Queen (6 page)

    most important, to his friend. At that moment, he wanted no other life

    than this, to do daring, foolish things in a great cause, in the company

    of like-minded fellows, and to sit with them afterward and revel in the

    memory of it.

    Then they saw fires, and stood and looked at the burning cottages around

    Boulavogue, and knew what the soldiers had done.

    " Damned British Protties!" a young man said, tears in his eyes. His name

    was Liam and his home was in flames.

    Jamie was silent for a moment, but had to tell them, whatever the

    consequences might be.

"I am not Catholic," fie said.

    There was an awful silence, and then Liam, who had damned the British

    Protestants, damned him too, and spat at him.

30 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN

    "Then go to your heretic mates," Liam cried, ready, at that moment, to

    kill Jamie.

    Jamie knew it was a test, and the moment was his. Others might defend

    him. He had to defend himself.

    "I did not think to fight with God," Jamie said softly. "I thought our

    cause was Ireland."

    The moment passed. Liam leashed his anger, and looked away. Father John

    made a joke, which voiced what most of them felt.

    "It doesn't matter," he said, "if he's a good Catholic, or a wretched,

    fornicating Protestant-he is a good Irishman."

    They laughed to break the tension, but Sean did not. Proud of Jamie, he

    said something simpler, and, to Jamie, so much more important. He stared

    at Liam.

"He is more," he said. "He is my friend."

    It was said quietly, just as it was, a simple statement, but it

    communicated to Liam and to them all the sure and certain conviction that

    anyone who challenged Jamie also challenged Sean.

They lay side by side, on the soft Irish grass, under blankets the women

had brought them, and stared at the stars.

    "It was a good day," Sean whispered, and turned his head to sleep.

    "It was a good day," Jamie whispered. He stared at the moon and shivered

    for his life.

    It had been the most wonderful day of his life. The cause was just and

    the fight was good. But he had discovered a terrible secret within him.

    He did not want to die, because living was infinitely precious to him.

    4

For ten days they camped on Gorey Hill until they were three thousand

strong. The volunteers brought hope and conviction, and a crusading

dedication to their holy cause. All had weapons, pikes and pitchforks;

some had horses and a few others guns. They sustained themselves with

faith and ancient battle songs.

Very few brought any food.

    "God will provide," Father Michael told them, but there was little to

    eat, and in private the priests prayed for manna from heaven, or a

    miracle of loaves and fishes.

    Jamie was in despair. Cursed with a rational mind, with every increase

    in their swelling numbers, he felt his belief in their ultimate victory

    diminish. He could not make anyone else understand the proportions of the

    coming disaster.

    "It is pointless, we cannot feed them!" he whispered angrily to Sean, who

    shrugged.

    "They are starving anyway, and prefer to fight," Sean said, irritated by

    his friend's practicality, for it dampened his own optimism.

    Before them, on the plain, the British assembled a formidable army.

    Although few in number, less than a thousand, the Ancient Britains had

    a fiercesome reputation as a ruthlessly successful fighting unit. Their

    very name carried with it the frightening ferocity of their ancestors,

    naked savages painted blue, whose primitive religion called on the sun

    itself as their ally, and whose battle skills had been honed against the

    unconquerable forces of Rome. Eventually, they believed, they had

    conquered those invincible legions, and driven them from their shores,

    and the noblest days of their history came to them---Arthur, and his

    heroic knights, whose quest was holy-and even if the legends of that

    history were not true,

    31

32 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN

they were believed. They were ruled by formidable monarchs, 'whose

achievements propelled and nourished them, and they had conquered, on land

and at sea, half the known world. It was this unshakable faith in their own

invincibility that had given them an empire the like of which the world had

never seen, and earned their country the title "Great." A bunch of rowdy

Irish peasants were nothing to them.

    The flawless order and discipline of the red-coated army arrayed before

    them struck fear in the Irish hearts, and hunger brought dissension to the

    ranks. They were not afraid to die for their cause, but they would rather

    die in battle than suffer the slow death of starvation. Their generals,

    however, the priests, seemed reluctant to fight.

    Yet fight they must, and perhaps succeed, for if they did not fight they

    could not win.

    It was a warm night, and a fine, soft rain was falling. Sean came to Jamie,

    who was lying against a tree, trying to sleep. His clothes were wet, his

    blanket was soaked, and he had not eaten anything other than some oatmeal

    for days. But Sean had a smile on his face.

    "It is tomorrow," he whispered. The words hardly gladdened Jamie's

    miserable heart, and he tried to come to terms with the fact that tomorrow

    he might die.

    "If I should die," Sean said softly, "and you should live, do your old

    friend one last favor."

"Anything," Jamie answered.

"Bury me decent, in some quiet place," Sean said.

    Jamie did not react for a moment, for Sean's simple acceptance of his

    possible fate disturbed him. Nor was he puzzled that he did not ask the

    same of Sean, for he was determined not to die.

"Swear it to me," Sean insisted.

    Jamie swore his vow, which seemed to satisfy Sean. They lapsed into silence

    for a while, each man considering the morrow.

    "Are you scared?" Jamie asked him, when he found the courage to voice his

    own fear.

    "Oh, I expect so," Sean laughed. "But anything's better than living as we

    have."

He stared at the drizzling rain and was glad of it, for the

    BLOODLINES 33

resulting mud would hamper the formally uniformed British, and give the

peasants some small advantage. They were used to mud; it was the stuff of

their lives. They built their houses from it, and burned it to warm them,

and its clover fed their cows. He looked at Jamie, and saw, not for the

first time, fear in his friend's eyes. He laughed, put his arm round his

friend, and took a small flask of poteen from his pocket.

    "And it's better than being bored to death," he said. He held up the

    flask.

    "Erin go bragh," he whispered, excitement in his eyes, for he had been

    chafing for action. He passed the flask to Jamie.

    "Ireland forever," Jamie agreed, and drank deep of the harsh liquor, and

    felt better as the warm fire raced through his body, and calmed his

    raging fear.

They attacked at dawn, hoping for the benefit of surprise, but the Ancient

Britains were ready. They had been trained on the battlefields of India

and America, and always stood to just before dawn, for that, experience

had taught them, was when savages attacked.

    The mud was not the peasants' ally because they had to run through it,

    down the hill, and slipped and slid toward the waiting muskets of the

    British, who stood in formal ranks, picking them off as they presented

    themselves. Jamie believed it must be a rout. They could not possibly

    win. The sound of gunshots and the screaming of wounded and dying men

    deafened him; the riotous energy, the flashing of colors, and the sight

    of spurting blood almost blinded him. He saw the standard-bearer shot

    from his horse, and all hope deserted him.

    He saw Father Michael caught in the dichotomy of priest and soldier. As

    men died, his faith asserted itself, and he ran to give them the last

    rites, which were more important for their immortal souls than any

    earthly victory. He had hardly begun to say the precious words of

    redemption when a bullet blasted into his heart and he fell to the ground

    to die beside his brothers, and went unsung and unshepherded to heaven.

    Still the peasants charged, for they could not go back, only forward.

    Sean, riding by on his horse, saw the tattered rebel flag, green with a

    golden harp, trampled in the mud. Fury invaded him, and reckless abandon.

    He snatched up the glo-

    34 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN

rious banner, waved it defiantly at the redcoats, and galloped to his

gunfire death screaming, "Erin go bragh!"

    As in an awful dream, Jamie saw Sean reach down from his horse, gather

    up the flag, and gallop toward the British lines. Then he saw something

    else, and it was something he envied all of his days. The vision of Sean

    riding to certain death was so heroic in his mind that Jamie stared at

    him in wonder, and thought his friend triumphant.

    He saw Sean fall from his horse, and raced to him. He jumped down and

    gathered his friend in his arms. Blood was pumping from Sean's chest, and

    gurgling up through his mouth. and his face was contorted in pain. Jamie

    held Sean to him, crying on him to live, but knew he could not.

    Then Sean looked at him, and a sweet smile suffused his face, for behind

    Jamie he saw a pure, golden light, brighter than any sun, that warmed his

    soul, and then there were all the dazzling colors of a rainbow, and a

    deep and abiding sense of peace swept over him.

    Jamie knew nothing of this. The futile battle raged around him, unseen

    and unheard by him, because all he saw was that sweet smile on Sean's

    face, and then the body relaxed in his arms, and Sean was gone from him.

    But Jamie could never define, with any certainty, the moment of his

    going. He clutched his friend to him and screamed his name, but Sean

    could not hear him.

    He scrambled to his feet, Sean's body in his arms, and staggered through

    the blood and the mud and gunfire and the bodies to find some quiet place

    to fulfill his promise to his friend.

    He could not escape the deafening roar of the battle, but the place he

    found would be quiet enough, he knew, tomorrow, when the soldiers were

    gone. There was a large oak tree by a little brook, and Jamie set Sean

    down, and waited to gather his strength, to dig, with his bare hands,

    some form of grave.

    Soldiers found him, far from the battleground, and were puzzled by him.

    A crop-haired lad, with blood all over his rough clothes but otherwise

    unharmed, sitting beside the body of another and keening for what he had

    lost, he did not have the manner or bearing of a peasant. They surrounded

    him, guns drawn, and dragged him to his feet, punching him a few times.

    BLOODLINES 35

    They demanded his name, and when he told them, his accent did not have

    a thick brogue. Thinking him a possible ringleader, they did not kill him

    there, as they might have done, and had done to others, but took him

    away, to be questioned by their officers.

    Jamie stared at them with vacant eyes, but when they kicked the body of

    Sean into the brook, his anger raged, for he knew he had broken a most

    solemn vow. With a furious cry, he launched himself at his captors, who

    laughed, and hit him on the head with a musket butt. He fell to the

    ground, but the blow, although painful, had not been hard enough, and he

    was conscious of all that they did to him as they dragged him away to

    whatever his fate might be.

    What Jamie did not know was that the British spared him because the Irish

    had won. Father John had led a foolhardy charge to the British artillery,

    had taken it, and turned it on the astounded Ancient Britains. The

    soldiers who found him were looking for stragglers or runaways who might

    give information about the Irish numbers and intentions.

The officers of the Ancient Britains knew his name, He was on a list of

wanted men, because of his family connection to the traitor Oliver Bond.

They marched him to Dublin and delivered him to Newgate Prison, to be

hanged, or to rot with his fellows for his treachery.

    Jamie felt none of their wrath and was insensible to their scorn.

    Battered and bruised by his captors, he walked in chains to Dublin, lost

    in a limbo of present grief and the expectation of coming execution. As

    they marched him through the towns and villages, the people lined the

    roadway, but not to cheer him or jeer the soldiers, for he was only

    another victim of their revolution, and the soldiers were the victors.