The Irish Princess (4 page)

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Authors: Karen Harper

Tags: #Ireland, #Clinton, #Historical, #Henry, #Edward Fiennes De, #General, #Literary, #Great Britain - History - Henry VIII, #Great Britain, #Elizabeth Fiennes De, #Historical Fiction, #Princesses, #Fiction, #1509-1547, #Princesses - Ireland, #Elizabeth

BOOK: The Irish Princess
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A shiver snaked up my spine when I saw Thomas, his handsome face marred by a frown as he looked everyone over as if he would bid on a new horse at the fair. He stood off to the side, finely arrayed in half armor and a rich green surcoat, one booted foot upon the elevated dais with the two carved chairs set under the crimson-and-white silken banner with the Fitzgerald crest. Thomas had soundly smacked Edward once for laughing at the chained ape upon the crest. We had all learned well the story of how a tamed ape had once preserved the Geraldine line by snatching the infant son of Maurice Fitzgerald, a thirteenth-century Earl of Kildare, from his crib during a fire.
But, Father had said, the ape then dangled the baby over the parapet of the castle. Father said the story should warn us that one who seemed our savior one moment might turn to traitor, though we could trust the Lord Jesus himself and Mother Mary. And, I always added silently, certainly Saint Brigid of Kildare, whom Magheen said watched over us all. Ah, I could recite entire prayers to Saint Brigid, the saint of healing and fertility and protector of unwed maids, my favorite prayer to her being,
Saint Brigid, spread above my head your bright cloak for protection.
Little did I know then how much I would need that and how much she would betray me.
An expectant hush fell that day in the great hall as Father and Mother came in and took their high-backed, ornately carved chairs. In the hush of concern and anxiety, Father stood and motioned Thomas closer to him.
“The king of England, His Majesty Henry the Eighth by grace of God,” Father’s voice rang out, echoing . . .
I dared for one moment to think we would have a royal visit. Or surely the king had not died and left his kingdom with no heir but a daughter, Mary, whom my mother had once attended before her marriage. Besides, King Henry had dared a divorce—hardly popular in Ireland—and to wed a Protestant. Now everyone awaited the birth of his hoped-for son by that second queen, the seducer and shrew Anne Boleyn.
“. . . has summoned me to England to give account of my duties here and in the Pale,” Father announced. “The king is most displeased that I have seen fit to move his ordnance and armaments from Dublin Castle to be stored here at Maynooth, which I believe is my right, and sound judgment too.” He cleared his throat, suddenly looking nervous instead of confident. “I am praying,” he added after a pause, “that I will not be detained in England, as has happened before, while I explain my strategies and rights to the king and his chief minister, Thomas Cromwell.”
Twice Father had been held against his will while answering such a summons, but then I’d heard him jest that he would never have met either of his lady wives had he not been kept about the court there. Before any of us were born, he had been years away at times, as if King Henry held him hostage for the Pale’s good behavior.
“Is Mother going too? All of us?” Gerald whispered beside me as we watched Father draw Thomas closer to his side.
“And so, in my absence, I am naming my heir, Thomas Fitzgerald, Lord Offaly, as deputy governor of Ireland, and overseer of all Geraldine affairs.”
“Oh, no,” Edward muttered at my other side. “He’ll order us about and slap us too.”
“Sh!” Cecily hissed.
Thomas made a flowery speech about how he would uphold Geraldine pride while Father was away and keep us all safe from outsiders. I suppose he meant the Gaels beyond the Pale, but he might have actually meant the English too. Everyone listened raptly, including one man I saw shaking his head. It was Christopher Paris, our foster brother—not because he was adopted but because he had been fostered out to our family by his own.
Fosterage was one way, Magheen had told me plain, that powerful families kept the loyalty and control over lesser ones, who then owed them money and fighting men. Foster brothers were treated as family members, for the relationship was an honored and almost sacred one. Christopher was nearly thirty, older even than Thomas, and had been with the Fitzgeralds long before I was born. He was the constable of Maynooth Castle, with the duty to keep us supplied and safe. But I knew he had dared protest to Father that the extra firepower on the premises made Maynooth less safe, not more, though I had not the vaguest notion how he could reason thus.
As both Father and Thomas spoke, I saw Mother’s lower lip quiver. She blinked back tears and kept her head held high, so I did too. All of us, but my dear Margaret, of course, soon swelled the hall with the shouted battle cry that Thomas, soon to be deputy of Ireland in Father’s stead, himself led:
A Geraldine! A Geraldine!
 
Father summoned each of us children to him separately that evening, in order of our birth. Mother sat beside him in his favorite room, the library, which boasted one hundred and twelve fine volumes or manuscripts in Latin and, of course, mostly Irish or English on all sorts of subjects. With the college he had founded and this library, Father hoped to raise the level of education in our land. We had oft sat at our lessons in this room. The library was a special place, for it housed in a filigreed silver box
The Red Book of Kildare
, a precious family heirloom kept current regarding our history and lists of land and household possessions and the names and records of those loyal to the cult of Kildare, as Christopher Paris had called it once.
As I approached the door to the library, I heard Father telling Mother in the sweetest voice, “Bessie, Bessie, my love. This too shall pass, and I will be back home before you know it. I’ve dealt with Henry Tudor before.”
“But I’ve seen him turn on those he once favored. The years I served the princess Mary—before she was declared bastard and exiled from court and his affections—he had coddled her, favored her, even spoiled her.”
I knocked and was bidden to enter. The room was lit by a large lantern and several candles; their flames flickered as I passed. I knelt before Father for his blessing, as I had done many a night before bed. Dry-eyed but pale, Mother clasped her hands hard together and bit her lower lip. I bent my head and closed my eyes.
“My dear, quick, and bright Elizabeth, our Gera,” he said as his big hand rested on my head before he lifted my chin so I looked up at him. “Never forget the proud heritage of the Fitzgeralds, who stand tall for all Ireland. Guard your tongue and your maidenhood over the years, for you will be the beauty of us all, the best of those who have come before. Rise now, child, for you must never give obeisance to anyone but the Kildare earls—and to the Tudor kings, of course. Never forget that if only Ireland could truly be for the Irish, you would be an Irish princess, and worthy of the title.”
He said all that in a rich, soothing voice but for the mention of the Tudor kings, and then his words were bitter, like nettle juice curdling milk.
“Obey your mother and help with the others,” he continued. “When you are able, protect those less fortunate and blessed than we. And pray God I will be home soon, before all the rogues in Ireland come knocking on Maynooth’s door to court you.”
He smiled as he said that, his teeth flashing white against his brown beard and mustache before he got a bit of a coughing fit. I thought he would dismiss me then, but as I curtsied and turned reluctantly to go, he seized my wrist and pulled me to sit on his knees in a hard hug. He smelled of wind and forests and freedom.
“There,” he said with a kiss on each of my cheeks as he held my face between his huge hands. “Bessie,” he told my mother, “I know you think she favors your family, but she’s a russet-haired, green-eyed Fitzgerald through and through.” As I got to my feet again, his voice broke into what we always called “the brogue.” In a way it was our family’s second, secret language. “Ay, I’ll be telling meself while I’m away, ’tis sure as rain our Gera be doing us proud; there’s no denying it.” The speaker’s voice always lilted through the words and went up at the end as if asking a question, and I had a hundred questions I dared not ask that night.
My feet felt like stone as I walked away. Father’s voice was hoarse and almost breathless as he gave the old Gaelic farewell, “
Go raibh maith agat
,” which meant, “May it go well with you.” At the door to the library, I looked back at them, holding hands, but with their eyes still shiny on me. I forced a smile and made a jaunty wave. But I would have screeched like a banshee had I known I’d never see my father again.
 
CHAPTER THE THIRD
 
I
t was but a month later that the next stone fell from the protective wall Father had built around us. It was high summer, and the rain had stopped for once. Magheen and I, with two armed
galloglass
trailing us as always, were riding back from Maynooth village, where her sister lived, wed to a cobbler. We rode sidesaddle, of course, as was proper, though I’d have liked to mount like a man and ride like the wind. Riding fast and sailing—the loves of my life, and I a mere colleen.
I recall that it had recently struck me—for I daresay I was a precocious child both in body and brain—that the village of Maynooth was more than just a forest and a field away. By that I mean its merchants, smiths, and shepherds seemed aeons back in time. The village folk still left milk out at night for the little people, scraped hoarfrost from the fields to cure headaches, nailed horseshoes at their thresholds, and fell on their knees before a new moon, however staunch attendees of Mass they were. Holy wells abounded, with pennies and pieces of metal tied with scraps of rag dangling above them, some the little people had supposedly dug, so what was really holy and what old pagan practices? Slowly, I knew, the power of the Fitzgeralds would bring even the poor folk to prosperity and peace.
“Mother of God,” Magheen cried, crossing herself as she pointed ahead at a wolf that slunk across the road from the beech forest up ahead. Our mounts shied, but we calmed them. “Bad luck, and that’s for certain,” she muttered. Magheen always pronounced
mother
as if it were
mither.
She was full of old folktales too, which could entrance me for hours. Cecily had no use for such but was always sneaking chivalric romances, which she had been forbidden to read until she was at least twelve. So Gerald would not tat-tale on her, she bribed him with her share of sweets.
I was grateful I had not brought my wolfhound, Wynne, today, for he would chase a wolf until he dropped. “Bad luck only if the wolf is hungry,” I said, “though he looked beset too.”
“Too, aye,” she said, crossing herself again, and, shaking her head, added, “and the leprechauns in the ditch have gone silent.”
I knew she meant the frogs, but I wondered what had affrighted them, for they oft croaked day and night this time of year. It was as if something dire floated in the morning mists off the rye field. Yet we saw no more wolves in the stretch of forest, and soon the gray stone tower of the castle came into view. As we turned up the lane, Edward came running toward us across the lawn, scattering the sheep cropping grass.
“He’s in the Tower!” he shouted, gesturing like a windmill with one arm as if we were to hie ourselves inside. “Father’s in the Tower!”
“Oh,” I said, bursting into tears of relief, “he’s come home! No wonder we didn’t hear from him. He was busy telling the English king to mind his realm and let us alone, and then he had to catch a ship to hurry home.”
I had dismounted and turned to run into the castle when Edward grabbed my arm and spun me back. I saw his tears were not ones of joy but of terror. “No, sister,” he said. “I mean Father’s in the Tower of London, where the crown criminals go and sometimes get their heads cut off, so I heard Thomas say.”
I gasped. Thomas was here. And Father locked away like some wretched traitor in a deadly place. Mother had told us about the Tower of London when she’d explained how large and impressive that city was. I tore inside and took the stairs up to the solar two at a time. Mother’s voice, strident and sure, not broken as I had expected, mingled with our half brother Thomas’s angry tones.
“I can help by going to the English royal court, I tell you,” Mother argued as I hesitated just outside the solar door. “I have contacts there, the Greys, especially my brother, Lord Leonard.”
“Father had intimates there too, and what did it get him?”
“But I’m the king’s second cousin by blood—”
“Blood—that’s what they’re after,” he interrupted, but she went on.
“Thomas, I’m pure English too, so mayhap they will listen to me. How dare they say Garrett Og, Earl of Kildare, grows too powerful! He needs to be strong if he is to keep the Gaels at bay and control the Pale. He’s helping Ireland, not harming it!”

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