Red Hugh

by Lisson, Deborah;

  Dillon had visited them several times, and Hugh and Donal, at least, were always pleased to see him. He was one of the few men about the castle who seemed to have any concern for their welfare. He smiled at the boys. ‘I came to see are they still treating you decently,’ he said.

  ‘They’re feeding us,’ growled Eoghan.

  ‘Are they now? Then let you be thankful for small mercies. Is there anything you need?’

  ‘We need our freedom.’

  ‘My sorrow, but that is the one thing I cannot give you. However,’ the man put down a pile of books, ‘I thought these might help to pass the time.’

  Hugh pounced on them and thumbed through them eagerly. ‘But they’re all written in English,’ he said in disappointment, ‘and we have no English – any of us.’

  Dillon looked at him sideways. ‘Then perhaps it might pay you to learn.’

  ‘The devil, it might!’ spluttered Eoghan. ‘Is it ourselves to be aping English ways?’

  Dillon smiled. ‘I know it’s little liking you have for the English, but would it not make sense – and you living among them – to learn their language?’

  ‘It would not! I’d rather be dead!’

  ‘And so you may be, and you not learning to curb your tongue.’ Dillon sighed patiently. ‘Can you not understand, lad, times are changing. The old ways, the old customs, they are dying – slowly perhaps, but the end is inevitable. England has strength and patience. Eventually she will win.’

  His words went through Hugh like a knife. What was it Donal’s father had said? ‘They have it in their minds to govern us, Hugh – to destroy the clan system, to abolish Brehon law and impose their own English laws in its place.’ He shivered, as if an icy wind had blown through the room. Looking up, he saw Lucas Dillon watching him. There was sympathy in the man’s face but it did not comfort him.

  Eoghan seethed with indignation. ‘She will not win,’ he said fiercely. ‘We will fight her every step of the way.’

  ‘So you will,’ said Dillon, sadly, ‘when you are not too busy fighting each other. You are your own worst enemies, and that is the sorrow of it. You are too proud to be led, and because you will not have an Irish king, in the end, you will have to submit to an English queen.’

  ‘Ha! – and she to be bending her own knee to the King of Spain before the next year is out.’

  ‘What did you say?’ Dillon rounded on the boy, his face white with shock. ‘You little idiot! Don’t you ever utter such words again and you wanting to keep your head on your shoulders.’

  Eoghan looked startled, but he scowled unrepentantly. ‘And is it not what everyone is saying – that King Philip is even now fitting out an Armada to blow your navy off the seas?’

  ‘They don’t say it here,’ said Dillon grimly, ‘and no more will you and you having the sense you were born with. Why, if the Council believed you had the slightest inkling of any Spanish plot …’

  Hugh and Donal stared at each other solemnly.

  ‘He’ll not speak of it again,’ promised Hugh. ‘He is not a fool, for all that he has a big mouth.’

  ‘See that he doesn’t,’ said Dillon. ‘For if they decide to question him I’ll not be able to save him.’ He looked hard at Eoghan. ‘You understand what I’m saying to you?’

  Eoghan muttered under his breath.

  ‘Answer me!’

  ‘Ah, all right, then, I do.’

  ‘Then let you not forget it.’

  Eoghan remained subdued for some weeks after Dillon’s visit – obviously the warning had shaken him more than he would admit. They had all heard tales of the interrogations that took place in the castle dungeons. Eventually, however, his irrepressible optimism got the better of him.

  The Spanish rumours had refused to go away, and if Sir Lucas Dillon was unwilling to discuss them, there were others less reluctant. Stories jumped like fleas around the castle yards and, like fleas, they fattened on every man who carried them. Eoghan carried all of them – back to the safety of the gate-tower after each exercise period, to be repeated in gleeful whispers after the guards had barred the door and departed for the night.

  The months passed. Christmas came and went, winter gave way to spring, and the whispers grew to an alarming rumble. Five hundred ships, they asserted; a thousand, two thousand – the greatest Armada ever assembled. They had left Cadiz, they were at Corunna, they had set sail for the English coast.

  ‘They are coming like Finn and his Fianna,’ crowed the Irish horseboys, ‘to help the Irish in their hour of need.’

  ‘They are swarming like the hordes of hell,’ muttered the English soldiers, ‘with orders from the Pope to destroy the English nation. They carry racks and thumbscrews in their holds, and nooses to hang Godfearing Protestants.’

  By May the castle was in a frenzy. Everyone told a different story and everyone claimed to have the truth of it. Hugh didn’t know what to believe. Conflict seemed certain – the fear on the garrison was something you could almost smell. But whether the news was as good as the rumours suggested was another matter entirely. Donal treated the stories with scepticism. But Eoghan refused to entertain doubts. ‘We’ll be out of here by Christmas,’ he insisted repeatedly, ‘and a row of ugly English heads grinning down on us from the spikes over the gate as we go.’

  ‘And the pity of it that Perrot’s will not be one of them,’ said Donal, dryly. He winked at Hugh. ‘My soul, hasn’t he the luck on him, and him being recalled now to England, and leaving next month.’

  ‘The new Lord Deputy will look well enough in his place,’ retorted Eoghan, ‘and, sure there are spikes enough in London for Sir John Perrot. They can stick him up beside his red witch of a sister, and we’ll all go over and throw mud at them.’

  Hugh and Donal could only look at each other and shake their heads. ‘Well, I’ll tell you this for nothing,’ said Donal with a chuckle. ‘If the Spanish do come here, they’ll not want to be landing in the west. For if the rocks and tides don’t get them, sure, the O’Malleys will.’

  Four

  PERROT’S APPROACHING DEPARTURE brought a rush of activity to the castle. The retiring Lord Deputy was determined, it seemed, to go out in a blaze of glory. Countless farewell pageants were contrived for him – and largely by him – and the road between the wharves and the gate-towers became choked with well-wishers arriving to pay their respects. Hugh and his friends, watching the daily comings and goings from their prison window, were not deceived by all the seeming goodwill. ‘Well-wishers, is it?’ scoffed Donal. ‘And Dublin Castle bulging at the seams with all their hostages. Your man would do anything to impress his sister. Even Fiach mac Hugh is after receiving a safe conduct, I hear.’

  ‘And three of his sons in Perrot’s hands to make sure he accepts it,’ added Hugh bitterly. ‘Well, I’ll tell you this for nothing. The English queen may believe this show of duty, but it will not fool anyone here. The only Irishman who’ll shed unforced tears for Sir John Perrot is old Turlough Luineach – and, sure he’d weep at parting company with his own spittle, and he in his cups.’

  They all laughed. ‘Ah well,’ said Donal philosophically. ‘At least your father will be here, Hugh Roe, and you having the chance to see him.’

  Hugh frowned. Donal was right, but there was one thing he seemed to have forgotten. The O’Donnell would come to Dublin no more willingly than Fiach mac Hugh O’Byrne. He, Hugh Roe, would be the knife held to his father’s throat and that knowledge was a bitter draught to swallow.

  He blamed himself also for the current turmoil in Tír Chonaill. Visitors to Dublin reported that, since his abduction, the ambitions of his father’s would-be successors had erupted into violence again. One of the claimants, Hugh mac Calvagh, had apparently allied himself with The O’Neill to inflict a crushing military defeat on O’Donnell and his ally, Hugh mac Ferdoragh. The pretender had not survived long enough to profit from his victory, but in the meantime The O’Donnell’s uncle, Hugh mac Hugh Dubh, and nephew Niall Garbh were both r
attling their own swords, and Donnell O’Donnell was quietly gathering supporters and awaiting his opportunity. The country was dissolving into anarchy, and under cover of the confusion, a rabble of English soldiery had sacked Donegal Friary and installed themselves in its cloisters.

  Hugh had happy memories of Donegal Friary – he had heard mass in its chapel, stolen apples from its orchards, received religious instruction from its Guardian, Brother Tadhg O’Boyle. To think of it now, desecrated by drunken heretics, its occupants slain or scattered God knew where, was a pain almost beyond bearing. Time and again he cursed himself for the naïve idiot he had been at Rathmullen.

  The O’Donnell and his wife rode into Dublin one afternoon in mid-May. They were given lodgings in the castle, and the following morning Hugh was brought to their apartments to visit them. It was an uncomfortable reunion. He looked at his father – so visibly aged in the short time since last they had been together – at his angry, tight-lipped mother, and did not know what to say. Is it me she is angry at? he wondered. Does she blame me for this mess?

  To make matters worse, his parents were not alone, and when Hugh saw who the other visitor was, his heart sank even further. Hugh mac Ferdoragh O’Neill! Hugh had never felt easy in this man’s presence. There was something too subtle, too unIrish, about him – and it was not simply his English title, Earl of Tyrone. Hugh mac Ferdoragh was a secretive man. He thought much and spoke little, which made it difficult to read his mind, and Hugh Roe was not used to such restraint. The Iníon Dubh never left anyone in doubt as to her feelings – she was renowned for her rages. The O’Donnell did not mince his words either. And when Eoghan’s father – or Donal’s – lost his temper the whole world knew about it. But Hugh mac Ferdoragh smiled and dissembled. He seldom raised his voice. The man who crossed him might never realise his mistake till he felt the knife between his ribs. In his presence, Hugh had always felt very young and inadequate.

  He sensed the man’s gaze on him now, and tried to ignore it as he walked forward to greet his father. The O’Donnell held his hands out. ‘Ah Hugh, ah, son, isn’t it grand to see you again.’

  His voice was an old man’s. Hugh could not answer. Shame and guilt strangled the words in his throat. He clasped the old man’s hands and kissed him on the cheek as duty allowed. His eyes sought his mother. Help me, he begged silently. Support me, forgive me, or I am done for.

  Tall and imposing as the Morrigu, the Iníon Dubh regarded her son in silence. Then, suddenly, she too held out her arms and her fierceness dissolved into a loving smile. ‘No shame to you, my Hugh Roe,’ she said softly. ‘Aren’t we all after being deceived by English treachery?’

  His defences crumbled. Pride, shame, dignity dissolved like icicles in rain. He went into her arms and wept there like a child.

  Nobody jeered, nobody censured him. And afterwards, words came more easily. Fear for himself turned into concern for her own safety. ‘You should not be here,’ he told her. ‘It’s not safe for you here, not after …’

  She chuckled. ‘You mean after what happened Hugh mac Calvagh? They told you of that, did they?’

  He nodded.

  His mother shrugged. ‘Ah, well. And little enough there was to tell, if you go to that of it. He died. He came to Mongavlin after the battle, boasting of his victory, and died there in a drunken brawl.’

  ‘The English say it was murder – and you after ordering it.’

  ‘He was their creature – it pleases them to believe so. Hugh mac Calvagh was a traitor who took arms against his chieftain. He paid the price for it.’

  She made it sound simple but he knew better. ‘And what defence will that be?’ he demanded, ‘once the English are after arresting you?’

  ‘They’ll not arrest me. I have the personal assurance of the Lord Deputy.’

  ‘The word of an Englishman?’

  They all laughed, But it was Hugh mac Ferdoragh who answered him. ‘You are learning fast, Hugh Roe,’ he said approvingly. ‘But bear in mind, your mother is not the only one here under a guarantee of safe conduct. How would Fiach mac Hugh take it, do you think, if Perrot were to go back on his word? I’ll tell you. He would be away to the mountains as fast as his horse could carry him, and every other chieftain who valued his skin hot on his heels.’ He chuckled. ‘And then who would be left to line the banks of the Liffey and give the old fool his grand farewell?’

  Hugh had to smile. ‘All the same though …’

  ‘Forget it,’ said his mother, shaking her head. ‘It is over – done with – one less dog to bay at The O’Donnell’s heels.’

  ‘But there will be others.’

  ‘And they all going the same way!’

  Her confidence was inspiring. But suddenly Hugh remembered his own impotence. Anger rose like a wave inside him. ‘I should be with you,’ he raged. ‘I should be leading your army.’

  ‘And so you will be. Have patience, my son. They cannot keep you here for ever.’

  But they could – and she knew it as well as he did. He looked down a long, dark tunnel into the future. ‘They have me like a fly in a spider’s web,’ he said bitterly, ‘and they’ll not let me go till they are after sucking the life from me.’

  ‘Stop it!’ The Iníon Dubh gripped him by the shoulders and shook him hard. ‘Stop it at once! Is it a child you are to be talking this foolish way?’

  ‘We are not after deserting you, Hugh,’ put in Hugh mac Ferdoragh. ‘There are ways out of this castle – and I not without the friends and resources to find them.’

  ‘And they trying and failing once already. Didn’t Perrot boast to me himself that you were after offering him a thousand pounds for my escape, and he refusing you.’

  ‘He had the truth of it,’ the man admitted. ‘But Perrot is a wealthy man with little need of my money, and frightened half to death of that harridan of a sister of his. The incoming Lord Deputy, God rot his soul, is another mess of pottage entirely. Sir William Fitzwilliam.’ His mouth twitched into a sneer. ‘We had him once before – he was greedy then and I’ll wager he is greedy still. A weasel doesn’t change its nature. Give him time to settle in and we’ll see what a little tickle on his palm will do. Meanwhile, let you not think he is the only horse in my stable. I am already after writing to Lord Burghley and Sir Francis Walsingham. They are influential men – Privy Councillors, both of them – and both owing me favours.’

  Hugh felt ashamed. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘You are doing your best. It is not my place to be complaining. Only …’ He sighed. How could he explain what it was like to spend your days shut away behind high walls, to watch the world pass you by through one small window, to depend on your captors for the most basic necessities. ‘Sometimes,’ he said, ‘I am hard-pressed not to beat my brains out against the wall.’

  ‘I understand,’ said Hugh mac Ferdoragh. ‘Prison is hard for any man and you are very young. But have faith in me. I will plead for you, lie for you – anything it takes. Sure, didn’t I even tell Walsingham you were my son-in-law? I need you free, Hugh Roe. Tír Chonaill needs you free. And we will not fail you. Let you trust in that.’

  Hugh blinked. That must be the most impassioned speech he had ever heard the man make. But what did it mean? He could understand his importance to Tír Chonaill but why would Hugh mac Ferdoragh need him so badly? He searched his mind for a glimmer of understanding. The chieftaincy? The O’Neill title? Of course, that was it. For Hugh mac Ferdoragh to set his own foot on the inauguration stone when Turlough Luineach died, he would need all the backing he could muster. A strong – and friendly – Tír Chonaill would be crucial to his success. Wasn’t it for that the man was after marrying one of O’Donnell’s daughters? It explained something else too.

  ‘Did you really tell Walsingham I was your son-in-law?’ he asked the would-be O’Neill curiously.

  ‘I did,’ admitted his champion.

  ‘And which of your daughters am I supposed to be after marrying?’

  ‘Well, let me see now.�
�� The man put his head to one side and pretended to consider the matter carefully. ‘I’ve not many left now, you’ll mind, and they unmarried, but Róis is about your age. On consideration, sure, I think you’d do very well together.’

  ‘And …’ Hugh was almost speechless. ‘… and Róis? What has Róis to say about all this?’

  ‘Ah, well, now,’ Hugh mac Ferdoragh tipped him a broad wink. ‘Won’t you have to ask her that yourself?’

  The next six weeks passed quickly. Sir John Perrot was fêted and flattered by his guests. He made a pompous speech to the hostages, telling them how fortunate they were to be locked up in Dublin Castle where none could accuse them of sedition; and finally he sailed off down the Liffey to the cheers and tears of a large crowd. The cheers were universal, but whether from appreciation or relief nobody would say. The tears were supplied by Turlough Luineach. ‘And he so full of wine, wasn’t it running out of him at both ends?’ observed the Iníon Dubh, waspishly, describing the pageant to her son. Hugh could imagine it. He was glad he had been spared the sight.

  At last the time came for their final meeting. With Perrot gone, the Iníon Dubh no longer felt safe in Dublin. Hugh had not realised how much this leavetaking would affect him, but as he kissed his mother farewell he felt an overwhelming surge of homesickness. They were going home – back to the mountains, the salmon streams, the green, forest places of Tír Chonaill, and he must remain here imprisoned like an eagle in a cage.

  He struggled to keep his feelings hidden, but there was no deceiving the Iníon Dubh. She put her hands on his shoulders. ‘Courage, Hugh Roe. Have faith in us. We will not fail you. Whatever it takes, whatever it may cost, there is nothing we will leave undone and it serving to bring you home again.’

  He carried her words back to the gate-house and tried to believe in them as he sat on the windowsill and watched the rain.