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Thomas, the new Earl of Kildare, till he has a son of his own, you are next in line, Gerald—the heir. A clever one, Thomas is, though a bit of a headlong hotspur, eh?”
    I could not believe Christopher would dare to criticize Thomas, though now I see through more mature eyes that our foster brother did resent our half brother’s high-handed ways. And I had heard Christopher say once that but for a mere accident of birth, he too could have been a powerful man’s heir. But then I was also shocked when I heard that two of our five uncles refused to raise men for or join the uprising of Silken Thomas and just stayed home.
    At St. Mary’s Church next to the castle, we held a quickly called memorial service for Father, yet it was packed with retainers and local gentry as well as most of Maynooth village. After the priest’s closing benediction, Thomas stood up and added, “My father, Garrett Og Fitzgerald, the ninth earl, was the second coming of Brian Boru, Ireland’s brave eleventh-century warrior who won kingship of Ireland. Boru died at the Battle of Clontarf after shattering the Viking hold on our beloved land. Though my father died in a foul English prison and left his task undone, I shall shatter the English hold on our beloved land.”
    Everyone cheered and applauded him, but I was angry with Thomas that day. New earl or not, leader of the rebellion or not, granted, firstborn son of my father’s first family, why did it sound as if only he claimed our father, when Gerald and I mourned for him too?
    If the so-called Fitzgerald rebellion and Father’s loss were not enough to grieve us, it soon became clear that the arrival of the English army showed who was truly for the Irish cause and who was not. Despite Thomas’s army numbering seven thousand, his siege of Dublin Castle, where many loyal to England were holed up, failed, mostly because many of the so-called Anglo-Norman families of the Pale took one look at the English might and were only too happy to stay neutral or even loyal to England.
    Thomas’s main force was made up of family members, retainers, and tenants of our lands and those kin loyal to them. In short, it was most of those listed in The Red Book of Kildare , which had been moved for safety’s sake out of its silver box in the library and hidden with several sacks of silver coins in an empty vat in the wine cellar below the great hall. At least the inland Gaels, whom Father had managed to keep in line, delayed “the Gunner” Skeffington’s army with their raids. Thomas’s forces fought the king’s invaders too, but the Irish loyal to him kept falling back in a hard-fought campaign through the bitter winter and into the spring of the next year.
    As I was approaching my eleventh year, Magheen said I seemed much older. I tried to take on the mistress’s duties in the castle, copying things I’d seen Mother say and do. But then, in mid-March it was, from the top tower rooms we saw the English army swarming toward Maynooth like a plague of black ants.

     
    It was just skirmishes and light arms fire around Maynooth at first. Sometimes Thomas, who knew the area far better than the invaders, still sneaked in and out at night by a tunnel that connected the wine cellar to the river near where we had hidden our boat. He had recently ordered the tunnel redug, for it led to the river water supply that had helped the castle survive a siege in the fourteenth century, before the inner courtyard well was dug.
    But when the English army encircled the castle, Christopher told us he had blocked and obscured the river entrance and Thomas came no more, though we knew he had gone to raise reinforcements to defend Maynooth. Christopher was fully in charge now, even of the garrison here that owed allegiance to Thomas. I could see Christopher reveled in his power, despite the dangers. He ordered Gerald and me about much more than Thomas ever had. But at least we had some firepower to fight back, guns and ammunition