Never Never (16 page)

“And I've answered him,” Mike said tersely, “with the fact that it hardly matters now.”

Sarah looked at Shaun. “Do you need more time to think about it?”

“And in the meantime I'll be locked up in me room?”

“You can understand how we'd need to do that until we're sure of you,” Sarah said. “We'd prefer not to, of course.”

“It's the victor's lament, is it not?” Shaun said sarcastically. “
We don't want to rape and pillage your village, but there you are
.”

“Sure nobody's saying anything about rape,” Mike growled. “Or fecking pillaging.”

“Look, Shaun,” Sarah said. “You need more time. That's clear. You're right. We're the victors. That's a fact. You don't like it. I don't blame you. Take all the time you need.” She stepped away to allow him passage.

He hesitated as if surprised she wouldn't try harder to talk him into it.

“And I'm to be locked up again?”

“Of course,” Sarah said with some impatience.

He jumped to his feet and Sarah saw Mike's hand flex near his gun holster but Shaun turned on his heel and stomped to the door. A second later, Tommy peered into the room.

“Take him back and lock him up,” Mike said. “Give me a few minutes before sending the next one in.” Tommy nodded and withdrew.

Sarah turned to Mike. “It's just going to take time.”

“You know he was running a fecking prostitution ring in here.”

Sarah frowned. “Hardly a prostitution ring. Wasn't it just trading sex for goods whenever travelers showed up?”

“Oh, is that all right then, Sarah?” Mike ran a hand through his hair. “
And
he's carrying on with all the women. A fecking polygamist, he is.”

“You don't know that.”

“Fiona says she's sure of it and Fiona is an amazing judge of human nature.”

“That's called gossip. Did you ask him?”

“No, but if he is, he'll need to stop.”

“Your way or the highway?”

He gave her a look of incredulity. “A community can't survive with that sort of thing going on, Sarah. Surely you know that.”

“I don't know
what
I know except we have to get Shaun to agree to be a part of our group. Have you asked yourself what you'll do if he won't?”

“He'll have to leave,” he said firmly.

“Let's work to see that doesn't happen.”

Suddenly the door pushed open and Sophia ran inside.

“Mike! Sarah! Come quick!” Through the open door Sarah could hear the sounds of screaming coming from somewhere in the castle.

S
o much for
all the idea that everyone was getting along
.

Sarah watched Tommy pull Nuala off the woman, Saoirse. The air in the room was electric. Sarah felt her adrenalin pumping.

Was everyone in the whole damn castle just itching for a fight?

“What happened?” Mike said. “Who started this?”

Saoirse was sitting on the hard stones of the hallway flood. Her lip was bloody. Nuala shrugged off Tommy's restraining hand. Her youngest boy, Damian, stood beside her with eyes wide with fear and a puddle of urine beneath him.

“That bitch was dragging me Damian off,” Nuala said, pointing at Saoirse. “I heard his screams, didn't I?”

Shaun was next to Mike in a second and pulling his sister to her feet.

“Lies!” Saoirse shrieked. “The little bastard attacked me as I was coming down the hall.”

“Hush, Saoirse,” Shaun said. His face was white and his lips were pressed into a tense line. He turned to face Mike and Nuala. “This is a misunderstanding.”

Mike looked at the trembling child and at Nuala's face flushed with fury. One thing he knew about Nuala was that she wasn't impetuous. If she attacked Saoirse, it was for good reason.

“A misunderstanding, how?” Mike said, narrowing his eyes at Saoirse. The woman was making a big show of dusting off her jeans and sweatshirt and glaring at Nuala.

“He was giving me the evil eye!” Saoirse said as she pointed at Damian.

“Saoirse, shut up!” Shaun said in exasperation.

“Take the lad away, Nuala,” Mike said. “No sense in him being subjected to any more of this bullshite.” When Nuala started to speak, Mike held up his hand. “She'll be punished proper, Nuala. I promise ye.”

With a last scowl at Saoirse, Nuala took Damian's hand and retreated down the hallway.

“Punished?” Shaun said. “For what? I told you, it was a misunderstanding.”

Mike turned to him, a vein pulsing in his forehead.

“She attempted to harm one of the children,” Mike said. “That's not allowed.”

“What are you talking about?” Shaun looked at the castle women as if to appeal to them. His mother, Beryl—Saoirse's mother—stood silently and watched.

“My sister has…she suffers from mental troubles,” he said.

“Feck you, Shaun!” Saoirse said, shoving her brother hard on the shoulder. “The little brat gived me the evil eye!”

Mike turned to her. “And what was your remedy for this offense? Were you going to strangle the lad? Toss him off the parapet? What?”

“Don't answer that!” Shaun said to his sister. He turned to Mike. “Look, I'm sorry this happened but she's not responsible for her actions.”

“In my castle she is.” Mike said.

Shaun gaped at him. “You can't punish a mentally challenged—”

“She's not mentally challenged. You said
troubled
.”

“There's no difference.”

“Aye, there is. Unless you're telling me your sister cannot be held accountable for her actions?”

Sarah read Shaun's face as if his thoughts were spelled out in neon. If he said she was accountable, she'd be punished. If he said she wasn't, she'd be expelled. He licked his lips.

“You have no right to dictate about anything,” Shaun said.

“That's where you're wrong,” Mike said. “I have the right to keep peace among my people. I'll punish any who threaten that peace.”

“
We
are not your people!”

Uh-oh,
Sarah thought.
Wrong thing to say
. She saw the tic relax over Mike's eye and then disappear altogether.

“It's true that neither you nor your sister has yet sworn allegiance to me or my lot,” Mike said. “In my mind that makes you outsiders.”

The word
outsiders
inched up Sarah's spine like a dripping piece of ice.

Outsider meant outside the castle.

“You wouldn't dare,” Shaun said. “It's snowing! We have no shelter!”

“Aye, but ye do have a choice.”

Shaun looked at Saoirse whose lip was curled. He glanced at the other women, including his mother, each of whom dropped their eyes to the floor.

“Swear allegiance or get out,” Mike said.

“Feck you!” Saoirse snarled.

“Aye. That's one,” Mike said calmly.

“You can't throw her out,” Shaun said.

“All she has to do is swear allegiance—and accept her punishment for attacking one of the children.”

“Feck you!” Saoirse said again. “Come on, Shaun. Let's bugger out of here. We don't need this lot.”

Shaun—his mouth open in disbelief—turned to watch Saoirse walk down the hall pushing through the two lines of women as she went.

S
arah stared
at Mike's retreating back as he and two of the compound men escorted Shaun and Saoirse to the front of castle. The snow was still coming down. They were literally being thrown out with only the coats on their backs.

Sarah ran after him and grabbed his arm.

“Mike, this is insane,” she said breathlessly.

He turned toward Gavin and Terry and gestured that they were to carry on without him. All of the women, compound and castle alike, followed in a long solemn line to the front gate.

“Take a moment and get a grip. You can't send them out there.”

“That's exactly what I can do, Sarah,” Mike said tightly. “And you of all people should know that.” He pulled her into an empty room off the hall.

“You want safety?” he said, leaning down so his nose was inches from hers. “You ruin me life for weeks—nay
months
—about staying safe and then you'd row with me when I'm trying to do just that?”

“This is draconian!”

“No, it's medieval. There's a difference. Medieval measures worked then. They'll work now.”

“Really? What's next? Ear cropping? The stocks? Public whipping?”

“What would you suggest, Sarah? When laws are broken? We live in the Dark Ages again.”

“Only if we decide to! We're civilized!”

“I can hardly dock her pay! Will ye wait until it's Siobhan who's hurt next time? We need laws and laws mean consequences.”

“Why is it always you laying down these laws? Can't we have a different dialogue than always
your
way?”

“No, Sarah, we can't and thank you for your support. This is a fecking thankless shite of a job and I'd gladly go back to 2012 and my motorized fishing launch—”

“Back before you met me, you mean.”

“Don't be putting words in me mouth.” His eyes glittered meaningfully. “Or maybe I mean ideas in me head.”

She knew she'd never seen him this angry with her. That had to mean he wasn't comfortable with throwing Shaun and Saoirse out but he felt backed into a corner.

“Look, Mike,” she said, forcing her voice to sound calm and reasonable. “You can't throw them out in the snow.”

“They had a choice.”

“
Do it my way or freeze to death
is no choice!”

“We have to have laws! People have to obey them!”

“
Your
laws! Obedience to
you
! I don't care if we do live in a castle, you don't get to be king!”

Mike's face hardened and he straightened up.

“I'm done trying to make you understand,” he said.

“Oh? Thinking about tossing me out too, are you?” She crossed her arms and glared at him.

He turned and left without responding. Sarah stood in the empty room listening to the pounding of her heart.
What has happened to him? Who has he become?

The ice-cold sliver of fear that had lived in her heart ever since Siobhan was born and John had gotten on that helicopter pierced her lungs until she found herself fighting for her next breath.

T
he morning mist
didn't dissipate as Hurley had come to expect it to. It was nearly midday and still it looked like he was leading a phantom army through a fog of gloom. It was so bitter and damp riding on these high pastures that Hurley's chest rumbled with a nasty cold.

But neither the mist nor the nagging wheezing in his chest could dampen his excitement.

Today was the day.

He imagined how they must appear to anyone watching them approach—especially in the fog. He imagined how they would appear to Donovan—an avenging army materializing from the mists of hell.

Hurley smiled thinly, his army marching solemnly in two defined columns around him. Never complaining, never flagging in their forward march to their goal. To their Commander's goal.

He caught sight of a flash of color and he saw that one of his Centurions was wearing the dead gypsy girl's bandana. Hurly frowned. The man was technically out of uniform and Hurley knew he should reprimand him but he hesitated. It was a trophy from a kill and he could see the value of that.

There would be many more such trophies today. The thought triggered a buzz of excitement in his chest that ended in a fiery coughing fit. He hated demonstrating weakness in front of the men. Cursed the fecking Irish weather that made him look—even for a moment—less than he was. By the end of the day he would show his men without any doubt exactly how strong their leader was.

The rain picked up, sluicing a cold gust of air down his collar that made him shiver.

If on the other hand, he thought sourly while his frustration curdled in his empty stomach as he rode in the downpour, they
didn't
make it to the convent today, he would kill Chezzie in the slowest possible way he could think of.

If they didn't make it to the convent today they would be forced to kill and eat the pony that they'd taken when they'd captured the girls and their wagon. A flush of annoyance crept over him at the thought of the debacle the night before with the girls. For a moment, with everything seeming to go seriously sideways, it had almost felt like things had gotten out of control.

But by the morning, the marching lines were as straight as if nothing had happened. And while it was true that one of his brave Centurions had a broken jaw from his attempt to bed the gypsy and they'd ended up losing both girls as a result, they did at least gain the pony and cart. He glanced at the man wearing the bandana around his neck.

Let the crows feed on the girls' bodies in the ditch and in the woods.
There was no doubt they would have been more trouble alive than they were worth.

A
n hour later
, the rain slowed to a gentle but constant sprinkle. Even in the cold Hurley's wet saddle pad steamed from the heat of his horse. The marching men had stopped. Hurley pressed his heels into his horse's flanks and rode to the head of the column. Chezzie stood in a ditch off the main road as if attempting to slip into the woods. As Hurley approached, he saw the prisoner was still bound and tied by a long rope to his handler, but pointing to something in the woods.

The young Centurion holding the prisoner's rope turned and snapped to attention at Hurley's approach.

“Commander, sir,” he said. “The prisoner has found the opening to the path through the woods.”

Hurley glanced at Chezzie who stood with shoulders slumped and his eyes on the ground as though fully expecting to be shot where he stood now that his usefulness was over. The sight nearly made Hurley smile.

He twisted in his saddle and motioned for the two columns to enter the woods.

“Single file,” he shouted.

He pulled his horse back to let the men go before him, congratulating himself on his self-control by not racing ahead of them. He caught the eye of the prisoner's guard. It appeared Chezzie wasn't the only one wondering if the end of the line had arrived for the prisoner.

Hurley shook his head and watched the guard turn and drag Chezzie down the path into the woods.

Plenty of time to tie up that loose end
, Hurly thought.
Especially if this proves to be the wrong path. Would hate to repay the man with a quick death when leading us a merry chase requires so much more.

He patted the neck of his horse and cleared the rumbling in his chest with a vociferous hacking before hocking up noisily onto the ground. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and watched his men become swallowed up by the mist and the woods. His heart was racing with expectation and excitement.

Two more miles by woodland trail.

They would arrive at the hidden convent within the hour.