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Ulster’s finest hire to defend him? Probably an earnest young graduate of Queen’s University, eager to try his first case and see justice done. He would be eaten alive by the prosecution. It didn’t matter. He wouldn’t accept a lawyer. He was a soldier, not a criminal. He needed no defense and didn’t recognize the jurisdiction of any English judge in Ireland.
    Michael grimaced and moved his right leg. Shooting pains, like the jabbing of a thousand needles, signaled the return of circulation. The peelers’ voices, deep in conversation, sounded far away. Michael sighed. He hadn’t seen the inside of Castlereagh Interrogation Center or the H-Blocks for nearly three years.
    The H-Blocks, those square cells built to house political prisoners just off the M1 motorway, ten miles from Belfast near the town of Lisburn, had never seen a single moment of its twenty years without a member of his family interned there. First there had been his father, then Dominic and Liam, Sean and Niall, Bernadette, Connor, Davie, and young Cormack. Every male Devlin in the Six Counties and all, without exception, sentenced by a Diplock court, those travesties of justice headed by a biased judge who sentenced prisoners without benefit of trial whether or not they had been convicted of a crime.
    Either he’d grown soft during his three years of freedom or the peelers had improved their methods of torture. The pain in his side was unbearable and his body refused to cooperate. He should have been unconscious long ago. A wave of vomit rose from his stomach, so violent and all-consuming that his feeble attempts at control were brushed aside like a twig in the eddy of a mighty current. Muscles, tight and angry from abuse, revolted, spewing yellow bile in a four-foot projectile from his mouth to his jailors’ feet, coating their shoes and trousers with liquid filth.
    ***
    â€œMick,” a soft voice murmured into his ear. “Mick, it’s your ma. Can you hear me?”
    Michael opened one eye and quickly closed it again. The light was too bright. He tried his voice. It was raspy and thick, but intelligible. “Where am I?”
    â€œIn hospital.” Annie Devlin patted his hand. “They ruptured your spleen in the beatin’. Lucky for you they’re afraid to kill you.”
    Michael laughed, felt the draw in his cheek and abdomen, decided it was worth it, and laughed again. “How long have I been here?”
    â€œNearly a week. Y’ look much better than y’ did in the beginnin’. Meghann would never have recognized you.”
    Both eyes opened into tiny slits as he focused on his mother’s face. Her features floated in a fuzzy blur, but he could make out the brilliant blue of her eyes as they stared down at him.
    â€œY’ haven’t mentioned Meghann’s name in ten years. Why now?”
    â€œHow would you know when I speak of Meggie?” his mother retorted. “Y’re never home.”
    Michael reached out and gripped his mother’s wrist. “What have y’ done, Ma?”
    â€œThey’ve accused y’ of murdering James Killingsworth, Michael. I had no choice. I sent for Meggie.”
    He released her arm and swore fluently. Annie watched him, saying nothing, allowing his barrage of anger to rise, sweep through him, peak, and dissipate. Michael had always been this way, quick-tempered, passionate, argumentative, intuitive, fiercely loyal. He was also forgiving, courageous, charismatic, a leader of men, a believer in miracles—“all heart,” her late husband used to say.
    Michael was all heart, or at least he had been until that day, twelve years ago, when Meghann McCarthy’s picture had appeared in the London Times as the bride of Lord David Sutton. At first, Annie hadn’t realized what Meggie’s marriage had done to Michael. It wasn’t until nearly six months later, when Bernadette came home for a visit, that