Nicholas knows this not because Essex confides in him, but because all Dublin knows it. It is the talk of taprooms throughout the city. And the gallants that Essex has taken to Ireland for what was supposed to be a share of the glory now mutter sedition of their own. Why should our general face such insults, and from a woman – even if she is the queen? Perhaps it would better to abandon the bogs and rains of Ireland, take the army back to England and put an end to the nest of snakes that surround her and drip their poison into her ears. Snakes like Robert Cecil.
Observing this casual tavern-talk sedition, Nicholas has begun to wonder if he is witnessing the seeds of a different rebellion being sown, a rebellion not in Ireland but in England. He is starting to think he was right when he wondered if Henshawe was holding back his English soldiers for just such a purpose. Perhaps Sir Oliver – and other captains, too, for all he knows – has mustered, armed and paid his English recruits not to fight rebels in Ireland but to support a march by a disgruntled Essex on the earl’s enemies at court. Perhaps the most dangerous rebel of all is not Tyrone, but Essex himself.
Nicholas would send an enciphered letter to Mr Secretary Cecil, were it not for a new humiliation that has been imposed upon him.
‘His Grace has ordered me to censor any letter you may write, lest they contain foul libels destined for Cecil House,’ Oliver Henshawe had told him barely an hour after another of Devereux’s frequent accusations that Nicholas is Cecil’s spy.
‘Not your idea then?’ Nicholas had countered. ‘I thought perhaps you were concerned I might be asking Sir Robert if he could find out where your English levies had got to – the ones stuck in Chester.’
‘Why should I care what you choose to write? His Grace has the fullest confidence in me. I am not the one whose loyalty he mistrusts. Oh, and by the way, you’re not allowed anywhere near the harbour without an escort.’
Looking back, it had been foolish in the extreme to goad Henshawe. His stare had been so direct that Nicholas had wondered if his eyelids had forgotten how to blink. I’m looking straight into the soul of a man who thinks it sport to murder survivors of a shipwreck, he had thought at the time. But at least he now knows for certain that Henshawe is harbouring a second secret, one that even he keeps to himself while he’s boasting in a Dublin tavern.
As befits any great healer, Bianca has become a figure of renown. The prisoner who brought the Spanish envoy’s daughter back from the brink of death is a wonder. Tyrone’s household, even the servants, are united in their admiration. It is proof, they insist, that God bestows his greatest favours only upon good Catholics, even those who are part English. All Bianca has to do now in order to win certain beatification is to put the sugar on the dish by coming up with a cure for Constanza’s restored ability to complain endlessly. The chamber is too draughty… the venison is not prepared to her liking… the soldiers in the camp are too rowdy…
‘The arrangements are made,’ Tyrone tells Bianca one day when he calls her to his chamber at the end of a council of war. His captains look at her with new-found admiration as she is shown in. They appear to be celebrating some good fortune or other. There is a flagon of wine on the table.
‘Am I to be freed, my lord?’ she asks. ‘Has chivalry prevailed?’
His craggy face makes its best effort at a show of regret. ‘Sadly not yet, Mistress. I mean the arrangements for the Lady Constanza.’
‘Oh.’
‘Now that she is restored to health, she and her Blackamoor will travel under escort into my lands at Clandeboye. A barque will await her on Belfast Lough, to take her to Scotland. The husband is sending men from the Spanish Netherlands to meet her there. It is good that even in these times of sadness, a happy marriage may be made, don’t you think?’
Wonderful, Bianca agrees. ‘And what of my marriage, my lord – now that I have done as you ask?’
Tyrone looks uncomfortable. ‘I fear you have seen too much.’
‘You mean I’ve seen Piers Gardener?’
‘He’s too valuable to have you betray his true identity to Robert Devereux.’
‘I promise not to. I’ll give you my word.’
Hugh O’Neill doesn’t seem much like a man given to regret, but he does his best. ‘I would trust the Catholic Mistress Bianca in that regard. I’d even trust the Italian Mistress Bianca. But I fear I cannot risk trusting the English one.’
‘Am I to be a prisoner until the Earl of Essex defeats you?’
‘He’s not going to. We both know that.’
‘But neither can you defeat the English Crown.’
‘I don’t want to defeat the English Crown, Mistress.’
‘Then what is all this for?’
‘I am an O’Neill,’ he tells her proudly, as though that is the answer to everything. ‘All I want is for Elizabeth to recognize me as the O’Neill, the leader of my clan, as much the rightful ruler of my people as she is of hers. It is our custom for a clan to choose its ruler; the gift does not flow from the father, like hers does. It is offered, based on merit and reputation. In addition, we want the right to abide by our laws, not hers. And I don’t want avaricious men like Devereux taking our land for their profit. Do you know what his father did here?’
Bianca doesn’t. But she suspects Tyrone is going to tell her.
‘Twenty-five years ago, when I was a young man, he lured some of my clan to Belfast, under the pretence of negotiating an end to a dispute over lands in Antrim. He wanted the territory for the plantation of English settlers, and to make himself a lot of money. Well, his men fell upon his host, my kinsman, and slaughtered his household. He took my kinsman, his wife and son to Belfast Castle and hanged them. I wouldn’t trust a Devereux if he wore sackcloth, sandals, had a shepherd’s crook in his hand, carried a lamb tucked under his arm and had a shining halo around his head.’
The stern, warrior faces of some of Tyrone’s captains soften in something approaching mirth. But O’Neill’s expression is as cold as a pebble in a stream.
‘So, I am your prisoner until this war ends. Is that what I am to understand?’
‘You are treated well, and with courtesy and dignity, are you not?’
‘Yes, but that’s not the point.’
‘The sooner the Lady Constanza reaches her husband, the sooner I may confidently hope that another envoy will be sent by the Spanish in the place of her father. When the Spanish come, not even a dozen Devereux will be able to stand against them.’
‘When does Mistress Constanza leave?’
‘Three days from now – the day after I take my army down to face the English on the River Lagan.’
‘You mean to give Essex battle?’
‘Heavens, no. I could, but there’s no need. His army is weak. If I defeat him, his queen will send a stronger one, with a better general at its head. So I intend to tease His Grace the Earl of Essex. I shall make a sweet treaty with him. I shall give him my pretty face. I shall dance a measure with him. I shall agree to almost anything he asks. And his own vanity will stop him seeing the truth: that I am simply buying time – until the Spanish come.’
‘And I am to remain your prisoner until then?’
‘Call me ungallant, but necessity requires it.’ Seeing the look of misery in Bianca’s amber eyes, Tyrone looks affronted. ‘And we shall continue to treat you well, just so long as you don’t think of escaping. Try that, and I’ll have you killed. Please don’t say I failed to warn you.’
‘That’s how I am to be rewarded, after what I have done for you?’