Katherine’s smile, tear-streaked, was savage. “I was a fool, to think I could best you. But you are a fool, too. To believe that I could ever really love the son of Shane O’Neill.”
Liam inhaled sharply.
Katherine turned away. But his cold, clipped words stopped her in her tracks.
“You are a bitch, Katherine.”
She whirled.
Rage suffused his features. “A cold, deceitful bitch.”
Her eyes widened.
“Hawke can have you.” He turned his back on her and walked to the door.
“Go!” Katherine screamed after him, sobbing again. “Go! Go far away and never come back! I hope you and your damned ship are sunk to the very bottom of the sea! Do you hear me, Liam? Do you?”
But he did not answer her, disappearing into the corridor. And the next day, theSea Daggerset sail.
Only this time, it did not come back.
III
THETOWER
28
January, 1572—Richmond
Richmond was the warmest of Elizabeth’s many palaces. It was her custom to spend most of the winter months there. Now a fire roared in the hearth of the Privy Chamber. But through the windows, which looked east over the Privy Gardens and the orchard, Elizabeth could see how the leafless trees bent over backward in the constant wind. The sky was dark and threatening overhead, and sometime soon a storm would sweep down upon them. Rolling thunder could be heard in the distance.
Elizabeth had just sent her ladies from the chamber and she was alone. She had received an urgent message from Ormond, who was on his way to meet with her. Tom usually had Ireland first and foremost on his mind, and she was expecting the worst.
Elizabeth paced, her nerves frayed. Just yesterday she had recognized Mary’s brat James as the king of Scotland. ’Twas an action she had been resolved never to take; but circumstance had forced her, finally, to this extreme. The plots against her, favoring Mary, never ceased, nor did the interference of foreigners, and the time had come to abandon one rightful monarch in favor of another. Elizabeth felt the creeping fingers of fear around her throat, almost choking her. Every time a monarch fell, she could imagine herself in the same position. She had no wish to lose her throne—and her head—at an early age—or even at anelderly one. How tenuous life could be if one were a king or queen.
Ormond burst into the room. “He’s gone mad!”
Elizabeth tensed. “Of whom do you speak? FitzMaurice?” A chill had taken her now. Perrot had driven FitzMaurice into the west, where he was now in hiding. Would the papist fanatic never be taken? Damn Liam O’Neill for supplying him so well that he would survive another winter!
“No, not the papist. I speak of your pretty pirate, Liam O’Neill!”
Elizabeth stiffened. “Now what has Liam done?”
“He has attacked another vessel, this one Spanish, but bound for the Netherlands, not Ireland. That is the second vessel he has seized in as many weeks. And in but a month, he has attacked four different ships, including one bound for the King’s Lords in Edinburgh. He has truly gone mad like some slobbering, bug-eyed dog!”
Elizabeth wondered if it were true. In the past, Liam had been discriminating. No more. He was striking out blindly, it seemed, at each and every passing vessel that crossed his path. And to attack Spain, the very nation which had paid him in gold bullion and silver plate to supply FitzMaurice? It made no sense at all.
“Liam must in insane,” Elizabeth said tersely. “In the past there was reason behind his actions at sea, no more. What do you think, Tom?”
Butler smiled without mirth. “I think he is a man with no master, a man without a country or a king. I think you should raise the price on his head—and pray that Hawke succeeds in capturing him.”
“Can we not play tables, Katherine?” Guy asked.
Katherine stood staring out of the narrow window in the hall. She stared at the wind-whipped snow as it fell ceaselessly upon the island, hugging her mantle to her. The wind moaned incessantly. She hardly heard the small boy who stood beside her, and did not look down to see his face, pinched with anxiety and worry.
Katherine stared at the snow until her vision blurred.Somewhere, out there in the winter storm, sailing the winter-wild northern seas, was the damned traitor, Liam O’Neill. She hugged herself harder, unable to swallow the lump of anguish in her throat.
She still did not understand. Katherine could not fathom how Liam could have laughed with her, wooed her, and loved her so insatiably for over nine months, while secretly dealing with FitzMaurice all that time. How very little he had cared for her, if he had cared for her at all.
