The Virgin's Spy (Tudor Legacy #2)(90)
They were mostly Flemish, with a few Italians and Germans thrown in. Stephen did not meet the company as a whole, for they had been prudently split into six smaller units to travel swiftly and anonymously and then camped within a day’s ride in various directions around Cahir and Templemore. Stephen was kept busy riding back and forth, using every skill of leadership he’d learned from both his father and Julien to make sure the men would work with him.
When at Cahir, he spent time with Maisie, poring over her maps and notes and memories of Blackcastle. They also discussed what Dane was likely to do. Maisie was in agreement with Ailis that he would wait for the Kavanaughs to come to him. “It’s his pattern,” she said. “Like a duel on a larger scale—when affronted, he will answer the challenge. We took him prisoner, he answered by killing Liadan. Now it’s our move. But make no mistake, he will be waiting and prepared.”
“How did a Presbyterian-born, convent-educated, merchant Scots girl learn to read the mind of a villain like Dane?”
“It’s not reading minds, it’s simply a matter of looking at information in the right way. There are patterns in everything. One has only to order them.”
“I think you would like my sister Lucette.”
She tilted her head thoughtfully. “Is she the one who plays chess?”
“I don’t—” He broke off, then laughed. “You caught that near-slip, did you?”
“You covered neatly. But by that point I was fairly certain of who you were, so I knew you had siblings. They must be worried about you.”
Stephen brushed it off, for he was not ready to deal with that emotionally charged subject. “What of your brother, Mariota?” Ever since Liadan’s death, when she’d cried that only her grandfather had called her Mariota, Stephen had continued to do so. “Does he know what you’re up to in Ireland?”
“Rob? He doesn’t know what his own business partners are up to. Which works out well for me. If he thinks of me at all, which I doubt, I’m sure he imagines me spending my days sewing or some other feminine pursuit. He never did know me very well.”
Stephen hesitated, not wanting to insult her, but there was a favour he’d been wanting to ask and he didn’t think anyone else in this household would help him. “But you do know how to sew?” he asked awkwardly.
She furrowed her brow. “You have some shirts that need mending?”
With a laugh, Stephen said, “No. I was wondering if you would make me a banner and surcoat.”
“To march with? Are you sure about that? Queen Elizabeth might be able to overlook many things, but she can’t overlook one of her earls raising his banner against another of her men.”
“I’m sure,” Stephen said grimly. “I want Dane to know who’s coming for him.”
Four weeks after Liadan Kavanaugh’s murder, her clan marched in force from Cahir Castle. They knew Dane’s spies were watching, but they only had a third of the mercenary company with them at this point, dressed to blend in with the Irish so as not to raise alarms. The point was to let Dane think he knew what he was going to face. They took two days to cover the distance, spies of their own riding ahead to report on the English state of readiness.
“They’re waiting for us,” was the consensus. “If they wanted, they could lock themselves behind the walls for a siege.”
“They won’t,” Diarmid said confidently. It was one of the only things upon which he and Stephen agreed—Dane did not want a siege. Dane wanted to punish them for their pride, to crush them, to water the soil with their blood.
The second night, they camped two miles from Blackcastle. They had timed their arrival for the dark of the moon, and in that darkness the remaining men of Maisie’s mercenary company made their way almost noiselessly to join them. Before dawn they were ready, and when the faintest hint of gray lit the eastern sky, they marched to claim their vengeance.
The sun had just slipped above the horizon when Blackcastle came into sight. Diarmid and Stephen rode ahead together to survey the field—which Maisie had drawn and mapped with a surprising degree of accuracy—and confirm their areas of command.
The two of them were watched by Dane’s soldiers on the battlements, but the English did not waste arrows shooting at two men beyond their reach. This was a professional matter, at least for the common soldier. As Diarmid and Stephen made a last sweep of the field before falling back to issue final orders, the banners were lifted on the walls above them.
Dane’s aggressive boar in red and gold, of course. And it was no great surprise to see the three gold cups quartered with the azure and gold crowns of Thomas Butler. They had known the Earl of Ormond was there, but their reports said with only a few dozen men at the most. In the miserable days of his stay at Kilkenny, Stephen had managed to grasp the fact that Ormond did not care for Oliver Dane. But he was a committed queen’s man, so here he was.
There was one more banner, at the very end of the battlements, a flash of gold that caught Stephen’s eye. He stilled, and Diarmid followed his stare. The wind stirred the fabric and it unfolded enough for careful eyes to see the red and blue torteaux that were echoed in quartered form on Stephen’s banner.
“Shit!” Diarmid spat. “They’ve sent your father himself.”
Stephen knew it wasn’t the fact that Dominic was his father that upset Diarmid—it was the fact that Dominic Courtenay was a better commander with one hand than any other man with two. His own stomach lurched in panic, but his eyes were quicker than his brain and had already caught the slight difference in the coat of arms.