'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,
