The next day, the eighth of December, early in the morning, the child was born. It was healthy, and it was a boy. They called him Donatus.

Maurice Smith was delighted with the news that his aunt had had the baby. He had been wondering what to do for nearly a week- ever since the letter from Elena had come.

It had been handed to him in the marketplace by one of van Leyden's men, who had asked him to give an immediate reply, as he must return at once to the Dutchman's estate in Fingal. Maurice had never received a letter from Elena before. He noticed that although her English was still imperfect, her writing was firm and regular. The letter was not long. She wrote that her grandfather had kept her in Fingal for two months now, and that although the old man went into Dublin quite often, he refused to take her with him. Now, with the rebels getting closer, she was afraid. What did Maurice think she should do?

Taking the letter into a scrivener, where they lent him pen and ink, he wrote his reply onto the letter. She was in no danger, he told her. The rebels might come to forage; they might even take some valuables. But though they might turn nasty if they encountered some of the hated English Protestant settlers, he thought it unlikely they'd hurt a harmless old Dutchman and his granddaughter.

It was clear to him that the real message in Elena's letter was that she was frightened and wanted him to come and comfort her, and he felt a great urge to do so. Yet how could he? It had been wrong to court her when he had. He'd given his father his word never to see her again.

So what could have possessed him, at the end of his message, to add "I shall come to see you as soon as I can"?

For when Orlando's message had brought the glad tidings of the birth, there had also been a request that Maurice should go to his uncle's straightaway, so that he could be godfather to the baby, whose christening would be performed by the old priest from Malahide as quickly as possible. Walter was delighted. "It's a great honour, Maurice," he told him. He also saw it as a useful opportunity. "While you are there, you must do everything you can to persuade your uncle to come to Dublin. He failed to appear on the eighth, but that can be explained by the birth of Donatus. Your cousin Doyle has seen to that. But as soon as the child is christened, your uncle should go in to the castle at once and establish his loyalty. I, too, as a Catholic, would be under suspicion if I were not here in Dublin. Tell him all this and that I join my voice to Doyle's, and urge him to come."

It was a charming little ceremony. It was held in the house. Present were just Maurice, a lady from a neighbouring estate who acted as godmother, the happy parents, the old priest from Malahide, and little Daniel, who, miraculously, kept quiet throughout the ceremony. Maurice stayed with them until the following day; and that evening, when he found himself alone with Orlando, he delivered his father's message. His uncle listened carefully, nodded thoughtfully, and thanked him, but made no further comment.

In the morning, Maurice left. But as soon as he was out of sight, instead of riding south, back towards Dublin, he turned his horse and took the track towards Swords. From Swords he turned north-west, and an hour later, he was in sight of van Leyden's stone and timber farm.

Here he had to pause. He could not go up to the door, for fear of encountering the old man, so he waited for a long time in the cold until he saw a farmhand coming towards him. Telling the fellow that he was a scout sent out from Dublin to look out for rebels, he quickly learned that none had been seen, that the old man was in Dublin, though expected back that afternoon, and that Elena was in charge of the house in his absence. Asking the man to fetch her, he rode slowly towards the farm. And moments later, Elena appeared.

She seemed pleased to see him. Despite the cold, they walked together so that they should not be heard. If at first she seemed a little constrained, he could well understand it, for he felt the same. But more than anything, she seemed to need reassurance that they would not be attacked by Phelim O'Neill's men. "I told my grandfather that we should go to Dublin for safety," she complained. "But he does not want me to be there." She made a wry face. "Because of you."

Maurice told her again that the rebels had no quarrel with the Dutch. "These are not criminals or animals," he reminded her. "I promise that you and your grandfather will be safe."

He had never seen her afraid before. Their relationship had been several things. He'd enjoyed her company, for they made each other laugh. There had been the excitement, with the added thrill that their relationship was forbidden. He had found her wonderfully sensuous. But if the truth were told, neither of them had felt real love or passion. Now, however, seeing her afraid, he felt a sudden wave of tenderness. Putting his arm around her, he did his best to comfort her and stayed with her for nearly an hour. They kissed before he left, and though he didn't say it to her then, he found himself wondering seriously whether-he did not yet know how-they might be united after all.

It was midafternoon when he entered Swords again. To reach Dublin before dark, he needed to press on. The city gates would be closed at dusk, and it would certainly be hard to explain himself to his parents if he were locked out. But he also felt uncommonly thirsty, and as he passed down the main street and saw the inn, he couldn't resist turning in there for a small tankard of ale. There was time, surely, for that.

It was gloomy inside the tavern. The windows were small and the day outside was grey. A large fire at the end of the place provided what light there was. A narrow table with benches ran along one side of the room. The floor was covered with rushes. There were only a few people in there. The innkeeper soon brought Maurice his ale, and he sat at the end of the table nearest the fire, drinking it quietly. At the far end of the table, in shadow, two men were playing at dice, small piles of coins on the table between them. One was a small, wizened man; the other had his back turned to him. After a few minutes, this fellow gave a sad laugh and pushed his coins towards the small man.

"Enough." He spoke in Irish. "I've lost enough for one day." His voice sounded familiar. The small man rose, scooped up the coins, and started to move away. The other turned, glanced at Maurice, and then stared. "Well, Mwirish," he said in English, "what brings you here?"

And Maurice found himself a moment later sitting beside his friend Brian O'Byrne.

They talked for a long time. Maurice told him everything: about the birth of Donatus, at which O'Byrne was greatly delighted; about Elena, at which the Irishman shook his head. "Leave that, Mwirish. Your father is right. You can do no good there."

O'Byrne himself, he explained, had been on a visit to Rathconan and was now returning to Drogheda. He had been with Phelim O'Neill since the start of the rising. "I'd have joined him anyway, Mwirish," he said, "but with my wife being his kinswoman . . ." He shrugged. "It was fate."

O'Byrne ordered more ale. As they drank together, it seemed to Maurice that his old friend was uncharacteristically moody. At one point, O'Byrne turned to him and suddenly remarked: "You belong at Rathconan, you know. I saw it from the first."

"I feel at home there," Maurice acknowledged, though he did not know what had made O'Byrne say it just then. In any case, the Irishman hardly seemed to be listening.

"It's where you belong," he said, almost to himself. He gazed at the fire and sighed. "Perhaps that's how it will be," he mused. And he seemed so intent upon his own thoughts that Maurice did not like to interrupt.

Glancing out of the window, Maurice saw that the afternoon light was waning. He looked back at the handsome Irish chief, whose green eyes he shared. The firelight was catching his face, giving it a brooding, romantic quality. And whether it was the fear that he might be late back to Dublin and his visit to Elena be discovered, or whether he was suddenly overwhelmed by a desire to be in the company of this man he loved and admired, fighting for the sacred Catholic cause that was their heritage, he burst out: "I want to come with you. Take me with you to Drogheda."

O'Byrne gave him a long look and slowly smiled. But he shook his head.

"No, Mwirish, I've brought enough trouble to your house. I'll not take Walter Smith's son away as well." This didn't make sense to Maurice, and he wanted to ask him what he meant; but O'Byrne had not finished. "Tell me, Mwirish," he asked, "do you like to gamble?"

"I don't know."

"Every Irishman likes to gamble, Mwirish," said O'Byrne. "It's in the blood." Perhaps it was the play of the firelight on his face, but it seemed to Maurice now that his friend looked strangely sad. "This rising, Mwirish, it's just a gamble, you see. A roll of the dice."

"Gamblers can be lucky."

"True." O'Byrne gave a wan smile. "Though few are lucky all the time. I was rolling the dice when you came in, Mwirish. But I lost."

"I want to come with you."

"We'll meet again, Mwirish. But go back to Dublin now. You must leave, for I've other business."

So Maurice left, and rode as fast as he could back to Dublin, arriving there just before the gates were closed.

After he had gone, O'Byrne sat alone at the table for a little while. If he had other business, there was no sign of it. He sat moodily, rolling the dice on the table by himself.

At last he got up. He would be going north in the morning, and who knew when he would pass this way again? He had been much moved by what young Maurice Smith had told him about Orlando and Mary. How truly wonderful that after all these years God had granted them a child. He had heard of such cases but never encountered such a case himself. It was like a biblical story: a holy thing. He felt a great desire to see his friend again, to take his hand in friendship once more and congratulate him. If he left now, he could be at the Walsh estate before dark.

It was not long before he was riding south towards Orlando's house. His mind was occupied by many things as he rode through the gathering December dusk.

It did not occur to him that he was being followed.

Faithful Tidy had not been best pleased when Doctor Pincher had made him follow the priest to Swords. Though he had tracked him dutifully, he hadn't been able to discover anything except that the priest had gone to spend the evening in the house of an old lady who turned out to be his mother. All the same, since the meeting of the Fingal Catholics at Swords the other day-of which everyone in Dublin had been immediately aware-the town almost counted as enemy territory. So when Faithful had stopped for a drink at the inn there, he had sat quietly in a corner and kept his eyes open.

And his vigilance had been rewarded when he saw the handsome Irishman he knew to be O'Byrne of Rathconan entering the place. Faithful had watched him carefully, observed his conversation with young Maurice Smith, and then followed him until he saw him go into the estate of Orlando Walsh. As it was dusk, he had returned to the inn at Swords. But the following morning, he rode back to Dublin to report to Pincher.

The worthy doctor listened avidly to his account of the evening.

"And you saw O'Byrne ride off alone?"

"He'd been talking to Maurice Smith for a long time."

"Never mind the Smith boy," cried Pincher excitedly. "He's nothing. Do you not see? O'Byrne's the key. He's connected to Sir Phelim O'Neill, the greatest traitor of them all. And he went straight to the house of Orlando Walsh?"

"There isn't a doubt of it."

"Then I have him," shouted Pincher with a glee he did not trouble to conceal. "I can destroy Orlando Walsh."

All through that December, Orlando Walsh stayed on his estate with his little family, as quiet as a mouse.

There was no question, the winters were colder, now, than they had been when he was a boy; and this year turned out to be the coldest anyone could remember.

As midwinter approached, a howling blizzard swept down from the north. For a day and a night, the snow fell on Fingal until there was more than two feet of it. After that, the storm moved on and the landscape froze.

Some days, the sky was blue and the landscape sparkled. But if the sun melted the surface, the frost turned every drop of water back to ice. Soon there were icicles, tall as a man, hanging from the eaves of the big barn. By Christmas, Orlando heard that down at Dublin, the River Liffey had ice upon it.

Around the Walsh estate, the countryside was quiet. To the north, there were still stories of Protestant farms being raided. To the south, the Protestants in Dublin Castle sent out parties to burn the property of local Catholics they suspected. "They want to provoke them to rebel," Orlando explained to Mary, "to prove that Catholics are all traitors." Meanwhile, the powerful Lord Ormond, the only man of real stature in the government's camp, was reportedly drawing together a military force which he had promised to bring to Dublin.

The morning after Christmas, the gentleman from Swords came by again.

"We're arming our men, Walsh," he told Orlando. "There's bound to be a fight. Are you joining us?"

"I am not," Orlando told him.

"Afraid?" The man sneered. "We've already smashed them once."

"I've no wish to fight Ormond," Walsh answered simply.

For a start, the great magnate had probably assembled a fighting force to be reckoned with. But as he also pointed out: "Ormond's our best hope." The mighty head of the Butler dynasty might have sworn to uphold the king's Protestant church, but he was a moderate man with dozens of Catholic relations himself. "We should be talking to him, not fighting him," Orlando said.

"Everyone else is with us," the Swords man declared. This was quite untrue. Orlando knew very well that a number of Catholic landowners, including his neighbour Talbot of Malahide, were holding back. Others were allowing younger sons or brothers to go while they themselves stayed cautiously at home. So Walsh made him no further answer and let the man depart.

A few hours later, a dozen fellows arrived at the house. They were labourers, but not from the locality. Orlando didn't like the look of them but was careful to be polite. The man who was their leader said he was a friar of the Franciscan order. Orlando wasn't sure he believed him, but thought it best not to argue. Having established that this was a devout Catholic house, they were civil enough. When Orlando asked their business, the friar told him they were scouting accommodation and fodder for when O'Neill's army came that way. This was almost certainly a lie. Nonetheless, Orlando brought them inside and fed them, and secretly prayed that they would not wish to stay. Mercifully, they decided to move on. The friar said they were heading north for the territory above Swords. As they departed, he heard one of the men remark: "When we find some Protestants, we'll stretch their necks."

After this visit, all was quiet.

Maurice Smith gazed down at the scene from the bridge. The Liffey was a remarkable sight. Big sheets of ice covered most of the stream. The sun had made the surface gleam. Children were sliding on the edges, and an enterprising fellow had organised horse-drawn sled rides upstream along the bank.

The first of January. Amongst the Protestants, at least, there was a festive mood. The day before, Ormond and his well-drilled men had marched out across the bridge onto the icy plain of Fingal. Reaching Swords, they had found the untrained brigade gathered by the local Catholic gentry and easily crushed them in a short skirmish. By that evening, Tidy was ringing the great bell of Christ Church to announce the victory, and Doctor Pincher was out in the streets proclaiming that the Protestants in Dublin could take heart at this proof that God was on their side.

Maurice had been standing there for some time when he noticed the little cortege enter the bridge from the northern end. Five riders, heavily muffled against the cold. As they came closer, he saw that their covered heads were encrusted with ice, suggesting that they had made a long journey across the snows. He wondered who they were. On reaching the bridge, they had slowed their horses to a walk. As they brushed by, he observed that the rider in the centre was a woman. Her face was half covered, but it looked familiar. She caught sight of him and seemed to give a start, but they were already past when he realised that it was Elena.

Her grandfather was not one of the party. He was sure of it. So he called out: "Elena."

If she had ridden on, he would have understood that she needed to be discreet. But instead, after a momentary pause, she pulled up, and the men accompanying her did the same. He ran over and came level with her. He was excited.

As she turned to look down at him, she unwrapped the black scarf that had covered the lower part of her face. Though flushed from the cold, her face looked strangely pallid and drawn, as though she had suddenly grown older. She gazed down at him, stonily, saying nothing.

"So your grandfather has changed his mind," he said, and smiled. She continued to smile at him. "I mean, you are in Dublin." He stopped, fell silent. At last she spoke.

"My grandfather is dead." Her voice was cold, as if he were a stranger.

"Dead?"

"Yes. Dead. A party of your friends came," she said bitterly. "They were led by a priest."

"A priest?"

"Priest, friar." She shrugged contemptuously. "What does it matter? One of your unholy orders. They came to steal. They started looting. They even took my mother's locket. Tore it from my neck. My grandfather protested and they killed him. In front of me. I was lucky they did not kill me, too. Or worse."

"But this is terrible." He felt the blood draining from his face as he remembered the advice he had given her, assuring her she was safe.

"Yes. It is terrible." He heard the pain in her voice; but in her eyes he saw only rage and contempt. He gazed at her helplessly. She seemed to be another person. The sensuous girl he knew had gone. There was not a trace of her. In her place was a young woman who was looking at him with loathing. "It is true, what they say," she went on with a cold fury. "You Catholics are not just ungodly. You are animals. Cut open a papist and you will find the devil."

She let the words fall. They lay there between them, worse than a curse. For a moment, he was too shocked to reply.

"Elena," he pleaded. "I am as shocked as you by what has happened . . ."

She did not let him continue.

"I do not wish to hear what you feel. Do not come near me again, you dirty papist." She kicked her horse into a trot, but as she left him behind, she cried out the word a final time: "Papist."

When the grey-bearded merchant arrived at the house late in January and asked to speak with Orlando Walsh, he was politely shown into the hall. And until he was within two feet of him, Orlando himself did not realise who it was.

"I have come to say farewell," explained Lawrence.

The situation for the Jesuit had been getting worse by the day. The political situation was in a state of great confusion. In England, King Charles and his Parliament had reached a point of complete rupture. The king had left London; Parliament was effectively ruling the capital. Across the water in Ireland, Lord Ormond continued to keep military order for the government in the region around Dublin-but whether the government now meant king, Parliament, or both, nobody was sure. In Dublin itself, the Protestant authorities were behaving as if the city were under siege. The gates were guarded. No strangers were allowed in without permission. "Even you couldn't get in now, Brother," Lawrence told him, "because you're a Catholic." As for his own position, he explained, Pincher had been agitating constantly at the castle. "Any day, he'll have me arrested. I grew my beard for ten days and slipped out in disguise."

"We can hide you," Orlando offered at once, but Lawrence shook his head.

"No, Brother. You and your family shall not be put in danger on my account. In any case, I have a boat waiting for me at Clontarf. I'm going abroad."

"You're leaving forever?"

"Not exactly." He paused. "Sir Phelim is a good man, Orlando. But he is not the military commander that we need now, and he'd be the first to say it. There is, however, another O'Neill who has just the qualifications, if he will come."

"You mean Owen Roe O'Neill?"

"I do."

Of all the princes of Ireland who had risen to high command in the great Catholic armies of the continent, none was more famous than this scion of the house of the old High Kings. The nephew of the Earl of Tyrone himself, rumour said that he had been privy to the plans to take Dublin Castle the previous autumn. But a man living the princely life of a great European general still needed some inducement before he would leave all that to risk life and fortune in a rebellion, even in the sacred land of his fathers. If he did decide to come, however, neither his kinsman Sir Phelim, nor anyone else in the Catholic cause, would hesitate in yielding him command.

"You think he will come?"

"I am going to add my voice to those which are begging him to come without delay. If I am successful, I shall return with him." Lawrence smiled. "And now, if you will give me a glass of wine, I shall greet your wife, and bless your son, and be on my way."

Shortly afterwards, as he watched his elder brother depart, Orlando felt a surge of affection for him. Lawrence could be stern and unbending-but he had always acted for the best. He was a loyal servant of the true Faith. There was no doubt about that. If necessary, he would die for it.

Two weeks passed. The weather grew warmer. The snows melted, and after nearly a week of sunny days, Orlando saw a sprinkling of snowdrops, and even a crocus or two in front of his door. News came of scattered skirmishes elsewhere, but Fingal was now quiet. Lord Ormond had done his work well. Several of the local gentry who had taken up arms were fleeing the country; others had surrendered to him personally and had been sent to Dublin. Orlando heard that the gentleman from Swords was one of these. So far, however, no one had come to trouble Orlando, and he was beginning to hope that they wouldn't.

It was early one afternoon, when Mary and the baby were both asleep, and he was quietly playing with little Daniel, that Doyle arrived. His cousin's large, burly form filled the doorway as he entered the house and strode into the hall, where he threw his cloak impatiently on a bench and announced the bad news at once.