The Wild Irish - Robin Maxwell (42 page)

THE MacTHOMAS’S BOOLEY would be a sight for sore eyes.

Grace and “her Italian friend,” riding on horseback, had been forced after leaving the
Granuaile
to pass through territories razed and blackened since her last visit, and she prayed with all her heart that the destruction of her neighbors’ lands ended before the inland hills and summer pastures that were their destination. While the fields were all but bare of crops—certainly confiscated by the English—Grace ’s heart soared to see small garden patches and herds of black-faced sheep grazing in the long shadows of the afternoon sun.

By the time they began hearing the sound of festivities over the low hills, she saw that Essex had calmed considerably. He ’d grown suspicious when Tibbot had announced that he would not be joining them for the MacThomas-O’Malley wedding feast, that he had an appointment to keep. Essex, sobered after their earlier round of wine, had gritted his teeth and even blocked Tibbot’s passage from the ship, demanding to know if his new “friend” was going off to meet and scheme with Red Hugh O’Donnell. He ’d grown agitated, and the pleasant game of disguising and charade was nearly forfeited to angry distrust. But Tibbot had remained calm, had looked Essex dead in the eye and sworn on his mother’s life that he was not meeting with O’Donnell, or Hugh O’Neill either. That very afternoon he ’d promised to speak only the truth to Essex, he said, and he would not insult his new friend nor shame himself by breaking that pledge. Essex, still beady eyed, had watched Tibbot sail off as Grace and he mounted their horses to take them off to the wedding. And the first two miles riding from the coast inland, through destroyed countryside, had done little to ease his mind.

But once the destruction was past, with green hills and thick patches of woodland looming before them, Grace saw Robert’s body sag a bit, and his features soften into something just short of a smile. When they’d crested the final hill, the huge gathering of clans spread out below, she ’d turned to him.

“This is what we call a ‘booley’—summer grazing for our cattle.”

“But there ’s a house,” he said, perplexed.

“Well, of course there is—a booley house. Where else would the people sleep—amongst the herd?”

Essex smiled, chastised.

“You’ll just have to leave off your silly conception of the ‘wild Irish.’

Believe it or not, we
are
civilized, even at the booley. Did you know that back in the last millennium all the European monarchs for eight hundred years insisted on Irish councilors and clergy to advise them on matters of church and state, for of all men they were the best educated and most wise? Did you know that without the Irish monks slavin’ over their illuminated texts, all the great books of Roman civilization would have been lost to the barbarian hoards? No, I can see that you didn’t.” A burst of applause was heard below them, and they could now see that a bard, having just completed a ballad, was taking a bow.

“So, are you ready, Roberto?”

“As I’ll ever be,” he said.

THERE’D BEEN SO MUCH cheering and embracing when Grace appeared that a flush of embarrassment rose in her tanned cheeks.

But, she supposed, the wedding feast would not have been held at all without her sponsorship. She had begged her old neighbor Shane MacThomas to lay aside his numerous woes just long enough to celebrate the wedding of his granddaughter, Margaret, to Grace ’s own grandnephew, Sean O’Malley. “Life goes on,” she ’d told MacThomas, “even in the face of death.” She ’d promised Shane that the O’Malleys would attend in their numbers, and she would provide all the food and the best Spanish wine. The children, hearing the offer, had pleaded with their elders, thrilled at the chance to leave behind the everyday sadness of their lives for a day of uninhibited joy.

When they’d arrived, so much had been made of “Saint Grace”—as the celebrants insisted on calling her—that little notice was taken of her companion, “the Italian fellow,” as she later heard Essex referred to.

At the feast table she and Essex were led to places of honor before the roast. Grace watched with pleasure the high spirits of the bride and groom, the love and hope and sweetness emanating from them, which no barrier of language could disguise. Though she knew he could not understand a word of the Gaelic spoken there, Essex had soon fallen into a state of happy relaxation that could almost be called languorous. He laughed genuinely when others laughed, even if the exact meaning of the humor was lost on him, and when raucous songs were sung he pounded out the rhythm with his hand on the trestle.

Everyone was stuffed to their eyeballs and most were drunk as well, there having been a dearth of good wine for so many months and years, and no reason to celebrate. Even Grace felt light-headed and pleasantly tipsy. Now the harpist and bard had taken their places under the roof of the three-sided booley house, and guests were wandering from the table to hear them play and sing. Essex stood and gave Grace his arm, leaning down to help her up.

“Madam,” he said.

“
Roberto
,” she whispered pointedly, continuing in Latin. “Remember who you are.”

“
Bene, Bene
,” he said, stifling a giggle. Grace smiled to herself, realizing that under her care the Earl of Essex, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, was drunk for the second time that day.

The celebrants gently moved Grace and Essex forward through the crowd and in moments they were standing close to the bard and harpist.

The bard was an old man named Lucius whose twisted frame took nothing away from the sweetness of his voice and his clever words. He was highly regarded by all, for he ’d cheated death. Richard Bingham, during one of his purges, had had Lucius hanged for the “crime” of balladeering. But he ’d not died on the gallows, just suffered a broken neck and, as he liked to say, “laid a good load in his breeches.” He ’d been fished from the pile of dead men and nursed back to health by friends, then had fearlessly taken to the roads, when he was well, to sing even more scathing songs about the English devils come to destroy Ireland.

It took a moment for Grace to realize what Lucius was singing, a many-versed ballad about her exploits.

“He ’s singin’ about me,” she whispered in Essex’s ear.

“Is that why everyone is grinning at you?” he whispered back.

“I’d say so.”

There was great applause at the final refrain, and as many celebrants surrounded Lucius as they did Grace for congratulations. But before her embarrassment overwhelmed her altogether, whistles, drums, and pipes appeared from nowhere and the dancing commenced.

Young people were first on the floor, all the misery and starvation having disappeared from their glowing faces. Everyone else stood clapping and stomping to the rhythm as the girls and boys pranced and whirled so light on their toes. One young MacThomas lad did a jig so fast and furious his feet were a blur and everyone shouted at his finale—leap-ing into the air, spiraling, and then landing with a great flourish on his knees.

The spirited music drove everyone out on the floor. Fathers grabbed mothers, sisters grabbed brothers, and husbands and wives were now all of a congregation, moving with melodious pipes and heart-thumping drums, the sound that was purely Irish.

Grace, clapping along, watched the widow McGowan, a pretty woman who’d been devastated by the battlefield death of her husband, come shyly up to Essex and put out her hand. He turned to Grace with a look of helpless delight, then stepped into the crush of celebrants and, without hesitation, began to dance.

She saw that his eyes darted about him, learning the steps and the turns as he went.
He’s good
, thought Grace,
a natural dancer
. He danced with a childlike joy buried deep in his poor heart, the very same hopeful-ness and joy to which her neighbors and clansmen were now giving vent.

Aye, Robert Devereaux stood out on the dance floor, he with the widow McGowan. Soon there were shouts of “Roberto! Roberto! Dance lively!” and the crowd fell away till all that were left dancing were Essex and the lovely widow. He leapt like a young stag and, with his hands on her waist, twirled the woman high in the air. The clapping grew frantic, the shouts and whistles drowning out the music. The whistles and drums rose above the din, rose to a great climax and ended, all at once.

The widow McGowan fell laughing into Robert’s arms and the crowd closed in around them. Moments later Essex emerged, flushed and handsome and as happy, Grace imagined, as he had ever been in his life.

The music had slowed and couples, hand in hand, were moving in stately squares round the floor. Beaming, Robert came forward and extended his hand to Grace. She felt herself suddenly as shy as a girl, but she gripped his fingers and found herself moving in relaxed step next to him.

“You made quite a spectacle of yourself out there,” said Grace under her breath. His smile was happily dazed. “At least you don’t look like death’s companion anymore,” she added.

“
Tute bene,
” he said, looking grateful.

“
Tute bene,
indeed.”

15

THE DISASTER LORD Lieutenant Essex observed as he gazed out over the south road leading to Dublin caused him to groan aloud. He sat alone on horseback on a small rise overlooking the queen’s army. ’Twas not simply the vastly reduced and dispirited troops that so distressed him, though his losses so far had been staggering, but the great slew of hangers-on who now attended the troops that remained. It was nearly impossible to distinguish in the clouds of summer road dust between bedraggled soldiers and the mob of horse-boys, servants, and ordinary camp followers trudging alongside them. Bringing up the rear of the column was the most wretched sight of all—

dozens of fly-ridden wagons packed full of the sick and wounded. Only God knew how many were already dead—silent, horrifying reminders of their own probable fate for the poor soldiers lying beside them.

My God, had war always been this cruel?
he thought. The campaigns in France and Spain, even the Azores with its confusion and defeats, had never weighed so heavily on Essex’s soul. Those had been days of action and fellowship and glorious heroism. But this . . .

There ’d been nothing noble in the Irish engagements—what there had been of them—on their zigzagging course back from Limerick.

Even in Tullamore, where there ’d been some hope of confronting the rebel Tyrell, it had ended with the English taking into custody a small herd of cows and burning a stockpile of corn. The morale of his men was shockingly low, and they’d utterly disgraced themselves in Water-ford, getting drunk en masse on the town’s famous aqua vitae. But then it was not only
his
troops who were suffering. He had visited Sir Thomas Norris, Governor of Munster, in a field hospital where he lay amongst his soldiers, sick near to death of both a festering bullet wound and the news that two of his brothers had already died in their service to Ireland.

Not a few of Essex’s men had simply disappeared. The deserters had made their way to the coast and found passage back to England. Of course there was still the matter of Lord Harrington and his army of cowards to contend with once he arrived back in Dublin.

And he was haunted, constantly haunted, by his meeting with Grace O’Malley and her son. Try as he might, he could not erase from his mind several images: The sight of the pirate woman on the
granuaile,
as easy as she could be in her nautical surroundings . . . Tibbot Burke, whose warm, disarming smile Essex could never decide was friendly or deceiving . . . Sitting before the wedding roast in an open Connaught field, beating out an Irish tune on the long trestle table . . . The lovely widow McGowan lifted aloft in his arms. Why had Grace befriended him? he pondered daily. And how, in light of her loyalty to the rebellion, did she bear her favorite son’s betrayal of the Irish cause? It must pain her appallingly, yet she seemed so accepting of it. So understanding.

Worse still, Essex realized, he had during his brief sojourn with the Connaught pirates conceived a small measure of affection for the Irish people—something he would never, could never, admit to a living soul.

This was perhaps the most troubling of his emotions, for a soldier, he knew, must never have more than a minimal regard for his enemy.

Enough, perhaps, to allow for humane treatment of the vanquished. But this went further and much deeper. When, since his day with Tibbot and Grace, he ’d had occasion to kill an Irish rebel, he ’d found himself tormented by visions of the widow McGowan weeping over the dead body of her husband. And every night, hollow-eyed villagers, and children with green, nettle-stained mouths visited his dreams . . .

Without warning Essex felt his head swim with a dizziness so profound that slumping forward and grabbing his horse ’s sides were all that kept him from tumbling to the ground.
Please God, spare me another
attack!
he silently cried. But it was no use. Wave after wave of vertigo overwhelmed him, and heat began to grow in his body—heat so fierce he wondered if his blood was boiling in his veins. “Help me,” he whispered helplessly into his horse ’s ear. “Someone help me.” But as a small but brilliant white light expanded to engulf all of his vision, Robert Devereaux realized there was no help for him, no help under Heaven ever to be found.

THE PURGE THAT Essex endured for three days on his return to Dublin had been violent enough but, he thought, not nearly as unpleasant as the letter he ’d found waiting for him from Elizabeth.

“Go on, read more,” Southampton urged. He and Christopher Blount lay sprawled across Essex’s bed in his Dublin Castle bedchamber.

Still recovering from a bout of malarial fever and the treatment that had come even closer to killing him than the disease, Essex chose not to join his friends in an afternoon of drinking. Chris Blount was far from sober.

“I cannot read another word,” said Essex of the queen’s letter.

“ ’Twill make me ill again.”

“Here, give it to me.” Blount snatched the two large sheets of parchment from Essex’s hands, pages that were filled to the edges with Elizabeth’s distinctive script. The sheer volume of her sentiments was, in itself, alarming.