Princes of Ireland - Edward Rutherfurd [294]
Of course, she had seen him from time to time in Dublin, coming or going at the castle or the great Kildare town house. But he had always been a distant presence, protected by retainers. Even at his town house, there were sentries on duty at the gates, armed with German muskets. The last time she had seen him in the street, he had been surrounded by a phalanx of gallowglasses, as they called the fearsome Scottish mercenaries with their terrible battle axes, which some of the island’s chiefs had taken to using as bodyguards and shock troops nowadays.
If twenty years earlier, Henry Tudor had cynically decided it was easier to leave the old earl alone than it was to break him, the relationship of the new generation was closer. The present earl and King Henry VIII were friends, and in the last few years, the English king had let his friend rule Ireland almost as he pleased. Kildare was allowed all the crown revenues, and so long as he kept order, he didn’t even have to render accounts.
“The truth is,” Doyle had remarked to Joan one day, “Kildare is practically the High King of Ireland now.” And the analogy was valid. For after generations of intermarriage with the greatest Irish princely families, the head of the Fitzgeralds not only had a huge political network amongst the native Irish princes but the blood of Irish kings flowed in his veins, too. In his strongholds beyond the Pale, Irish bards at the banquets sang songs about his Irish ancestors, and he dispensed law according to the old Irish brehon laws just as easily as he would use English law elsewhere. “He uses whichever law suits him best,” some litigants grumbled. To the English king he would say, “Sire, without you I am nothing.” To the mighty O’Neills, his kinsmen, who acknowledged him as their overlord, he’d point out, “We’re doing very well out of this.” As for keeping order, just as the High Kings had done in the centuries before, he would raid the territories of any chiefs who gave him trouble and carry off their cattle. The only difference between the old days and now was that Kildare had Tudor artillery.
As it happened, Joan got her wish sooner than she expected. It was after the Talbots had moved on that she became aware of another party coming in their direction. They were being escorted by the mayor of Dublin, but they seemed to be foreigners. There was a priest whom, by the look of him, she judged to be Italian; an aristocratic gentleman dressed in black who was undoubtedly from Spain; and two ladies, whose bodices and gowns flashing with jewels were altogether richer than anything to be seen in Dublin. But what struck her most was the handsome figure who accompanied them. He was dressed in hose with padded feet. His tight-fitting doublet, sewn with golden thread and studded with pearls, had huge slashed puffs at the shoulders. She had not seen anyone dressed quite like this before, but she knew enough to guess that this must be the aristocratic fashion at the English court. He came forward with the graceful pad of a great cat; she heard him say a few words in French to the ladies, who laughed, and she wondered who this gorgeous, courtly creature might be. Then suddenly she recognised him, with a little start. It was the Earl of Kildare.
A moment later, the mayor was introducing them. Kildare, his eyes twinkling pleasantly, said a few appropriate words, and the group moved on, leaving Joan to watch them, fascinated.
She had known that the earl had been sent for many years to the English court by his father. That was where he had formed his friendship with the present king, Henry VIII. And she had known that the English court was nowadays a centre of learning, where courtiers would be expected to be familiar with classical literature and the arts as well as be able to dance, and play the lute, and compose a verse. But this was the first time that she had glimpsed the gilded face of the Renaissance, and she sensed that new world even if she did not