'"Tis fair," the bishop agreed.
"I don't want the power any longer, Uncle," Skye said. "I've had it all my life, it seems, and I'm tired. My children have grown up barely knowing me, but I’ll not let my youngest, Velvet, be without me after this. I've a home in France, and the Queen has promised us estates to make up for Lundy."
"The restlessness is gone then, lass?"
"Aye," she said. "I seek peace now, Uncle, and I know that it lies with Adam and our daughter, and my other children."
Seamus O'Malley nodded. "Yer father, God assoil him, was like that when he married Anne. He never wanted to go far after that. Ye've already found yer peace, Skye lass, and I'll not tell ye to be a good and faithful wife to Adam, for I can see that ye already are. It makes me happy to see it, for if things are right with ye, then I can rest easy and face my brother with a clear conscience."
Skye rose from her chair and, bending down, kissed her aged uncle, hugging him hard. "Seamus O'Malley, I love you!" she said.
The old man smiled over her shoulder at Adam, and hugged her back. "Whist, lass! Next ye'll be weeping all over me!" he scolded her lovingly, but his expression was one of pleased delight at her open show of affection.
They stayed the entire day, and overnight as well. It was a happy time for them all. In the morning when they were ready to leave Skye hurried to her uncle's rooms to bid him farewell, Adam following. Seamus O'Malley sat by the fire once more, his head upon his narrow chest, his hands resting quietly in his lap. The fire crackled noisily, but it seemed not to disturb him. Skye smiled down on him, and called softly, "Uncle, I must go now." There was no answer. "Uncle?" She reached out to gently shake him, and he was cold to her touch. Skye's hand flew to her mouth. "Adam!”
Adam de Marisco knelt to inspect the old man. When he rose there were tears in his eyes. "He's dead, Skye," the lord of Lundy told his wife, and then gathered her into his arms while she wept stormily.
The Bishop of Mid-Connaught, Seamus O'Malley, was buried on his favorite niece's thirty-fourth birthday. He had been waked for five long days, for it had taken that long to gather all of Skye's brothers and sisters and their families on Innisfana. Looking around at Skye's sisters, Moire, Peigi, Bride, and Sine, Adam was startled by their plainness in comparison with his wife's beauty. He had never noticed that plainness in Eibhlin, for the nun was so full of life and her work. The others, however, were prim women who openly disapproved of their youngest sister's liaison with an Englishman. Only the fact that Adam de Marisco shared their faith made him barely tolerable to them. Hearing their tales of their struggles with the English, he could understand their bitterness. They were old before their time with childbearing and the harshness of the land in which they lived. None had attained either the wealth or the fine matches that their youngest sister had. They had come with their husbands, bluff, red-faced men, none of whom could speak the English tongue. Adam, fortunately, knew enough Gaelic to converse briefly with them; and it was decided among Skye's brothers-in-law that if her English husband could speak the Gaelic, he mightn't be too bad a fellow. It was also noted with approval that he could hold his whiskey, and seemed to have firm control of his wife, who was thought to be too forward for a woman.
Michael O'Malley said the mass for his uncle, and afterward the coffin was carried to the family burial ground by the bishop's four younger nephews, his great-nephew, Ewan O’Flaherty, and Connor Fitzburke. In the hall afterward, Moire said what they were all thinking.
"'Twas our last link with the past and Da. Now 'tis gone."
"We'll always have the memories," Sine said hopefully.
"Pah!" Peigi said sharply. "The age has ended, and that's all there is to it!"
"Uncle Seamus was the one thing that kept this family close, and together," Bride volunteered. "Now, I suppose we'll all go our own ways."
"We've been doing that for years," Moire replied.
"'Tis the way of it," Eibhlin said quietly. "All families scatter at one point in time. Especially the daughters, and God knows Da had his share of daughters."
"We've made Da proud," Moire said, "at least some of us have. I've borne eighteen children, thirteen of whom lived. Peigi has twelve living, Bride nine, and Sine eleven. Even you, barren stock though you chose to be, would have made him proud with yer medicines and piety." Moire looked around at her siblings. "Aye, Da would be proud of some of us."
"Da would be proud of me also, Moire," Skye said quietly. "You've been most obvious in leaving me out, but let me tell you that I've done just what he would have wanted me to over the years, and I've borne eight children as well. I've overseen three estates for my children as well as great wealth, and I've done well, Moire, by the O'Malleys!"
"Ye lost the Burke lands with yer carryings on!" Moire snapped.
"I lost the Burke lands because I was married in France without the Queen's blessing," Skye retorted angrily. "The Queen broke her word to me, for we made a bargain and I kept my part of that bargain. Had I returned to England without a husband Elizabeth Tudor would have used me again, and I will never be used again by anyone, Moire! What in Hell could you possibly know about it, living in a backwater manor house in an out-of-the-way village in Ireland?"
"Brian tells me that ye've advised him and our brothers to go into service with the English Queen."
"Nay! I've advised them to obtain letters of marque from her and to go plundering along the Spanish Main. 'Twill keep them out of trouble here in Ireland, and fill our coffers as well, Moire. Should they keep on the way they're going, they'll lose everything, and Da wouldn't want that."
“The Spanish are our friends," Moire protested. "We share the same faith!"
"Spare me your religious qualms, Moire," Skye replied impatiently. 'The Spanish use us the same way the French use the Scots. 'Tis to their own advantage. Religion plays no part in it. If the Spanish occasionally give the Irish arms 'tis only so they'll harry the English, which is to Spain's interest and certainly not Ireland's. Do the English punish the Spanish? Nay! Rather they come with a vengeance to us, and 'tis Irish blood that flows in the streets, and Irish women who weep tears of pain and shame, and Irish children who starve for lack of their fathers to feed and defend them. Our friends never suffer; rather we, the Irish, do, and 'tis our own fault! We will not unite beneath one banner, and until we do there will be no peace or real freedom in Ireland!"
"Ye were always different," Moire countered, and then she spoke no more on it.
The next morning Skye's sisters and their families departed for their own homes, bidding their youngest sister farewell with little warmth. The years had treated them quite differently, and sadly, Skye was as much a stranger to them as a woman taken in from the streets would have been. She understood them all too well, for her life experience had been broad. They understood her not at all, for their experience had been narrow. Still she kissed them and bid them God speed.
"Good riddance!" Eibhlin muttered as the last of them rode off down the road, and Skye laughed, tucking her hand through her favorite sister's arm as they walked back into the hall.
"Why is it that you understand and they don't?" she asked.
"Because they are more cloistered in their lives than I, despite my religious calling, have ever been. My medicine has allowed me to see more of the human condition and the world than they have. Besides they have always been jealous of your beauty, Skye, as well as your husbands. Think on it, sister. For thirty-one years Moire has been humped by but one man, and from her sour face I wager he scarce comes near her anymore. And I've always suspected that she says the rosary while he is atop her. I'll wager you don't say yer rosary while Adam makes love to you!"