The rebels mark, p.33
The Rebel‘s Mark, page 33
On the table, spilled red malmsey forms stigmata on the exquisite gold crucifix Bianca has been admiring. It is to be a wedding gift for the Lady Constanza. As slender as a dagger, and fashioned from the finest gold ever panned from an Irish river – or so Tyrone has just informed her – she suspects it’s more of a down-payment on Spanish aid than a gift to the happy bride and groom.
‘Oh, not nearly as bad as before, my lord,’ she assures him as she contrives an expression of self-recrimination. ‘But I was a little premature when I said she was cured.’
Tyrone lifts up the crucifix and points the shaft at her, almost as if he’s thinking of plunging the point into her breast. ‘I had intended to give her this, before she departs. I cannot delay my departure.’ His eyes reveal a faint hint of smugness. ‘I have an appointment to keep, with His Grace the Earl of Essex.’
‘In my opinion, my lord, it will be a few days before Constanza will be well enough to travel. But when she is, I believe I should go with her – lest she sicken again on the journey.’
The smugness changes to suspicion. Tyrone studies her, scratching at his bushy beard while he tries to gauge her capacity for deceit. Then he makes a little stabbing motion with the crucifix. ‘And no doubt when you get to Scotland you’ll slip away in the night, cross into England. I can’t have that.’
‘I wasn’t planning to, my lord,’ Bianca assures him in her most earnest manner. ‘I am sure Lady Constanza will be fully recovered by the time she takes ship. I need accompany her only that far. By then her servant will be quite capable of attending to her needs.’
‘The Blackamoor?’
‘The Carib – Cachorra.’
‘Is that what she’s called? A wild creature, to be sure.’
No wilder than many of your fellows, who look more like Scythian warriors of old than modern fighting men, thinks Bianca. But she says nothing, adopting what she hopes is her serious apothecary’s face.
‘Very well,’ Tyrone says at last. ‘But you’ll be guarded. And the guards will know their instructions, should you attempt to slip away.’
‘I would expect nothing less, my lord.’
As Bianca makes her way back to Constanza’s chamber, she is gripped by a fear even greater than that of what would happen to her should her attempt to escape fail. It is fear for Nicholas. He must surely be with Essex and the English army. What if Tyrone, with his superior force, decides – after all – that Ardee is the place not for parley, but for attack?
Nicholas is in favour again, at least for the moment. His Grace has pronounced him the finest physician in Christendom. Nicholas does not take this as a sign that Essex has really changed his opinion. When a man is relieved of the flux – even if only temporarily – his mood is always likely to improve. Thus it is that Nicholas finds himself in Devereux’s pavilion, listening attentively while Southampton and the other commanders attempt to talk the earl out of meeting Tyrone face-to-face. Essex has just announced that he intends to do so, without any of them being present. A privy meeting – with no close witnesses.
Their objection is both simple and direct: the earl’s enemies at court in England – by which they mean Robert Cecil – will use such a parley to his great disadvantage. His Grace has entered into a secret deal with Tyrone against Your Majesty’s express commands… who knows what traitorous pact he has made with the rebels?… Without witnesses, without secretaries present to record what was said, who is to say that your erstwhile favourite has not betrayed Your Majesty’s trust?
Nicholas recalls how fearful Edmund Spenser had been of even the merest suggestion that he had been in contact with Spain, regardless of his motives. For a man of Devereux’s importance, such an accusation could mean an appointment with the executioner.
But Essex is adamant. Following an offer of parley from Tyrone, he will array his army at the place suggested: the ford on the River Lagan at Bellaclinthe. It will be a display of strength, though everyone but Essex seems to know on which side of the river the true strength lies. But there will be no battle. He will bring the rebel leader to heel by the force of his will alone..
With Tyrone and his army absent, a strange air has fallen upon the little castle. The household suffers from the listlessness of children kept at home while the adults are out doing something interesting. Bianca’s guards have changed, too. O’Neill needs every fighting man he can muster. Only three are left to escort the Lady Constanza to the coast to take ship for Scotland, and one of those is still lame from a wound sustained in the rout of the English at the battle of the Yellow Ford over a year ago. They are civil enough, but she doesn’t doubt they would carry out their commander’s orders if it came to it.
It is the morning after Tyrone’s departure for Ardee. The dawn creeps up over the soft hills. Cockerels call forlornly to the still-smouldering campfires on the abandoned riverbank.
‘I need to speak with the steward, if you please,’ Bianca says when the change of guard outside the door to Constanza’s chamber has had a few minutes to settle himself to his duties. ‘I assume you will want to accompany me – lest I try to escape.’
On the way down to the steward’s chamber, she goes to work. Her small talk is mildly flirtatious, and clearly well received. After all, what young lad assigned to a demeaning and stultifying post in an almost empty castle wouldn’t be flattered by the attentions of a comely older woman, a woman whose dark waves of hair and amber eyes suggest – even if somewhat modestly – excitements long denied to a lowly foot soldier of the rebellion?
The castle’s elderly steward is stooped and white-haired, as reedy as anything that grows in the shallows of the Blackwater. He looks to Bianca as though he might snap if she blew on him. ‘I believe the Lady Constanza will be well enough to travel tomorrow,’ she tells him. ‘We shall need food. She is also demanding wine, for the journey.’
He rolls his eyes in the manner of the perpetually suffering. ‘I’ll have a skin made ready,’ he says. ‘You may have it when you leave.’
Bianca gives him a doubting frown. ‘I really would prefer it now. I shall need to mix a restorative into it, lest she suffers another relapse on the ride. She refuses to drink it neat, and it will take a while to infuse the wine.’
‘Can you not do that overnight?’
‘I must do the mixing in daylight; I need to be careful with the balance. Too little and it will be ineffective, too much and it may harm her recovery. Can you show me what skins you have available?’
The steward leads her to the kitchens. He shows her a collection of empty leather bladders hanging by their carrying straps from a hook in the pantry. He says, ‘The O’Neill always takes one of these when he goes out hawking.’ Then, in a sarcastic tone, he adds, ‘I trust one of these will be worthy enough for her gracious Spanish majesty?’
Bianca notes the wooden stopper has a screw thread turned into it, to ensure a tight fit. ‘This will do perfectly,’ she says, giving the steward a wink to show how she, too, has laboured under Constanza’s relentless demands.
‘Very well,’ says the steward. ‘I’ll send a full skin up to the chamber.’
‘And a jug for mixing the restorative.’
‘And a jug.’
‘One more thing…’
‘With the Spanish lady, there is always one more thing.’
A conspiratorial laugh, shared.
‘There was a wedding gift, or so I understand. Would you be good enough to wrap it in a strong cloth? There’s no point in making a display of its presence. I’m sure you have thieves here, just as we do in England. I’ll send the Lady Constanza’s servant down to collect it.’
‘I shall have it ready,’ the steward says, won over entirely. ‘I hope you bear the ride to Clandeboye without developing a chancre of the ear.’
Back in their chamber, Constanza is snoring noisily in her bed. ‘I’m not sure about the wedding gift,’ Cachorra whispers when Bianca has explained her plan. ‘Is my mistress’s. Cachorra is no thief.’
‘Of course you aren’t. But that’s why we need it. They’ll believe I’ve escaped, and you’ve run away with me because you’ve stolen your mistress’s possession. Constanza is bound to think the same. It will take away any suspicion that she was complicit in our disappearance. Besides, she’s not going to starve when she gets to Antwerp – whereas you could do with a little something to set yourself up on Bankside. Consider it recompense for all that moaning you’ve had to put up with over the years.’
An hour later they contrive another walk together along the riverbank, in search of herbs. The air feels heavy on Bianca’s skin, adding to the weight of her thoughts. She has tugged at her plan to see which threads will unravel, which will stay fast. It is by no means a perfect plan, but it is the best she can come up with. Out of the guards’ hearing she says, ‘In all the time you’ve been here, has anyone ever told you where here is?’
‘I know only the name of this river. Is aguas negras – Blackwater. Nothing else do they tell me.’
‘It’s in Ulster, I know that much. And Tyrone said he was taking his army down to meet Essex on the River Lagan. Down must surely mean south. So south is where we’re going. South is where Nicholas will be.’
Bianca is shocked by the expression on Cachorra’s face – a look of utter desolation, as though a loving husband to escape to is something so far beyond her reach that the very thought of it hurts like a physical pain.
‘But when they find we have gone, they will come after us, yes?’ Cachorra says.
Casting a quick glance at the guards to ensure they have not moved within earshot, Bianca says, ‘They won’t know if we’re following Tyrone’s army or taking a more easterly path, towards the English garrison at Drogheda. And there aren’t enough men left behind to cover both possibilities in any strength.’
‘But how to know where to go?’ Cachorra asks plaintively.
‘Easily,’ Bianca says with a smile of reassurance. ‘Tyrone’s army is seven thousand strong. Unless they all went on tiptoe – including the horses – I suspect they will have left more than just a few traces to follow. All we have to do is to ensure we don’t follow too closely.’
Cachorra ponders Bianca’s words for a while, making a play of grubbing for herbs to reassure the guards. When she stands up again, her face is a picture of newborn, fragile hope. ‘First we have to go from here,’ she points out, as though she cannot quite believe the future could be hers for the taking. ‘We are still watched.’
From where the guards are standing, the two women could be old friends swapping amusing tales of past dalliances. Bianca glances back at one of them, the lad who had escorted her to the steward’s chamber. She gives a smile that is just a little more than merely friendly. Then she turns back to Cachorra. ‘For that,’ she whispers, ‘we must rely upon the knowledge of the Caporetti.’
The day passes languorously. The September air has a summer sultriness about it. The willows droop beside the river, untroubled by even the faintest breeze. Kingfishers hunt on the river, their rainbow wings flashing above the crystalline surface.
It is late afternoon. In her chamber Constanza Calva de Sagrada sleeps as deeply as only those who have drunk a soporific – knowingly or unknowingly – can sleep. In the meadow beside the river, two women are taking another amble through the trees in search for herbs and plants. When Bianca had been asked why two visits in one day were necessary, she had said there must be enough physic to ensure the daughter of the Spanish envoy – who so bravely lost his life coming to Ireland’s aid – might be assured of speedy relief, should she fall ill again.
Their guards follow a little way behind the two women, crossbows still loaded but held casually enough. They have changed their minds about the duty that O’Neill has given them. Instead of bemoaning their exclusion from his army – surely about to bring the hated Earl of Essex to his gartered knees – now they are like soldiers anywhere who have found themselves an undemanding post well away from danger. After all, what could possibly be more pleasurable than strolling along a riverbank in the company of two comely women? ‘Let us pray the apothecary doesn’t attempt to slip away,’ says one guard to his companion. ‘It would be a terrible tragedy to have to shoot such a beauty with this crossbow.’
‘I can think of better uses for my bolt,’ says the other.
And what is this – a coy invitation to come closer and join them? Look: they’ve brought manchet bread and cheese from the kitchens. Why, they’ve even managed to prise a skin of wine out of the miserly kitchen steward! What a turn of events. Who’d want to be on the march when a fellow can sit beside such beauties, making flirtatious small-talk in the warmth of the afternoon, lulled by the humming of the bees and the flowing river? Who’d want to risk life and limb when you can drink wine on a flowery bank in such attractive company?
And the wine is very good.
And the company is very pleasant.
And it is very warm. Soporific in fact.
‘How long have we got?’ Cachorra asks when she’s sure the guards are safely asleep.
‘What?’
Bianca has been thinking how proud her mother would be that the line of Caporetti poisoners is maintained, even if this particular example is merely a harmless sleeping draught made from some of the ingredients the rebels forgot to steal from her apothecary’s collection.
‘I said, “How long have we got?” Before they wake?’
‘Two hours at least.’
Across the pebbled ford, in the trampled empty meadow and around the ashes of abandoned campfires, only the crows move, grubbing for scraps of food left by the departed army. Bianca glances back at the castle. With Tyrone’s household stripped of fighting men, there is no one left to keep watch from the walls. She and Cachorra are unobserved. It is time.
37
It is a performance as good as any at the Rose playhouse on Bankside. But it is an illusion, a pretence in which everyone knows the scenery is fake and the man at the centre of the stage is playing a part. Everyone, that is, except Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, Earl Marshal of England and Lord Lieutenant of Ireland.
Clad in his black field armour like the last of the medieval knights – and dosed with all the physic Nicholas can give him – he rides his magnificent charger down to the bank of the Lagan. Behind him, drawn up on the grassy slope, is the tired, dispirited English army.
Nicholas remains in his tent in the baggage train. He has no interest in watching this vainglorious display. It is all he and his little band of barber-surgeons can do to treat the cases of sickness amongst the ranks. And sickness is not the only drain on the earl’s depleted force. Desertions too are on the rise. Several of Henshawe’s company have slipped away on the march, making Sir Oliver’s own temper even more unpredictable. He shares Devereux’s inclination to hang anyone who cites a malady as an excuse to fall behind.
A fine drizzle mists the Lagan valley. It drifts through the trees like cannon smoke, as though a battle has already been fought and lost. The river meanders like a flow of cooling pewter melted in a fire. On the far bank a small contingent of men in fur pelts and broadcloth gowns sit upon shaggy ponies. Matched against the armour of the English commanders, made into mirrors by the rain, they look like a band of ancient Celts come to parley with a Roman legion.
Southampton and the other commanders sit astride their chargers in front of the English lines. They know the score well enough. Their skirmishers have told them that while the far bank might seem almost empty, out of sight beyond the rising ground waits the mass of Tyrone’s rebels. And while they are confident their shot and artillery might defeat an attack, there’s not a hope in Hades of launching one of their own and having it end in anything other than a slaughter.
In the centre of the river, a stocky, bushy-bearded man sits in the saddle of his horse. He has no stirrups. The legs hang loosely as though the body is suspended from a gibbet. The water is almost up to his heels. His head is bowed, the drizzle streaming down his broad brow. He looks the very picture of a supplicant who knows he can no longer summon the strength to fight against impossible odds. So he has come to make a deal.
And Essex has fallen for it.
For three days they have followed the trail of Tyrone’s forces. Now, tired, hungry, but filled with a growing conviction that they have evaded any search party, Bianca and Cachorra huddle in the undergrowth of a wood barely a mile from the river. They have made the landscape their accomplice, keeping to the trees as best they can, avoiding open ground where a pursuer might spot them from a distance. Bianca’s judgement about the effect of the soporific she had put in the wine proved accurate. It wasn’t until darkness fell on the first day that the sound of a horse at full gallop had given them just enough warning to slip into hiding, before what they assumed was a messenger came flying past. The next morning they had spotted small bands of riders well off to their left. Burrowing into the bracken like frightened hares, their hearts racing, they had waited to be discovered. But when Bianca dared cautiously to raise her head again, they had disappeared from view.
Their hiding place now is a spinney of silver birch, set on a small hill overlooking what Bianca assumes must be the Lagan itself. Tyrone’s army is halted a good mile away to their left and hasn’t moved for hours. Since first light, she and Cachorra have cautiously skirted around its right flank to reach their present position. A thin drizzle has fallen for hours, and from this distance there is no sign of either army. But a short way off, the river’s far bank folds around a heathered hill. Beyond it, the smoke from many campfires rises forlornly. If those fires are burning on the opposite bank, Bianca reasons, then it must be English smoke from English campfires.
They have eaten the last of the bread and cheese, though it has done little to assuage their hunger. They are wet and cold, weary and footsore. But Bianca’s heart is vaulting inside her chest. The thought that Nicholas might be on the other side of that hill, warming himself by one of those fires, is enough to warm her body, were it frozen solid. It is all she can do to stop herself running down to the river.
