Witches' Sabbath

by Alexander Cordell

Genres: General Fiction; Action & Adventure; Historical Fiction

Synopsis

The cauldron of revolution is boiling over and igniting the passions of the people of Ireland. The year is 1798 and seventeen year old John Regan faces danger and even death as he struggles alongside the leaders of the rebellion as they attempt to capture a valuable English hostage. The second in a trilogy of books set in 18th century Ireland, from the bestselling author of Rape of the Fair Country.

Release date: August 7, 2014

Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton

Print pages: 128

Sample

THE cauldron of revolution was boiling over and running in fiery streams over the fields of Ireland. Pike-heads were being forged in wayside smithies, pitch-forks sharpened by the little farmers who had never seen blood in their lives. Rusted swords were taken down from walls and burnished into new life, hay-lofts searched for ancient muskets, and pistols stolen from city museums. On mountain slopes and in secret caves the peasants collected and took the oath of loyalty to the United Irishmen under the leadership of men like Lord Edward Fitzgerald. Messengers were sent to France to alert the French fleet for an invasion of the Irish coast and the fight against England. Bonaparte himself stirred under the chandeliers of Paris and looked once more towards the west.

I took my big mare fast down the lanes of Ireland, along the flinted road to Enniscorthy, and the moon was big and ghostly and the hedges like ragged hooligans that ripped and tore at us in the thunder of the hooves. And Mia raised her great head and neighed at the night sky, I remember, and I could have wept for the joy of having her under me again in this new mission for the sacred soul of Ireland, my country.

‘On wi’ you, ye big black thing!’ I yelled at her, and gripped her mane, crying aloud to her the unintelligible things that horses love, and we went in among the tumps of the fields, flattening over the gates and ditches; taking the brooks in our stride. And above the beating hooves I seemed to hear the voice of my father urging me on, calling me to duty in the name of the land he loved, and for which he had died.

Insurrection Day!

And this was the day for which he had given his life, the dawn of Ireland’s rebellion against English rule. For as long as I could remember my father had been a secret agent for the United Irishmen, the patriots of Belfast and Dublin who had pledged their all on this coming fight for a free and independent land. And now my father was dead and the same pledge was mine. I, too, had taken the oath to oppose the hated militia and yeomanry regiments, the two-faced Irish soldiery who fought on the side of England; the puppets who sold their birthright to support an English aristocracy and a fawning Irish gentry.

What had happened in France was now happening in Ireland. The blood-bath of Paris was glistening red on the clouds over Dublin. From Antrim to Wexford my country was going afire.

‘Up, up!’ I cried, ‘Over!’ And Mia leaped high against the stars and sailed over the hedge by the signpost on the road to Naas, and here I reined her hard and she went up on her hind legs like a bear prancing, for a man was standing in the middle of the lane: a man not much higher than a leprechaun. All dressed up in rebellion green, was he, with a cockaded hat on his head, a ten-foot pike in one hand and a bottle of gin in the other. He cried:

‘Wheeoh!’ And he had his pike at Mia’s chest in a flash. ‘Friend or foe, is it?’ he cried.

‘Friend, old man,’ I shouted, dismounting.

‘Good for you, son.’ He peered through the moonlight into my face. ‘You’re riding the horse of a giant. Is it boy or man?’

‘Seventeen years old,’ I replied. ‘And if ye doubt I’m a man you’d best try me.’

It is sickening, I think, to have the mind and body of a man but the face of a boy.

His hand went up. ‘Ach, lad – no offence. I was only asking, you see, though it makes little odds. For seventeen or seventy, if you’re a loyalist or militia turncoat I’ll have ye on the end of this ten-foot pike for toasting.’

‘Use your eyes,’ I answered. ‘I’m wearing the rebel ribbons just the same as you.’

‘Then why are ye prancing the lanes on that big mare?’ he demanded. ‘If you’re a patriot Irish you should be back down there burning the town of Naas under the great Mike Reynolds.’ His pike-slash trembled under my throat.

‘All in good time,’ I said, ‘Right now I’m heading for Gorey. Is this the right road?’

‘It is that, me son, though you’ll never see the skies over Gorey. For the Armagh Militia under Lord Gosford are coming up it with cannon. And if ye fall among them they’ll like crop your ears and fit ye with a blazing cap like they did me brother.’ He stared at me, his red-ringed eyes gleaming in his haggard face.

‘God rest him,’ I said. ‘And God rest you, man, if the militia catch you here.’

‘Ach,’ said he, tipping the bottle to his lips. ‘It’ll come softer wi’ a flask of gin inside me. I’ve a pike in me hand and musket in the rocks, and if the Gosford Militia crop and singe me it’ll be for a good purpose, since I’m not budging from here until the great Mike Reynolds makes a getaway from Naas.’

‘Stay if you like, but I’m going.’

‘Not till you’ve given me the password.’

‘Witches’ Sabbath,’ I said.

He lowered the pike. ‘Right, away wi’ ye and God go with you. Which is more than’ll happen to this daft loyalist, for he fired at me a hundred paces back, and missed.’ He led me to the roadside undergrowth. A soldier was lying dead there, his eyes open to the stars. The rebel said, ‘But I didn’t miss – he didn’t know what hit him.’ Kneeling, he took from the pocket of the dead soldier an envelope. ‘You reckon this might be important, son? For the trouble is they never taught me to read.’

I took the envelope and held it up to the moon, and caught my breath.

I read: ‘To Lord Kingsborough, via Lord Gosford, Armagh Militia, NAAS, County Kildare.’

‘Is it important?’ asked the little rebel, peering over my shoulder.

‘It could be life or death,’ I said, and knelt. With a pencil I rolled back the flap of the envelope, taking the greatest care.

‘Are ye opening it, son?’

‘I am.’ Taking out the letter inside, I read:

Wexford now free of insurgents but passage to town still dangerous. Advise you take sea route. Imperative that Wexford be prepared for siege. Report G.O.C. when town is secure. Urgent.

The rebel said, ‘Och, you’re lucky. It’s a wonderful thing, mind, to be able to read. Who’s that signed by?’

‘General Lake,’ I replied.

‘General Lake!’ the rebel echoed. ‘The big commander himself?’

I rose. ‘Aye,’ I said. ‘You’ve found a key that could turn the fate of the country.’

‘And what will ye do now, then?’

‘Make sure that this letter is safely delivered to either Lord Kingsborough or Lord Gosford.’

‘That’s easy. Gosford himself is riding up this road an’ he’ll be here in less than an hour. Who’s delivering it?’

‘I am.’

He prodded me with a finger. ‘In this rebel rig-out? The Armagh men would burn you alive, son.’

‘In the uniform of the soldier,’ I said.

He grunted deep in his chest. ‘Rather you than me. If they catch you in the uniform of a loyalist they’ll treat you as a spy.’

‘It’s the chance I take.’ I put the letter back into the envelope, rubbed back the gum on the flap and licked and sealed it.’ Kneeling, we stripped the dead loyalist of his uniform and I legged myself into his trews and tunic, and it was tight and bandy with me and strangled round the waist and collar. The little rebel laughed, crying, ‘It’s a sorry fate you’ll have, lad, wi’ your trews splitting up the back when they send ye to Kingdom Come, but you’re a game young cock for all that – what’s ye name?’

‘John Regan.’ I hid my clothes under Mia’s saddle.

‘And where were you off to when I stopped you?’

‘To Father John Murphy of Boolavogue – I’m acting on the orders of Lord Edward Fitzgerald.’

‘Is it a messenger you are, then?’

I went to Mia and swung myself into the saddle. ‘You could call me that. Are you staying on here?’

But he was not really listening. At the mention of the name Fitzgerald he had crossed himself, and now he was kneeling in the road. Taking a handful of dust he pressed it against his lips, saying:

‘To think of it – to think of the honour of it – obeying the commands of a man like Fitzgerald. Ireland will never die, son, while such men live.’

‘Goodbye,’ I cried, spurring Mia, and I swung down the road towards the camp of the Armagh Militia, and I looked back once, I remember.

The little rebel was still kneeling in the road. He. was only five feet high, but it is not the size of the man, my father used to say, but the size of the fight in the man.

Alone, he was guarding the road to Naas. And if he shot at a regiment of militia they’d likely crop his ears and hand him the blazing cap of the Hessians, the terrible punishment of the German mercenaries, in the way they treated his brother. I looked back again. He was standing now, waving against the stars.

‘Ire. . .