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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