She learned long ago in Italy that the lot of the captive common soldier was to languish and perhaps die in a dungeon, whereas a gentleman could expect to be swapped, or his freedom purchased with gold. And if not a ransom – for she cannot imagine either Robert Devereux or Robert Cecil dipping their hands in their purses on her account – then at least an exchange of prisoners. Adopting her proudest voice, she says, ‘I don’t know who you are, sirrah, but I am Bianca Shelby, wife to the physician to the Earl of Essex. My husband is also often called to attend Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth, in London. I demand you release me at once.’
At first her stratagem seems to have failed. The little bald chieftain stares at her blankly. Bianca decides her plan needs a little embellishment. These men are surely Catholics, she thinks. Perhaps it might be wise to separate the Paduan Bianca Merton from the Bankside one.
‘I am also a servant of the one true faith, of Holy Mother Church. I am half-Italian, and while living in the Veneto I was gainfully employed by His Eminence, Cardinal Santo Fiorzi.’
Then she repeats this in Italian, and recites the beginning of the Holy Mass in Latin, just to be sure. It is, after all, true – even if it was almost twenty years ago now.
The response takes her by surprise. Her host almost prostrates himself before her. It seems that he only needed a little time to take in the wonderful news. As for her captors, they proceed to jump around as though they have discovered they have taken Queen Elizabeth herself. From that moment on, Bianca makes the swift transition from parcel to prized possession. She is treated gently, almost with reverence, although, with much regret, they decline to let her off their improvised leash.
And so, after a week or more of peripatetic journeying, Bianca finds herself standing beside a pleasant little river that winds contentedly through stands of alder and oak, flanked by well-tended meadows. Encamped along the bank, almost as far as she can see, is an army that she judges to be twice the size of anything Essex might now field. And, watching over it, a small castle of dark-grey stone with a little portcullis. The river is the Blackwater, her guardians tell her in a rare moment of openness. We have reached our destination.
But quite where that destination is, Bianca cannot tell. In the English army, maps are as rare as griffon eggs and about as dependable. They carry little detail. All she can recall of the Blackwater is a meandering line that could be thirty leagues or more in length, for all she knows. And when she asks where upon that line she stands, or indeed who dwells within the castle walls, the old reticence returns.
The portcullis drops behind Bianca with a menacing rumble. She is reminded of the many journeys she has made on the Thames, and the dark mouth of Traitors’ Gate that she has always imagined might somehow suck her in like a leaf carried on the current, never to escape. Rough, ungallant hands sweep over her body, searching for hidden weapons. How could she possibly have contrived to secrete a knife about her person? Do these guards not know she has been roped to her captors for days?
At last she is permitted to step out of the gatehouse. She is led across a courtyard packed with all the appurtenances of rebellion: wagons piled high with hay for the horses; armourers hammering like demons at damaged plate; spinning whetstones that send showers of sparks into the air as they sharpen sword blades; blacksmiths pouring molten lead into moulds to make musket balls… She can tell, by the expensive gold accessories worn by some of the men she passes, that this is the headquarters of someone of high importance. She dares to hope that person is the Earl of Tyrone. Surely a man of his station will know his chivalrous duty and arrange her freedom. And if he demurs, well, a man is a man whether he’s an earl or a potboy, and she hasn’t met one yet that she could not bend to her will. Except – and only then on occasions – Nicholas Shelby.
But what if Tyrone is just as his enemies would portray him – a merciless butcher, bent on ripping the English out of Ireland by their admittedly shallow roots? What if he imprisons her in some foul dungeon while he tries to extort concessions out of the Earl of Essex? She cannot imagine that ending in her favour.
In fact Hugh O’Neill turns out to be neither of these extremes. The sternness of his appearance is countered by kindly, almost merry eyes. His voice has a pleasant, lazy current beneath the initial gruffness. He is dressed simply in woollen plaid, the gold fittings on his belt and the sheath of his dagger being the only clue to his rank.
‘It is our joint good fortune that you were taken by fellows who owe their fealty to my trusty friend, James Fitzthomas,’ he tells her after she has been given food and drink and her leash removed. ‘They always have an eye for useful loot.’
Bianca remembers the little fellow to whom she had first admitted her identity. ‘Well, you may tell Master Fitzthomas that I’m not loot. I’m Bianca Merton,’ she says proudly, guessing that Tyrone is the sort of man to quickly tire of false pleasantries.
‘Oh, I know who you are. Or at least I know who you claim to be. I just don’t know whether to believe you. Some people will say anything when they think their lives are in danger.’
‘Is my life in danger?’
‘That rather depends.’
‘Upon what?’
‘Upon how good you are at the healing arts.’
‘Why? Are you sick?’ she asks.
‘Only of English perfidy.’
‘Then why have I been brought here?’
‘I would like to think it’s because God Almighty favours our cause,’ Tyrone says, without smiling.
‘If you’re not in need of healing, then who is?’ she asks. ‘You can’t have had me brought all this way to treat blistered feet or lame cattle.’
‘A guest of mine.’
‘Have you no healers of your own?’
‘This isn’t London, Mistress. We’re at war, and Ulster is a wild place,’ Tyrone points out. ‘Most of our physicians are scattered with our bands. The few that I have close to hand, well, let us say this: Ireland is not exactly known as the wellspring of medical advancement. So when the wife of the physician to the Earl of Essex, and a licensed apothecary to boot, falls like a ripe fruit into my hands, I’m not about to pass on the opportunity, am I?’ He glowers at her, though his eyes still twinkle mischievously. ‘You are these things, are you? Because if you’re not, I have a very quick way of finding out.’
‘I am,’ Bianca says, feeling her resolve begin to crumble. ‘You have my word for it.’
‘Then come with me.’
Tyrone’s castle seems to have been built for an ancient, smaller breed. There is not a passage down which Bianca is led that does not cause her to bend her head. She feels the cold, uneven stone brushing her shoulders, rasping her elbows. She wonders if Tyrone has changed his mind and decided to imprison her anyway. She has no option but to follow him, pressed from behind by three of his retinue.
At last Tyrone bounds energetically up a narrow, winding stone stairwell to a low door set into an archway. A guard stands before it. He dips his head at Tyrone’s approach.