The Maid of Ireland

by Susan Wiggs

  Behind them tramped the inhabitants of the stronghold and village.

  Full of a gut-deep, unnameable dread, Wesley joined the march toward the rocky coast.

  They came to a cliff topped by the Rock of Muir. Tumbled stones, hewn by ancient hands, circled the broad, grassy area.

  “The Giants’ Round,” Tom Gandy informed Wesley. “Faith, it’s no accident that the boulders form a perfect circle around the throne of the MacBride. How do you reckon they got here?”

  “I suppose you want me to say magic.”

  “Don’t you believe in magic, Mr. Hawkins?”

  “No.”

  Gandy grinned. “What a careless mortal you are then, my friend.”

  Caitlin stepped to the center of the circle. Sea mist swathed the scene in silvery mystery. Wesley felt like a spectator at a pagan drama, enacted in a world in which he didn’t belong.

  He set his jaw; he should be accustomed to the role of outcast. And yet today the sense of crushing aloneness weighed heavily on his spirits.

  Caitlin turned to her father. Her unconventional beauty riveted Wesley. Even Magheen’s delectable comeliness faded in comparison.

  Seamus held out a slim white stick. “My daughter,” he said, “you are the hope of Clonmuir. Take thou the throne of the MacBride.”

  She grasped the white wand. Acting as the ollam, Tom recited the laws she would swear to uphold. She held herself like a queen, her head and feet bare, the wind tossing her hair into a froth of gold and amber. The newly risen sun shot through the mist and bathed her in radiance. She seemed to absorb the light, a precious opal filled with the colors of magic.

  As Caitlin approached the rock, the rhythm of the music quickened. A stiff wind skirled down from the granite heights. Her slight limp was the only evidence that she breathed as any other mortal, that she was a woman who could be hurt.

  Wesley nearly called out to her to stop, to turn back, to abandon her burden. But he held his silence. She was a woman to run toward danger, welcoming it, embracing it.

  When Caitlin reached the rounded crest of the rock, the music stopped, giving way to a breathless silence disturbed only by the crash of the sea and the lonely cry of a cormorant.

  Caitlin turned. The white robes parted to reveal a black tabard emblazoned with a golden harp. She lifted the wand toward the blazing dawn sky.

  “This is the symbol of the MacBride,” she called in clear Gaelic. “Is treise tuath no tighearna!”

  “A people is stronger than a lord!” the others echoed.

  Caitlin turned in a slow circle, viewing her domain.

  And it was hers, Wesley realized, chilled to the bone by the primitive ceremony. Aye, the English might claim the land, but Caitlin MacBride owned its soul. He saw the truth in her fierce eyes, in the protectiveness of her regard, in the strange stillness that gripped her despite the swirling, howling wind.

  She was the dawn star, her incandescence undimmed even by light of day. Long after her delicate bones were dust, her spirit would shine forever in the sky of eternity.

  “MacBride!” shouted Seamus, his voice strong above the battering sea.

  “MacBride!” The entire gathering, save a glowering Logan Rafferty, took up the inaugural cry. It carried in a thundering wave across the land.

  With all the hopes and promises of her people glowing in her eyes, Caitlin descended from the Rock of Muir. Tears streamed unchecked down her cheeks. She passed close to Wesley but did not look at him, only stared straight ahead at an eternity hidden to him. She seemed spellbound by thoughts he could not imagine.

  Never, ever, had Wesley felt so drawn to a woman. It was a fever in his body and a madness in his mind, a fire out of control. Shocked at himself, he remembered his plan.

  For Laura’s sake, he must get Caitlin to London. For her own sake, he must... Again, the sharp wanting brought him up short. He would do what he must.

  * * *

  When she awoke the day after the inaugural celebration, Caitlin felt drained. For the hundredth time, she asked herself what devil had goaded her into taking the mantle of the MacBride. For the hundredth time, she forced herself to admit that her motivation had been composed of equal measures of desperation, devotion, and raw ambition.

  Holding a large, wooden-bound book, she stood in the yard with the rest of the household to say farewell to her father.

  She would miss his wonderful smile, his blithe conversation, even his moments of sheer lunacy.

  And she would worry about him. Brian, whose sword arm made him formidable and whose ready wit made him good company, would ride with Seamus as both bodyguard and companion.

  Hawkins leaned against the well in the center of the yard, one leg cocked and his booted toe pointed at the ground, the cannonball lying at his feet. His cavalier’s pantaloons and white shirt, parted at the collar to reveal his muscular neck, flapped in the breeze. He gave her a jaunty smile and a wave.

  Why, she wondered in annoyance, must I struggle so hard to look away from him? An aura of allure hovered about the Englishman, a curious quality that arrested the eye and tweaked the imagination. Perhaps it was the unexpected red hair, or the unusual hue of his eyes, the color of moss in shadow. Or the smile that caught at her heart and never let go.

  She tore her attention from the prisoner and clutched the heavy book to her chest. Like the musty smell of the pages, the ideas contained within the tome lingered in her mind.

  Seamus came out of the stable yard mounted on his tall pony. Brian followed on his own mount, leading a smaller pack horse. Caitlin felt a twinge of sadness at the sight of her father. He was a man of great heart and farseeing vision, yet that very vision obscured the everyday problems right under his nose. Deaf to the quarrels of his men, immune to the melancholy of his daughter, he embraced larger purposes most men gave up as lost causes.

  “I’m off to find the priests of Ireland,” he announced grandly. “Where is the deoch an dorais?”

  Rory came forward with a pewter mug. “Here is your parting drink, a chara. Keep you well.”

  Weeping, Magheen ran forward and kissed her father.

  He straightened and turned to Caitlin. “Protect this place from Cromwell,” he said. “He is a great, bad man.”

  Caitlin nodded gravely. “Godspeed you on your way, Daida.”

  He passed the mug to Rory, then lifted his arms as if to encircle the entire household. “A hundred thousand blessings on your heads, friends of my heart,” he shouted. “And a hundred thousand more this time again!”

  Caubeens and handkerchiefs waved. Men shouted encouragement, and women called blessings. Seamus MacBride rode out through the main gate.

  “There goes Donkey Hote,” remarked Tom Gandy.

  “Who?” Caitlin asked distractedly.

  “Donkey Hote. A character in a drama by somebody’s servants. Hawkins told me about him. And speaking of our prisoner, have you decided what you’re going to do with him?”

  The prisoner was sitting on the iron ball and showing Janet’s youngest son how to whistle using a blade of dried grass. Other children, even shy Brigid, gathered round to watch. Enraptured, the youngsters seemed as caught up in the Englishman’s magnetism as Caitlin was.

  She tapped the book. “I’ve been studying the question.”

  “Ah. The Tree of Battles.”

  She nodded. “The MacBrides have followed its rules of combat for three centuries.”

  “And what does the book advise?”

  She sat on her heels and flipped through the thick parchment pages. The text was handwritten, each page embellished by scrollwork and illumination. “Here,” she said, pointing.

  “‘A prisoner rightly seized in combat is subject to the rules of war,’” Tom read aloud. “‘Conversely, the captor must follow a suite of action that will retain his honor and preserve him from the censure of his peers. The prisoner shall be lodged in a room furnished with a goodly pallet...meat every other day...wine rations...’” Frowning, Tom skimm
ed a passage of minutiae. “Lord love us,” he murmured, “this would have us treating him better than we do our own folk.”

  “It can’t be helped,” said Caitlin. “I intend to follow the rules to the letter. It must never be said that the MacBride mistreats prisoners. Those are Roundhead tactics, not ours.”

  “Indeed.” Tom peered over her shoulder. “Let’s see...we must offer the prisoner a chance to give his parole. If he does, he’s to be given free run of the keep so long as he stays within the walls.”

  “I dispute that part,” said Caitlin. “He’s a lying, cheating Englishman. He’d swear on his damned Protestant soul that he’d not attempt escape. Then he’d flee the moment our backs were turned.”

  Tom’s face creased in a puckish expression. “All the same, you vowed to follow the letter of the law.”

  “I did. And I shall,” Caitlin said resolutely.

  Tom read on. “Ah. Here’s something interesting. ‘The prisoner shall be bathed and garbed in clean raiments by the ranking mistress.’ What say you to that, my lady?”

  “Let me see.” She scowled at the page. Bathe Hawkins? Her stomach made a queer twist at the idea of touching his body, feeling his skin warm beneath her fingertips. Magheen, she thought. Magheen could do it. As quickly as the notion came to Caitlin, she discounted it. Logan was furious enough with his errant wife; if he found out she had bathed an Englishman, he would probably double his demands.

  “All right,” she said, blowing out a sigh of resignation. “To do any less would bring us dishonor. We shall follow the time-honored rules.”

  Tom’s eyebrows lifted to the brim of his hat. “Starting with the bath?”

  She heaved another great, heartfelt sigh. “Aye. Starting with the bath.”

  * * *

  Guarded by Rory, watched with amusement by Tom, and propelled by Caitlin MacBride’s firm, impersonal hand, Wesley stepped into the kitchen of Clonmuir. He blinked through the dimness at a vaulted stone-and-plaster ceiling, begrimed by cooking grease and black smoke. A hearth as wide as an armspan and taller than a large man blazed with a well-stoked fire. To one side stood a folding screen. An ominous-looking array of iron utensils hung from hooks above a stout block table: a scissorlike apparatus with crimped ends, a long sharp spike, a screw-top clamp.

  Apprehension stole like a sickness through Wesley’s gut. He had an urge to cross himself, but the iron ball in his arms and common sense stayed his hand.

  “Wait here.” Caitlin moved the folding screen aside.

  Wesley drew in his breath. At the hearth sat a giant wooden half barrel with steam rising from the surface.

  He bolted for the door, yanked it open.

  “Not so fast, spalpeen.” Rory Breslin slammed it shut again.

  Frowning, Caitlin tucked a ribbon of tawny hair behind her ear. “What is it?”

  But Wesley barely heard her soft query, barely noticed the flicker of firelight on her starkly beautiful features. A familiar blindness descended over him, shadows alive with shapeless horrors. The innocent peat fire blazed into a furnace of agony. The steam twisted like dragon’s breath over the cauldron, waiting to sear his skin, to invade his lungs with poison.

  “I wondered when you’d get around to torture.” The hard, flat voice sounded alien on his tongue. “You’re not so different from Oliver Cromwell yourself.”

  “What’s that?” she asked sharply.

  Wesley felt the room close in on him, the smothering wings of the angel of death. And then he was gone, tucked away by invisible comforting hands in some unseen haven where the pain could not touch him, where he could retreat into the blinding light....

  A hand jerked at his sleeve. The impatient touch raised him up out of the darkness. “God’s mercy, Mr. Hawkins,” said Caitlin, “have you lost your senses? What are you babbling about?”

  He stared into her golden firelit eyes and wondered at her confused expression. “Babbling? I was babbling? But I said nothing, I—”

  “Must be your odd English speech.” She released his sleeve. “For a moment I fancied you were reciting the Twenty-third Psalm. In Latin.”

  Wesley knew he’d never be so incautious. He forced a grin and avoided staring at her instruments of torture. “Aye, your ears deceive you, indeed. The English pray in the vernacular, not in Latin.”

  “And do they always pray before a bath?”

  “A bath?” He nearly dropped the cannonball on his foot. “But I thought...” His gaze stayed riveted on the coil of rope, the long knives, the pincerlike instruments.

  “Blessed Virgin Mary,” said Caitlin, her voice breathy with disbelief. “You thought I meant to torture you.”

  He held himself completely still, said nothing.

  “You did,” she persisted, her voice a low, musical throb, the echo of a plucked harp string. “Sweet Jesus, what’s been done to you to make you believe such a thing?”

  You don’t want to know. “I suppose I’d best explain.”

  Carefully he set the cannonball on the floor. “Please do.”

  “These utensils you regard so fearfully are for making the drisheen. It’s been a long time since we’ve had sheep for slaughtering, but Janet keeps the tools for crimping the sausages.”

  He gestured at the tub. “And that?”

  “I intend to follow the formal rules of combat. You are to be treated as a prisoner of rank. I shall bathe and clothe you. Tom Gandy, my steward, has drawn up a document to govern your conduct.”

  “I need no piece of paper to—” Wesley stopped himself. If it would put Caitlin more at ease with him, all the better.

  “...strike your irons,” she was saying.

  The possibility snared his attention. He moved his right foot. The shackle chafed painfully around his ankle. “You mean I’m to be rid of this?”

  “Yes. So long as you fulfill one condition.”

  “Anything. God, the very surety of my soul, if need be.”

  She gasped softly. “I’d never ask that, even of my worst enemy. I merely require your parole—your sworn oath that you will not attempt to escape.”

  “You have it,” he replied without hesitation. “I swear I will not try to escape.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Not good enough.”

  “A man sitting in a bathtub is not in a position to do much damage.”

  A smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. “True, but Tom and I discussed what it would take to trap an Englishman’s honor.” She groped in her voluminous apron pockets and removed several objects, laying them on the table. “Here’s the cross of St. George, England’s patron,” she said. “It was part of a banner Rory seized in a skirmish on Beltane last. And this—it’s a coin cast in the image of the devil’s butcher, Cromwell. Since he claims your loyalty, I’m not averse to your swearing on it. Oh, and this.” She laid down a Bible with a cross on the cover. Bits of plaster clung to the wood. “I pried off the figure of Christ. You Protesters seem to find the representation of our Lord offensive, and prefer your crosses bare.”

  “You’ve done much thinking about an Englishman’s heart.”

  “Englishmen have no hearts,” she retorted. “But a few of you do still possess a wee sense of honor.”

  “And you think I’m one who does?”

  “No,” she said simply. “I’ll strike your irons, but you’ll be watched every moment. I sincerely hope you have no strange privy habits, for you’ll find yourself embarrassed.”

  “I don’t embarrass easily.” He stared at the floor to hide the laughter in his eyes.

  “We shall see about that. Lay your hands on those objects that be sacred to all Englishmen, and swear your parole.”

  Wesley moved to the table. He placed his left hand on the torn silk depicting the cross of St. George and his right on the Bible.

  “The coin as well,” said Caitlin.

  He moved it to the far edge of the table. “Not that. You ask me to take an oath on sacred objects. Cromwell is not one of them.”

/>   “He’s not?”

  “Not to me.”

  “Then why do you fight and kill and conquer for him?”

  “Because I have no choice.”

  “Is he paying you, then? Did you come here hoping to line your pockets?”

  “No! My God—” He bit off the protest. “Shall we get on with it?”

  “In a moment. We must have witnesses.” A grin tugged at her mouth. “Visible ones, that is.” Going to the door, she pulled it open. Rory and Tom practically fell into the room.

  “I’m surprised you’ve no splinters from pressing this—” Caitlin brushed playfully at Tom’s ear “—to the door.”

  Rory flushed deep red. Gandy merely shrugged and laid a parchment document on the table.

  “Swear it,” said Caitlin.

  Wesley pressed his hands to the objects on the table. “I swear on St. George and on the Holy Bible that I have given my parole to my captor, Caitlin MacBride, chieftain of Clonmuir.”

  “Sign it,” said Tom.

  Wesley used a quill that had seen better times. The nib was split and his signature appeared strange, in double images. Slightly discomfited, he handed the quill to Caitlin. She signed the statement with a swift, sure stroke. Tom Gandy wrote in a beautiful old-fashioned script, and Rory Breslin in a crude one that bent the nib beyond repair.

  “That will be all,” said Caitlin. “I can handle Mr. Hawkins from here.”

  “Are you sure?” asked Rory. In Irish he added, “I trust him less than a hungry wolf.”

  “I don’t trust him, either,” Caitlin replied, also in Irish. “But he’s not stupid. We have his sworn oath. He’ll behave.”

  Rory shook his great, shaggy head. “I can’t bear to watch.” He elbowed Tom Gandy. Tom removed the oath and himself quickly. Rory followed reluctantly. The fire snapped into the silence.

  “Well?” asked Wesley. “Are you ready to test my honor?”

  She took a heavy ring from her apron, selected a large, antique-looking key, and bent to his ankle. He winced as she rotated the shackle. Her accusing eyes glared up at him. “This tore right through your boot. Your leg’s rubbed raw.”