal.

“I’m going into the castle with Doyle. He’s taking his whole family with him.” It was eleven o’clock in the morning when Tidy came to give Cecily this news. “So I think we should all go,” he added. “We need to get ready at once.”

“I’m staying here,” she said simply.

“And the children?”

“They’ll be safer with me. Fitzgerald will do no harm to me and the children. It’s you who’ll be in danger if he attacks the castle.”

“The walls are too thick. They’ve already stocked it with provisions. We could hold out safely in there for years.”

She gazed at him bleakly.

“You are afraid to offend Doyle. I’m afraid to offend God. I suppose that’s the difference between us.”

“If you say so,” he answered. By noon he had left the house.

And whether her religion had caused her to split from her husband or whether it had only provided an excuse for her to maintain a separation she now desired, Cecily herself could not with certainty have said.

The siege of Dublin Castle continued through September without success. But as the month progressed, news from England made the business more urgent.

The English were finally coming. Troops were actually assembling, cannon being taken towards the port, a ship been found. Even the Gunner himself had made an appearance. It seemed that they might really be going to put up a fight at last.

As MacGowan stood in Castle Street and stared at the grey old castle walls, he felt discouraged. The day was fine; the mossy slates and stones of Dublin returned a greenish glow to the blue September sky. A few yards in front of him, a group of Fitzgerald’s men were shooting arrows over the wall in a gesture that was probably futile—unless anyone inside the castle was stupid enough to stand in their path. But none of this concerned him. What worried MacGowan was how he was going to help the wife of Alderman Doyle. He didn’t want to let her down.

The previous month, he’d been able to do the alderman a good turn. Doyle had needed a new tenant on the estate he had taken over from the Walshes and the grey merchant had thought of the Brennan family who had once been on Sean O’Byrne’s land and had recently become unhappy with their subsequent tenancy. “You always know everything,” Doyle had said to him admiringly. That had given MacGowan great pleasure. The transfer of the Brennans had taken place just in time for them to get the harvest in—and since they had several strong children now, they had been the greatest help to Doyle. With his present commission, however, MacGowan had been having less success.

The siege of Dublin Castle had been a lacklustre affair. The feeble efforts in the street in front of him now were quite typical. But even on the better days, when they had brought cannon, troops, and ladders up, the task had been too difficult. For the castle was a formidable obstacle. From the outer wall there was a high, sheer drop down to the old pool, now almost silted up, of Dubh Linn. Its other walls, though they lay within the city, were tall and stout and easy to defend. If Fitzgerald had more ammunition he might have been able to destroy the gates or knock down a section of wall; but as he was still short of cannonballs, he couldn’t achieve this. Nor had he enough troops for a mass assault. Though he had sent a large force down into Butler territory to raid them and frighten them into submission, the Butlers were still ready to attack, and so he had forces dispersed in numerous different places. As for the people of Dublin, they obeyed his orders, but when it came to storming the castle, they did it without much conviction since many of them had friends inside.

It had been easy enough for MacGowan to send a message to Alderman Doyle. He had just wrapped it round a blunted arrow which he had fired over the wall. The message had asked if there was anything the alderman wanted. It was the sort of communication between the city and the castle that was happening every day. The reply had come attached to a stone dropped at his feet in front of the gate the day before. Doyle was concerned, he told the grey merchant, on two counts. Firstly, with the English probably on the way, he thought it possible that Lord Thomas might mount a more determined assault to try to secure the stronghold for himself. Secondly, his wife was unwell. He wanted to secure her a safe-conduct out of the castle so that MacGowan could escort her to the greater security of the house at Dalkey. And he was prepared to pay the besiegers handsomely for this privilege. This was what MacGowan had just been trying to arrange.

The trouble was, Doyle wasn’t the first person to enter a private negotiation of this kind. Rather to his surprise, the grey merchant had been taken into the presence of Silken Thomas himself, where the young aristocrat politely informed him: “I have given enough safe-conducts already. Unless, of course, the alderman cares to pay me with some of the cannonballs which earlier this summer I so unwisely left in the castle.”

And MacGowan was just wondering what to do next when he saw William Walsh and his wife approaching, and realised that this might be a stroke of singular good fortune. Moments later he had taken the lawyer to one side.

Fortunately, Walsh was quick to see his point of view. The lawyer and his wife had come into Dublin that day precisely to see for themselves how the siege was progressing. As a Fitzgerald adherent who had nonetheless disliked the treasonable oath, Walsh was anxiously watching events now that the English might be coming. If the Gunner were to prove too strong for Silken Thomas, it would do him no harm, MacGowan pointed out, to have helped Alderman Doyle. “And I should think,” the grey merchant tactfully added, “that you might be glad to do a good turn to Dame Doyle as well.” As a longtime adherent of the Fitzgeralds, he suggested, Walsh might have more luck persuading young Lord Thomas than he had himself. To all this the lawyer readily agreed.

“Indeed, I’ll go and see if he will speak with me,” he suggested, “straightaway.” And asking MacGowan to look after his wife, he hurried off.

MacGowan spent nearly an hour with Margaret Walsh. The men had stopped shooting over the walls, so they walked round the outside of the castle. They discussed the political situation and she gave him a detailed account of how Sean O’Byrne had forced her husband to take the oath. It was clear to MacGowan that she shared her husband’s caution. “We were always loyal to Kildare,” she remarked, “but that foolish oath was going too far.” It was when she asked what business her husband was engaged upon now, that he paused. Walsh and the alderman were civil, but he wasn’t sure what Margaret’s feelings about the Doyles were, nor how much of Joan Doyle’s dealings with her husband she might have discovered. So he contented himself with saying, “He’s doing me a favour, trying to help some people in there.” He indicated the castle. “You’ll have to ask him.” She looked thoughtful, but seemed quite contented. After a little while, however, she looked up brightly and remarked, “I expect that’ll be Alderman Doyle. My husband likes him, you know, and his wife is quite a friend of mine.”

“She is?” It wasn’t often that MacGowan was taken in, but on this occasion he was. And supposing that it might look strange if he withheld the information, he briefly told her what the errand was. She seemed delighted.

Shortly after noon, Walsh reappeared looking pleased.

“I told your wife what you were doing,” MacGowan told him quickly. “So you’ve no need to explain.”

“Ah.” Did Walsh look awkward just for an instant? If so, he recovered at once. “I was able to persuade him,” he announced with a smile.

“How did you do it?” asked MacGowan with frank admiration.

“My husband is not a lawyer for nothing,” said Margaret, linking her arm affectionately through his. “When is she to leave the castle?” she asked.

“Tomorrow evening at dusk. Not before. You’re to conduct her quietly out of the city through the Dame’s Gate,” Walsh informed MacGowan.

The lawyer and his wife had left after that to return to their estate; and MacGowan, having sent in a message to the alderman telling him of the arrangements, had gone gratefully back to his house. It was a piece of providential good fortune, he considered, that the gentleman lawyer should have chanced to come by when he did.

So the grey merchant could find no explanation for the strange feeling that came over him that evening when he thought about Dame Doyle. There was something about the arrangements he didn’t like. He didn’t know why. An instinct. A sense of unease. These were dangerous times.

Well, he told himself, he must escort her to Dalkey, whatever the danger, since he had given Doyle his word and Doyle, as well as being a friend, was a powerful man. But he resolved to take extra precautions.

At dawn the next morning, leaving word for her sleeping husband that she had gone into Dublin and would return that afternoon, Margaret Walsh set out from her house. But she had only gone a short distance out of sight when she wheeled her horse round and, instead of going towards the city, headed south towards the Wicklow Mountains.

The threat of the Gunner and his English troops might concern the people in Dublin, but to Eva O’Byrne it hardly seemed to matter. To those who dwelt in the hills, the slow rhythm of cattle raising in the high and silent places was hardly impinged upon by the ebb and flow of the rival ruling clans down the generations—except when these provided the occasional excitement of a cattle raid. The government of the Pale would change from time to time, but it seemed to her that this underlying pattern of Irish life would always remain the same.

And wasn’t this exactly the case now? The quarrel between Silken Thomas and King Henry might be about profound issues across the sea; but for the O’Byrnes it had meant some patrols and a big raid down into Butler territory. Rather to his disappointment, Sean O’Byrne had not been called upon to go to raid the Butlers; but now, while Dublin awaited the Gunner, Fitzgerald’s friends in the Wicklow Mountains were preparing for the Butlers to return the compliment. Any day now, parties of men might be expected to appear on the slopes to raid the cattle and even burn down the farms. The O’Byrnes were ready to deal with them, and Sean had made extensive preparations at Rathconan. Secretly, Eva was well aware, her husband was hoping the Butlers’ men would come, and was looking forward to it. “They’ll get more than they bargained for,” he told her cheerfully, “when they start a fight with the O’Byrnes.”

The stranger came quite early in the morning, a single rider from the north. Having hissed at a man in the yard to fetch Sean O’Byrne, the rider remained outside, still mounted, wrapped in a cloak and with a covered face. When O’Byrne came out, the stranger insisted on moving a short distance away from the house so that their conversation should be private. They were together a quarter of an hour; then the stranger rode away.

When Sean came back inside, Eva thought he looked somewhat amused, but also excited. He’d be leaving in an hour, he told her, and not returning until the following morning.

“I’ll be taking the boys and some of the men,” he announced. He sent the stable boy to fetch Seamus. “Tell him to bring his weapons,” he instructed. Fintan was to ride over to two of the neighbouring farmsteads and ask each to gather as many armed men as possible. “I’ll pick you up,” his father told him, “along the way.” But even this, he indicated, would not be enough. “I need at least a dozen, maybe twenty men.”

What was this all about, Eva asked? Was it a party of Butler men that he had to fight? No, he said, something else. He’d explain it all tomorrow. In the meantime, he said, she mustn’t say a word to anybody. Just that he’d gone out on a patrol. Could he at least, she demanded, tell her where he was going? No, he could not.

“And what,” she asked, “if a Butler raiding party comes here while you and the men are away? What am I to do then?”

This made him pause.

“There’s been no sign of them yet,” he said. “And we’ll be gone less than a day.” He considered. Then he turned to Maurice. “You’re to stay here,” he ordered quietly. “If there’s danger you are all to ride up into the mountains. Do you understand?”

For an instant, just an instant, she saw the look of dismay in the boy’s handsome eyes. She knew very well how he must be longing to go with Fintan and her husband on this adventure—whatever it was. But in another instant it was gone. He bowed his head gracefully, acknowledging the order, and then turned to her with a smile.

“It will be my pleasure.” You had to admire his aristocratic style. Sean O’Byrne gave him an appreciative nod.

“Fintan had to stay at home last time. It’s your turn now.” Soon afterwards he left.

It was one of those warm September days when a huge blue sky stretched cloudless, over the hills, and the great sweep down to the plain spread out until it turned into a haze. There was a hint of smoke in the air.

Eva spent the rest of the morning quietly. After she had completed her household chores, she went into the little orchard and picked up the apples that had fallen, taking them back to the storeroom where she laid them out on a long wooden table. Later they would be boiled and preserved. Maurice attended to the cattle. The herd was all down from the hill, grazing now. He had an old cattleman to help him; also Seamus’s wife and young children. In her care also were a stable boy and three women who worked in the house, Father Donal and his family, and the old bard. These were the only people at Rathconan that day.

The hours passed slowly. In the early afternoon, Eva sat in the orchard. It was very quiet. Apart from the occasional lowing of the cattle on the pasture above and the soft scraping of the breeze on the crisp apple leaves, all was silence. She wondered where Sean was and what he was doing, but she had no idea. Whatever it was, he had seemed cheerful and confident enough. After sitting for an hour, she got up to return to the house. Perhaps, she thought, she would start boiling those apples now.

But before she reached the door, she heard a shout. It came from Maurice. He was running towards her. She saw Father Donal just behind him with the old bard.

“Troops!” Maurice called. “Butler’s men. Coming up the valley.”

She saw them herself just a moment later: a party of men, some on horse and some on foot coming towards Rathconan. They were not two miles away.

“You think they are Butler men?” she asked Father Donal.

“Who else?” he replied.

“I’ll have horses ready in a moment,” Maurice told her. “Then we must go up into the hills.”

“They’ll take the cattle,” she pointed out.

“I know.” The young fellow didn’t look happy about it. “But those were your husband’s instructions.” He paused. “Perhaps,” he suggested, “if we can get you and the women to a place of safety, Father Donal could stay with you and I and the men …”

She smiled. There looked to be twenty armed men approaching. Was this brave and handsome boy really proposing to tackle them with the aid of the old cattleman, the stable boy, and the bard? “No,” she told him. “We’ll stay together.” Yet it was a terrible thing, to abandon the house and the herd to the raiders. The cattle were their wealth, their livelihood, their status. Deep within her, generations of her forefathers, cattlemen all, rose up in anger. Sean might have foolishly left the herd at risk, but if she could possibly do so, she meant to save it, or part of it, anyway. Could the herd be split and some of the cattle hidden? Was there time? And it was then, remembering something she had once seen in her childhood, that Eva had an idea. It was daring and dangerous. And it would also take skill. She looked at Maurice Fitzgerald.

“Would you like to try something with me?” she asked. “It’s a risk, and if it doesn’t work, they’ll maybe kill us.” Then she explained what would have to be done.

How strange it was, she thought, as she watched his face. Moments before, torn between his desire to do something and his duty to follow Sean’s instructions, the handsome, dark-haired boy had looked so anxious. Yet as he listened to her proposal, which might cost them all their lives, his face seemed to relax. A light came into his eye. An expression she had seen once or twice on her husband’s face in his youth suddenly appeared on Maurice’s—a look of fine, devil-may-care excitement. Yes, she thought to herself, these Fitzgeralds were Irish, right enough.

“Listen then,” she said, “and I will tell you what it is we need to do.”

At the time when the Butler raiding party was approaching Rathconan, Sean O’Byrne and his men were high in the mountains and far to the south. The party now consisted of eleven riders. All of them, including young Fintan, were armed.

Not that Sean expected a fight—a brief scuffle was more likely. They’d be attacking in the dark, with the advantage of surprise; there was a limited and clearly defined objective; and it was quite probable that their quarry would only be accompanied by two or three men. The main thing was to find the right place for the ambush before dark, and to rest the horses. He thought he knew the place. A quiet spot with some trees for cover on the road that led to Dalkey.

It had certainly surprised him when the Walsh woman had turned up like that. He’d remembered her from the time he’d gone to take the oath from her husband, the lawyer; but he hadn’t paid much attention to her then. Her proposal that he should kidnap the alderman’s wife had surprised him even more.

Why was she doing this? he had asked. She had her reasons, she told him. That was all she would say. But she must hate the Doyle woman considerably, he thought, to take such a step. Why do women feud? Over a man, usually. You’d have thought she’d have been a bit old for that, really, he mused; but perhaps a woman was never too old to be jealous. Anyway, whatever her reasons, the rewards of this business could be huge. That was what attracted Sean O’Byrne.

The deal that he and Margaret Walsh had struck was simple enough. He was to capture Dame Doyle and hold her for ransom. It wouldn’t be the first kidnap of this kind in recent years; but normally there would have been serious repercussions if a relatively obscure figure like Sean O’Byrne had dared to abduct the wife of a man as important as Doyle. The present circumstances, however, with Doyle in armed conflict with the Fitzgeralds, presented a wonderful opportunity; and though Silken Thomas had granted Joan Doyle a safe-conduct out of the city, that would hardly extend beyond the suburbs. On the open road down at Dalkey, she was on her own, and Lord Thomas Fitzgerald probably couldn’t care less what happened to her there. Once O’Byrne had obtained the ransom money from the alderman, he was secretly to pass half of it to Margaret. Very secretly. No one—neither his own family nor Margaret’s husband—was to know that she had any part in the business; but her claim to a half share was clearly reasonable. She had brought him the idea, and was telling him when and where Dame Doyle would be travelling. O’Byrne had agreed to the bargain at once.

There was only one thing he hadn’t worked out. How much money should he ask for? He realised that it would be a substantial amount—probably more money than he had ever seen in his life. Though he knew exactly the worth of any cattle inside or outside the Pale, O’Byrne had no idea of the price of a Dublin alderman’s wife.

“When you have her,” the Walsh woman had promised, “I will tell you what to ask.” And O’Byrne was ready to acknowledge that the lawyer’s wife would know best. “But what if we can’t get the asking price?” he had enquired. “What if they won’t pay?”

The Walsh woman had given him a grim smile.

“Kill her,” she said.

They were coming slowly up the slope, taking their time. There were twenty of them: ten mounted, ten on foot. Six of the foot soldiers were simple kerne—men drawn from the land to fight for pay. But four were the terrifying gallowglasses with their long-handled axes and two-handed swords: they would make mincemeat of all but the most highly trained men-at-arms.

They had already been to Seamus’s house and found it deserted. Eva had wondered if they would set fire to it, but they hadn’t bothered. They were gradually approaching her house.

She had taken good care. If the raiding party thought the house was defended, they might spread out so they could take cover. But even from a distance, it was evident that the house had been hastily abandoned. The door was wide open; one of the window shutters was flapping in the wind, creaking and banging. Still packed close together, they advanced.

The open ground below the house was flanked on one side by a stand of trees; on the other was a low wall. The ground sloped very gently. The riders were still about a hundred yards from the house when Father Donal, who was standing concealed by the trees, gave the signal.

The thunder of hoofs began quite suddenly. It seemed to be coming from two places at the same time, so that the raiding party paused for a moment in confusion, looking from one side to the other. Then, gazing in horror, they saw what it was.

The two herds of cattle came round the tower house from both sides. They were already running hard, and as the two bodies came round the tower and converged, they became a single mass of horned heads, the riders behind them whooping, shouting, and cracking whips so that they broke into a stampede. One, two, three hundred cattle were pounding and thundering down the shallow slope, a great wall of horns, a huge weight, ten, a dozen beasts deep, bearing down upon the raiders unstoppably. The men looked for an escape. There was nowhere to go. The great herd filled the whole space between the trees and the wall, and in any case, there was no time to reach either of these. They turned to flee, but the cattle were already upon them. There was a crack, a crash, a terrible roar.

From where she was riding, by the line of trees, Eva saw the moving wall of cattle smash into the men. She saw a sword fly up into the air, heard a shout and a horse scream; and then, only the flowing banks of the cattle, like a river in spate. Behind her, also mounted, she could hear the old bard, whooping and laughing, as excited as a boy; across on the other side near the wall, his face tensely concentrated, his cheeks lightly flushed, she could see Maurice riding in amongst the herd. How handsome he looked, how fearless. Just for an instant she realised that she was half in love with him. Perhaps in all the heat and excitement she had become a young woman again herself, but in the magnificent illusion of the moment, it seemed to her that the young aristocrat was what her own husband might have been, in the years of their youth, if he’d been finer.

The cattle had passed over the attackers now, and were spilling down the slope below. Maurice was working his way round, skilfully turning them. Behind, where the raiding party had been, was a scene of carnage.

If the horsemen had been quicker, if they had not hesitated, they might have survived by wheeling round and running with the herd.

Several had tried, but too late, and had collided either with each other or the foot soldiers. Three had started to run, but not fast enough. The great engine of the herd had either smashed into the horses or overtaken them from behind, borne them down and then trampled them into the earth. The destruction of the men on foot had been even more complete. It made no difference whether they were horsemen, kerne, or the mighty gallowglasses: the herd had passed over them all. Arms, legs, skulls, and breastbones had been cracked and crushed; their bodies mangled or pulped. The great axes of the gallowglasses lay with cracked shafts, their heads useless.

For this was the ancient stampeding of the cattle, an Irish battle tactic as old as the hills. Though Eva had only seen it done once, when she was a child, it was not something you could ever forget; and as every person at Rathconan, from herself down to Seamus’s youngest child, was adept at driving cattle, it had not been too difficult for them, few though they were, to stampede and drive a herd of three hundred.

Seamus’s wife was coming across now. She’d been driving them from behind. The women from the house arrived, too. They surveyed the wreckage. A number of the men were already dead. Others lay groaning. One of the big mercenaries was even trying to get up. The women knew what to do. At a nod from Eva they took out their knives and went from one man to another, slitting their throats. Eva dismounted and did the same for the unfortunate horses. It was a bloody business, but she felt triumphant; she had saved them all. And as Maurice came back, just as she was finishing, he too gave her a look of triumph, love, and joy.

Sean O’Byrne took his time. They had rested for some hours once they had got back into the safety of the hills. They had not been followed. There was no reason to hurry. It was a little before dawn when they set out to cross the mountains with their burden.

The ambush had been well prepared. Before dusk he had found the place he was looking for. The men had been carefully placed. He and Fintan were to go in and make straight for the Doyle woman while the rest of the party, led by Seamus, drove off her escorts. Though all his men were armed, he had told them to use the flats of their swords unless they encountered serious opposition. With luck they could accomplish the business without having to kill anybody. In particular he was concerned about MacGowan. Walsh’s wife had been certain that the grey merchant would be escorting Dame Doyle to Dalkey, and O’Byrne couldn’t imagine him giving her up without a fight. He liked MacGowan and would be sorry to harm him, but there wasn’t much he could do about it. The game had to be played; the rest was up to fate.

The only other problem might be in seeing her. There was a half-moon, however. That should give enough light. He had waited, therefore, in reasonable confidence with Fintan close beside him.

Darkness had fallen. The moon gave a soft light on the road as it wound between the trees. If she had left the castle at nightfall, assuming the party rode at a reasonable speed, he had estimated when they should get there; but the time passed and there was still no sign of them. He waited patiently all the same. The Walsh woman had seemed clear enough. They might have been delayed. An hour passed, and he was beginning to have doubts, when he heard something. Footfalls. Quite a number of them. That was strange. He’d assumed the party would be on horseback. He hissed to his men to be ready. He could hear them mounting. He felt his own body tense in expectancy. Then in the moonlight he saw the party coming round the bend.

There were only two riders: MacGowan and the woman rode in front. Behind them, however, marched twenty men on foot. They were a mixed collection: armed townsmen, regular soldiers; even Brennan, armed with a long pike, had been brought in from Doyle’s new estate. But it was the eight men marching at the front who caught O’Byrne’s attention. He stared in disbelief. Gallowglasses. Their huge axes and swords were carried sloped over their shoulders.

MacGowan must have hired them. He cursed under his breath and hesitated.

Should they still attack? Their numbers might be roughly even, but the gallowglasses were each worth two or three of his own untrained men. He didn’t like the risk.

He felt a nudge at his side. Fintan.

“Aren’t we going?” the boy whispered.

“Gallowglasses,” he hissed back.

“But they’re on foot. We can ride in and out and they’ll never catch us.” It sounded so reasonable. He saw exactly what his son was thinking. But Fintan didn’t understand. He shook his head.

“No.”

“But, Father …” There was a hint not just of disappointment but even of reproach. How could his father be such a coward? “Watch.”

Sean couldn’t believe it. Fintan was kicking his horse forward, breaking out of their cover, racing towards the soldiers in the moonlight. Thinking the signal had been given, Seamus and the rest of his men were racing out, too. MacGowan and the woman had stopped. The gallowglasses were moving swiftly round them in a protective ring. It was too late now. There was nothing he could do but go forward himself. He dashed towards the gallowglasses to help his son. Perhaps, after all, the boy was right.

It had only been hours ago, yet already, such is the strangeness of battle, their fight with the gallowglasses seemed an age away, as if it had taken place in another world. It was not even the fight that he remembered but, just after he had knocked MacGowan off his horse, the sight of Fintan reaching out his arms to try and grasp the Doyle woman, and then the feel of the boy brushing close beside him as they all raced away. They’d left four men on the road with the gallowglasses, but that couldn’t be helped. Even in the moonlight he could see from their wounds that they were dead or dying already. He remembered the dash up the slope with the voices of the gallowglasses hurling curses from far behind, and then Seamus coming beside him and laughing in a friendly way at Fintan for the boy’s wild bravery. Then Fintan fainting.

The stars were beginning to fade as they left the dark outlines of the mountaintops behind them and began the slow descent towards Rathconan.

And the sun was already rising over the eastern sea, its fierce light flashing up the slopes and into the crevices of the Wicklow Mountains, when Sean O’Byrne and his party came in sight of the house. Long before they reached it, Eva and Maurice and old Father Donal were coming out to meet them, their faces smiling broadly until they saw that they brought with them no trophy, no captive, but only their burden, wrapped tightly in a blanket and tied to his horse: Fintan, who had bled to death on the mountainside from the huge wound, which Sean had failed to see, made as it happened, not by the great two-handed sword of a gallowglass, but by Brennan’s long spear which, like a dark spike, had pierced Fintan’s ribs as he reached for Joan Doyle.

Late that morning, Margaret rode out to the meeting place up in the hills, where Sean O’Byrne had told her he would come to give her news of the previous night’s expedition. She waited there half the afternoon, but he never came. She was almost tempted to ride down to Rathconan, but decided it would be too great a risk. By evening she was glad that she had not.

Richard Walsh had gone into Dublin alone that morning. He returned in the evening with a report that Dame Doyle had been attacked near Dalkey. “But luckily,” he added, “she escaped.” Four of the assailants had been killed. “It seems they came from up near Rathconan. They say Sean O’Byrne was involved.” MacGowan had been knocked off his horse, but was not much hurt.

“You say Dame Doyle is safe in Dalkey now?” asked Margaret.

“She is, thank God.”

“What will they do about O’Byrne?” she enquired.

“Nothing, I should say. Doyle’s shut up in the castle. Lord Thomas doesn’t care. And O’Byrne’s boys had the worst of it anyway.”

There hadn’t seemed much point in going to see O’Byrne after that.

It was a few days later that MacGowan arrived at the house. As always, the lawyer was glad to see him, remarking cheerfully that the grey merchant looked none the worse for his recent encounter. And MacGowan seemed grateful to rest inside and take a little wine. He appeared tired as they sat down in the hall.

“It’s on account of the other night that I’ve just come from Sean O’Byrne’s,” he said wearily. “For I was at the wake for his son.”

“His son?” Margaret looked up in surprise. “He lost a son?”

“He did. Fintan. The other night. A sad wake it was. A terrible thing.”

“But …” she gazed at him in astonishment as she considered the implications of this news. “It must have been the men you hired that killed him.”

“There is not a doubt of it.”

“I’m surprised you went to the wake,” she said.

“I went to his wake out of my respect for his father,” MacGowan quietly replied. “His death was no fault of mine, and the O’Byrnes know that. What’s done is done.”

She was silent. MacGowan closed his eyes.

“Did he tell you how it was he came to know of Dame Doyle’s going to Dalkey?” asked Walsh. “That is the thing that puzzles me.”

“He did not.” MacGowan’s eyes were still closed.

“Nothing’s a secret in Dublin, I know,” the lawyer remarked. “I had to conclude that when I asked for the safe-conduct, one of the men around Lord Thomas must have set up the ambush.”

“They would know Sean O’Byrne,” agreed MacGowan, apparently still seeking sleep; and neither man spoke for a moment of two. “Whoever carried the information,” he continued quietly, “has the death of young Fintan O’Byrne on their conscience.” And now he opened one eye. And with it he stared straight at Margaret.

Margaret gazed back. His eye remained fixed upon her. It seemed so large, so accusing, so all-knowing.

What did he know? How much had the clever merchant guessed? Had O’Byrne said something? If he did know, did he mean to tell her husband, or the Doyles? She tried to keep calm, to give nothing away. But she felt only a cold, awful dread. Her gaze fell. She could not, any longer, look at that terrible eye.

Slowly MacGowan rose.

“I must be on my way,” he announced. “I thank you,” he said to Walsh, “for your hospitality.” To Margaret he said not another word. She wasn’t sorry to see him go.

But if she thought that her tribulation was at an end with his departure, she was wrong.

It was about an hour later, after attending to some business, that her husband came into the hall to find her sitting alone. As she had been brooding about the uncomfortable interview with MacGowan, she was grateful to have someone to distract her thoughts and turned to him with a hopeful smile as he sat down in the heavy oak chair by the table. He seemed to have something on his mind also, since he paused thoughtfully before he began.

“It’s as well, you know, that no harm came to Joan Doyle the other night. For us as a family, I mean.”

“Oh?” She felt a little catch in her breath, to hear him bring the subject of Joan Doyle up like that. “Why?”

“Because …” he hesitated a moment, “there is something I never told you.”

So, it was coming at last. She felt a coldness, a sinking sensation. Did she want to hear it? Half of her wanted to stop him. Her throat was dry.

“What?”

“On Corpus Christi day, last year, I borrowed a large sum of money from her.”

“On Corpus Christi?” She stared at him.

“Yes. You may recall,” he went on quickly, “that Richard had caused us great expense in London. I was embarrassed for money, worried. More worried than I wanted you to know. It was our friend MacGowan, seeing me looking rather glum in Dublin one day, who suggested she might be able to help me. So I went to see her for a loan.”

“She makes loans herself? Without her husband?”

“She does. You know our Dublin women have more freedom than even the London women do. I discovered she makes quite a few. She usually consults the alderman but not always. In my case, because I felt embarrassed, she lent me the money privately. There’s a written agreement, of course, properly drawn up, but so far as I know it’s private between myself and Dame Doyle.” He paused. Then he gave a small laugh. “Do you know why she made the loan? She remembered Richard. That time she took shelter at this house. ‘He’s a sweet boy,’ she said. ‘He must be helped.’ And she gave me the money. On very easy terms as well.”

“On Corpus Christi day?”

“I went to see her. She was quite alone, apart from an old servant. The rest of the house had gone to see the plays. And she gave me the money there and then.”

“When will it have to be repaid?”

“It was due after a year. I thought I could manage it. But after we lost the Church estate … She’s given me another three years. Generous terms.”

“But it’s her husband who got our land.”

“I know. ‘Your loss has been our gain,’ she said to me. ‘I can hardly refuse to extend your loan after that, can I?’ ” He shook his head. “She has treated us—me, if you like—uncommonly well. My crime, Margaret, is that because I was ashamed, I concealed it from you. If she had been killed the other night, the loan document would have been found in her papers, and Doyle might have come after the money. I don’t know.” He sighed. “Anyway, it was time I told you. Can you forgive me?”

Margaret gazed at him. Was this the whole truth? She had no doubt about the loan. If her husband said there was a loan, then there was one. The story about Corpus Christi was probably true, also. But was there more to it than her kindness and her liking for Richard? Wasn’t there still something between this woman, who had always despised her, and her husband?

For if there was not, then she had sent Sean O’Byrne to attack her, and caused the death of his boy for nothing. Nothing at all.

“Dear God,” she said, in sudden doubt. “Oh dear God.”

For Cecily, the month of September brought a new and awkward decision. Two days after MacGowan’s return from Fintan O’Byrne’s wake, the city changed its mind. Perhaps it was the increasingly urgent news that an English army was about to arrive, or that the citizens were tired of billeting Fitzgerald’s troops, or a perception amongst the council members that Silken Thomas’s rule lacked conviction; but whatever the reasons, the city turned.

The first Cecily knew was when one of the children ran up the tower stairs looking frightened. Then she heard bangs and shouts in the street. Looking out, she saw a party of Fitzgerald’s gallowglasses beating a hasty retreat through the western gateway. And close behind them followed a huge angry tide of people armed with spears, swords, axes, staves—whatever they could get their hands on—flooding out through the gate. They caught and killed dozens of Fitzgerald’s men. If Silken Thomas was offering to save Ireland for the one true Church, they didn’t seem to care. “Heretics,” she called them furiously. But Silken Thomas was back outside Dublin now, and though he put the city under siege again, he couldn’t get back in. Within days, Silken Thomas and the aldermen agreed to a six-week truce. “He won’t fight us,” the Dubliners said, “he’ll wait and fight the English.”

This return to stalemate had one other result. Dublin Castle opened its gate, and Henry Tidy came home.

It was a pity that one of the children had upset a pitcher of milk just before he came, and Cecily was not in a good temper. She had been waiting for this day for so long. Time and again, while her husband was in the castle, she had thought about the moment of his return. What was it she wanted? As she looked at her children and remembered the early days of their marriage, she knew very well. She longed to return to the warmth of their married life. She couldn’t change her religious views. That was impossible. And she didn’t suppose that her husband could change his attitude, either. But surely they could manage to live in peace.

If only he would be kind. When he had struck her that awful day, it had not been the blow itself that hurt—although she had been shocked—but the coldness she had sensed behind it. And something within her had died. Could it be revived?

She needed to know that he loved her. Whatever her views about King Henry, however much she embarrassed him in front of Doyle and the city authorities, she needed to know that he truly loved her. That was what she would be watching for, upon his return. How would he act? What would it mean? Could she trust him?

It was a pity therefore that, in a moment of irritation, she should have turned when he appeared at the door and greeted him coldly.

“You don’t seem very pleased to see me.”

She stared at him. She wanted to smile. She had meant to. But now that the moment she had waited for had come, and had started all wrong, she felt strangely paralyzed. She felt something inside her shrink back.

“You left your family,” she answered bleakly.

Would he apologise? Would he make the first move? Would he give her some reassurance?

“You refused to come with me, Cecily.”

No. Not a word. Nothing had changed.

“It is not my fault that King Henry is excommunicated.”

“I am still your husband.”

She gave a tiny shrug. “And the Holy Father is still the Holy Father.”

“I have returned, anyway.” He tried a smile. “You could make me welcome.”

“Why?” She could not help the bitterness in her voice. “Do you wish to be here?”

He stared at her. What was he thinking? He’s thinking what a cold and cruel woman I am, she thought. This is partly my fault.

“No.”

So that was it. He’d spoken the truth. Was it the truth, though, or was he just hitting back? She waited for him to add something else. He didn’t.

“We’ve nothing to say to each other,” she said, feeling strangely helpless, and stood there waiting as the coldness descended, falling quietly between them.

By the next day, the Tidy household had evolved a new way of life. The workshop was at the street level. There Tidy and the apprentice worked and slept. On the floor above was the main room, where the family ate together. Above that, in the tower, Cecily and the children slept. From her window up there, Cecily overlooked some potteries where they made crockery.

It became a refuge for her, that window in the tower. Sometimes during the day she would go up there to be alone and watch the crockers, or even catch sight of Fitzgerald’s men in the distance. In the evenings, cut off from her husband, after the children had gone to sleep, she would sit there for hours watching the sunset or the stars, and thinking of what was passing in the world.

Soon after she began her vigils came the news that the Earl of Kildare had died of his sickness in England. Sad though this was, it also meant that Silken Thomas was now the new earl, with all the authority and prestige that name evoked. It could not be long now, she hoped, before the cause was won. In mid-October, the English ships at last arrived. Doyle and the other aldermen welcomed the Gunner and his men into Dublin. The English troops were numerous and seemed to be trained; they also brought artillery. She had hoped to see them destroyed in an open battle with Silken Thomas, and felt some disgust when, from her window, she saw parties of Thomas’s troops quietly withdrawing. But she took comfort from the prevailing view amongst Kildare’s supporters.

“He’ll wait at Maynooth. The Fitzgeralds still have all their strongholds. He’ll wear the Gunner down, and when the Spanish troops arrive, they’ll kick the English out of Ireland forever.”

Within a month, the Gunner set out. Word came that he had taken back one of the castles Fitzgerald had seized, at Trim. Still more ominous came the news that two of Thomas’s five Fitzgerald uncles were cooperating with the Gunner. As she looked out of her window after hearing that, it was hard not to feel a sense of dismay. How was it possible, she wondered, that there could be such treachery? But when she prayed, she knew she must keep faith, and so she told herself to have patience.

And indeed, in the winter months, there was reason to hope. The winter was cold and wet. The Gunner retired to Dublin and stayed there, and soon complained that he was unwell. Cecily would see him occasionally, riding through the streets with his escort. Instead of the brisk military man he had been, he now looked pale and haggard. His troops were suffering, too. There were desertions. Better yet, Silken Thomas was back in the strongholds the Gunner had taken earlier. Most important of all, around Christmas Cecily heard that the Spanish were sending ten thousand armed men. Once they arrived, the Gunner would be gone.

January came, cold and dreary. The English troops were being sent out now to key garrisons around the Pale; but there was no action. Still Silken Thomas waited for the Spanish soldiers, but no word of them came. One day, in February, at their meal in the main room, Tidy quietly remarked, “You know what people are saying now. The King of Spain has other things to think about. He’s going to leave Silken Thomas twisting in the breeze.”

“So you say,” she answered dully. It wasn’t often they even spoke, nowadays.

“A ship came into port yesterday,” he continued calmly. “From Spain. There’s no sign and no word of any soldiers to be sent over here.”

“The enemies of the Fitzgeralds will say what they will say,” she countered.

“You don’t understand.” He gazed at her evenly. “It’s not their enemies saying so. It’s their friends.”

That night there was a fall of snow. When she looked out of her window in the morning, gazing towards the interior of Ireland, she saw only a dismal, white silence.

But the real blow came in March. The Gunner had finally bestirred himself to launch a proper campaign. Boldly, he had gone to Maynooth, the mighty Fitzgerald stronghold. Even with his artillery, Cecily imagined, he’d be held up by that huge fortress for weeks. Then, after no time at all, the news came.

“Maynooth has fallen.” It was her husband who came all the way up to her tower refuge to tell her.

“The Gunner took it?”

He shook his head.

“He’ll claim he took it, of course,” he said. “But it was some of Fitzgerald’s own men who betrayed him and let the English in.” Then he went back down the stairs again.

That night, after watching the sunset, she could not sleep, and sat staring out at the gleaming stars until, at last, they faded before the cold, harsh dawn from the east.

It was in April, when Silken Thomas was already a fugitive, moving down into the marshes, that Cecily went to see Dame Doyle. It had not been easy to approach the house of the alderman who had sided so gladly with the heretic King Henry; but his wife was different, and she trusted her.

“I can’t go on like this,” she told the older woman. “I don’t know what to do.” And she explained all that had passed between her and Henry Tidy. But if she expected sympathy, or that Dame Doyle would offer to mediate, she was disappointed.

“You must go back to living with your husband,” Dame Doyle told her bluntly. “It’s as simple as that. Even,” she added quite severely, “if you don’t love him.” She gazed at Cecily thoughtfully. “Could you bring yourself to love him,” she asked her frankly, “enough?”

It was what Cecily had been wondering herself.

“The trouble is,” she confessed, “I think he doesn’t love me.”

“Are you sure of that?”

“It’s what I believe.”

“Perhaps,” Dame Doyle said more kindly, “you should give your husband the benefit of the doubt. Marriage is like religion, in a way,” she gently suggested. “It requires an act of faith.”

“But that’s not the same at all,” Cecily protested. “For about the true faith I haven’t any doubt.”

“Well at least you could hope,” Dame Doyle remarked with a smile. And seeing Cecily still looking uncertain, “My child, you’ll have to rely upon charity then. Be kind to him. Things may get better. Besides,” she added shrewdly, “you’ve said yourself things can’t continue as they are. The plain fact is, you’ve nothing to lose.”

So that night, after putting the children to sleep in the main room, Cecily went down to the workshop and suggested that Tidy should join her in her refuge above.

The old man arrived at Rathconan on a fine day at the end of August. He was a brehon, he informed Eva, a man skilled in the old Irish laws and an adviser to the Fitzgeralds down in Munster. He had come from Maurice’s parents with a message that must be delivered only to the boy himself and to Sean. As they were away with the cattle up on the mountain pastures, she sent one of the men to fetch them while, with the proper show of respect to the old man, she set out a flagon of ale and some refreshments for him in the hall where he said he would like to rest. Until Sean and Maurice arrived, she could only guess as to what the nature of the brehon’s business might be.

One possibility, clearly, concerned the Fitzgerald family. When his garrison had betrayed him at Maynooth, Silken Thomas had escaped and gone to rally the Irish chiefs who were loyal to his family. The Gunner might hold some strongholds and possess most of the artillery, but he only had a few hundred troops and he wasn’t well himself. The English force could be worn down and destroyed.

But the Gunner had the power of England behind him. The Irish chiefs were cautious. Silken Thomas was still saying that the Spanish would come; but weeks passed and there was no sign of them. Silken Thomas was learning the bitter lesson of power: friends are the people who think you will win. “At least people up here are loyal to the Fitzgeralds,” Eva had remarked to Sean one day; but he had only given her a wry look. “Some of the O’Tooles and our own O’Byrne kinsmen are talking to the Gunner now,” he told her. “He’s offering good money.” By midsummer, Silken Thomas was hiding out in the forests and bogs like a warrior chief from times gone by.

But he wasn’t an ancient Irish chief; he was rich young Silken Thomas. If the Gunner was sluggish, the Fitzgerald heir was starting to lose heart. And a week ago, when one of his aristocratic English kinsmen, a royal commander, had found him miserably encamped down in the Bog of Allen and promised him his life and a pardon if he gave himself up, he had agreed to do so. The news had reached Rathconan three days ago.

So now, though it was hard for Eva to believe, it seemed that the power of the mighty house of Kildare was fading away like the sound of pipers disappearing over the hill. And if Kildare’s power had collapsed, what would that mean for the Desmond Fitzgeralds in the south? Uncertainty at best. Perhaps the southern Fitzgeralds would want their son Maurice safely back with them?

She hoped not. Since the death of Fintan, young Maurice had been such a tower of strength, helping Sean and giving her his quiet affection. You couldn’t keep a foster son forever, of course, but she couldn’t bear to part with him just now. Not yet.

Sean and Maurice arrived at the house early in the evening. Sean greeted the brehon respectfully and having sipped a little ale, sat in the big oak chair in the hall, looking rather impressive. Maurice sat quietly on a stool, gazing at the old man curiously. Eva sat on a bench. Then Sean politely requested the brehon to state his business.

“I am Kieran, son of Art, hereditary brehon, and I come on behalf of the lady Fitzgerald, mother of Maurice Fitzgerald, foster son of Sean O’Byrne,” he began in a formal manner that signalled the seriousness of his business. “Would you confirm to me,” he turned to Maurice, “that you are that Maurice Fitzgerald?” Maurice nodded. “And that you are that same Sean O’Byrne?”

“I am,” said Sean. “And what is your message?”

“For some years, Sean O’Byrne, this Maurice has lived in your house as your foster son.” He paused, eyeing Sean, it seemed to Eva, a little severely. “But as you also know, this young man has a greater claim upon you.”

Sean acknowledged this odd statement with a gracious inclination of his handsome head.

“And under the ancient usages of Ireland,” the brehon continued, “I’m to tell you, Sean O’Byrne, that his mother the lady Fitzgerald is now calling upon you to admit your responsibility in this matter and to make the proper provisions.”

“She names me?”

“She does.”

Maurice was listening to this dialogue with utter astonishment. Eva was staring at the old man with a look of horror on her pale face. Only Sean seemed quite at ease, sitting in his big chair and nodding quietly in recognition of what the brehon was saying.

“What responsibility?” Eva broke in. “What provision?” A sudden panic added a sharpness to her voice. “What is it you’re saying?”

The brehon turned towards her. It was hard to tell what expression was in his face, which seemed as old as the hills.

“That your husband, Sean O’Byrne, is the father of this boy.” He indicated Maurice. “The lady Fitzgerald has named him. You did not know?”

She did not reply. Her face was entirely white; her mouth formed into a small O, from which no sound emerged. The old man turned to Sean.

“You do not deny it?”

And now Sean was smiling. “I do not. She has the right.”

It was the law and custom in Ireland that if a woman named a man as the father of her child and it was acknowledged, then the child was entitled to make claims upon the father, including a share of the father’s estate when he died.

“When?” Eva found her voice at last. “When was this known?”

Sean did not seem in any hurry to reply, so the old man answered. “It was admitted privately between the parties when Sean O’Byrne came down to ask for Maurice as a foster son.”

“When Maurice first came here. He brought Maurice here because he was his son?”

“That would be it,” said the brehon. “The lady Fitzgerald’s husband did not wish to embarrass himself or his wife at that time, so once he had been informed of the matter, he agreed that Maurice should go with his father as a foster son. But as he’s not wanting to provide for him now, Sean O’Byrne is named.”

“You are my father?” It was Maurice who spoke now. He was very pale. He had been watching Eva; now he turned to Sean.

“I am.” Sean smiled. He seemed delighted.

“But why?” Eva’s voice was a cry of pain. She couldn’t help it. “Why in God’s name would you have your own son by another woman to live in my house all these years, under my very nose, and never a word to me about who he was? You watched me look after him and love him like my own. And it was all a lie! A lie to make a fool of me. Was it for that you did it, Sean? For my humiliation? In the name of God, when I think of the good wife I’ve been to you, why would you do such a thing?” She paused, staring at him. “You were planning this for years.”

And now, as he looked at her with the blandest of smiles on his handsome face, she saw, also, a little gleam of angry triumph in his eye.

“It was you who brought the friar here and made me swear upon the Saint Kevin.” He paused and she saw his fingers close upon the arms of the oak chair as his body leaned forward in the seat. “It was you that humiliated me, Eva, in front of the friar and the priest,” his voice was rising in suppressed fury, “in my own house.” He threw himself back in his seat. Then he smiled. “You’ve done a good job looking after my son. I’ll say that.”

And in a terrible, searing flash, Eva understood as she had never understood before the vanity of a man, and the long, cold reach of his vengeance.

Just then, Maurice ran out of the hall.

Sean and Eva ate in silence that night. The brehon, having gone to visit Father Donal, had sent word that he would remain with the priest and his family until his departure early in the morning. Maurice had gone to the barn to be alone. Though Eva had asked him to come back in, he had requested, politely as always, that he might be allowed to remain alone with his thoughts; and so, after giving his arm an awkward but affectionate squeeze, Eva had left him there.

Sean had already announced that he would be going up to the high pasture again in the morning. The two of them sat—he apparently satisfied, she in stony silence—until at last, when the meal was done, she remarked to him: “I shall never get over this, you know.”

“You will in time.” He had an apple in his hand. He cut it into four pieces with his knife, leaving the seeds in, and ate one of the quarters, swallowing the seeds. “What’s done is done,” he observed. “You love him anyway. He’s a fine boy.”

“Oh, he is fine,” she acknowledged. “It is amazing to me only,” she added bitterly, “that someone so fine could be your son.”

“Do you think so?” He nodded thoughtfully. “Well, it would seem that with his mother I could make a finer son than I could with you.” And he picked up another piece of the quartered apple.

Her head went forward. The pain of the cruel words was so great, it was like a dagger stabbed into her stomach. She thought of Fintan.

“Do you love anybody?” she asked at last. “Other than yourself?”

“I do.” He let the words dangle like a bait before a fish in the stream, but she had wisdom enough to turn away.

They remained in silence for as long as it took him, at his calculated leisure, to eat the other two quarters of the apple.

“He must go,” she said.

“You’re a great one for throwing people out of my house,” he remarked. “Is it my own son you’re wanting to be rid of now?”

“He must go, Sean. You say that I love him, and it’s true. But I can’t stand it. He must go.”

“My son will stay in his father’s house,” he replied with finality; and with that he got up and went to bed, leaving her sitting in the hall, wondering what she should do. She sat there all night.

Did she really want him gone? She thought of all that Maurice had meant to her. Certainly none of this was the boy’s fault. How must he be feeling now, out there in the barn, thinking about the deception that everyone had practised upon himself all these years. Was she re-enacting the business with the Brennan girl, insisting that he go? Wasn’t it just the same battle with her husband’s will? Wasn’t it the same, all over again, except that now he had increased the pain and the humiliation? Now he had even made her love the boy, the cause of her pain, and then poisoned that love. Oh, he had been clever. You had to give him that. He’d made her drain a bitter cup.

And that was why she couldn’t bear to have Maurice there anymore. It seemed to her, as the dawn broke, that she had no way out.

But a few hours later the decision was taken out of their hands by Maurice himself who, for the first time in the years he had been with them, quietly but firmly refused to obey the man that he now knew was his father. He told them he wanted to leave.

“I will visit you often, Father,” he said, “and you, too, if I may,” he added to Eva, with a gentle look of sadness in those wonderful eyes of his, so strange and emerald green.

“You needn’t go, Maurice,” she cried. “You don’t have to go.”

But his determination was absolute. “It’s for the best,” he said.

“Where will you go?” Sean asked him, a little heavily. “To Munster?”

“To see the mother who betrayed me and her husband who doesn’t want me?” He shook his head sadly. “If I see my mother I might curse her.”

“Where, then?”

“I have decided, Father,” he said, “to go to Dublin.”

MacGowan was most surprised when Maurice arrived at his house. And he was even more astonished when Maurice told him his story. It wasn’t often that the grey merchant discovered a long-standing secret, however intimate, that he didn’t already know.

“And you’re asking me to take you on as an apprentice?” he confirmed.

“I am. I’m sure that my father—Sean O’Byrne, that is—will pay the apprenticeship fee.”

“No doubt.”

“If you would consider me.”

MacGowan did consider, but he had no need to do so for long. It was clear to him that with his knowledge of life with the O’Byrnes and his courtly education and manners, the young man would be the ideal grey merchant, welcomed beyond the Pale and in the best Dublin circles, too. He could go far, MacGowan thought, farther even than I.

“There is a problem,” he said.

“What is that?”

“Your name.”

Maurice Fitzgerald. What a name to possess. There would be a splendid dash, even effrontery in a young grey merchant owning such an aristocratic name; but given the present political climate in Dublin, it might be unwise.

“The name of Fitzgerald might put you in some danger now,” he said.

“It’s not my name anymore,” Maurice answered with a wry smile. “You forget that I’m an O’Byrne.”

“So you are.” MacGowan nodded thoughtfully. “So you are.” He paused. “That also, in Dublin, could be a problem.” He smiled sadly. “It’s too Irish.”

Given the young man’s character and manners, he would probably overcome any prejudice in time. But nonetheless, to advertise oneself as the son of Sean O’Byrne—the Irish friend of Fitzgerald, who had tried to kidnap the wife of Alderman Doyle—was not, he gently pointed out to Maurice, the best way to begin. “And you’ll want the freedom one day,” he predicted. “Be sure of that.”

“In that case, since to be truthful with you, I feel more like an orphan than any man’s son, and I mean to make a life of my own, I’d be glad enough to take another name. I really don’t care.” The young man stared at MacGowan for a few moments and then smiled. “Your own name, for instance. MacGowan in English would be Smith.”

“It would. Near enough.”

“Well then, if you’ll have me as an apprentice, let me be Maurice Smith. Would that do?”

“It would do very well,” said MacGowan with a laugh. “You shall be Maurice Smith.”

And so it was, early in the autumn of 1535, while Silken Thomas was on the perilous sea to London, that a descendant of the princely O’Byrnes and the noble Walshes, and, though he did not know it, of Deirdre and of Conall and of old Fergus himself, came down to live in Dublin under the English name of Maurice Smith.

One week later, to his great surprise, Maurice received a visitor. It was his father.

It had taken Sean a little while to find his son. He had supposed that Maurice might have gone to MacGowan, but when he first approached the merchant’s house and asked if there was a young man named O’Byrne living there, he had been told by the neighbours that there was not. He did not seem particularly put out by Maurice’s decision not to use his proper name.

“You’ve been living under another name for so many years, that I expect it has become a habit,” Sean told him with a smile.

He did not stay long, but with him he had brought a square box.

“You may not choose to live at Rathconan,” he said, “but you may as well have something to remember your family by.”

Then he left.

After his father had gone, Maurice opened the box. To his surprise and delight, he found that it contained the drinking skull of old Fergus.

In the Irish Parliament that met from May of 1536 until December of the following year, no member was more assiduous in his efforts to please the king than William Walsh the lawyer.

Acting under the direction of the king’s council in London, the Irish Parliament passed measures to centralise the rule of Ireland in England, to raise taxes, and, of course, to recognise King Henry, and not the Pope, as Supreme Head of the Irish Church, while allowing his divorce and remarriage to be valid. And whether William Walsh and his fellow Members of Parliament liked all these measures or not, they passed them because they had to.

The fall of the Fitzgeralds was terrifying. Silken Thomas, having first been politely received at the English court as promised, had been suddenly transferred to the Tower. Then his five uncles, including the two who had actually been on the English side, were taken to London and sent to the Tower, too. “We are to accuse them all of treason,” Walsh told his wife grimly when he returned from the Parliament one day. In the depths of that winter, the six Fitzgeralds were taken to London’s public gallows at Tyburn and brutally executed. It was vicious, it broke assurances given, it had been legalised by Parliament: it was pure Henry.

Meanwhile, seventy-five of the principal men in Ireland who had acted with Silken Thomas were sentenced to execution. It sent a shudder through the community. And the lesser gentry, like William Walsh, who had gone along with the Fitzgeralds, were told that, depending upon the royal will, they might be able to get a pardon in return for a fine. “Thank God,” Walsh remarked, “that I had witnesses to prove that I took that damned oath under duress. But what the fine will be I don’t yet know, and half the men in Parliament are in a similar position.” Henry was keeping them waiting until they had passed all his legislation. “He has us,” Walsh confessed, “exactly where he wants us.”

Some opposition there was, from gentlemen not under threat. When Henry demanded a harsh new tax on income, these loyal men were able to persuade him to be more lenient. “By the grace of God,” Walsh reported back to his family, “the tax will only be paid by the clergy.” But this was one of the few concessions that Henry made; and so that no one should doubt his determination to be Ireland’s lord and master, his lieutenants continued the forays around the edge of the Pale to subdue the territories and implacably hunted down any remaining members of the Kildare family who could give any trouble.

Even so, it rather surprised Margaret that there was not more protest about Henry’s taking over the Church and his attack on the Pope. “Some of the clerical members have protested,” William told her. “But some of the strongest voices were so involved with Silken Thomas that they’ve either been deprived of their benefices or fled abroad. The fact is,” he added, “that although Henry has put himself in place of the Pope—which is an outrage, of course—there’s little sign that he means to make any changes to the forms and doctrines of the faith.” A new archbishop named Browne appeared in Dublin, who was said to have Protestant leanings, but so far he hadn’t said or done anything offensive. “The real question is what Henry means to do about the monasteries.”

In England, the great process had already begun. Under the guise of a religious reform, the Tudor king, who always spent money faster than he got it, was planning to take all the rich lands and possessions of England’s medieval monasteries into his own hands and to sell them. Would he do the same in Ireland?

“One effect of the business in England,” Walsh told his son Richard at the family meal one day, “is that it’s creating a huge amount of work for lawyers. Every monastery wants to be legally represented and to argue its case.” Working closely with his father, Richard had already made himself well liked by a number of the monastic houses. “For lawyers like ourselves, Richard,” his father continued, “the fees could be lucrative.”

Though she said nothing, Margaret was secretly a little shocked by this attitude. Whatever their faults, surely the ancient monasteries of Ireland merited better treatment than this? When a measure to close just thirteen of the Irish monasteries was set before the Parliament, she was glad to hear that there had finally been some opposition. And when William, who had been away at the debates for several days, returned to the house one afternoon, she questioned him quite eagerly.

“I was sure, in the end, our people wouldn’t stand for it,” she said.

But William only chuckled.

“That isn’t it at all,” he let her know. “The problem is who gets the land. The fear is that it will go to the king’s men and the Butlers. Some of your friends, the Fingal gentry, are going to Henry to demand their share. Doyle and his fellow aldermen have already been promised one of the monasteries to reward the city for opposing Silken Thomas.”

“You make it sound as if it’s all about money,” she objected.

“I’m afraid,” the lawyer sighed, “that it usually is.”

The subject of money could never be far from Walsh’s mind at this time. Not only was the question of his royal pardon and fine an unresolved issue for many months but there was also the debt to Joan Doyle which remained unpaid. “And yet,” he remarked upon several occasions to Margaret, “these difficulties have also been a kind of blessing.” This was because of the effect they had on young Richard.

For if Richard Walsh had cost his family more than they could afford while he lived as a young gentleman in London, he was only too painfully conscious of the fact now. If he had lost none of his boyhood charm, if with his mother’s dark red hair he possessed the most striking good looks, he was also a tolerably good lawyer and as determined as any young man could be to repay to his family what he believed he owed them, and then to make for himself a fortune in the world. Side by side with his father, he worked assiduously. He himself made any journey that he thought might tire his father; if William at day’s end needed to pore over ancient documents, he’d sit up all night with them so that his father would awake to find the job already done. He sought out new business, covered for William when he was busy in Parliament, learned everything he could about Ireland’s law.

“I have to tell him, sometimes, to stop,” his father said proudly. “But he’s young and strong, these efforts will do him no harm.”

Despite all these efforts, however, the Walshes were so far only able to pay the interest on Dame Doyle’s loan and put a little aside towards the coming royal fine.

If he hadn’t been aware of the transaction before, the alderman himself was clearly aware of his wife’s loan now. Walsh knew this for a certainty one morning when he encountered Doyle on his way to a parliamentary session. He had heard the day before that the alderman’s daughter Mary had just been granted the freedom of the city and so he politely congratulated him on this event, which Doyle received with affability. Then, falling in beside Walsh, the alderman genially murmured, “Here’s the fellow that’s borrowed a fortune from my wife.” Seeing Walsh wince, he grinned. “She told me all about it. I haven’t the least objection, you know.”

It was easy enough for Doyle to be sanguine, Walsh thought a little enviously. As a loyal alderman who’d opposed Silken Thomas, with a wife connected to the Butlers and who’d even been attacked by O’Byrne, the rich merchant was high in royal favour and likely to profit from any monastic property or royal offices that might be going.

“I can pay the interest,” William had answered, “but repaying the principal is going to take a time. I’ve the royal fine to consider, too.”

“They say your son Richard is helping you.”

“He is,” Walsh added with a little flush of pride, and told him of the young man’s efforts.

“As to your loan,” Doyle said when Walsh had finished, “I’d just as soon she lent to you as any other borrower. You’re sounder than most.” He paused. “As to the fine, I’ll be glad to speak to the royal officials on your behalf. I have some credit there at present.” And a week later, encountering him again, Doyle had told him, “Your fine will be a token payment only. They know you’re not to blame.”

When William related these conversations back to Margaret, she greeted the good news with a smile. But she still trembled inwardly. No word of her involvement in the kidnap attempt had ever been heard, so that she supposed that O’Byrne had kept silent or that, if he had told MacGowan, the grey merchant had for his own reasons decided to say nothing. But he could change his mind, or O’Byrne could talk. And hardly a day went by when, in her imagination, she didn’t find herself confronted by the memory of MacGowan’s terrible, cold, accusing eye, or the echo of the last words she had spoken to O’Byrne when he asked her what to do with Joan Doyle if he couldn’t complete the kidnap. “Kill her.”

It was in the autumn of 1537, with the Parliament still in full deliberation, that Richard Walsh called at the house of Alderman Doyle to deliver a payment to his wife. He had only meant to remain there for as long as it took her to check the amount, and as he had been busy investigating some records in Christ Church that morning, he was in a rather dusty state. He was a little disconcerted, therefore, on being ushered into the parlour to find several of the Doyle family there. Besides Dame Doyle, there was the alderman, looking resplendent in a tunic of red and gold, one of his sons, his daughter Mary, and a younger sister. They might, he thought, have been taken for the family of a rich merchant or courtier in fashionable London whereas he, now, looked like a dusty clerk. It was a little humiliating, but it couldn’t be helped. They eyed him curiously.

“I didn’t mean to intrude upon your family,” he said to Dame Doyle politely. “I only came to leave with you what was owed,” and he passed to her a small bag of coins. “I can return another time.”

“Not at all.” Joan Doyle took it with a kindly smile. “I shan’t need to check it,” she remarked.

“I hear you’re holding everything together while your father and I get through this session of Parliament,” Doyle remarked with a friendly nod; and Richard was grateful for this implication that the rich alderman and his father were on collegial terms. “He speaks well of you,” he added.

It seemed to Richard that the alderman’s son, despite these encouraging words, was looking at him without much respect; the daughter Mary was watching him also, but he couldn’t tell what she was thinking. It was the youngest girl—she might have been thirteen, he supposed—who giggled. He looked at her enquiringly.

“You’re all dirty.” And she pointed.

He hadn’t seen the great dirt mark he had collected down one side of his sleeve. He also noticed that the cuff was frayed. He might have blushed. But fortunately the years in London as a fashionable fellow now came to his aid. He burst out laughing.

“So I am. I hadn’t noticed.” He glanced at Doyle. “This is what comes of working in the Christ Church records. I hope,” he turned to Joan Doyle, “that I haven’t been dropping dust all over your house.”

“I don’t expect you have.”

“It has to be said, Richard,” Doyle’s tone might have been used to a member of his own family, “that you need some new clothes.”

“I know,” Richard answered him frankly. “It’s true. I suppose that until our affairs are in a better state, I’m putting it off as long as I can.” He turned to the girl who had giggled and gave her a charming smile. “And when I get a nice new tunic, you may be sure I’ll come straight and show it to you.”

Doyle nodded, but apparently bored by the subject of clothes, now cut in.

“You mean to make your fortune, Richard?”

“I do. If I can.”

“A lawyer like yourself can do well enough in Dublin,” Doyle remarked, “but there’s more money in trade. A legal training can be useful in trade.”

“I know, and I considered it; but I’ve no means of starting in that line. I must work with the assets I have.”

Doyle nodded briefly, and the interview was over. Richard bowed politely to them all and turned to go. Just as he reached the door, he heard Joan Doyle.

“You’ve wonderful hair,” she said.

He was already out in Skinners Row when Mary Doyle spoke.

She was quite a handsome girl, with her mother’s Spanish looks and her father’s hard, intelligent eyes.

“He was at the Inns of Court?” She addressed her father.

“He was.”

“Is he a Walsh of Carrickmines?”

“A branch of them, yes.” He gazed at her. “Why?”

She looked back at him, with the same eyes.

“Just wondering.”

It was early in the year 1538 that MacGowan, chatting to Alderman Doyle one afternoon, was rather surprised when the rich merchant turned to him and asked him what he thought of young Richard Walsh.

“It seems,” he confessed, “that my daughter Mary’s interested in him.”

MacGowan considered. He thought of all that he knew of the parties concerned. He thought of the O’Byrne business, and of the strange figure who had come to Rathconan. O’Byrne had refused to tell him who it was. If O’Byrne wouldn’t tell him, MacGowan reckoned, he wouldn’t be telling anybody. But then he already knew. The idea had occurred to him as soon as the attack had begun. Apart from a few people around Silken Thomas, no one else could have known of Joan Doyle’s journey. And when, on the way back from poor Fintan’s wake, he had learned that Margaret had ridden out early that fatal day, he had been certain. He wasn’t sure why she’d done such a thing, but it had to be the Walsh woman. And hadn’t he seen it all in her face when he had stared at her: fear, guilt, terror?

Could he prove it? Would any purpose be served if he could? Would it do his friend Doyle any good to know such a thing? No, he did not think it would. There were some secrets that were so dark they were better left at rest, under the hills. Let Margaret Walsh fear him and be grateful for his silence. That had always been his power: to know secrets.

“I’ve heard nothing against young Richard Walsh at all,” he answered with perfect truth. “Everyone seems to like him.” He looked at Doyle curiously. “I’d have thought that you might be looking for a rich young gentleman. A girl like Mary—why, she’s even got the freedom of the city—would be a fine match for any family in Fingal.”

Doyle grunted. “I thought of that, too. The trouble is,” and here the merchant sighed with a lifetime of experience, “rich young gentlemen don’t usually want to work.”

“Ah,” MacGowan acknowledged quietly, “this is true.”

When, in the summer of 1538, her son Richard asked her to call upon Joan Doyle, Margaret experienced a moment of panic. To enter the big Dublin house, to find herself face-to-face with the woman whose daughter Richard was about to marry—and she still has no idea, she thought, that I tried to kill her. How could she sit there and look the woman in the eye?

“She keeps asking when you’re coming to see her,” Richard reported. “She’ll think it very rude if you don’t.”

And so, inwardly quaking, on a warm summer day, Margaret Walsh found herself entering through the heavy street door whose lineaments she remembered so well, to find herself moments later sitting comfortably in the parlour, alone with the wealthy little woman who thought she was her friend—and who disconcerted her even more, after embracing her warmly, by declaring with the happiest smile: “I’ll tell you a secret. I always thought that this would happen.”

“You did?” Margaret could only stare at her in confusion.

“Do you remember the time I came to you for shelter in the storm and he talked to us? I thought then: that’s just the boy for Mary. And look how well he’s turned out.”

“I hope so. Thank you,” poor Margaret stammered.

There was a pause, and hardly knowing how to fill the little silence, Margaret offered, “You were very good to us with the loan.” She thanked God that at least the royal fine had all been paid off recently so that, William had told her, he would soon be able to start the repayments to the Doyle woman. At the mention of the loan, Joan positively beamed.

“It was my pleasure. As I said to your husband, ‘If it will help that lovely boy, that’s all I need to know.’ ” She sighed. “He has your wonderful hair.”

“Ah,” Margaret nodded weakly. “He does.”

“And our husbands being in this Parliament together—my husband has such a high regard for yours, as you know—it has brought our two families quite close together.”

For a moment Margaret wondered whether to say it was a pity they’d been on opposite sides in Silken Thomas’s revolt, and then thought better of it. But one question did come into her mind.

“There was a time,” she was watching the Doyle woman carefully, “when my husband had hoped to enter Parliament and was denied.”

“Ah.” Joan Doyle looked thoughtful. “My husband told me.” She paused for only a moment. “He told me I mustn’t speak of it, but that was long ago. Did you know what happened? Some busybody down in Munster, a royal spy, put your husband under suspicion. My husband spoke up for him, you know. He was furious. He said the whole business was absurd and he’d vouch for your husband. But there was nothing he could do.” She sighed. “These men and their endless suspicions. Affairs of state are mostly foolishness. That’s what I think.”

Margaret was learning so much, however uncomfortable it might be to her own former understandings, that she could not help raising one other matter.

“I’m surprised all the same that you allowed your daughter to marry my son, and not a boy from one of the important families.” She paused. “Like the Talbots, at Malahide.”

Joan Doyle looked at her curiously.

“Now why do you mention them?” She thought for a moment. “You told me you didn’t like them, didn’t you? But I never knew why.”

“They weren’t very kind to me when I went there,” she said. “At least, the mother wasn’t. I was just a girl.”

“The old lady Talbot that would have been.” Joan Doyle gazed at the wall behind Margaret for a few moments. “I never saw her myself. She died just before I first went to Malahide. I didn’t know you’d met her. The rest of them were all very kind.” Then she smiled. “You know, my daughter Mary is quite in love with your son. Were you in love when you married?”

“Yes,” said Margaret. “I think so.”

“It’s better to be in love,” sighed Joan Doyle. “I know plenty of couples who aren’t.” And then she smiled a contented smile. “I’ve been very fortunate myself. I came to love John Doyle quite slowly, but I was in love when I married, and I’ve been in love with him every day of my life since.” She gave Margaret a look of great sweetness. “Think of that. In love every day for more than twenty years.” And there could be no doubt, Margaret realised, no possible shadow of a doubt, that every word that Joan Doyle had spoken since they sat down together had been the truth. The Doyles had never informed against Walsh, she knew nothing about her humiliation by the Talbots, she had never been unfaithful to her husband. There was only one thing left to discover.

“Tell me,” Margaret said, “did you know that your family and mine had had a falling out, a long time ago?” And she told her the story of the disputed inheritance.

There was no question—Joan Doyle was not an actress—her look of astonishment and of horror was not, could not have been dissembled. She had never heard of the inheritance in her life.

“This is terrible,” she cried. “You mean we had your father’s money?”

“Well, my father certainly believed the Butlers had it unjustly,” Margaret corrected. “He may,” she felt she had to add, “have been wrong.”

“But it must have caused him terrible pain.” Joan looked thoughtful again, then had an idea. “At least,” she suggested, “we can cancel the loan.”

“Dear God,” said Margaret, in utter confusion now. “I don’t know what I should say.”

But Joan Doyle appeared hardly to hear her. She seemed lost in a contemplation of her own. Finally she stretched out her hand and touched Margaret’s arm.

“You might have disliked me,” she said with a smile. “It was very good of you not to dislike me.”

“Oh,” said Margaret helplessly, “I could never do that.”

On a raw, cold day in the middle of that winter the city of Dublin witnessed a most extraordinary scene, which drew the curious from all over the area.

When Cecily Tidy heard what was going on, she ran quickly from the western gate up toward Skinners Row. For there, in the broad precinct of the Cathedral of Christ Church, and observed by a crowd that included Alderman Doyle, a bonfire was burning. It was not to warm the poor folk of that area, to whom the monks gave food and shelter every day. Nor was it part of any midwinter celebration. It had been gathered and lit on the orders of no less a person than George Browne, the Archbishop of Dublin who, only minutes before Cecily’s arrival, had been outside to make sure that its flames were bright.

The purpose of the archbishop’s fire was to burn some of the greatest treasures in Ireland.

When Cecily arrived, two small carts, accompanied by half a dozen gallowglasses, had just pulled up beside the fire. The two clerks who now began to unload them had just returned from a tour of some of the suburban churches. One of them carried a hammer and chisel. His colleague, at that moment, with the help of one of the soldiers, was manhandling a small but somewhat heavy wooden statue of the Blessed Virgin onto the fire. The statue’s crime, to merit such punishment, was that it had been prayed to.

“Dear God,” murmured Cecily, “are we all to be made Protestants?”

The views of Archbishop Browne of Dublin had not always been easy to follow. Appointed by King Henry, during his first year in Dublin he had done nothing. His main contribution in the last eighteen months had been to insist that his clergy should lead prayers for King Henry as Supreme Head of the Church. Browne was, after all, the king’s appointed man, and the Irish Parliament had passed the necessary legislation.

“Yet the fact that legislation has been passed,” Alderman Doyle gently informed the English bishop one day, “does not necessarily mean that anything is going to happen.”

“I assure you, Sir, that when the king’s will is known and his Parliament has proclaimed it, there can be no resistance of any kind,” Browne had retorted. “Orders must be obeyed.”

“That may be so in England,” the alderman had answered courteously, “but in Ireland you will find that matters are arranged differently. Above all,” he cautioned, “do not forget that the English gentry of the Pale are very devoted to the ancient forms and customs of their faith.”

And so the new archbishop had discovered. The gentry might, under the threat of fines, have passed the legislation; the clergy might even have taken a cursory oath to the king. But in practice, most of the time, nobody bothered with the royal prayer. When he protested, “My orders are not obeyed,” even a fellow bishop, who knew the territory better, counselled him wisely: “I wouldn’t worry about that too much, Archbishop, if I were you.” But Archbishop Browne did worry. He preached the supremacy in every church he visited. And merchants like Alderman Doyle, or gentlemen like William Walsh, listened but were not impressed. He thought them sluggish or disreputable. It did not as yet occur to him that they, who were neither, thought he was rather stupid. And perhaps it was because of his growing frustration that the reforming archbishop had turned his attention that winter to a new campaign.

If there was one aspect of the Catholic faith which angered Protestants, it was the practice, as they saw it, of paganism in the ancient Church. Saints days were celebrated, they said, like pagan festivals; relics of the saints, genuine or fake, were treated like magic charms; and the statues of saints were prayed to like heathen idols. These criticisms were not new: they had been made within the body of the Catholic Church before; but the weight of tradition was heavy, and even thoughtful, reforming Catholics might conclude that by such celebrations and venerations, properly guided, the faith could be made strong.

That King Henry VIII of England was a perfect Catholic could not be in doubt: for he said so himself. But since his Church had broken away from the Holy Father’s, then it must show itself to be better in some way. The English Church, it was claimed, was Catholicism purified and reformed. And what was the nature of this reform? The truth was that nobody, least of all Henry himself, had much idea. The ordinary laity were told to be more devout, and Bibles for them to read were placed in churches. Few good Catholics found this objectionable. The practice of indulgences—time off purgatory for a payment to the Church—was clearly an abuse and was to be stopped. And then there was the question of pagan rites, idols, and relics. Were they acceptable or not? Churchmen whose reformist views had a Protestant flavour were sure these were abuses. The king, whose mind seemed to change like the wind, hadn’t told them they were wrong; and so Archbishop Browne could believe that he was doing not only God’s but, more importantly, the king’s will when he announced, “We must cleanse the Church of all these popish superstitions.”

There was quite a collection of relics in the carts. Some, like the fragments of the cross to be found all over Christendom, might not be genuine. An object belonging to one of the Irish saints, however, was quite likely to have been preserved down the centuries for pious veneration. Having got the statue on the fire, the two clerks were turning their attention to these. On the cart next to the pyre, amidst the reliquaries and jewelled boxes, lay a skull with a gold rim, a vessel of some kind. An English soldier had taken it from the home of an insolent apprentice with blazing green eyes. The soldier didn’t know exactly what it was, but his orders were to burn anything that stank of the pagan, idolatrous past, so he’d thrown it in with the rest of the swag. The gold could be worth something, anyway. The green-eyed apprentice protested vehemently that the skull was a family heirloom and had tried to fight him for it before the soldier had drawn his sword and the young fellow reluctantly let him past.

Cecily stared in horror. If anything was needed to prove the true nature of the heretic king and his servants, surely this was it. She felt a wave of fury at their impiety and of despair at the thought of such terrible loss. She gazed at the crowd. Wasn’t anyone going to do anything? She had long ago given up hope for most of the Dubliners, but it was hard to believe that no one was even saying a word.

Yet what was she doing herself?

Three years ago, she would, at the least, have shouted at the clerks and called them heretics. She’d gladly have let them arrest her. But since the failure of Silken Thomas’s revolt, and her husband’s return to his family in the tower, something had changed in Cecily Tidy. Perhaps it was that she was older, or her children were, or that she now had another on the way; perhaps it was that she did not want to upset her hardworking husband or that she simply could not face the stress of a quarrel with him anymore. Whatever the cause, though her religious convictions had not changed in the least, something had died in Cecily Tidy. Even faced with the destruction of all that was holy, she wasn’t going to make a scene. Not today.

Then she caught sight of Alderman Doyle. He was standing in the crowd with his son-in-law Richard Walsh, watching the proceedings with the greatest disgust. They might have had their differences in the past, but at least he was a figure of authority. And he could not approve of what was happening now. She went over.

“Oh Alderman Doyle,” she said. “This is a terrible sacrilege. Cannot anything be done?”

She hardly knew what she expected him to say; but then, to her great surprise, as he looked down at her, it seemed to Cecily that in his eyes she saw a look of shame.

“Come,” he said quietly, and taking her by the arm he led her towards the two clerks with Richard a few steps behind them. The gallowglasses looked as if they might intervene, but one of the clerks, recognising Doyle, said, “Good morning, Alderman,” and the soldiers fell back.

“What have you here?” Doyle asked.

“Relics,” one of the clerks said blandly. His colleague at that moment was chipping at a small gold reliquary encrusted with gems. “Some of them are tough to open,” he remarked as the other, having successfully prized the lid off, threw a lock of saintly hair into the fire where it instantly flared up.

“The casket?” Doyle enquired, pointing to the gold reliquary that had just been so rudely opened. “It’s gold for the king.” Even as he said so, Cecily observed that the fellow with the chisel had just detached one of the gems from the lid and calmly dropped it into a leather pouch that hung from his belt.

“The Church must be purified,” the clerk remarked to the alderman. And if Cecily was astonished by the coolness of his effrontery, she need not have been. For it was thus in parishes all over England, too. While the desire of many honest Protestants may have been to purify their religion and come into a closer communion with God, the Reformation was turning into one of the greatest campaigns of public and private looting that had been seen in many centuries.

“They desecrate the shrines, Cecily,” Doyle quietly remarked, “but it’s the gold they want, you see.”

And white-faced Cecily for the first time had a new and more accurate insight into the true nature of King Henry VIII and his followers—not so much as heretics, however that might be, but as vulgar thieves.

“The king has come to rob Ireland,” she burst out at the clerk. But he only laughed.

“Not at all.” He grinned. “He’ll rob anyone.”

At just this moment, his friend had started to open another little silver box. This one had opened easily, since it contained a smaller, blackened box inside.

“What’s that?” asked Doyle.

“Finger of Saint Kevin. Of Glendalough,” said the clerk.

“Give it to me,” said Doyle, pointing to the black box.

“There’s a gemstone on it,” the second clerk objected, reaching for his chisel.

“Enough,” said Doyle in a voice of such authority that the clerk handed it to him quickly.

“I can’t do more for you, Alderman,” he said a little nervously.

Doyle held the little relic in his hand, gazing at it reverently.

“The Saint Kevin,” he remarked quietly. “They say it has great power, you know.”

“You’ll keep it safe?” Cecily asked anxiously.

Doyle paused before replying. His dark face seemed to be contemplating something strangely distant. Then, to her great astonishment, he turned and, gazing down at her, placed the little relic in her hands.

“No,” he said. “You will. I can’t think of anyone in Dublin who will look after it better. Go quickly, now,” he told her, “and hide it.”

Cecily had just crossed the street, and had paused to gaze one final time at the great fire, when she saw MacGowan arriving.

Doyle and Richard Walsh were greeting him. She saw MacGowan stare at the flames. Then he gestured towards the cathedral. She saw Doyle and Richard leaning towards him. MacGowan seemed to be saying something to them, urgently.

Just then, a soldier casually tossed a yellowed old skull, stripped of its gold rim, into the flames.

It was two hours later that the news began to spread through Dublin. At first, the thing was so shocking that people hardly believed it, but by evening there seemed to be no doubt.

The Bachall Iosa, one of the holiest, the most awesome relics in all Ireland—the great, gem-encrusted reliquary of the Staff of Saint Patrick himself—had gone.

Some said that it had been thrown on the fire in front of Christ Church. Others said that the ancient staff had been burned on another fire elsewhere. The archbishop, faced with a chorus of horror, denied that the sacred staff had been selected for destruction at all; but when people, English or Irish, inside or outside the Pale, considered the archbishop’s contempt for what was cherished, and the gold and gems with which the Bachall Iosa was furnished, there seemed not the slightest reason to believe him.

Nor, in all the years that followed, was the Staff of Saint Patrick ever seen again.

Some, it is true, hinted that along with other relics, it might have been spirited away to a place of safekeeping—and it is to be hoped that it was. But nobody seemed to know. None of the clergy ever admitted to it. None of the Dublin aldermen, not even John Doyle, had any idea. And if, which is most unlikely, MacGowan knew anything, he remained, as always, silent as the grave.