CHAPTER TEN
“Papers all seem to be in order, Mr. Hawkins,” said Tate, the English captain. “Still, your story’s extraordinary. I shall have to keep you under guard until we reach Galway.”
From a wealth of secret documents concealed in his thick belt, Hawkins had brought forth yet another paper. Thus far, Caitlin had watched him produce a safe conduct from Titus Hammersmith and a passport authorized by Oliver Cromwell himself.
Ice cold with anger, she was more certain than ever that Hawkins was no mere Roundhead horse soldier.
Seeing the look on her face, Father Tully squeezed her hand.
Tate scrutinized the passport, his thin lips moving silently as he read. A narrow, pointed beard gave his face an unpleasant shape. “Says here you’re a special agent of the Lord Protector.”
Hawkins started to look at Caitlin, then stopped himself. “That’s what it says.”
“Would you care to elaborate?”
“No, thank you.”
Caitlin felt a sudden loss of breath, as if an invisible hand had grabbed her by the throat. A special agent of the Lord Protector. Special agent…or secret weapon.
“Dar Dia, but I’m a fool,” she whispered to Father Tully in Irish. “I knew about him, and never even realized.”
“What do you mean?”
She told him about the letter Curran had stolen, months ago in Galway. “The letter mentioned Hawkins,” she concluded. “Not by name, but I should have realized when he first came to Clonmuir.” Furious with herself, she pressed her fist to her mouth to spare Father Tully from her curses.
Suspicion hooded Tate’s pale eyes as he read and reread the paper. He seemed torn between beating the truth out of Hawkins and ingratiating himself to an intimate of Oliver Cromwell.
Caitlin voted for the beating.
“I must say, it does look irregular, you in the company of an Irish slut and a popish cleric.”
One corner of Hawkins’s mouth glided up in a dangerous half smile. His gaze slid pointedly over Tate. “Believe me, Captain, I’ve been in worse company.”
The men stared at each other across the wall of Hawkins’s implacability. Finally he blew out his breath. “The woman’s tired. Surely you don’t want it said that you withheld hospitality to a female, Irish or not.”
Tate jerked his head at a subaltern. “Take them below.”
Clinging to Father Tully’s hand, Caitlin followed the sailor to the foredeck and descended a steep ladder to a dark, damp room full of rotting rope and mildewing canvas. His face a snarl of contempt, the seaman pushed aside a pile of old sail to reveal four cramped bunks.
“You’ll lodge here.” He kicked at a large brass container. “Use that for puking. And other necessities.”
When he left, Caitlin sank to the wooden slats of a bunk, which was inadequately covered by a thin moth-eaten mattress. She dropped her head to her hands. “Father Tully, forgive me. This whole affair is purely my doing.”
He sat beside her and patted her knee with his strong, squarish hand. “Nonsense, daughter. There’s none left in Ireland to resist the English. All our warriors—the great O’Donnell, Mahony and Comerford, the O’Carrolls and the Croftons—have all been forced from our shores. You held out against the Sassenach as long as you could.”
“I’d be fighting still if I hadn’t been so stupid as to trust an Englishman.”
“Resisting the Roundheads is like throwing rocks at the moon. Now. Tell me all that’s come to pass at Clonmuir. How is your father?”
She laughed humorlessly. “Daida has gone on a quest to find the priests of Ireland.”
“Ah. He hasn’t found Inishbofin yet.”
“He probably got waylaid at a booley hut in the hills and is distilling poteen with a shepherd. I pray he’s safe somewhere.”
“The Lord protects children and—” Father Tully caught himself, but not before Caitlin understood.
“—and madmen?”
“Faith, I didn’t mean it that way.”
“I know. He abdicated as the MacBride before he left.”
Father Tully’s eyebrows lifted, two thick caterpillars framing eyes of the purest blue of heaven. “Did he now?”
“I was elected the MacBride in his place.”
The priest gave a low whistle. “Glory be to the high saints of heaven. You always were the MacBride in fact. ’Tis fitting.”
Encouraged by his ready acceptance, she felt the lid being lifted from a boiling pot. Like escaping steam, the words poured out of her. She told Father Tully of the problems between Logan and Magheen. She told him how she had nearly settled the dispute only to be thwarted by her father.
“He roasted your last bullock, you say?”
“Aye.” But she felt no anger, only helpless frustration. “Daida sees Clonmuir through the frame of the past. He remembers how it was in the days of his youth, when the English were still far away and Clonmuir prospered.”
She drew a deep breath, lowered her voice and continued in rapid Irish. She related her first meeting with Hawkins, the lies he had told, her naiveté in sending him on his way.
She offered the details of the raids, the capture of Hammersmith’s stores, and of Hawkins.
“I should have given him to Logan. But he would have revealed my involvement with the Fianna. For the same reason, I couldn’t send him back to the Roundheads.” She twined her fingers in her lap. Hawkins could be telling them now. The Fianna could be ruined, and all her friends punished.
“In your grandsire’s day,” said the priest, “the scoundrel would have been given a drumhead trial and a speedy execution.”
She shook her head. “I couldn’t do that, either. My will is weaker than that of my grandsire.”
“Because your heart is bigger.”
“But look where it’s got me. A captive on an English hulk. No doubt Hawkins means to drag me before Hammersmith, and he won’t be bothered in his conscience when he hangs me.”
“Don’t be so swift to judge Hawkins ill,” said the priest. “Perhaps he means to help in a way you’ve not considered.”
She gazed at him in surprise. He smiled. “The man’s a Catholic—he told me so when we were escaping Inishbofin. He knows he’s failed in his vocation. Still, I’ll not condemn him until I discover what he’s about.”
Caitlin flung her arm at the cramped chamber. “Can he be about anything good?”
“Time will tell.”
She thought of the many facets of Hawkins. She remembered his gentle touch and the feelings that poured through her when he kissed her. She remembered him laughing in the sunshine and looking more handsome than a Celtic god. She recalled his passionate claim that she should be the MacBride. He was the blank-eyed mystic, taming a stallion. He was the hot-blooded lover, bringing her desires to life, the compassionate confessor, hearing a man’s last words.
“He’s a sly fox,” she told the priest. “He’ll say anything to win your trust.”
“I fear slyness far less than outright cruelty.” Father Tully rubbed his fine knob of a nose.
Like an oncoming squall, certainty blasted over her. “You were mistreated at Inishbofin!”
“The Almighty doesn’t make a man bear more than he’s able.”
She studied him closely, seeking signs of injury. He was gaunt and windburned. “Are you all right, Father?”
He nodded. “Aye. What the English fail to understand is that they’ve hardened the Irish against privation and cruelty. They thought they were giving us short rations when in sooth a day’s allotment of bread was more than most of us were used to seeing in a week.”
“But they did more than try to starve you.”
“They may beat my flesh to the bone, but never will they touch the soul deep inside me. That belongs only to the Almighty, and no Englishman can take it from me.”
Caitlin wished her faith ran as deep as Father Tully’s. But she couldn’t take a passive role; she had to fight back. She was too much a creature of the here and now.
“How is it that you were captured?” she asked.
“Sure wasn’t it odd. Day after the wedding, Lord Logan asked me to consecrate a field for the planting. As all his men-at-arms were sleeping off the nuptial toasts, I went alone. The field was deserted. I was after thinking there was no one in sight save myself and the Almighty. I’d barely uncorked my bottle of holy water when a gang of ruffians seized me.”
“Englishmen?”
He hung his head and stared at the planks. “They were Irish, my girleen.”
A chill trembled through Caitlin. Though she fought the recollection, she remembered Hawkins’s speculation that Logan’s hand had been in Father Tully’s disappearance.
“There are bounty hunters everywhere,” he said. “Some forty pounds British is what they got for me.” Father Tully moved to another bunk. “Rest now, child. You’ve had a rough time.”
* * *
“We’ve got to do something about your hair,” said Wesley, sitting in the prow of the ship’s pinnace and gazing at Caitlin.
“I’ll not primp for Titus Hammersmith,” she said, bracing herself against the swells of Galway Bay. “Let him see me as I am, as you’ve made me.”
Wesley’s skin crawled with guilt. During the voyage to Galway, he had accepted plenty of ribbing on the subject of his captive. The English seamen had chided him for having selected a recalcitrant and weather-beaten wench when there were so many soft, comely females to be had in Ireland.
Wesley had responded with sheepish grins and manly backslaps, when inside he seethed with fury and burned to demand respect for the MacBride. But for her sake, he concealed her identity, and so the sailors had no more regard for Caitlin than they would have had for a fat ewe being taken to market.
He was grateful that she had kept to her quarters. He took care not to speak to her more than was necessary, for when he did, he could not stop his voice and his eye from going tender.
Even now, in a crowded pinnace sailing to harbor in Galway, he longed to take her hands and tell her, Soon, Caitlin. Soon all will come clear. But he knew better than to hope for forgiveness.
The boat bumped the dock. The once beautiful city of Galway stood drenched in mist. The grand marble houses huddled in miserable neglect. At the fish market, a few procurement officers and army contractors milled about, dickering with fishmongers over the price of herring.
Father Tully, whom Wesley had come to admire for his good sense and fortitude, climbed onto the dock and extended his hand to Caitlin.
“I’ll help the lady,” a seaman said, shoving the priest aside. He grasped Caitlin by the waist, his hands deliberately finding her softer parts as he lifted her.
The instant he put her down, she lashed out with her bare foot. With reflexes quickened by the dangers of sailing, he jumped away, and she succeeded only in stumbling to her knees on the wooden planks.
Caitlin scrambled to her feet. Wesley fixed an easy smile on his face, leapt onto the rock, and slammed his elbow into the seaman’s ribs.
The man tottered at the edge of the dock, failed to regain his balance, and toppled into the cold waters of Galway Bay.
“Sorry, my good man,” said Wesley, speaking above the laughter of his crewmates. “Haven’t gotten my sea legs back to land yet.”
Captain Tate and a company of musketeers accompanied Wesley, Caitlin and Father Tully to Titus Hammersmith’s residence in Little Gate Street. An aide directed them to the rear of the building, where Hammersmith stood behind a field table, paying out bounties to wolf hunters who looked as wild and dangerous as their prey.
The aide whispered in Hammersmith’s ear. The commander turned, and wonder broke over his face. “Hawkins, is that you? By God, man, I thought you were dead!” He raised a distracted hand to his temple where a lock was missing from his beautiful glossy hair. The new growth resembled a bottle brush, Wesley saw with some satisfaction.
A few minutes later, Captain Tate had been dismissed with a citation for a job well done, and Wesley and his companions were accompanied by an armed guard into Hammersmith’s drawing room.
Barefoot and bedraggled, Caitlin stood beside Father Tully and gaped at the room, taking in the velvet hangings on the windows, the cut-crystal service on a rosewood sideboard, the ivory Aran wool carpet.
He knew she had never set foot in a town house before. And he knew she realized that all the luxurious trappings, from the brass and etched-glass lamps on the mantelpiece to the brocaded settee facing the hearth, had once belonged to an Irish family.
“And who are these…” Hammersmith paused a moment, studying Caitlin and Father Tully “…people?”
Wesley cleared his throat. “Sir, they are—”
Caitlin slapped him on the chest and stepped forward. “I don’t need an Englishman to speak for me. I’m Caitlin MacBride of Clonmuir, and this is my chaplain, Father Tully.”
“The blessings of God be upon your head, sir,” Father Tully said obligingly.
Hammersmith leaned over and had another murmured conversation with his aide. When the man left, the captain turned to Wesley. “I trust you have some explanation for this.”
Before Wesley could answer, Caitlin strode across the carpet, set her hands on her hips, and thrust up her chin. “No, you must do the explaining, sir. I have been dragged from my home, pirated by your Roundheads, and held prisoner by this—this—” For want of an adequate insult, she gestured furiously at Wesley.
Hammersmith glared at her in distaste. “Madam, no one speaks to me in that tone—least of all an Irish wench.” He held his arm toward the doorway. “Mr. Hawkins?”
Wesley stepped into the hall and nearly collided with Edmund Ladyman. The soldier blanched, then hissed a curse through his drooping mustache.
“I’m no ghost, Ladyman,” Wesley assured him grimly.
“Keep them under guard,” Hammersmith instructed his men. With a wave of his hand, he gestured Ladyman into the room. “If she so much as blinks, clap her and the priest in irons.” He wrinkled his nose. “Oh, and don’t let her sit on the furniture.”
Wesley restrained the urge to throttle his commander. Hammersmith’s contempt for Caitlin was but a mild foretaste of what she would soon face.
Hammersmith stalked into his office, jerked his head to indicate that Wesley was to enter, and slammed the door.
“Damn it, Hawkins, this had better be good. If Lord Cromwell didn’t have such high regard for your abilities, I’d have you transported to the Barbados where riffraff and madmen like you belong.”
Wesley stood easily against a thick carved chair. “Are you finished, Captain?”
Equally sarcastic, Hammersmith made a small bow. “I await your explanation.”
“It’s simple enough.” His plan had to work. He had to bend Hammersmith to his will. “I’ve captured the leader of the Fianna, and I’m ready to take ship back to England.”
Hammersmith’s eyebrows shot up. “You’ve captured the devil? God’s blood, why didn’t you say so right off? Where is the scoundrel?”
“In your drawing room.”
“The priest? Impossible! The popish lout doesn’t look capable of leading a flock of spring lambs much less a company of rebels. Impossible, I say.”
“You’re right. It’s not the priest.”
Red faced with frustrated confusion, Hammersmith burst out, “Enough of riddles. Just tell me—”
“It’s the girl.”
Shock, disbelief, and suspicion led the Roundhead’s features through a series of contortions. “Impossible!”
“It came as a surprise to me as well.” Wesley suffered a vivid memory of the night he had nearly killed Caitlin. “But it’s true. I witnessed her in action the night of the Lough Corrib raid.”
“None of the survivors of that raid mentioned a girl.”
“She fights in a war helm with a veil.”
Hammersmith rubbed his jaw. “Ladyman did say he saw you bring down a man on a black horse. He was under the impression you’d perished in the raid.”
“The horseman was Caitlin MacBride.”
Rocking back on his heels, Hammersmith pinched his lip between his thumb and forefinger. “Extraordinary.”
“I agree. She’s rather like Joan of Arc.”
“Who’s that?” asked Hammersmith. “Another female chieftain?”
Wesley felt a rare wistful longing to be in the company of scholars at Douai, where they not only had heard of Joan, but could tell her story in seven languages.
“Never mind.”
Hammersmith steepled his fingers. “So. Since you and Ladyman are eyewitnesses to her treachery, I think we can dispense with a trial.”
“I think dispensing with a trial is an excellent idea, sir.”
“I’m glad you agree. Honestly, I confess I had my doubts about you, but we finally seem to see eye to eye on this matter. Now. I’ve a full schedule tomorrow. We’re getting ready to send a shipment of wenches to the Indies, and—”
“A shipment of what?”
“Of wenches, Mr. Hawkins. Women.”
“Irishwomen?”
“Of course. You don’t think we’d subject good Englishwomen to transportation, do you?”
“So these women volunteered to be transported to the colonies?”
“Are you daft? Of course they didn’t volunteer.”
Wesley’s vision swam with rage. “You’re forcing them?”
Hammersmith laughed. “Forcing is just a word. Their villages are rubble; their fields bear nothing but weeds. Their men are all killed or exiled. They have no life here.”
Because we took it from them, Wesley thought. And then, like pieces of a puzzle, a picture formed in his mind. His hand went to the fold of his belt, where his papers were stored, including the list of names he had purloined from Hammersmith. Now he realized it was not a census roll at all, but a receipt.
“My God,” he said, barely able to govern his fury, “you sold them into bondage.”
“That’s a lie! This is a legitimate enterprise sanctioned by the Commonwealth.”
“No.” Wesley took a step forward. Hammersmith’s hand went to the hilt of his sword. “You collected money for the women. And I doubt the Commonwealth will see a copper penny of it.”
Hammersmith’s color deepened. He made a dismissive gesture with his hand. “We stray from the point. I merely brought up the matter to explain why the execution can’t take place until the day after tomorrow.”
Wesley planted his hands on his hips. “You’re not going to execute her.” He was certain of it now.
“Cromwell requires only her head. From the way she behaves, I’d think you’d be grateful. Alive, she’s bound to be a great deal of trouble.”
“I couldn’t agree with you more, Captain. She does indeed promise to be trouble.”
“Damn it, you’re doing it again. You’re talking in riddles.”
“I don’t mean to. Captain Hammersmith, the young lady is not to be executed.” The power of his knowledge about the Roundhead’s deceit swelled within him.
Hammersmith slammed a beefy fist down on the desk. “For God’s sake, why the devil not?”
“Because I’m going to marry her.”
* * *
“Impossible!” Caitlin stood in a stateroom of the English trading frigate Mary Constant. In front of her stood John Wesley Hawkins. “Sure that’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.”
Hawkins nodded agreeably. “A few months ago I would never have believed it. But that was before I met you, Caitlin.”
“Save your infernal blather. For once in your life, tell the truth. Just what are you about?”
“First, marrying you. Second, taking you to London. And third, returning to Clonmuir, preferably before it falls to ruins for lack of a chieftain.”
“London? What the devil is this about London?”
“It’s our destination.”
“I won’t go. Hammersmith will punish the people of Clonmuir.”
“He will not. I’ve ensured Hammersmith’s cooperation.”
“I trust no Sassenach. You least of all.”
He took her hand firmly and led her to a settle which ran beneath the stern windows. The trading vessel rode deeply in Galway Bay, her holds crammed with spoils from raids on Irish towns and strongholds. “Caitlin, you must stop playing the rebel long enough to listen.”
She tossed back her tangled hair. It hadn’t seen a comb since the day Wesley had pirated the hooker and kidnapped her. “I’m listening.”
His eyes deepened with an emotion she could not fathom. “I came to Ireland in the secret service of the Lord Protector, Oliver Cromwell.”
She leapt up in a fury, her hands forming fists. “I knew it! You sneaking seonin, I should have—”
He grabbed her wrists. “You’re supposed to be listening.”
She pushed his hands away and glared at him.
“My task was to find the leader of the Fianna and bring his head to Cromwell.”
Sheer terror streaked through Caitlin. She did not allow so much as a tremor to betray her. “I see,” she said coldly. “And you think to be amusing yourself by making me your wife, and then yourself a widower.”
“Of course not. Now look. Cromwell wants you stopped, and he sent me to do it. If I fail, he’ll find another assassin who lacks my scruples.”
“You have no scruples. You’re a lying, cheating—”
“My lies will save your neck. I have Cromwell’s sworn statement that neither he nor his agents will bring harm to any of my kin.”
“You have kin?”
He opened his mouth, closed it, and gave her a look of soul-deep pain she did not want to see.
“I doubt you do.” She forced out the insult. “You probably crawled from beneath a rock somewhere.”
His gaze shifted. In nervousness? she wondered.
“I thought it prudent to word the statement so as to include any of my kin.”
“And why are you so afraid for your own life that you would compel the devil to swear such a thing?”
“Because I had been condemned to die for my papist activities. Cromwell’s Secretary of State literally snatched me from Tyburn Tree.” Absently he touched his neck. She recalled the fading marks she had seen there when she had bathed him.
“So that’s how it is,” she said. “Cromwell promised you your life in exchange for mine.” At least she understood him now. But that didn’t mean she had to like him any better.
“Don’t you see, Caitlin? Marriage is a way to solve both our problems.”
And a way, she thought bleakly, to shatter the dream I have cherished in my heart for four years. When she thought of Alonso coming for her only to find her married to an Englishman, she wanted to weep. Yet even in her grief she recognized the humanity of Hawkins’s scheme. He could have simply killed her. Most Englishmen would have.
“Assume I agree to this farce. It wouldn’t matter anyway. Marriages between English and Irish have been outlawed.”
“Titus Hammersmith made the same point. However, the marriage will be perfectly legal so long as it takes place at sea. An interesting loophole, is it not?”
“This is absurd. How can you think that marriage will transform me into some submissive Englishman’s wife—”
“Who says I want a submissive wife, Cait?”
“—and stop Cromwell from doing his worst?”
He gripped her arms. “Damn it, I have to believe that.”
Disconcerted by his urgency, she pulled back. “And do you really think I’ll cease to fight the Roundheads?”
“You’ve tested your luck too often. You’ve challenged fate and won. But one day it will have to end. One day you’ll be stopped by force if you don’t stop on your own. We’ll find a safer way to resist the Roundheads.”
“We? You speak as if you intend to come back to Clonmuir.”
“Indeed I do.”
“Why?”
“Because England is not my country anymore. Cromwell has failed to keep the peace. He’s taken freedom away from good men and women. We’re at war with Spain, with the Netherlands, probably with France, too. I tried my damnedest to help King Charles back to the throne, but it’s not working.”
“And why should I be after caring about Charles Stuart? No English monarch has treated fairly with Ireland. Henry the Eighth gave us his bastard son as a leader. Elizabeth outlawed our faith. King James gave our lands to foreigners. Charles the First forgot we existed except to collect taxes. Why should I expect fairness from a new king?”
“Can anyone short of the devil himself do worse for Ireland than Cromwell has done?”
Painful hope rose inside her. “You seem to have switched loyalties.”
He pulled her close, pressed his lips to her hair. “Aye, Cait. So it seems.”
She let him hold her for a moment, enjoying against all reason the comforting feel of his arms around her. “Why go to England at all? Why do you not simply disappear into the countryside or take ship for the colonies?”
“I have to return to London.”
She drew herself out of his arms. “Why?” she repeated.
New pain flickered in his eyes. “I’m bound by my word.”
She turned to the stern windows and stared across the bay. In the distance wallowed a great hulk. Boatloads of people were being rowed to the huge ship. Caitlin squinted through a glare of sunlight. A feeling of dread curled in her gut. “Blessed Mary,” she whispered. “Those are women. Where are they going? Tell me. I demand to know.”
“They’re being transported to the Barbados to help populate the island.”
“As slaves, you mean.” She pressed her hand to her throat and prayed she would not be sick. But she nearly retched, for the thought of all those young women, ripped from their homes and families, made her ill.
She swung to face Hawkins. “I hate all English. You’d be miserable as my husband.”
“I’m no stranger to misery.”
“I will not marry you.”
“Yes, you will.”
“No proper priest would ever consent to this farce.”
“Father Tully agrees with me wholly.”
“That’s a lie.”
Before she knew what was happening, he drew her close. “You will marry me, Caitlin MacBride.”
“Never.”
“Then I’m afraid you’ll never see Clonmuir again.”
A cold shiver passed through her. “That, Mr. Hawkins, would kill me. Believe it.”
“And then where would Clonmuir be? Tom Gandy alone cannot act as chieftain. Your father was no leader. Clonmuir will fall to ruins.” He gestured at the hulk, the women lining the rails. “Your friends would probably be transported—those who didn’t die defending their freedom.”
“Oh, God,” she whispered. She had no choice. No choice. This English scoundrel had trapped her like a vixen in a snare.