Celtic Mist Ch. 13

She had been there with the Sutton family in her guise of Kitty McDonnell, witnessing the barbarous proceedings...and she had sighted Declan among the crowd, notably furtive as he stood partially concealed behind other bystanders. Observing him thus, she had wondered if he had been the one who had betrayed the blacksmith to Blaylock.

Again a shriek sounded.

Oh God! What were they doing to Father Noctor? Michael was raging with questions but held her tongue, not wanting to speak to that loathsome lad sharing the cave with her. Why should he have more knowledge than she about what was transpiring out there --- unless of course he was the traitor and knew what the Yeomen meant to do to the priest...if so, he wouldn't admit it anyway.

Silence fell again. Declan's foot scuffed the floor.

A moment later came a new sound --- a muffled thumping and clattering above that steadily grew louder and more chaotic. Quickly she deduced the cause: the Yeomen were inside the mass house, searching it. Her heart accelerated as she followed the sounds, guessing they were knocking over the pews, stoup, baptismal font, and tearing apart the rectory.

What if they discovered their hiding place?

Declan apparently had had the same thought as well, for now did she realize that he had moved. She heard him further back in the cave, fumbling among the firearms. Soon she recognized the sound of a paper cartridge being torn open --- he must be loading a gun by feel. Of course! They were not defenseless! She identified the sound of the frizzen closing, then the weapon being cocked.

She froze. Her earlier thought rushed back: was he intending to dispose of the witness to his espionage? Her?

Muted sounds of shoes and knees scooting on the dirt floor --- then to her surprise, he whispered, "Take this pistol. 'Tis half-cocked." She started when she felt him touch her arm --- in the dark, his large hand skimmed down her sleeve to locate hers --- he pressed the pistol into it. "Mind ye dinna shoot me," his voice was low with wry humor. Next 'twas evident he was loading a second one.

Faster did Michael's heart beat as her fingers closed round the butt of a heavy pistol, the irony of his joke hitting her full force. Her grip tightened as she thought on her unresolved grievance against him for his involvement in the outrages against her family and herself...and now for his new crimes of betraying the United Irishmen and Defenders to the Crown. With one shot she might deliver justice on both counts...if she could but find him in this unremitting blackness.

But a second later, it struck her: why would he give her a gun if he were loyal to the Crown? Why was he worried about the Yeomen discovering she was a spy? No sense could she make of it in her current state of agitation.

Unbidden, the memory sprang up of the last time she had held him at gunpoint...him standing naked and red-faced in the firelight, his fists clenched at his sides as his bobbing, uncapped organ saluted her. She swallowed and her eyes probed the darkness...that large, strong body was somewhere a few feet away.

When the disorderly tromping of boots became distinct, Michael knew that the soldiers were now directly above them about the altar. Oh, God! Her heartbeat was impossibly loud! Let them not hear it!

A tremendous smashing sound echoed down the shaft. She jumped and bit her lip to squelch a gasp. It must have been the altar being overturned...they were searching about the altar! Turning on her knees in the direction of the passageway up, she raised the gun.

"Captain! I found a pistol in the yard!" came the muffled cry...then running footsteps above.

"Damn!" Declan muttered. One of the Defenders must have dropped it as he ran, Michael realized in dismay.

In short order, the commotion above subsided, and an eerie silence returned. For so long did it continue that Declan murmured that he was going to have a look. She heard him moving about, then the faint sound of the stone scraping. No light entered their hiding place. After a moment, he must have eased the stone back and descended, for his voice was close by. "There's no one there," he reported. "But I dinna trust 'tis safe to leave yet."

No sooner did he speak then there was a colossal BOOOOOM!!!

Michael's yelp was lost in the resounding crash from above --- the room quaked round them and she flailed as she lost her balance. Even as she grasped at the wall beside her, it shook under her hand. Soil and small stones rained down from the ceiling; she raised an arm for protection and ducked her head.

"Shite! Shite!" Declan swore. There was a sound of stones being tossed aside. "Michael, are ye hurt?"

"I'm fine ---what the Devil was that?!"

"By God, they're using a bloody cannon!"

From above they could hear a volley of smaller blasts and shattering noises. Michael brushed away the soil and stone fragments from her lap and got back to her knees, patting the floor in the dark for the pistol she had dropped.

BOOOOOOOM!!!

Michael careened forward in the rocking cave, catching herself on her hands as more debris from the ceiling showered her back.

"We must hie out of here!" Declan shouted over the crashing sounds. She felt him crawling past her, trying to avoid treading on her with his hands and knees. A moment later grunts and curses were audible. "Something's fallen on the stone --- I canna lift it." Rocks tumbled and clattered. "I smell smoke out there --- they set the church afire too. We must find another way out!"

At once she understood: the Yeomen were bombarding the church with cannonballs and fire, and if they didn't get out, they would be crushed, smothered, or burnt to death.

In the darkness, she hastened to join him in groping about for another route of escape. Her floundering hands encountered stones, earth, and fallen oak beams crossing the space before her --- the underground cave was collapsing about them!

Perhaps a new hole might have opened in the ceiling! With her arms raised, she staggered in the rubble, bumping into him, similarly searching. The ceiling had partially disintegrated in multiple places, but she felt no outlet.

"I canna find anything!" she cried.

"Nor I!" More sounds of falling debris. "Shite!"

"Canna we shoot the guns at the ceiling and blow out a hole?" she suggested.

"Not through three feet of earth and stone, we can't." A moment later he said with a bitter chuckle, "I've an idea --- probably the most foolish ever --- I'll shoot at the flagstone and pray it doesn't ricochet and kill me. Aye, but what have we to lose?"

She heard him moving.

"Where are you? Stand back!" His hand located her arm and pulled her behind him. "Get to the far end and take cover behind a fallen beam."

She complied, climbing over rubble and positioning herself behind a stout oak strut. "Cover your ears," he called.

There was the sound of a pistol cocking, then a spark --- in the sudden flare of flame she saw him, likewise crouched behind a fallen timber with his head averted and his arm extended as far away from his body as possible, pointing the pistol up into the shaft at the flagstone hatch.

The explosion was followed by a dull clang and whine that did not bode well. Sounds of his shoes in the loose debris, straining and grunting, then his mutter, "Scarce made a mark." The smell of gunpowder filled the blackness.

"What are ye doing?" she asked as energetic scraping sounded from his direction.

"Trying to dig round the hatch with the gun!"

Scrape, scrape, scrape ---

She bit her lip in agitation. "Any luck?"

"'Tis too hard, damn it! There's clay and gravel mixed in."

Now they fell silent whilst above them continued the distant sounds of gunshots. Out of the darkness came Declan's rueful voice: "This is a right fine pickle, so it is. I'm beginning to question some of me decisions today."

The Devil ye say! And which decisions would those be --- betraying the Defenders or pretending to help them? Her spiteful thought was cut short by the faint, acrid odor of smoke, confirming all too clearly what would soon unfold. She began pounding her fists upon the ceiling. "HELP!" she screamed. "HELP!!"

Declan's shouts fortified hers, but 'twas useless...she ken that no one could hear them. Her cries dissolved into inane, choking laughter. Was this how it was to end? After all the scrapes and calamities which she had survived, her number was now up? This was God's ironic punishment for her unchaste musings, her murderous plans, her apostasy from the Catholic faith --- to perish trapped beneath an altar in a mass house, her family's deaths unavenged?

Strangely, she was no longer feart, but was possessed by a frantic defiance.

BOOOOOOM!!!

She shrieked as a massive object came down upon her head. Red and white lights flashed in her eyes, then all was black again. A moment later she came to and realized she was sprawled face down in the rubble, coughing and spitting dirt from her mouth. The thunder reverberated in her head...was Declan shouting at her? His voice was a distorted echo in her ears. She was spinning...or the room was...which way was up?

Scrabbling blindly, she felt the labyrinth of slanting beams close about her head and shoulders --- the space remaining to them was caving in by the minute. Struggling to right herself in the heaving room, her hands pushed against stones, soil, then briefly came down upon the firm warmth of Declan's thigh, kneeling in front of her. Quickly she reached elsewhere, finding a leaning oak timber to grab, but under her weight it shifted and fell over.

She pitched forward with a yelp, only to be caught by Declan's hands upon her upper arms. He dragged her up to her knees, supporting her as the chamber tilted.

BOOOOOOM!!!

Another pair of fallen beams lurched against them when the earth tremored, and his torso twisted to shield her as he drew her away from the encroaching wall. Again he was addressing her --- she could feel his breath close by her ear, but could discern nothing but an oscillating buzzing. The bristly hair upon his jaw brushed against her cheek. Her heart seemed as if it were beating everywhere at once --- in her ears, her eyes, her throat, her gut, and between her legs.

The next moment their lips were pressed together...pressed together, urgent and moving with the last human touch they would know in the diminishing, black world. She was gasping and crying even as his mouth strewed fervid kisses over her brow, eyelids, and wet cheeks...his large fingers twined firmly in her hair and raised her face to his.

All her yearning thoughts and glimpses of Love's game now flooded her in a wave. By God, if she was already damned, then she was not going to die a virgin, ignorant of Medb's gifts! Flinging her arms round his neck, she kissed him and kissed him.

BOOOOOOM!!!

Declan's mouth covered hers, and the ground trembled as his tongue bluntly pushed through her parted lips...any finesse she had imagined in her daydreams now abandoned in the face of their inexorable fate. Wildly she sucked at his strong, greedy tongue, wrestling it with her own as their lips fused and opened...fused and opened between panting breaths...all her reason supplanted by bare wanting.

His arms were now about her back and waist, lifting her off her knees...gloriously crushing her against him. The onrush of longing was so powerful that she arched and whimpered, molding the beating pulse in her breast and cunny to his large, hardened body.

Light burst into the blackness, jerking them apart.

They gaped in disbelief, squinting against the sudden illumination. At the far end of the cave, over the pile of rubble, a glowing hole was expanding in the wall round the blows of a pickaxe. A moment later, a man's head appeared in the opening, his mouth moving but the words undecipherable above the ringing in her ears --- but there was no need to understand them --- Michael scrambled over the wreckage, then Declan, and they wriggled one at a time through the miraculous escape hole.

Hunching low, they followed the man's lantern down a narrow, crooked passage that appeared to be a natural crevice in the limestone. After some seventy feet or so, he shuttered the lantern and they crawled out between large stones along the bank of a stream behind the mass house.

Crouching in the cover of the rocks and foliage they gazed across the dark yard, taking in the shocking sight: the mass house had been reduced to a crumbled ruin that was feeding a blaze nigh two stories high. The stinging odor of the thick black smoke was all too sickeningly familiar to her.

In the light from the fire, Michael could see the stunned villagers standing by, as well as the cluster of Yeomen and horses in the road, among them the officer in command, identifiable by his plumed and crested helmet. In the darkness, distance, and smoke, she could not tell if he was Blaylock --- but no matter: Blaylock was no doubt the author of the mission. Further up the road with another group of Yeos, she saw a howitzer in its stout wooden carriage.

Then she beheld Father Noctor --- lying face down in the road with his hands bound behind his back. Michael's fists clenched and her heart heaved. Had they helped the Defenders at all, running here to warn them?

Their rescuer tapped her shoulder and beckoned her. The three of them crossed the stream and climbed up the steep bank opposite, hidden in the dark among the trees and stones. At the top was a field.

The ringing in her ears gradually subsiding, Michael learnt that the man was Patrick Noctor, the priest's brother, and she was able to make out his bitter commentary to Declan about the Yeomen employing the howitzer seemingly for the savage delight of destroying the church in the most violent manner possible. He and the other Defenders had observed the proceedings from the field, in outrage witnessing the vicious pummeling of his brother.

"He'll never talk," was Patrick Noctor's grim pronouncement.

When Declan and Michael had failed to appear, Patrick had guessed they were trapped under the altar. The cave had for years been a hiding place and escape route for the priests of the parish, but they had recently walled off the tunnel when they began hiding weapons in there.

Declan and Michael assisted Noctor and the other Defenders in moving the guns that they had tossed into the field --- dispersing them in more secure hiding places on nearby farms. Michael avoided Declan's eyes as she worked --- distressed at the Yeomen's brutality and by what had passed between Declan and herself in the cave.

After their work was done --- whilst Declan and Patrick Noctor were engrossed in conversation --- Michael took the opportunity to slink away into a field.

She found her way back to Enniscorthy alone in the dark.

*****

Aoife stood at the table in the back workroom in the shop the next day, outwardly serene as she basted seams on the skirt of a gown commissioned by Lady Mountnorris. Her fingers plied the needle in her usual methodical manner, but inwardly all was in tumult.

Mrs. Sutton and Susanna were chatting away as they worked nearby --- their talk was mainly of the unrest in the county: the spectacle of the flogging in Abbey Square the day before yesterday (to Aoife's relief, the reports were that the blacksmith Redmond was yet alive), the newly imposed curfew in town, the increased presence of Yeomen and Militia soldiers about the streets, and the talk of rebel priests inflaming their Catholic flocks to violence.

In agitation did Aoife endeavor to sort through their gossip to distinguish truth from rumors, even whilst struggling to sort through her own thoughts.

She had awoken that morning scarce recalling her late-night return from Davidstown to her garret bed, where she seemingly had fallen unconscious rather than asleep. In a panic had she realized that not only had she overslept, but that she had left her knapsack inside the hidden passageway in the wall at Rossnalough Manor.

Fortunately, she was able to find more wool wax and rags before racing to the Militia garrison for her morning boot polishing duties. Upon returning to the dressmaker's shop, she had skipped breakfast in order to be dressed and in the workroom at the expected hour.

"Kitty!" Mrs. Sutton had exclaimed upon seeing her. "What happened to you?"

Following the direction of her gaze, Aoife had realized that her fingers and knuckles were scratched and abraded from the ordeal last night. The looking glass had already demonstrated the scratches on her chin and nose, and a scrape upon her temple. Upon her scalp, hidden under her white chintz cap was a tender lump.

"There was a cat stuck on the roof, I was trying to help him," she had murmured.

Mrs. Sutton had shaken her head. "Of all the foolish things! You could have been killed!"

Aye, only every day, thought Aoife.

The placid, orderly motions of sewing offered a laughable contrast to the mayhem of last night. She could not make sense of it: why were not Mrs. Sutton and her daughter excitedly recounting the tidings of the destruction of a Catholic mass house in Davidstown the previous night? Had the news not yet reached their ears? Or, had none of it truly happened? Her injuries were minor but reassured her that she had not gone mad.

What had become of Father Noctor? Had the Yeomen arrested him? Killed him?

With more clarity than she had been able to muster last night, Aoife examined the evidence for and against Declan being a spy for the Yeomen.

In favor of it were: (1) his former allegiance to his evil captain, (2) the baseness of his character as demonstrated by his participation in the crimes against her family and herself eight months ago, (3) his eagerness on learning of Blaylock's command of the new Yeomanry corps, (4) his now several appearances near or in Rossnalough Manor, and (5) the coincidental betrayal of participants in two of the gun missions he had attended.

Against his being a spy were: (1) the intermittent glimpses of an apparent chivalry in his nature, (2) his dedicated service to the United Irishmen in procuring weapons and training the men, (3) his running to warn the Defenders of the raid last night, (4) his giving her a loaded pistol, and (5) his concern that the Yeomen might discover her spying.

Aye, that last point: why had he not yet betrayed Michael to Blaylock? There indeed was a quick tidbit of intelligence he could have shared with the enemy at any point these past two weeks.

Yet for every argument against his treachery, she was able to produce an alternative explanation: namely, his desire to preserve his cover as long as possible. She had heard of several instances of spies in the Society --- not in Fleetwood's company, but elsewhere in the country --- who had masqueraded as loyal members for months or years, their devotion unquestioned. There were also men who had no fundamental sympathies with either the rebels or the Crown, but commanded only by money, pretended loyalty to each side --- only to spy on and sell intelligence to both.

None of this eased her disquiet over the two incidents upon which she was avoiding contemplation --- the first being the episode between the Yeoman officer and the maid witnessed from inside the wardrobe. Oh Medb! What a remarkable...most shocking education that had been!

After the intriguing manual preliminaries, how she had gaped at the abrupt first course --- the astounding, unheard of act performed by the maid Charlotte in taking the officer's standing cock into her mouth! With what relish she had sucked upon it...with what pleasure he had moaned! Now pondering it, Aoife's face reddened as the image of Declan's upright pillar filled her mind...what did it feel like in the mouth? Was it pleasant? Did it choke the lass? What did it taste like? To judge from the maid's eagerness, 'twas a most delicious sport...and indeed, Aoife's own body had stirred simply by the watching.