The Virgin's Spy (Tudor Legacy #2)(51)
“Or to land with the Irish Catholic trash whose company I craved. So said my commander.”
“Lots of Englishmen use Irish women. Why were you different?”
She didn’t think she’d faltered in her tone, but something sharpened in Stephen’s eyes, as though he could guess at how she had once been used. “Bedding the girl was not my crime. Refusing to believe that every word out of her mouth from the moment we met was a lie? That was my sin. I believed her innocent of treachery.”
Stephen leaned forward, hands clasped and arms resting on his legs. He looked deadly serious, as though he needed to impress her with whatever he said next. “And even if I was wrong—even if Roisin was using me for reasons of her own—she did not deserve to die for it. Ireland was her country, far more than it is mine. It does not take a scholar to see what damage we have wrought here. I was already beginning to think that we English are not as interested in controlling Ireland as we are in razing it—and all its people—to the ground. Simply because we can.”
“That is what kingdoms do,” she reminded him sharply. “Assert their power wherever possible. Because England cannot fight France or Spain, it uses Ireland as an outlet for its aggression. All we have ever wanted, for four hundred years, is to be left alone.”
Stephen sat back, thoughtful. “Unfortunately for you, England is not the only power eager to use Ireland for its own purposes. With the English queen’s divorce from King Philip, the Spanish must be looking to Ireland to drive a wedge into a Protestant kingdom they despise.”
That was verging entirely too close to secrets he could not be allowed to discover. Ailis changed the subject, with an abruptness that might have dizzied a less focused man. “Tell me why I should keep you alive.”
“Because my own people wanted me dead. And because you have no interest in doing English dirty work for them.” He twitched a smile, there and gone again, then said, “No, sorry, this is not the time for lightness. Why is it, in the time you’ve had me here, no one has asked me what I might know about English forces and plans?”
She answered truthfully. “We wanted to get a sense of what sort of pressure might be necessary—and if your answers would be worth expending that pressure.”
“You might simply try asking.”
“How could I know that you wouldn’t be setting us a trap?”
“You don’t, not the first time. But being duly cautioned by your own highly developed sense of self-preservation, you can take precautions not to be caught unawares. And when the first information I provide proves useful, you might be more willing to trust me the second time.”
Englishmen lie. It was a truism Ailis had learned from the time she was old enough to walk. She wanted to believe Stephen—which in itself was a warning. When was the last time she’d cared whether a man told her the truth? In the end, it was all about assessing risk. Did the risk of Stephen lying outweigh the benefits that would accrue if he were telling the truth?
There was only one way to find out, as he had so astutely highlighted. She must ask, and risk at least one action on whatever he told them.
“Very well, Stephen Wyatt,” she said in Gaelic. “Tell me something useful that I can use against the English you claim to so despise.”
—
Two weeks after he told Ailis when and where she would find the Earl of Ormond’s men patrolling into Munster lands, Stephen was released from his confinement in the priest’s chamber. The guard who motioned him out gave no explanation, so Stephen was left to follow thinking mordantly, Either she’s decided to trust me or she’s decided to execute me. It almost didn’t matter which, as long as he was free of that spartan priest’s chamber.
He had always thought himself a self-contained, controlled man, but confinement—however light—had worn on him, turning his thoughts back in on themselves. He’d tried to break the cycle by reciting poetry, composing letters in his head to his family that would go unwritten for the indefinite future, and obsessively checking and further embellishing his cover so that by the time he was released, he could almost believe he was Stephen Wyatt. Wynfield Mote, Tiverton, the estates of Somerset, the memories of court and family—all shoved far beneath the surface.
Ailis waited for him at a table in a small chamber off the Great Hall, over which she leaned, studying a map. She wore her usual outfit of scarlet broadcloth kirtle with bodice, her linen smock finely blackworked. Father Byrne was next to her, a kindly looking man for all his asceticism, and the captain of her guards, a distant relative named Diarmid mac Briain, glaring balefully at Stephen. His heartbeat sped up. If the Kavanaughs had lost men on this raid, his fate was sealed.
Every man there waited on Ailis—and Stephen thought she knew and used that to perfection. When she straightened, studying him without speaking, he was rather forcibly reminded of Queen Elizabeth, another woman who ruled using every advantage she held. Not excluding her femininity.
He declined to ask, and finally, with a ghost of a smile, Ailis spoke. “Your information was correct. We took Ormond’s patrol by surprise and came away with half a dozen horses and a not insufficient store of food. Not a great battle, but pricking the English here and there is a strategy we have long embraced.”
“None injured?” Stephen asked coolly.
“Not among us,” she answered, just as cool. “Ormond’s men took some injuries.”