The Virgin's Spy (11 page)

“They'll be controlled,” Byrne promised, directly to her. He was smart enough to realize that, however nontraditional, Ailis was the strategist of Clan Kavanaugh. It was a position she had wormed her way to with a combination of native talent and careful exploitation of the injuries done to her in Kilmallock. No one could ever doubt the purity of her enmity, and she had given enough good counsel in the last years to earn her place at Finian's side. And as his heir, more or less, whenever he died. That position she would have to fight for—and almost certainly she would have to finally choose the right Irish husband in order to hold onto it. But not just yet.

When talk of tactics for next summer had drifted into the laughter and stories of the two old men, Ailis left them to it and joined her daughter in the warmest part of the castle. This chamber was small and snug, low-ceilinged to keep in the heat, with heavy velvet curtains on the casement windows to add to the warmth. It was a luxury not found often in native Irish households, but the Kavanaughs had been fortunate in navigating the tricky political waters these last decades and had some of the English comforts to prove it.

And Finian had received a hefty dowry from Maisie's brother in Edinburgh. Ailis suspected it was less that the brother valued his sister and more as a means to get her out of Scotland and off his hands with relative ease. If Maisie resented that fact, she never showed it. She never showed anything except a determinedly cheerful nature and an ease with every member of the household, which Ailis would never have expected.

But no one in the household was more taken with Mariota Sinclair Kavanaugh than Ailis's daughter, Liadan. The girl had claimed Maisie as her own particular friend and companion from the first. Tonight, Ailis found the two of them at a round table in the—for lack of a better word—schoolroom, Maisie tutoring Liadan in the science of bookkeeping. It might seem an odd choice for an eleven-year-old, but Maisie herself was only fifteen and numbers and business and trade were in her blood. The Sinclairs of Edinburgh had been one of the wealthiest merchant families of Scotland for the last hundred years, and, female or not, Maisie had inherited the gifts of her forbears. Ailis respected that, being herself an unusual female.

“Mama!” Liadan crowed. “Maisie says if I study hard I could be a merchant like her when I grow up.” Her daughter jumped up from her chair, the child's enthusiasm not yet constrained by the demands of young womanhood. Liadan had Ailis's own black hair and deep blue-purple eyes, and showed promise of having her mother's height as well. If there was anything of her father about Liadan, it was in the contemptuous twist of her mouth when she was in a temper.

“Is Maisie a merchant?” Ailis asked mildly. “I thought she was Uncle Finian's wife.”

She repressed a smile when Liadan gave her a disdainful look that was a copy of her own. Her words were also repeated from her mother. “Being a wife is not an exclusive role.”

“Well said,” Maisie praised in her light voice that touched the Irish Gaelic with an occasional Scots inflection. “Do you know what exclusive means?”

Liadan said loftily, “It means I can do what I want, because I am of Clan Kavanaugh.”

“Close enough,” Ailis said. “Go and see Bridey, pet. You've had enough numbers for tonight.”

She took her daughter's seat and scanned the paper before her. “You really are teaching her to trade,” she said to Maisie.

“Teaching her to stretch her mind, rather. At this age, it doesn't much matter how it's stretched, as long as she absorbs the tenets of how to learn. Then she can turn her mind to whatever she wishes in future.”

“And is this your wish? Being married to a man four times your age? Being exiled to a backwater country far away from all you've known?”

Maisie's smile was all youth and openness. “No one in this world, man or woman, always gets everything the way they want when they want. A wise person takes to any circumstance with an open mind.”

“Are you sure you don't want to become a military tactician?” Ailis laughed. “I think you'd do very well planning field maneuvers.”

“I don't think battlefields are to my taste.” Maisie, too, laughed. “Too dirty.”

Only much later that night did Ailis suspect that she had been neatly deflected.

Christmas Day passed quietly in church service and subdued feasting. If Stephen had been capable of feeling glad, he would have been glad to have Lucie there for the feast. Left to himself, he wouldn't have known what to say or how to behave with his household and their families, but Lucie could be charming when she wished, and Julien never seemed to have any trouble talking to people. It made his own reticence barely noticeable, Stephen decided. He'd never been at Farleigh Castle for Christmas before, so it wasn't as though his people had any great expectations of what he would do.

In the days that followed, Stephen accepted Julien's offer to train with him and strengthen the left arm that had been broken. Julien was good, in an eccentric, street-fighting manner grounded in the essential principles, a style Stephen had not encountered before. He could also be demanding. “One has to know the rules before one can break them,” Julien explained.

It was the second day of January, glassy cold and clear in the practice yard, when Stephen realized that, for the last half hour, his mind had been blessedly silent while his body twisted and lunged and broke many of the rules his father had taught him about fighting. He was not yet as adept at switching hands as Julien, but his broken arm no longer ached—or at least no more than the rest of him did after a demanding bout.

But in that very moment of noticing his quiet mind, a thought tumbled out clear and mocking:
This would have been a useful skill in Ireland.

Stephen stumbled. Julien's sword came at him from the left and he parried it, but then he could hardly see and it didn't feel like he was in his own practice yard any longer, but in a landscape wasted beyond repair, and then there was the stink and taste of blood, so thick in his throat he gagged, and men were dying and women…not even women, really, just girls they were…and two boys who would never grow up…and he couldn't get to them to stop it, there were too many in his way…

He came back to himself trying to fight free of the men who held him back. His own men, he slowly realized, restraining him from attacking, not an enemy, but his sister's husband. Julien's sword pointed out and away at the ground with his hands spread wide as though approaching a spooked horse.

Julien was speaking. Just one word, over and over. “Stephen,” he said softly. “Stephen.”

Stephen met his eyes and forced his clenched hand to open and allow the sword to drop. Julien jerked his chin, and the men holding Stephen released him. “Stephen,” Julien said warily once more.

But Stephen didn't stay to hear the rest. He bolted from the practice yard. It was a flight of another kind he made now, a flight from his senses, pursued by the cries of the dead, but even when he slammed shut the door to his chamber they wouldn't stop. He tried to pour wine into a glass but the bottle slipped from his hands and smashed on the floor.

He crouched instinctively to clean it up. But his hands seemed divorced from his thoughts. Instead of carefully picking up one shard at a time, his fingers clenched themselves around the broken glass. He could feel each prick, each edge, each jagged piece where it tore into his skin. And where it pierced his hands, there was an almost physical sense of relief. Like bedding a woman, he thought hazily, only pain rather than pleasure.

He loosed his hands, letting the shards fall, then picked up the longest, sharpest piece of glass he could find. Standing, he contemplated his arms, and imagined the relief of one long cut rather than dozens of small pricks. He breathed in…

And from behind him, a strong hand clamped onto his wrist.

“Don't,” Julien said quietly.

They held like that for a seeming eternity.

“Don't,” Julien repeated.

Stephen dropped the glass. Julien let go and Stephen swung round to face him. “Aren't you going to ask me what the hell I think I'm doing?” At least the interruption had served to subdue the noise in his head.

“I know what you were doing. Having spent weeks drinking to dull the pain, that remedy has begun to lose its power. At the same time, you have your sister—who knows and loves you too well—living entirely too close and with entirely too much natural curiosity. And so the pain and guilt are beginning to spill out of the cracks in your control and maybe, you think, just maybe if you widen those cracks in your very skin, the pain and guilt will pour out enough to give you relief and let you breathe.”

Stephen turned his back. He would not let Julien get to him. No one could get to him.

But Julien kept talking. “I understand your guilt—”

“Every leader loses men,” Stephen interrupted sharply. “Guilt is the price of leadership.”

“That's not why you feel guilty. This is not the expected guilt of a man who has lost those under his command. This is the corrosive, soul-destroying guilt of absolute personal failure. I know the look and feel of it, believe me. Drinking won't cure it. Neither will self-destruction. There are only two remedies I know of. The second remedy is appropriate vengeance.”

Despite himself, Stephen asked, “And what is the first remedy?”

“Telling the truth of what happened.”

“Talking won't change things.”

“It might change you.”

Stephen snorted. “I don't need to be changed.”

“You don't
deserve
to be changed—that's what you mean. Stephen, I spent eight long years believing that of myself. But it was all based on a lie. If talking won't change things, neither will punishing yourself.”

Even with his back turned, Stephen supposed that Julien could read the lines of his shoulders and knew how close he was to tears. He had not cried for any of it. He would not start now.

“Stephen, why did you miss the attack on your camp?”

“It was the middle of the night!”

“But you still think it's your fault,” Julien noted, not without compassion.

“It's always the commander's fault.”

“Where were you when they came?”

“In my tent. I'd been asleep.” It was like the words wanted to come out despite his fighting it. Maybe he was just too tired to fight it any longer.

“Had you set up guards and watches through the night?” Julien demanded.

“Of course.”

“Then why do you feel guilty for being in bed? Even a commander must sleep.”

Stephen had no idea what he was going to say until he said it. “My father wouldn't have been there.”

“In bed? Look, I'm as awed by your father as any man living, believe me, but despite that I'm quite sure the man sleeps. Even in the field.”

“He would not have been there,” Stephen repeated, each word like a hammer to his heart.

A long, thoughtful silence…

Then, as kindly as he'd ever spoken before, Julien asked, “Stephen, who else was in your bed?”

3 January 1582

Mother,

Julien has finally broken through to Stephen. He has not even told me the whole of it, and although I agree that it would be best for Stephen to share as and when he chooses, I'll admit to being slightly put out at being on the outside. In the last twenty-four hours Stephen has eaten more than he had in the previous ten days and he is sleeping without too much wine. So Julien reports. Yes, I have lent my husband to my brother even at nights—Julien stays on a pallet bed to ensure Stephen is not lost in the dark.

This is why we came. And here we will stay as long as Stephen wants us. Until spring, perhaps? Julien thinks it might be wise. I shall try and get Stephen home after that.

Lucette

W
hen Cardinal Granvelle told him who would be heading the spring visit from England, Philip of Spain had to blink several times before he could speak. “The Duke of Exeter himself? Are you certain?”

“Very certain. It appears the Princess of Wales requested that the delegation include her close friends, Christopher and Philippa Courtenay. Lord Exeter seems to think his personal presence is required to ensure his children's safety.”

“To be fair,” Philip noted drily, “his children were caught in the Nightingale web. I don't suppose he trusts my new wife in the slightest. Let them come—but it will make for some interesting dynamics between us all.”

That was an understatement. The Nightingale Plot, which ended with Mary Stuart's release from her English prison, had also involved a violent hostage situation at the Courtenay home of Wynfield Mote. Philip did not imagine that Dominic Courtenay would have forgotten. He did not know the Duke of Exeter well—he doubted anyone other than his family and Elizabeth knew him well—but Philip respected him for an experienced soldier and an honest man. They would have to be extremely careful while the Courtenays were in Spain not to reveal their Irish plans.

Which meant keeping Mary on a tight leash. When Philip told her that the Courtenays would be chief among the visiting English party, his wife sneered as only a queen can. “As long as it is not Stephen Courtenay. I could not bear to be reminded of his treachery.”

Philip thought that an overreaction. The treachery of reporting on an imprisoned queen's behaviour and movements to her captor? Stephen Courtenay was English—what had Mary expected? But Philip simply made noncommittal noises she could interpret as agreement if she chose.

Fortunately, Mary's satisfaction at having produced two princes who continued each week to thrive, and neither of whom showed any incipient signs of the Hapsburg jaw, meant that she was more easily deflected from matters of state. As long as he assured her that Ireland was never far from his mind, she seemed content not to know the details.

Philip himself had designed much of the plan that, thus far, was proceeding without incident. Part one had been the landing of Spanish soldiers at Carrigafoyle. Because not every soldier who landed had remained there—one hundred well-trained and well-equipped men marched away into the interior well in advance of the fighting and were now cloistered in the impassable Wicklow Mountains.

In the spring, the Irish clans would begin to send out strike forces against English targets. While they kept the English busy riding hither and yon to deal with their gallowglass—the hired soldiers who were the backbone of the disorganized Irish military—the Spanish would march to the relief of Askeaton. Gerald FitzGerald, Earl of Desmond, had been holed up in his last remaining stronghold for many long months now. The Spanish troops would free him up to venture beyond reach of Askeaton and once more harry the west of Munster.

And a year from now, just before next winter closed the seas, at a time when Elizabeth would have difficulty finding more men to send after a season's campaigning, Spanish ships would land troops in force. With five thousand Spanish troops, the Irish rebels would be able to press against the English as never before. Drive them back into the Pale, perhaps all the way to Dublin. Manage to lay hands on one or two of Elizabeth's loyal earls—Thomas Butler, for choice—and the initiative would swing all the way to the Catholics.

And as figurehead of the Catholic peoples? The second son of their Most Catholic Majesties, Philip and Mary. Their firstborn, Prince Charles, would one day follow his father as King of Spain. But by the time the four-month-old twins were talking, Philip intended to give Prince Alexander a country of his own to rule as well.

It was the longest, coldest, hardest winter of Stephen Courtenay's life, but by the time the first flowers began to bud, he had been rebuilt. Not to who he was before, for that innocence could never be reclaimed, but as someone who could cope without strong drink. Someone who could sleep most nights. Someone darker, yes, but also stronger.

Lucette and Julien remained until late March. He wasn't sure what Lucie did with all her time—she had always been busy with books and ledgers and equations and long letters back and forth with scholars—but Julien made it his business to mold Stephen into a fighter of his own kind. Quick, unconventional, solitary. The lessons bled into more than just his weapons training. Julien had operated for eight years in enemy territory—his adversaries might have been his fellow Frenchmen, but they would have killed him in a heartbeat if they'd known what he was doing—and he couldn't help but teach Stephen how to rely on himself, how to trust his instincts for peril, how to hold onto the essence of who he was through the masks of secrecy and lies.

Only near the end did Stephen acknowledge what he was training for.

The day before Lucette's departure, she claimed her brother for a stroll through the box-hedge garden. Between the squares of evergreen, bright crocuses and sunny narcissus braved the chilly air. Stephen allowed Lucette to take his arm and waited for her to say what she'd kept inside all winter.

He expected questions or gentle reproofs or inquiries as to his future. Instead, she said, “I was thinking about the time you and I ran away from home. Do you remember?”

For the first time since Ireland, laughter bubbled out of Stephen. He remembered, all right. They had taken their ponies from the Tiverton stable and headed northeast. For some reason, lost to the mists of time, their parents had gone to Wynfield Mote without them and Lucette decided to take matters into her own hands.

“It was your fault,” Stephen said, recalling. “I was simply following my grown-up sister.”

“I was ten,” Lucette pointed out caustically.

“To an eight-year-old, that's very grown up. I suppose it's surprising we got as far as we did.”

“Do you think so? I think we were humoured. Harrington followed us, Stephen, without hurting our pride by letting us know it. He let us ride for three hours and only when it began to rain did he intervene to bring us back.”

Stephen's breath caught in his throat at Harrington's name. But after a moment he realized it did not hurt as bitterly as he'd braced for. There was pain, yes, but mellowed by memories of love and care. Lucette let him walk in silence for a time, her fingers tightening a little on his arm.

At last Stephen said, “Thank you, Lucie. I can't imagine you wanted to spend your first winter with your husband stuck out here.”

“Make it worth my while, Stephen. Don't slip back, don't hide, don't run away. Make the amends you feel necessary, and then move on. Your life is not wholly your own; it belongs to those who love you as well. Do you hear me?”

Stephen stopped walking and turned his sister to face him. She looked fierce and vulnerable at the same time, with those blue eyes that she alone of the Courtenays possessed. “Lucie,” he said softly. “I swear that I will not give you cause to save me again.” Then he hugged her.

Lucette and Julien departed the next day. One week later, Stephen also left Farleigh Hungerford. He packed thoughtfully but not extravagantly. He held long meetings with his steward setting forth plans and then delegating to him responsibility for at least a year. Then he traveled to London.

His family was at Whitehall. He met with his parents first, alone, and told them the whole of what had happened in Ireland—from the massacre at Carrigafoyle, to the dispute over the prisoners, to the slaughter near Kilkenny. He told them where he'd been and with whom and that Harrington's last words to him were a warning against misbehaviour.

When he was finished, his mother said, “When you are ready, it is something you should tell Carrie. For your own sake, as much as hers.”

His father said, “You are not the first man, nor the last, to take to bed the wrong woman at the wrong time. Try not to do it again.”

Stephen could not imagine ever wanting to take any woman to bed again, and wondered if he'd been permanently scarred by the bloodshed. With his mother looking at him, now was not the time to worry about it.

And then his father asked the pertinent question, the one to which Stephen had taken far too long to turn his attention. “Who do you think set the gallowglass on your prisoners?”

For that was the operative point, was it not? Any Irish force, mercenary or not, might gladly have attacked an English force too far from its own lines. Killing English soldiers was what they did. But prisoners? Irish women and boys? Even in the dark, a gallowglass force was too well-trained not to at least have hesitated at the women. But they hadn't. Indeed, in Stephen's memory, it seemed they headed straight for the larger tents, as if they knew who was housed there.

But it was not his father he wanted to discuss the matter with. Not that his father couldn't be helpful, but he was on his way shortly to Spain with Kit and Pippa. And Stephen knew this was his own matter to deal with. No more worrying about how he appeared to others. No more fears that he wouldn't live up to expectations. Time to be his own man.
Appropriate vengeance,
Julien had advised. For that, he needed to be in Ireland.

So the morning after half of his family headed to Portsmouth, Stephen sat down for a private conversation with Francis Walsingham. Not in his role as Elizabeth's Lord Secretary, but as the queen's intelligencer. Long before Elizabeth had come to the throne, Walsingham had been her man, ensuring that she always had all the information necessary to run her kingdom and protect her life.

Stephen had worked peripherally and briefly for Walsingham in the spring and summer of 1580, dancing attendance on Mary Stuart while keeping eyes and ears open for any mention of the Nightingale Plot. He'd gained the Scots queen's trust, and some of her secrets, but not enough to stop the plot in its tracks. Still, Walsingham seemed to think Stephen was worth cultivating, as he'd sent him to Ireland last summer with a watching brief to pay attention for any mention of the Kavanaugh clan.

When Stephen was shown into Walsingham's study, neither man wasted time. “What can I do for you, Lord Somerset?” the Lord Secretary asked.

“Send me back to Ireland.”

“Her Majesty is always grateful for soldiers—”

“Not as a soldier.”

“Then in what role? Your name is rather…restrictive. What use could the Earl of Somerset be in Ireland if not fighting?”

“You have men of many names and identities and stories working for you—let me be one of those. Under any name you choose.”

Walsingham steepled his fingers, eyes that were as black as his clothes fixed and cautious. “To what end?”

“To the end of stopping the fighting in Ireland. If Philip and Mary gain serious hold there, Ireland will drown in blood. Even more than it already has. And Mary will never cease troubling the Spanish king to aid the rebels. I suspect that, for both of them, pride is at stake. And I know about the hundred missing Spanish troops from last summer.”

With a deep sigh, Walsingham leaned back in his chair. “Do you remember the name Kavanaugh?”

“I do. The splintered clan, one faction led by Finian Kavanaugh. With the aid of his unexpectedly canny niece, they have orchestrated several victories in Ireland.”

“Correct. Matters in that direction are somewhat…unsettled at present. Finian Kavanaugh died last month, leaving his clan under the tenuous hold of his niece. Finian also left an even younger widow—the only granddaughter of William Sinclair.”

Stephen cast through his mind. “Edinburgh. The merchant family.”

“The extraordinarily clever and influential and wealthy merchant family. William Sinclair's estate at his death was valued at five times the queen's personal wealth.”

Stephen blinked. “How much of it came to the girl? Wasn't there some question about the settlements…” Lucie would know, or Pippa. That was always the sort of thing his sisters knew.