Dublin (104 page)

  Secondly, his wife was unwell. He wanted to secure her a safe- conduct out of the castle so that MacGowan could escort her to the greater security of the house at Dalkey. And he was prepared to pay the besiegers handsomely for this privilege. This was what MacGowan had just been trying to arrange.

  The trouble was, Doyle wasn't the first person to enter a private negotiation of this kind. Rather to his surprise, the grey merchant had been taken into the presence of Silken Thomas himself, where the young aristocrat politely informed him: "I have given enough safe-conducts already. Unless, of course, the alderman cares to pay me with some of the cannonballs which earlier this summer I so unwisely left in the castle."

  And MacGowan was just wondering what to do next when he saw William Walsh and his wife approaching, and realised that this might be a stroke of singular good fortune. Moments later he had taken the lawyer to one side.

  Fortunately, Walsh was quick to see his point of view. The lawyer and his wife had come into Dublin that day precisely to see for themselves how the siege was progressing. As a Fitzgerald adherent who had nonetheless disliked the treasonable oath, Walsh was anxiously watching events now that the English might be coming. If the Gunner were to prove too strong for Silken Thomas, it would do him no harm, MacGowan pointed out, to have helped Alderman Doyle. "And I should think," the grey merchant tactfully added, "that you might be glad to do a good turn to Dame Doyle as well." As a longtime adherent of the Fitzgeralds, he suggested, Walsh might have more luck persuading young Lord Thomas than he had himself. To all this the lawyer readily agreed.

  "Indeed, I'll go and see if he will speak with me," he suggested,

  "straightaway." And asking MacGowan to look after his wife, he hurried off.

  MacGowan spent nearly an hour with Margaret Walsh. The men had stopped shooting over the walls, so they walked round the outside of the castle. They discussed the political situation and she gave him a detailed account of how Sean O'Byrne had forced her husband to take the oath. It was clear to MacGowan that she shared her husband's caution.

  "We were always loyal to Kildare," she remarked,

  "but that foolish oath was going too far." It was when she asked what business her husband was engaged upon now, that he paused. Walsh and the alderman were civil, but he wasn't sure what Margaret's feelings about the Doyles were, nor how much of Joan Doyle's dealings with her husband she might have discovered. So he contented himself with saying, "He's doing me a favour, trying to help some people in there." He indicated the castle. "You'll have to ask him." She looked thoughtful, but seemed quite contented. After a little while, however, she looked up brightly and remarked, "I expect that'll be Alderman Doyle. My husband likes him, you know, and his wife is quite a friend of mine."

  "She is?" It wasn't often that MacGowan was taken in, but on this occasion he was. And supposing that it might look strange if he withheld the information, he briefly told her what the errand was.

  She seemed delighted.

  Shortly after noon, Walsh reappeared looking pleased.

  "I told your wife what you were doing," MacGowan told him quickly. "So you've no need to explain."

  "Ah." Did Walsh look awkward just for an instant? If so, he recovered at once. "I was able to persuade him," he announced with a smile.

  "How did you do it?" asked MacGowan with frank admiration.

  "My husband is not a lawyer for nothing," said Margaret, linking her arm affectionately through his.

  "When is she to leave the castle?" she asked.

  "Tomorrow evening at dusk. Not before. You're to conduct her quietly out of the city through the Dame's Gate,"

  Walsh informed MacGowan.

  The lawyer and his wife had left after that to return to their estate; and MacGowan, having sent in a message to the alderman telling him of the arrangements, had gone gratefully back to his house. It was a piece of providential good fortune, he considered, that the gentleman lawyer should have chanced to come by when he did.

  So the grey merchant could find no explanation for the strange feeling that came over him that evening when he thought about Dame Doyle. There was something about the arrangements he didn't like. He didn't know why.

  An instinct. A sense of unease. These were dangerous times.

  Well, he told himself, he must escort her to Dalkey, whatever the danger, since he had given Doyle his word and Doyle, as well as being a friend, was a powerful man. But he resolved to take extra precautions.

  At dawn the next morning, leaving word for her sleeping husband that she had gone into Dublin and would return that afternoon, Margaret Walsh set out from her house. But she had only gone a short distance out of sight when she wheeled her horse round and, instead of going towards the city, headed south towards the Wicklow Mountains.

  The threat of the Gunner and his English troops might concern the people in Dublin, but to Eva O'Byrne it hardly seemed to matter. To those who dwelt in the hills, the slow rhythm of cattle raising in the high and silent places was hardly impinged upon by the ebb and flow of the rival ruling clans down the generations-except when these provided the occasional excitement of a cattle raid. The government of the Pale would change from time to time, but it seemed to her that this underlying pattern of Irish life would always remain the same.

  And wasn't this exactly the case now? The quarrel between Silken Thomas and King Henry might be about profound issues across the sea; but for the O'Byrnes it had meant some patrols and a big raid down into Butler territory. Rather to his disappointment, Sean O'Byrne had not been called upon to go to raid the Butlers; but now, while Dublin awaited the Gunner, Fitzgerald's friends in the Wicklow Mountains were preparing for the Butlers to return the compliment. Any day now, parties of men might be expected to appear on the slopes to raid the cattle and even burn down the farms. The O'Byrnes were ready to deal with them, and Sean had made extensive preparations at Rathconan.

  Secretly, Eva was well aware, her husband was hoping the Butlers' men would come, and was looking forward to it. "They'll get more than they bargained for," he told her cheerfully, "when they start a fight with the O'Byrnes."

  The stranger came quite early in the morning, a single rider from the north. Having hissed at a man in the yard to fetch Sean O'Byrne, the rider remained outside, still mounted, wrapped in a cloak andwitha covered face. When O'Byrne came out, the stranger insisted on moving a short distance away from the house so that their conversation should be private. They were together a quarter of an hour; then the stranger rode away.

  When Sean came back inside, Eva thought he looked somewhat amused, but also excited. He'd be leaving in an hour, he told her, and not returning until the following morning.

  "I'll be taking the boys and some of the men," he announced. He sent the stable boy to fetch Seamus.

  "Tell him to bring his weapons," he instructed.

  Fintan was to ride over to two of the neighbouring farmsteads and ask each to gather as many armed men as possible. "I'll pick you up," his father told him,

  "along the way." But even this, he indicated, would not be enough. "I need at least a dozen, maybe twenty men."

  What was this all about, Eva asked? Was it a party of Butler men that he had to fight? No, he said, something else. He'd explain it all tomorrow. In the meantime, he said, she mustn't say a word to anybody. Just that he'd gone out on a patrol.

  Could he at least, she demanded, tell her where he was going? No, he could not.

  "And what," she asked, "if a Butler raiding party comes here while you and the men are away? What am I to do then?"

  This made him pause.

  "There's been no sign of them yet," he said. "And we'll be gone less than a day." He considered.

  Then he turned to Maurice. "You're to stay here," he ordered quietly. "If there's danger you are all to ride up into the mountains. Do you understand?"

  For an instant, just an instant, she saw the look of dismay in the boy's handsome eyes. She knew very well how he must be longing to go with Fintan and her husband on this adventure-whatever it was. But in another instant it was gone. He bowed his head gracefully, acknowledging the order, and then turned to her with a smile.

  "It will be my pleasure." You had to admire his aristocratic style. Sean O'Byrne gave him an appreciative nod.

  "Fintan had to stay at home last time. It's your turn now." Soon afterwards he left.

  It was one of those warm September days when a huge blue sky stretched cloudless, over the hills, and the great sweep down to the plain spread out until it turned into a haze. There was a hint of smoke in the air.

  Eva spent the rest of the morning quietly. After she had completed her household chores, she went into the little orchard and picked up the apples that had fallen, taking them back to the storeroom where she laid them out on a long wooden table. Later they would be boiled and preserved. Maurice attended to the cattle. The herd was all down from the hill, grazing now. He had an old cattleman to help him; also Seamus's wife and young children. In her care also were a stable boy and three women who worked in the house, Father Donal and his family, and the old bard.

  These were the only people at Rathconan that day.

  The hours passed slowly. In the early afternoon, Eva sat in the orchard. It was very quiet. Apart from the occasional lowing of the cattle on the pasture above and the soft scraping of the breeze on the crisp apple leaves, all was silence. She wondered where Sean was and what he was doing, but she had no idea. Whatever it was, he had seemed cheerful and confident enough.

  After sitting for an hour, she got up to return to the house. Perhaps, she thought, she would start boiling those apples now.

  But before she reached the door, she heard a shout. It came from Maurice. He was running towards her.

  She saw Father Donal just behind him with the old bard.

  "Troops!" Maurice called. "Butler's men.

  Coming up the valley."

  She saw them herself just a moment later: a party of men, some on horse and some on foot coming towards Rathconan. They were not two miles away.

  "You think they are Butler men?" she asked Father Donal.

  "Who else?" he replied.

  "I'll have horses ready in a moment," Maurice told her. "Then we must go up into the hills."

  "They'll take the cattle," she pointed out.

  "I know." The young fellow didn't look happy about it. "But those were your husband's instructions." He paused. "Perhaps," he suggested, "if we can get you and the women to a place of safety, Father Donal could stay with you and I and the men…"

  She smiled. There looked to be twenty armed men approaching. Was this brave and handsome boy really proposing to tackle them with the aid of the old cattleman, the stable boy, and the bard? "No," she told him. "We'll stay together." Yet it was a terrible thing, to abandon the house and the herd to the raiders. The cattle were their wealth, their livelihood, their status. Deep within her, generations of her forefathers, cattlemen all, rose up in anger. Sean might have foolishly left the herd at risk, but if she could possibly do so, she meant to save it, or part of it, anyway. Could the herd be split and some of the cattle hidden? Was there time? And it was then, remembering something she had once seen in her childhood, that Eva had an idea. It was daring and dangerous. And it would also take skill.

  She looked at Maurice Fitzgerald.

  "Would you like to try something with me?" she asked. "It's a risk, and if it doesn't work, they'll maybe kill us." Then she explained what would have to be done.

  How strange it was, she thought, as she watched his face. Moments before, torn between his desire to do something and his duty to follow Sean's instructions, the handsome, dark-haired boy had looked so anxious.

  Yet as he listened to her proposal, which might cost them all their lives, his face seemed to relax. A light came into his eye. An expression she had seen once or twice on her husband's face in his youth suddenly appeared on Maurice's-a look of fine, devil-may-care excitement. Yes, she thought to herself, these Fitzgeralds were Irish, right enough.

  "Listen then," she said, "and I will tell you what it is we need to do."

  At the time when the Butler raiding party was approaching Rathconan, Sean O'Byrne and his men were high in the mountains and far to the south. The party now consisted of eleven riders. All of them, including young Fintan, were armed.

  Not that Sean expected a fight-a brief scuffle was more likely. They'd be attacking in the dark, with the advantage of surprise; there was a limited and clearly defined objective; and it was quite probable that their quarry would only be accompanied by two or three men. The main thing was to find the right place for the ambush before dark, and to rest the horses. He thought he knew the place. A quiet spot with some trees for cover on the road that led to Dalkey.

  It had certainly surprised him when the Walsh woman had turned up like that. He'd remembered her from the time he'd gone to take the oath from her husband, the lawyer; but he hadn't paid much attention to her then.