The Templar Informant

Chapter 4: Twice the Gain to Twice the Loss

November 6, 1773

Two months after the massacre, on May 21st 1770, I gave birth to our first child; Aedan Liam Cormac. Yes, his middle name is reference to Shay's old friend, because that is what he was; despite everything that happened, Liam was Shay's childhood friend and he felt it only right that our son have Liam in his name. He was born healthy and that is all we could ever ask, nevertheless, he is a beautiful boy if I do say so myself. He has my blonde curls, but the rest of him is the spitting image of his father. That only means that I am going to have to keep my eye out or he may just be swarmed by all the young ladies of the Colonies.

Currently, Shay and I were sitting on the couch, myself curled into his side as we watched Aedan play on the carpet. What was he playing with exactly? A pair of mini wooden swords. They were Haytham's gift for Aedan's third birthday and although I only glared at Haytham for giving them to him; I could not take them away for he loved them too much. It is still hard to watch my three year old trying to swing around fake swords. The day would have been perfect if William did not come barging through the doors so suddenly. "William, what in god's name is wrong with you?"

Even though Aedan only seemed startled before being excited, I was still not best pleased at him barging in that way, "Forgive me my dear, but I have not had the best of days."

I could tell, we could not go further with the conversation though as Aedan was demanding hugs, "Uncle Will'em, Uncle Will'em, up, up," and as it turned out, Aedan had every single Templar wrapped around his little fingers, Charles too, despite how much I really did not want him near my son.

Due to this, William's ire seemed to evaporate momentarily while he gave Aedan his hugs, "Hello child, I hope you have been good for your mother and father?"

"Yes, yes, I always good," he nods his head vigorously as if to make his statement even more true.

"That would be 'I am always good' son," Shay corrected; despite only being three, we made it a habit to correct Aedan's English at every turn, we hope that it helps with his speech as he grows.

"Oh, right, I am always good Uncle Will'em," he fixes his sentence before looking back at William expectantly.

We may correct his speech, but he always has trouble with most people's names; the others have now been all dubbed Hay'am, Tommy, Charlie, Ben'min and Will'em. Shay and I are thankful he only needs to say 'Ma' and 'Da' for us. We pray he grows out of it quickly no matter how funny the two of us think it is. However, with having children, there come the downsides. The biggest one, with his only living grandparents being back in Ireland and not on speaking terms with me, the only time I can do any work in the frontier is when Haytham plans on holing himself up at home for a few weeks and he babysits Aedan for me. Other than that, I am basically full time mother. As much as I love my son, I do wish to have more time out on the frontier; I have thought about taking him with me, but I know that that would be a bad and probably very dangerous idea.

My attention returns to the here and now when William sits himself down with the sigh of a man most troubled, "What is the matter William?"

He wipes his hand across his face before answering, "My tea shipments have been destroyed."

Shay and I share a look, we both knew that William was planning to use the expenses earned from the tea to fund his purchase of the Iroquois land. "Oh dear, how much of it?"

"All of it I am afraid, I have ordered some more, however, that will take another month to arrive," which means he is set back another month.

We could never have anticipated how much worse things were going to get.