To the astonishment of the Council, he’d proved himself a hundred times over. Charming and capable of standing alone in unpopular opinions—he had none of the untrustworthy prettiness of so many others—Elizabeth had found herself desiring to keep him closer and closer to hand. Even at the expense of keeping her vague, theoretical promise.
She hadn’t thought it could matter so much. After all, it was only Ireland.
“I cannot lose you to Ireland, Aodh. Francis is weakening, Dudley is gone. Bertrand can go tend Ireland; I need you here. You are my man,” she’d said with great affection.
He’d listened respectfully, as always, then leaned near and, taking liberties no man would dare, no man but he and Dudley, ran his finger down her forearm and said in that dangerously male lilt of his, “I am indeed your man, my lady, and have been for the better half of my life. I am not your puppet.”
Then he’d kissed her hand and left.
So. Aodh had shown her he was not her puppet.
Now, Elizabeth would show what she was not: a fool.
The Irish could not be allowed to simply have Ireland.
She snapped out of her stillness, crumpling the paper in her hand until it resembled the knot in her stomach. The men would never see that, though. They hadn’t the sight. They thought her indecisive, waffling, unwilling to commit. They knew nothing of the things she committed to, over and over, in the dark nights of her soul, the wretched ripping apart, dual courses torn asunder, striding the one path, leaving the other behind like a distant shoreline.
They never cared for what was left behind. Men so rarely did. The opportunity to try again always came to them.
She flung the crumbled paper atop the camellia and swept the room with a cool glance.
“Send for that fool, Bertrand,” she said curtly.
“Already done, Your Majesty,” Robert Beale, clerk to the Council, assured her. “He is en route.”
“To spending some goodly time in the Tower,” she snapped. “What was he doing up in York, for God’s sake? He will acquit himself on this excursion or I will see him shackled for a twelvemonth. Fool.” She cast her steely gaze around the room. “And so, the postern gate of Ireland once again becomes a matter for England. Did I not say it would? Did Leicester not know? Was two decades of war not sufficient to learn us our lesson?”
Silence met this array of questions. It seemed nothing would ever be sufficient for Ireland.
She got to her feet. The room erupted with a squeal of chairs. “Send an army to acquaint Aodh Mac Con with my displeasure.”
A loud chorus of voices resounded off the walls: dissension, cheers, Elizabeth had no idea. She was too deep in a swirl of memories. The faces of the men she’d relied upon, and then lost, swam up and receded. She’d lost Dudley, how many times?, but he’d always come back, until, finally, now, he would never come back again.
And now, Aodh?
Her chest felt hot and knotted. She turned toward the door she knew was there, but it was difficult to see, shimmering as it was behind unshed tears. But she never stopped moving toward it.
One could never stop. It was the only way.
Chapter Twenty-Two
AODH RETURNED from a triumphant visit to the town at twilight, four days later. Some of his men were on the walls, others hammering and sawing boards to strengthen the front gates, others training in the yard. He bypassed them all, calling for Ré, striding like a storm to his chambers.
For the past four days, all he’d been able to think of was Katarina. Pushing her out of his mind had proved impossible, in part because she was so well regarded in the town.
Folk were close to exultant that he’d graced the town with a personal visit, and close to crushed that Katarina had not. She was well liked, and more to the point, well respected. She sent the town food when times were lean, medicines when sickness came, and dealt fairly in all matters of court and taxes. So when Aodh showed up bearing gifts from Rardove, they simply assumed Katarina had joined this son of Ireland, and thereby legitimized his rebellion.
As Katarina turned, so did they.
Aodh did not see fit to correct their misperception, although he and Cormac did exchange a silent glance over the heads of the mayor and guild leaders at the feast dinner hosted in his honor.
“Aye, she was sore sorry she couldn’t accompany us,” Cormac had muttered, looking at Aodh. “Sore sorry, that’s for certain.”
The other reason Aodh could not set her from his mind was because every time he closed his eyes, he saw her. And every time he saw her, his body readied.
Sporting a partial erection for four days was painful in the extreme.
So when they returned home and the gates fell down behind them, he dispersed his men on tasks of food and sleep, passed by Katarina’s newly released servants and maids, one who was particularly flushed with curtseys and color when she saw Cormac looming behind him, then made for his chambers, Ré fast on his heels, reporting developments.