Commander Cantrell in the West Indies(53)

“And whose service there fed you,” Isabella observed from behind gnarled knuckles folded before her on the table.

“Yes, Your Grace, but at what cost? Where was Hugh when the pope was threatened? Where does he tarry, now that he is the last earl of Ireland, the last hope of his people? Where has he been since late in April?”

“Evidently working for his employer,” Rubens observed smoothly.

“Yes, evidently. Abandoning us to work for the French. Which makes him, for all intents and purposes, a traitor!”

Isabella was on her feet in a single motion, cane brandished in one hand, the other pointing in quavering fury at Preston—or maybe at the word “traitor,” which seemed to hover invisible in the air. “You call Hugh Albert O’Donnell a traitor?” she cried.

Preston stood his ground. “Your Grace, if he serves your traditional enemy, that makes him—”

With a swiftness that belied her age, her infirmity, her arthritis and the gray habit of her order, she dashed her cane down upon the table: the heavy oak rod splintered with a crash. “A traitor?!” she shrieked, livid. “How dare you say—how dare you think—such a thing!”

The room was not merely silent, but frozen, all eyes on the trembling, imperial, terrible old woman who had risen up like a wrathful god from an elder age to silence them all with her fury and undiminished, magnificent passion.

Preston swallowed, but did not avert his eyes. “Your Grace, I mean no disrespect, but how are Lord O’Donnell’s actions not those of a traitor? Before Philip set Borja upon Rome, before the pope was threatened and John O’Neill was slain, he turned back all his honors and Spanish titles and went to work for France. For France, Your Grace. Your enemy, Spain’s enemy—and now, his employer. How is that not traitorous?”

“Colonel Preston, do you truly not see any other way to interpret Lord O’Donnell’s actions?” When Preston shook his head, Isabella continued. “Hugh was the only one of you Wild Geese except Lord O’Neill who was made a naturalized Spanish citizen by the Crown, who became a knight, and a fellow of the court at Madrid. But then, when he saw that the same Crown never intended to make good its promises and debts to you and your countrymen, I understand that he came to your camp incognito, and explained his dilemma. Specifically, what response could he make if Philip had asked him, as an intimate of the court and loyal gentleman of Spain, to function as Madrid’s special factotum and commander here? Which, given the current situation, could mean leading either his, or Spanish, tercios against those loyal to me, if Philip’s displeasure with the Lowlands were to become so great. Was Lord O’Donnell to obey orders to attack me, or to attack you and his fellow countrymen, if that is how the loyalties of such a moment played out?”

Preston felt as though the chair he was seated in had been turned upside down. Or the world had. Or both.

“Think it through, Colonel. Lord O’Donnell had to step down from his post. And in doing so, it was incumbent upon him to return the beneficences he had received, and remove himself from Spanish territory. But not before he visited his men and yours, and enjoined you to think carefully to whom your allegiance would lie if faced with the eventualities that now seem to be hastening upon us. Philip is already attempting to compromise our non-Spanish tercios.”

“Your Grace, all this I see plainly. But—France? Why not some other power? Why our old foe?”

Isabella reseated herself slowly. It was an almost leonine action, despite her age. “Because, it is through our old foe that he will orchestrate a solution to both your problem and our problem: money. Enough money for the Lowlands to survive without recourse to Madrid’s coffers. Enough money for your families to eat, and your men to have ample coin in their pockets.”

Preston knew the room wasn’t spinning, but at the moment, it felt as though it was. “And how will Hugh’s service to France make possible this solution? And why has he not communicated this to us, as well as to you? My Grace, I mean no offense, but we are his countrymen: why has he not reassured us with the particulars of his plan?”

Isabella closed her eyes. “Because it is not his plan. It is ours. And I,”—she opened eyes suddenly bright and liquid, but from which she refused to let tears run down—“and I could not tell him of it.”

“But why? If he doesn’t know how serving the French will more profoundly serve us, then by what inducement has he left us to—?”

Maria Anna silenced him with a small, sly smile. “My good Colonel Preston, I counsel you not to let these unexplained—and apparently inexplicable—events perturb you. You will note they do not perturb us. Indeed, our plans are well set. But it is often necessary that a cog spinning in one part of a complex machine has no knowledge of how its peers are turning elsewhere in the same device.”