Celtic Mist Ch. 13

Chapter 13: First Foray

Rossnalough Manor, west of Enniscorthy, County Wexford, Wednesday, May 16, 1798

Declan crouched on a limb of an oak tree outside the west wall of Rossnalough estate, his pistol and dagger ready in their holster and sheath on his belt. To his advantage, the night was moonless, and visibility was provided only by the stars and a few lanterns about the grounds. Tonight he was going over the walls into the Yeomen's garrison. Multiple nights of observation had taught him the routes and timing of the guards' rounds, and he had identified points of cover between the wall and the manse.

After the atrocity committed by Blaylock and his soldiers in the square yesterday, he was doubly resolved to find his former Captain and wreak his vengeance.

He had arrived after the usual time Michael appeared at the front gate, so he knew not whether she was inside or not.

When the moment came, Declan slid from the tree to the ground and ran up to the stone wall, leaping to get his hands on the top and his foot halfway up. Bending his arms, he drew his head above the cap stone. Aye, the coast was yet clear. Over he went to drop silently to the ground in the shadow of the stable wall. He ran to a cluster of four barrels adjacent to the courtyard, then over the gardens to the broad trunk of an ash tree, then to an oak closer to the house.

He paused, hugging the ground as the two guards approached. When they again turned and paced away, he slunk to the dark terrace along the west wing of the house, here crouching behind one after another in a series of shrubs planted in stately, carved stone pots. He tried in succession the windows of the unlit rooms.

From his surveillance, he was familiar with the evening routine of lights appearing in the three windows of the dining room in the opposite wing --- then, usually an hour and a half later, appearing in the windows of this wing. The officers should presently be dining, and Declan would identify a place to lay in wait for his quarry.

The fifth window along the terrace proved to be unlatched; he pushed it open and crawled over the sill.

Immediately Declan found his bearings in a large chamber illuminated by a low fire in the grate. He made out opulent décor and furniture, then froze at the silhouette of an officer's fur crested helmet --- a moment later he realized the macabre object was perched on a stand upon the desk.

The first thing to do was determine if this was Blaylock's office. He moved quickly to the desk.

A small shape darted out from under it and Declan started back with his heart in his throat --- at first he thought it was a dog, then he realized what it was. "Michael!" he whispered, relief flooding him.

She whirled round; he saw her tense features relax for a moment, then grow noticeably guarded as she stared at him. She was not wearing the spectacles, and although 'twas too dark to see the color of her eyes, they glinted in the light from the fireplace. Their exchange proceeded in whispers.

"What are you doing in here?" he asked.

"Looking for intelligence for Captain Fleetwood. What are you doing here?"

He hesitated. "The same."

Her eyes narrowed as she regarded him.

"Know ye whose office ---" he began.

The sound of footsteps outside in the hall made them jump.

There was no time to escape! Declan's eyes jumped round the room for a place of concealment. Against the wall across from the desk was an elaborately carved standing cabinet with two tall doors. He leapt towards it, finding it to be a wardrobe with a few garments hanging inside.

"In here!" he hissed. They scrambled inside and pulled the doors shut behind them. Side by side they stood in the dark, narrow space, facing the doors, shifting awkwardly as their arms jostled against each other.

The click of the hall door opening and closing terminated their fidgeting and fixed them in place. Declan then perceived that the cabinet doors a few inches before their faces were not solid, but that the carving formed an ornate lattice with small openings, no doubt intended to air out the garments stored therein.

Through the holes in the doors was now visible the pair entering the room: an unfamiliar Yeoman officer and a pretty, dark-haired lass in the blue gown and white apron of a maid --- both wearing furtive, mischievous expressions.

"We must make haste --- I have a meeting with the Colonel in twenty minutes," the man said in a low voice, drawing the maid towards the desk...walking backwards with his arms about her waist. He bent his head swiftly towards hers, and they were at once embroiled in a passionate embrace, their mouths soon open and feeding hungrily upon each other's...tongues twining, hands roving over each other's bodies.

After his initial surprise, Declan could not help an inward rueful laugh at the absurd situation. Both bent on revenge, Aoife and he instead found themselves hiding in a wardrobe and witnessing the amorous entertainments of an enemy officer --- here directly before them, a mere seven feet away. 'Twas certainly an unexpected, diverting joke in the face of their bitter purpose.

As the officer hastily unbuttoned his breeches, Declan comprehended that the "joke" had only just begun.

With an excited giggle, the maid assisted the man with the buttons, their eager hands bumping till he ceded the territory to her. An admiring gasp escaped the girl's lips as his stiffstander sprang free...a fine, stalwart machine...her hand was instantly upon it, tugging and stroking.

"Oh, God, yes..." he sighed, leaning back against the desk. He groped at her skirts, dragging them up.

Her back was towards the wardrobe, and her partially bunched gown in the rear concealed most of his actions, but her bare thigh and his forearm were visible. "Oh, Charlotte, you're as slippery as a buttered peach!" he murmured. For several more moments did the pair fondle each other's organs --- his arm jogging with small back and forth motions, her fist uncapping and capping his ruddy crown.

The full irony of the circumstances now struck Declan broadside. He was enclosed in this tight, dark space with the lass who had beguiled his heart, whilst he was pretending to take her for a lad, and she was unaware of his knowledge of her identity! And together they were watching this bawdy play unfold before them! By God, he could not help himself! Powerless was he to fight the involuntary response of his body to the provocative situation...he stood immobile as the blood mercilessly expanded his cock...expanded in concert with his craving for the wee maiden next to him.

What were Aoife's thoughts as she observed the couple? Was she at all likewise affected? Where their arms were pressed together, he felt her warmth, but otherwise she moved not. Stealing a yearning glance at her in the darkness, he glimpsed only two shining spots where the faint light reflected off her eyes. She was staring straight ahead at the scene, but he otherwise could read nothing of her reaction.

When Charlotte sank to her knees before the officer, Declan gritted his teeth to contain a gasp of excitement. He thought he felt Aoife's arm tense as the maid engulfed the bobbing trunk in her mouth. This wondrous act that he had witnessed once before --- from far away atop the battlements --- he now was observing in close, delightfully stimulating detail.

In and out the lass's face moved at the man's groin, his splayed hands on her head dislodging her white cap, his panting breaths spilling from his open mouth. Declan's cock throbbed in his breeches as he watched the pink circle of the girl's stretched lips slide up and down the glistening, veiny staff, drawing out as they pulled and sucked at the head...then her tongue danced over the glans as her encircling palm pumped the shaft. The officer was emitting moans of pleasure even as Declan was suppressing them.

"Oh, love! 'Tis too exquisite...I must put in! Get up and let me have your sweet pussy quick!"

In fervid haste did he grasp her under the arms and pull her to her feet, twisting her about. He shoved aside books and papers atop the desk, bent her over it, and tossed her skirts up over her back, presenting a full view of her beauties to the watchers in the wardrobe. Black thread stockings were gartered below her knee with pale blue ribbon garters, and shapely white thighs were crowned by a splendid, round arse.

"Spread your legs," he urged. The lass complied, widening her stance and shamelessly arching her bottom, sublimely displaying her wetly shining lips with their dark lacy trim --- lewdly bulging back. "Ah, Charlotte!" the officer groaned, stepping between her legs and angling his valiant steed to the mark. The view was unimpeded as he ploughed her little quim, full in to the root.

"Nnnnnhhh!" she gasped.

Then his buttocks clenched as he ground deliberately against her at full insertion, obstructing the view of their joined giblets. "Aye, love, aye!" he muttered. Without further ceremony he began vigorously fucking the moaning girl...Venus's battlefield intermittently visible as his shiny organ thrust in and out in long excursions, her lips clinging lasciviously to their plunderer. He held her by the hips, whilst she clutched the far edge of the desktop --- their scarce stifled sighs and grunts intermingled with the exuberant creaking of the desk's ornate legs.

Declan gaped agog, his engorged ramrod straining in its fabric bonds. Where his arm pressed against Aoife's, he could feel the motion of her rapid breathing --- or was it his? Did her hand just brush his? Oh, how he longed to touch her, to squeeze her hand...aye...to take her in his arms, bend her to his ardent kisses, and press her against his hard, aching flesh!

The ribald exercise did not last much longer: with a tight grip upon her waist, the officer's hips took on the swift, deliberate strokes that foretold the impending crisis. His breaths rasped faster and faster through his teeth --- then, "Oh G-Gaaa!!!" came his choked cry as he abruptly withdrew, his hand frigging his cock and his pelvis jerking as he spent copiously over her upturned arse.

After several moments, he exhaled a deep shaking breath, his hands squeezing her buttocks. In the firelight, glowing strings of spunk festooned her backside.

Now the officer rushed to collect himself, wiping his wet organ with his handkerchief, then passing it to her. "I must make haste, I'm sorry, love."

The maid stood up, reaching behind herself to wipe at the mess with the handkerchief. "Cannot we do it again after your meeting?" Her face looked forlorn.

He smoothed his shirt and refastened the breeches. "We're going on a mission directly after the meeting --- leaving at ten."

"A mission so late?" She fixed her cap.

"Aye. We're raiding a Defenders lodge in Davidstown --- in a church. We've received word of a cache of stolen guns there. We'll catch them unawares and at last make some arrests."

Declan's blood promptly reversed course and ran cold --- all erotic sensations quashed.

"And after?" She looked up at him coyly and ran her fingers along the buttons on his breeches' flap. He caught her hard against him. "Come to my bedchamber after we return. 'Twill be near one or two, I wager. Can you stay awake till then?"

"Aye, Tom." They kissed.

With a final straightening of their garments, they crossed to the hall door and slipped out.

Three beats of silence.

Declan and Michael swung open the doors, their whispers bursting nigh as one, "We must warn them!"

The clock on the mantel read half nine: a half hour to go ere the Yeomen departed. Declan darted to the window and peered out to search for the guards, muttering, "By God! Coe and I delivered guns there last week! How came they to know?!"

Michael, crouching next to him, shot him a look so startling he could scarce decipher it...venomous disbelief? But as the coast was clear, he had not time to ponder it. "Follow me!"

Out the window they hopped, ducking into the cover of one potted shrub after another, then to the oak tree where they paused. "I must go out the front gate, so they see me leave," Michael whispered.

Declan nodded. "Davidstown is to the west, so you'll need to head in the opposite direction from usual. I'm going over the wall. I'll find ye on the road." His mind raced; Lieutenant Coe and he had passed Rossnalough Manor when they had returned from Davidstown last week; he prayed he would remember the route back.

"No --- dinna wait for me. You run faster and we must warn them as soon as possible! I'll find ye there."

"Aye," he agreed. "I'll go. You hie yourself safe back to Enniscorthy."

"No, I'll find ye there," Michael insisted.

As best as he could remember, Declan gave her directions to Davidstown and the mass house.

Michael waited till the nearest guard pivoted and marched away, then she stepped out from behind the tree trunk, ambling towards the front of the manse, hands in pockets. Declan sprinted towards the wall.

*****

IF you can't go to heaven,

May you at least die in Ireland.

--- Irish blessing

Michael bade goodnight to the sentries and calmly turned towards Enniscorthy as usual. Once out of sight, she dodged off the road and doubled back to the west, running past Rossnalough Manor unseen in the fields. A quarter mile further she veered back onto the road. Hers were the only running footsteps she heard --- and she could only suppose that Declan was already far ahead...if he had gone at all.

Why was he persisting in this elaborate act? Michael was fair certain that the spy who had betrayed the Defenders to the Yeomen was Declan. Last month, he had participated in the gun mission to Wexford town --- after which McBride had been arrested. Last week, Declan and Lieutenant Coe had delivered guns to the Defenders in Davidstown, and somehow the Yeomen had found out.

'Twas too much of a coincidence, so it was!

She had twice seen him on the road to Rossnalough Manor, and tonight he just happened to be in an officer's room at the Yeomen's garrison before a planned mission to raid a Defenders lodge? She was not such a simpleton as to believe that! How could she trust that, after betraying them, he would now run to warn them? Was that why he urged her to return to Enniscorthy?

By God, she would warn them herself, so she would! But how much time had she? Were the Yeomen coming on foot or on horseback? These facts she knew not. She forced herself onward through the burning in her lungs.

Some forty minutes later she stumbled, panting, into Davidstown. 'Twas a small village, and with Declan's directions she soon found the simple, stone mass house. The windows were dark --- had he come?

A moment later, a man appeared from the shadowed, attached rectory at the far end, his armful of guns discernable even in the dark. He ran into the yard behind the church and disappeared in the darkness. Two other similarly burdened men rushed out in succession.

They were moving firearms! Declan had come!

Michael hastened through the rectory door from whence the men had emerged and headed towards a dim light in the adjacent mass house. Here she discovered a man crouching behind a modestly carved stone altar, grabbing firearms that were being handed up every several seconds from a glowing hole in the floor. In the low light, Michael made out the rest of the open room with its rows of pews and a vaulted ceiling supported by heavy beams.

The man looked up as she entered. "You must be Michael. I'm Father Noctor." He was a sturdy, ginger-haired man of about thirty with tense lines about his eyes and mouth.

"I am. I've come to help," she said breathlessly.

"Down here, quick. Help pass the guns up." He gestured to the hole, which she now saw had been concealed by a massive square flagstone that was set aside on the floor.

Michael dropped into the narrow hole and slid down through a three-foot-long, earth and stone shaft into a small cave-like chamber illuminated by a lantern on the floor --- 'twas a space perhaps eight by six feet in size, roughly hewn from the ground and reinforced with stones in the walls and stout oak struts to the earthen ceiling.

To her puzzlement and relief, she beheld Declan.

"Aye, good," he said upon seeing her. "Pass these up."

Promptly she joined Declan in a chain to hasten the removal of weapons. The low ceiling forced them both to crouch as Declan snatched up guns from where they leant along the walls at the far end and handed them back to her, whereupon she maneuvered the long barrels into the passageway and up to Father Noctor's hands.

Michael's conflicted thoughts raced unchecked as she worked. Why had Declan brought the warning after all? The only logical reason for him to continue with this sham --- hiding in the wardrobe, shock at the officer's revelation, running to warn the Defenders --- would be to preserve his cover as a United Irishman and maintain the bountiful spring of intelligence he had tapped. Upon being discovered in the garrison by Michael, of course Declan had to pretend innocence...that, or...or kill her, she realized. Perhaps 'twas time to inform Captain Fleetwood of her suspicions.

When the three other men returned within a few minutes, Michael paused as Father Noctor helped load up their arms. One lad nigh dropped a pistol as he clutched at the shifting armful.

"Take care --- hold fast!" Father Noctor growled.

Again the men fled out the rectory door with the precious cargo, and Michael resumed handing up firearms.

After two more guns were passed into the priest's hands, they at last heard it: the drumming hooves of approaching horses. Little forewarning was there --- scarce had Father Noctor thrust the muskets back down to her, and Michael and Declan scrambled out of the hole and replaced the flagstone, when the hooves stopped in the street in front of the church. Curt, shouted commands were audible.

Noctor shuttered the lantern and darted to a side window to peer over the sill. "Wait!" he muttered, halting them as they headed for the rear exit in the rectory. "They're coming round the back --- you canna escape through there!"

The three of them crouched behind the altar. "They mustn't find Michael here or they'll know he's a spy!" Declan whispered, echoing Michael's own panicked thoughts. The jig would be over if the Yeomen found her with the Defenders --- her missions both for her family and for Ireland would be forever crushed. All too well did she ken Blaylock's capacity for depravity --- no doubt Michael's punishment would be brutal...and once they discovered her to be a lass...?!

At the barred front door of the mass house rose a hammering. "Open in the name of the King!" a harsh voice commanded.

Frantic looks flew among them, then Father Noctor wrenched the flagstone aside again. "Hide in here, quick! I shall talk to them." Back into the underground chamber Declan and Michael slid. As the stone scraped above them, they heard the pounding grow louder.

"OPEN OR WE'LL BREAK DOWN THE DOOR!"

The stone thunked into place shutting out all sound and light.

In complete blackness, Michael crouched and strained her ears for some hint as to what was passing above. Would the Yeomen interrogate Father Noctor? Arrest him? Torture him? Was Blaylock out there?

She could see nothing of Declan in the small space they were occupying, but in the silence, she intermittently heard the movement of his feet against the dirt floor as he changed position, and she guessed he was near the wall opposite her, likewise listening.

After several minutes, the stillness was breached by a faint, but unmistakable cry. A moment later it came again --- aye, 'twas a scream, no doubt! Her throat tightened and the scene in Abbey Square yesterday flashed in her mind --- Blaylock questioning Rory Redmond between the lacerating blows of the cat o'nine tails.