Queen (3 page)

    together in the classroom. He did not announce his presence, for he was

    at puberty himself, and fascinated by the things Sean had told him. He

    watched Sara and Jimmy for a while, through the slightly open door, but

    then became embarrassed and excited, and crept away to his bedroom, to

    caress his own adolescent need.

    He could not keep quiet about what he had seen for long, for it gave him

    some ascendancy over his sister, which was important to a boy of his age.

    Sara blushed and flared, and slapped his face for a peeping Tom, and then

    cried, and swore

    BLOODLINES 13

him to secrecy. When she had his promise, she giggled, and began to treat

him as a young man from then on, and no longer as a boy.

Thus the Jackson children grew up effectively left to their own devices,

and found love where they could. They were not unhappy, for each child had

developed a keen self-reliance, and each tried to give his brothers and

sisters something of what they lacked. These sibling bonds, woven in

youth, stayed with them, and were a source of comfort and support to them

all their lives, though never constraining.

    But Jamie determined to create a family that would supply to his own

    children what he had never had. His father's house was not his home,

    merely the house in which he lived.

    For home, he had learned from Sean, is where you are loved.

    2

Jamie was fourteen when he had his first experience of violence by the

soldiers. For years he had known that the local priest, Father Moran,

forbidden to practice his religion in public, still tended the spiritual

needs of his peasant congregation in a small cave on Crieve Mountain.

Jamie knew very little about the Catholic religion, but was told by his

father and other Protestants that it was a pagan cult of cannibalism, ven-

erating a priest in Rome, and worshiping graven images. Its followers

believed that in the communion they were eating the actual flesh of

Christ. Jamie had never seen the priest, but knew of him from the peasant

whisperings. He became a legendary figure in Jamie's mind, a secret,

superstitious man of magic, who lived with the leprechauns on the misty

mountain, and practiced strange and ancient rituals, spoken in Latin, that

were to do with birth, and marriage, and death, and the life to come.

14 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN

    He was with Sean at the cottage when the messenger came by. The

    messengers carried poles, to help them vault over hedges and ditches, and

    brought important news to the villages of Ireland. This messenger, wary

    of the longer-haired Jamie, whispered to Patrick in Gaelic, which Jamie

    hardly understood. Patrick spoke to Maureen and Sean, also in Gaelic, and

    Jamie could feel a sudden excitement among them, and a sense, for the

    first time in his life, that he was an outsider to them. When he and Sean

    went fishing the next day, Jamie badgered his friend about the messenger,

    and eventually Sean swore him to secrecy and told him the news. It was

    Easter, and Father Moran was going to say a public mass in the village

    square the following Sunday.

    Jamie was thrilled and appalled. The saying of mass was proscribed, and

    if the soldiers or any English sympathizer knew of it, the priest would

    be imprisoned. At the same time, Jamie itched to know about the secret

    religion, and what it was that made its persecutors so angry.

    Reluctantly, Sean agreed to take Jamie to the mass, but made him swear,

    by all he held holy, by his mother's grave, that he would tell no one.

    They met at the cottage on Sunday, ate soda bread and cheese, and then

    Sean walked with Jamie to the village. Maureen and Patrick went on

    before.

    Jamie was not sure what he expected to see, but certainly had not

    expected what he saw. In the village square, an old man in black was

    holding a simple cross and chanting in Latin to the fifty or so kneeling

    villagers assembled there. He saw nothing subversive, nothing pagan,

    nothing that might destroy the fabric of the society in which he lived,

    only a deep and simple faith, and an adoration of the cross and what it

    symbolized.

    It was Easter Sunday and Christ was the risen king, he understood from

    the Latin words, and his Protestant soul could not argue with that, for

    it was what he was taught and what he believed. He found the rituals odd

    but oddly beautiful. He marveled at the true belief of those assembled,

    and at their stubbornness and bravery for resolutely following a faith

    that was so viciously circumscribed by the authorities.

Then the soldiers came.

A troop of red-coated British soldiers marched into the

    BLOODLINES 15

town, their officer on horseback. The officer rode to Father Moran and

accused him of sedition. Fury and resentment ran through the congregation,

but the priest held up his cross.

    "Go peacefully about your ways," he called to his flock. They fell

    silent, but stayed to watch for the safety of their shepherd. Jamie,

    standing with Sean, was aware of a deep and awful anger in his friend,

    and Sean glared at Jamie. -

    "Was it you who told?" he whispered furiously. Jamie swore not, but Sean

    was not convinced.

"You knew," he said. "And someone told."

    Father Moran was arrested and tied to the posts of the village well. The

    old priest was flogged mercilessly in front of the people, and then

    dragged away. A palpable fury ran through the Crowd as they witnessed the

    flaying, and they jeered the soldiers, but the time was not right for

    rebellion. Some few lads threw stones and clumps of earth at the sol-

    diers, but were chased and beaten for it.

    As they walked home, Sean kicked the ground in his fury and frustration.

    Jamie tried to say something to comfort him, but Sean rounded on him, and

    asked him if he was proud of his rich, Protestant ruling class now. Jamie

    protested. He had been horrified by what he had seen, but did not know

    what they could have done to prevent it.

"We must fight," Sean said. "We must be rid of them."

    Jamie could not see how they could win. The soldiers had guns. The

    peasants had only pitchforks.

    "It is enough," Sean insisted. "We are many and they are few, and it is

    better to die for what you believe in than live in bondage."

    He looked at his friend, who was not, at that moment, his friend.

"Would you die for what you believe in?"

    Jamie felt guilty, because he was not sure that he would. The violence

    of the soldiers, and their blatant abuse of their power, had frightened

    him.

    Sean saw the fear and doubt in his eyes. "Living up there in your fine

    mansion, born with a silver spoon in your mouth, you don't even know what

    you believe," he said disgustedly, and turned away.

It was true, Jamie thought. He loved Sean and his family,

16 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN

and Jugs and old Quinn, and his heart bled for their Ireland. He loved his

sisters and brothers, and respected his father and what he had achieved.

Above everything, he knew he loved being alive, and shuddered at the

prospect of laying down his life for a cause he did not believe could

triumph. The temporary souring of his friendship with Sean made him

examine his heart, and he was shocked to discover that there was nothing

he believed in that was worth his life. And not having such a cause, and

lacking his friend, he was lonely, and sought for some passionate faith.

Jamie returned home to be greeted by his father's wrath. James knew his

son had attended the mass, because Dacre Hamilton had told him. He knew

that a visiting English business friend had been assaulted, on leaving the

Jackson mansion, by some peasants as a reprisal for the beating of Father

Moran, because Dacre Hamilton had told him. He knew that his standing

within his small, privileged community was threatened by the various

actions of his children, because Dacre Hamilton had told him.

    James Jackson also knew that his business could not survive without the

    patronage of the British. He didn't need Dacre Hamilton to tell him this;

    it was the law of the land. There was an embargo on all Irish commerce

    and trade unless a British agent was involved. If it was decided that

    James was a Catholic sympathizer, or an Irish collaborationist, the

    agents would find other sources of supply for linen, and James could not

    sell his except on the local market, where the prices were meaningless.

    All because of his foolish children.

    He was hurt and angry. He had tried to give his offspring every

    advantage, and, one by one, they had rejected him, and all he had done

    for them.

    "All this could be yours," he shouted at Jamie, waving his hand at the

    estate, pointing to the mill. "But only if you have the good sense to

    protect it!"

    Obviously, the boy had no sense, and was in sore need of discipline. For

    reasons that were as much political as practical, James did what he had

    done for each of his other children. He enrolled Jamie in a school in

    Dublin, and wrote to his brother Henry asking if Jamie might board with

    him there.

    BLOODLINES 17

    All the Jackson children had boarded with Uncle Henry when they went to

    school in Dublin. He was all the things their father was not-a

    warmhearted and generous man, and dedicated to Ireland. He had a fine

    house in the best part of the city, but was living on yesterday's income.

    He owned an ironworks that had been successful, but the more he announced

    his sentiments against the British, the more his business declined. He

    still had loyal clients, but none of the large orders from the British

    Commissioner or the military came his way anymore. His financial fate was

    exactly what James Jackson was trying so desperately to avoid.

    The prospect of Dublin thrilled Jamie. He had never been there, but knew

    from his sisters, when they came home to visit, that it was a vibrant and

    exciting city, full of adventure and teeming life. He was sad to leave

    Washington and Jugs and old Quinn, and said many fond farewells to them,

    and assured Jugs he would change his linen frequently, and eat well, and

    not get into trouble. On his last day in Ballybay, he walked to Maureen's

    cottage, and said his good-byes to her and to Patrick, and thanked them

    for their many kindnesses to him.

    Then he turned to Scan, whom he had hardly seen since their argument. To

    his surprise, Sean had tears in his eyes, and embraced Jamie, and wished

    him well, and Jamie clung to his friend, and felt, for the first time,

    that he was leaving home.

    The following morning, when Jamie set off in the trap with Quinn, on his

    new adventure, Sean was waiting at the gate, and rode with them to

    Carrickmacross. He told Jamie it was as well he was leaving. The country

    was in turmoil, and the long-promised battle was looming. It was better

    that Jamie be out of it, comparatively safe, in the big city. At

    Carrickmacross, Sean jumped out of the trap, shook hands with Jamie, said

    a gruff good-bye, and wandered away into the crowd.

    Sean's cautionary farewell distressed Jamie, for he realized that his

    friend did not think him brave. But he was brave, and he would prove it,

    and make Sean proud of him.

He loved Dublin. It was everything his sisters, especially Eleanor, had

promised him it would be. He loved the elegance and graciousness of

Merrion Square, where his uncle Henry lived, and he was shocked by The

Liberties, where the tattered

18 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN

poor squatted in mansions that had once been the homes of the fich. He

strolled on the banks of the meandering fiver, the Liffey, and stood in

awe before the imposing Dublin Castle, the grandest he had ever seen. He

thrilled to ride with his uncle through the grinding slums of Whitechapel,

and wept at the poverty he saw there, and did not know that his uncle was

carefully appraising his reactions. His ears were enchanted by the strange

music of the city, the perpetual noise, out of which came chants that he

began to recognize, the street vendors announcing their wares, the tinkers

and apple sellers, the muffin inen and costermongers and herring women.

    He loved the sense of unity that prevailed among the governed Irish, and

    he shared the general hatred of the governing British. His blood boiled

    when he saw the red-coated soldiers marching through the streets, pushing

    the poor and the beggars out of their way, and arresting or beating any

    who offended them, no matter how slight the cause. His mind raced at the