If Silken Thomas was offering to save Ireland for the one true Church, they didn't seem to care.

"Heretics," she called them furiously. But Silken Thomas was back outside Dublin now, and though he put the city under siege again, he couldn't get back in. Within days, Silken Thomas and the aldermen agreed to a six week truce. "He won't fight us," the Dubliners said, "he'll wait and fight the English."

This return to stalemate had one other result.

Dublin Castle opened its gate, and Henry Tidy came home.

It was a pity that one of the children had upset a pitcher of milk just before he came, and Cecily was not in a good temper. She had been waiting for this day for so long.

Time and again, while her husband was in the castle, she had thought about the moment of his return. What was it she wanted? As she looked at her children and remembered the early days of their marriage, she knew very well.

She longed to return to the warmth of their married life. She couldn't change her religious views.

That was impossible. And she didn't suppose that her husband could change his attitude, either. But surely they could manage to live in peace.

If only he would be kind. When he had struck her that awful day, it had not been the blow itself that hurt-although she had been shocked-but the coldness she had sensed behind it. And something within her had died. Could it be revived?

She needed to know that he loved her. Whatever her views about King Henry, however much she embarrassed him in front of Doyle and the city authorities, she needed to know that he truly loved her. That was what she would be watching for, upon his return.

How would he act? What would it mean? Could she trust him?

It was a pity therefore that, in a moment of irritation, she should have turned when he appeared at the door and greeted him coldly.

"You don't seem very pleased to see me."

She stared at him. She wanted to smile. She had meant to. But now that the moment she had waited for had come, and had started all wrong, she felt strangely paralyzed. She felt something inside her shrink back.

"You left your family," she answered bleakly.

Would he apologise? Would he make the first move?

Would he give her some reassurance?

"You refused to come with me, Cecily."

No. Not a word. Nothing had changed.

"It is not my fault that King Henry is excommunicated."

"I am still your husband."

She gave a tiny shrug. "And the Holy Father is still the Holy Father."

"I have returned, anyway." He tried a smile. "You could make me welcome."

"Why?" She could not help the bitterness in her voice. "Do you wish to be here?"

He stared at her. What was he thinking? He's thinking what a cold and cruel woman I am, she thought. This is partly my fault.

"No."

So that was it. He'd spoken the truth. Was it the truth, though, or was he just hitting back? She waited for him to add something else. He didn't.

"We've nothing to say to each other," she said, feeling strangely helpless, and stood there waiting as the coldness descended, falling quietly between them.

By the next day, the Tidy household had evolved a new way of life. The workshop was at the street level. There Tidy and the apprentice worked and slept. On the floor above was the main room, where the family ate together. Above that, in the tower, Cecily and the children slept. From her window up there, Cecily overlooked some potteries where they made crockery.

It became a refuge for her, that window in the tower.

Sometimes during the day she would go up there to be alone and watch the crackers, or even catch sight of Fitzgerald's men in the distance. In the evenings, cut off from her husband, after the children had gone to sleep, she would sit there for hours watching the sunset or the stars, and thinking of what was passing in the world.

Soon after she began her vigils came the news that the Earl of Kildare had died of his sickness in England. Sad though this was, it also meant that Silken Thomas was now the new earl, with all the authority and prestige that name evoked. It could not be long now, she hoped, before the cause was won. In mid-October, the English ships at last arrived.

Doyle and the other aldermen welcomed the Gunner and his men into Dublin. The English troops were numerous and seemed to be trained; they also brought artillery.

She had hoped to see them destroyed in an open battle with Silken Thomas, and felt some disgust when, from her window, she saw parties of Thomas's troops quietly withdrawing. But she took comfort from the prevailing view amongst Kildare's supporters.

"He'll wait at Maynooth. The Fitzgeralds still have all their strongholds. He'll wear the Gunner down, and when the Spanish troops arrive, they'll kick the English out of Ireland forever."

Within a month, the Gunner set out. Word came that he had taken back one of the castles Fitzgerald had seized, at Trim. Still more ominous came the news that two of Thomas's five Fitzgerald uncles were cooperating with the Gunner.

As she looked out of her window after hearing that, it was hard not to feel a sense of dismay. How was it possible, she wondered, that there could be such treachery?

But when she prayed, she knew she must keep faith, and so she told herself to have patience.

And indeed, in the winter months, there was reason to hope. The winter was cold and wet. The Gunner retired to Dublin and stayed there, and soon complained that he was unwell. Cecily would see him occasionally, riding through the streets with his escort.

Instead of the brisk military man he had been, he now looked pale and haggard. His troops were suffering, too. There were desertions. Better yet, Silken Thomas was back in the strongholds the Gunner had taken earlier. Most important of all, around Christmas Cecily heard that the Spanish were sending ten thousand armed men. Once they arrived, the Gunner would be gone.

January came, cold and dreary. The English troops were being sent out now to key garrisons around the Pale; but there was no action. Still Silken Thomas waited for the Spanish soldiers, but no word of them came. One day, in February, at their meal in the main room, Tidy quietly remarked, "You know what people are saying now. The King of Spain has other things to think about.

He's going to leave Silken Thomas twisting in the breeze."

"So you say," she answered dully. It wasn't often they even spoke, nowadays.

"A ship came into port yesterday," he continued calmly. "From Spain. There's no sign and no word of any soldiers to be sent over here."

"The enemies of the Fitzgeralds will say what they will say," she countered.

"You don't understand." He gazed at her evenly.

"It's not their enemies saying so. It's their friends."

That night there was a fall of snow. When she looked out of her window in the morning, gazing towards the interior of Ireland, she saw only a dismal, white silence.

But the real blow came in March. The Gunner had finally bestirred himself to launch a proper campaign.

Boldly, he had gone to Maynooth, the mighty Fitzgerald stronghold. Even with his artillery, Cecily imagined, he'd be held up by that huge fortress for weeks. Then, after no time at all, the news came.

"Maynooth has fallen." It was her husband who came all the way up to her tower refuge to tell her.

"The Gunner took it?"

He shook his head.

"He'll claim he took it, of course," he said. "But it was some of Fitzgerald's own men who betrayed him and let the English in." Then he went back down the stairs again.

That night, after watching the sunset, she could not sleep, and sat staring out at the gleaming stars until, at last, they faded before the cold, harsh dawn from the east.

It was in April, when Silken Thomas was already a fugitive, moving down into the marshes, that Cecily went to see Dame Doyle. It had not been easy to approach the house of the alderman who had sided so gladly with the heretic King Henry; but his wife was different, and she trusted her.

"I can't go on like this," she told the older woman.

"I don't know what to do." And she explained all that had passed between her and Henry Tidy. But if she expected sympathy, or that Dame Doyle would offer to mediate, she was disappointed.

"You must go back to living with your husband,"

Dame Doyle told her bluntly. "It's as simple as that. Even," she added quite severely, "if you don't love him." She gazed at Cecily thoughtfully. "Could you bring yourself to love him," she asked her frankly, "enough?"

It was what Cecily had been wondering herself.

"The trouble is," she confessed, "I think he doesn't love me."

"Are you sure of that?"

"It's what I believe."

"Perhaps," Dame Doyle said more kindly, "you should give your husband the benefit of the doubt. Marriage is like religion, in a way," she gently suggested. "It requires an act of faith."

"But that's not the same at all," Cecily protested. "For about the true faith I haven't any doubt."

"Well at least you could hope," Dame Doyle remarked with a smile. And seeing Cecily still looking uncertain, "My child, you'll have to rely upon charity then. Be kind to him. Things may get better.

Besides," she added shrewdly, "you've said yourself things can't continue as they are. The plain fact is, you've nothing to lose."

So that night, after putting the children to sleep in the main room, Cecily went down to the workshop and suggested that Tidy should join her in her refuge above.

The old man arrived at Rathconan on a fine day at the end of August. He was a brehon, he informed Eva, a man skilled in the old Irish laws and an adviser to the Fitzgeralds down in Munster. He had come from Maurice's parents with a message that must be delivered only to the boy himself and to Sean. As they were away with the cattle up on the mountain pastures, she sent one of the men to fetch them while, with the proper show of respect to the old man, she set out a flagon of ale and some refreshments for him in the hall where he said he would like to rest. Until Sean and Maurice arrived, she could only guess as to what the nature of the brehon's business might be.

One possibility, clearly, concerned the Fitzgerald family. When his garrison had betrayed him at Maynooth, Silken Thomas had escaped and gone to rally the Irish chiefs who were loyal to his family. The Gunner might hold some strongholds and possess most of the artillery, but he only had a few hundred troops and he wasn't well himself. The English force could be worn down and destroyed.

But the Gunner had the power of England behind him. The Irish chiefs were cautious. Silken Thomas was still saying that the Spanish would come; but weeks passed and there was no sign of them. Silken Thomas was learning the bitter lesson of power: friends are the people who think you will win. "At least people up here are loyal to the Fitzgeralds," Eva had remarked to Sean one day; but he had only given her a wry look.

"Some of the O'Tooles and our own O'Byrne kinsmen are talking to the Gunner now," he told her. "He's offering good money." By midsummer, Silken Thomas was hiding out in the forests and bogs like a warrior chief from times gone by.

But he wasn't an ancient Irish chief; he was rich young Silken Thomas. If the Gunner was sluggish, the Fitzgerald heir was starting to lose heart. And a week ago, when one of his aristocratic English kinsmen, a royal commander, had found him miserably encamped down in the Bog of Allen and promised him his life and a pardon if he gave himself up, he had agreed to do so. The news had reached Rathconan three days ago.

So now, though it was hard for Eva to believe, it seemed that the power of the mighty house of Kildare was fading away like the sound of pipers disappearing over the hill. And if Kildare's power had collapsed, what would that mean for the Desmond Fitzgeralds in the south? Uncertainty at best.

Perhaps the southern Fitzgeralds would want their son Maurice safely back with them?

She hoped not. Since the death of Fintan, young Maurice had been such a tower of strength, helping Sean and giving her his quiet affection. You couldn't keep a foster son forever, of course, but she couldn't bear to part with him just now. Not yet.

Sean and Maurice arrived at the house early in the evening. Sean greeted the brehon respectfully and having sipped a little ale, sat in the big oak chair in the hall, looking rather impressive.

Maurice sat quietly on a stool, gazing at the old man curiously. Eva sat on a bench.

Then Sean politely requested the brehon to state his business.

"I am Kieran, son of Art, hereditary brehon, and I come on behalf of the lady Fitzgerald, mother of Maurice Fitzgerald, foster son of Sean O'Byrne," he began in a formal manner that signalled the seriousness of his business. "Would you confirm to me," he turned to Maurice, "that you are that Maurice Fitzgerald?" Maurice nodded. "And that you are that same Sean O'Byrne?"

"I am," said Sean. "And what is your message?"

"For some years, Sean O'Byrne, this Maurice has lived in your house as your foster son." He paused, eyeing Sean, it seemed to Eva, a little severely. "But as you also know, this young man has a greater claim upon you."

Sean acknowledged this odd statement with a gracious inclination of his handsome head.

"And under the ancient usages of Ireland," the brehon continued, "I'm to tell you, Sean O'Byrne, that his mother the lady Fitzgerald is now calling upon you to admit your responsibility in this matter and to make the proper provisions."

"She names me?"

"She does."

Maurice was listening to this dialogue with utter astonishment. Eva was staring at the old man with a look of horror on her pale face. Only Sean seemed quite at ease, sitting in his big chair and nodding quietly in recognition of what the brehon was saying.

"What responsibility?" Eva broke in.

"What provision?" A sudden panic added a sharpness to her voice. "What is it you're saying?"

The brehon turned towards her. It was hard to tell what expression was in his face, which seemed as old as the hills.

"That your husband, Sean O'Byrne, is the father of this boy." He indicated Maurice. "The lady Fitzgerald has named him. You did not know?"

She did not reply. Her face was entirely white; her mouth formed into a small O, from which no sound emerged. The old man turned to Sean.

"You do not deny it?"

And now Sean was smiling. "I do not. She has the right."

It was the law and custom in Ireland that if a woman named a man as the father of her child and it was acknowledged, then the child was entitled to make claims upon the father, including a share of the father's estate when he died.

"When?" Eva found her voice at last. "When was this known?"

Sean did not seem in any hurry to reply, so the old man answered. "It was admitted privately between the parties when Sean O'Byrne came down to ask for Maurice as a foster son."

"When Maurice first came here. He brought Maurice here because he was his son?"

"That would be it," said the brehon. "The lady Fitzgerald's husband did not wish to embarrass himself or his wife at that time, so once he had been informed of the matter, he agreed that Maurice should go with his father as a foster son. But as he's not wanting to provide for him now, Sean O'Byrne is named."