“You see, this is my camp.” Sarah dropped the cartridge in the breech and slammed the bolt closed. “Mine and my husband’s. You are here—every friggin’ one of you—because of a special invitation from us. I have the power to assign you all to latrine duty if I want to. I have the power to throw your asses out in the cold and let the Wicker Man or the effin’ Bogey Man deal with you.”
Sarah looked into the faces of the women ringing the circle.
“Is there anybody here who doesn’t understand? Because I’m willing to break it down even more.”
She turned to Kendra. “You and I already had words today, Kendra. So you’re working your last strike. I know you don’t know anything about American baseball, so I’ll translate for you.” Sarah put her face as close to the woman’s as she possible could without touching her with her lips. “I’m ready to throw you out of the game and I just need someone to give me a good reason why not.”
Sarah backed up but didn’t take her eyes off Kendra whose lips were trembling.
“Somebody? Anybody? Want to step forward and vouch for Kendra? Anybody at all want this hag standing at your back tomorrow when we fight the druids? I’m listening!”
The silence revealed only the titter of a family of rakes in the overhead trees.
“I want her,” a voice said in the crowd.
Sarah turned to see Fiona standing alone on the cusp of the ring of women, a rifle held in her arms.
“I got your gun, Sarah,” Fiona said, trying to break the tension. “Only I see you already have one.”
Sarah stared at Fiona. If this is what it takes to bring her out of her morass, so be it.
Fiona looked at the crowd of women and tried to smile. “I’ll vouch for her,” Fiona said again. “She won’t be any more trouble. Aye, Kendra?”
Kendra put a hand to her mouth and squeezed her eyes shut in an attempt to prevent the tears from falling. The stark red imprint of Sarah’s hand was vivid against her pale skin.
“Okey dokey then,” Sarah said, handing the rifle back to Archie. “And just so we don’t have to repeat this little embarrassment, I’d appreciate it if y’all would pass the word that I am not fucking around.” She gave Kendra a glance before she turned to leave. The women parted to make way for her.
As she passed Fiona, Sarah said, “And I expect your ass at my house tonight.”
*****
At least she’d been right about one thing. The druids didn’t attack during the night. Sarah and Archie were up for most of it, checking the watchtower patrols and making sure at least one person was awake at each household. In the case where a woman lived with her husband—who was in Mike’s search party—or was alone, Sarah insisted they move in with another family.
In the morning, Sarah went immediately to the catwalk. She knew one of the watchtower sentries would have mentioned if anybody had dragged another Wicker Man to the front gate, but a part of her wasn’t sure she wouldn’t find the entire druid war party camped out there.
Another part of her went to the catwalk praying she’d see Mike and his men walking up the main entranceway to the compound. She could see it in her mind’s eye, had fallen asleep with the image and awakened with it too. In her best dreams, John and Gavin were with Mike—and Declan, too. She had almost talked herself into believing that she had developed a gift for seeing the future. It was such a comforting, wonderful vision.
Only when she saw Siobhan riding with them did Sarah begin to see the dreams for the desperate fairy tales they really were.
Nuala had volunteered for one of the watches and was trudging back to her cottage now to catch some shuteye and see her boys. Sarah realized that in many ways it was the women from the village who were the most eager to help. Was that because they’d done without so much for so long? Were they just so grateful to be a part of the compound—even under threat—that they’d do anything to help? And, on the other hand, had the special privileges of the compound only served to make its inhabitants somehow discontented? Whatever the reason, Nuala and her sister Abby had proven themselves to be valuable beyond measure.
Archie was standing by the ladder against the front wall. He held a steaming mug in his hands that Sarah knew was for her.
“Did you get any sleep at all?” she asked, taking the mug. The aroma told her it was coffee, not tea, and she nearly teared up that Archie remembered her preference.
“Enough,” he said.
“Everything as quiet as it seems?”
“Sure, it does seem so,” he said cryptically.
Sarah climbed up the ladder, holding the mug in one hand. When she reached the top, she looked out at the trees that hugged both sides of the main drive leading to the compound.
Are they watching us? Do they see me right now?
The woods revealed no answers. Sarah drank her coffee and felt the cold wind cut into her. The clouds were heavy and gray overhead and she found herself wondering if they might bring snow.
That’s all we need.
Turning around, she looked at the interior of the compound. Even at seven in the morning, it was fully awake and moving. During one of her late night discussions with Archie and Fiona, Sarah revealed that she felt sure that today would be the day the druids would come.
From her vantage point, she could see the compound’s center cookfire. Usually it was the gypsy men who crowded around it in the day and late into the night. Since they’d been gone—two days now—there had been no activity around the fire except to keep it going. Now Sarah saw what looked like all of the gypsy women clustered about it.
Since the compound’s livestock were generally considered communal, there was always a vote or some kind of conversation when any were slaughtered. As usual, the rules didn’t apply to the gypsies who watched over a herd of pigs kept in a large pen at the furthest edges of the compound interior.
This was a part of their new life that Sarah still struggled with. She wasn’t the only one who fed the hogs—since the time they were adorable little piglets—even naming them. Until they were big enough to eat. The gypsies didn’t seem to mind butchering day as much as anyone else did and for that, they were allowed the choices pieces of bacon and ham. It seemed little enough price to pay for the stress of the experience. Sarah had all but given up bacon, herself.
The smell of burning hair assaulted her nostrils and she placed a hand over her face. So, clearly the ladies had just slaughtered a hog. Probably for Roddy’s wake. Once the hog was killed—usually by having his throat slit—it was dragged into the campfire and rolled around in the fire to loosen the hair. They must be at that stage now, Sarah thought with a grimace as she saw some of the gypsy women brandishing knives and beginning the job of scraping the hide.
Normally, Sarah found something else to do in another part of the compound.
Normally.
While Fiona had spent the night meekly enough at Sarah’s cottage—even with Archie there—she continued to refuse to talk to the gypsy women. Sarah drained her coffee, gave one last look over her shoulder at the forbidding woods outside the compound, and descended the ladder.
Forcing herself to breath out of her mouth so as not to retch the moment she reached the group by the fire, Sarah strode quickly to where the gypsy women were. She noticed the gypsies, one by one, lift their heads from their work as she approached. Sarah recognized Roddy’s mother Zelda immediately. She was tall and stood with her hands on her hips watching the others work.
The hog was split open and lay directly on the fire. Its entrails were in a steaming pile on a piece of canvas while three of the women scraped the hide. Sarah directed her attention to Zelda who eyed her coldly.
“Good morning,” Sarah said. “I wanted to say how sorry I am about your son.”
Zelda nodded.
“I know you know that Declan feels very strongly about New Dublin and it’s been your home for three years now.” Sarah paused but the woman didn’t respond. One of the other gypsy women—much younger—a
pproached them. She crossed her arms and stood next to Roddy’s mother.
One thing about these women that Sarah had always known—literally from the moment she’d laid eyes on them in a primitive camp deep in the heart of the Welsh National Forest—was that they were warriors through and through. All of them had a cold-blooded manner that seemed to announce that they were capable of doing just about anything if they had to. In the last four years, they surely had to.
“We are on the verge of being attacked by the same men who killed your Roddy,” Sarah said. She wished the other gypsies would stop working on the stupid pig and come listen to her but she was grateful that she at least had the attention of these two.
“The compound needs your help,” Sarah said. “Except for five men—and none of them in their prime except for two but they’re usually drunk—it doesn’t matter. Except for five men, it’s just us women. We need you to fight with us.”
The young woman took a step toward Sarah who involuntarily took a step backward.
“Roddy was me intended,” she said fiercely, as if his death was Sarah’s fault. Maybe she thought it was.
“I am so sorry about that,” Sarah said. “So you’ll fight with us to see his killers brought to justice?”
The woman spat next to Sarah’s shoe. “Justice! Ye must think we’re eejits. It’s that fecking husband of yours what got my Roddy killed, so it ’tis!”
The women working on the pig stopped and were listening intently.
“Can you bring me darlin’ lad back to me, Missus?” Zelda asked, her voice laced with sadness and despair.
“You know I can’t,” Sarah said.
“Bang on,” the younger woman said in disgust. “Now leave us be. We’re gone before nightfall.”
So that’s why they’d slaughtered the hog. Easier to carry slabs of bacon than transport it on the hoof.
“I’m asking you to stay,” Sarah said. “If Declan were here—”
“Cop on!” One of the other women said angrily as she rushed over to join them. “It’s you lot what got Declan killed. Don’t even say his name, ye lying bitch!”
Sarah held up her hands and began to back away. No sense saying there was no proof Declan was dead. She hated that it was all ending like this. She nodded again at Zelda.
“Again, I’m sorry for your loss.” Then she turned and walked back to her cottage. She saw Fiona standing on the porch, watching her. Fiona turned and went back inside.
*****
Teutates, Esus and Taranis demanded more time, Cormac thought as he sat with his dinner in front of the fire. They would surely bless the mass offering to come. But the boy hadn’t been enough. Cormac could feel that now.
“The child continues to cry.” Bodhmail said, sitting down beside him.
“I hear it.”
“Some of the women are afraid.”
Cormac looked at his man and frowned. “What are they afraid of? Immortal life? Endless glory and pleasure? Blessings beyond all measure?”
Bodhmail looked into the fire, avoiding Cormac’s eyes.
“They fear their own deaths and the deaths of their children.”
“Then they don’t truly believe. I’ll deal with them.” The threat hung in the air. Cormac actually found himself pleased to have another opportunity to show the tribe how the earth would reward them and how ignoring the sidheóg would ultimately defeat them.
“We go to the compound tomorrow?”
Cormac nodded. “At nightfall.”
“Do you believe they’ll join us?”
The druid leader shook his head. “Not in this realm, no. But we will offer them up and consume their blood to honor them. And they will be reborn as one of us as pure as the trees that shade us in summer and shelter us in winter.”
“Hail Dagda,” Bodhmail muttered. “And the nonbelievers we hold?”
Cormac glanced over his shoulder at the line of cages. “Each has a role to play,” he said, reaching for a cup of beer.
He paused with the cup midway to his lips and looked at Bodhmail.
“I was a school teacher many years ago, did you know that?”
Bodhmail turned his head to look at him and Cormac laughed. “Does that surprise you?” But he knew it was more that it was an unspoken rule that none of them mention who they had been in their former lives.
“I taught history,” Cormac said, picking up the bone he had been gnawing on to inspect it for any remnant of meat. “I read once that Julius Caesar himself was recorded as having observed something vital about our kind.” He looked at Bodhmail to see if he understood his meaning. The man nodded uncertainly.
“Caesar said that in times of danger our predecessors understood that unless the life of a man was offered, the minds of immortal gods would not favor him.”
Bodhmail looked into the fire and then at Cormac. “You said the children were our most valuable offerings.”
Cormac shrugged. “We have a largess of offerings to choose from, do we not? It can’t hurt to assure the success of our battle tomorrow with one more.”
Bodhmail stiffened and Cormac realized the man was afraid Cormac would choose one of the druid women—or perhaps himself. It wouldn’t be the first time a high-ranking druid was sacrificed in an attempt to please the gods.
Cormac tossed the broken thighbone he was holding—now completely cleaned of meat—into the fire and wiped his mouth. It didn’t bode well that even Bodhmail appeared afraid to die. It was almost as if he didn’t truly understand the fact of his own mortality.
“I think the leader of the Pikeys would be appropriate,” Cormac said mildly, watching his lieutenant visibly relax. “Bring him to the altar tonight as the moon is cresting the firs.”
Bodhmail stood up. “Which one is he?”
“He’s the one they call Declan,” Cormac said.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Fiona watched Sarah return from her talk with the gypsies. Lord, that woman was stubborn. Fiona didn’t need a hidden camera to know how it had turned out. Even from this distance, watching Roddy’s mother Zelda and his fiancé Jaz light into Sarah somehow lifted Fiona’s mood.
Not that she wanted the silly cow to be thwarted or embarrassed. But Sarah’s failure underscored Fiona’s conviction that the gypsies wanted nothing to do with the rest of them. Fiona saw the look on Sarah’s face as she walked away from the gypsy women—determined, perplexed, and pissed off—and Fiona nearly smiled.
Even so, if there was anyone who could come close to get us out of the shite, it was Sarah.
When Sarah strode by the cottage without looking at her, Fiona realized with a splinter of satisfaction that if she had been the one asking the gypsies, the women would’ve at least bothered with civilities. They’d have offered her a cuppa or maybe some brandy. They would likely even have hugged her when they’d told her to feck off.
Fiona returned to the cottage interior to see Archie Kelley just swinging his legs off the couch where he’d been napping. He rubbed his eyes and ran a hand through his hair as if to make himself more presentable.
“I’m just resting my eyes for a bit,” he said.
“I don’t care what you do,” Fiona said, moving into the room to sit down. She’d be damned if she’d trouble herself to be seen as deliberately avoiding him.
“I ken verra well how ye hate me, lass,” Archie said tiredly, “and I don’t blame you, not a bit of it.”
“Well, that’s generous of you. I feel so much better now.”
“But as mad as ye are, I know ye understand that we have to fix this between us.”
“It’s unfixable and I don’t know how I can say it any clearer.”
“Aye, you’re saying it clear enough but if I could just have a word—not in my defense, for I ken verra well I have none—but just to hear me, lass.”
“Make it quick.”
“First let me at least say I’m sorry. I am. I have regretted that day with you every moment I’ve drawn breath since then. I don’
t expect you to understand. I was mad with grief at the time and while that’s no excuse, there you are. I’m sorry, lass.”
“It kills me when people can do the most wretched things—like attack a woman who’s eight months pregnant—and then just say sorry and hope to wipe the slate clean.”
“You’re right, but sorry still needs saying.”
“Is that all?”
“Nay.” He ran his hands through his hair, making it stick up in ungainly sprouts before smoothing it all down again. “You have to go to the gypsy women and get them to stay. We’re all likely going to die anyway,” he said, shrugging, “but at least we’d have a chance with them.”
“Sarah already tried.”
“Aye, and our lass is a wonder, truly. But she can’t do this on her own, and I’ve seen firsthand what you can do.”
He let the words—and the memory of when Fiona saved the compound a year ago—hang between them for a moment.
“Get them to stay, lass,” he said quietly. “Not forever but, please God, long enough for us to maybe change the tide.”
“I’ll think about it.”
“Well, that’s more than we had before. Thank ye.”
*****
Was there any way to make this work without the gypsy women? Was it remotely possible to hold out?
An image of the druids swarming the walls came into Sarah’s head. It was impossible. There was nothing to do but wait and let it happen.
Goddam it!
She walked away from the main campfire toward the back row of houses that fronted the gypsy settlement. As she got closer she could see that some of the gypsy tents had already been taken down. A young woman with long curly black hair sat on a flat rock drying her hair in the weak sun. Two children threw sticks into the nearby goat pen.
The woman looked at Sarah from where she stood on the main path that circled the camp interior and smiled. Her skin was as clear and perfect as a photo-touched fashion model’s. Her eyes were almond shaped, which made her look somehow wise and mystical at the same time. Sarah thought she was Desiree, Declan’s youngest sister, who was married to the tall gypsy, Benjy.
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