Meghann reached across Georgiana’s tightly clasped hands and poured her own tea. Without adding milk or sugar, she stirred the dark liquid absently. “Of course, I understand,” she said softly. “I didn’t really expect you to agree.” She sat silently for a long moment, tea forgotten, her mind somewhere else. Finally she remembered where she was. “Please consider this before you decide, Georgiana. Your life may be in pieces, and I don’t mean to minimize that at all. But you’ll have a life. Michael won’t.” Dry-eyed she looked across the table at her friend. “And neither will I.”
Georgiana stared at the heartbreaking vulnerability so evident in Meghann’s face and wondered, not for the first time, what it was about this woman that made everyone draw breath and take a second look. Meghann McCarthy was very lovely, very Irish, and very reserved in her emotions. It wasn’t like Meghann to fall apart over a man. Once, long ago, Georgiana had known what it was to love like that. Her lip trembled. “Oh Meggie,” she whispered. “I wish it hadn’t gone as far as that with you.”
“I never had a choice,” Meghann replied simply. “There is no one else like him.”
“I’ve seen his pictures in the paper. He’s very attractive.”
Meghann waved the comment aside. “It’s much more than that. When Michael walks into a room, everyone else disappears. There’s a brightness about him. He draws people in with nothing more than his sheer presence.” She shrugged self-consciously. “It isn’t something I can explain. I don’t even understand it.”
“You don’t have to explain, Meghann.” Georgiana bit her lip and looked away. “I understand it completely.”
Meghann nodded. “I thought you would,” she said quietly. “That’s why I came to you.”
The next morning Georgiana braved the cold to stand on the steps and watch Meghann pull out of the gravel car park. Looking back out of her rearview mirror Meghann noticed that she stood by the coronation stone of the O’Conor kings, the stone that had seen fifteen hundred years of O’Conor history. Georgiana had become absorbed in that history, so much so that it had become her own. The twenty years she had spent without Denis O’Conor, the years her personality and character were shaped, had faded and blown away like so many dried leaves before the October winds. Meghann held out little hope of help from Georgiana.
*
Belfast, 1995
Meghann walked across Donegall Square into the Linen Hall Library, named for the workhouses that once thronged the streets of Belfast’s industrial district, and climbed the stairs to the reading room. As usual it was filled with men and newspapers. A familiar surge of annoyance flared in her chest, quelling the smile she would have sent the young man who looked up from the opposite table. Didn’t the women of Belfast ever read? Did it ever occur to them, or to the men so fond of their newspapers and libraries, that a woman might care to take time from her domestic responsibilities to occasionally improve her mind?
The woman at the reference desk smiled. “Good morning again, Miss McCarthy. Have you found something else for me to look up?”
“Yes, please.” Meghann flipped the pages of her notebook until she found the scribbles she’d penned last night. “I need a copy of The Annals of the Four Masters and Tadhg Ó Cianáin’s Gaelic description of The Flight of the Earls.”
“That may take a while.”
“There’s no rush. I’ll reserve a private room and take a pot of tea while I wait.”
Three hours later, after the library had emptied and filled again, Meghann found what she was looking for, an exact accounting of the events leading to the Battle of Kinsale.
Twenty-Three
Nuala, Tirconnaill
By the end of that year of our Lord, fifteen hundred and ninety-nine, Elizabeth’s sixteen thousand men had scattered to the four winds and Essex was in disfavor with the queen.
All of which bought us time. Elizabeth was furious, but she would not give up. With Essex gone she would send another, this one more versed in military strategy and less awed by stories of Irish devils with flashing swords and flying steeds. This time it would be a man less moved by emotion and unlikely to ride into London in the middle of a snowstorm and surprise Her Majesty in her private chambers.
My stomach turned to imagine such a scene, for Essex was ten years my junior and Elizabeth was old enough to be my grandmother.
My father sent Rory to Spain to once again appeal to Philip for help. The loss of his three armadas and the treatment of the Spanish survivors by the O’Flahertys of Galway four years before did not bode well for my husband’s journey. A thousand men died in those waters off the western coast of Ireland and too many on shore after surviving the shipwreck. Because of a blood feud Liam O’Flaherty of the isles aided the storm-tossed Spaniards while Cormack O’Flaherty of Galway butchered their comrades as they struggled to shore. It would be a cool reception that Rory would receive from His Most Catholic Majesty, Philip of Spain.
He was absent those next years far more often than he was home, each task he undertook more dangerous than the one before. Perhaps he wished for a swift end to assuage the coldness that had grown like a frozen lake between us.
He loved me still. I knew it as surely as I knew the reflection of my own face in the rivers of the Eske. But his was a man’s love and by its nature a selfish one.
He would give his life for me, for he was a warrior and the blood of Ireland’s high kings ran through his veins. To draw sword and stand at the head of a silent army waiting for the moment of attack, to thrust cold steel into yielding flesh, to feel the burn of the dirk, the spurt of hot blood, to stand barefoot on grass slippery with enemy blood, this was second nature to him.
What he would not do was allow a woman to rule him. It was a man’s world, and he said that a man who was soft did not live to enjoy the fruits of his labor. Perhaps he was right. Weaned before he could walk, he’d know from the beginning that his role was to command. His rewards were greater than those of most men, but the burdens were greater still. I was strong, but still a woman. I knew little of the path where he was pledged to walk.
***
Meghann sighed and looked up from the yellowed pages. She fingered her mother’s brooch. “How arrogant he must have been, how difficult to live with, how incredible.”
“He was all of that and more,” said a voice in old Irish.
Meghann blinked her eyes. Across the table, as comfortably ensconced as if she came to the Linen Library’s reading room every day, sat Nuala O’Donnell. For some reason it seemed perfectly natural to see her sitting there.
“He was hot-tempered, blunt to the point of rudeness, wildly jealous—”
“And wonderful,” Meghann finished for her.
Nuala’s expression softened. “Aye, he was wonderful.”
“You loved him very much.”
“So much that I felt my heart would stop with the weight of holding my love for Rory O’Donnell.”
Meghann slipped a bookmark between the pages to hold her place. “Tell me about him, in your own words.”
Nuala shook her head. “Isn’t that what I’ve been doing, all this time, showing you our lives and the measure of the man he was?”
Meghann opened the book again and held it out to Nuala. “Would you like to read what is written about him?”
“I can’t read English. ’Tis a harsh, unnatural language with little poetry to it. You read it to me.”
Meghann cleared her throat.
His exploits would be forever immortalized in the secret brown script of the monks. Centuries after his death men would read the beautifully crafted words surrounded by colorful borders and detailed pictures drawn in red, gold, cerulean blue, and forest green. They would marvel at the greatness of such a man, exclaim over his daring, celebrate his strength, create legends that would survive in Irish myth until the end of time. Aye, Rory O’Donnell, Chief of Tirconnaill, would be remembered but few would envy his lot.
They worshipped him like a god, forgetting tha
t he was only a man, bigger and brighter than most but still a man, until someone came along and reminded them in a most final and irrevocable fashion.
Rory was successful in Spain. Philip promised fifteen hundred Spanish troops for the siege against Elizabeth. United with the O’Neill’s army of two thousand and Rory’s two thousand again, Ireland should have won the day.
Meghann looked up. “Do you agree?”
Nuala nodded. “He describes him well. But there is more, so much more.” Slowly, haltingly, in a voice of pure anguish, she described what O’Cianain only imagined.
“Fate transpired against us. It was the worst September of my memory. Rain swept across Ireland, hurling great waves against the shorelines. Wind bent the tree trunks until the forests lay flat against green hillsides, pressed into subservient postures as if in obedience to a mighty master. Wooden huts were leveled, and families without shelter scurried to safety inside the stone walls of Dun Na Ghal Castle. Lightning lashed the turrets and thunder drowned the voices in the Great Hall to terrified whispers. Those with Viking bloodlines spoke of the Hammer of Thor striking vengeance against his Christian defectors.
“Rory wore a pattern in the floorboards with his pacing. I knew his worry and shared it. We had much to lose. If the second Spanish Armada met the fate of its predecessor, all of Ireland and our way of life as we knew it hung in the balance. The look of strain on his face made him appear much older than his years.
“The Spanish were to have landed in Ulster, but Irish currents carried them far south to the southern coast of Ireland and the town of Kinsale. They marched into the city only to be surrounded by English troops under a commander by the name of William Mountjoy. There, without fresh supplies, they starved for nearly one hundred days.
“Rory and my father gravely underestimated Lord Mountjoy. I, who had known him from my brief stay in London, did not. He appeared to be indecisive and mild-mannered in temperament, but this deceptively meek facade concealed a keen instinct and a cool wisdom not often seen in the person of a soldier. For many years Elizabeth had suffered fools in the men she had chosen to lead her Irish wars. William Mountjoy was not a fool despite his headaches, his superstitious wearing of three waistcoats, and his despicable habit of inhaling tobacco smoke to ward off disease.
“My husband was not a cruel man, and the thought of allies come to aid his cause eating sewer rats did not sit well. He prevailed upon my father and the O’Neills, the MacDonnells of Dunluce, the O’Driscolls of Baltimore, the O’Sullivans of Beare, and several other chiefs to engage the English troops at Kinsale.
“I could imagine no other end than disaster. Kinsale was hundreds of miles to the south. Even in good weather an army of six thousand would take weeks to march the distance. It was December and bitterly cold. Snow muffled the mountains in blankets of white. Food and water would be scarce, and there would be no crops to sustain the marchers. They would meet Mountjoy’s rested army weak, footsore, and exhausted.
“To make matters worse, the Irish were now on the defensive. For reasons unknown my father, after digging trenches, building sconces, and having the thickets plashed, withdrew his troops from Mowry Pass, leaving it wide open for the English to march through and erect a fort. It was the O’Neill’s most strategic error in nine years of fighting.
“Rory was beside himself, and when Niall Garv rode into Derry offering his services to the English in exchange for the right to be called the O’Donnell, his hatred rose to heights I had never before seen. Over the years I had seen Rory work himself into a rage more times than I could count. His bellowing voice and fist-pounding anger were common enough inside the walls of Dun Na Ghal. But this was different.
“This time Rory was not at all loud. Indeed, he was so still that I grew uncomfortable watching him. His eyes chilled to narrow chips of blue ice, and the white line around his lips appeared permanently hewn into the chiseled flesh. He would not volunteer his thoughts and I, who shared more than a little responsibility for kindling the flame of his hatred, dared not ask him.
“Niall’s outrageous presumption spurred Rory to action sooner than he had intended. Leading an army of five hundred men, with one thousand more to follow, he left Tirconnaill to rescue the Spanish at Kinsale.”
“What about you?” Meghann interrupted. “Were you at Kinsale with him?”
Nuala shook her head. “I remained at Dun Na Ghal. Is there anything else in that book that concerns me?”
A smile played at the corner of Meghann’s lips. “I think this will interest you. It’s written in Irish in your husband’s own words.” She handed the book to Nuala, who stared at the words, squinted and handed it back. “Perhaps those are Rory’s words, but they are not written in the Irish I know. Read it to me, please.”
Meghann took the book and read.
The night was clear and the men who rode with me complained of bitter cold. But my purpose was strong, and the rage that festered within me boiled my blood until I felt only a pleasant tingling in my veins. Niall Garv was my target. Tonight he would know the taste of O’Donnell steel through his ribs. For years I’d restrained myself, controlling my anger, believing that his betrayal was only important if I regarded it so. But once again I was reminded of what every man learns sooner or later. A predator will not retreat with a mere taste of power. He will take more and still more until there is nothing left. I would have been better served to have stopped Niall in the beginning after he had taken my wife and my castle.
My heart pounded with anticipation and my hand reached for the handle of my dirk. Already, I felt better. Niall Dhu, prepare yourself. You will die like the English dog you’ve become.
The trees thinned into a clearing. I signaled to the men behind me. Soundlessly, they stopped in perfect formation. Like King Conor’s warriors of the Red Branch, they were knights of the finest order. Without speaking, I dismounted and walked through the clearing into the thickest part of the forest. The men would wait in position until dawn.
There was no moon, but I did not falter. For nearly two leagues I walked until I smelled the smoke of turf fires. Niall’s tent would be in the center, the O’Donnell standard posted at the entrance. Untying the dirk, I slipped it between my teeth and dropped to the ground. The remaining distance would be traveled on elbows and knees. It was after midnight. No one was about. Even the watch, a whiskerless lad, nodded at his post. My mood was light. I did not relish taking the lives of schoolboys.
Smeared with bog juice, I crawled to Niall’s tent. Lifting the standard out of the ground, I let it drop. I drew aside the flap and took the dirk from my mouth.
It was too easy. Niall proved to be an unsuspecting mark. Within seconds my blade had creased the skin of his throat, leaving a thin scarlet line. Skill alone made a line so red and yet so thin that the blood did not spill over.
To his credit, Niall did not flinch. Neither did he beg. “Do it now,” he rasped against the silver steel binding his throat.
I climbed on top of him, pinning him to the ground with my weight. “In good time. First I would have you suffer a bit.”
“’Tis not a warrior’s way, Rory.”
I nearly killed him then. “How dare you speak of a warrior’s way. Is it a warrior’s way to make war on women and children?”
“Agnes and the children were a mistake.”
Pressing the point of the dirk at the base of his throat, I asked, “What of Nuala? Was she also a mistake?”
Niall could barely speak. “Nuala was mine first. It had nothing to do with you.”
“Nuala is my wife.”
The blood flowed freely now. Speech was no longer possible. His mouth opened, shut, and opened again. I released the pressure of the blade.
He gasped, breathed deeply, and spoke. “Kill me and raise my son. ’Tis the law. Is that what you wish for, Rory, to watch Nuala mother the lad she bore me?”
The truth was always hardest to bear. I stared down at my cousin’s sharply hewn features, struggling t
o match the quickness of his mind. Like Nuala, Niall was swift to understand and unusually articulate of speech. I knew the law. Blood bonds of Ireland’s high kings handed down from the Hills of Tara were unbreakable. Niall was my cousin, son of my father’s brother. Only the death of the lad would release me from fostering Niall’s son. Much as I relished the thought, I could not murder Nuala’s child. She had already lost too much, but neither would I take him into my home. Niall Garv must be spared.
Slowly I withdrew the knife from his throat. The only sign that he had feared for his life was the brief, nearly imperceptible flickering of his eyes. Before he could move, I lifted the handle of the dirk and brought it down against his temple. I watched his mouth slacken and his skin grow purple before I backed out of the tent. The blow had been intentionally hard. He would not wake for several hours, enough for me to reach safety. Meanwhile, tomorrow was Christmas Eve, and William Mountjoy waited at Kinsale with an army of three thousand.
Meghann closed the book and looked up at Nuala. Her eyes were unnaturally bright. “There was great goodness in Rory. Thank you, my dear. I knew nothing of this.”
Meghann nodded. “I envy you.”
Nuala’s eyes grew round with astonishment. “Rory would never have done for you, lass. The man you’ve chosen is much more suited to your temperament.”
“How can you possibly know such a thing?”
“I know this.” Her image was blurry now and her words a mere whisper. “For Michael Devlin there will never be anyone but you.”
She was gone, and with her went the light and the warmth in the room. Meghann looked at her watch. It was late, and Annie had invited her for dinner.
Twenty-Four
Nuala, 1601
After it was over and all was lost, Rory said that Macha’s curse of the silver mist was on the Irish army that day. How else could their defeat be explained? They had twice the men, the support of all around them, and a knowledge of the glens and boglands that no Englishman would ever have. Still, in less than three hours, they lost the day and with their defeat the course of Irish history would be forever changed.
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