Fugitives! (12 page)
Authors: Aubrey Flegg
inéad lifted her head from her pillow. Her eyes burned like hot coals where her tears had dried. She didn’t want to see, or be seen by, anyone.
‘Who is it?’
‘It’s your bwother.’
In one furious leap, she was out of bed and screaming through the door, ‘Don’t you ever – ever – ever speak like that again, James!’ She hammered on it as if she was already a child-bride locked up in some castle garret. Then she opened the door.
‘What’s the matter?’ James asked. ‘He’s gone, you know.’
‘No, he’s not. He’ll be back – ask Father!’
‘Father?’ James queried as he sat down on the bed beside her.
‘He thinks I should accept him.’ A shudder convulsed her. ‘Rather, that he should accept Bonmann’s proposal on my behalf.’ Her voice was rising with indignation. ‘I’m just a piece of goods –
a chattel to be traded for the going price; one hundred cattle equals one chattel.’ She put her head against his shoulder.
‘Cheap at the price – but he can’t mean it.’
‘Oh yes, he can! Sir Geoffrey – the piglet – is a son of the Earl of Middlesex who owns a whole county in England. But he’s a third son, so he’s been sent to Ireland to seek his fortune. I told Father I didn’t like him, but Father said he might never find a better match for me. In a few years I could have a fine home, beautiful clothes, horses, hawks – you name it. So I told him I didn’t give a button about houses and horses and that all I wanted was to stay at home with him and Mother.’
‘Why this sudden urge to marry you off?’
‘He didn’t tell me at once. I had to dig it out of him, miserable bit by miserable bit. You know that grandfather was tricked into handing over our castle and all our lands to King Henry years ago?’ She waved her arms in a wide sweep. ‘All of this: our castle, our fields, our woods, they don’t belong to us, they belong to King James now, and Chichester can take the lot away from us if he wants.’
‘Surrender and re-grant,’ confirmed James. ‘It means we hold the lands under English law now instead of under Irish law.’
‘Yes,’ said Sinéad, ‘but what Grandfather didn’t know was that the king could take it away whenever he liked – you can’t do that under Irish law. Or that Chichester could take it for the king! It’s outrageous.’
‘But he can only do it in the king’s name.’
‘He can do what he likes. You saw how he sat in Father’s chair “in the king’s name”. But if I’m married to the piglet, he can’t. You heard him say, “Even I can’t hang you.”’
‘What did you say to Father?’
‘I threw a wobbly until he said that he would always ask me before any marriage was arranged.’
‘Well, that’s it, you can say no.’
‘But I can’t!’ flared Sinéad, pushing him away. ‘Do you think I can refuse now that I know that all our futures here in the castle are at stake? I hate the English, I don’t want to become a Protestant, and I’ll never wear fine clothes again. Why, oh why did Uncle Hugh give me that stupid dress?’ She began to sob. ‘I just want to go back to where we were before Chichester came – just you and me and Fion and the summer ahead of us.’
‘Look, Sinéad, leave Fion out of it – forget him. He’s no longer one of us. He’s run off to the ferns with Uncle Hugh and won’t dare show his head near here again. If I can persuade Father to let me go and round up the cattle he demands from O’Neill’s tenants, I’ll go for your sake and for Father.’
Sinéad didn’t forget Fion, but without him she and James grew closer. She looked for opportunities to show her thanks for his brave gesture.
Weeks passed, and it was all hands on board to get in the harvest. This was no time for a cattle raid. Since Dr Fenton was gone, Father used James as his secretary, but James also had to take his turn at
threshing the wheat, beating the grain and the chaff off the stalks with a flail. Sinéad’s job was to sweep the mixture into shallow baskets so that the women could toss it in the air where the wind would blow away the light chaff, leaving the golden wheat to fall to the ground.
‘Sinéad,’ he said, coming up to her between bouts of threshing, ‘O’Neill isn’t bothering to answer our letters. The harvest’s nearly finished and it’s time we went to get those cattle! I’ll speak to Father tonight.’
‘Well?’ she asked when she saw him after dinner.
He sighed: ‘You won’t believe this, but Father wouldn’t listen. He’s sending me with a cart-load of grain to Dundalk. We’ve got more than we need and the price is good. Can you imagine, all that way behind four lumbering oxen! I’ll die.’
When he set out next morning, Sinéad rode the first mile with him. ‘At least I can wear my sword again,’ he said, and he leaned from his saddle and sent a spray of yellow ragwort flying. When the road plunged into the forest, he stopped. ‘You’d better go back, else
the piglet
will get you.’ At least they could joke about him now.
Sinéad was stabling her pony when she realised that the castle was humming again, just like the time when Con had come in with the news of Chichester’s approach. An ostler hurried in.
‘What’s up, Padraic, have we visitors again?’ she asked.
‘Not coming, miss, we’re going. A cattle raid, if rumours are correct,’ and he rubbed his hands together. Sinéad was stunned.
But James!
she thought,
he’ll miss this
. Then she stopped.
This was planned!
Father had deliberately got James out of the way, and was
organising the raid in his absence.
But that’s not fair! James has been looking forward to this moment for weeks! I need to know more. I’ll ask the Captain of the Guard – he’ll know.
‘We’re going north, miss, into O’Hanlon country; a little cattle business to be settled there.’
‘Can I come too?’ she pleaded.
But he laughed. ‘I think not, miss, there might be a bit of pushing and shoving, you see.’
She worked on him then, and got a pretty good idea of their plans. Then she made plans of her own.
When James has delivered his corn, he’ll be free; the empty carts won’t need an escort. If I can get word to him, he might be able to strike north and meet up with the raiders. A bit of pushing and shoving doesn’t sound like danger to me. Father’ll be furious, of course, but this will teach him for trying to marry me off. Now, how on earth can I get word to James?
In the guest room she bent silently over the small table where, only few weeks before, Uncle Hugh had been writing a letter to the king of England. They kept paper, a new quill, and ink here for guests. Her pen scratched on the paper. Her writing might not be elegant, but it was clear. She read the note through, then she scattered sand on it to dry the ink, folded it, and melted a blob of sealing wax in the candle. She then used a gold coin from her treasure box, to press into the wax. The coin wasn’t worth much, as people had clipped bits of gold off it until it was all angles at the edge. But James would recognise its impression at once. Then she hurried downstairs to where a trader from Dundalk was waiting. He’d agreed to take the note for her. She reckoned that, riding on
horseback, he would soon overtake James’s lumbering ox-cart; a small coin sealed the deal.
That night she had terrible dreams.
For James, the last plodding miles into Dundalk, and the interminable negotiations for the selling of the corn had been an agony. He had read and re-read Sinéad’s note.
The raid’s happening, and I’m not there!
But would he be able to find the raiding party?
If I’m not quick, it’ll be over!
Eventually he was able to send the empty cart on its way home, together with the lame excuse that he was going to visit relatives in town.
Many hours later, saddle-sore and weary, James sat on his pony at a crossroads.
Which way do I turn?
He could feel the heat radiating from his poor pony. Had he ridden it too hard? He tapped his shirt where Sinéad’s note rustled reassuringly; he knew it by heart now. She had managed to get a lot of information from the captain of the expedition.
I’m sure this is their route, but are they ahead of me or behind?
Peasants along his road had been helpful, seeing him as a young lad who had got separated from his companions. He had kept his sword out of sight, wrapped in his cloak, but none of them had seen a party like he described coming from the south. There was, however, a rumour of a large herd of cattle gathered to the north.
Could they have got ahead of me and finished the job without me?
he worried. But the light was going, his pony was tired, and the crossroads did not feel like a safe place to linger. There were plenty of wild men who had taken to the woods
when their masters had been turned off their lands, who would happily relieve him of his pony and his fine clothes, even his life.
There was just enough light for him to strike off the road and find a thicket that would give both him and his pony shelter and cover. After rubbing the pony down and giving it a nosebag of wheat he had saved from the ox-cart, he leaned against a tree. He wouldn’t risk a fire, so he wrapped his cloak about him and settled down to watch the pale glimmer that showed the road from the south. He’d never been on his own like this before, Fion had always been with him on his adventures. Night-time rustles became footsteps creeping up on him; even the thumping of his heart became the thud of hooves. His head dropped forward, then jerked up – then gradually sank forward again into sleep.