The rebels mark, p.32
The Rebel‘s Mark, page 32
‘Yes.’
‘But how do I live? What do I do – sell myself to men so I can eat?’
‘I have an apothecary shop and a tavern. I can find work for you. Of course you’d have to learn the difference between hemlock and parsley.’
Cachorra returns to staring at the river. Bianca can only imagine the turmoil her thoughts must be in. What right, she wonders, do I have to ask this woman to take even one step onto this rickety bridge that I am trying to throw across so deep a ravine?
‘Is it Constanza who holds you back?’ she asks. ‘Is it loyalty to your mistress?’
For a while Cachorra’s head does not move. Then her shoulders give a little lurch and a small cough of laughter escapes into the drowsy air.
‘I was a child when Don Rodriquez bring me from Hispaniola,’ she says in a far-away voice. ‘He save me from bad men: Ciguayo raiders. They want to sell me to Conquistadores. But Don Rodriquez, he pay gold for me, to make me compañera to his daughter.’
‘He bought you as a toy, for his daughter?’
‘I do not think that is how he saw it. He was a good man, I know this.’ A louder laugh, wistful yet resigned. ‘So many years I have to listen to this lloriqueo, this whining. All the time.’ She adopts an irritating sing-song voice. “Cachorra, why you no comb my hair properly? Cachorra, why you no clap when I play viola da gamba?” – badly, I may say. “Cachorra, why you not bring me my book of Herrera poems open at the proper page?” Madre de Dios! For more years than I count – always something wrong. Sometimes I think Don Rodriquez should have left me on that beach. Sometimes I think I should have given Constanza the cicuta—’ A glance at Bianca for the right English.
‘Hemlock.’
‘Yes, I should have given her the hemlock years ago. But I do not do this, because of Don Rodriquez. I owe him my life.’
And then, suddenly, Cachorra stands up and throws back her broad shoulders. She claps her hands together as though she were dusting flour from her palms.
‘Is decided,’ she says resolutely, without looking down at Bianca. ‘I go to Robert Say-sill. I escape with you.’
Bianca jumps up and puts her hands on Cachorra’s shoulders, as though to stop her toppling, which – looking back – she will say there was never the slightest chance of, not with a woman of Cachorra’s strength. ‘Are you sure?’ she asks. ‘It will not be easy. It will be dangerous. I could just try to learn the names.’
But the resolve on Cachorra’s face is unshakeable.
‘What is future for me now?’ she demands, apparently to the army encamped around Tyrone’s castle. ‘My mistress will have a husband. He will give her new maids. Spanish maids. Cachorra will be made slave, like when you and I were carrying bucket of her mierda all hours of night. Is enough. I go.’
35
Since the death of Sir Henry Norris, Nicholas has ridden the see-saw of Robert Devereux’s favour as best he can. It swings wildly between accusation and grudging tolerance. One moment Nicholas is undermining the army’s health. He is Cecil’s spy and should be sent back to England – were it not for the inconvenient fact that the queen herself has appointed him. The next, Nicholas is the only man who can relieve Devereux of his pains and discomforts.
Nicholas has watched this deterioration with alarm. His money is still on the French pox, though he is sensible enough to keep his opinions to himself. And while the noble earl’s symptoms might be eased by the aqua vitae that Nicholas prescribes, they are inflamed by the never-ending stream of letters from the queen – letters in which Her Majesty makes clear her deep and growing disapproval of her former champion’s conduct of her war.
They come written in neat secretary-hand and bearing the royal seal. But each one is a fanfare of imperious command. Strike at once, she tells him from the comfort of Whitehall, or Richmond, or Greenwich, or wherever else she is fulminating. Make no treaty with the rebellious Tyrone. Do not dare to set foot in England again until you have triumphed.
Nicholas knows this not because Essex confides in him, but because all Dublin knows it. It is the talk of taprooms throughout the city. And the gallants that Essex has taken to Ireland for what was supposed to be a share of the glory now mutter sedition of their own. Why should our general face such insults, and from a woman – even if she is the queen? Perhaps it would better to abandon the bogs and rains of Ireland, take the army back to England and put an end to the nest of snakes that surround her and drip their poison into her ears. Snakes like Robert Cecil.
Observing this casual tavern-talk sedition, Nicholas has begun to wonder if he is witnessing the seeds of a different rebellion being sown, a rebellion not in Ireland but in England. He is starting to think he was right when he wondered if Henshawe was holding back his English soldiers for just such a purpose. Perhaps Sir Oliver – and other captains, too, for all he knows – has mustered, armed and paid his English recruits not to fight rebels in Ireland but to support a march by a disgruntled Essex on the earl’s enemies at court. Perhaps the most dangerous rebel of all is not Tyrone, but Essex himself.
Nicholas would send an enciphered letter to Mr Secretary Cecil, were it not for a new humiliation that has been imposed upon him.
‘His Grace has ordered me to censor any letter you may write, lest they contain foul libels destined for Cecil House,’ Oliver Henshawe had told him barely an hour after another of Devereux’s frequent accusations that Nicholas is Cecil’s spy.
‘Not your idea then?’ Nicholas had countered. ‘I thought perhaps you were concerned I might be asking Sir Robert if he could find out where your English levies had got to – the ones stuck in Chester.’
‘Why should I care what you choose to write? His Grace has the fullest confidence in me. I am not the one whose loyalty he mistrusts. Oh, and by the way, you’re not allowed anywhere near the harbour without an escort.’
Looking back, it had been foolish in the extreme to goad Henshawe. His stare had been so direct that Nicholas had wondered if his eyelids had forgotten how to blink. I’m looking straight into the soul of a man who thinks it sport to murder survivors of a shipwreck, he had thought at the time. But at least he now knows for certain that Henshawe is harbouring a second secret, one that even he keeps to himself while he’s boasting in a Dublin tavern.
As befits any great healer, Bianca has become a figure of renown. The prisoner who brought the Spanish envoy’s daughter back from the brink of death is a wonder. Tyrone’s household, even the servants, are united in their admiration. It is proof, they insist, that God bestows his greatest favours only upon good Catholics, even those who are part English. All Bianca has to do now in order to win certain beatification is to put the sugar on the dish by coming up with a cure for Constanza’s restored ability to complain endlessly. The chamber is too draughty… the venison is not prepared to her liking… the soldiers in the camp are too rowdy…
‘The arrangements are made,’ Tyrone tells Bianca one day when he calls her to his chamber at the end of a council of war. His captains look at her with new-found admiration as she is shown in. They appear to be celebrating some good fortune or other. There is a flagon of wine on the table.
‘Am I to be freed, my lord?’ she asks. ‘Has chivalry prevailed?’
His craggy face makes its best effort at a show of regret. ‘Sadly not yet, Mistress. I mean the arrangements for the Lady Constanza.’
‘Oh.’
‘Now that she is restored to health, she and her Blackamoor will travel under escort into my lands at Clandeboye. A barque will await her on Belfast Lough, to take her to Scotland. The husband is sending men from the Spanish Netherlands to meet her there. It is good that even in these times of sadness, a happy marriage may be made, don’t you think?’
Wonderful, Bianca agrees. ‘And what of my marriage, my lord – now that I have done as you ask?’
Tyrone looks uncomfortable. ‘I fear you have seen too much.’
‘You mean I’ve seen Piers Gardener?’
‘He’s too valuable to have you betray his true identity to Robert Devereux.’
‘I promise not to. I’ll give you my word.’
Hugh O’Neill doesn’t seem much like a man given to regret, but he does his best. ‘I would trust the Catholic Mistress Bianca in that regard. I’d even trust the Italian Mistress Bianca. But I fear I cannot risk trusting the English one.’
‘Am I to be a prisoner until the Earl of Essex defeats you?’
‘He’s not going to. We both know that.’
‘But neither can you defeat the English Crown.’
‘I don’t want to defeat the English Crown, Mistress.’
‘Then what is all this for?’
‘I am an O’Neill,’ he tells her proudly, as though that is the answer to everything. ‘All I want is for Elizabeth to recognize me as the O’Neill, the leader of my clan, as much the rightful ruler of my people as she is of hers. It is our custom for a clan to choose its ruler; the gift does not flow from the father, like hers does. It is offered, based on merit and reputation. In addition, we want the right to abide by our laws, not hers. And I don’t want avaricious men like Devereux taking our land for their profit. Do you know what his father did here?’
Bianca doesn’t. But she suspects Tyrone is going to tell her.
‘Twenty-five years ago, when I was a young man, he lured some of my clan to Belfast, under the pretence of negotiating an end to a dispute over lands in Antrim. He wanted the territory for the plantation of English settlers, and to make himself a lot of money. Well, his men fell upon his host, my kinsman, and slaughtered his household. He took my kinsman, his wife and son to Belfast Castle and hanged them. I wouldn’t trust a Devereux if he wore sackcloth, sandals, had a shepherd’s crook in his hand, carried a lamb tucked under his arm and had a shining halo around his head.’
The stern, warrior faces of some of Tyrone’s captains soften in something approaching mirth. But O’Neill’s expression is as cold as a pebble in a stream.
‘So, I am your prisoner until this war ends. Is that what I am to understand?’
‘You are treated well, and with courtesy and dignity, are you not?’
‘Yes, but that’s not the point.’
‘The sooner the Lady Constanza reaches her husband, the sooner I may confidently hope that another envoy will be sent by the Spanish in the place of her father. When the Spanish come, not even a dozen Devereux will be able to stand against them.’
‘When does Mistress Constanza leave?’
‘Three days from now – the day after I take my army down to face the English on the River Lagan.’
‘You mean to give Essex battle?’
‘Heavens, no. I could, but there’s no need. His army is weak. If I defeat him, his queen will send a stronger one, with a better general at its head. So I intend to tease His Grace the Earl of Essex. I shall make a sweet treaty with him. I shall give him my pretty face. I shall dance a measure with him. I shall agree to almost anything he asks. And his own vanity will stop him seeing the truth: that I am simply buying time – until the Spanish come.’
‘And I am to remain your prisoner until then?’
‘Call me ungallant, but necessity requires it.’ Seeing the look of misery in Bianca’s amber eyes, Tyrone looks affronted. ‘And we shall continue to treat you well, just so long as you don’t think of escaping. Try that, and I’ll have you killed. Please don’t say I failed to warn you.’
‘That’s how I am to be rewarded, after what I have done for you?’
‘That’s how much Piers Gardener is worth to me.’
‘Then I ask but one thing.’
‘Ask it.’
‘Make sure my husband, Dr Nicholas Shelby, learns I am safe. You did promise to.’
‘I’ve been a little busy.’
‘I had not thought you so ungallant.’
Tyrone relents. ‘I have one of Devereux’s officers, captured at the Conna fight. My men wanted to cut his head off and send it to Essex as a salutation. But I’m going to exchange him, to show what a reasonable fellow I am at heart. I’ll tell them you’re with me. I won’t say where, but I’ll say you’re in good health. It’s the best I can do.’
‘Then I suppose I must be grateful to you, my lord.’
‘A toast,’ he says, pushing a cup of wine across the table. ‘To peace.’
From Tyrone’s captains comes a muted, knowing laughter.
‘To peace,’ she responds, lifting the cup to her lips. But neither she nor her captors specify precisely whose.
An hour later, Bianca is walking beside the river with Cachorra. Their guards, she notices, while still bored, now carry loaded crossbows. Pretending to search for herbs, she tells Cachorra about the plan to send her mistress on the final stage of her journey.
‘Then we must escape before they come for her,’ Cachorra says, her wide eyes brimming with alarm. She casts a glance at the guards. ‘But how?’
Bianca raises a finger to her lips. ‘I think it’s time your mistress suffered a small relapse. Only on this occasion, I’ll do the mixing.’
With an army less than a quarter of the size he began with, Essex orders a march to Navan, where the waters of the Boyne and the Blackwater meet. He is determined to meet Tyrone face-to-face. His Grace seems distracted, and Nicholas knows why. It is not the fear of defeat that unsettles him. He is suffering from the flux. In addition to all his other ills, England’s new Caesar is soiling his toga.
‘You’re needed,’ says Ormonde despondently when he thrusts his grizzled head through the tent flap one evening while the army is encamped. They walk together towards the Earl Marshal’s pavilion, past campfires where men washed clean of colour by wood-smoke and the evening twilight play dice, grumble, argue and contemplate. ‘His reason is quite out of balance,’ Ormonde tells him. ‘One moment he wants to throw our force boldly against the enemy, despite their strength; at another, he wants to speak with Tyrone like a brother, call him back to the family bosom. Last night at supper he said he would challenge O’Neill to single combat. What odds would you put on a fellow of thirty-three years with the shits against a fifty-year-old who’s campaigned as cannily as Hugh O’Neill? I know which side my coin would fall.’
When Nicholas enters, Essex breaks off from his conference with Southampton and his other captains. He is clad in the padded arming doublet he wears beneath his plate, though he looks more like a man who hasn’t slept for a week than England’s champion. His eyes are hollowed and bloodshot. His height no longer serves to impress, merely to accentuate the weight he’s lost.
‘Dr Shelby, is there any possibility you may prevent the rest of my army sickening away before the end of the month?’ he asks with a breathtaking lack of self-knowledge. ‘My army seems made of men with weak constitutions. The first hint of rain or fog and they wilt like grandmothers at a bear-baiting. Am I to have none but camp-followers to array in the field when I meet Tyrone?’
Camp-followers.
Is it said to inflame the hurt that has haunted me every moment since Bianca was taken? Nicholas wonders. Has the earl fallen from nobility into petty spite?
‘It is not I who cause your men to sicken,’ he answers, struggling to remain calm. ‘Their conditions, their food, the demands made upon them, and the Irish climate – that’s what ails them. They have enough to bear, even without the attentions of the enemy.’
‘I need every man fit to march. Work your physic, Doctor,’ Essex says, as if he’s not heard a word Nicholas has spoken. ‘If you think they’re feigning, tell Henshawe. He’ll hang a few. That should cure the rest, even if you can’t.’
The assembled commanders show no sign that their general is jesting. Only Ormonde gives an almost imperceptible roll of his eyes. Nicholas gives an assurance that he will do what he can, given the limited resources.
‘I believe there was something else you wanted to see me for, Your Grace,’ he says.
Essex gives a small reluctant nod, as though admitting a minor indiscretion. He dismisses his officers and leads Nicholas into the private part of his pavilion, separated from the rest by an embroidered cloth hanging. ‘This is what you asked for,’ he says, lifting an object wrapped in a cloth from beside his pallet. A nauseatingly sulphurous odour clings to it. Nicholas takes it from him, bows and promises to return before the earl makes his evening prayers.
Outside the pavilion, Ormonde is waiting for him. ‘That’s it, is it?’
‘I fear it is.’
‘Well, I don’t envy you. Rather face a six-foot rebel who was cup-shot on potcheen, myself.’
Nicholas nods acknowledgement of his misfortune. ‘Just part of a physician’s lot, I’m afraid. One gets used to it eventually.’
Alone in his tent, Nicholas spends a few uncomfortable moments examining the contents of the pewter bowl in which His Grace has thoughtfully provided a sample of the offending extrusions. Bearing the stench as bravely as he can, he makes a determination based on the colour and consistency of the matter and the blood contained within. Is Essex suffering from lienteria, tenesmus or dysenteria?
Nicholas diagnoses the last. To help him, he has not only the earl’s evidence to go by, but numerous similar cases steadily depleting his army. Hanging won’t cure the outbreak, whatever Essex might think. So, taking the remedy from his knowledge of Galenic medicine – and knowing from experience that it’s likely to be as efficacious as telling his patient to dance naked through the nearest wood at midnight wearing his chamber pot for a helmet – Nicholas prescribes a decoction of sorrel, dried rind of pomegranate and briar root. And rest. A lot of rest.
But His Grace cannot rest. Pricked by yet more letters from the queen deriding his performance at the head of her army, the next day Essex gives the order to strike camp. He will march into Louth, towards Ardee. News has reached him that Tyrone seeks a meeting there. The final reckoning – flux or no flux – is close at hand.
36
Tyrone slams his wine cup down. ‘A relapse?’ he says irritably. ‘How bad?’
