An hour later they contrive another walk together along the riverbank, in search of herbs. The air feels heavy on Bianca’s skin, adding to the weight of her thoughts. She has tugged at her plan to see which threads will unravel, which will stay fast. It is by no means a perfect plan, but it is the best she can come up with. Out of the guards’ hearing she says, ‘In all the time you’ve been here, has anyone ever told you where here is?’
‘I know only the name of this river. Is aguas negras – Blackwater. Nothing else do they tell me.’
‘It’s in Ulster, I know that much. And Tyrone said he was taking his army down to meet Essex on the River Lagan. Down must surely mean south. So south is where we’re going. South is where Nicholas will be.’
Bianca is shocked by the expression on Cachorra’s face – a look of utter desolation, as though a loving husband to escape to is something so far beyond her reach that the very thought of it hurts like a physical pain.
‘But when they find we have gone, they will come after us, yes?’ Cachorra says.
Casting a quick glance at the guards to ensure they have not moved within earshot, Bianca says, ‘They won’t know if we’re following Tyrone’s army or taking a more easterly path, towards the English garrison at Drogheda. And there aren’t enough men left behind to cover both possibilities in any strength.’
‘But how to know where to go?’ Cachorra asks plaintively.
‘Easily,’ Bianca says with a smile of reassurance. ‘Tyrone’s army is seven thousand strong. Unless they all went on tiptoe – including the horses – I suspect they will have left more than just a few traces to follow. All we have to do is to ensure we don’t follow too closely.’
Cachorra ponders Bianca’s words for a while, making a play of grubbing for herbs to reassure the guards. When she stands up again, her face is a picture of newborn, fragile hope. ‘First we have to go from here,’ she points out, as though she cannot quite believe the future could be hers for the taking. ‘We are still watched.’
From where the guards are standing, the two women could be old friends swapping amusing tales of past dalliances. Bianca glances back at one of them, the lad who had escorted her to the steward’s chamber. She gives a smile that is just a little more than merely friendly. Then she turns back to Cachorra. ‘For that,’ she whispers, ‘we must rely upon the knowledge of the Caporetti.’
The day passes languorously. The September air has a summer sultriness about it. The willows droop beside the river, untroubled by even the faintest breeze. Kingfishers hunt on the river, their rainbow wings flashing above the crystalline surface.
It is late afternoon. In her chamber Constanza Calva de Sagrada sleeps as deeply as only those who have drunk a soporific – knowingly or unknowingly – can sleep. In the meadow beside the river, two women are taking another amble through the trees in search for herbs and plants. When Bianca had been asked why two visits in one day were necessary, she had said there must be enough physic to ensure the daughter of the Spanish envoy – who so bravely lost his life coming to Ireland’s aid – might be assured of speedy relief, should she fall ill again.
Their guards follow a little way behind the two women, crossbows still loaded but held casually enough. They have changed their minds about the duty that O’Neill has given them. Instead of bemoaning their exclusion from his army – surely about to bring the hated Earl of Essex to his gartered knees – now they are like soldiers anywhere who have found themselves an undemanding post well away from danger. After all, what could possibly be more pleasurable than strolling along a riverbank in the company of two comely women? ‘Let us pray the apothecary doesn’t attempt to slip away,’ says one guard to his companion. ‘It would be a terrible tragedy to have to shoot such a beauty with this crossbow.’
‘I can think of better uses for my bolt,’ says the other.
And what is this – a coy invitation to come closer and join them? Look: they’ve brought manchet bread and cheese from the kitchens. Why, they’ve even managed to prise a skin of wine out of the miserly kitchen steward! What a turn of events. Who’d want to be on the march when a fellow can sit beside such beauties, making flirtatious small-talk in the warmth of the afternoon, lulled by the humming of the bees and the flowing river? Who’d want to risk life and limb when you can drink wine on a flowery bank in such attractive company?
And the wine is very good.
And the company is very pleasant.
And it is very warm. Soporific in fact.
‘How long have we got?’ Cachorra asks when she’s sure the guards are safely asleep.
‘What?’
Bianca has been thinking how proud her mother would be that the line of Caporetti poisoners is maintained, even if this particular example is merely a harmless sleeping draught made from some of the ingredients the rebels forgot to steal from her apothecary’s collection.
‘I said, “How long have we got?” Before they wake?’
‘Two hours at least.’
Across the pebbled ford, in the trampled empty meadow and around the ashes of abandoned campfires, only the crows move, grubbing for scraps of food left by the departed army. Bianca glances back at the castle. With Tyrone’s household stripped of fighting men, there is no one left to keep watch from the walls. She and Cachorra are unobserved. It is time.
37
It is a performance as good as any at the Rose playhouse on Bankside. But it is an illusion, a pretence in which everyone knows the scenery is fake and the man at the centre of the stage is playing a part. Everyone, that is, except Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, Earl Marshal of England and Lord Lieutenant of Ireland.
Clad in his black field armour like the last of the medieval knights – and dosed with all the physic Nicholas can give him – he rides his magnificent charger down to the bank of the Lagan. Behind him, drawn up on the grassy slope, is the tired, dispirited English army.
Nicholas remains in his tent in the baggage train. He has no interest in watching this vainglorious display. It is all he and his little band of barber-surgeons can do to treat the cases of sickness amongst the ranks. And sickness is not the only drain on the earl’s depleted force. Desertions too are on the rise. Several of Henshawe’s company have slipped away on the march, making Sir Oliver’s own temper even more unpredictable. He shares Devereux’s inclination to hang anyone who cites a malady as an excuse to fall behind.
A fine drizzle mists the Lagan valley. It drifts through the trees like cannon smoke, as though a battle has already been fought and lost. The river meanders like a flow of cooling pewter melted in a fire. On the far bank a small contingent of men in fur pelts and broadcloth gowns sit upon shaggy ponies. Matched against the armour of the English commanders, made into mirrors by the rain, they look like a band of ancient Celts come to parley with a Roman legion.
Southampton and the other commanders sit astride their chargers in front of the English lines. They know the score well enough. Their skirmishers have told them that while the far bank might seem almost empty, out of sight beyond the rising ground waits the mass of Tyrone’s rebels. And while they are confident their shot and artillery might defeat an attack, there’s not a hope in Hades of launching one of their own and having it end in anything other than a slaughter.
In the centre of the river, a stocky, bushy-bearded man sits in the saddle of his horse. He has no stirrups. The legs hang loosely as though the body is suspended from a gibbet. The water is almost up to his heels. His head is bowed, the drizzle streaming down his broad brow. He looks the very picture of a supplicant who knows he can no longer summon the strength to fight against impossible odds. So he has come to make a deal.