Bass told Brian exactly why he had taken Ita from Ronan and Ard Macha, leaving out nothing. Then he said, “I thank Your Majesty for his kind, well-meant offer, but I cannot deliver the girl, Ita, up to him, for she by now is in England, in the care of His Grace Harold, Archbishop of York.”
The Ard-Righ sighed and leaned back in his cathedra, letting the burnished, bejeweled sword clatter down at his feet. “Yet an other quick-witted, prescient man of intelligence you are. Your Grace. It’s no wonder that my cousin Arthur so treasures you. All right, I’ll send sweet Ronan the horses and whatnot you took from his two pegboys, along with a purse of twelve ounces of gold—no slave girl, no matter how well trained, is worth more than that, I trow! I’ll also send along a letter earnestly advising him to let the entire matter drop at this point and charge it all off to securing his Ulaid border.
“Immediately after the new condotta has arrived in Mide and is well amalgamated with your horse, I’ll be expecting you to move north and into the lands of my northern cousins.
“Draw whatever you need from my quartermasters, they’re expecting you, but be not overburdened, for you’ll be living off the country. I don’t think you’ll ever have to go into real battle up there, but I want them to think that you mean to rob, rape, pillage, and burn until they have been stung enough to face you . . . and me, off. All us Ui Neills used to be fierce, proud, doughty warriors, and we of the southern branch still are, but my northern cousins, alas, are mostly become near as decadent as my client and ally Righ Ronan.
“But Your Grace, the present Righ, in Dun Given, will be easy enough to deal with, I neither want nor need another in his stead, so please try not to replace him, eh? Above all, please try not to yourself become a Righ. I shudder at the mere thought of having the old Northern Fifth of Eireann, the entire Fifth, controlled by Your Grace and one of the di Bolgia ilk; in such case, Eireann would very shortly be united, I venture to guess, but not under me as Ard-Righ.”
Brian stood up. “And now I must ask you to leave. Sir Ugo has ridden in a half hour agone with an urgent message from Corcaigh. He refuses to give it to any save me, personally and privately.”
Brian was deeply shocked when he laid eyes to Sir Ugo and quickly arose to press the tottering Italian knight into his own chair, while loudly roaring for another, a table, and brandy to be brought immediately.
Sir Ugo’s face was pale and drawn with pain and strain. His bridle arm was roughly, hastily bandaged with torn strips of linen in two places—between shoulder and elbow and between elbow and wrist—and both the wrappings were showing old and more recent bloodstains. His forehead looked bumed and blistered, and the hair above it had been singed off, in some way, almost back to the crown of his head. A cut and a wide patch of bruised flesh were over his left cheekbone, and there was blood crust in his black mustache, which also showed traces of singeing.
The battered knight’s lips were cracked and the lower one looked to have been bitten clear through . . . and more than just once, too. He collapsed into the cathedra and gratefully gulped the entire pint of ale proffered by the Ard-Righ. though the monarch had to help to hold the tankard steady.
“You bear a letter for me. Sir Ugo?” Brian inquired softly.
The knight shook his head, wincing and gasping despite himself at the movement, which brought tears into his bloodshot eyes and a fresh trickle of red blood from both his nostrils. “No. Your Ma . . . jesty, message. Righ Sean . . . dead, murdered. The Ifriqan condotta . . . broke oaths, killed their captain . . . officers . . . joined FitzGeralds, who slew FitzRobert just as he was about to be made Ri of FitzGerald.
“With Righ Sean’s head on … spear . . . attacked palace, all of them. il Duce, I. guards, servants, fought.
held . . . until condotta could be summoned, arm get to palace. I … had to hack way out of city. All my men, squires . . . killed there or in fights on road to border.
“il Duce. condotta. palace guards, Venetian gunners hold palace, fortress, inner city, port. Fleet safe but unable to do much except fire shells into concentration they see to form. il Duce begs aid. relief.”
Then, even as the additional furnishings and the brandy ordered were being borne through the doorway. Sir Ugo slipped from the chair, unconscious.
“Take him to my suite,” ordered the Ard-Righ. “Let my personal physicians be summoned to see to his wounds. Tell the physicians that this knight must recover, for I feel—have long felt—that he bears destiny upon his shoulders.
“You. there, have His Grace of Norfolk sent to me at once. And you. Sir Baetan. collect my squires and arming men. They are to meet me in the palace armory. Then present my compliments to Sir Artgal and tell him I order him to mount my guard, ready for an immediate departure for Munster. I mean to leave before nightfall.”
EPILOGUE
Manus Mac Dhomhnuill, Bishop of the Isles, was younger brother of Sir Aonghas Dubh Mac Dhomhnuill. Regulus of the Isles, Earl of Ross, and a man with whom to reckon, only King James having more power in Scotland, and there were those who said that James had less than the fierce, dour Mac Dhomhnuill of Mac Dhomhnuill.
Despite his savage antecedents and ilk, Harold of York had found the man of late-middle years to be courteous, cultured, well educated, and widely traveled, an excellent conversationalist with a near-brilliant, surprisingly open mind. They first had met and conferred during the time that Harold had been arranging the treaty of alliance with nobles and high clergy representing King James, at Whyffler Hall. They had since met twice more, at York, and Harold had been most pleased when he heard that the influential bishop was once more bound for England and York.
After day-long conferences, Harold took great pleasure in sitting before a warm fire on the hearth of his smallest parlor and chatting on a wide variety of subjects with so witty and well read a companion. Often, on this visit, he had brought in Rupen Ademian as well, that he might overhear and thus learn more about his strange new world from the lips of a man who had seen much of it, far more than had the Archbishop, bound down as he had been for so many years with not only churchly duties but affairs of the kingdom.
On an evening. Bishop Manus drained off the remainder of his jack of ale and said. “While ale be a true sovereign for thirst, your grace, would you not pefer a bit of mulled wine on so damp a night as this?”
Harold smiled and nodded. “An excellent suggestion, friend Manus. Rupen, please go out and tell Alfred to fetch up the necessaries . . .oh, and see if little Ita be not yet abed. She owns a true talent for mulling wine just so.”
While the girl knelt before the hearth, watching the mulling irons heat and mixing spices with rare, dear white sugar in a brazen mortar, the Bishop of the Isles grinned slyly and winked at Harold, remarking, “Your ‘ward’ indeed, old friend. She’s a bit young and skinny for mine own tastes, but I doubt not that she can warm a bed nicely, for all. Are we two not become close enough to speak truth one to the other, Harold?”
“I have spoken nothing but truth, Manus,” said the Archbishop gravely. “This poor child here was delivered out of most odious bondage to a wicked king in Ireland by His Grace Sir Bass Foster, Duke of Norfolk. Fearful that she might be retaken and returned to him who had held and abused her. His Grace sent her to me here, bidding me keep her until he return from King’s business oversea. She seems a sweet girl, though she speaks no English or French, so I cannot talk with her and learn more of her history.”
“Irish, is she, then?” asked the bishop. “Then let me try. eh?”
To the kneeling girl, he held out his right hand, saying in the Gaelic of the Western Isles, which was not too dissimilar from some of the more northerly Irish variants of that widespred tongue, “Child, come here.”
Hesitantly, the slim girl arose from before the hearth and took the few steps necessary to stand before the Scot, ceasing to tremble when she saw the gentleness of his dark-blue eyes. Dropping her gaze by chance, for a moment, she saw the odd-shaped purplish mark on the palm of his hand, bearing a vague similarity to the head of a bull with one cursive horn.