The Wild Irish - Robin Maxwell (16 page)

We surrounded the church and at first besieged it, hoping to force John out. But my patience ran thin long before he and the holy hermit starved, and so on a Sunday mornin’, very bright, with the sun gleamin’

off the water, we stormed the church.

The old hermit, silent in his vows for many years past, was so appalled he cried out, “Fie to you all! This is sanctuary,
sanctuary
!” We just ignored him, searching in every nook and cranny for MacMahon, but he was nowhere to be found. I was tearin’ my hair at the thought of his escape till I saw an unlikely pile of plaster on the floor below a painting of the Virgin. We quick removed the portrait, finding a hole in the wall and a long tunnel that John MacMahon had dug through the rocks.

My man Brian climbed in and called back the direction the tunnel was headed—’twas a steep rock cliff on the southeast side of the island, towering over the sea itself. I ordered some men to stay with the hermit, for we didn’t trust him, and the rest of us headed to our boats.

We rounded the island just in time to see MacMahon climbin’ a rope down from the tunnel, against the rock face, hoping to drop into the dinghy moored below. Just then Brian emerged from the tunnel hole and, seeing his prey beneath him clingin’ to the rope, began to shake it fiercely.

John screamed curses up to Brian, who kept up the shaking. He could see us coming by now and was very desperate indeed. Still high off the water he let go of the rope, and with more luck than should have been allowed him, fell into his waiting boat. I heard him cry out in pain and hoped he ’d cracked his tailbone again, but he picked up the oars and began to row toward a place where a stiff current was known to run, one that could quickly bear him away and into the open sea where, after all, anything could happen.

But without a word from me, my men at the oars rowed like the Devil himself was after them, and soon we ’d caught up with the dinghy. We grappled it and pulled it to us. John MacMahon was unarmed, and knowing there was no escape, put up no struggle a’tall. He just stared at me, defying me with his eyes to kill a defenseless man.

I wondered what to do as we rowed him back to the beach of the hermit’s island, scraped ashore, and piled out of the boat. As they pushed him down on the sand, he tried to speak, but I told him to shut his mouth, I was thinking.

Indeed, I thought of the Brehon law that would set this murderer free for a goodly sum paid to me. I thought of my father, and of honor and of pride. I thought of right and justice and what was fair. I thought of tradition. Then I thought of Eric, lyin’ there dead, and those sweet lips I’d never in my life kiss again.

I don’t remember grabbing Brian’s sword, but sudden like it was there in my hands, and with a cry from the pit of my miserable soul, I took John MacMahon’s life with one swift blow.

Well, I was glad he was dead, he and his devilish kin, but I felt no better for it. Whoever it was said “revenge is sweet” was a fool, for there ’s no sweetness in a shattered heart, nor a soul searchin’ in vain for its true mate.

AS IF WAKING from a dream, she ’d begun hearing her own voice, her pained words ringing in her ears. To her horror Grace felt wetness on her cheeks and quickly brushed the tears away. Then she caught sight of Elizabeth, the once rigid figure now slumped in her chair, forehead clasped in her long white fingers. The painted cheeks were streaked with black rivulets, eyes still brimming with tears, and the mouth a jagged, quivering gash across her agonized face.

Though she sat before the queen, Grace knew she was as good as invisible, for Elizabeth’s gaze was turned inward.
No,
thought Grace,
backward
. Backward in time. ’Twould be best to leave her, spare the woman the humiliation of a stranger seeing the great woman in such a condition.

Grace rose, and finding her cap began to tuck her hair beneath it.

“Mistress O’Malley,” came Elizabeth’s feeble voice.

The piteous sound of it pierced like a dart through a tough hide.

“Why don’t you call me Grace, Your Majesty?” She found her tone had gentled.

“Then you must call me Bess. Please, don’t leave just now.” Grace removed the hat and returned to the chairs by the fire, which had, through neglect, burned down to a pile of embers. She sat, gazing across at the queen, with her ruined face so utterly assailable.

“I am truly sorry for your loss,” said Elizabeth.

Suddenly Grace understood. “I’m sorry for yours as well.” Elizabeth fought to control her quivering mouth. “My Robin . . . ,” she began but could go no further, as the tears began to flow again.

“Perhaps it ’s best to think on somethin’ else just now.”

“No.” Elizabeth blotted her cheeks with a handkerchief. “He will be gone five years this month. I’ve not spoken of him to anyone since his death.”

“Nobody?”

“They all hated him. Rejoiced at his passing.” She paused to dab at her eyes. “He was a beautiful man, dear God, so beautiful. You should have seen him on the back of a horse. He wished for nothing more than to marry me. I came very close, once, to marriage with Robin Dudley.

But I was convinced otherwise.”

“And who did you let convince you?”

Elizabeth’s gaze turned backward again. “My mother,” she whispered.

“Anne Boleyn? But I thought—”

“They hated him,” said Elizabeth, her interruption pointed, “because I loved him best. Trusted him entirely. He was the one, the only one who understood my heart, whom I allowed to love me as a man loves a woman. He knew every soft, secret part of me. From the time we were children, he made me laugh. Cried with me. We shared our losses, shared our love of England. And he endured all that was harsh in me, cold, mannish, ugly. All of my rejections . . . and forgave me every one.

“They knew nothing of his unflinching loyalty, his generosity to me when there was no hope of my succession, when I was nothing but the bastard daughter of a headless whore. I had no money, could barely pay my tiny household their salaries, so he sold his properties and gave me the profits. How does one ever forget such an act of kindness?” Elizabeth absentmindedly worried the fine red hairs beneath the painted line of her eyebrow. “He died of a fever shortly after our victory against Philip’s Armada. I’d given him commission of the land forces in all of England. I trusted no one more with the protection of this country.

Still, they were amazed by how desperately I mourned him. Believed I should be rejoicing in my great victory over Spain. They could not see that my heart had been crushed”—now Elizabeth turned her gaze on Grace—“like yours had been when Eric died. And like you I had no choice but to go on. England’s mantle lay heavy on my shoulders, as the O’Malley clan’s lay on yours.” Elizabeth straightened herself in the chair, regaining her regal posture. “We are very close in age, are we not, Grace?”

“I’m older than you by three years.”

“We ’re well past our prime.”

“Aye, but I hear you ride every day. Still take your exercise regular like.”

“Deprived of it I would surely die.”

Grace grew silent, unaccountably aware of the strange intimacy grown up between the queen and herself. “I haven’t finished my story, you know.”

“Indeed you haven’t. But it’s almost morning. Will you come back this evening and continue?”

“You’re a strange character, Bess.”

Elizabeth’s eyebrows arched in amusement. “And you are a very brazen woman to say so.”

“Well, I figure I’ve hooked you, like Scheherazade and the sultan.

You won’t have my head till I’ve finished my tale.” Nodding in silent acknowledgment Elizabeth rose stiffly from the chair and moved to the curtained door of the secret passage. “I’ll call my lord Essex and have him return you to your ship.”

“He ’s a fine-lookin’ man, your lord Essex. But now I understand.”

“What is it you understand?”

Grace had again tucked her hair under the cap and stood before Elizabeth’s silver-framed looking glass, checking her disguise. “Why he no longer shares your bed. Sure he ’s beautiful and dashing and a hero to England, but he ’s no Robin Dudley.”

The women exchanged a knowing smile.

“I do have hopes for him as politician, a councilor, a diplomat.”

“Not a soldier?”

Elizabeth was thoughtful. “He is too rash for a soldier. Sometimes I think he is too rash . . . for a man.”

Grace and Elizabeth laughed.

“But that’s how we like them, our men,” said Grace. “Rash. Bold.

Outrageous. We wouldn’t want them any other way, would we now?” ESSEX, ABOVE HIS COVERS, was stretched out abed, boots off and eyes closed when Elizabeth entered through the adjoining passage. The candle had not yet burnt out. She sat beside him for some time, watching the slow, regular breathing, the broad chest as it rose and fell, the eyes twitching under the lids.

He wondered if she believed his pretense of sleep or had guessed that he ’d spent the entire night lying in the darkened passageway with his ear to the slightly opened door, hidden behind the curtain. He ’d almost laughed aloud when Grace O’Malley had compared herself to Scheherazade. The woman was far better educated than he ’d realized, and altogether fearless in taking liberties with the queen. At that moment he ’d quickly and quietly risen, tiptoeing in stockinged feet back to his room and his bed, whilst Grace and Elizabeth said their good-byes. It had been long enough to calm himself and assume the appearance of deep sleep.

“Robin,” she said, shaking him gently. “Robin, wake up.” He opened his eyes quickly, as though startled, then seeing her face smiled a warm sleepy smile. “What time is it?” “Almost dawn. If you hurry you can return Mistress O’Malley to her vessel before first light.”

“Were you happy with your interview?” he inquired, sitting up to pull on his boots.

“I’ll require you to bring her to me this evening at the same time,” was Elizabeth’s only reply.

He ’d come round the bed and now knelt at her feet where she sat.

Like a small boy he laid his head on her knee and she—a fond mother—

dandled his hair.

“You’re very noncommittal,” he insisted with a touch of petulance.

“And you are very nosy.” Her tone was mild. “I did enjoy my interview.”

Essex looked up at the queen’s face. She was far away. Without disturbing her reverie he stood and moved to the passageway door.
What a
strange pairing
, he thought, wondering what tales of adventure lay ahead, on the morrow.

AWAKE THE WHOLE night long, Essex was weary, but too much remained to be done for him to sleep the day away. He ’d returned Grace O’Malley to her ship just as the Greenwich quay guards were dousing the torches, she as reluctant to speak as Elizabeth had been. But he now understood as much about this woman as the queen did, and her story boggled the mind. Somehow, thought Essex, he must get some rest before this evening, for the tale would no doubt continue to enthrall, and it would be folly to fall asleep in the midst of it.

He visited Will Meek, the apothecary, and paid him for a mixture of lavender, fennel, and foxglove, for wakefulness. Then sought out Francis Bacon in the castle library, where he was a faithful visitor. Indeed, he was found poring over a dusty book of law, his spectacles drooping down almost to the tip of his nose.

“Francis.”

“Essex! Where have you been? I thought you’d stayed the night in your rooms, but they were locked and you did not answer even my loudest pounding.”

“I slipped away with Katherine,” he lied, hoping Bacon had not spoken to his mistress.

“Ah,” said his friend, satisfied with the answer. “You know I think I’ve discovered a precedent for interpretation of land transfers between unrelated parties.” He pushed his spectacles back up on the bridge of his nose and skewered a passage in the law book with his finger. “If one or more—”

“Francis, I need to discuss the Farm of Sweet Wines with you.”

“It seems to me that the one you must speak to is the queen.”

“She is immovable,” Essex grumbled.

“This is indeed hard to fathom,” said Bacon, looking up. His law book forgotten, he plunged enthusiastically into the subject of his patron’s dilemma. “Elizabeth loves you dearly. No one entertains or delights her more. She ’s granted you a place on the Privy Council and Mastership of the Horse, and forgives you your most blatant outrages.

Why she denies you the one thing that would guarantee your wealth at no cost to herself seems so ungenerous.” The earl’s eyes narrowed. “Ungenerous,” he whispered. He was remembering something Elizabeth had said to Grace O’Malley about Leicester.
He had been generous, unflinchingly generous.
Yes, that was it! “I must make the queen a gift,” Essex announced.

“Gifts are always appreciated.”

“A
large
gift.”

“You’re very poor, my dear boy, but I needn’t remind you of that.

Every property you own is mortgaged to the hilt, and what cash you owned was paid to outfit the
Swiftsure
for your dramatic adventure in Portugal.”

“Not every property.”

“Make
sense,
Robert!”

“Not every property I own is mortgaged. There is Keyston, in Huntingdonshire.”

“But what rents you can squeeze from your tenants there will never in a hundred years make you rich enough to buy the queen a large gift.”

“No, Francis. I mean to gift the queen Keyston itself.”

“What!”

“ ’Tis a fine house and a lovely estate. ’Twould be a generous gift.” Essex was thrumming with excitement.

“A generous bribe is more like it. And if you’re counting on the queen gifting you the Farm of Sweet Wines in return for Keyston, the odds are
overlong
, Robert.”

“They might be, for a man who does not know the queen’s mind as I do.”

“Still, ’tis a dangerous gamble.”

Essex, afire, planted his hands on either side of Bacon’s law book and leaned down face-to-face with him. “What am I, Francis, if not a gambling man? I mean to do this, and I mean to succeed. Now will you help me draw up the papers, or must I seek another lawyer?” Bacon slammed shut the law book, sending up a fine cloud of dust.