Our mounts were good ones, for none are better than the Spanish horses. We rode swiftly, taking lonely trails through the mountains, places where a man must ever ride with a loose blade and a charged pistol. Yet we came at last to Malaga and reported to our ship.
Aboard, I saw at once what could be done, for I was just lately from doing the same on the ship I had sailed from England. Thus I went quietly about, making myself useful at familiar tasks.
The following day General Hugo O’Connor came aboard and we put to sea. And it was well we were away, for the general told me that an order had been issued for my arrest.
“Do not worry about it,” he said. “I have spoken to the uncle of Vicente. Steps will be taken to clear your name. The charges against you will be dismissed within a fortnight. And should you ever return to Spain, all will be well.”
How can I relate the passage of years? Now that I look back, the memories are confused. The fierceness of one battle is lost in the glory of the next, the splendor of the days between like a tapestry of joy, of sorrow.
I remember with pain a fine horse shot from under me at Ivry … such a splendid animal! I regret him still, for we had served much together. But, strangely, he was wooed and won by battle, the sound of trumpets, of drums marching, the clash of arms; they were enough to fill him with excitement. He longed for the charge, the fray, the heat of battle.
How many times he carried me where I might else not have gone! How many times was I called a hero because of that steed and the melees into which he took me! Truly, we were one, but often it was his decision that took me into the hottest part of the battle.
Even a distant fight filled him with impatience. He would toss his noble head and tug at the bit, and his hooves would move restlessly, eager to be away.
A history of my life during those years might be written in the history of the horses I rode. At Arques I was wounded with a pike. At Ivry I sustained minor cuts, bruises, and a small wound in the muscle of my thigh from a musket ball that all but missed.
And was my side always the right side? I did not know, being but little versed in the politics of Europe. It was enough that it was the side I was on, the side that was paying me, for I had no country, no army, no government. Perhaps I was no better than Sarmiento, whom I had killed. I only know that war for many of us who had no country was a way of life.
We were roundly defeated at Arques. Henry of France, who commanded against us, was a shrewd as well as a brave man, and he tricked us into a defile on the Bethune River. It is futile now to say I saw it coming, for during our long talks Fergus MacAskill taught me much of the tactics and science of war. That defile smelled of blood, and I shied from it.
I spoke to O’Connor of it. “Aye!” he said grimly. “But our orders take us there.” More than three thousand died there. That was September ’89 and a bloody time it was.
At Dreux, besieged by Henry, he lifted the siege and slipped away because as at Arques his forces were less and he chose to fight on ground of his own selection. That proved to be Ivry and again Henry won.
My horse killed, I joined the Swiss contingent, and when all others fled the field the Swiss stood fast, and I with them. Obtaining honorable terms, the Swiss surrendered. Once again I was a prisoner.
It was to Henry IV himself that I was taken. Aside from the soldier who guarded me and two aides, we were alone. He looked up from the map he had been studying and eyed me coldly.
“You were with the Swiss, yet you are not Swiss. What are you then?”
“An Irishman, Your Majesty, taken at sea by the Spanish.”
“Yet fighting on the side of my enemies.”
“My only means to escape was the army, sire.”
“You were on an English ship?”
“I was, sire.”
“Yet you later fought valiantly against my men.”
“I had no choice. It was fight or be killed. Besides,” I admitted, “once the battle is joined I like to fight.”
He smiled ever so slightly. “I know,” he said dryly, “I fight with some Irishmen, too.” He sat back in his chair and studied me. “There is an air about you,” he said at last, “that puzzles me.” He looked down at the paper before him. “Tatton Chantry … I do not know the name.”
“I shall make it known, sire. A name is only what one makes it. In the years to come there will be other Henrys, as there have been in the past, but only one Henry of Navarre.”
“Like all the Irish,” he said, amused, “you talk easily, and always with the right words.” He scowled. “Chantry. I know not the name. Should there not be a Mac or an O before it?”
“I had another name once,” I said, “but put it aside long since. I discovered,” I spoke wryly, “that those of my name did not live long. When a land is taken and the people remain unconquered it is considered wise to eliminate all those about whom an uprising might gather.”
“Ah? And you are such a one?”
“I am descended,” I replied, “from Nuada of the Silver Hand, chieftain and king of the Tuatha De Danaan when first they migrated from the east into Ireland.”
“A son of kings, then?”
“We have no kings in Ireland,” I said, “and the Hill of Tara is now grown over with grass. Where our halls and palaces once stood, the sheep now graze.”
“The son of kings? Can I do less than treat you so? Yet how do I know this is not merely a clever story concocted by your Irish wit?”
“I have said so much,” I replied, “only because you are a king, and I am young enough still to believe in the honor of kings. There is no one to attest to what I am, and few who care. The English wish me dead, as I might in their place.”
“You seem to hold little enmity toward them,” he mused. “I find this strange.”
“Each of us does what he must do. I may kill the wolf who kills my sheep, but I understand him, too. If the wolf must die that my sheep may live, so be it. But I need not hate the wolf for what it is his nature to be.”
“Hah! You are a philosopher, too? Well, what would you have me do?”
“As Your Majesty wishes. Had I my choice, I’d be freed to return to England to someday buy the land that was once my own.”
“What was it like, your home?”
“It is a green place, sire, green among a chaos of granite, bold hills and great boulders leaning, moss growing at their feet. The forests that once covered Ireland are gone, but the land holds a memory of them, as all the rocks there have a memory of the sea that once washed upon them and hollowed and polished.
“The walls of my home were gray granite, and the beams and panels of oak. There was little furniture but what there was was also of oak. And at the door a stream ran past, swiftly it ran, hurrying down the steep rocks to fall over a cliff and into the sea.
“There is a cove there, almost landlocked, where a man can have a boat. And there is the sea beyond, with fish awaiting. And the sound of the sea snarling and growling among the worn rocks. Sheep graze there, and there is a garden sometimes, and paths by which to walk the hills in the morning mist or evening shadow.
“There are far moors to gallop over on our fine Irish horses or the wild ponies of the moors. It is a place to live and love in, sire, and I would go back there and abide, nor ever come away again.”
He shook his head. “No man should be kept from such a dream. Does the house stand yet?”
“It was burned, sire. But what men built, men can build again. I shall go back.”
“Aye! Do you go then!” He tossed a purse upon the table. “Let a king share with a king. You have no sword?”
“It was taken from me when I surrendered.”
“So?” He turned to an officer standing behind bin, “Gabriel? Bring me the silver sword.”