The Virgin's Spy (Tudor Legacy #2)(71)

The trouble began that very first night. Stephen had been telling stories to Liadan of the Green Man and the Wild Hunt and he finally left her in the hands of her excitable Irish nurse. Maisie asked if she could walk with him toward the Great Hall.

“Something on your mind?” he asked, surprised.

“Peter Martin arrived an hour ago.”

Stephen blinked. “Did he?” he asked blandly. “Interesting timing.”

“Isn’t it?”

What was it about this slip of a girl that kept him so off balance? He covered it, he hoped, by saying, “I imagine he’ll be sent away as soon as it’s light. Perhaps he’ll even be used to take the ransom demands.”

She hesitated, but he’d known her long enough to know that propriety would never stop her observations. Sure enough, she asked, “Are you certain Ailis will hold Dane to ransom?”

“Considering she already has him in hold…” He trailed off, for what had started as a teasing answer was stopped by Maisie’s serious expression. “You think she won’t?”

“I think she wanted Dane in her hands. I’m not sure even she knew for certain why until now.”

“That’s taking enigmatic a bit far.”

“Is it?” Maisie quirked her lips, not so much a smile as a marker of her argument as she tipped her head down the last few stairs. “Listen.”

Stephen stopped and listened. Damn it, Maisie was right. There was shouting coming from a nearby chamber. He would have known the quality of Ailis’s voice anywhere. Biting off a curse, he strode to the half-open door through which could be heard both Ailis and, shockingly with a similar raised voice, Father Byrne.

Maisie did not follow.

He pushed open the door, which was blocked by Diarmid. The captain of the guard scowled and tried to shove Stephen back out, but Ailis commanded, “Let him in. And shut the door this time!”

Stephen had never seen Father Byrne flushed and ruffled. The priest’s thick white hair looked as though he’d been running his hands through it in frustration; it stood up in tufts around his ears. Behind him, leaning against a deep windowsill, lounged Peter Martin. Walsingham’s spy met Stephen’s eyes, then looked away.

“What’s going on?” Stephen asked warily.

“We are having a debate on the nature and quality of leadership.” Ailis’s voice was uneven, a rare sign of emotion. “Father Byrne seems to be under the illusion that I lead only with his gracious acquiescence. I, naturally, dispute that position.”

Since that told him little of substance, Stephen turned to Father Byrne. “What is going on?”

“There have been no terms set for ransom of the prisoner. And no plans, as I have just discovered, for doing so.”

Despite himself, Stephen shot a glance at Peter Martin once more. They should not be having this conversation in front of a man who could betray them all with a word. But there was no help for it.

“We have to ransom Dane,” Stephen insisted. “Make his life miserable in the meantime, but you can’t afford to hold him indefinitely. Someone will come looking.” Sooner rather than later, if Martin had his way. Could Stephen possibly make Ailis keep the spy at Cahir Castle until this was over without betraying either of them?

“That someone will be disappointed, for there will be no Oliver Dane to find,” Ailis said. “At least, not living.”

Damn it all to hell. Stephen closed his eyes to gather himself, then looked at Ailis and spoke to her as though they were alone. “You cannot kill him. You know you cannot.”

“Who are you to tell me what to do, Englishman?” she spat. “I thought you wanted him dead as well.”

“And if we lived in an ideal world, we could kill him. But we live in this world, Ailis. If you kill a man like Oliver Dane, you will bring down wrath upon your head you cannot imagine.”

“We can deal with Ormond.”

Father Byrne snorted, clearly about to dispute her blithe assessment of their military readiness.

Stephen spoke over him. “I don’t just mean the Earl of Ormond. You’re mad if you don’t realize that killing one of her landowners, one of her captains, will bring Queen Elizabeth’s fury down upon you in full force. She will send her finest soldiers to destroy you for the slap to her pride.”

Eyes bright and cheeks flushed, Ailis laughed. “I think you’re imagining things.”

I wish I were, he swore silently. I wish I could tell you that I know this queen, know her well enough to predict her rage. And Walsingham will encourage it. Killing Dane will be the spark that will see Clan Kavanaugh burned to bare earth.

Ailis was confident of her position. “Father Byrne, I appreciate your concerns. But there can only be one voice at the end of the day. And that voice is mine. Are we clear?”

Byrne shot a glance at Diarmid, standing behind Stephen. His point was self-evident: Ailis ruled only so long as she had the support of armed men. And though Stephen had no cause to like Diarmid and knew that Ailis’s plan was self-destructive, he felt a moment’s relief at the pleasure on Ailis’s face when the captain of the guard said solidly, “I do as she commands.”

Knowing when he had been beaten, at least for the moment, Father Byrne pleaded, “Promise to do nothing precipitate. Allow tempers to cool before going forward.”