Fugitives! (14 page)

The boys could hear the shouts as the drovers from both parties drove the cattle from the wide clearing onto the road south. All they wanted for the moment was to sit side by side and talk.

‘What did you talk about?’ Sinéad asked Fion later. ‘Minutes before, you had been deadly enemies.’

‘We talked about everything that has happened since Uncle Hugh first brought me to the castle. I would say: Remember…? and before we’d stopped remembering that, James would say: Remember…? On politics, we have agreed to differ. He thinks the days of the Irish chiefs are over and that Chichester is a man of honour. I disagree, obviously.’

When, eventually, it came to moving on, and the boys mounted their ponies, even the ponies seemed to catch their mood and walked close, side by side.

‘Will you look at those two lads,’ laughed one of O’Neill’s cattle men, ‘you couldn’t see daylight between them.’

CHAPTER 12

Fight or Flight?

attle!’ screeched Kathleen, ‘hundreds and thousands of them!’ Numbers were like corn to Kathleen, the more you scattered the more they grew. Sinéad was out of bed in a second; the raiders must be back! She peered out her bedroom door. Kathleen was standing at the top of the stairs with the jug of hot water that she’d brought up for Mother, slopping it on people in her excitement as they hurried down to see what was going on. Sinéad, still in her night-shift, couldn’t follow them, so instead she ran barefoot across the room and up the spiral steps to the battlements where she leaned over. There below, emerging onto the meadow, were not exactly Kathleen’s hundreds and thousands, but a goodly stream of cattle.

‘How many?’ she called up to the watchman on the turret who was counting, a finger raised. He glanced down, saw the young mistress in her shift and quickly looked away. ‘Must be close on a hundred and fifty, miss.’

The lowing cattle spread out onto the now browned summer
grass, and the drovers delivered their last thumps and shouts. There were horsemen emerging from the forest. Sinéad leaned dangerously over the edge, searching to see if James was there. Had he managed to meet up with the raiders?
There he is!
and she gave a whoop of joy. But who was that on a pony beside him?
It can’t be! But look, it is! It’s Fion!
She put her fingers into her mouth and gave a whistle that would have brought Saoirse down from the gates of heaven. The boys, dismounted now, looked up as one, squinting against the light, arms over each other’s shoulders. They waved.
I can’t believe it – they’re back – friends!
Half-crying with relief and excitement, Sinéad threw herself down the stairs and was only prevented from haring all the way down by Kathleen catching her about the waist.

‘You can’t go down like that in your shift, you’re stark naked!’

‘I’m not naked,’ she protested, but her struggle was a mere token as Kathleen began to brush the night tangles out of her hair.

After her first rush of greeting the boys was over, and she had watched as they brushed down and stabled their ponies, word came that James was to attend on his father at once. He went off with a long face, expecting the full force of Father’s wrath for having joined the raid without permission.

‘We’ll be in the falconry,’ the others called, as they took themselves off to Fion’s private place in the loft. Sinéad watched Fion greet his falcon, whispering to her in a sort of mouth-music all his own, and she noticed how, as he moved about, he kept touching things as if to reassure himself that they were there and
that he was back. He climbed ahead of her into the loft and held the ladder as she climbed. As she emerged he touched her lightly on the cheek.

‘Just checking,’ he grinned. ‘You see, when I rode out of here with Uncle Hugh and Con that day I really thought I would never, ever come back.’

‘Tell me, Fion, what happened between you and James?’

Fion thought for a moment before saying, ‘Let’s wait till James comes back,’ and so they sat in silence, listening to the sounds of the village about them. Several times he seemed about to speak, but stopped. Eventually, looking at the floor, he said, ‘I hear you had a spot of bother … with a suitor?’

‘
Have
, not
had
. He’s not gone away!’ She began with the ‘beastly
bonham
’ joke, but that didn’t work; this wasn’t a joking matter. So in the end she just told him the story, not forgetting James’s public stand that she should be allowed to choose for herself whom she married. ‘It isn’t any good, though. It looks as though my accepting him may be the only way to save our castle and our land.’ She didn’t want to cry in front of Fion, but it was he who brushed the first tear from her cheek. It was almost a relief when there were sounds below, and they heard James’s voice talking to the falcons. Then they remembered he didn’t know about Fion’s hide-away up here.

‘We’re up here, James,’ she called. ‘Try the ladder in the corner.’

‘How was it?’ they asked in unison, as his head poked up through the trap door, and he looked around in surprise. Fion patted the bench beside him.

‘So this is where you used to hide from me,’ said James, punching amiably at Fion to make him move over. Sinéad watched
them.
This is like old times
. She crossed her fingers.

James took a deep breath. ‘Well, I got it hot and strong for going off on my own, and there were awkward questions about how I found out about the raid.’ Sinéad winced, but he laughed. ‘I told Father I got the information from the merchant, the one who brought me your note, so you can breathe again. That note you wrote me was great – told me everything I needed to know. I think Father’s glad, really, that I showed some initiative. He’s looking to thank you, Fion, and Uncle Hugh, of course.’

‘When do we drive the cattle out?’ Fion asked.

‘Father wants to hold on to them for a bit. Chichester’s allowing Bonmann to recruit a force of his own to watch this side of the county, and Father’s damned if he’ll hand over our cattle just to feed Bonmann’s private army.’

‘If we want fair play from them, you know, we should pay our dues,’ commented James.

No change in James’s politics then
, thought Sinéad, and steered the conversation away. ‘So, the
bonham
is still around!’ she said as casually as she could. ‘What does he want an army for?’

‘Father says he’s just an adventurer like Sir Walter Raleigh, grabbing land for himself in the king’s name. We need law and order, not him.’

‘Well, at least he isn’t after
me
!’

‘Don’t you believe it,’ chuckled James. ‘He’s just waiting to shake the tree so’s you’ll drop into his hands like a ripe apple!’

She winced and noticed that Fion didn’t join in his chuckle. ‘For that, James, you can tell me what happened between you and Fion. You went away swearing death and destruction, and now come back
like two turtle doves. And what happened to your shoulder, James? I’m not blind, you know.’

Turn by turn they told her, correcting and reminding each other as they went, clearly excited at re-living what had happened.
I’d need to be a boy to understand this,
she thought.

‘You two poor eejits,’ she said when they’d finished. ‘Come here, James, and let me look at that shoulder of yours.’ She examined it in a shaft of light that came through a broken slate in the falconry roof. ‘It looks clean and healthy. I’ll ask Old Eileen for an ointment you can put on it.’

‘That witch?’ objected James.

‘Call her that, and she’ll turn you into a frog!’ snapped Sinéad.

The ointment, made from marsh woundwort, soon cleared the angry edges of the wound, and it healed well.

August was stepping aside for September. The trees, looking tired, would soon take on their autumn colours. The cattle had eaten the grass to a dust bowl, and there was change in the air. Sinéad kept her eyes on the boys; their differences had not gone away. There would be flare-ups, like tongues of flame in gorse, but as quickly as they showed, one of them would throw water on the flames and their squabble would die down. They went everywhere together, and though they never turned her away, Sinéad found herself thinking a little bitterly:
They don’t really need me, now, do they? My future’s all mapped out. First clean me up, then dress me up, and then marry me off to some rich suitor. I could elope, but who would want to
elope with me?

One late summer’s day, deep in gloomy thought, she left the boys and wandered out across the meadow, and so was there at the very moment when a line of three horsemen burst from the forest edge, at the very place where Con had emerged over a month ago. As she watched, one of them, a boy, spurred ahead and came pounding directly towards her.

For a wild moment she thought this was, indeed, young Con. He had Con’s crouch, even though he had his feet in long, Norman stirrups. When he saw her, he pulled his pony’s head up, leaning far back in his saddle, feet thrust forward.

‘Welcome, stranger,’ she called.

‘Mistress, I have an urgent message for Sir Malachy de Cashel.’

‘You have come to the right place.’

‘Oh good. Excuse me, miss, but are you from the castle?’

‘Sinéad de Cashel at your service,’ she smiled, bobbing a curtsy. Now that his pony had settled, she realised why she had thought of Con; he was a replica of the boy, but older, about a year younger than she was. He slipped from his pony and held out his hand, English fashion.

‘I’m John O’Neill, son of Hugh O’Neill, the Earl of Tyrone,’ he said. ‘I have a secret message for your father, but you’ll do.’ Sinéad wasn’t sure if this was a compliment, but the lad was hastening on, clearly remembering instructions that he had learned by heart. ‘There are only three people I am allowed to tell: Sir Malachy de Cashel, my cousin Fion, and Sir Malachy’s daughter, Sinéad.’

‘Well, you’ve found me,’ she said, turning to walk beside him. ‘But shouldn’t you tell it to Father first?’

‘Oh no, I am to tell the first one of you I see, then if something happens to me the message will be safe.’

Sinéad, amused, scanned the field for the bull, the only possible hazard she could think of, but then decided not to tease the boy. For all his self-importance, she could see that his message was like a hot coal in his hands. ‘Very wise,’ she said. ‘You can tell Father later.’

The boy, relieved, took a deep breath: ‘I am to tell you that Father’s at Mellifont Abbey at this moment. He’s a guest of Sir Garret Moore, who’s been my foster father for five years now.’

Sinéad nodded.
Hence the courtly behaviour
, she thought, but said, ‘I have heard Uncle Hugh talk of Sir Garret as a dear friend.’

‘Oh, the best. But even Sir Garrett does not know what I am about to tell you.’ He dropped his voice and glanced around suspiciously at the cows; they weren’t listening. ‘Two days ago Father got word that a ship had arrived in Rathmullan in County Donegal to take us all to Spain. When he gets there, he will raise a Spanish army to hunt the English out of Ireland.’