And Essex has fallen for it.
For three days they have followed the trail of Tyrone’s forces. Now, tired, hungry, but filled with a growing conviction that they have evaded any search party, Bianca and Cachorra huddle in the undergrowth of a wood barely a mile from the river. They have made the landscape their accomplice, keeping to the trees as best they can, avoiding open ground where a pursuer might spot them from a distance. Bianca’s judgement about the effect of the soporific she had put in the wine proved accurate. It wasn’t until darkness fell on the first day that the sound of a horse at full gallop had given them just enough warning to slip into hiding, before what they assumed was a messenger came flying past. The next morning they had spotted small bands of riders well off to their left. Burrowing into the bracken like frightened hares, their hearts racing, they had waited to be discovered. But when Bianca dared cautiously to raise her head again, they had disappeared from view.
Their hiding place now is a spinney of silver birch, set on a small hill overlooking what Bianca assumes must be the Lagan itself. Tyrone’s army is halted a good mile away to their left and hasn’t moved for hours. Since first light, she and Cachorra have cautiously skirted around its right flank to reach their present position. A thin drizzle has fallen for hours, and from this distance there is no sign of either army. But a short way off, the river’s far bank folds around a heathered hill. Beyond it, the smoke from many campfires rises forlornly. If those fires are burning on the opposite bank, Bianca reasons, then it must be English smoke from English campfires.
They have eaten the last of the bread and cheese, though it has done little to assuage their hunger. They are wet and cold, weary and footsore. But Bianca’s heart is vaulting inside her chest. The thought that Nicholas might be on the other side of that hill, warming himself by one of those fires, is enough to warm her body, were it frozen solid. It is all she can do to stop herself running down to the river.
‘Can you swim?’ she asks Cachorra.
‘What is swim?’
Bianca flails her arms purposefully.
‘Ah, natación,’ says Cachorra, restraining a squeal of laughter. ‘Yes, I do all the time in Hispaniola, when I am young.’
‘Then tonight we natación – all the way to freedom.’
Nicholas wakes from a half-sleep. He has been daydreaming, fighting his way through ranks of rebels. Each one wears Oliver Henshawe’s face. Each one is more determined to prevent him reaching Bianca than the one in front. He yawns, rubs his eyes and sits up on his straw pallet.
The light from the campfires outside sends lurid shapes flitting across the interior of the tent. He sees a dark shape squatting in the entrance. ‘Nicholas, I’ve come for His Grace’s… comfort,’ says the Earl of Ormonde.
It has become a ritual. Each evening, around this time, Ormonde comes to his tent on the pretext of learning how many new cases of sickness there have been. What he does with this information, Nicholas is uncertain. He suspects Ormonde keeps it to himself. And each evening Ormonde takes with him when he departs an aqua mulsa of rose petals, myrtle and powdered comfrey root to ease the Lord Lieutenant’s current indisposition. It could be considered strange for one earl to send another earl to fetch his medicine, but Essex has decided that no one but his most trusted lieutenants must know of his malady. If the common soldiery were to learn of it, His Grace would have to make laughing a capital crime, and then he would have no army left at all.
‘Please God, don’t tell me he had an attack while he was talking to Tyrone,’ Nicholas says as Ormonde enters. ‘I made the syrup as powerful as I dared.’
Ormonde gives a grim laugh. ‘If he had, it might have cleared his mind as well as his bowels. He might have seen the foolishness of what he was doing.’
‘Was it that bad?’
‘Bad enough. Tyrone has wound him around his traitorous little finger like a ribbon.’
‘But is to it be peace?’
‘For six weeks. But Tyrone keeps all the land he has taken, and we are to place no new garrisons. His Grace is calling it the greatest treaty since Athens and Sparta agreed to stop bickering. When Her Majesty finds out what he’s given away, I can see us all on our knees with our necks stretched out on a block, like so many chickens awaiting the butcher’s cleaver.’
‘But surely these are good tidings. Essex can’t win. Tyrone can’t win. Half the island is laid waste, no one has enough food, the living suffer and the dead go unburied…’
‘Her Majesty will not countenance a peace that does not first bring the rebellious Earl of Tyrone to his knees,’ Ormonde says wearily. ‘She is queen of this island by God’s grace and her father’s gift. She has expressly commanded Essex not to make a treaty that allows a traitor to dictate the terms.’
‘Then this is only temporary?’
‘There can be no true peace on this isle until its people are brought to an understanding of their duty to God and their sovereign.’
‘You sound like Edmund Spenser.’
‘He was right, Nicholas.’
‘He recommended starving them into submission. How does that sit with a duty to God?’
‘A quick, firm hand is often the kindest, Nicholas. Better a harsh storm that is soon over than a cold wind that blows for years to come.’
‘That’s easy to say if you’re the one with the hearth, the thick walls and the solid roof,’ says Nicholas, handing Ormonde the clay flask containing Essex’s physic.
‘I’m merely a humble soldier,’ Ormonde tells him. ‘I do as God, my queen and His Grace the Lord Deputy command.’ Turning to leave, he pauses. ‘I almost forgot,’ he says archly. ‘I’ve some good news for you.’
‘That this is all just a dream, brought on by too much malmsey?’
‘I wish it were,’ Ormonde says, laughing. His face softens. ‘It’s about your wife.’
Nicholas is on his feet in an instant, forgetting the proximity of the canvas above his head, which turns purposeful movement into an ungainly stoop.
‘You have news of her?’
‘There was an exchange – one of His Grace’s fine young gallants who got himself taken at Conna, swapped for one of Tyrone’s men we captured.’
‘He’s seen her? She’s alive?’
‘He was told only that a woman, an apothecary, was taken in the same engagement. But it sounds as though it’s her.’
‘Is she safe? Is she well?’
‘Apparently. She’s in Tyrone’s custody. The fellow doesn’t know where.’
‘Thank Jesu!’ Nicholas whispers. A surge of relief sweeps through his body, forcing him back down onto the straw pallet. ‘Is she to be freed?’
‘That was not stated. But with this new accord, we can hope she will soon be returned to you.’
It is only when Ormonde has departed that Nicholas realizes his hands are trembling. Finding the tent unbearably stuffy, he goes out into the dusk. The drizzle has stopped. Patches of purple sky peep between the clouds. The stars are emerging to see how the day has gone, crystalline eyes observing him with indifference as he wanders amongst the campfires and the huddled groups of soldiers.
What shall I tell Bianca when she returns? he wonders. When we have held each other long enough, what shall I say to her? Robert Cecil has had my soul too long. I want it back. Now that I’ve seen the true results of the conspiracies his kind deals in, it’s time to throw down my cards and leave the game. And look at what we were playing for: severed heads and blackened fields… earls in fine plate armour who rot from the inside with ambition and disease… starving villagers who should be grateful for the mercy of a firm hand… God’s name invoked as an excuse for savage butchery…