Liberty Page 2

  ‘I have no interest in you or your horse,’ I snapped.

  ‘You talk like a lady, but you dress like a peasant,’ he laughed. ‘You are more your mother than your father. If she’d married well you’d be the finest catch in Beauvais. I flatter you with my attention and yet you give me no love. What’s a man to do? You play a foolish game to think that you can push me away forever. If I wanted your love …’

  He clicked his fingers into my face. I blinked, put my hands on my hips so that I could feel the metal of my hatchets on either side, and narrowed my eyes.

  ‘Do not use the word love in the same breath that you speak of yourself and me. I imagine there is not much room left for anyone else to love you after yourself, Lieutenant Lagoy. Go back to a looking glass for that is who loves you best. And my mother did marry well. For real love.’

  ‘And look where that got her,’ Lagoy laughed cruelly.

  This cut me deep like a sword. I turned on my heel and hurried away through the narrow cobbled streets, down Butcher’s Row, toward the marketplace to find Colin, whom I trusted more than myself. He would know what we should do. Colin always knew exactly what to do. And I could not keep this news a secret from him. Our lives and everyone’s in the town were at stake.

  Bells rang and children played like puppies beside their mothers’ skirts. I wanted Colin to wrap me in his arms and make all the jumble of fears and discomforts melt away in his warmth. Colin was the one thing that made me feel safe in a world that marched to the beat of terror, from the tip of the steeple on the Cathedral to the empty larder at home and father’s broken body and will. Yes, only Colin Pilon made me feel that there was something to live for – love.

  I was dressed in my best white dress, boots highly polished, and I had an emerald green ribbon tied into my fair hair. My da was right suspicious of me.

  ‘Where you going, Betsy Gray?’ He frowned.

  ‘I’m nearly nineteen and a grown woman in my own right. I’m going to visit cousin Mary,’ I lied. Well, it wasn’t actually a lie. Mary had asked me to come by for tea but I’d be visiting the inn first. It was more of a lie by omission.

  ‘You watch out for the yeomanry,’ he grumbled. ‘Pretty girl like you shouldn’t be riding the roads alone.’

  ‘Finn McCool can gallop faster than any English steed,’ I laughed over my shoulder. ‘And I’d warrant that no redcoat has better handling of his beast than me!’

  ‘With your yellow hair out like that you look like you’re off to a dance,’ he grumbled as he finished his morning tea and stretched in his chair. ‘Give my regards to young Mary and if you see any trouble with the English, you remind them that you are a Gray, a loyalist and my daughter. And stay off the roads south because word is they are hanging that rogue Orr today.’

  I raised my eyebrows, feigning surprise.

  ‘That’s awful, Da,’ I said, shaking my head. ‘The poor man.’

  ‘Poor man, tosh!’ he snapped. ‘You put your neck out like that and what do you expect? The rebels ask for trouble and get it. You steer clear of them, hear? George isn’t meddling with them, is he? He says some subversive rot sometimes.’

  I gasped, perhaps a little too dramatically. ‘Why no, Da! Of course not! He’s not so foolish.’

  ‘Hmmm,’ he murmured, regarding me intently. ‘It’s certain death to run about with rebels.’

  ‘I know that,’ I said, taking a coat from the hook in the mudroom, the satchel at my side burning guiltily into my hip.

  ‘And young William Boal?’ he called. ‘He’s a hot-head.’

  ‘Oh, Will! Never!’ I said, shaking my head, feeling a wee blush across my face at his name. I rushed to kiss my father on the cheek and he nodded, convinced by my act.

  ‘Well then, ride straight to Mary’s and be safe and sensible.’

  ‘Always,’ I winked at him, both of us knowing that being ‘sensible’ was not my strongest trait. ‘Love you, Da.’

  He waved a hand at me as he took out his pipe.

  That crisp morning in October, as I walked outside and took a deep breath of the new day, I gazed across the plains stretching up toward the hills behind our whitewashed cottage. One tall peak dipped into an emerald green valley before rising up the flank of another slope. I took in the swell of empty boulders, squatting there like sheep turned to stone, as I crossed the garden.

  The air inside the barn was heavy with the smell of hay and dung. I took a saddle from the wall peg and smiled at the horses watching me from their stalls, their gentle snorting breaths warming the stable. My darling boy, Finn McCool, was a soft-eyed grey gelding, although his coat was almost white in broad daylight. His ears pricked forward and he whinnied as I approached and gave his warm velvety muzzle a rub.

  I took off his blanket and swung the saddle over him, lightly fastened the girth and put on his bridle, leading him out into the yard and closing the barn door behind me. The sun was coming up fast over the ridge as I mounted Finn McCool, urging him on through the dark hedges out toward Six Road Ends. Clouds of breath billowed from the horse’s nostrils ahead of me.

  Out on the gravelled thoroughfare there was a pristine stillness. I passed by sleepy farms with tendrils of smoke coiling up into the empty sky. The meadows were dusted with fallen autumn leaves.

  As the sun warmed the day, more people going about their errands appeared. A cart of potatoes rumbled by with Gavin Edie driving from the stoop, his old spotted packhorse looking like it had seen better days.

  ‘Top of the morning to you, Betsy Gray,’ he called, doffing his cap as we crossed paths. ‘Looking mighty grand this morning, you are.’

  I smiled at the compliment and hoped that Will Boal would feel the same about me. I let one hand fall back to the leather satchel over my shoulder and knew that I was taking a great risk to be out in a public place with such dangerous contraband. I hoped the pretty dress and my fair hair and ribbons would distract any English yeoman from imagining me to be a rebel messenger.

  The Hillsborough Yeomen had the meanest reputation and I would do well to steer clear of them. I’d heard the terrible rumours of the nasty ways they dealt with suspected United Irishmen supporters. Some fellows had been dragged from their beds and half-hung on gallows, beaten until they were nearly dead and then thrown back over their garden gates. But it was early and my brother had assured me that our enemy would all be across the lough, busy with their evil intent for the day, leaving the roads safe for the morning at least. Aye, they’d all be at the public hanging of Mr Orr.

  I crossed a plateau where the flowers by the roadside were wilting with cold, and then rode down to Crawfordsburn. I stayed wary and vigilant for armed soldiers who might be on the lookout for rebels, but I was worrying myself needlessly because not a single soldier appeared.

  At The Old Inn at Crawfordsburn, I pulled Finn McCool up at the watering station where I dismounted and tied him to a post, patting his strong haunches. I recognised my brother’s dappled chestnut mare and Will Boal’s gelding, so dark he looked as black as ebony in the sunlight. The paddock by the inn was busy with horses and carts.

  I walked up and gave my brother’s mare a pat, her soft flyaway mane grazing my knuckles.

  ‘Hey, O’Malley girl.’

  I stroked her silky coat and then gave a nod to the majestic creature that belonged to Will. He didn’t let me touch him but sniffed my fingers and then gave a haughty toss of his head. I hoped, in the bottom of my belly, that his master would treat me more kindly.

  Inside, the inn was already full of sombre souls. All thoughts that morning were across the waters of Belfast Lough, to Carrickfergus, where the brave rebel leader William Orr would be hanged. By way of silent protest and as a mark of respect for Mr Orr, the townsfolk had largely taken leave of the place and crossed the watery stretch by ferry to wait at Crawfordsburn until the dastardly deed was done.

  I reco
gnised the infamous Mr Brennan, poet and rebel, whose articles in the newspapers had landed him in hot water many times. He was a broad, ruddy man with tufts of silver whiskers. Behind him, over near the bar, I saw my brother, George, and the most splendid-looking young man I knew, George’s best friend, and mine: Will Boal. The pair were two years older and more mischievous than me.

  ‘Betsy,’ Will bowed low as I approached. ‘You are looking mighty fine on this bleak day. A little ray of sunshine at an otherwise gloomy sort of wake. You have the face of an angel.’

  I felt my cheeks colour and dropped my eyes, bobbing into a small curtsey. George looked at me and ran a finger over his glass of whisky.

  ‘Are you flirting with my little sister, Will?’

  ‘I might be and what of it?’ Will jested.

  ‘I don’t mind.’ I smiled coyly and shrugged. ‘Isn’t it a little early in the day for that, George?’ I said, pointing at his glass and ruffling his sandy-brown hair with my fingers.

  ‘Aye, sister.’ He laughed at me. ‘But if you were to listen to the English they would tell you that an Irishman’s sole aptitude is quite evidently for drinking.’

  ‘I’ll drink to that,’ Will said, clinking his tumbler against George’s. ‘Sláinte!’

  ‘And to the godly Mr Orr,’ Brennan called loudly across to us. ‘A true martyr for the cause. I’ve written a poem for him. Those bastards were deaf to all reasonable appeals. Justice did not prevail!’

  ‘Let’s have it,’ George cheered back. ‘Give us a taste of this poem.’

  ‘Oh, hapless land, heap of uncementing sand, crumbled by a foreign weight and, by worse, domestic hate.’ Brennan stood, hand on chest, and bellowed out the words in a deep rumbling timbre and the men and women in the inn all raised a cheer, held glasses aloft and shouted, ‘Remember Orr!’

  I accepted a pitcher of fruit punch from the woman behind the bar and settled into a chair next to my brother who whispered his thanks as I pulled the wad of pamphlets from my satchel and slid them across to him. He passed them back over the bar and the small buxom woman gave a knowing click of her tongue and took them straight to the back room.

  ‘Hide them well, Frances,’ my brother called after her.

  ‘There’s an extra strong military guard over at Carrickfergus,’ Will told us. ‘But they’ll be confounded when they find that not a single Irish soul will be attending the execution. Not a one. Most everyone has quit the town. Blinds are drawn and many of the shops are shut up.’

  I looked at Will. I’d known him most of my life. The three of us had grown up together, always rolling down hills until we were giddy and playing pranks on one another to the point of tears and blustering apologies. With Will and George being only a little older than me, I had for many years considered them both brothers. But after a time away at a school in Dublin, I’d come home to find that Will Boal had grown tall and broad-shouldered, his boyish awkwardness had given way to a man’s strong features. I had found myself dreaming of him nightly and thinking of him during most of my waking hours, not in a brotherly way at all. In his presence I had suddenly become more shy and reserved. For this I was mercilessly teased by George for my ‘girlish fancy’.

  Will’s blue eyes were set in a handsome face topped with a thatch of unruly dark curls. He was as dark as I was fair. George was somewhere in between with his colouring. It astonished me to suddenly realise that our respective horses were similarly coloured to their riders. Finn McCool was as fair as a pearl, like me; Will’s steed was a coal-black prince and George’s pretty O’Malley was the same nutty colour as George’s ponytailed hair. In fact, her tail could almost be mistaken for the one ribboned at the nape of George’s neck.

  Many of the men in the inn were wearing green neckties as a personal tribute to their condemned comrade, Mr Orr, who was rarely seen without one. I wondered if he would wear it to the gallows.

  News arrived later that morning that the hanging had been quick. Drinks were drunk and ditties sung and the mourners in the inn became loud with laughter and sudden bursts of anger as many shared amusing tales of the great Orr. A quick death was a good death.

  ‘Is that a new green ribbon you’re sporting, Betsy?’ Will smiled at me and I felt like I could fall into his eyes as they looked into mine.

  ‘Why, yes, it is, Will,’ I said softly, sipping at my drink, my eyes never leaving his.

  ‘It’s mighty pretty.’ He winked. ‘As are you.’

  ‘Oh, please,’ George groaned, and rolled his eyes. ‘We’re here because a man was hanged this morning and you two are making eyes at one another and flirting more enthusiastically than a pair of love struck turtle-doves. Coo-coo.’

  I felt my cheeks warm, and coughed. Will leaned back into his chair and folded his arms behind his head.

  ‘George, George,’ he sighed. ‘A man cannot help himself around such beauty. I come undone and have a belly of insects whenever Betsy looks at me the way she did just then. It clean took my breath away. She’s a vixen.’

  ‘I did no such thing,’ I spluttered. ‘What way did I look at you, Will?’

  ‘Oh, like I was a full plate of sweetmeats.’

  ‘I did not!’

  ‘Oh, yes, you did.’ Will laughed. ‘You made me well nervous. I felt like a wee mouse being eyed off by a cat.’

  ‘Stop it,’ I said, putting my drink on the table. ‘I’ll not have your teasing, Will.’

  ‘Both of you stop this game.’ George moaned as if he had a belly ache. ‘I don’t know if you’re doing this to annoy me, Will, but she’s my little sister, so stop joking about.’

  ‘Yes,’ I whispered. ‘It’s not funny.’

  We fell silent, and I nervously and shyly caught Will’s eye again. He gave me the tiniest smile and a look that said a hundred words but seemed to be in another language and I could not decipher them. I returned his smile and my insides felt as if they were being kneaded like dough.

  I dropped my gaze as I gathered my thoughts, trying to settle the feeling in my stomach, tracing patterns with my finger on the wooden table. My heart suddenly leapt again in my chest and my legs felt heavy with fear as the inn doors burst open to reveal a troop of redcoats, swords at their sides and muskets in their hands. A hush descended and everyone stiffened.

  ‘We are here to find the rebels,’ one yelled as his companions began to sweep through the room, rough-handling those that got in their way.

  George and Will looked stony-faced as one soldier approached us. He was fair-haired and lean, with a glassy glint in his eye. He cocked an eyebrow.

  ‘What’s this then? You lads scheming rebel plans here?’ he growled.

  ‘I am the son of Hans Gray of Gransha, a gentleman,’ George said politely. ‘And I can assure you my father has already signed and sworn the Oath of Allegiance when you visited us last year. His oath covers our family estate, which includes me and my sister here. We are loyalists to the Crown.’

  My brother’s voice was wooden and dispassionate. I could tell he was lying but hoped the English soldiers could not. I felt the redcoat’s eyes fall to me and I shuddered under his glare. Beneath the table I felt Will grip my wrist firmly. The man looked cruel. I was afraid.

  ‘What’s your name then, girlie?’

  ‘Betsy. I mean Elizabeth Gray.’

  He looked around the room at the revellers, who had gone quiet.

  ‘You’ll tell me what this is then, Miss Betsy? What sort of gathering is this?’

  ‘It’s a wake,’ I said cautiously.

  ‘For whom?’ he demanded.

  ‘An old woman, Molly Whitty,’ I lied, because Molly Whitty had died some months prior. ‘In her sleep. Rest her soul. We buried her at Gransha early this morning.’ I saw a gleam of approval in George’s eye at my quick thinking.

  The soldier looked again at the sodden men and women in the room, many with
untidy green neckties coming loose.

  ‘We heard fiddling,’ he snapped. ‘And laughter. You unfortunate clods on this island have a strange way of marking death with dancing, revelling and drinking more fit for a wedding. But any excuse to drag you away from honest work into a drinking house, I suppose.’

  ‘We have our ways, sir, and you have yours,’ I said softly.

  ‘Strike up the fiddle,’ he called across to the old, weathered man with the instrument hanging by his side. ‘And I’ll demand a dance with Betsy Gray while my men search the premises.’

  I looked to Will and George. I hoped to heaven that the pamphlets taken to the storeroom were well hidden or we might all be for the gallows. One fat redcoat came out of the back larder eating a bread roll and raised no alarm so I breathed a little more easily, sure that the bartending woman had adequately secured them.

  The fiddler began to slowly string out a tune and the soldier standing at our table grabbed my hand and dragged me to my feet. My hand was torn from Will’s. He and George stood up in protest as the man pulled me close to his chest. I put up my hands, balling them into fists and struggled beneath his arms. He was so close I could see the pockmarks on his face. His breath was hot and stank of ale.

  ‘Let me go,’ I muttered.

  ‘No,’ he hissed into my face. ‘I will have a nice close dance and then a kiss from this fair belle of Éire. We hear all you colleens of Erin like a nice close dance!’

  I managed to pull away, and slapped him sharply across the cheek.

  He let me go and reeled backwards and I felt every eye in the place fall on me. The soldier’s hand pulled up and away from his burning cheek and he raised it to strike me but then stopped, glaring at me.

  ‘I cannot strike a face so lovely, although you give me good reason,’ he growled and turned his attention to Will, who had taken my hand protectively. ‘Who’s this then? Your sweetheart?’