by Aubrey Flegg
Sure enough, they all heard it now: a horse’s hooves.
CHAPTER 18
The Flight of the Earls
aystacks nearly missed them, huddled in the mouth of a lane. Séamus told him about the incident with the beggar. ‘Did Red Hugh really have black hair?’ he asked.
‘He did indeed,’ chuckled Haystacks. ‘More to the point, how much did you drop for him, Séamus?’
Séamus looked sheepish. ‘It was the only coin I could put my hand on – a shilling, I think!’ The others gasped.
‘That explains it. That will be the beggar I met in the town singing his heart out and carrying the biggest bottle of poteen I’ve ever seen.’ They had to laugh. He changed the subject, ‘No sign of the Earl’s party?’
‘We nearly caught up with them in a place called Ballindrait,’ said Fion. ‘But we think they must have gone some other way; the town gates were only just opening when we came through.’
‘Right, we must press on. It’s likely the Earl’s ship will sail the moment he’s on board.’
At Rathmelton, Haystacks found that his horse had a loose shoe, so they were forced to take rest while he went to find a smithy. It was a chance to finish the food Maire O’Brolchain had provided for them.
Con was too excited to eat. Come on, come on, he urged in his mind, imagining a triumphal arrival at the head of his small troop; pity one of them has to be a girl, but at least she doesn’t look like one. First Father’d give him a cuff on the ear for being late, then there’d be the bear-like hug. He imagined the ship at a quay-side, ready to sail, its rail lined by courtly nobles, while local chieftains in saffron would be kneeling for their departing lord. Pipes would play–
‘Come on, Con, aren’t you coming?’ called Haystacks, and Con was jerked out of his reverie. ‘We’re nearly there. We’ve as good as made it, boy.’
After the steep climb out of the village they took advantage of every flat or downward slope to trot, or even canter. The sky had cleared, and the air was washed clean by the storm. Sinéad kept glancing at the sea, which, borrowing blue from the sky, flashed like a kingfisher in flight. At last, Haystacks gave a shout and pointed ahead. There, her sails unfurled and ready to be turned to the wind, rode a ship, the flag of France floating in the light wind. As they pulled up, their tiredness fell away. Five days in the saddle and they had arrived at last.
‘But it’s French!’ said Sinéad.
‘Yes, but it’s going to Spain,’ explained Haystacks.
‘Look, they’re ready to sail!’ shouted Con, as he whammed his feet into Macha’s sides, who, catching his mood, responded like a pent-up spring.
‘Stop, Con! Stop! We must be careful!’ called Haystacks, but Con was gone, and the others, who could see nothing to be careful about either, took off after him, whooping with excitement.
Haystacks held back. They deserve to let their hair down, he thought, but he was worried. The road dipped to pass across a tree-lined valley, and he could see the children, racing each other now, as they disappeared from view under the trees. He stood in his stirrups, counting seconds, staring at the point where their road emerged from the trees at the other side. They should be appearing – now! But nothing moved. What could have happened? A hundred yards beyond the trees and they would be in sight of the boat and safe. His horse fretted, longing to join the race, but Haystacks held him back. Why had they not appeared? A sick feeling formed in his stomach – over all these miles trying to anticipate everything that might go wrong, and here we are at the very end! What can have happened? Could one of them have fallen? There! A whistle somewhere below. Con’s? Sinéad’s? He gathered his reins; it was clearly a call for help!
He was just about to hurtle after them when a horseman appeared on the road facing him. The man stopped, looked in his direction, and turned to wave to someone behind him. Now the man was urging his horse up the hill. This was no welcome; it was a pursuit, but still Haystacks lingered. What had happened to the children? A glance over his shoulder – there were two after him now. A puff of smoke and the whiz of a bullet decided things for him. He turned, laid himself low on his horse’s back and galloped away. He never carried arms, and there was nothing he could do for his young charges at this moment apart from getting away from his pursuers. But Haystacks had many skills, and making himself invisible in rough country was one.
The breakneck ride down the hill and into the tunnel of trees that spanned the road had been one long whoop for Con. As he entered the trees, the leaves and branches smeared into a blur of speed at the corners of his eyes. Watch me now! he thought. All at once, there was a rider beside him. Haystacks perhaps, but why’s he’s riding so close? Con raised an arm to push him away, but immediately a hand closed over it and he found himself being lifted from his saddle.
As the other three children reined in, men rose out of the vegetation on each side like highway robbers. They knew their jobs, grabbing the ponies’ reins and dragging their riders sideways from their saddles. Sinéad found herself held by the scruff of the neck. Ahead of her, Con was putting up a brave fight.
‘Watch that little one – he’s like a fighting cock!’ someone yelled.
‘Le’ go of me!’ Con shouted. ‘How dare you! That’s my ship out there, my father’s expecting me! Hands off!’ The only serious fights Con had ever been in were dog-fights, and dogs know how to defend themselves.
‘Damn it! He bit me!’ cursed the man who was engulfing him.
‘Don’t bite him, son, you might poison yourself,’ laughed a tall, bearded man – their leader, it appeared. ‘Well, whose son are you, then? Son of the captain, eh?’
‘Yes! And … and … he’ll have you for p…piracy!’
The man let out a roar of laughter. ‘Parlez vous français? My cock sparrow, you’re no sailor’s son! Look at the flag, she’s a French boat. I’ve known O’Neills of all shapes and sizes, and you just happen to be a small one. You’ll have to whistle for that boat, son. I need to have something to hand over to the English when they hear I’ve let your Daddy sail away from here with his head on his shoulders. You’ll do very nicely.’
Whistle for the boat … Whistle for the boat, why not? thought Sinéad. All attention was now focused on Con, whose hands were held fast. At least I can warn Haystacks! She put her fingers in her mouth, took a breath, and blew a blast that raised a cloud of cawing rooks from the trees above.
The man with the beard whipped around, glared at her and snapped, ‘Kill that boy!’, and that was how it felt, a buffet on the side of her head that set her ears singing. A huge palm was slapped over her mouth, while rough fingers quickly bound her hands behind her back. There was no more banter. They even gagged her with someone’s sweaty head-band; being a boy wasn’t always fun. She was tied in a line with the others then, and marched off in the direction of the village ahead, carefully screened from the anchored boat by their captors. The bearded leader stalked beside them; he had long greying hair, but walked like a young man. At first he seemed unarmed, but then she noticed a squire marching a pace behind him carrying his shield and a six-foot battleaxe. A Gallowglass warrior! she thought with awe.
Hugh O’Neill’s head shot up from where he had been leaning over the rail of the boat. ‘A whistle! Catherine, did you hear that? Con’s whistle, I’d swear!’ His hands gripped the transom rail. He turned, but his wife had gone below. ‘Monsieur le Capitaine,’ he shouted, ‘call the Countess!’ When the captain looked blank, he mimed the Countess’s prominent bulge, and the man understood immediately. Catherine came laboriously up the steep steps a few moments later; she was very pregnant.
‘You’ve seen him?’ she asked eagerly.
‘No, but I heard his whistle. Listen …’ They strained together.
‘Con, my son, my precious one – are you there?’ she whispered. She turned to Hugh, a frown on her still beautiful face. ‘The MacSweeneys would never take him, would they?’
‘Shhh …’ they leaned on the rail again, willi
ng together for another whistle. ‘MacSweeney attacked our men, you know, when we tried to take on fresh water.’
‘Didn’t we take one of their cows?’
‘Not so as you’d notice – the cow belonged to an Englishman, anyway.’ Then he flared, ‘Damn them!’ and smashed his hand on the rail. ‘The MacSweeneys fostered Red Hugh, and we fought side by side, one of them even saved my life, now they won’t let us even re-victual our ship! Look at them there, marching up and down. We have sixteen cannon on this ship. If only we had room below to fire the damned things, I’d blast them off their Donegal rock!’ He softened, and touched his wife’s hand. ‘Go below, my love. We have John and Brian on board, and whatever small life you carry inside you. Go, look after your young.’ He turned back to his watching. The light began to fade.
Oh Con, oh Con, thought Hugh O’Neill, you’re the very fibre of my heart, my own rascal horse-boy. God knows what the English will do to you if they ever get you. Feed you on cream, as they did me, before taking all our lands, or lock you up as they did young Red Hugh? They’ll use you as a stick to beat me, one way or another. So just keep your head – literally, I mean – and stay out of the Tower of London, son, it’s so damp, so dangerous.
The captain came up beside him and fidgeted.
Hugh pre-empted him. ‘No, Captain, we must wait a little longer. He’s out there. I can feel him. Till midnight, I beg of you.’
The building they were taken to had been severely damaged; it looked now like a cross between a barracks and a church. Their captors called it ‘The Priory’, which explained its mullioned windows and pointed arches. Once out of sight of the ship, they were lined up for inspection, and were surprised when the leader of the band turned with a tight little smile and said: ‘Welcome to Fanad. I am Domhnall MacSweeney – The MacSweeney, head of the clan – and I suspect you of illegal activity relating to the ship moored off my shore. Who are you and what are you doing in Rathmullan?’
They nudged Fion forward. ‘Sir, there is nothing illegal in our activity – and despite your rude welcome, I am happy give you our names.’ Fion then went on to explain how they had crossed Ireland to find Con, and had brought him here to Rathmullan to join his father who was, at this very moment, waiting for him on the boat moored in the bay outside. ‘Sir,’ he concluded, ‘my uncle remembers with gratitude your past support and friendship. I am sure he is expecting you to let us deliver Con into his care. After this we will leave and will cause you no further trouble.’
‘Very pretty,’ said The MacSweeney. ‘But it is I, boy, who will judge on the value of past friendships. Hugh O’Neill has enough sons on board to hand him his cup. To me, however, you have a certain value. We hold this building – what’s left of it – for the English, and I wish to keep it. We built it as a priory a hundred years ago as a place of sanctuary.’ His face twisted into a bitter smile. ‘Then King Henry threw out our friars, and George Bingham wrecked it. All week I have turned a blind eye to the stream of nobles paddling out to that boat like a line of ducks. I think some small change is due to me. I too have to keep the bloody English off my back!’ He was almost shouting now. ‘The only thing the Prior ever needed to keep under lock and key was his wine. His wine cellar will keep you very nicely. Take them away!’
‘What did he mean, small change?’ asked Sinéad.
‘He means he will hand us all over to the English as a sop for letting the boat sail,’ said Fion.
‘He’s a bitter man,’ declared Sinéad.
It must have been midnight when they heard a clatter on the dungeon stairs. The door opened and the four occupants blinked in the light as men burst in carrying torches.
‘Bring the young lad,’ a voice called. One of them moved towards Sinéad. ‘No, no, not the dark one, the redhead. Put a gag in his mouth, we don’t want another whistle.’
Con didn’t fight against them even when he was manhandled up from the cellar with a lot less respect than the Prior’s wines. When he was marched through the great hall, heads turned as he passed, as people turn to watch a condemned man being taken to the gallows. Con sensed that something momentous was happening. He straightened his shoulders. There was a low murmur of approval, sympathy even. When they came to the winding stairs, he snapped.
‘Leave me, I won’t run away,’ so they let him walk freely until he emerged onto the leaded walkway behind improvised battlements on the priory roof.
At first Con could see little, but when they quenched the torches the whole sweep of the estuary appeared, and on it floated a ghostlike ship, silvery in the starlight. Its sails were full now, slanting across the wind, its wake was like a snail’s trail on the dark water. A light moved on the quarter-deck – Father!
Hugh O’Neill leaned on the rail behind the helmsman, staring back down the ship’s wake … staring at all he was leaving behind: an island, a nation, a dream, and one small son.
CHAPTER 19
Kiss the Hag
n a height above the town, a shadowy figure stood watching the vanishing ship. He had seen the small figure on the priory walls. So they have him still. He looked up at the canopy of stars and noted the halo about the moon. Bad weather coming, but he had a duty to perform. He must compose, if only in his mind, a lament for the departure of Hugh O’Neill, Earl of Tyrone, and the noble shipload of chiefs who were going with him.
This would have to be a lament on a grand scale and in the ancient form, in which men are taller than trees, and women fairer than ever they were in life; where mountains rise up to the sky, and cattle and pigs multiply until you could walk across Ireland on their backs. Even as the phrases rolled over in his mind, he knew that they belonged to an older age. This was the end of his Ireland, the end of his culture, the Gaelic culture. O’Neill would never return, and poets like himself would fade and be gone.
A constriction began in his throat, but then, unbidden, a sudden thought crossed his mind: Perhaps there is something I can save out of this. He looked down at the priory. Four new seeds to plant if I can get them out of there. I even have an apprentice! He smiled. Perhaps we won’t fade, after all, perhaps we will just change. The lights had all gone out in the tower below. Now, how on earth can I get them out?
In the pitch dark of the Prior’s wine cellar they waited anxiously for Con’s return.
‘It’s not dawn yet, is it?’ Sinéad asked.
‘No, more like midnight,’ answered Séamus. ‘Why?’
‘It’s just that they take prisoners to be executed at dawn. They wouldn’t hurt Con, surely? That MacSweeney – he’s so cold!’ Sinéad shivered.
Half an hour passed, then there were sounds of steps on the stairs again. The door opened, throwing a mat of yellow light onto the broken flags of the dungeon floor and Con’s small form stumbled on to it. With a mocking, ‘Sleep well, son’, the guard closed the door and Con was left to shuffle cautiously to his place on the cold, stone shelf that once held barrels and now served the children as a bed. Sinéad slid along the shelf towards him.
‘Well?’ one of the boys asked from the darkness.
‘He’s gone,’ was all Con could whisper.
Sinéad reached out and found, first an arm, and then his hand. He resisted, but after a moment he slid towards her; he rested his head against her shoulder for a moment, and sniffed. ‘You smell of Aoife.’ She smiled; it wasn’t exactly a compliment, but if it comforted him … She imagined the two of them, from four years old, curled up together like pups in that big family bed. She put an arm around him and pulled him towards her.
The guard who opened the door in the morning jabbed a torch into the bracket on the wall and glared at them.
‘Looks as if the chief intends to keep you alive for a bit, after all,’ he said, putting down a basket. ‘Fresh bread and hard-boiled eggs,’ he announced, ‘better’n I get!’ He scratched his head. ‘Now, what was I to tell you? Oh yes. There will be a clan gathering tonight. The usual humble fare: roasted ox that’s been hanging for a week –
ripe as a peach it is – a fat pig, and a couple of last year’s lambs. Followed by the usual blather, music and song, a fight or two, perhaps – and if we get really bored, a hanging! The chief’ll decide on your fate then.’ He eyed the children. ‘Eat up, scrub up, and shut up, that’s my advice. That way you’ll be clean for the feast – or the hanging!’ He chuckled. ‘There’s water’n soap in the corner, and a bucket for soil. If you want anything more, ask Calum. That’s him whistling – he’d drive a saint to drink.’
The whistling was getting closer and there was the sound of steps on the stairs. They expected a young man, but Calum looked to be about the same age as the chief. He was carrying their packs which he now dropped on the floor at the door. They had obviously been gone through, but otherwise looked intact.
‘Don’t mind Ronan,’ he said, ‘he was just trying to cheer you up – in his own way. I’ll be looking after you.’ He reached up and unlatched some shutters high in their prison wall; weak morning light filtered down through an iron grille. ‘Don’t forget your breakfast.’ Then he went out, bolted the door, and his whistling receded.
‘The Ronan one – he didn’t mean it about the hanging, did he?’ wondered Sinéad.
‘I think that was his idea of a joke,’ said Fion. ‘But the bread smells good. Perhaps the chief will be in a better mood now that the boat’s gone. A lot of these MacSweeneys are still Gallowglasses at heart – you’d have to be half-mad to swear to die before you surrender, like Gallowglasses do, and you’d have to be equally mad to get on the wrong side of them. We’ll just have to lie low–’
There was a sudden eruption from the bench where Séamus had been sitting. ‘Lie low? Aren’t we even going to try to escape? Where’s my pack? Look in your packs, everyone,’ he commanded as he tore his open. ‘Have they left us any weapons? I’m not going to rot here, Gallowglasses or not.’ They caught his mood and searched thoroughly, but there wasn’t as much as a penknife between them. Séamus threw his pack down in disgust. ‘Here, Fion, give me a leg-up. Let’s look at the grille up there; it looks rusted through to me.’ Fion cupped his hands for Séamus’s foot, and heaved as he sprang. For a moment Séamus hung, swinging from the grille, and sending down a shower of rust, but it didn’t move an inch. He dropped back to the ground and bent forward to brush the rust out of his hair. ‘Those bars must be an inch thick,’ he said in disgust. ‘Damn it, how did we get ourselves into this pickle?’
