Besieged

by Bertrice Small

  "They must be rooted out of Lisnaskea for good and all," she said to her husband. "Certainly your father can be made to see reason, William. These people are a danger to us all for they hate us."

  "I will speak with him," William told her, but when he brought the subject up, Shane Devers was taken aback.

  "What do you mean we must drive the Catholics from Lisnaskea?" he demanded of his son. "Are you mad? The peace between Protestant and Catholic is fragile enough as it is. And where are these people who have lived here in this place for centuries to go?"

  "The Catholics put us all in peril, Da," William answered him. "Their popish ways can taint our children."

  His father snorted with derision. He had just about had enough of his wife, his son, his daughter-in-law, and their bigotry. He had become a Protestant to gain Jane's hand, and her fortune, but he had never discriminated against his Catholic neighbors.

  But a passing servant heard the argument between father and son. He gossiped to his fellow servant, whose sweetheart, a maidservant in the house, had overheard a similar conversation between Lady Devers and the young mistress. The rumors began to fly from Mallow Court into Lisnaskea. Neighbor began to look upon neighbor with suspicion even though only the day before they had been friends.

  The priest in Lisnaskea, Father Brendan, began preaching against those who would come into Ulster with its traditions of greatness and put that heritage with its wonderful myths and legends and history to scorn, calling the Irish barbarians, and papists who needed to be taught better. The Protestant minister, the Reverend Mr. Dundas, began to sermonize that only the Protestant faith was the true faith, and any who stood against it must be either brought forcibly to the truth, or destroyed To worship other than in the proscribed manner was outright treason.

  Then one evening as Shane Devers sat quietly with his mistress in her house, sipping his whiskey, the sound of cries reached their ears. Rising from his place by the hearth he went to the door, opened it, and looked out. To his shock he could see several fires burning in the village, and hear the shouts and cry of voices. "I had best go and see what is happening, Molly. Lock the door, and do not open it to any but me. I'll be back." He hurried off.

  Molly Fitzgerald barred the door as she had been instructed, and called her daughters from their bedchamber, bringing them down into the parlor with Biddy, her servant. "There is some trouble in the village," she said. "Your da has gone to investigate."

  " 'Tis been coming all week," Biddy muttered darkly.

  "What have you heard?" her mistress asked.

  "No more than you, but I can tell you that young William Devers has been going about stirring up the Protestants, telling them we're a danger to them, and if we were gone 'twould be heaven on earth in Lisnaskea. And there are those who would listen, mistress."

  "Filthy dissenters! May they all burn in hell!" Maeve said angrily. "I wish I were a man so I might fight them for the true faith."

  "Don't be a little fool," her mother said impatiently.

  "This is William Devers's outrage at his brother marrying Lady Fortune. He covets Maguire's Ford."

  "But Kieran isn't to have it," Aine, her youngpr daughter said. "Surely he knows that, Mam."

  "He won't believe it, nor will his greedy mother until Kieran and Fortune are gone from Ulster," Molly said fatalistically.

  The sound of shouting seemed to be drawing nearer as the four women huddled by the fireside. Without a word Biddy got up, and drew the draperies shut. She had seen the shadowed figures of men moving toward the house in the light from the fires, but she said nothing, instead going to the front door of the house, and setting the heavy oak bar across it. Then she went to the back of the house, and did the same with the door into the pantry. Molly watched her elderly servant silently, exchanging a questioning look with Biddy who but shook her grizzled head cautioningly.

  The smell of burning began to seep through into the house, but Molly was not concerned for her own house was made of brick with a fine slate roof. The angry yelling was close now, and the mistress of the house wondered where Sir Shane had gotten to, and if he was all right. She looked to her two daughters seated by the fireplace, their arms protectively about each other. They were unusually silent, even the usually outspoken Maeve. Suddenly a thunderous pounding came upon the front door. Biddy slid back into the shadows of the room while Molly put a warning finger to her lips as she caught her daughters attention.

  Then the glass in one of the windows was smashed violently, and unable to help themselves the women screamed in fright as the draperies were yanked aside, and a man climbed into the room. He glared at them, but said nothing, and going into the hallway unbarred the front door to allow a mob of howling men into the house. They crowded into the elegant parlor, and Molly recognized many of them as her neighbors. The girls were sobbing, terrified.

  "How dare you break into my house!" Molly said angrily. "What is this all about? You, Robert Morgan, and you, James Curran! Why I recognize most of you. What is going on?"

  The two men she named looked shamefaced, but remained where they were. The others shuffled their feet uncomfortably.

  "The whore is bold, is she not?" William Devers moved forward from the crowd of men who stepped aside to let him come. "My father's Catholic whore thinks she can lord it over us all. Well, you cannot, whore, and you will not ever again." Raising the pistol he had concealed in his hand William Devers shot Molly Fitzgerald through the heart, killing her instantly.

  With a shriek Maeve arose to cradle her mother's lifeless body. "You Protestant devil," she screamed at him. "How could you? I shall tell our Da what you have done, William Devers! I hope he kills you himself!" Sobbing she held Molly's body against her chest.

  His face expressionless William raised his pistol once again and shot his half-sister through her head. Maeve's body jerked once, and then she fell over her mother's still form. Then his icy eyes turned to Aine who cowered in the corner near the fireplace. An unholy light lit William's face. Reaching out he pulled Aine up. "Now here's a pretty little wench, and every bit the whore her mother was, I'll wager. Let's take her upstairs, and have her entertain us. You'd like that, wouldn't you, wench?" Reaching out William ripped Aine's bodice open, and fondled her little breasts.

  The girl looked at him with shocked blue eyes. "You're my brother," she said weakly. She was shaking all over.

  William slapped Aine hard, and she cried out surprised. "You cannot claim kinship with me, wench. You're a common whore's brat, and, now, up the stairs with you! You'll ply your mother's trade this night before I kill you. What's one more dead Catholic bitch more or less. By morning Lisnaskea will be free of your kind." He dragged Aine from the parlor, turning to invite his companions along. "Come on, lads. She looks like a tasty morsel, and we'll all have at her."

  Not all the men followed William. Most drifted from Molly Fitzgerald's house silently, not even daring to look at her body and that of young Maeve as they went. They had only wanted Lisnaskea to to be a wholly Protestant town. They hadn't wanted murder, and rape. Yet in the hour since Reverend Dundas had exorted them to follow William Devers, and cleanse Lisnaskea of the Catholics, they had seen death too many times to be able to cry their innocence any longer. They felt guilty, and their guilt made them only angrier at their Catholic neighbors. Then they heard a terrible screaming, peal after peal of pure terror crying out from the upper floor of Molly Fitzgerald's house. They heard unholy laughter, and the shouts of encouragement from those who had remained behind to violate the young girl. Many had daughters Aine's age. The men hurried off into the darkness to escape the sound.

  Then a young lad ran from out of the darkness shouting, "The dirty Papists have fired the church, and locked Reverend Dundas and his family inside. Our women can't get the doors open!"

  "Go on," Robert Morgan told his companions. "I'll fetch Master William, and the others."

  And then Molly Fitzgerald's house was silent again. The door, hanging from its hi
nges, swung open. From her hiding place old Biddy crept forth, tears streaming down her worn face. Her old legs shaking she climbed the stairs, and sought Aine. She found the young girl, stripped naked, and spread open on her mother's bed. Her throat had been cut from ear to ear. Her blue eyes were open, and filled with utter terror. Her sweet little face was already showing signs of bruising, and her milky thighs were smeared with blood, evidence of her violation. Biddy gently closed Aine's sightless eyes, and drew a coverlet over her although she was certainly past all modesty now.

  The old servant wiped her eyes once more with her apron, and then a look of grim determination crossed her face. Looking down on young Aine, whom she had helped to birth, Biddy crossed herself and said a prayer. Then she descended the elegant small staircase of the house, reentering the parlor. She prayed again over the bodies of her mistress and Maeve. Then she departed the house through the rear entry and went to the stables. Biddy was deathly afraid of horses, but she bravely saddled Aine's fat pony, heaving her wiry frame into the saddle and riding off, away from the town, and into the darkness.

  She knew the way for she had spent her entire life in this region. She was not of Lisnaskea, but a Maguire's Ford woman. Slowly, carefully, she guided the pony as it picked its way through the darkness on the rocky path toward safety. The night was only just beginning to give way to the day when she finally made her way into the village of Maguire's Ford, and across the small drawbridge of Erne Rock Castle. She practically fell into the arms of the young gatekeeper.

  "Fetch the Maguire," she wheezed at him, shaking the lad off. "I can stand. Get the Maguire! 'There's murder about!"

  Rory Maguire came from his gatehouse, half-dressed, but struck by the gatekeeper's urgency. He recognized Biddy immediately.

  She didn't wait for him to ask. "There's murder at Lisnaskea! My lord himself was with us last evening when it began. I don't know where he is now. William Devers shot my mistress, and young Maeve. They are dead. What he did to our wee Aine I am too ashamed to say. She is dead now too, for which I thank a merciful God."

  "So it's finally come," Rory Maguire said, almost to himself. Then he took the old woman by the arm. "Come into the hall, Biddy. I must fetch the duke and his wife. You must tell them what happened."

  "And what will they do, these Protestants, to avenge my poor mistress and her daughters?" Biddy demanded angrily. " 'Twas their kind who killed them, and God knows how many others in Lisnaskea!"

  "Nay," he told her quietly as he led her into the castle. "Not all Protestants, like Catholics, are the same, Biddy. That is why I have been able to remain here all these years with our own folk. That is why Maguire's Ford is a place of peace. Lady Jasmine is a good woman who holds no prejudice against any faith. I will admit that in that she is rare, but it is she who possesses Maguire's Ford, and her will has ruled us peacefully for a long time. Remember, her own dear daughter, born here in this castle, is wed to Kieran Devers. She knew your mistress, and her children. She will be horrified by your tale."

  They were in the hall now, and Rory sent a servant for the duchess and her husband. They came almost immediately, James Leslie helping his wife who was now very full with their child.

  "What has happened?" Jasmine asked, sitting heavily.

  "This is Biddy, Molly Fitzgerald's serving woman," Rory said. "I'll let her tell you her tale, my lady, but be warned. 'Tis a terrible one."

  The Leslies listened with growing horror as the old lady spoke of the terror, the violence, the murder, and the rape that had occurred the previous evening in Lisnaskea. "I am ashamed that I hid, that I could not aid my mistress and those two sweet lasses I helped to raise," Biddy wept as she came to the end of her tale, "but I knew that someone had to remain alive to tell the world of William Devers's perfidy."

  "You did exactly the right thing," Jasmine said, rising to embrace Biddy. "Without you we would never have known, but I am concerned for Sir Shane. You say he left the house when he heard the uproar begin, and you saw him not again? What could have happened to him?"

  "He has probably been murdered by the English bitch's offspring," Kieran Devers said coming into the hall, for the same servant who had gone to fetch the Leslies had gone to find their son-in-law as well.

  "Surely not!" Jasmine cried.

  "William was never particularly patient when he wanted something badly," Kieran said. "If he would kill poor Molly, and our half-sisters, why not our father? My stepmother has now gotten almost everything she ever wanted. What use has she for Da now? She has his home, and his lands. The girls are gone. She has managed to drive me off, and married her son to the girl she wanted for a daughter-in-law. I'm quite certain it is she behind this trouble in Lisnaskea, but I want to know what happened to my father before I kill William Devers."

  "There will be nae further killing," James Leslie said sternly "I'll nae hae Fortune the wife of a convicted felon, and convicted and hanged ye'll be, Kieran, if you kill yer brother, no matter what he's done."

  "He'll go free then, my lord," Kieran replied. "No court in Ulster will accept the word of a Catholic, let alone a Catholic serving woman, against the word of a Protestant gentleman."

  "Be patient, laddie. There are ways, and in time ye'll hae yer revenge, but for now we must find out if yer da is alive. We'll ride to Mallow Court this day, you and I."

  "Nay, Jemmie," Jasmine cried. "I do not trust the Deverses now to allow you and Kieran to come and go in safety."

  "I must go," James said firmly. "If I dinna, darling Jasmine, the same evil that infected the people of Lisnaskea could infect the people of Maguire's Ford. Do you want that to happen?"

  Jasmine Leslie pressed her lips together in frustration. She knew her husband was right, and yet she had suddenly been overcome by a sense of foreboding. It wasn't that she thought Jemmie or Kieran would be killed, for she didn't; but she could sense the wickedness in the air about them, and for the first time since Rowan Lindley had been killed here, she was uncomfortable at Erne Rock. She looked to Rory Maguire. "Will they be safe?" she asked him.

  "Aye, but he can't take a large party with him, m'lady. That would be considered a harassment in this tense situation. A few of your own clansmen, my lord, as you would normally travel."

  The duke of Glenkirk nodded in agreement.

  "You must go with him," Jasmine said.

  "He canna," James Leslie replied. "He's the Maguire no matter the fact you legally possess this land, darling Jasmine. 'Twould be thought a provocation for the Maguire to ride into Lisnaskea after such a massacre. I want Rory here in the event there is any attempt to start difficulties here as there. This sort of trouble is like a canker that grows, and becomes more poisonous wi every passing hour."

  "What has happened?" Fortune came into the hall, her hair flying. "Rois says the Protestants have murdered all the Catholics in Lisnaskea. That they're coming here to kill us all!"

  "Jesu!" Maguire swore. "It's started already. I had best get the rest of my clothes on, and calm the village before all hell breaks loose." He turned to Jasmine. "With your permission, of course, my lady." He bowed to her.

  "Go," Jasmine said, "and you two also," she told her husband and her son-in-law. "Fortune, come with me, and I will tell you everything. Biddy, I'll want you to remain here in the castle with us for your own safety's sake. Adali will see you are fed, and a warm place is found for you to sleep. You must be exhausted after your ride."

  "Thank ye, my lady," Biddy replied. Then she turned to Maguire. "You were right, laddie. All Protestants aren't bad," she said.

  Chapter 12

  The duke of Glenkirk and his son-in-law rode into Mallow Court. Dismounting, they entered the house to be greeted by Lady Jane.

  "How dare you enter this house after what your filthy Papist brethren did to my husband!" she screeched at her stepson.

  The duke put a warning hand on Kieran, and said, "We have only just learned of the troubles in Lisnaskea last night, and came as quickly as we could to see if
Sir Shane was all right, madame."

  "He lies abed, barely alive," she snapped. "His whore tried to murder him, but William managed to save his father."

  "Indeed," the duke remarked. "We should like to see Sir Shane, madame. You will understand that Kieran is deeply concerned for his father. We had heard a very different story of the happenings in Lisnaskea."

  "My husband is too ill to be disturbed," Jane Devers said loftily. "Come back another time, my lord."

  James Leslie looked about him. There was no one else in the hall, and he knew the Devers household had no men-at-arms. "Madame, as I have told you, 'tis another tale I have heard. We will see Sir Shane now, so that I may ascertain he is indeed alive. How dare you refuse my request! You will either take us to him, or I shall have my clansmen search the house until he is found," the duke told her half-angrily.

  Jane Devers wanted nothing more than to send the two men before her packing, but the duke was a man of authority. She dared not, even if William had said his father was not to be disturbed. She had not seen her husband since their son had brought him home, and William held the key to Shane's bedchamber. "My son has locked his father in for his own safety," she told the duke. "I do not have the key to his room, my lord, and William is not here right now."

  "Show me where Sir Shane is confined," the duke commanded her. "We will break the door down, madame. Such treatment of your husband is outrageous, and I am astounded that you would have allowed such a thing. You are mistress here, are you not?"

  Flushed with irritation Jane Devers led the way to her husband's bedchamber. She was surprised that her stepson had been so silent in all of this. William had warned her that he would come tearing into Mallow Court with some wild tale, yet Kieran had said nothing. Still, his silence and his angry eyes made her more than aware of his fury. She stopped before her husband's rooms. "He is in there," she said.