Chapter Eleven
A Lion’s Den
Aedan, October 21, 1564–January 14, 1565, Ulster, Ireland/London, England
October 21, 1564, Ulster, Ireland
His Neave had beentesting his patience. She’d gotten into her head that his trip was foredoomed and prattled endlessly of ill portents, maligned dreams, and ominous premonitions. Owing to the ordeal with that blasted Würger, Aedan had delayed his travels by a fortnight, and each day, he jested, cajoled, and reasoned with her—to no avail.
He’d grown weary. Would she hold that monstrous raid over him for the rest of eternity? His designs were near to perfect. He had thought of everything with minute precision this time—no impetuousness, no recklessness, no mulishness. By God, he took four damn years to settle this trip. He was bringing none, save himself, of hostage value. And was the queen so ill-advised as to make him into a martyr? Besides, he was to be accompanied by his English-loving cousin, the Earl of Kildare, along with fifty of his deadliest gallowglasses. Ready to concede peace for the recovery of his Pale lands and the withdrawal of the English from Ulster—as well to apprise the queen of her lord deputy’s, Baron Rykeworth of Sussex, flagrant theft.
Would his Neave have him squander all this for a few ill portents?
It was the night before his departure, but she turned away when he sought her soft warmth. He stroked her hair, lost for words—she’d never denied him hitherto. “My Neave—”
She trembled in reply, sobbing into her pillow.
“This won’t do.” He couldn’t soften the edge in his voice. “A damn wake for a living man.”
“Stay, my Aedan.” She didn’t turn to face him.
At dawn, she feigned sleep as he dressed—eyes shut tight, hands clenched into small fists. Would she send him off to the Tudor court without so much as a farewell?
He sat beside her on the bed and pressed his lips to hers, sealed and dry. “I’ll have your blessing before I depart, a mhuirnín.”
She opened her eyes, red and swollen. “Stay, my Aedan.”
He straightened, his cup suddenly overfull. “I leave now.” His voice was a low rumble of a man pushed too far. “With or without your blessing.”
She sat up, chin trembling, eyes pleading. “I beg you, a chroí, don’t go.”
“My Neave, for the thousandth time—” He scraped a hand over his face, drew a loud breath through his nose. “These are matters of state and policy—”
“Policy!” Her gaze clung to his, voice dropped into a hot whisper. “I tell you, my Aedan, I saw the portent—”
He shot to his feet, heartbeat pounding in his ears. “God’s bones! Thank heavens I’ll be spared this endless blubbering henceforth!” He spat before slamming the door shut behind him.
He’d ridden half a league when his mind flooded with the images of her lovely eyes swimming with blue, wee nose pink with anguish, soft lips swollen with weeping. His stomach knotted, heavy as the rain-leaden clouds above. How could he have left her that way?
Aedan swallowed against the ache in his throat. Forgive me for abandoning you again, a rún. I’ll return, I swear it on our children’s lives.
Why hadn’t he said that instead of storming out like a damn fool?
***
October 28, 1564, London, England
Despite the talk, thequeen was a woman. Aedan knew it by the soft swoop of her bony body and the flutter of her sparse, colorless lashes as his lips touched the warming skin of her hand. Desire rushed through her—but not through him—as he kept his mouth pressed to her sharp fingers, scoffing inwardly at her quickening pulse. Beneath the cold facade, calculating mind, and metallic voice was a woman, yearning to be loved, adored, and taken in a fit of passion. And the man self-tasked with such endeavors was Earl of Leicester—with his arms of a woman and eyes of a weasel.
The court—a long, torch-lit hall—was thick as lice with jeering attendants. He ignored the hushed whispers, the rustle of skirts, the suppressed gasps, the conspicuous sighs.
“Savages. Do they dye their tunics in urine? And look upon their hair—scandalous! And his hair is so long. His cock is even longer, they say. The Irish like their rulers unbridled and depraved. How his eyes gleam with menace. No, with lust! Oh, but he is handsome. So strong. And tall—so tall. How he carries himself. More than a man! A great lover, they say. Ah, he is a true prince. No, a knight of the times past!”
Kildare said the queen would be wanting a spectacle of submission to stay her puissance. A woman’s fancy.
Brow lifted, Aedan had gone down on one knee and brought his lips to her proffered hand. Their eyes met—and caught, and he kept his steady, arrogant gaze on her. A steel-blue arrow that made every woman swoon, even his Neave.
“The O’Neal comes as an ally, Your Grace,” he murmured, making his voice into a velvety female daydream. “In hopes of receiving a favor and conferring one.”
Her pulse beat a soft drumbeat against his lips.
“Your words are soothing to us, the O’Neal.” A catch in her breath was too faint to be noticed by those standing a respectful distance away. “As is your presence at our court, at last. You make an arresting figure, my Prince of Ulster.”
Her heartbeat picked up the pace.
“Your words would conciliate the wildest barbarian, Your Grace.” He brought his voice to a near whisper, his gaze trained on her pinched, pasty face. “As would your gentle charms.”
The queen took her hand away and made a dismissive motion with her chin. He rose, brought up short by her eerily familiar expression—an entirely unfemale stare of insurmountable strength, haughty pride, and veiled malice.
He clenched his jaw, pushing away a spike of unease. By God, I’ve met my match.
“The Prince of Ulster will dine with us at our pleasure.” The queen didn’t favor him with another look.
***
November 28–December 12, 1564, London, England
The queen had canceledtheir meal, citing pressing affairs. A fortnight went by, then another. She’d not mentioned the supper again.
Aedan paced from wall to wall in the small house allotted him as living quarters. By God, wasn’t his visit a pressing affair? Didn’t the queen herself send him coy letters while his army ravaged the Pale and pulled all of Ulster under his rule? Time crawled as he waited, waited, waited. Did she think he, the Prince of Ulster, would linger in this blasted place for all eternity, awaiting the pleasure of her unpleasant company?
Since his arrival, he saw the queen four times, always accompanied by her despicable courtiers—the stooped Sir William Cecil, the portly Sir Nicholas Bacon, the cold-eyed Sir Walsingham, the cunning Earl of Leicester, the dull Earl of Pembroke. A hostage to their unceasing probing, jesting, and sophistry, he’d not exchanged a word with the woman herself.
His patience was running out. He was a chieftain and a fighting man, not a damn courtier.
“My clan lands in the Pale, Lord Cecil—” he’d begun at the last of their tedious meetings.
“Aye, pretty lands they are, my lord. That pact signed by your father and His Majesty Henry VIII—graciously accept our regrets—does not appoint you a successor.”
Aedan scoffed, his face tight and hard. Would they stoop so low as to revive those old affairs with his late half-brother, Coilin?
The queen watched, still and mute, her bloodless mouth a thin, straight line.
He steeled himself. “I’ve not traveled to London to enlighten you on the Irish laws of tanistry, Lord Cecil.”
Bacon coughed. “Your Spanish and French treaties... You see, my lord, they’re not what we’d call favorable to peace between our two countries. Not with their pledged military aid in the event of an attack on Ulster—not that we’d fancy any such thing now that we’re friends.”
Aedan shot to his feet, glowering at the queen. “The peace between our two countries will be but a passing fancy lest I’m granted a private audience with Her Majesty soon!”
Next day, he sent Kildare to the court—the man ought’ve come to some use. Aedan’s message was a hard ultimatum: The O’Neal would talk to the queen in private or return to Ulster to redouble his military efforts.
Infinities later, his cousin entered the house’s pitiful great hall, prancing and squirming. “Her Majesty has not given you leave, Aedan.”
Aedan tightened his fists. “I’ve a safety guarantee, signed by the bitch herself!”
Since boyhood, Kildare had a nasty habit of shifting his gaze sideways when overcome with nervousness or fright.
“I’m but a messenger, cousin.” His eyes darted to the settee by the wall. “Her Majesty would grant safe passage when it’s her pleasure to do so.”
Ears pounding like the beat of the bodhrán, Aedan shoved the bastard out of his way and marched straight to the stables. An hour later, he entered Greenwich in the company of ten gallowglasses and demanded audience with the queen, else he’d be heading back to Ulster outright. After two hours of pacing, cursing, and drinking the piss the English called wine, he was taken to see her at last. But the guard shook his head when his men followed behind.
“Her Majesty would see you alone, my lord.”
Every word out of the English mouths was twisted. He was alone, to be sure, but the queen wasn’t. The many-windowed hall with the long table in the middle was filled with every one of her blasted courtiers. The woman herself sat at the head on her high-backed throne.
“My dearest Lord O’Neal.” Cecil, smiled up at him like a shy maiden. “Her Majesty is pleased to grant audience—you only need ask. Her greatest wish is same as yours—peace between England and Ulster—to which end she would bestow generous concessions. First, she’ll relieve Lord Rykeworth of his station and replace him with a lord deputy who harbors no ill will against your person. Second, she’ll put an end to the raids against Ulster. And third, she’ll bequeath on you the coveted title of Earl II of Tyrone.”
Aedan glowered, nostrils flaring. “I’ve no use for fancy titles, but replace Rykeworth with another? Surely, you jest my lord—the Pale’s lands belong to Ireland.”
He turned his blazing gaze on the queen. Her face was a narrow mask of white with indecipherable lashless eyes.
“Aye, Her Majesty is as generous as she is graceful,” Walsingham purred in his silken tones. “Now, on to the small matter of your concessions, Lord O’Neal. Her Majesty asks only that you cease all violence against the Pale, sign a free trade treaty with England, and wed a lovely, young countess to seal our new friendship.”
Aedan met the queen’s unblinking, colorless gaze. “So the English would flood Ulster and seize all trade and manufacture while I surrender my treaties with Spain and France? Would you accept such a concession were you in my place, Majesty?” Aedan didn’t dignify the offer of a wife with a reply.
Bacon inclined his head. “Are we to assume you agree to the other two?”
“The raids into the Pale will cease when it’s free of the English rule,” Aedan rumbled, his plate overfull. “As for marrying, I am wed, Lord Bacon.”
The queen’s voice pierced the hall like a steel arrow. “Surely, Ireland being the land of frivolous divorce and unabashed adultery, the O’Neal wouldn’t allow something as negligible as marriage stand in the way of peace between our countries.”
Aedan rose, dizzy with the urge to shake sense into the mocking gall bitch.
“I’ll be setting off on the morrow. A pity Your Majesty has wasted time and coin.”
Leicester, who sat beside him, sprang to his feet, blocking Aedan’s way.
“So anxious to quit our fine company.” The queen’s voice rang thin with poorly suppressed delight. “But we’ve not given leave.”
Aedan’s heartbeat thudded in his ears like a hammer. “Your safety guarantee—”
“My Prince of Ulster.” The queen’s smile was a tight, pale worm. “As our guest, you visit at our pleasure.”
The air grew dense and stifling. His head thrummed with a sickening cacophony of soft growls and hisses, interspersed with contented sniffing and snorting. A stag he’d hunted in September locked eyes with him—two terrified pools of molten amber. You and I are the same now.
“As your prisoner!” The words erupted before he could stop them.
The queen wetted her lips. “We see no chains on you, my lord. Must the Irish always be so crude?”
Cecil shrugged his shoulders with a queer, slinking movement. “Lord O’Neal, Her Majesty is renowned for her hospitality. But when you find yourself pining for home, only say a word, and after signing our small treaty and marrying a lovely, young countess Her Majesty has personally chosen for you, you may have Her Majesty’s leave.”
Aedan clenched his fists, swaying with an insuppressible urge to break free from this cage.
Leicester bit off a hangnail he’d been toying with since the commencement of this well-orchestrated spectacle. “Of course, Her Majesty’s guests—being unacquainted with our English landscape and gastronomy besides... Well...” He made a dismissive motion with his hand. “They do occasionally suffer the most unfortunate accidents, Lord O’Neal. The longer they visit, typically.”
Aedan tightened his jaw to the point of pain, bright sparks flashing behind his eyes.
Pembroke, silent hitherto, gave him the warmest of smiles. “No need for haste, my lord. Think on Her Majesty’s offer and send us word with your resolution when it best suits you.”
He came face to face with Kildare as he staggered outside. Pale and somber, the man fell into step beside him, his voice a monotonous drone of a carefully practiced speech. “It would behoove you to accept their terms, cousin.” He scratched at his beard. “Your letters home...they pass through Cecil’s hands, you know. It’s unlikely they’ll reach their destination.”
Aedan rode back to the small house unseeing, his mind an ugly, mishappen blur of shattered grand illusions and dire missteps. Chest tight and dull, he stumbled past the entrance guard and shut the door in his face. Then he dropped into a chair and sank his head in his hands. Treacherous, conniving bastards. He ought’ve brought Michan with him—he needed the dean’s counsel like air.
Aedan shook himself and went to stand by the small window overlooking a cheerless gray courtyard. Countless armed sentries patrolled outside; dark outlines of the bell towers and lookout points rose in the distance, foreboding and conclusive.
You’ll be in grave danger, at her mercy.His Neave’s pleading voice reverberated in his every corner.
He squared his shoulders. This was no time for lament. Nor did he need Michan, for he could divine his advice—to flee this trap by any means and handle the damage from his power seat.
***
December 29, 1564–January 5, 1565, London, England
A fortnight thence, Aedan was well and truly the queen’s prisoner. Her guard kept flagrant watch outside his small house, trailed behind when he went out, stood sentinel at the stables. Sooner or later, he’d have to either concede or perish here, and perish he would not. Yet he delayed the inevitable, unable to come to terms with such senseless failure.
It was his last night’s ill vision that stirred him to action in the end. He’d been dreaming of home. Soft mist hugged the emerald hillside as he rode to Benburb, its tall, handsome walls rising in the distance. He stood at the entrance next, throwing open the door, gathering in his Neave with their wee daughter in her arms and their son at her side. But something wasn’t right. He swayed, cold all over—his arms were hugging an empty space. Then, the floor cracked beneath his feet. The cracks grew, spread, broadened into a dark, bottomless pit. Naught to grab onto, naught to tether him. He plummeted into the pit—a black void, brimming with misery. He grasped at his chest to curb the blood that burst from it, that rushed into the pit as he fell, fell, fell into it. As he crashed into the swarm of vicious, foul beasts that sank their claws, fangs, talons into him, ripping him to bleeding bits.
He sent Kildare to the queen soon as he woke, trembling and covered in cold sweat. He’d concede to the free trade treaty with England and cease violence against the Pale; he’d be setting off for home on the morrow.
Kildare returned at eventide, eyes cast to the side.
“Her Majesty won’t give leave lest you submit to all three concessions.” His cousin shrank back from Aedan’s icy glare. “She’d have this truce sealed with an English wife and heir, else what assurances has she you’ll not renege once you arrive in Ulster? I looked upon the lass, for she sat at her side, Aedan.” Kildare’s brows lifted with meaning. “The queen has chosen generously, indeed.”
In his mind’s eye, Aedan withdrew his sword from its scabbard and unburdened the Tudor bitch of her hideous head.
After Kildare took his leave, he raised his gaze heavenward, struggling to silence the wild clip inside his chest. His Neave would see it for a sham, wouldn’t she? Even if they hadn’t parted well, she’d know he’d not take such a step were it not for utter despair. The moment his foot touched the sweet Irish soil, he would divorce the English countess and wed his Neave again. As for the treaty and ceasing the raids, he had ten thousand gallowglasses under his command—
Hands clenched into heavy fists, Aedan stood very still, letting the familiar hot fury of the battle rage wash over him. Swift as lightning, it seized his mind, entered his life’s blood. He allowed it to course through him, then shoved it away. For now. Aye, he would cease the raids—after the final one. The English trade treaty would be of no concern after he’d razed the Pale to the ground.
Aedan sent his word of compliance the next day, but the queen made him wait another sennight. Now, he sat erect and mute in the many-windowed hall, the quill pricking his hand, the courtiers’ gazes hounding his slightest movement.
“We are pleased the O’Neal has chosen peace and policy.” The queen’s bloodless lips quivered with a smirk. “And what signifies peace better than an English-Irish heir to the Prince of Ulster? Your divorce has been sealed and sanctified, my lord. We delight in our new friendship with Ulster, at last.”
Aedan fixed her with a cold glare. It was his maleness she was punishing him for—his maleness that in her mind became synonymous with his insurgence. She was forever spurned by him without having given him a chance to spurn her. She’d make him pay for all the slights caused her by men like him. She would destroy him. How her eyes shone with triumph of catching, caging, and taming the lion. And she may have trapped him, but she would never tame him. One woman alone possessed the power to tame him, and sure as hell, it wasn’t this daughter of a painted harlot.
“Let us begin—” The queen shot a rapt look at the blank parchment before him, her metallic voice rending his soul in half. “As you are no longer my wedded wife and have no claim to my person nor property—”
Aedan put down the quill, heartbeat thudding in his ears.
The queen’s mouth stretched into a humorless smile. “Is the Prince of Ulster in need of writing aid?”
He scrubbed an icy hand over his face. Two days past, he sent his slightest gallowglass, shorn and dressed as an Englishman, with a letter to his Neave. In his mind’s eye, he saw her reading it, then he was back at Benburb, swinging her up into his arms, Ronan running toward him, wee Aine babbling happily with Betha. This farce mattered nothing. His Neave would hear it from him first.
He let his unseeing gaze linger on the queen before picking up his quill again.
“...by the time I return from London with my lawful wife, The Right Honorable Countess of Worcester—”
Aedan’s chest throbbed and burned. He crushed the quill in his hand, aching with the wild urge to bury it in the queen’s mocking face.
She wetted her lips. “Is the Prince of Ulster stumped writing in English?”
Cecil pushed a fresh quill toward him with utmost deference. “Take all the time you require, my lord. We are in no hurry.”
Heart hammering, Aedan shut his eyes. Over the course of a sennight he’d written half a dozen letters. Each met its end in the hearth. He hadn’t words to tell his Neave of such a thing. He swallowed bile, cold with sudden misgiving. Had he tarried too long to send his messenger? Still, if his messenger failed to reach Benburb in time, he would apprise her himself of their sham of a divorce and his farce of a marriage.
His vision flickered at the edges as he transcribed the queen’s filth onto the parchment. His mind raced like a wild steed. Black night, thorny thicket, falling off a rocky cliff.
The queen studied her ring before dictating the last line. “I rely on your good sense and proper decorum to act toward me with such deference and regard as befits my rank.”
The hall swayed. Aedan’s head pounded a furious drum roll, limbs grew numb and heavy.
He grabbed a flagon set before him and drank deep, replacing this foulness with the words from his own epistle: “A mhuirnín dílis, my own, I pray you receive this letter first. Another will soon be on the way—a filthy, obscene missive...”
The queen folded her arms with a wry glance at Bacon. “Does the Prince of Ulster need a respite from the unfamiliar exercise of writing?”
Aedan’s jaw cramped from having been clenched, but it mattered nothing now. He signed his name and hurled the parchment at the queen, missing her by a fingerbreadth.
Leicester stood with a look of menace, but she raised her hand to stop him.
“Give us some credit, Earl II of Tyrone. Your spirits will surely soar once you lay eyes upon your bride, for our gifts are generous indeed—she is a thing of beauty.”
***
January 14, 1565, London, England
“Those whom God hasjoined together, let no man separate.” The priest’s words hovered about, at once empty and full of meaning.
And none will, for I am wed to you in God’s sight, a mhuirnín. To you alone, always and forever.
Aedan staggered with drink at the altar, slurring his hollow vows, while his so-called bride, Lady Orella Courtney, hid beneath her veil. He couldn’t see much of her, save that she was slight.
She lay still now, pale as a sheet, eyes trained upon some invisible spot. The bedding ceremony was only the beginning of the poor girl’s trials, and the conclusion would be rejection and divorce. He compressed his lips. She was too young and too small. Alarmingly small. Her first time and with the queen’s sneering courtiers watching behind the gossamer curtain.
Damn it all to hell.This was no concern of his. He pushed away all thought and went to task—the sooner he’d have it done with, the sooner he would set off for home at last.
The girl gasped, the whites of her eyes widening round gray irises. She was shockingly unready.
He halted, stunned. He’d never taken an unwilling woman. Until now. This was naught but sanctified rape. His arousal waned.
“We’ll put on a spectacle for them, hmm?” he whispered in her ear. “Place your arms round me, lass—they won’t know different.”
Her eyes welled up with tears and loathing. “No.”
“There’s no need,” he tried again.
“There’s need.” She gazed at him through a wall of tears. “Or are you unable?”
He scoffed. He had no patience for games. His one and only purpose now was to return to Ulster and to his Neave. But it wouldn’t do for either of them without at least some play.
He turned on his side to conceal her from the crowd and brought his index finger to her small lips.
“Come, lass, part your lips for me,” he whispered. “Let me ready you.”
She puckered her mouth, her eyes cold and unblinking.
Bugger this blasted woman. He closed his eyes. His Neave wouldn’t pucker her mouth like his hand was something vile. She’d lock gazes with him, stick out her pink tongue, and lick his finger, making it like it wasn’t a finger she was licking. His arousal returned.
“I’ll hurt you lest you’re ready, lass. I’ve no wish to, but I can’t help it if you’re unwilling—d’you understand?”
Her face twisted in an angry scowl. “Then hurt me. They’ll be wanting b-blood.”
Her words brought him up short. He’d been so consumed with breaking free of London, he’d given no thought to her predicament. She was a maiden, ordered here by the queen’s decree against her wishes, same as he. And so young, scarcely a woman—he must have seemed old to her.
It may have been too late for scruples, but not too late to make it less ghastly for the lass. He brought his lips to her locked, trembling ones and brushed his fingertips over her shift. Her breasts were as small as the rest of her. Gently, he swept his hand past her abdomen, reached down to caress her.
She shrank away with a look of disgust.
“What’s taking so long?” Leicester’s voice jingled with mockery. “Do the Irish think the marital bed is for conversing?”
Aedan’s nostrils flared as he spat on his palm. He could have readied her if not for the damn English. Mayhap he still could.
She pushed his hand away. “Have it done with.”
No good deed.“As you wish, m’lady.”
Her scream deafened him; he came to an abrupt halt.
“Savage!” a woman’s voice whispered, half-awed, half-horrified.
“What can you expect from these barbarians?” echoed a man’s voice.
“He’ll kill her!” another woman squealed, breathless. “He’ll split her in half!”
A thin metallic voice cut through the noise. “Silence! The marriage will be consummated.”
He turned to find the queen’s gaze upon him, bright and triumphant. His blood boiled inside his veins. He could be out of this despicable bed to end her with one hard blow before any of them would blink. Then, the guard would kill him on the spot, or likelier, drag him to the gallows for hanging and quartering.
Bugger this to hell.He spat on his palm again, ignoring the lass’s renewed protests. Wee fool. She knew naught of men and less of herself.
His efforts had made no difference in the end, so he closed his eyes and tried to envisage his Neave through his bride’s screams. But he couldn’t, not with the lass so strikingly unwilling, nor with the English savages delighting in her suffering. So he shut out the world and pressed on, bruising himself as he wrecked her. He opened his eyes to find her face blotchy with tears and eyes glinting with murder.
Then, he was on his feet, facing the stunned witnesses. His arousal remained at full mast; his seed and the girl’s maidenhood blood dripped on the plush rug. They wanted a spectacle—he’d give them one.
A few ladies glanced away; a few stared, their gazes still and bright. The men bristled, red in the face.
“I’ll be setting off for Ireland on the morrow, Majesty.” He impended on the queen, his voice cold like the Irish winter.
The queen suppressed a gasp, cheeks flushed, chest rising and falling like a restless tide.
“Step away from Her Majesty outright.” A delayed warning, laced with immediate physical threat.
Aedan didn’t stir.
“You’ll be setting off for Ireland when we say, Earl II of Tyrone,” the queen breathed.
Would that he could rip out her bloodthirsty heart.
“And when is that?” He drew closer, watching the guard move in from the corner of his eye. “When?” His voice emerged from elsewhere—a growl of a caged animal, ready to strike.
“The day after tomorrow.” The queen’s eyes widened, but she didn’t flinch. “Give civility a trial and cover yourself, my lord. And do mind your duties.” Her thin lips twitched. “Your wife’s bed is getting cold.”