The Emerald Key - By Christopher Dinsdale Page 0,8
that Jamie is no ordinary boy. Like his brother, he is gifted, finishing at the top of his class in every subject area. And,” continued Cardinal Shulls, “Jamie has another gift many of us lack. He speaks French, don’t you, lad?”
Jamie nodded. “I spent two years at a monastery in Paris, France.”
“Canada East is mainly French-speaking,” muttered Father Shamus. “Being able to speak French might help him track down Ryan.”
Cardinal Shulls turned to each member of the Brotherhood. “Then we need to take this to a vote. Raise your hand if you are in favour of sending Jamie out to retrieve the text.”
One by one, each of the eight members of the Brotherhood raised their hand.
“Then it’s unanimous. Brother Galway, I suggest you go and pack, for you have a ship to catch and a book to retrieve. May God be with you.”
Chapter 3
Never in Jamie’s wildest imagination had he ever thought of setting out across the Atlantic Ocean on a six-week voyage to another continent. His life, however, had been filled with unexpected turns from a very young age, and as he walked towards the long departure quays that jutted out into the sparkling crown of Cork Harbour like sharpened thorns, Jamie thought back to those early happy years.
He had grown up helping his father run a well-
managed flour mill in the village of Clara, Westmeath. His father was a respected elder in the community, and he was very vocal in his objections to the ways of the British government. It angered him when officials looked the other way as the many British landlords ran thousands of desperate tenants off the properties that they had farmed for generations. The potato blight had robbed many of the small farmers’ incomes and they could no longer pay the rent. Desperate, the tenants led the villagers of Clara in an uprising against the government. Several irate farmers broke into the Lord Westmeath’s personal smokehouse and stole a full side of pork. Several families might have eaten well that week, but the lord complained of the break-in to the authorities. They in turn sent a detachment of soldiers to punish the community.
In the middle of the night, armed with rifles and torches, the redcoats descended upon the Galway flour mill. The Galway family would be punished, since Lord Westmeath assumed their objections had likely incited the vandalism. The loss of the mill would, in turn, punish the community for not turning in the criminals who had stolen Lord Westmeath’s property.
Within minutes, the prominent family business was engulfed in flames. The small Galway home sat next to the mill. Jamie could still remember staggering up to the window and seeing his father running through the flames of the mill’s doorway, armed with only a single bucket of water. Whatever his father’s plan was to stop the flames, Jamie never did find out. When he didn’t return from the flames, Jamie doubted his father ever contemplated that his wife might enter the burning building in an attempt to rescue him. Her screams of fear turned to screams of pain, and then no screams at all. Jamie remembered his older brother’s arm wrapping around him. He looked up at Ryan, tears in his eyes, unsure of what to do.
Ryan, eleven at that time, stood, not staring into the flames but at the redcoats on horseback, laughing at the inferno and warning the villagers who had gathered around the burning mill not to further break the laws of the land or more punishment would be heaped upon their village.
Perhaps it was remembering the single bucket of water in his father’s hands that made Jamie think of that fateful night. Now he was staring out at a sea that could fill up an endless line of buckets and likely never lower the level of its mighty basin. Jamie examined the long wooden hull of the Independence and its three huge masts that seemed to reach as high as a cathedral spire. This was the vessel that would take him across that mighty expanse of water to the land called Canada.
Jamie, dressed in common travelling clothes, entered the sea of people that filled the pier. The Brotherhood had decided it would be wise not to bring undue attention to Jamie’s departure. Around him, young men waved handfuls of tickets in the air, shouting out to the bedraggled crowd offering cheap passage to Quebec, New York, or Philadelphia.
A young sailor came up beside him as he continued to gawk at