Queen

Queen by Alex Haley Read Free Book Online Page A

Book: Queen by Alex Haley Read Free Book Online
Authors: Alex Haley
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

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