The Wild Irish - Robin Maxwell (23 page)

Then Richard came home and the laughter stopped. After riding two days he was wild and mud soaked and smelled disgusting, but the news he bore was worse than either his appearance or his odor.

“From where have you come?” I said.

“Limerick.”

“And what was in Limerick?”

“A war council.”

My heart sank. I knew it was coming, but stilll. . .

“Who did you meet with there?” Hook wanted to know.

“Certain chieftains,” Richard replied. His mood was growing black and I was growing worried.

“Which chieftains would they have been?” I said.

“Shane Oliverus Burke.”

“Who, besides The MacWilliam?”

“Some O’Malleys. Some O’Flahertys. A few Clangibbons.” He looked like he might brain me if I didn’t cease my questioning.

But I would not stop. “Who
else
was there, Richard?”

“Gerald and his Doctor Sanders the Jesuit, all right! The Earl of bloody Desmond called us and we went, the lot of us, to see what he would say!”

All the men leaned closer.

“What did he say, Father?” Murrough was near frothin’ at the mouth with excitement.

“He asked us to raise Mayo in support of himself, and Sanders invoked the name of the Holy Father.” Richard glared at me. “I said yes.”

“You said
yes
?” I shouted.

“And everyone else did too, except The MacWilliam.”

“You agreed to fight on the side of the Earl of Desmond, who put your wife in his dungeon and handed her over to the English?” I stood with Richard toe to toe, fury rising off me like a stoked fire. But he was shameless and held his ground.

“I did,” he said, “for I don’t like the English comin’ into my territories.”

“Well, neither do I, Richard, but throwin’ your lot in with the one Irish lord the Crown has finally proclaimed a
traitor
will bring the wrath of the English down on our heads. This is reckless and harebrained in the extreme!”

“It’s not harebrained, Grace.”

“Let me ask you this,” I said, tryin’ to remain calm. “Do you still desire the MacWilliamship?”

“You know I do.”

“Have you forgotten
who
granted that title to Shane Oliverus?”

“The English.”

“That’s right. And what reason do you suppose they would have for grantin’ the title to a man who’s thrown in with their worst enemy?”

“I don’t need the English grantin’ me The MacWilliamship. I’ll just fight for it.”

“I’ll fight with you, Father!” Murrough cried, puffed up with stupid pride.

“The two of you, Jesus!”

“Look, Grace.” Richard was gentler now. Perhaps he saw how betrayed I felt by his actions. “Western Connaught is remote,” he said.

“The English have never occupied her. They never will.” What could I say to such boneheadness?

As promised, Shane Oliverus Burke honored his pledge and fought on England’s side. Richard, meanwhile, backed by the fiercest
sept
of Gallowglass in Ireland, and all the others, went out to do his brainless battle. Of course the English invaded Connaught with a force the likes of which we ’d never known. They marched against Richard, Captain Maltby at their head. My husband, to his horror, could not, even with his Gallowglass, keep the field against the Crown’s army, and was driven out of his own land, forced to flee to the islands in Clew Bay. ’Twas humiliation to be sure, but worse—much worse—Maltby occupied Burrishoole, took the abbey for his headquarters. And for the first time in our history, a force of English soldiers were garrisoned in Connaught.

I’d had no time to gather my fleet after my return from prison, but it was just as well, for if I’d joined Richard’s battle, I’d not have been able to help him as I did. As it was, I waited till he ’d been chased to Inishturk Island, he takin’ refuge there on the windswept hills. I reckoned him too far away to do more damage to himself. Then I put on my blue dress and went to see Maltby at Burrishoole Abbey.

My heart broke to see the village swarmin’ with the Crown’s soldiers.

They were busy building their fortress and barracks, razing the forests nearby for wood. They leered at the girls and I feared for their safety.

They even eyed me—a woman of fifty—and I saw that they’d rip my blue dress off and rape me too, given the chance.

Captain Maltby was respectful enough. He hardly made me wait a’tall for an audience.

“William Drury’s famous prisoner,” Maltby said as a greeting. He sat behind the abbot’s desk, and I wondered briefly where the priest and his brothers had gone, now with their church overrun by heretics.

“Lord Justice Drury is a fine man,” I said. “For an Englishman.” Maltby laughed. “He always said you lived up to your reputation.” He regarded me closely. “He said you could be trusted.”

“Unlike my husband.”

“He is a problem,” Maltby agreed.

I went round the abbot’s desk and sat myself on the edge of it, right next to Captain Maltby. I could see his surprise. He ’d never known a woman so forward.

“Iron Richard Burke wants your pardon,” I said. “Allow him to return and he will submit, pledge his loyalty to the queen.”

“Do you speak for him?”

“I do.”

“Does he know he ’ll be surrendering to me?”

“He will.”

“And how do I know he ’ll honor his pledge?”

“You have my word.”

“I see.” He was gobsmacked by my impudence, but I wasn’t done yet.

“I know that Her Majesty has no desire to spend a fortune waging war in as distant a province as Connaught. And she knows Richard Burke is strong. She ’d rather have him as an ally than a foe. Am I right?”

“You are.”

“Then be smart,” I said, leanin’ down with my face in his face, “and when it comes time, name my husband The MacWilliam. It’s a sad and terrible thing that a Gaelic title as old and sacred as that should be bestowed on a
tanaist
by an Englishman. But that’s the way it is. You give Richard Burke the MacWilliamship, and I promise you peace in Connaught. Tell that to your queen.”

Well, he did, and when the time came—Shane Oliverus had died—

Captain Maltby knighted Richard and appointed him The MacWilliam.

There were conditions of course—the most severe being the banishment of the Gallowglass he ’d employed in the uprising. Richard was forced to eject those Scotsmen, loyal to our families for so long, and eject them without pay, which was as much a worry as a joy. They were a fierce lot who could hold a grudge, but worse, when we needed them again, would they come?

Of course the title was not won without some bloodshed. It was Ireland after all. And Shane Oliverus’s brother, Richard Oliverus, thought the MacWilliamship belonged to
him
. Maltby had appointed him sheriff instead, and that had been seen as an insult. Some men were slain on both sides, but things settled down and Richard’s reign was, as I’d promised Maltby, peaceful on the whole.

We removed ourselves from Burrishoole and the awful sight of garrisoned troops in our village and, moving inland, took up residence on the green shores of Lough Mask. I loathed deserting the seaside and postponing the reassembling of my fleet, but I thought it prudent.

Richard needed distance from the English, and an assembled fleet just under their noses would have been an enticing target. I decided to bide my time and enjoy what peace was allowed us.

I visited Tibbot as often as I was able, and he was a great joy to me.

He had moved homes and was fostered then with Myles MacEvilly—a great warrior in his own right—and his two boys, at Kinturk Castle.

Tibbot’s voice had barely broken and the first of his whiskers were sprouting on his pimply chin. But all my son could think of was fighting.

I explained that for the moment the Burkes were
not at war
and he should revel in the peaceful times. I would have lured him back to the life of the sea, where his better side had always shown itself, but for the moment we were landlubbers, and I had no choice to offer him.

Though Tibbot was not so rude, nor stupid to say so, I knew he thought I’d gone soft. That I’d given in to the English, and made his father do the same. I tried to explain the benefits of peace but he could not hear me. He was too enamored of the arts of war, and as I watched him practicing swordplay with Myles MacEvilly and his sons I saw what had happened. That “trait” of Tibbot’s, the one I’d seen in him early on—his changeability—had shown itself again. His loyalties shifted with the wind, and in his mind he was the son of the great warrior chief MacEvilly, ready to do battle with the English at any time.

I wrote to Philip Sidney with my thanks for his part in my release, and he wrote me back with bits of verse, and news of Spain’s conquests in the Netherlands. More than ever he wished to distinguish himself in war, and I wondered at the folly of it.

Why did all men crave war? Sure in my years of pirating I’d spilled blood and relished a good plunder, but battles that killed hundreds or thousands and left the land ravaged round it . . . to wish for that I could not fathom. Philip Sidney said ’twas my sex. That even a woman as fierce as myself was still a woman. That the feminine gender at its core abhorred the atrocities, those without which men could not feel manly and distinguish themselves in the world. I thought there was a ring of truth to this, for never was there a gentler man than Philip Sidney, and he wished to march off to the killing fields as fervently as the next.

I should have known that Richard Burke could never keep the peace.

After three years the lust for bloodshed rose in him like sap in an oak. He knew I’d kill him if he broke his pledge to the Crown, so he did the next best thing. He rode off with a small band of men and raided a neighboring village, stealing two hundred head of cattle for the thrill of it. I was disgusted and refused to listen to his loudmouthed retelling of the adventure. I avoided him, for I knew if I spoke my mind I’d be nothin’

but a nagging wife, and was damned if I’d stoop that low.

What I did not know was that he ’d been wounded in the raid—shot in the side with an arrow. He ’d wrenched it out of himself and stanched the flow as best he could, then ridden home flushed with victory and feeling no pain. ’Twasn’t till a week later, when I smelled the putrefaction, that he showed me the wound. I told you he was a stupid man, and this was the final proof of it.

As it was, all my medicines and poultices were useless against Richard’s poisoned blood. He burned with a terrible ague and his limbs grew black and purple, oozing with open sores. He grew pale and his lips shriveled, baring his gums—he looked like a gruesome corpse. Then he died, blessedly, and put himself out of his misery.

His mother, Finula, went mad with grief, wailing and tearing her hair.

Her precious son, The MacWilliam, was dead. “Oh, how could God be so cruel?” she cried. I wanted to scream, “How could the man be so ignorant? Who leaves a wound in the gut untended for a week?” I was furious and had no pity for Richard Burke. He ’d struggled his whole life for the greatest title in Connaught and won it. He had a son and a peaceful kingdom. And he threw it all away for a single night of cattle raiding. His epi-taph said it all: “Here lies a plundering, warlike, and rebellious man.” The worst of it, of course, was that with Richard dead, the protection of the MacWilliamship was taken from Tibbot and me. The boy could one day try for the title, but I had nothing of Richard’s unless I was prepared to fight for it. I’d learned the hard way how chieftains’ widows—

despite the law of thirds—were treated, and I’d not allow the same to happen as it did after Donal O’Flaherty’s death.

I waited for no one to grant or deprive me of my widow’s due, and simply laid claim to it. Gathering together all my followers, and with a thousand head of cows and mares, became a dweller in Richard’s small castle, Carrickhowley, near Burrishoole. Tibbot, by then sixteen and man enough to live on his own, took up residence in Burrishoole Keep.

The troops garrisoned in the village were at the time without a forceful leader—for Maltby had gone on to other battles—and we simply ignored them. Then I began to assemble my fleet again in Clew Bay, with great hopes of the future with my son by my side. But of course that was not to be. For it was then came the devil himself into Connaught.

And his name was Richard Bingham.

WHAT IS IT?” Elizabeth sat forward in her chair.

Grace appeared stricken, overcome. She ’d fallen silent, this woman whose seamless story had rolled like the endless procession of waves onto shore. She blinked back tears and her mouth twisted and pinched as she stifled her fury.

“He murdered Owen, my firstborn son.”

“Richard Bingham?”

“In cold blood. ’Twas far more heinous than the clan murders of Donal O’Flaherty or Eric, or even Tall Walter Burke, whose killer lay in wait for him. My son was bound hand and foot when the English soldiers—on Bingham’s orders—fell on him with knives and stabbed him twelves times, to death. Owen, who’d refused to fight them, who’d shown them nothing but hospitality.” Grace stared into Elizabeth’s eyes.

“Did you not know Richard Bingham had my Owen murdered?”

“I did not. I knew that he ’d once taken you into custody, that he ’d deprived you of your livelihood. That he sometimes dealt harshly with the people of western Ireland.”

“Sometimes dealt harshly!” cried Grace. “He was the ‘Flail of Connaught,’ a heartless bastard, and now he holds my son, my youngest boy, Tibbot, in his custody. He ’s threatened to hang him!” Grace bolted from her chair and, picking up the poker, thrust it angrily at the burning logs.

“Tell me,” said Elizabeth in a most gentle voice. “How did it come to this?”

Grace wheeled to face the queen. “How it came to this is that
you
sent a demon with an army of demons into my homeland and gave them a free hand!”

Elizabeth’s features grew rigid, and a rush of blood flushed the skin of her pale, faintly pockmarked face. No one spoke to the queen in this way.

“Forgive me, Your Majesty.” Grace was seething and the apology stilted, far more necessary than sincere. The women held each other’s eyes in a long, terrible silence. Finally Elizabeth spoke.