If Lord Deputy Wentworth considered the Ireland under his charge in the spring of 1639, he could feel some satisfaction. True, he had by no means done all that he wanted to do. The plantations were nothing like the ordered Protestant colonies that they were meant to be. The one he'd planned for Galway was not even begun. If he went into the house of any merchant or craftsman in Dublin, or any gentleman in the country, he'd probably find scurrilous pamphlets about himself. But it was an age of pamphleteering; and if he was hated by Catholic and Protestant alike, he did not care. He wasn't interested in being popular. He was interested in raising money for the king. And in order. "I believe in being thorough," he liked to say. "Thorough." And he had certainly proved it. They might hate him in Ireland, but they were still cowed, and the island was quiet- which was more than could be said of the rest of the king's realm.

King Charles's attempt to bully the Scots had proved a disaster. Having pledged to their Covenant that they'd have none of Charles's popish church north of the border, the Scots had stuck to it. Charles had blustered, then tried to negotiate. The Scots had watched him impassively. "He'd like to compel us, but he hasn't the power," they correctly concluded. And they sat tight. By the spring of 1639, therefore, King Charles had decided on a show of force. He began to collect troops, and tried to find gentlemen who'd be willing to lead them. It wasn't proving easy.

On a mild day in April, down on the old Wood Quay, the people watching the boats bringing passengers from a vessel anchored out in the stream saw a curious sight. For clambering with surprising agility from a boat, at the very spot where, over forty years before he had first set foot on Irish soil, came the tall, spindly figure of Doctor Simeon Pincher. He was dressed, as always, in black. But today, instead of the stiff Puritan hat that he normally favoured, Doctor Pincher was wearing a large, floppy cloth hat of the kind that, in a later age, would be called a tam-o'-shanter. And when the boatman, hoping for a tip, asked him, "Are you all right, Sir?" he answered very cheerfully, in a voice that the boatman could have sworn sounded Scottish: "Aye, man, I'm well enough."

Doctor Pincher had been to Scotland.

There were many in Trinity College who believed that Doctor Pincher had become a little eccentric. There was no harm in this. Elderly university teachers were supposed to be eccentric. So the sight of the strange hat would only have brought smiles of pleasure to the undergraduates as he strode past the college gates to his lodgings. And if the Calvinist firebrand who had electrified the congregation at Christ Church years before was now seen as harmless and a little mad, this suited Pincher very well.

Before reaching his lodgings, Pincher sent a college servant on two commissions: the first to fetch a pie from Tidy's wife; the second to find young Faithful Tidy and tell him to come to his lodgings at four o'clock precisely. As soon as he was home, Pincher poured himself a small glass of brandy and then sat down to write.

When Faithful Tidy came to the lodgings, he made sure to be on time. In doing so, he was carefully following his father's orders.

It had become clear, as soon as he arrived at Trinity, that having personally guaranteed his presence there, Doctor Pincher regarded Faithful as his personal property. The young man, who still referred to the learned doctor as "Old Inky" behind his back, had somewhat objected to being used to run errands, but his father had counselled him to be patient.

"How often does he call upon you, Faithful?"

"Maybe once a week."

"That's not so much. You owe him something. Just do it with a willing manner." His father nodded. "He may be old, Faithful, and not the man he was in Dublin once, but you never can tell how he may be useful to you in good time, if you serve him well."

More recently, Faithful had come with another complaint.

"He has me take letters to a place down by Saint Patrick's and leave them in a doorway."

"No harm in that."

"The letter's always sealed. Addressed to Master Clarke."

"Why shouldn't it be?"

"I never see the man. I just leave it there. Once, I asked a neighbour who Master Clarke might be, and he said he never knew such a person. There's something strange about the business, in my opinion. I'd like to wait one day and see who takes the letter. Or break the seal and read it."

At this, however, his father had become very agitated.

"Don't do it, Faithful. This is none of your affair. And if it's anything it shouldn't be, the less you know the better." He looked at his son urgently. "You carry a letter from Doctor Pincher of Trinity College. You know nothing of the contents or who receives it. You've done nothing wrong. Do you understand?"

"Yes, Father."

And it was a letter to the possibly fictitious Master Clarke that Pincher put into his hands at four o'clock precisely that afternoon, with instructions to take it to the usual place. Faithful set off at once.

When Faithful had gone, Pincher stood up, stretched, poured a glass of wine, and cut himself a large slice of pie. He felt contented with the world.

His visit to Scotland had been a great success. He had travelled to Edinburgh and met numerous learned preachers and Presbyterian gentlemen. He had liked them, and the place, so well that he had reflected to himself: I should have come here when I was a young man, instead of Dublin. It was soon clear to him that the great National Covenant to which the Scots had sworn was a formidable instrument indeed. King Charles might march northwards with whatever following he could gather, but the Scots weren't frightened in the least.

"God's on our side," one gentleman had told him. "Also the numbers."

It was also clear that these gentlemen had been in correspondence with some of the Puritan gentlemen in England. The king would not find it easy to get support against the Scottish Covenanters from his English subjects. Pincher had returned more than ever determined to pursue his own secret war.

The document which Faithful Tidy had just taken would be collected by a third party, whose name was not Clarke, and thence delivered anonymously to a printer. Within days it would appear in Dublin, the Ulster plantation, and many other places besides. It was a vigorous little pamphlet. Late in life, Pincher had discovered a talent for journalism. Its object was to attack no less a person than the Lord Deputy himself.

Would Pincher be in danger if he were discovered as the author? Possibly. In England, seditious writers had even been known to have their ears cut off. But having lived so long, having been repressed in his personal life and blighted in his ambition, Pincher hardly cared. His mission in life was to keep the pure flame of the Calvinist faith burning brightly in Ireland, to proclaim God's word and the Puritan cause, and to attack the evils of popery. He was careful not to attack the king, but he could and did insult the cursed Wentworth.

But of course the thing was deeper and more dangerous than that, and here his visit to Scotland had greatly encouraged him. For in Scotland he thought he saw a potential parallel. What if the Presbyterians of Ulster-many of whom were Scots-were to form a Covenant like their kinsmen across the water? There would be others, from the powerful Earl of Cork to the Puritans in Dublin, who would put pressure on the government. If Wentworth could be removed, the case would be even better. How this might come about, and where it might all lead, he could not yet foresee. But the general direction was clear. The men of God were on the march, and the popish King of England sooner or later would have to give way.

That evening, he wrote a letter to a Presbyterian gentleman in Ulster whose name had been given him when he was in Scotland. When he had finished, he smiled to himself. He would send it through Wentworth's own Post Office.

She had not known at first. She might have been alerted when Maurice remarked, "His face looks strange," and Walter had taken him by the arm and said, "The child's just born." She might have realised, but in the first flush of her happiness, she had seen what she wanted to. The others had all known, too, but it was Walter who had decided when she should be told, and he had done it himself, very gently, as soon as he judged she was ready.

"Anne, it seems the child is . . . sickly." He paused. "Not whole."

"Not whole? Misshapen? The child is misshapen?"

"It will be a simpleton."

For a moment she had not wanted to believe it, but she had looked carefully and seen the truth of it: the broad face, the tilted eyes, the flat back of the baby's head-the mongoloid features left little doubt. She had seen children like that before. In old times, in some countries she had heard, such babies were held to be the offspring of werewolves and were burned at the stake. In Ireland, more often than not they were treated with kindness. But they grew up slowly, never to full height, clumsy of speech. Often as not, they died before they were adults. Was her lovely child, the baby given her by O'Byrne up in the wild beauty of the Wicklow Mountains, such a one? Was it possible? How could it be?

After he had told her, Walter had kissed the child and placed it in her arms.

"He is God's creature, and we shall love him all the same," he remarked quietly. It was typical of his generosity, and she could not but be grateful. But after he had left her alone again, she had held the baby close to her, and after she had quietly cried for a while, she had been overcome with a sense of passionate protectiveness which the thought that she had failed, and that his life would be short, only made the more intense. Sometimes, these children were almost normal. When Walter had come back again, she had looked up at him defensively.

"He's only a little imperfect," she said.

In a sense she realised, for Walter, it had been a relief. The presence of a healthy, handsome child of O'Byrne in his home, to mock him into his old age, could not be something he looked forward to very much. Indeed, her husband might secretly have hoped that the baby would be stillborn. In his eyes, at least, this defective child could in some sense be discounted, especially when set beside his own, handsome young Maurice. She had no doubt also that, though he had too much grace ever to say it, Walter must consider the baby's condition a sign of God's displeasure at her conduct. Most people would have thought the same. And if her husband was too kind to say it, she certainly expected something of the kind when Lawrence came to see her a week after the discovery. She was greatly surprised when the Jesuit picked up the baby and, having examined it closely, remarked: "It has been noted by physicians that these children are usually born to older women. It is not known why." After a short pause, he continued: "If you wish, later, for the child to be looked after with kindness, I can make arrangements. I know of such a place."

"I should rather care for him myself."

"That is between you and your husband." He had given her a searching look. "Your husband, Anne, is beyond all praise. I speak as a simple Christian."

"I know, Lawrence."

"I am glad." Mercifully, he had left it at that.

They called the baby Daniel.

To be fair, it wasn't often that Maurice Smith gave his father any trouble. But that didn't prevent Walter from worrying about him. Like any parent, he worried about what might happen as much as what had.

It was a curious feature of Walter's mind that, despite his awareness that he was, by ancestry, an Irish O'Byrne, he always considered that he was entirely English, and that the Irish strain in his blood was like red hair, green eyes, or madness-that might or might not show up in some family member. His fear, which he never expressed to Anne, was that Maurice might turn out like his brother Patrick: handsome, charming, but weak. This Walter considered the Irish streak. All through the boy's childhood, therefore, he had kept an eye out: if he thought that Maurice was not attending to his studies, or had not finished a task he'd been set, he would quietly but firmly see that the work was done. As Maurice approached manhood, his father thought that, on the whole, he was sound.

Only one thing worried him. Maurice worked hard. But was there a certain wildness about him? If this was just the high spirits of a young man, well and good. Walter could understand. But if it was something more profound, then there were two possible explanations: it might be the Irish blood in him; or it might be the inheritance of the Walshes. Had the centuries of living cheek by jowl with the O'Byrnes and the O'Tooles down on the borderland of Carrickmines affected the family? Perhaps. They might have been representatives of the Old English order-that was certainly how he had thought of them when he married Anne-but he had realised since that there was a strain of wildness and unreliability in them which their piety had masked. Wasn't it just this instability that had recently come out in Anne?

Even without his discovery of her affair, therefore, his fear that his son might be attracted to Irish life would have made him discourage his friendship with Brian O'Byrne. Only the boy's endless pleading, and the fact that he could not tell him the true reasons for his objections, had finally worn Walter down to the point where he had shrugged his shoulders in secret despair and allowed Maurice to go up to Rathconan. And what a catastrophe that had turned out to be.

So when, in the spring of 1639, Maurice had said that he wanted to ride over to Rathconan to see O'Byrne, his father at first tried to dissuade him and had then forbidden it. Maurice had protested: "But he's our friend, and my uncle Orlando's, too. I was living in the man's house." But Walter was quietly obdurate. Maurice had appealed to his mother. He had sensed that she wasn't in agreement with his father, but she only told him: "You must obey your father."

Late in April, just after the return of Doctor Pincher from his travels, Walter announced: "I'm going into Fingal on business in a couple of days. I'll stay the night at Orlando's house and be back the following evening."

Anne didn't give the matter much thought until, on the morning that her husband left, she came upon her son about to leave also. When she asked him where he was going and when he'd be back, he said he had to see a friend and would return the next day. She thought he looked evasive, and she questioned him further. What friend? "No one you know," he said, but her instincts told her it was not true. She insisted, and told him that if he didn't tell her the truth, he should not leave. So finally he admitted that he was going to Rathconan. "I'll be back before Father returns," he said. "He needn't know."

Anne stared at him. She knew what she ought to say: he must not go. It was her duty to support his father. Yet she had received no word from O'Byrne since his visit. She longed for something, even a word from him. If Maurice were to see him, he could at least bring her word of him, how he was, some covert message from him perhaps. "You should not disobey your father," she said weakly.

"Are you going to tell him if I go?"

Now he was making her his accomplice. He had no idea what he was doing, of course. If only the circumstances had been different. She could have sent a message with him. But at least she would hear something this way. She hesitated. Then she took the coward's way out. "You're to obey your father," she said. "And if ever you don't, I have no wish to hear anything about it. I don't want to know." Then she turned on her heel and left him. A few minutes later, she heard him ride away.

At dusk that day, Walter returned. His business had finished early, and so he'd had no need to stay at Orlando's. It wasn't long before he asked for his son. Anne was sitting in the parlour, the baby Daniel in her lap.

"He rode out this morning. He told me he mightn't be back tonight," she answered with perfect truth.

"Where was he going?"

"He didn't want to say."

"You let him go?"

"I thought perhaps . . . I had a feeling it might be some girl . . ."

Walter was silent. It was obvious what had happened. There was one place he knew the boy wanted to go. So Maurice had waited until he thought he could slip up there without his father knowing. He was furious that his son should have been so deceitful, but he had enough good sense not to be morally outraged. Boys did these things. His wife was another matter. She claimed not to know? He stared at her accusingly. She quailed, and dropped her eyes. He slowly nodded. So that was it. She'd let their son go to see her lover, in open defiance of his wishes. A deep, sullen rage welled up within him. He gazed at the baby for several long, terrible moments. Then he walked out of the room.

The next day when Maurice returned, his father was very calm. He did not even ask where he had been. But he informed Maurice that he was not to disappear for the night at any time without his permission, and he also informed him that he no longer had a horse, and that it would not be restored until the following Christmas. He immediately sent him upon some errands in the town.

Later, Anne learned from Maurice that O'Byrne was as well and as cheerful as ever, and that he would be visiting Dublin in due course.

"Soon?"

"He didn't say. But he sent his best remembrances to you."

In the weeks that followed, Walter Smith was very busy. It also seemed to Anne that she detected a change in him. Whether or not he had actually lost a little of his extra weight she wasn't sure, for they were not physically intimate. But there was a new briskness and hardness about him as he conducted his business each day, as if, in his own mind at least, he no longer needed her.

She waited, meanwhile, for some word from O'Byrne.

When Wentworth's officials asked Doyle to join an important Commission, he assumed that he must have been remembered with favour after his dealings in London a dozen years ago in the matter of the Graces. "You're seen as a dependable Church of Ireland Protestant," one of them told him. "I suppose," Doyle remarked wryly to his cousin Orlando soon afterwards, "I must take that as a compliment." And though he had no desire to desert his family to go on the mission, he continued, "I'd be a fool to refuse." So it was, one summer morning, that he set out with a large party of gentlemen and officials from Dublin Castle on a journey northwards. He would be gone almost a month.

The purpose of the Commission was simple: to ensure there was no trouble in Ulster.

When King Charles and his reluctant army arrived at the Scottish border late that spring, the Covenanters had come out to meet them. There had been a few skirmishes, but King Charles had got nowhere and concluded a truce. The government of his realm was now at a stalemate. Meanwhile, the royal council had been looking at Ulster and asking the obvious question: "Are the Scots in Ulster going to start trouble, too?"

As Doyle rode northwards, he couldn't help being impressed. The Commissioners and their entourage were a considerable party, but accompanying them was a military force of mounted men, foot soldiers, and musketeers that was like a little army. These were not like the raw levies that the king had led so uselessly against the Scots. They were trained soldiers. When he confessed his admiration to one of the officials, the fellow smiled. "Even the Presbyterians will find them persuasive," he replied.

Once in Ulster, the procedure they followed amazed him. The way that Wentworth intended to ensure peace was to force the Ulster Scots to take an oath of loyalty. There was nothing new in this. King Henry VIII of England had done the same when he broke with the Pope in Rome, and some loyal Catholics who refused, like Sir Thomas More, had gone to their deaths. It was their refusal to take this same oath that was keeping Orlando Walsh and the rest of the Old English Catholics out of public office now. In traditional Ireland, the swearing of loyalty oaths was a normal procedure-although, wisely, it had usually been accompanied by the taking of hostages as well. The oath they were to administer now was called the Oath of Abjuration. The swearer had to abjure-to renounce- the mighty Covenant of Scotland and to give their loyalty to King Charles. Doyle had supposed that they would be going to the men of substance and obtaining the oath from the head of each household. He should have known Wentworth better.

"Thorough: that's my motto." They went to every house, every farm, every field and barn. "Wherever there is a Scotsman, be he never so mean, even a pauper," they were told, "if he has attained the age of sixteen he shall take the oath." And that is what they did. Most of the Scots lived in the eastern, coastal region of Ulster, but the Commissioners went wherever they needed to. Arriving in each area in force, they split into smaller parties, though always accompanied by troops, and went from door to door. Any Scot, resident or visitor, was forced to take the oath. Doyle himself took the oath from hundreds, holding out a small, bruised Bible for them to swear upon. They did not like it. "The Black Oath," they called it. But they had no choice. After three weeks, Doyle was thanked and allowed to return home. He spent a few days on his own, travelling around the province, before he did so.

On his way home, as he passed through Fingal, he turned aside to stay a night at the house of his cousin Orlando.

He enjoyed an affectionate family supper with Orlando and his wife, then Mary left the two cousins to talk. Orlando was eager to hear about the Commission, and Doyle was equally glad to share his thoughts with the intelligent Catholic lawyer. Were the Ulster Scots minded to form a Covenant, or cross the sea to join their kinsmen across the water? Orlando enquired. "While you've been gone, the sending of the Commission north has had the effect of frightening many people in Dublin who were not afraid before," he explained.

"I do not think there is much danger," Doyle replied. "There is traffic across the water between Ulster and Scotland, of course. All the time. But the situation in each place is entirely different. The Scots Presbyterians are a minority in Ulster. They have to live quietly, although they'll no doubt be glad to help the Scots if they can, and they are delighted to see the king's Church humiliated there."

"I try to imagine a whole community full of Doctor Pinchers," Orlando said with a smile.

"I found them upright, proud, hardworking. In some of them, despite the circumstances, I thought I saw a grim humour. To tell the truth, Orlando, I rather liked them-far better than I do Pincher." He paused to consider. "And yet there is a force in them that Doctor Pincher lacks, and which frightens me more."

"More frightening than Pincher?"

"Yes. How can I put it? Pincher believes in his religion. I may not like his belief, and as a Catholic you must abhor it. But I do not question his sincerity. He believes passionately. They are not so strident. But they do not just believe. They know know." He shrugged and smiled wryly. "You can't really argue with a man who knows."

"But I know also, Cousin Doyle. As a Catholic, I know that my Church is the true and universal voice of Christendom."

"That is so, yet there is a difference. You have not only the apostolic succession but a millennium and a half of tradition, to fall back upon. Catholic saints have given testimony. Catholic philosophers have argued their case painstakingly, and the Church has reformed itself from within time and again. The Catholic Church is huge and ancient and wise, and it can justify itself upon those grounds. There is a place for all humanity in it, a flexibility in many matters, a spirit of kindness." He paused and grinned. "At least, it is to be hoped."

"I look forward to your return to it, then," Orlando said drily. "Did you find these Scots unkind?"

"No. Though any people will become unkind if they are threatened. I found them not unkind, but certain. They know. know. That is all I can tell you." That is all I can tell you."

"We must be grateful that we have peace there, at least."

Doyle nodded thoughtfully before he went on. For there was another matter in his mind, which was the real reason why he had turned aside to visit his Catholic cousin.

"There is something else, Orlando, I saw in Ulster that worried me more. It does not concern the Scots at all."

He had caught a glimpse of it a few times in the intervals during his Commission work. But it was the series of visits he had made after finishing and before returning home that had left him so thoughtful. It had not been difficult for him to see anyone he wanted of the important men of Ulster. The English knew of his trusted position; the Irish were aware of his connections to the Catholic families. Some were politely guarded, others more frank. Nothing explicit was said, but he had come away with a clear impression.

"What concerns me," he went on, "is the effect of all this upon the Irish." He saw Orlando's eyebrows slightly raised. "I am speaking of the most well-affected Irish men-of the landowners like Sir Phelim O'Neill, Lord Maguire, and the others. They are heirs of the old Princes of Ireland, men who after the Flight of the Earls saw the English government take most of their lands and the land of their friends, certainly. But they have still more or less made peace with the new regime. They sit in the Irish Parliament. They keep their dignity and some of their old state still. I talked to some of these men, Orlando, and I observed them."

"And what did you think?"

"I think they are watching. They see that Wentworth is powerful but that King Charles is weak. The Scots with their Covenant have proved it. Equally important, they see the Protestants now quarrelling amongst themselves."

"And what conclusions might they draw?"

"I can see two. The first, and the less dangerous, is that they will use the king's weakness to press their case for better treatment. Indeed, they may well be delighted at this Presbyterian rebellion in Scotland, for it will make the king have need of loyal Catholics even more."

"The other?"

"The other is far more to be feared. They might ask themselves, why should we not make a Covenant of our own, a Catholic one? The king's so weak, perhaps he cannot stop it."

"Wentworth could stop it."

"Probably. But one day . . ."