The boy’s mother fell to the ground. The sound of the brutal slap resounded in the courtyard.
With a cry, the boy rushed from the house, realizing too late that he had no weapon with which to fight this intruder. “Halt!” he shouted. And he jumped at the stranger.
“God’s cock, what is this?” Shane O’Neill was four times bigger than him and swatted at him with little effort. He fell into the dirt beside his mother, who abruptly pulled him into her arms, her face white with fear, tears shimmering in her eyes. But he did not want her protection—he wanted to protecther. He struggled free of her grasp. As he rose to his feet, Shane reached down and grabbed him by the back of his velvet doublet, actually lifting him off his feet.
Shane turned to face his men. “This is my son?” He was incredulous. “A silly English fop?”
Liam ceased struggling, for there was simply no way that he could free himself from this man’s hurtful grip. This man, Shane O’Neill, the father he had never met—the man who had raped his mother once, so many years ago, when she had been traveling at sea. Mary had never told him the truth—but he had heard the story many times, for they had talked about him and his mother behind his back when he and Mary had lived at court, first with the Dowager Queen, Catherine Parr, and then with the Princess Elizabeth.
Now the Irish warriors chuckled and grinned at the sight of the boy in the blue doublet and white hose, hanging from their leader’s hand.
Disgusted, Shane dropped him so abruptly that he landed on his backside on the hard ground. Hatred welled inside him. Immediately he lurched to his feet. “Don’t hurt my mother.”
Shane’s gaze widened, then he laughed. “I do what I please, boy, and from now on, you do as I please. You’re coming with me.”
“No!” His mother rose unsteadily to her feet and clutched at Shane’s arm desperately, one side of her face swollen and mottled an angry red.
He was frozen.
“The boy comes with me!” Shane roared. “God’s teeth, I see now that I am almost too late, that you have turned him into the kind of boy that other men coddle and swive! God’s cock! I’ll not have my son a puny, piss-drinking Englishman!”
“Lord, no!” His mother fell to her knees, clinging to the hem of Shane’s tunic. “Please, Shane, do not do this, please, do not take my son from me. Please, I cannot bear it!”
Shane kicked her away. Before the boy could react andrush to his mother—or run away from his father—Shane gripped him by one ear. “We’re to Tyrone. Aye, from now on you’re an O’Neill. You ride with me now, boy. I’ll make you a man, a real O’Neill, or I’ll kill you in the trying.” And he dragged him forward, then lifted him and threw him on a huge brown horse.
He was dazed, in pain, his ear feeling as if it had been torn from his head. But he managed to throw one leg over the other side of the horse. Filled with panic now, and acutely aware of his mother’s soft, heartbreaking sobs in the background, he was determined to escape.
“You’d disobey me?” Shane shouted at him, gripping his bony knee, preventing him from slipping off the other side of the horse. One hamlike hand swung out, cuffing him hard on the other side of his head. Sparks exploded in his brain, his stomach heaved. When he regained some of his senses, Shane was mounted behind him and they were cantering away from Stanley House.
“Liam! Liam! Oh, God, Liam!” his mother screamed.
He twisted in the saddle in spite of Shane’s unyielding hold. His mother ran after them, stumbling on her skirts, sobbing, hands outstretched. She screamed for him again, and this time tripped and fell in a heap of silk and velvet into the dust.
A sob escaped his breast.
“No son of mine cries. Tears are for women, not men,” Shane growled, smacking his head yet again.
He sucked down another sob, swallowing it, and then another, and another, ignoring the pain, both in his heart and his head. His first lesson from his father had been a cruel one. But it was a lesson he learned instantly. And he had never cried again.
London, 1571
“Sir William!”
William Cecil was asleep in his canopied bed at Cecil House in London. His valet had to call his name several times before the secretary stirred. Grunting, he sat up.“What passes, Horace? Good God, ’tis past the midnight hour!”
“Sir William, a gentleman is waiting in the antechamber. He insists ’tis most urgent and that he must speak with you!”
Cecil groaned and threw the heavy down covers aside, sliding to the floor. His valet helped him don his fur-trimmed velvet robe. Following the valet, who held the taper aloft, Cecil left his bedchamber. His eyes widened and then narrowed when he saw his guest. He turned. “You may leave us, Horace.”
The valet obeyed, shutting the heavy walnut door behind him.
Cecil faced his cloaked visitor. “What has happened?”
“’Twas a most strange dawn at St. Leger House,” the stranger began. “When I made my rounds, the guards were waking up. Some gentleman had taken them unawares. But one had just regained his senses in time to hear many voices in the courtyard. One was that of Eleanor FitzGerald. He managed to get to his feet in time to see three riders tearing away toward London Bridge. One of the riders was an uncommonly tall man with fair hair. Of the other two, one was a woman.”
“Eleanor FitzGerald—gallivanting about at dawn?” Cecil asked sharply.
“Nay, ’twas a different woman, far taller than Eleanor. Eleanor returned to the house.”
