Read Online The Irish Princess by Karen Harper - Free Book Online Page A

cloak above us.”
    It was all I could do to walk slowly instead of run. I could have hugged Liam the rhymer, for he led us directly to a place where one of Uncle James’s men dropped from an oak tree and blocked our way, then led us on into the thickening forest. Father and Gerald had been to the hunt lodge, but never any of us women. After we told the two men what had happened at Maynooth, Liam said but one thing. I have always remembered it, though it meant naught to me at the time: “Even Ireland’s little people—leprechauns and fairies—are not immortal or important, but they too weep and die.”
    More men guarded the small hunt lodge. Someone summoned Uncle James, who burst through the front door with his arms open wide when he saw it was truly me. Thanks be to God—and yes, Saint Brigid—I was in the strong embrace of my favorite uncle, telling him the terrible tidings from our castle and the village too.
     
    Living in a small but cozy hunt lodge in the woods, I saw three months blur by. It was a blessing to be with Uncle James, who sorely missed his family too and reminded me so much of Father. He sent secret word to my mother that I was safe and would be delivered to her as soon as possible. Finally, we heard through Uncle James’s covert communications that Gerald and Collum were not with the family of the traitor of Maynooth—part of Christopher’s plan to betray us all, I feared—but that Thomas’s sister, Mary O’Connor, was hiding them at her home, from whence they would be passed on to others until they could escape to France. Magheen and I rejoiced when we heard that good news.
    We also learned that Silken Thomas, whose name was on everyone’s lips, had been bested in battle and was in hiding too. Once things had turned against him, many had deserted his cause and crept to their homes, hoping to claim they were loyal to England. Yet we heard nearly a hundred were tracked down and imprisoned or executed. I felt so torn about Thomas: I admired his defiance and bravery—or was it all foolhardiness and bravado? He had not been patient or planned well enough. Father had used his personal charm and negotiation skill for years, and Thomas had exploded it all in one brash act.
    In the sweet summer weather—for the green, green beauty of Ireland blossomed no matter the perils of politics—a letter was smuggled in from Mother, bemoaning that the English were calling our uprising not the rebellion of the Irish but of the Geraldines. She wrote that she feared for all of us and was endeavoring to earn our way back into the English king’s good graces.
    When I read that, I thrust the letter into the flame of the single lantern at the hunt lodge. No matter how chilled we were, we lit no hearth fire that would send up smoke. I frowned as the letter turned crimson-crisp on its edges, then burst into flame as I dropped it in a pewter dish on the small table.
    “Best to burn covert correspondence, I suppose,” Magheen muttered as she bent over her needle and thread to take in the seams of a plain russet gown for me, one Uncle James’s men had brought us over these long weeks.
    I almost told Magheen that Mother had turned traitor too, to want to appease England’s killer king, but I held my tongue even with her. Uncle James had also preached peace to me, insisting that the English might was too forceful to fight. But he had praised me for taking The Red Book of Kildare when I fled. It lay wrapped in a thick sheepskin under the floorboards of the lord’s bedchamber he had given to me and Magheen the first day we’d arrived.
    I was ready that very warm mid-June day to take a walk in the woods, guarded by a one-eyed man of Uncle James’s retinue, when a knock sounded on our door. “Enter!” I called out, and my uncle swept it open to rush in. He held in his hand another letter, one that must have come for him in the same packet as Mother’s. His smile lit the room as he picked me up and spun me about