Publisher's Synopsis
In the 1650s, driven by a vicious hatred for Rome and everything Catholic, Sir Oliver Cromwell, the Lord Protector of England, conquers Ireland. He had promised fertile Irish farmland to the wealthy noblemen who had paid for his wars against Catholic Spain, but first he had to transplant the landowners and their families to Barbados and a life of slavery.Cromwell's soldiers capture Catholic farmers attending a forbidden Mass in a Kildare forest. Declan O'Farrell recognizes the traitor Lorcan Stewart, who was his commanding officer in the Irish army fighting the English. He is now a colonel in Cromwell's forces. Traitor. Stewart's archers had just murdered Declan's 10 year old son. Another son, 12 year old Brendan, is sold to a gay London haberdasher as his toy boy. As he and his family are led off to the slave ships, he vows to take revenge and reunite his family.Declan and his family are packed onto the slave ship, the Beste. Under ruthless Captain Umberto they experience storms, death, bloody floggings, and a vermin-infested below-deck hellhole. The Kildare farmers are angry and want revenge. Impossible. Declan tells the men that a wise man holds back his anger until the right opportunity arrives.On Barbados his wife, Caitlin, is sold as a house maid, then shipped to Virginia as a field slave, sold again as a nanny, and then is bought as a wife by a tobacco farmer. Maeve, his 13 year old daughter, becomes the slave mistress of a Barbados planter and, when she becomes pregnant, is abandoned to his stud farm to produce mulatto slaves for him. Declan and Cillian slave in the hot sugar cane fields of Barbados. Cromwell decides to attack the Spanish in Hispaniola. Slaves are conscripted. Declan is forced to fight as a pike man, doomed to death at the front of the battle line. After their defeat Cromwell's officers abandoned the slaves in Jamaica. Declan and the Irish farmers set up a ship provision company in decadent Port Royal. They join buccaneers to plunder slave owners' mansions on Barbados and free Maeve and another Irish slave, Emma. Mark marries Maeve and Cillian marries Emma. Family life begins, but Declan wants to find his wife. He has no idea where his son Brendan is.After being abused and mutilated by his lordship's gay friends, Brendan demands and gets freedom in the Virginia Colonies. He sets up a branch of his lordship's haberdashery, practicing on the side a profession he learned in London - scrivener, preparing court papers. By chance he meets his mother and new husband who come to him for his services. The slave ship, the Beste, arrives in Port Royal and Declan says, "Our chance has come". He organizes the buccaneers to take over the ship and its cargo. They capture Captain Umberto and all of the officers, bury them alive, and sail to the Virginia Colonies. Declan sets up his farm produce business in Norfolk, Virginia. The buccaneers barter their plundered booty in exchange for money, goods, and ship provisions. Declan and Mark visit a haberdashery shop in outer Norfolk and convince the English gentleman to buy some of the buccaneer plunder. They make regular trips to the shop to sell their booty. One day the English gentleman visits the Norfolk Provision Company to see what other goods he could buy. He meets Cillian loading a wagon. During the conversation the English gentleman asks many questions about Ireland and about Kildare and his family, the O'Farrells. He seems to know more about Ireland than he admits. Cillian senses that Brendan at times betrays an Irish brogue mixed in with his book perfect English accent. Brendan discovers Cillian's telltale scar and asks the question, "Would you have that scar by your left ear from an accident in Kildare?" Cillian answers, "Aye.""Then, Sir, I am your brother Brendan." Brendan brings them to meet their mother and the family is reunited.
