The Irish Princess Read Online Free PDF Page A

recently struck me—for I daresay I was a precocious child both in body and brain—that the village of Maynooth was more than just a forest and a field away. By that I mean its merchants, smiths, and shepherds seemed aeons back in time. The village folk still left milk out at night for the little people, scraped hoarfrost from the fields to cure headaches, nailed horseshoes at their thresholds, and fell on their knees before a new moon, however staunch attendees of Mass they were. Holy wells abounded, with pennies and pieces of metal tied with scraps of rag dangling above them, some the little people had supposedly dug, so what was really holy and what old pagan practices? Slowly, I knew, the power of the Fitzgeralds would bring even the poor folk to prosperity and peace.
    “Mother of God,” Magheen cried, crossing herself as she pointed ahead at a wolf that slunk across the road from the beech forest up ahead. Our mounts shied, but we calmed them. “Bad luck, and that’s for certain,” she muttered. Magheen always pronounced mother as if it were mither. She was full of old folktales too, which could entrance me for hours. Cecily had no use for such but was always sneaking chivalric romances, which she had been forbidden to read until she was at least twelve. So Gerald would not tat-tale on her, she bribed him with her share of sweets.
    I was grateful I had not brought my wolfhound, Wynne, today, for he would chase a wolf until he dropped. “Bad luck only if the wolf is hungry,” I said, “though he looked beset too.”
    “Too, aye,” she said, crossing herself again, and, shaking her head, added, “and the leprechauns in the ditch have gone silent.”
    I knew she meant the frogs, but I wondered what had affrighted them, for they oft croaked day and night this time of year. It was as if something dire floated in the morning mists off the rye field. Yet we saw no more wolves in the stretch of forest, and soon the gray stone tower of the castle came into view. As we turned up the lane, Edward came running toward us across the lawn, scattering the sheep cropping grass.
    “He’s in the Tower!” he shouted, gesturing like a windmill with one arm as if we were to hie ourselves inside. “Father’s in the Tower!”
    “Oh,” I said, bursting into tears of relief, “he’s come home! No wonder we didn’t hear from him. He was busy telling the English king to mind his realm and let us alone, and then he had to catch a ship to hurry home.”
    I had dismounted and turned to run into the castle when Edward grabbed my arm and spun me back. I saw his tears were not ones of joy but of terror. “No, sister,” he said. “I mean Father’s in the Tower of London, where the crown criminals go and sometimes get their heads cut off, so I heard Thomas say.”
    I gasped. Thomas was here. And Father locked away like some wretched traitor in a deadly place. Mother had told us about the Tower of London when she’d explained how large and impressive that city was. I tore inside and took the stairs up to the solar two at a time. Mother’s voice, strident and sure, not broken as I had expected, mingled with our half brother Thomas’s angry tones.
    “I can help by going to the English royal court, I tell you,” Mother argued as I hesitated just outside the solar door. “I have contacts there, the Greys, especially my brother, Lord Leonard.”
    “Father had intimates there too, and what did it get him?”
    “But I’m the king’s second cousin by blood—”
    “Blood—that’s what they’re after,” he interrupted, but she went on.
    “Thomas, I’m pure English too, so mayhap they will listen to me. How dare they say Garrett Og, Earl of Kildare, grows too powerful! He needs to be strong if he is to keep the Gaels at bay and control the Pale. He’s helping Ireland, not harming it!”
    “The Tudor will stop at nothing to have his way, mark my words. My lady, by this move King Henry has tried to cut Father off at the