16
That 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.
The 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.