Never Never (11 page)

“We need to be careful about who we let in. You understand.”

“Aye, but as you can see, my group is mostly women and children.”

“Tell him they can come in if the men stay out,” Ava said and Shaun shushed her.

“We might be willing to let the women and children come in.”

The man gave a half turn as if to look at his group.

“I can't do that,” he said finally.

He doesn't trust us,
Shaun thought.
And why should he?

“We have women recently delivered,” the big man said. “And we have food to trade. We only ask shelter from the coming storm.”

Shaun glanced at the dark skies. There were clouds to be sure but there were always clouds. This was Ireland.

Ava pinched his arm and he waved her back without turning.

“Do you have medicine of any kind?” Shaun asked.

“Aye, we do. And a healer. Is there sickness there?”

“I'll think on it and get back to you,” Shaun said, stifling an absurd desire to laugh because he sounded like he was finishing a business merger at his old corporate firm.
I'll put you on the calendar and get back to you.

“How many of you are there, if you don't mind me asking?”

“Don't tell him that!” Saoirse said in a loud whisper that surely carried to the next county.

Shaun moved away from the window without answering the man. He pulled Ava and Saoirse away too, and wondered how he ever got anything done with all the help he got from these two.

T
hat first night
it was too cold and wet for a campfire meeting. Sarah knew Mike would be out most of the night securing the perimeter and spelling watches with the other men. She was too restless to sleep. Sophia and Gavin's tent was next to theirs but little Maggie's relentless crying negated any interest Sarah had in popping in for a visit.

Several of the unmarried mothers were sharing a tent and offered to take Siobhan for the night. Although the child was better these days, she was still happiest in the arms of her father. Sarah bundled her up and gratefully handed her over to Catriona and Hannah before making her way toward Fiona and Declan's tent.

When she reached it, she saw it was darkened but Nuala's had a lantern burning and the sound of laughter coming from it. On impulse, Sarah came to the tent flap.

“Knock, knock!” she said, as she poked her head through the opening.

“Sarah! Come in!”

Nuala had one of the larger tents and for good reason. With three children of her own, she often had another one or two for good measure. Her two boys, nine and seven, were cheerful and agreeable. The older one, Dennis, was old enough to help mind the little ones and Nuala leaned on him a good deal.

“What brings you out on this wet excuse for a night?”

The two boys sat facing each other, their legs crossed, playing with a deck of cards. Between them and watching them carefully was five-year-old Maeve, whose mother had died the spring before.

“I thought Maeve lived with Fi and Dec?”

“Aye, but she's a bit of a handful is our Maeve. Thinks she's one of the lads and as I'm used to dealing with boys, it's no problem at all. Besides, Fi has a full plate with Declan, so she does.”

Maeve grinned impishly at Sarah. Nuala leaned against the center tent pole and nursed the baby. Sarah took off her cape and folded it, dry side up so she could sit on it.

“So did Himself have a talk with the castle?” Nuala said.

“He did. He was hoping to have a gathering by the campfire but the storm knocked that idea out.”

“So what did they say?”

“They said the women could come in with the babies but not the men.”

“And sure Himself thinks we'd be defenseless females without him and the lads to protect us?”

“Something like that.”

“He does remember how we defended Ameriland against the murderin' druids just last year, doesn't he?”

Sarah frowned as if the memory was a faint one.
Did we really do that?
And she was six months pregnant at the time. And then her heart clenched. Because Archie had been alive then. And it was because of Archie that the women had able to defend the compound.

“You all right then, Sarah?”

Sarah shook her head. “I just think this is all a terrible idea, Nuala.”

“What? Coming to the castle?”

“We should never have left the convent.”

Nuala frowned.

“I mean, look at us!” Sarah said. “We're all cold and wet and running out of food and Declan's hurt. And if the people in that castle don't let us in, Mike has this insane idea he's going to attack it.

“Cor, he's our own Michael Collins.”

“Except he isn't. And we're not fighting for any cause except our own. We don't even know what kind of weapons they have in there and you can bet they won't easily give up. I mean, you're sitting there with a baby at your breast. Feel like scaling a castle wall and going hand to hand with a bunch of people intent on killing you?”

“I am pretty tired most of the time, I admit.”

“Exactly.”

“So is it tent by tent you're going, Sarah, talking everyone out of whatever Mike is trying to talk them into?”

“You think I'm sabotaging him?”

“
That's
the word I was looking for.”

“Fine. Back him to the hilt. Just don't come crying to me when he straps little Darcy to your back and hands you a grappling hook.”

“You're a hard woman, Sarah. Remind me not to cross you.”

Her cheeks burning with frustration and anger, Sarah stood up and put her cape back on. Why was she lately turning a desire for fellowship into a battle—with everyone? She managed a weak smile for the children and then turned to make her way back to her own tent, feeling the rain cold and insistent trickling down her neck as she went.

T
he next morning
, the rain finally stopped but the temperature had plunged. Mike rolled over in his sleeping bag and put a hand on Sarah's hip. He felt her stiffen. Would this war between them ever end? Did she not know how much he needed her on his side now of all times?

“I'll get the fire going,” he said.

By the time he'd rekindled the embers from last night's fire, he could see that most of the camp was preferring the warmth of their tents to beginning another day on a treeless lawn at the foot of a forbidding and inhospitable castle.

He wasn't sure he blamed them. They had no place to go today, no journey ahead of them, and no goal other than getting inside the castle.

When I put it like that, it makes me want to crawl back into me own tent.

What had he been thinking to do this so close to winter? And why was he so sure they could just take the castle? Arrogance! With six men and fourteen women—and half of them newly delivered? And then there was Declan. After a few days of looking like he was on the mend, Fiona told Mike last night that he seemed to be weakening.

Mike looked up at the sky as it tried to brighten with the morning. The clouds hung low, fat and grey. So, on top of everything, there was another storm coming.

Sarah emerged from the tent fully dressed with her sleeping bag pulled around her shoulders. She looked as if she hadn't slept. He tried to remember the last time he'd seen her smile.

“I spoke with Fiona last night,” he said, hoping he could jumpstart a simple, marital conversation over coffee. Only without the coffee.

“I spoke to her yesterday myself,” Sarah said. “Declan's worse.”

Well that was a bollocks conversation starter.

“And Sophia thinks Maggie has colic,” she said.

“Babies do get it.”

“I'm sure you'd know all about that. Since you know everything.”

“Ah, Sarah, don't start the day like this.”

“Like how? Disagreeing with you, you mean?”

“You've got a tongue could cut a hedge, so you do.”

“Don't you hate it when there are consequences to your actions? When you can't just disrupt everyone's lives—
endanger
everyone's lives—without some push back?”

Mike felt the frustration build in his chest. Just the sight of the castle—so close—and yet so impossible to reach, served to ignite a dormant anger. An anger that Sarah appeared to be doing her best to ignite.

“Reevaluating the reasons you came back to Ireland, are ye, Sarah?”

“Maybe I am! John's lost with no way to get back, Siobhan will grow up wild if she grows up at all and we're stuck at the base of a castle with no way in and winter just weeks away!”

“Whisht! Hold your voice down! You'll wake the camp.”

“We need to go back to the convent, Mike. You
know
that's true if you'd just let your pride stop ruling you for one minute.”

“Back to the convent?
That's
your answer, woman?
Fall back, run, hide, don't go forward…”

“How is freezing to death in a tent going forward?”

She stood before him, her hands on her hips and fire in her eyes. His hands itched to touch her, to grab her and shake her. He turned away to get a grip of himself.

“Fine,” she said. “So we're here. But unless you dragged us all this way so we could camp out on a barren hilltop with no shelter and no food, I'd love to know what your strategy is for getting inside the castle? Because right now it's starting to look like it's sitting and
hoping
they let us in.”

“They already said they'd let the women and children in.”

“Oh, so the plan is to destroy their trust by rushing them when they open the doors to us? What a prince you are, Mike. I can't imagine why people wouldn't want to follow you anywhere.”

He felt the exact moment when he hit his limit and this was it.

“Is it a divorce you want then, Sarah? To be free of me once and for all?”

She stood looking at him, her mouth open and momentarily speechless when the sound of the scream split the morning air like a knife cutting through flesh.

O
f all the
terrible things Mike had experienced in his life, the vision of that tiny body being carried dripping wet from the surf would stand as one of the single most horrifying sights.

Nuala carried the child in her arms. Her eyes were stunned and vacant as she staggered through the surf onto the beach and sank to her knees. Sarah reached them before Mike and immediately turned the little girl on her side, pushing out the seawater from her lungs and then giving her the breath of life.

Nuala stared down at little Maeve's body as Sarah worked. The child was blue. She'd been in too long. Anyone could see it was hopeless. And yet Mike's fear and hope were ratcheted up to equal levels.

How could it have happened? Why was the lass out so early in the morning?
He looked around to see Fiona racing toward them from her tent. She didn't know yet who it was.

Mike saw Nuala's lads standing back. The bigger boy held the baby Darcy who was crying. Both boys stared at the dead child on the beach with large, unblinking eyes.

“Siobhan,” he said out loud and then was immediately stricken by the selfishness of that single word—that he'd thought of her when she was surely safe.

“She's with Catriona,” Liddy said as she came up beside Mike. She held her little lass in her arms. Mike could see she was squeezing her too tightly and the babe began to cry.

“She said she wasn't afraid of the water,” Dennis said. He was Nuala's oldest lad. He stared at the body. Sarah still hadn't stopped trying to get the child to breathe.

Mike turned to him. “It wasn't your fault. It's not your job to watch her.”

“But it is.”

“No,” Mike said firmly. “Not when you're meant to be asleep. You could do nothing to stop this.”

Dennis blinked back tears and nodded but Mike had no real hope that the lad believed him.

The sound of Fiona's wails jerked his attention back to the group hovered over the child. Sarah was sitting back on her heels now, spent and done. She looked at little Maeve as if she were in shock. Fiona fell onto the girl and hugged her to her, rocking back and forth with the limp body in her arms.

Mike turned Dennis and Damian around and sent them back to their tent. He looked at Liddy.

“Gather the other women. Nuala and Fiona will need them.”

Liddy nodded and hurried away from the heartbreaking scene on the beach. Mike came over to Fiona and gently pulled her to her feet and took the child from her. He kissed little Maeve's cold cheek and turned to make the long walk back to camp.

S
haun looked
around the dinner table at the dozen women and two children seated there. It hadn't taken long for Ava and Saoirse to spread the word about the people camped out on the front lawn.

Naturally everyone had an opinion. The table buzzed with laughter and anticipation. His sister Saoirse sat to his immediate right and his mother to his left. There was probably no one more excited about the possibility of newcomers in the castle than his mother Beryl Morrison. Before the Crisis, as docent of Henredon Castle, Beryl had given two tours a day to eager and avidly interested tourists.

If there was anything his mother loved it was talking about the castle.

“You'll let them come in of course?” she said to him now. She pushed her dinner plate away, too excited even to eat.

“I haven't decided.”

“But why ever not?” Her eyes clouded and he saw the unmistakable quiver of her bottom lip. He didn't know when she began to pout when she wanted her way—it wasn't something she ever did before the bomb dropped.

“Mother, there's more to it than just inviting people over for tea. We don't know anything about them.”

Ava was watching the conversation from her end of the table. Little Keeva was sitting next to her but her food was untouched and she kept her head down on her arms.

Shaun felt a pang of guilt.
Would the newcomers really be able to help the child as Ava believed?

“I don't know why we can't have people come live with us,” Beryl said. “Henredon is four acres—more than enough space for at least a hundred people. The more people we get, the more skills and commodities we would have. It only makes sense, Shaun.”

He'd heard it all before. Hundreds of times before. He reached for his tankard of water and was grateful that they'd recently gone to the spring. Unless the people camping out there intended to try to put them under siege, they shouldn't have to go outside the castle for weeks.

“Remember three Christmases ago?” he said, not looking at his mother.

He heard her intake of breath and he felt a stab of guilt for reminding her.

Three Decembers ago, in the spirit of the season, they'd taken in two young men who'd come asking for food and shelter. Before the first night was over, one of the younger women of the castle had been raped and, in the process of trying to stop it, Shaun's younger brother Rodney was stabbed and killed.

While it was true that Rodney had himself been a problem—doing his own share of raping among the women—he was still family and that tragic night left them all reeling with a new legacy of fear and distrust.

“I'm just saying, perhaps it's time to reach out to the outside world again,” his mother said. “Ava said they have medicine.” She leaned down to touch the head of one of the two large dogs at her feet. Shaun knew she was feeding them both morsels but when they had enough food as they did at present he didn't care.

“They
said
they have medicine,” Shaun said. “We don't know that they really do.”

“But Keeva is still sick.”

“Mother, I know.” What was he to do? If he let down the drawbridge, what was to stop them from swarming the castle?

As if she were reading his mind, Beryl said, “Saoirse said they're mostly women and children.”

“I didn't say that,” Saoirse said sourly from the other side of Shaun. “But even if it's true, so what? It just takes one to hold a knife to your throat, woman or not.”

“Can we not talk about this right now?” Shaun said in exasperation. “I said I'd think about it and I will.” He looked up and watched he expectant faces of the nine other women watching him from down the table.

“You trust me to do what's best for all, do ye not?”

They murmured back their affirmatives.

“Then let me have me tucker in peace and rest assured all will be well for all of us in Henredon Castle.” He turned and put a hand on his mother's arm. “All right, Mum?”

She nodded and picked up her fork, realizing she could say no more to persuade him. When he looked down the table again, he caught Ava's eye. She watched him, her eyes glittering with meaning and intent. He knew tonight, of all nights, she would come to him. He hated that it had been so long. Or that she would come tonight because she was trying to persuade him. It wasn't that he wasn't confident of her love for him.

He just wished he had something more to give her.

I
t had taken all
the power of Hurley's self-discipline not to throw the sniveling bogger into the lion pit.

Hurley stood now, his limbs trembling with the effort to contain his fury, and watched as two miscreants scraped up from the bottom of one of the streets were dangled screaming over the hungry big cats. The audience seats had been removed so that all viewers must stand. He hadn't thought he'd need to force his soldiers to watch the lions at work and was surprised to discover that some of his men didn't consider the entertainment a reward for their service.

Most, however, stood and cheered as the lions made fast work of the men his soldiers had found attempting to steal from the army post.

He'd never been close to Bill. In fact he hadn't seen him in years. As far as Hurley knew Bill had been mentally deficient from childhood. He'd gotten his job at the Branigan research facility outside of Limerick because of Hurley's position with the military. Given the moron's incompetence, and without his older brother nearby to protect him, Hurley had just assumed Bill was no longer living.

But murdered?

No. Executed.

Just thinking of it made Hurley clench and unclench his fists. The screams from the pit didn't help to mitigate the mammoth outrage he felt over some bastard's arrogance in believing he had the
right
to execute a Hurley.

It was not believable.

That someone had the
balls
to execute his brother.

As if he were the law.

Hurley turned away from the carnage in the orchestra pit below and pushed through the crowd of applauding soldiers.

There was only one law in Ireland now.

He stopped at the door of the anteroom where the captive was being held. Even over the sounds of the cheering audience he could hear the man sobbing and pleading for his life. The Centurion Brady stood guard at the door and watched the captive with an impassive face.

“Bring the prisoner back to the post,” Hurley said, his eyes glossy with manic fervor.

“Yes, Commander.”

He would address all the men tonight at mess. But he wanted them ready. There was much to do.

“And spread the word that we will leave Dublin tomorrow at dawn.”

Brady blinked. “Leave? All of us, Commander?”

“You are promoted to Camp Prefect. Close down the pits. Free the lions into the streets. They'll do a better job of watching Dublin while we're gone than leaving a contingency squad would.”

“Yes sir,” Brady said. “May I inquire, Commander,
where
we are to go?”

Hurley fought down the irrational urge to cut the throat of the man he'd just promoted. Instead he turned away toward the door that led to the street.

“To a secret place,” he said over his shoulder, “where one man attempts to hide from his due.”