The rebel heart

Chapter 9

August to October, 1599 Ireland

Hugh O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone, and the nearest thing Ireland had to a King of its own, waited silently in mid-stream at the Ford of Bellaclynth, with the waters of the River Lagan lapping at his horse's belly. Small, grey-haired and in his mid-fifties there was little sign that this was the man holding England to ransom.

Tyrone's head was bowed, in an act of submission. Behind him, on the hillside, was a detachment of his own cavalry. Behind them, out of sight, was his army. They had paraded before each other, the Irish and the English forces, two days earlier, Essex challenging Tyrone to a pitched battle. Tyrone had refused. What need had he to fight, with eight thousand men to Essex's four thousand? All he had to do was block the way.

From the middle of the small English detachment on the opposite hill a figure broke away and rode steadily forward on a magnificent grey to the water's edge. It was Essex. He was dressed in gleaming half armour, and the sunlight glittering on the water glittered on the gleaming metal that encased him. Two armies held their breath. With the exception of one soldier, who belched. 'Bloody awful stuff, this meat,' he said, in the way of an apology.

He was chewing at a strip of dried, salted beef, of the type an army lived off when on the march. Mannion was the only person in the English army who seemed to enjoy the stuff or eat it by choice.

'So what's 'e goin' to do?' asked Mannion. He and Gresham were a part of the mounted English detachment that had crested the hill and escorted Essex to the parley.

'I've a terrible fear that he's going to make a complete fool of himself and of us,' said Gresham. 'It's increasingly been his response to a crisis.'

Essex had been in an awful state when Gresham had last seen him. This time his illness was real, and despite all the precautions dysen-try had ravaged him, drained him of energy, drained him almost of the will to live. He was in the recovery phase now, which meant that he had time and just about enough energy to realise how truly awful he felt, though the damned illness never seemed really to leave a person, returning when least expected.

Gresham had taken some wine with him. It was the very last of the stores he had brought over from England, carefully preserved from Mannion, and reserved for the first great English victory. It would be a very long wait for that moment. It might be better spent on doing something for the man meant to be the architect of that victory.

'Thank you,' said Gresham. 'I think I owe you my life.' He poured the wine. 'This comes from England. From my own cellars. It was simpler when all we used to do was chase women,' said Gresham, 'and get drunk.'

'I'm a married man,' said Essex, with the faintest glimmer of the mad young man Gresham had known in what now seemed a different age. Essex was propped up in bed for all the world like an old woman. 'I deny that I ever chased women.'

'All right,' said Gresham, 'they chased you. Can your noble stomach take a drink?'

'It can try,' Essex said, and they settled into a desultory conversation, leading nowhere, saying and proving nothing.

If only the damned Queen would stop sending him vicious letters! The Queen was Essex's Achilles heel. At criticism from her he either became unspeakably angry, or descended into lacrimonious self-pity, collapsing in on himself.

Essex had ridden out to meet Tyrone as if he, Essex, were the conquering hero with Ireland at his feet, not the defeated invader clinging by his finger ends to what he held. His mood was exalted, almost spiritual, bizarre. It was as if he was seeing things others did not, could not see.

Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, was collapsing from within, his private devils eating him up from the inside out, as the dysentry was eating up his body's resistance. The changes that had come over him since he and Gresham had engaged in their mock combat on the Thames were terrifying. The man was a shell, a brittle, fragile shell. And the bravest, most glamorous, most headstrong member of the English aristocracy, the one who might once have taken on the Irish rebel, was now in parley with that rebel, outwardly the same man, inwardly a broken reed, saying God knows what.

He and Tyrone had been talking for an hour, and the men on the opposing hillsides had all got off their horses to stretch tired muscles. Every now and again they looked down to the ford. Tyrone was gesticulating gently, for all the world like a street trader trying to sell dodgy vegetables to a dim housewife.

Suddenly, the two men broke apart and rode back to their respective forces. There was a sudden bite in the air, the smell of fear, of expectation. The small party of men who had come with Essex, gathered round him, some on horseback, some still on foot, the careful ones looking at the opposite hillside every few seconds in case the Irish were planning to mount a surprise charge.

The Earl had a strange expression on his face, a sort of saintly, tranquil smile that Gresham had never seen before. It was almost a stupid expression, reminding Gresham of a village idiot who had been given an unexpected sweetmeat.

'It is peace!' Essex declared, as Moses might have done on bringing the tablets down for the second time from the mountain.

'Peace?' asked Blount, always the most bluff and forward of men. 'On what terms is it peace, my Lord?' He looked round him, brow furrowed and dark, seeking support from the others. He gained none. All looked as worried as he did.

'Tyrone is a gentleman, a true noble,' said Essex dreamily. 'He is not as others have represented him.'

An inkling of what had happened began to dawn on Gresham. His heart sank.

'He knows that my valour and the size of this army will mean inevitable defeat for him if he persists.'

The Earl's valour? His personal courage had never been in doubt, though it had been savaged in several of the Queen's letters in which she had accused him of cowardice. The size of the army? The army that illness and desertion and losses in hopeless battles had reduced by two thirds?

'My Lord…' One of the younger men was trying to interrupt, his expression almost comic had it not been so sad. What had the Earl said to Tyrone? What had he agreed to in the name of his Queen?

'No!' Essex raised an imperious hand, stilling the voice. There was still that same dreamy expression on his face. 'The Irish rebels are fearful of our courage. Their army is ill-trained, its outer strength a lie. They sue for peace because they know that if they do not do so, they will lose their courage and their lives. We have won peace without the great battle we were all expecting.' A slight, pathetic note of pleading came into Essex's voice. Something was starting to chip away at his self-confidence as he got further and further away from Tyrone and his dissembling, flattering tongue. 'Of course, there should have been a great battle, a trial of strength, a feat of arms. But how could I put my thirst for glory before the needs of my men? How could I order such a battle knowing that it was not necessary, that I had the subservience of the rebels? Surely a good commander rests his reputation on the outcome of what he has done, not on the means by which he achieves it? Surely that is so?'

'What is the outcome, my Lord? What are the terms of our peace?'

'Why… I can remember, of course, I must remember…' A wild, hunted look came across Essex's face, but from somewhere he found some certainty again. 'We shall have a truce, a real truce. Tyrone has sworn an oath to it. Peace in Ireland. A glorious thing.'

'And what territories will the Irish give up? Which of their strongholds will they release to us? Which of our captured castles?' It was Blount who asked, almost gently.

Essex's horse moved restlessly, and the emblazoned hilt of his sword clanged against his finely polished breast armour.

'Why, none of course. Of course, none. There has to be concessions for any truce, reason on both sides, some give and take…'

A collective sigh went round the assembled group.

'I have agreed…' Essex began to gabble. 'I have agreed that we shall establish no new garrisons or forts to allow the truce to take root. But we have insurance! Yes, of course! Insurance!'

'What "insurance", my Lord?'

'The truce will last six weeks in the first instance. Then be renewable, so we can test it, every six weeks. Renewable every six weeks. For a year. Yes, for a year. With fourteen days' notice if we decide to commence hostilities again. In case we are not happy with the truce.'

There was silence on the hillside, except for noise of the wind blowing through the wet grass, the occasional snort and shuffle of horses and the faint, babbling noise of river down in the valley.

Essex had gained nothing from the Irish. They had kept their advantage: they kept what they had and what they had won, and with so few weeks of the summer remaining the truce guaranteed no attack until winter closed in and the campaigning season ended. It was widely expected that a force from Spain would arrive in Ireland before the next fighting season.

Essex looked round the gathered men. He saw the truth in their eyes, though none spoke a word. Perhaps he sensed what this news would do to his reputation in England. His face crumpled, the dreaming expression leaving it to be replaced by the face of a frightened child.

'I am ill,' he said. 'Grievously ill. Get me back to Drogheda.'

The Queen refused to accept the terms of the truce. There was no truce. It did not exist, had never existed. Would the light of royal favour ever shine on Essex again?

Gresham waited until midnight to visit. By then Essex's cronies would have drunk themselves into a stupor.

Essex was in his nightgown, a rich cloak thrown carelessly round his shoulders, a half-empty wine jug on the table before the flickering fire.

'I've lost my senses, haven't I?' he said to the fire as Gresham entered the room. 'Bewitched…' He turned to Gresham. The red ring was in his eyes.

'Tyrone is a powerful man,' said Gresham.

'Not Tyrone,' said Essex. 'Lucifer.'

'Lucifer?' asked Gresham, confused.

'Will you swear on your most sacred oath never to reveal what I am about to tell you to any other human being?' There was no excitement in Essex's voice, rather a flat resignation.

'Yes,' said Gresham simply.

'It matters little how I met him,' said Essex, as if discussing the weather. 'Suffice it that I did so. He claimed to be a doctor, to have cured the pox. I was desperate. I believed him. And for a time his filthy cures seemed to have an effect.'

So Essex had contracted the pox!

'But then the early symptoms returned. I panicked. I went back to him. Yes, he said, there was a cure. Of a different kind. But it would require… commitment. He asked me to come to a gathering. I was almost insane with worry. I said yes. Took Southampton with me. I know what you think about him. But he was the only one of my rank I could trust.' Essex fell silent, staring into the heart of the fire. The silence dragged on. A log collapsed into its own ashes.

'And?' asked Gresham quietly.

'They were dressed in gowns and hoods. Thirteen of them. White gowns. Strange. You would think it would be black, would' n't you? And the doctor, or whatever he was, myself and Southampton, we had to kneel while their leader talked to us. I never even saw his face.'

Gresham held his breath, frightened to interrupt in case he broke the fragile thread linking Essex to speech

'And he told me… told me that I had the Devil's illness, that Satan had claimed me for his own by the mark of this disease, that only those who sinned against… God's word fell victim, that lechery was one of the seven deadly sins and I must die for it. I owed Satan a death.' The Earl paused. It was as if there was a constriction in his throat. 'But he said his Master was merciful, unlike Him who men called God. He would allow a life to be bought back.'

'The price?' whispered Gresham.

'My soul,' said Essex. 'And a life to take if mine was to be saved. A life for a life.'

More silence. Then the Earl's voice again, devoid of life or emotion.

'They made me sign a deed. In blood, of course. They made the cut by my male organ, so it was hidden in the mass of hair. It's true what they say about the Devil's mark: it never heals, just weeps a little all the time. Like my soul'

'And after the signing?' asked Gresham. There was dullness in his heart, as if he already knew the answer.

'They brought in the child. Seven, eight years old. Blue eyes, blond hair — a street urchin. Drugged, I suppose. But his eyes were open. And he knew when they plunged the dagger into his stomach and twisted it to draw more blood. By his screaming, I knew he knew. And I drank his blood. I drank his blood. A life for a life.'

'When?' asked Gresham.

'Does it matter?' asked Essex blankly. His shoulders and then his whole body began to shake uncontrollably. He turned, his face distorted in agony like the thief on the cross. 'Help me, Henry. Help me!'

Henry Gresham clasped the quivering body of the Earl of Essex to him, like a mother with child, stroking the broad back, running his hand through the long hair.

Was there any way back for a man who had drunk a child's blood.