Rose of the Mists (46 page)

“Mercenaries, you mean. You have fallen far, Reade. Once you were among the queen’s finest. Now you fight with the scum of the earth at your back. Have you spent a single comfortable night among them?” He saw John glance at Meghan and misinterpreted the look. Stepping forward to shield her from Reade’s glare, he said with clenched teeth, “If you’ve even touched her, I will kill you.”

John’s laughter rang out. “By God! That’s good! That witch, I’d not lay a hand on her for all the treasure in Dublin. She’s cursed me and she’ll curse you if you take her back. She kills every man she snares with her sluttish charms. Ask Colin MacDonald or Sir Robin Neville.”

“That’s a lie!” Meghan protested, struggling to be free, but Piers held her firmly.

Revelin ignored her. “Robin is dead?”

John nodded once. “She corrupted him to the point that he took up arms against the queen’s own. He deserved a sword in the belly.”

“You name yourself a liar to call Carew’s rabble the queen’s men,” Piers roared over Meghan’s head.

“You killed Robin,” Revelin suggested.

John grinned. “Perhaps I did. That popinjay, that priggish fop, he dared to wield a blade against me!”

Revelin glared at Reade. If Robin had taken up arms, it was to protect Meghan, and that made Robin’s death his fault.

He had asked Robin to look after Meghan while she remained in Dublin. Robin had obviously come to Kilkenny to be with her.

Alison’s insistence that Robin was in love with Meghan, and that she carried his child, came back to sting him like a bee. He could well believe that Robin had fallen in love with Meghan and that he would protect her with his life. Robin had thought himself a coward in Ulster, but he had been brave when it counted.

“Ho! Carew!” Piers hailed and set Meghan on her feet. When the West Country man turned toward the call, Piers grinned. “We’ve company, Carew—company from Dublin with a message for you.”

Revelin did not look away from John. His sword was in his hand and he itched to finish what they had begun. “There will be another time,” he promised quietly.

John smirked. “At your service, lad.”

Revelin nodded slightly and replaced his blade. First things first. He turned to his host with a bland smile.

“Sir Peter Carew, I presume? I am Sir Revelin Butler. You have a number of my relatives as your prisoners. I would like to discuss that with you.”

*

Sir Peter Carew regarded the young man before him with amazement tempered with caution as they shared a meal. With his bright golden head, Revelin Butler was like a canary among his raven-haired uncles who flanked him.

Peter scratched his beard as his eyes moved back and forth between the Butlers. Never in his wildest dreams of glory or his darkest nightmares had he thought to capture the three brothers of the earl of Ormond. He had meant only to teach them a lesson, that he was not a man to be trifled with. The sack of Kilkenny was like a nightmare acted out before his eyes. He could not have stopped it any more than he could now turn tail and run back to Idrone as he longed to do. The
promise of riches and titled estates had become ashes in his mouth these last weeks. He had no prosperous barony in Ireland. He had full-scale war on his hands. He needed a way out. Yet, it must be one that would not leave him with less than he had before he began.

He envied the youngest Butler. Here was a young man with looks, breeding, and the self-assurance that came with a long line of noble ancestors. That was what he wanted for the generations of Carews who would come after him. More than riches he wanted his family’s name to command the respect and loyalty that the Butlers claimed as their birthright.

“Have you read the letter?” Revelin questioned when he realized that Carew would not make the first move.

“Aye, I read it, and little enough it says,” Carew replied irritably.

“I was told it called upon you to act with discretion and reserve as regards your differences with my kinsmen.”

Carew gave Revelin a sharp look. “It says nothing about me giving up my claim to Idrone. I’ll not stand idly by while degenerate English nobles who dress and speak as common clansmen run riot over my land.”

Sir Edmund rose to his feet, his face flushing. “Degenerate? Who are you to call another degenerate, you thieving, conniving, base-born son of a country knight!”

“You call me that, you sorry excuse for an Englishman?”

Carew heaved himself up, but he was encumbered by the weight of his armor breastplate and Sir Edmund easily tipped him backward with a shove. “That for you, you ne’er-do-well! Give me a sword and let’s make an end to this!”

Revelin looked from one red-faced man to the other and knew that unless he acted quickly, a duel would take place that might tip the balance of restraint and turn the camp into a bloodbath. He stood up. “If this is your pleasure, then I fail to understand why you did not simply wait for the fair in Enniscorthy on Great Lady Day to face each other as combatants. Two men of your stature deserve an audience worthy of your exertions.”

Revelin spoke lightly, but his face was tense until he saw the light of mischief twinkle in his uncle’s eye. “The fair,” Sir Edmund repeated. He looked at the short, stout West Countryman and smiled. “You fancy yourself a knight, Sir Peter? You should attend one of our degenerate Irish fair days and test your mettle.”

Sir Peter spat on the ground. “I’ve tested the mettle of the Butlers and ’tis like slicing butter with me sword.”

Sir Edmund shook his manacled fists at Sir Peter. “If there were no chains binding me, you’d find yourself hard put to utter those words!”

Sir Peter looked about, roaring, “Where’s the key? Free and arm the blackguard!”

At the call for arms, Carew’s soldiers began to gather in noisy anticipation of a fight.

“Before you resort to hacking each other to death,” Revelin inserted calmly into the fracas, “allow me to put a question to each of you. Uncle Edmund, if you should kill Sir Peter, how will you explain your position to the queen’s Parliament which acted in favor of Sir Peter against you? Will they not conclude that you resorted to outright murder to achieve your goal of ridding yourself of an enemy?”

“I would not call it murder when a man’s armed against me,” Sir Edmund maintained.

Laughter erupted at his elbow. “Think again, brother,” said Sir Piers. “I say ’tis like murder to fight a man weighted down less by the armor on his back than the stones in his head!”

Piers’s joke drew appreciative laughter from the company of men, and Revelin began to relax. Looking about earlier, he had realized that most of Carew’s force was Irish. Now he saw a method of using that fact to his advantage. The Irish prized a man’s wit above nearly every other virtue, and Carew was a dull, slow-witted foreigner.

“Sir Peter, I now put a question to you. If you should kill
my uncle—it is a possibility, Edmund,” he added at his uncle’s snort of derision. “If, Sir Peter, you kill the brother of the earl of Ormond, how will you explain to the queen, who counts the earl of Ormond as the most loyal of her Irish subjects and a man well loved in this land? Will the queen think kindly of a man who set the torch to the wick of rebellion in Ireland?”

Sir Peter glared at Revelin. “If what you say it true,’tis no doing of mine. I’m only protecting what was given me by right of law!”

“Damned English thievery, you mean!” Piers jeered. “You took lands set aside for widows and orphans. You’re taking the bread out of the mouths of babes, and pleased to be doing it, you fat sot!”

“Sot, am I? Fool, am I? Thief, am I? Then where does that leave you, my fine Butlers, seeing as you’re prisoners of a thieving, sodden fool?”

Revelin swallowed his inclination to smile as new laughter filtered through the crowd. Perhaps he had underestimated Carew. Yet, as he eyed the condition of his relatives he could not help but notice that in spite of the enmity between Sir Peter and Sir Edmund, Sir Peter had not subjected his prisoners to any ill treatment that might later be held against him. One might almost say he was reluctant, nay, regretful that he had gathered this august host of hostages.

Revelin sighed inwardly. If this farce had not resulted in such tragic consequences, it would be laughable. But there were so many deaths, so much destruction; all because one misguided man had more pride than sense. Yet, one might suspect that Sir Peter would give anything—but loss of pride—to rid himself of the Butlers.

Black Tom had once told Revelin that he could have a brilliant future as a diplomat. This seemed the appropriate moment to test that. After all, Meghan was safe.

Revelin glanced at her and away. No, he must not think about her yet, when Robin’s death was so fresh in his mind. Later, when he could think rationally, he would think of Meghan.

“I wonder, given a moment’s reflection, if the Butlers and the Carews might come to a mutual agreement.” Revelin turned to Sir Peter. “What exactly do you hope to gain by marching my kinsmen to and fro through Kilkenny County?”

“I would rid myself of them gladly,” Sir Peter pronounced, “would they give their word that they would leave quietly and return to their homes, there to plague me no more.”

Revelin turned to his uncles. “Is this true? Have you been offered clemency?”

Edmund turned away but Piers nodded. “Aye, he talks of oaths of surrender and pledges of not taking up arms against him, but I’ll nae surrender on me own land to anyone, be he Irish, English, or the Devil himself!”

Revelin began to see the light. “But an agreement to part company is preferable to a lengthy stay in the dungeon of Idrone?”

Accepting his uncles’ begrudging nods, Revelin turned his attention once more to Carew. “Sir Peter, it seems to me that you could do no better than to show your largess by freeing your enemies. The queen, I’m certain, would be impressed by that act. Only a man of great stature can afford so magnanimous a gesture. As for the folk of Kilkenny, what action would better convince them that you mean them no real harm than the release of their masters?”

Sir Peter scratched his chin. “You’ve a glib tongue for so pretty a face, boy. Yet your words make sense.”

Indeed they did, he thought. He was cramped by circumstance and strapped financially by the exorbitant cost of his war. He knew he could expect no help from the Crown treasury. He had promised to subjugate his Irish holdings and turn a profit. So far, he had seen what little he owned go up in smoke as war ravaged his new home.

His eyes narrowed on his hostages. “I would have something back for me trouble. A hundred pounds for the freedom of each hostage!”

Edmund and Piers reared to their feet with vocal protests, but, Revelin noted uneasily, Edward did not. In fact, Edward had contributed nothing to the conversation; but there was a black anger in his gaze that was more forbidding than Edmund’s insults and Piers’s wicked humor. Trouble there, Revelin decided, but put it aside.

“…I’ll have your heads!” Sir Peter roared back in answer to the final insult hurled at him and drew his sword.

“We were speaking of clemency,” Revelin reminded him smoothly, moving to stand between his chained uncles and Carew’s blade. “You’ve the gold and silver of Kilkenny. Let that be the price of your hostages. You defiled a church, man!”

Sir Peter fell back before the accusation. “I did not! My troops overran me. I did not touch a single piece of church plate!”

“Then let them go,” Revelin demanded.

Sir Peter looked from one Butler to another, nervously gnawing his lip. He was a man of action, not decision making. Bloodletting was one thing. Negotiations of state were beyond him. He wanted nothing more than to return to Idrone. “If I grant you clemency, you’ll swear not to attack me?”

“Are you afeard we’ll sneak back within an hour and throttle you?” Piers jeered.

“Do you give your word?” Revelin questioned impatiently.

Piers shrugged. “Certainly. I’ll not waylay you, Carew. I’ve me family to see home.”

“Nor I,” Edmund seconded.

Edward did not answer, merely nodded a single time.

For the first time Revelin smiled. “Then it’s over.”

“Aye, for now,” Piers said ominously. He leaned closer to whisper in his nephew’s ear, “Only I wonder if Sir Peter has heard that parole is an idea little accepted here in Ireland.” He chuckled. “On the whole, the man’s a great deal to learn before he will be comfortable among us.”

Revelin did not answer that, for suddenly he wondered just
who was “one of us.” Was he one? He glanced at Meghan, who sat silently regarding him. Did he intend to become one?

When he raised his head again he saw Reade staring at him from the edge of the clearing. He rose and spoke quietly to Piers. “We’ll leave as soon as you can gather everyone together. In the meantime, look after the lass. She has a way of getting into trouble if she’s not watched.”

Piers regarded Revelin in surprise until he saw the direction of his gaze. He reached out and touched his nephew’s arm. “Don’t let the fire in your blood rule your head, lad. He’s a bruiser but he lacks style. He won’t last long.”

Meghan watched with alarm as Revelin strode toward John. She cried out and Piers clapped a hand over her mouth but it was too late. Immediately, a dozen
bonaghts
armed with axes and crossbows surrounded the two men.