Princes of Ireland - Edward Rutherfurd [310]
“He’s very wise,” Joan assured her. “I shan’t even tell my own husband. What a foolish world it is,” she sighed, “that we should have to keep these secrets.” She was silent for a while after that. “I think,” she murmured, “that I could go to sleep now.”
The sun was up when they awoke. The storm had passed; the day was clear. Joan Doyle was smiling contentedly when, thanking Margaret warmly and embracing her, she took her leave. As she rode out of the yard she turned to Margaret one last time.
“I’m sorry you don’t like the Talbots,” she said with a smile.
It was ten more days before William Walsh returned from Munster. Margaret was glad to see that he was looking pleased with himself.
The business had gone well. He had met the Earl of Desmond at the monastery without incident. “Unless I was followed,” he remarked, “I shouldn’t think anyone knows I saw him at all.”
She told him of Joan Doyle’s visit, leaving out any mention of their conversation about Munster, and he was amused. “Doyle’s wife is a good woman,” he said, “and Doyle himself is more powerful than ever. I’m glad that you should be friendly with her.”
He remained for several days at the house before going into Dublin one morning.
He returned late that evening. As soon as he entered the house, she knew something was wrong. He ate his meal with her alone, looking thoughtful but saying little. But at the end of the meal, he asked her quietly, “You didn’t tell anyone I was down in Munster, did you?”
“Munster?” She felt herself go pale. “Why would I do that? What has happened?”
“It’s very strange,” he answered. “You know there was a chance I might be offered a seat in the Parliament. I was talking to one of the fellows in the office of the royal council about it today, and he as good as told me not to bother to apply. I’d hoped for quite wide support, you know. Men like Doyle as well as the Fitzgeralds. But according to this fellow, Kildare has commitments to other people now—which is a way of saying that he doesn’t want to support me. I asked around and I got the impression that something has been said against me.” He shook his head. “Even Doyle, whom I do trust, looked awkward and said he didn’t know anything. But just as I was leaving, he gave me a strange look and he said, ‘Dublin’s so full of rumours at the moment, none of us is safe.’ Those were his very words. And the only thing I can think of that could be held against me is if someone heard about this Munster visit and started a rumour. Are you sure there’s no one you can think of?”
Margaret stared at the window. There was still a little light outside. The glass panes formed a faint, greenish rectangle.
It was Joan Doyle. It had to be. She must have told her husband.
Had she done so innocently, in confidence? Or had she done it with malice? Margaret remembered her parting words: “I’m sorry you don’t like the Talbots.” Yes, that was it. She had got the information with which to damage the Walsh family, and she was letting Margaret know she remembered the insult and that she was her enemy. And suddenly now the thought came to Margaret with a cold, sinking feeling. The story the Doyle woman had told about the man going to Munster. Might she have made it up? After the little awkwardness with Richard about his father’s whereabouts, had Joan Doyle guessed it was William’s journey down into Munster that the family was hiding? With all her sweet words during the night, had the Dublin woman just been fishing for information?
“No,” she said. “There isn’t.” She was ashamed of the lie. But how could she tell him it was she herself who was the cause of the