PROLOGUE
Whitehall, 1562
The queen was nervous. With two dozen of her most favored courtiers, all clad in silk and brocade, she waited for the O’Neill.
She was very young, just about to turn thirty, and had been ruling for a scant four years. Intuitively she understood that her advisors were right and that Ireland must be brought to heel—but it seemed a huge and hopeless task. The Irish lords were barbaric, immersed in petty rivalry and bloody warfare, and still steeped in their ancient Gaelic culture. O’Neill was the worst of them, she knew. Yet it seemed as if the savage Irish chieftain—one of her most intractable enemies—was finally about to submit to her royal will, coming before her on bended knee.
The queen was splendid, and it was commonly held that she was quite attractive. Her brocade gown had a low, square neckline, but a huge ruff framed her ivory-hued face. Her full skirts were held up and out by a farthingale, which was now in vogue, and sewn into the pattern were thousands of tiny white pearls. A chain of gold encrusted with pearls and rubies was worn as a belt around her narrow waist. About her neck she wore a huge gold necklace with a ruby pendant, and rubies dangled from her ears. Her heart-shaped coif was of black silk, embroidered with gold thread and pearls. Elizabeth might have been only thirty, and she might have been nervous about receiving Shane O’Neill, but her expression was implacable, her presence outstanding, and she looked every bit a monarch.
All her courtiers were almost as fabulously garbed as she. Clad in colorful doublets with puffed shoulders and slashed sleeves, in tight hose and exaggerated codpieces, dripping gem-set rings and long gold necklaces, they comprised a brilliant and gaudy sea of spectators. And standing right beside her were her three favorite advisors: her cousin, Tom Butler, the earl of Ormond; Sir William Cecil, her secretary of state; and Robert Dudley, the Master of the Horse.
Just as the courtiers began to whisper amongst themselves, she heard him coming and thought to herself, marry, I can not believe this happens—the O’Neill yields at long last!
Not the O’Neill, she corrected herself. The earl of Tyrone. He was coming to submit, to take on an English title, to become a part of the fabric of the English kingdom. Sir Henry Sidney, the leader of her troops in Ireland, had convinced her that O’Neill’s surrender and the regrant policy was the only way to civilize the savage Irish—force them to bended knee, then regrant them their lands with English titles, privileges, and duties.
The crowd gasped.
Elizabeth gasped.
The O’Neill had appeared. A man close to six feet six inches tall, and hugely built, he wore a saffron cape lined in ermine and it swirled about his shoulders. Some Celtic kind of brooch pinned it in place. Beneath the cape he wore only a coarse, dark, knee-length tunic. His calves, ankles, and feet were bare. His heavy belt was studded with gold, an immense sword was sheathed there, and a long, dangerous-looking Irish dagger winked amongst the folds of his clothing. Over his left shoulder he carried an Irish battle-ax that appeared to be six feet long.
Behind him marched twelve barefoot men with shaved heads, who were almost as tall and as broad as the O’Neill. They, too, carried battle-axes but wore wolfskins over old-fashioned leaf mail.
The crowd moved back, toward the walls of the royalchamber, as if afraid. Elizabeth began to sweat. If the O’Neill lived up to his bloody reputation and ran amok, undoubtedly everyone within the hall would die this day.
And then a deafening howl split the chamber and the O’Neill threw himself down upon the ground at Elizabeth’s feet.
The queen jumped in shock. Both Ormond and Dudley stepped in front of her protectively while reaching for their ceremonial swords. Then she began to relax when she realized that, undoubtedly, she was witnessing some kind of ancient and barbaric form of submission to her authority. But the O’Neill was now spewing gibberish. Was he mad? She exchanged a questioning look with Robin Dudley.
“He speaks Gaelic, savage that he is,” Dudley murmured, the color returning to his aquiline face. “Mayhap he seeks to trick us with this show. I know well that his tongue can form the English word with cunning ease.” Dudley grimaced. “The Grand Disturber could do no less than make this display, but what does he wish to gain?”
Elizabeth had no idea what O’Neill’s bizarre behavior foretold, and did not answer, unsure of what to do. She did not understand a word of what this huge, savage man was saying, and she looked helplessly at Ormond and Cecil. Yet they were as flustered as she, because O’Neill was defying all protocol. But then a movement brought her attention back to the high drama unfolding at her feet. Another dozen or so of O’Neill’s followers had entered the hall behind the wolflike soldiers, but had hung back by its entrance. Except for one young man, who had detached himself from the group and was now moving toward Elizabeth.
He paused before her, beside the prostrate O’Neill. He was almost as tall as the Irish chieftain, but he was young, perhaps seventeen, and his broad-shouldered frame, while sinewed and hard, had yet to flesh out. While Elizabeth noted all of that, she was stricken by his face. Thick streaked gold hair framed the most handsome countenance she had ever seen, and her pulse raced. Somehow heseemed familiar. But then she met his cold gray eyes, and she shivered. What manner of man was this?
He bent one knee. “Your Majesty, if it pleases you, I shall translate what the O’Neill speaks.”
Elizabeth recovered. She straightened her shoulders, giving the youth an imperious look. “We do believe you mean the earl of Tyrone, sirrah,” she said.
His cool gaze fastened upon her. He did not speak.
And so it begins, she thought, a flicker of excitement sparking in her veins. The O’Neill was appearing to submit, but the youth’s failure to respond told her that a war of wit and will was about to follow. And the delight that tingled down her spine had little to do with the O’Neill, but with this extraordinary youth instead. “You may introduce yourself to Us.”
He rose from bent knee and bowed. “Liam O’Neill.”
Elizabeth’s mind moved with startling speed. “Not—not Mary Stanley’s son—not the O’Neill’s son?” In her shock the forbidden Gaelic title had slipped out.
His smile was sardonic. “The very same.”
She inhaled sharply. She had known Liam almost since the very day of his birth. Mary Stanley had been en route to Ireland with her husband, an official of the Crown, when her ship had been set upon by pirates. Raped and impregnated by O’Neill, she had been promptly rejected by Sir Stanley, who had sent her back to her own family in London. Queen Catherine, Henry VIII’s last wife, had pitied her, been kind to her, and Mary had become one of her ladies-in-waiting. Images flashed through Elizabeth’s mind of a beautiful yet solemn baby, then of a grim, withdrawn young boy. Elizabeth forced herself out of the past. “What year was it that your father claimed you and took you from London?”
That mocking smile again. “It was seven years ago.” His tone dropped, and the frost left his eyes. “How fare you, Bess?”
She felt Dudley stiffen, saw, out of the corner of her eye, his hand clench his sword. She touched his arm lightly; “The little boy has become a man,” she said, notsoftly, pushing a note of asperity into her tone. But her heart fluttered, just a bit. “An impertinent one.”
He bowed again, his expression closed, all warmth gone.
“Translate,” she snapped, furious now, with him, with his murdering father, with herself.
