Authors: Bertrice Small

Besieged (29 page)

BOOK: Besieged

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Rory held Fortune tightly in his arms, for a moment, savouring the sweetness of her,
his daughter.
Then he said, “I would not leave the people of Maguire’s Ford when my family departed Ulster with the earls all those years ago, lassie. I will not leave it now, though I thank you for the offer.” He kissed her cheek. “You’re leaving with a fine husband, Fortune Mary, and that is, after all, what you came to Ulster for, didn’t you?” He set her back from him, and smiled into her beautiful face. “Go with God, and go in peace and safety,” he said. “If you were to send me a missive now and again, I should not mind, and I might even answer it.” Then holding her by the shoulders he kissed her a final time upon her smooth forehead.

Fortune felt a terrible sadness suddenly overwhelm her, and her eyes filled with tears. Looking momentarily into his eyes she saw that they, too, were filled with moisture. “Ohh, Rory, I shall miss you! And I will write, I promise you!” she half-sobbed.

“Take your wife, Kieran Devers, for she is about to weep all over my good doublet,” Rory said gruffly as he handed Fortune off to her husband.

Kieran Devers put a protecting arm about Fortune while holding out his other hand to the Maguire. “Farewell, Rory Maguire. You know what I would have of you, don’t you?”

Maguire nodded. “Aye, laddie, I’ll watch over the graves, I swear it,” he said, shaking the younger man’s hand.

Now James Leslie came, and bid Rory Maguire good-bye. “Watch over my lads,” he said. “I know you’ll teach Adam well, Maguire.”

“I will, my lord,” came the expected answer.

Bride Duffy, still weepy, bid them all a farewell. Fergus Duffy would be driving the coach to the coast where their ship was waiting.

Jasmine had a final word with her cousin, Cullen Butler. “Tread lightly, Cullen. I want no martyrs on my conscience,” she cautioned him. “ ’Tis a very delicate part of me, and I’ll not have the ghost of Mam rising up to chide me.”

“Have I not done well all these years, little cousin?” he said.

“Times have changed even in the year we have been here, Cullen,” Jasmine reminded him. “The militant Protestants become more vociferous with each passing day. England rules Ireland, and in England the king himself is struggling with the Puritans to maintain order. He must be very careful lest his French Catholic queen be accused of influencing him. It is not an easy time, and it does not appear things will be getting any easier soon. Foresight, even in a priest, is not a bad trait.”

“God will watch over me,” he said quietly.

“God helps those who help themselves,” she said with a small smile. “Watch over my lads, but if anyone would force your hand, remember, the duke of Glenkirk is the final authority in
any
matter concerning his sons, Cullen.”

The priest kissed her hand. “God bless you, Cousin,” he said. “Now, depart, else you meet yourself returning.”

The Leslies and the Deverses departed for the coast. The great baggage train they had brought with Fortune the year before had now increased in size, and gone ahead of them the day before. There was a single travel coach, but for now it held only their necessary luggage, Rohana, and Adali. The two other servants, like their masters, preferred to ride rather than be confined to the coach. They avoided the Appleton estate on their return journey, traveling a bit longer distance so they might stay at Mistress Tully’s Golden Lion Inn overnight.

Reaching the coast they found their baggage carts already upon the docks, and being loaded upon the ship that would return them back to Scotland. Slowly the carts were emptied, the trunks and the boxes being carried up the gangway to be stowed in the ship’s hole.

“ ’Tis fortunate you warned us to come empty, my lady,” the ship’s captain said with a grin, “but at least the young mistress got what she came to Ulster for, eh?” He chuckled.

The duchess of Glenkirk smiled. “Aye,” she said in reply. “Fortune has probably gotten more than she bargained for, captain.”

The voyage was a short one. Seeing the coastline of his native land disappearing Kieran Devers had a mild pang, but he felt no regrets. They were doing the right thing in leaving, and he relished the adventure ahead. He had never in all his life been out of Ireland, unlike his young wife for whom travel was a commonplace thing. He wondered what awaited them. He wondered what they would do if Lord Baltimore would not have them. He hoped his father-in-law’s small influence would aid them, and if it did, what would this New World be like?

Kieran Devers looked to the coast of Scotland that was now in his view after two days at sea. His arm rested lightly about Fortune’s slender shoulders. She smiled up at him.

“ ’Twill be all right, Kieran, my love. I feel it in my heart. The New World is where we belong, you and I. There is where we will carve out a grand life, and a wonderful future for ourselves, and for our children. Lord Baltimore will have us. How can he refuse?”

“I have never before in my life felt such responsibility as I do now, Fortune,” Kieran admitted to her. “All my life I was answerable for no one but myself. I lived in my father’s house, safe and secure. Now it is all different. I have you to love, but we have no place that we may call our own, where we may live together. I am not afraid, yet I am concerned, my love.”

“You needn’t be, Kieran. I told you that in my heart I know what we are doing is the right thing. The world is ours!” And her confident smile convinced him that all would truly be well.

Chapter
14

G
eorge Calvert had been born to Leonard Calvert, a well-to-do country gentleman, and his wife, Alicia, in Yorkshire in the year 1580. While his father was a Protestant, and he had been raised as one, his mother was a Catholic who quietly practiced her faith. Calvert had been educated at Trinity College, Oxford. Concluding his studies he embarked upon a tour of the Continent as did most young gentlemen of his station. At the English embassy in Paris he had the good fortune to meet with Sir Robert Cecil, the queen’s Secretary of State. Cecil liked the circumspect young man, and offered him a position on his staff.

Elizabeth Tudor died, and James Stuart became king. Cecil remained in his position, and made George Calvert his private secretary. By this time Calvert had contracted a marriage with Anne Mynne, a young woman of good family from Hertfordshire. The Calverts named their first child, a son, Cecil, in honor of George’s patron. Other children followed. Three more sons and two daughters.

Sir Robert became the Earl of Salisbury which but increased George Calvert’s stature and visibility. When the king and queen made a visit to Oxford in 1605, Calvert was one of five men to be awarded a master’s degree from the university. The other four gentlemen were all nobles of high rank. Now the king began to send Sir Robert’s secretary on his own official business to Ireland, for he liked him personally, trusted him, and knew him to be very competent.

When Cecil died in 1612 the king kept George Calvert on, and five years later knighted him. Shortly thereafter Sir George Calvert was made the king’s Secretary of State, and a member of the Privy Council. The country gentleman’s son had come far indeed.

A hard worker, and genuinely modest, Calvert was very well liked by the men with whom he came in daily contact. Unlike many at court he had no enemies. As his fortunes rose he and his wife planned a large house at Kiplin in Yorkshire where he had grown up. But then Anne died in childbirth with their sixth child, and devastated, George Calvert turned to the Catholic religion of his mother for solace and comfort. He kept his new faith a secret, obeying the strict laws imposed upon England’s citizens in the matter of religion.

Unfortunately it was at this time King James asked his loyal servant to officiate on a committee that was being formed to try a group of men who refused to belong to the Church of England. Some were Catholics and some were Puritans. Now George Calvert’s conscience and ethics came to the forefront. This was not a task he could take on under his changed religious circumstances. So he first spoke to his master, the king, and after publicly announced his conversion to Catholicism. He resigned his offices, including that of Secretary of State. This, despite the fact the king had offered to release him from taking the oath of supremacy so he might continue in the royal service. Trustworthy, capable gentlemen of Sir George Calvert’s kind were difficult to find.

Still, James Stuart was an honorable man who valued the few real friendships he had. He knew that despite his Catholic faith George Calvert would always be loyal to him and his heirs. He might have sent his friend to the tower. Instead he created him a baron in the Irish peerage, with lands in County Longford. Then, because the new Lord Baltimore had always wanted to found a colony in the New World, the king gave him a huge land grant on the Avalon peninsula in Newfoundland.

Colonists were sent out, and Sir George later followed with his new wife and family only to discover that Newfoundland was not a particularly hospitable place in which to settle. The winters seemed to last from mid-October until well into the month of May. There was virtually no time for crops to grow and be harvested. The fishing was excellent, and would prove a profitable venture, however the French began to harass Avalon. Calvert wisely sent his family south to Virginia, and spent the winter in his colony. When the spring came he was relieved to find himself still alive. He sent the king a letter explaining the difficult situation, and departed to join his wife in Virginia. He had sadly realized that Avalon was not the colony he wanted to found.

Once reunited with his family in Jamestown he set about to find a more hospitable territory where he could make his dream of a colony where all religions were tolerated equally come true. While he was welcomed in Virginia by his friends, he was also viewed with suspicion by many who assumed his faith would make him loyaler to his co-religionists from Spain far to the south of Virginia, than to his own countrymen. Ignoring them as best he could, George Calvert did look south for land, but while the climate was pleasant enough, there was no suitable deep water anchorage for the English ships that would bring supplies and colonists from England. By now a letter from the king was awaiting him in Jamestown ordering him to return home to England.

Before he might receive this missive, however, Calvert looked to the north of Virginia, exploring the Chesapeake region. What he saw excited him greatly. There were great sheltered bays, and harbors with tides that ran no higher on an average day than two feet. The bays, one running into another, were fed by numerous rivers and streams, some of them navigable quite far inland. The waters abounded with fish, shellfish, ducks, and geese. In the great forests lining the Chesapeake were turkeys, deer, and rabbit. There were bushes of edible berries, and fruit trees. He recognized a great number of hardwood trees that would build houses and ships. George Calvert, Lord Baltimore, believed he had found his colony, and it was a paradise.

Returning to Jamestown he found the king’s letter, and immediately returned home, leaving his second wife and children behind. His goal was to obtain a grant for the lands about the Chesapeake area, for this was the perfect place for his colony. In England James I was dead, but Charles I, his son, was equally fond of Lord Baltimore. He thought his father’s old friend and faithful servant looked tired and worn, and attempted to turn his mind from the New World. But Charles I finally saw that George Calvert would not be dissuaded until he could found this colony of his which he had been talking about for years. As for religious toleration, the king was doubtful such a thing could be obtained, but let George Calvert try if he must.

Lord Baltimore was granted by royal decree the land:
to the true meridian of the first fountaine of the River Pattowmeck.
Created Lord Proprietary, his rights over this territory were virtually royal. He could make laws. Raise an army. Pardon criminals, confer land grants, and titles. And then King Charles gave his father’s old friend an especial right not even granted to the Virginia colony. Lord Baltimore’s colony was allowed to trade with any country it chose to trade with; and in return, the king would receive one fifth of any gold or silver discovered in the colony, and be paid annually a quitrent of two Indian arrows.

As the charter was being drawn up for the new colony the king gently suggested that, having no name yet, Lord Baltimore might like to name it after the queen. George Calvert agreed, a twinkle in his eyes.
Terra Mariae
was therefore entered into the Latin charter as the colony’s name, but it was immediately called by its more familiar English appellation, Mary’s Land.

Lady Baltimore and the children were sent for, but after a quiet voyage their vessel was wrecked off the coast of England with no survivors. Lord Baltimore was devastated. He had lost two wives, and several of the children. Exhausted, worn down by his many years of hard work, and saddened beyond all measure, George Calvert, Lord Baltimore, died suddenly on April fifteenth, 1632. Two months later the royal charter was issued to the second Lord Baltimore, Cecil Calvert, a handsome young man of twenty-seven.

At Glenkirk, James Leslie had learned all of this news—sent to him by his stepson Charles Frederick Stuart, the duke of Lundy—even as Kieran and Fortune prepared to go south to England. “I doubt ye’ll be able to sail this year,” he said, “but ye’ll nae know that until ye speak wi Lord Baltimore. Ye’ll go to Queen’s Malvern first, and Charlie will know what ye’re to do next. I dinna know these people, but since they’re connected wi the court, Charlie will.”

James Leslie and his wife had decided they would not be going south to England for their usual summer visit with their family. The duke felt he had been away from his lands a year, and would not travel again so soon. Jasmine was only just recovering from her childbirth of seven months ago. She did not want to take a bairn as young as Autumn on another journey. The trip home had been all she would dare with the precious infant upon whom she doted so greatly. Fortune and Kieran would go alone to England.

Now as the day for their departure came near the duchess of Glenkirk grew sad. When her second daughter had gone she would have no children left at home but Patrick Leslie, but he was sixteen, and while he loved his mother, and tolerated her concern, he considered himself a man. And her wee Autumn Rose, who was growing so quickly Jasmine could almost feel life speeding by her, and she was helpless to stop it.

Fortune sensed her mother’s mood, and attempted to cheer her. “She’s only a baby, Mama. ’Twill be years before she leaves you. You can devote yourself to her as you never really could to the rest of us. I think Autumn is very fortunate to have you, Mama.”

“Aye,” her mother answered, brightening a bit. Fortune was very astute, but then she had always been the practical child. When she and her siblings were young I was at court, Jasmine thought. I did not have the time for them I shall have for this daughter. “I will miss you,” the duchess of Glenkirk said softly.

“I will miss you, Mama,” came the reply. “On one hand I am so excited to be going to the New World, but on the other I am a little afraid. It is such an adventure, and as you know I have never been one for adventure. I did not ever plan to have one. Yet here I am, setting off into the unknown with my darling Kieran. If only people would tolerate each other’s religions, I should have never had to leave Ulster.” She sighed deeply. “Do you think this Mary’s Land will really be a place of toleration, Mama? What if it isn’t? Where will we go then?”

“You will come home to Glenkirk where we will protect you,” the duchess said firmly. Then she took her daughter into her arms, and they hugged one another. “You know, Fortune, that you and Kieran will always be welcome here.
Always!”

It was so difficult leaving, Fortune thought, the day they departed Glenkirk. There was a strong likelihood that she would never see this childhood home of hers ever again. An ocean would separate them, and having crossed it once, Fortune was not certain she would have the courage to cross back over it again. As she had always said, she was not one for adventure, and yet what was this she was doing? This place they were going to was a wilderness. There were no castles, no houses, no towns, or shops. How would they survive? Yet what other choice did they have?

Fortune put on a brave face, and said good-bye to all those whom she loved. Her stepfather, James Leslie, her mother, Jasmine, her brother, Patrick, her baby sister, Autumn. Her mother’s lifelong servants for the first time since she had known them were teary. They were, she noticed for the first time, growing older. I will never see them again, she realized suddenly. She put her arms about Adali, her mother’s majordomo. There were no words to say what was really in her heart. He hugged her wordlessly, then turned away, but not quickly enough for she had seen his tears. Rohana and Toramalli hugged and kissed her, and unable to help themselves wept fulsomely.

They left Glenkirk, Fortune’s great train of possessions behind them, protected until they reached Queen’s Malvern by an armed troop of Leslie men-at-arms. The trip was, as it usually was, uneventful, but for Kieran, Rois, and Kevin it was as much of an adventure as their voyage from Ulster had been. For Fortune it was just another trek into an English summer.

Charles Frederick Stuart, the duke of Lundy, was awaiting them on their arrival at his home, Queen’s Malvern. The estate had been given to his great-grandparents by Elizabeth Tudor, and passed on to him with the blessing of his grandfather, King James. It had therefore cost the canny king nothing to bestow a dukedom upon his first grandchild, a bargain he well liked. Charlie, as his family called him, was a tall, slender young man with auburn hair, and the Stuarts’ amber eyes. He looked far more like his father, the late Prince Henry, than he did like his mother’s family. He would be twenty in September, and was as polished a courtier as his Great-Uncle Robin Southwood, the earl of Lynmouth, had been at his age.

“You’re looking particularly lush and well satisfied,” he greeted his elder sister with a wicked grin. “ ’Tis obvious marriage agrees with you, Fortune.” He kissed her heartily, and gave her a hug.

“A Stuart first, as Mama likes to say,” she responded with a chuckle. “Here is my husband, Kieran Devers. Kieran, Charlie, the not-so-royal Stuart in the family.”

The two men clasped hands, sizing one another up, and immediately decided they liked one another.

“Henry will eventually be over from Cadby,” Charlie told his sister, and then said to Kieran, “the revered eldest brother of us all.”

They moved into the house, and into the family hall where the servants were quick to bring refreshment. Settling themselves about the fire, for the June day was chill, they talked.

“Papa said you would know how to contact Lord Baltimore,” Fortune said to her brother.

“He’s at Wardour Castle down in Wiltshire,” was the reply.

BOOK: Besieged

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