Holder of Lightning

by S L Farrell

  All the way down from the high pasture, Jenna had debated with herself over what she’d tell her mam. She’d thought at first that she’d tell her everything, how she’d found the stone after the lights, how it had seemed to glow, how the cold fury had consumed her until released. She wanted to describe the man she’d seen in the misty vision, and ask her: Could it be Da? But looking at Maeve now, seeing the anxiety and concern that filled her eyes, Jenna found that the carefully rehearsed words dissolved inside her. The fright she’d felt had faded and she seemed unhurt by the experience—why bother Mam with that now? Besides, she wasn’t sure she could explain it: Mam might think she was making up tales, or wonder if Jenna had gone insane like Matron Kelly’s son Sean, whose brain had been burned up by a high fever when he was a baby. Sean talked as poorly as a three-year-old and babbled constantly to creatures only he could see. No, better to say nothing.

  Jenna plunged her hand into her coat pocket, letting her fingertips roam over the pebble there. The stone felt perfectly normal now, like any other stone, not even a hint of the coldness. Jenna smiled at her mam.

  “I’m fine,” she said. “A flash? Thunder? I really didn’t notice anything.” Jenna wasn’t used to lying to her mam—at least no more than any adolescent might be—and she was surprised at how easily the words came, at how casual and natural they sounded. “I didn’t see anything, Mam. I thought I might, after last night, but everything was just . . .” She shrugged, and brought her hand out of her pocket. “. . . normal.”

  Maeve’s head was cocked slightly to one side, and her eyes were narrowed. But she nodded. “Then get the sheep in, and come inside. I have some stirabout ready to eat.” She continued to regard Jenna for a long breath, then turned and entered the cottage.

  That was all Jenna heard on the subject. She took the stone out of her pocket that night after her Mam was asleep, hiding it in a chink in the wall next to her side of the bed and covering it with mud. It was dangerous, she told herself, and shouldn’t be handled. But every morning, when she woke up, she looked at the spot, brushing her fingers over the dried mud. She found the touch comforting.

  That night, she dreamed of the red-haired man, so real that it seemed she could touch him. “Who are you?” she asked him, but instead of answering her, he shook his head and wandered off toward Knobtop. She followed, calling to him, but she was caught in the slow motion of a dream and could never catch up. When she woke, she found that she couldn’t remember his features at all; they were simply a blur, unreal.

  She looked at the mud-covered spot where the stone lay, and that, too, seemed unreal. She could almost believe there was nothing there. Nothing there at all.

  Over the next few days, the excitement in Ballintubber about the lights over Knobtop gradually died, even though the stories about that night grew with each telling, until someone listening might have thought that entire armies of magical creatures had been seen swirling in the air above the mount, wailing and crying. A good quarter of the village of Ballintubber had been up on Knobtop that night, too, if the tales that were told in Tara’s were to be believed. But though the tales grew more elaborate, the night sky over Knobtop remained dark for the next three nights, and life returned to normal.

  Until the fourth day.

  The day was gloomy and overcast, with the lowering clouds dropping a persistent cold rain that permeated through clothing and settled into sinew and bone. The world was swathed in gray and fog, with Knobtop lost in the haze. Ballintubber’s single cobbled lane was a morass of puddles and mud with occasional islands of wet stone. The smoke of turf fires rose from the chimneys of Ballintubber, gray smoke fading into gray skies, and the rain pattered from the edges of thatch into brown pools.

  Rain couldn’t alter the pace of life in Ballintubber, nor in fact anywhere in Talamh an Ghlas. It rained three or four days out of seven, after all, the year around. Rain in its infinite variety kept the land lush and green: startlingly bright and refreshing drizzles in the midst of sunshine; foggy rains where the clouds seemed to sink into the very earth and the air was simply wet; soaking, hard spring downpours that awakened the seeds in the ground; summer rains as warm and soft as bathwater; rare winter storms of snow and sleet to blanket the world in white and vanish in the next day’s sun; howling and shrieking hurricanes from off the sea that lashed and whipped the land. Rain was simply a fact of life. If it rained, you got wet; if the sun was out or it was cloudy, you didn’t—that was all. The chores still needed to be done, the work still went on. A little rain couldn’t bring the activity in Ballintubber to a halt.

  But the appearance of the rider did.

  Through the open doors of the small barn behind Tara’s Tavern, Jenna saw Eliath, Tara’s son and youngest at twelve years of age, currying down the steaming body of a huge brown stallion. Jenna was pushing a barrow of new-cut turf toward home; she detoured to see the horse, which looked far too large and healthy to be one of the local work animals. “Hey, Eli,” she said, setting down the barrow just inside the door where it was out of the rain.

  Eli glanced up from his work. The horse turned his great neck to glance at Jenna and nickered. She went over and rubbed his long muzzle. Eli grinned. “Hey, Jenna. That’s some animal, isn’t it?”

  “It certainly is,” she said. “Who does it belong to?”

  “A man from the east, that’s all I know. He rode in a while ago, stopped at the tavern, and asked Mam to send me to get the Ald. I think he’s Riocha; at least he’s dressed like a tiarna—fine leather boots and gloves, a jacket of velvet and silk, and under that a léine shirt as white as new snow, and a clóca over it all that’s as thick as your finger and embroidered all around the edges with gold—the colors of the clóca are green and brown, so he’s of Tuath Gabair.” Eli plucked at his own bedraggled woolen coat and unbleached muslin shirt. He plunged a hand into a pocket and pulled out a large coin. “Gave me this, too, for getting Aldwoman Pearce and taking care of the horse.”

  “Where is he now?”

  “Inside. Lots of other people there now, too. You can go in if you want.”

  Jenna glanced at the tavern, where yellow light shone through the streaks of gray rain. “I might. Can I leave the barrow here?”

  “Sure.”

  There were at least a dozen people in the dim, smoky interior of the tavern, unusual in midafternoon. The stranger sat at a table near the rear, talking with Aldwoman Pearce. Jenna caught sight of a narrow face with a long nose, brown eyes dark enough to be nearly black, and a well-trimmed beard, a slight body clad in rich clothing, a delicate hand wrapped around a mug of stout. His hair was long and oiled, and the line of a scar interrupted the beard halfway to the left ear. Jenna could hear his voice as he spoke with Aldwoman Pearce, and it was as smooth and polished as his clothing, bright with the accent of the upper class and permeated with a faint haughtiness. The others in the tavern were pretending not to watch the stranger’s table, which made it all the more obvious that they were.

  Coelin was there, also, sitting at the bar with a mug of tea and a plate of scones in front of him, talking with Ellia. Tara was in the rear of the tavern, hanging the pot over the cook fire. Jenna went over and stood next to Coelin, ignoring the barbed glance from Ellia, behind the bar.

  “Who is he?” Jenna asked.

  Coelin shrugged. “Riocha. A tiarna from Lár Bhaile, if he’s to be believed. The Tiarna Padraic Mac Ard, he says.”

  “What’s he talking to Aldwoman Pearce about?”

  Coelin shrugged, but Ellia leaned forward. “Mam says he asked about the lights—didn’t Aldwoman Pearce fore tell that the other night? Says he saw them in Lár Bhaile from across the lough. When Mam told him how they were flickering around Knobtop, he asked to speak to the Ald.”

  “Maybe he’ll want to speak with you, Jenna,” Coelin said. “You were up there that night.”

  Jenna shivered, remembering, and shook her head vigorously. She thought of those dark eyes on her, of those thin lips asking q
uestions. She thought of the stone in its hole in the wall of her cottage. “No. I didn’t see anything that you didn’t see here. Let him talk to the Ald. Or some of the others here who say they saw all sorts of things with the lights.”

  Coelin snorted through his nose at that. “They saw things with the ale and whiskey they drank that night and their own imaginations. I doubt Tiarna Mac Ard will be much interested in that.”

  “Why’s he interested at all?” Jenna asked, glancing over at him again. “They were lights, that’s all, and gone now.” Mac Ard’s eyes glittered in the lamplight, never at rest. For a moment, their gazes met. The contact was almost a physical shock, making Jenna take a step back. She looked away hurriedly. “I should go,” she said to Coelin and Ellia.

  “Ah, ’tis a shame,” Ellia said, though her voice was devoid of any sorrow at all.

  “Come back tonight, Jenna,” Coelin said. “I made up a song about the lights, like you suggested.”

  Despite her desire to be away from Mac Ard and the tavern, Jenna could not keep the smile from her lips, though the pleased look on Ellia’s face dissolved. “Did you now?”

  Coelin tilted his head and smiled back at her. “I did. And I won’t sing it unless you’re there to hear the verses first. So will you come?”

  “We’ll see,” Jenna said. Mac Ard was still looking at her, and Aldwoman Pearce turned in her chair to glance back also. “I really need to go now.”

  As Jenna rushed out, she heard Ellia talking to Coelin—“Keep your eyes in your head and the rest of you in your pants, Coelin Singer. She’s still just a gawky lamb, and not a very pretty one at that . . .”—then the door closed behind her. The cold rain struck her face, and she pulled the cowl of her coat over her head as she ran through the puddles to the barn and retrieved her barrow of peat.

  She hurried back to the cottage through the rain and the fog.

  3

  A Song at the Inn

  JENNA had just lit the candles on the shelves to either side of the fireplace. The sun was down or lowering—the rain persisted, and the sky slipped from the color of wet smoke to slate to coal as the interior of their house slowly darkened. Maeve was peeling potatoes; Jenna was carding wool. They both heard the sound of slowly moving hooves through the drumming of rain, and Kesh lifted his head from the floor and growled. Leather creaked, and there were footsteps on the flags outside the door. Someone knocked at the door and Kesh barked. Maeve looked at Jenna.

  “Mam, I forgot to tell you. There’s a tiarna who was at Tara’s . . .” Maeve set down her paring knife and went to the door, brushing at her apron. She opened the door. Mac Ard stood there, a darkness against the wet night.

  “I’m looking for Maeve Aoire and her daughter,” Mac Ard said. His voice was deep and gruff. “I was told this was their home.”

  “Aye, ’tis,” Maeve answered, and Jenna heard a strange, awed tone in her mam’s voice. “I’m Maeve Aoire, sir. Come in out of the wet, won’t you?” Maeve stood aside as the man ducked his head and entered. Kesh growled once, then slunk away toward the fire. “Jenna, put your coat on and take the tiarna’s horse out to the barn. At least it’ll be dry there. Go on with you, now.”

  By the time Jenna got back, Mac Ard was sitting at the table with a plate of boiled potatoes, mutton, and bread, and a mug of tea in front of him. Kesh sat at his feet, waiting for dropped crumbs. His boots and clóca were drying near the fire. Maeve sat across from him, but she wasn’t eating. Her face was pale, as if she might be frightened, and her hands were fisted on the table, fingers curled into palms. She glanced up as Jenna came through the door, shaking water from her hood and sleeves. “It’s not raining as hard as it was,” she said, wanting to break the silence. “I think it’ll stop soon.”

  Her mam simply nodded, as if she’d only half heard. Mac Ard had turned in his chair, the legs scraping across the floorboards. “Sit down, Jenna,” he said. “I’d like to talk with you.”

  Jenna glanced at her mam, who gave her a slight nod. Jenna didn’t sit, but went over to Maeve, standing behind her, and resting her hands on her Mam’s shoulders even as Maeve reached up to pat Jenna’s hand reassuringly. One corner of Mac Ard’s mouth lifted slightly under the beard, as if he found the sight amusing.

  “I didn’t expect to hear the surname Aoire, so many miles from the north,” he commented. He stabbed a potato with a fork, brought it to his mouth, and chewed. “It’s an uncommon name hereabouts, to be certain. Inishlander in origin.”

  “My husband was from the north,” Maeve answered. “From Inish Thuaidh.”

  “Husband?”

  “He’s dead almost seventeen years, Tiarna Mac Ard. Killed by bandits on the road.”

  Mac Ard nodded. He blinked, and the dark eyes seemed softer than they had a moment before. “I’m sorry for your loss,” he said, and Jenna thought she heard genuine sympathy in his voice. “For a woman as well-spoken and comely as yourself, he must have been an exceptional person for you to never have remarried. This is his daughter?”

  Maeve touched Jenna’s hands. “Aye. She was still a babe in arms when Niall was murdered.”

  Another nod. “Niall Aoire. Interesting. Niall’s not an Inish name, though. In fact, my great-uncle was named Niall, though he was a Mac Ard.” The tiarna sipped at the tea, leaning back in his chair. He seemed to be waiting, then took a long breath before continuing. “Four nights ago, I was standing on the tower of the Rí’s Keep in Lár Bhaile, when I saw colors flickering on the black waters of the lough. I looked up, and I could see the glow in the sky as well, to the north and west beyond the hills. They were nothing I’d ever seen before, but I’d heard them described, in all the old folktales. Mage-lights.”

  He drummed the table with his fingers. “A dozen or more generations ago, I’m told, my own ancestors were among the last of the cloudmages as the mage-lights in the sky weakened. Then the lights vanished entirely, and with them the power to perform spells. If you listen to the old tales, with the lights also went other magics as well: that of mythical creatures and of hidden, ancient places. Now half the people think of those tales as myth and legend, no more than stories. At times, I’ve thought that, too. But looking at the lights, I felt . . .” He tapped his chest, leaning forward, his voice dropping to a hoarse whisper. “I felt them calling me, here. I went running down from the tower, and dragged the town’s Ald back up so that I could show him. ‘By the Mother-Creator, those are mage-lights, Tiarna,’ he said. ‘They can’t be anything else. After so long . . .’ I thought the poor old man might cry, he was so moved by the sight of them. So I asked the Rí’s leave to come here, because they called me, because I wanted to see where they’d chosen to return.” His eyes found Jenna, and again she felt the shock of that contact, as if his gaze could actually bruise her. “I’m told that you were up there that night, on Knobtop.”

  She wanted to shout denial, but couldn’t, not with her mam there. “Aye,” she started to say, but the admission was more squeak than word. She cleared her throat. “I was there.”

  “And what did you see?”

  “Lights, Tiarna Mac Ard. Beautiful lights, rippling and swaying.” She could not stop the awe the memory placed in her voice.

  “And nothing more?”

  “They flashed at the end, brighter than anything I’d ever seen. Then they were . . .” Her shoulder lifted. “Gone,” she finished. “I told Kesh to bring the sheep along, and we came back here.”

  Mac Ard ruffled Kesh’s head and fed him a piece of the mutton. “Strange,” he said. “And nothing else happened? Nothing else . . . unusual?” His eyes held her. Jenna found herself thinking of the stone hidden in the wall in their bedroom, not six strides away from Mac Ard, and of the cold lightning that flared from it and the red-haired man. She could feel her cheeks getting hot, and her mouth opened as if she wanted to speak, but she forced herself to remain silent as Mac Ard continued to stare. She thought that he could see through her, could sense the lie of omission that lay in
her gut, burning, all the worse because now she was lying to a Riocha, one of the nobility of the land. Mac Ard’s nostrils flared on his thin nose and he almost seemed to nod. Then he blinked and looked away, and the terror in her heart receded.

  “How odd,” Mac Ard said, “that the mage-lights would choose to reappear here.”

  “I’m sure neither of us know why, Tiarna,” Maeve told him.

  He pursed his lips. He glanced back once at Jenna before turning his attention to her mam. “I’m sure you don’t. Tell me this, Widow Aoire, did you know your husband’s family well?”

  Maeve shook her head. “I was born and raised here. The truth, Tiarna, is that I know very little about them, and never at all met any of them. The farthest I’ve ever been from Ballintubber is Bácathair, a few months after my husband’s death. I went there to see if the gardai could help me find out more about how he died, and who the murderers were.”

  “And did the gardai help you?”

  Jenna saw Maeve’s head move softly from side to side. “No. They had nothing more to tell me than I already knew, nor did they care much about the death of ‘some Inishlander.’ ”

  Mac Ard nodded slowly, contemplatively. “I’ve taken enough of your time and hospitality,” he said. “Let me repay you. I understand that there’s a young man with an excellent voice who sings at the inn where I’m staying tonight. Come back there with me; be my guests for the evening, both of you. We can talk more there, about whatever you’d like.”

  Jenna had to stop herself from grinning, both from relief that the tiarna’s interrogation seemed to be over, and at the suggestion to go to Tara’s. Coelin had promised her a song, and she hadn’t wanted to ask, with the awful weather. But if the tiarna insisted . . .

  “Oh, no, Tiarna,” Maeve started to say automatically, then glanced back at Jenna. He smiled at her and nodded, as if they shared a secret.