Holder of Lightning

by S L Farrell

  “No matter,” Mac Ard said. “Once we’re in Lár Bhaile, we can find teachers for you. Reading can be a useful art, though it’s probably best that the common folk don’t learn the skill. The sign says ‘Clan Sheehan. Pots mended, goods sold.’ ” Mac Ard seemed to hesitate. “These are Taisteal camped for the night. They’re coming down from the north, so perhaps they’ve heard something. If nothing else, we can probably buy shelter for the night here.”

  “Can you trust them?” Maeve asked nervously. “Some of the Taisteal who have come through Ballintubber were thieves and cheats, and often the goods you buy from them are damaged or poorly made. The last ones through fixed a leaking pot of Matron Kelly’s and it began to leak again not two days after they were gone.”

  Mac Ard shrugged. “If I were buying something from them, I’d inspect it well, but I doubt they’re any more prone to be criminals than any other people. They roam, and so they’re convenient to blame.”

  “Coelin came from the Taisteal,” Jenna reminded her mam.

  “I know,” Maeve answered, but she did try to smile. “That’s why I worry.”

  Mac Ard laughed at that. “We can’t go farther today in any case,” he said. “I’d rather spend the night among a group than alone, especially if the Connachtans are still out searching for us. Let’s keep our eyes open and be cautious, but I don’t think the Taisteal would risk assaulting a tiarna on the High Road so close to Áth Iseal.”

  They followed Mac Ard through a break in the High Road wall and into the field. Jenna could feel appraising glances on them as they approached, and the voices from the Taisteal camp went silent. Jenna knew little about the Taisteal: they were itinerants, moving in clannish groups throughout the lands and—if you could believe their tales—wandering everywhere through Talamh an Ghlas and beyond. They sold and bartered the goods they carried in their wagons, which sometimes included orphaned children they’d acquired along the way. Coelin had told her a little about his years with them. “They treated me better than my own parents did,” he said. “But they also sold me without a single regret or tear when Songmaster Curragh indicated an interest and showed them his coins. In that way, I was just another pot or pan to them.”

  As they came to the camp’s perimeter, a man strode out to meet them. “Declan Sheehan, Clannhri of Clan Sheehan,” he said, clapping his hand to his chest. Sheehan was an older man dressed in leather and wool, wrinkled and thin with a quick, almost nervous voice. He peered at them closely, and Jenna saw the other Taisteal also staring, with hands held conspicuously close to their waists. Jenna knew that they must be a sight, covered with the soil of three days’ travel in the bogs and the forest. Their clothes were torn from the brambles, and the folds of Jenna’s skirts were smeared with mud from waist to hem. “And how can the Taisteal help our fellow travelers this evening?”

  “I am Tiarna Mac Ard from Lár Bhaile, of the Rí Gabair’s court,” Mac Ard said, and there was a snicker from one of the Taisteal behind Sheehan. “What I would like is a shelter for myself and my companions tonight.”

  “Ah, a tiarna . . .” Sheehan grinned, hands now on hips. “And two bantiarnas as well. We’re honored to have the company of Riocha among us on such an evening. But . . .” He shook his head. “We Taisteal are poor, and have so very little to offer . . .” His voice, reedy and as thin as his body, trailed off as Mac Ard produced a bag from under his vest and poured out several coins. He plucked the single gold mórceint from among the coppers and held it up, turning it in front of Sheehan. Jenna marveled, too, wondering what it must feel like to be able to carry what was a fortune for her around in one’s pocket. “We’ve become separated from our group,” he said, “though we expect to meet them tomorrow, or perhaps even later tonight. We’d like two tents for tonight, some clean clothing if you have it, and would like to share whatever supper you have.” Mac Ard flipped the mórceint to Sheehan; he snatched at it eagerly.

  Jenna almost laughed at the transformation the gold piece had on the man. “Tiarna,” he said. “I apologize. I couldn’t ... You seemed . . .” He turned to the others. “Hilde, where is that trunk we picked up in Áth Iseal? There was clothing in it. Bran, you and Edan can sleep in the wagon tonight. Tiarna, if you and the bantiarnas would come with me, I’ll show you where you can put your things. Hilde . . . !”

  The tent smelled of perspiration and badly tanned leather, but Jenna didn’t care. A half hour later, rested and feeling refreshed with the clean, plain tunic and skirt that Hilde had produced, Jenna felt somewhat renewed. Her mam changed the dressing on her arm, and though her face showed concern, she did nod as she unwrapped it. “The old man knew his herb craft,” she said. “This looks better than it did this morning.” Maeve daubed on more of Sean coim’s andúilleaf paste, rewrapped the arm, then handed Jenna a small mug of thick tea made from the leaves. “Here. You’re sure you need this? He seemed concerned that you not drink too much of it.”

  “It still hurts, Mam,” Jenna said. “And Seancoim told me to use it if I must.” She drank the concoction, then grimaced. “The way this tastes, there’s no danger of wanting more than I need.” She made a face, and Maeve laughed, tousling her hair.

  “Then I’m going to see how Padraic is faring in his tent.” Jenna must have made a face, for her mam stopped at the entrance to the tent. “What?” she asked.

  She couldn’t form a sentence; the thoughts were too scrambled and confused. “Mam, are you . . . He’s always near you . . . I see you smile, and . . .”

  Jenna saw color rise on her mam’s neck, but she only nodded. “I know,” Maeve answered. “I won’t lie to you, Jenna. ’Tis true, what you saying. I’ve never . . . well, it’s been a long time since I felt that way about a man. Do you like him, Jenna? I’d like to know.”

  “I can see he’s handsome, even with that scar. And he’s helped us, Mam, saved our lives. But—”

  “But?”

  “He’s Riocha. A tiarna. And we’re not. I’m afraid what that would mean, Mam.”

  “I know,” Meave told her. She tousled Jenna’s hair as she used to when she was young. “I think about that, too. But I do like the man. May the Mother help me, I do. I don’t know if you can understand, Jenna. Your da, Niall, there was a way I felt when I was around him, and in all the years since he’s gone, I’d never felt that again, until now.” Meave hugged Jenna. “But . . . how do you feel about Padraic?”

  “I like him, Mam. When he smiles at you, I see that he means it.” She kept the rest back: the worry she had that it might have been the same cloch she carried that he’d been searching for, that if he knew she had it his attitude might change.

  “Thank you, Jenna,” Maeve said. “That means a lot to me. None of this changes anything between us, darling. No matter what, you and I won’t change.”

  Jenna remained silent. She could see in her mam’s face that she knew that wasn’t necessarily true, that neither one of them totally believed the words yet neither wanted to admit it. If you go to him, it may change everything, Mam. It means that it’s more likely you’ll take his side against mine. It means that you’d be feeling things we can’t share anymore. And it means that once we reach the city, I might lose you, and that scares me most of all. But Jenna only nodded. “He makes you happy?”

  Maeve smiled. “Aye, child. He does. That’s something you’ll understand soon enough for yourself, I’m sure.”

  “I hope so,” Jenna said. “I hope so.”

  “You will. I know it,” Maeve answered. “I can smell the stew. Clannhri Sheehan said that we should come and join them when we’re ready. I’ll be right back with Padraic. You’re sure you’re all right?”

  “Go on, Mam. I’m fine. I think I’ll go out and see the camp.”

  Maeve nodded and left. Jenna lay on the pile of sheepskins that served as a bed, fingering the smooth surface of the stone.

  The Taisteal clan were all gathered around the largest fire, crackling in the center of the ring of tents and wagons. When
Jenna came out of the tent, she could feel that everyone was watching her, even if they didn’t look directly at her. She felt suddenly out of place and a little frightened. In Ballintubber, she would have had a name for every face. For the first time in her life, she was surrounded by total strangers. These were people to whom Ballintubber was just another village like a hundred others they’d seen, who had traveled from the cliffs bordering the Ice Sea to the southern tip of Talamh an Ghlas. Jenna suddenly felt provincial and lost.

  She saw Clannhri Sheehan standing to one side, smoking a pipe and talking with one of the men. He saw her, said something to the man, and came over to her. “Ah, m’lady!” He glanced up and down at her as if inspecting a side of ham. “Now, doesn’t that feel more comfortable? Here, let me get you some of the stew. Hilde . . .” Jenna started to protest, to say that she’d wait until her mam and Mac Ard came out, but Sheehan took her arm and ushered her forward.

  She could feel the eyes of the clan on her as she came to the fire. She smiled, tentatively, and received a few smiles in return. They seemed to be several families: men and women as well as children, plainly dressed. She heard someone whisper in a voice that carried over the murmur of conversation: “She’s the one with the tiarna . . .” No one spoke to her—that was also unlike Ballintubber, where strangers would have been immediately engaged in conversation and bombarded with a dozen questions about where they came from, where they were going, what their names might be and who they might be related to hereabouts. Instead, these people seemed content to stare and keep their speculations private. Most of the faces were friendly enough, and she supposed that she could have spoken to them and been answered kindly, but a few stared hard at her, with guarded faces and expressions. Hilde hurried to her with a bowl filled with fragrant stew, a small loaf of bread, and a wooden spoon. Sheehan took it from her and handed it to Jenna. “There, Bantiarna. Sit, sit and be comfortable.” He sat next to her, speaking too loudly for her comfort. “It’s not much, but the best we can offer. Don’t often have Riocha staying with us, ’tis the truth, not with the Taisteal.”

  “Thank you, Clannhri,” she said. “You’re very kind.” She started eating the stew, hoping he would leave her alone, but he didn’t seem inclined to move or to be quiet.

  “Aye,” he said. “I knew him to be a tiarna as soon as I clapped eyes on him, I did, even through the mud and scratches. We Taisteal have the gift of that, you know, and Clan Sheehan best of all—we can see worth where someone else sees nothing. You’ve had a time of it, I could see, and I said to myself ‘Sheehan, you need to treat these people well, who have had a bit of difficulty on the road.’ What with all the trouble just to the north, and the lights in the sky, who knows what one might encounter? Some are already saying that this is the Filleadh, the time of magic come again, and creatures that have lain hidden for the last age will walk again. There are people out already hunting for the clochs na thintrí in the old places, as if a spell-stone like they talk about in the tales of the Before could be found strewn about for the taking.”

  Jenna tried to smile at that and almost succeeded. The stone hidden in her clothes seemed to burn with the mention, so that Jenna was surprised Sheehan couldn’t see it. She placed her hand over the stone, as if to hide it. “I don’t know about clochs,” she said. “What about this trouble?”

  Sheehan’s face collapsed into a frown with a sad shaking of his head. He brushed what little hair he had left back with a thick-knuckled hand. “Ah, ’twas awful,” he said. “Raiders came and burned one village, is what I hear, and killed several. Then they went riding all over the country, looking for someone from there. Word is they came as far east as the Duán before they turned back. Even came south on the High Road a bit, not more than a few miles from here.”

  Jenna shivered with remembered fear. The response must have been noticeable, for Sheehan lifted his hands as if to calm her. “Ah, there’s no danger now, Bantiarna. But there’s no doubt but that strange things are afoot. In fact, we’ve heard all manner of odd tales from people coming up the road recently: a party who says they saw a naked boy sunning himself on a rock at the north end of the Lough Dubh, and as soon as the boy saw them, he changed into a black seal and dove into the water. Just a hand of days ago, I was talking with a man who said he was attacked by a pack of huge dire wolves, which haven’t been seen in this land since my grandfather’s time, and another who was pursued by a troop of wee folk, no bigger than his knee and all armed with sharp little swords. Hilde herself saw a dog as large as a pony, with red, glowing eyes and mouth foaming, and the dog spoke, it did, spoke as plain as—”

  “Did the dog talk as well as you, Clannhri, I wonder?” Mac Ard’s voice interrupted the monologue, and Sheehan nearly fell, turning his head around to glance up at the tiarna. He stood and gave a quick bow to Mac Ard and Meave, who was on the tiarna’s arm.

  “Tiarna Mac Ard,” Sheehan said. “I was just telling the young Bantiarna about how strange the times have become, even for the poor Taisteal. Why, one might think—”

  Mac Ard lifted his hand, and the man’s voice cut off as if severed with a knife. “No doubt you have thought that we would like some of that fine stew, and something to drink if you have it,” Mac Ard said, and Sheehan gave a nod of his head. He scurried off as Mac Ard helped Maeve to the ground and then sat alongside her himself. The gathering around the fire had gone entirely silent. Mac Ard glanced around, and faces looked quickly away. Conversations started up again, the noise level rising.

  “Tiarna,” Jenna said, keeping her voice low. “He said that Ballintubber was burned, and they’ve seen the mage lights.”

  “Aye,” Mac Ard said. “No doubt the rumors are every where now, maybe even in Dún Laoghaire itself by now. But I doubt that the Connachtans are still in the area, or that they burned Ballintubber to the ground. Rumors grow larger the farther they travel, and the Connachtans are likely to have scurried home by now.” He glanced around the encampment. “But it wouldn’t surprise me if they’ve left a spy or two behind, either some of their own or some one who is willing to send word to them for a few mórceints. There are faces here I don’t like, and Sheehan talks more than is good for him. I don’t think I’ll sleep well tonight. I won’t feel safe until we’re back in Lár Bhaile.”

  Sheehan came back with stew for Mac Ard and Jenna, more bread, and cups of water. This time he said very little, glancing at Mac Ard with the expression of a scolded dog and hurrying off again. Mac Ard and Maeve talked, but Jenna only half-listened, leaning back on her arms and watching the fire. She wished someone would sing some of the Taisteal songs, and that thought made her think of Coelin, and she wondered how he was, if he’d been hurt by the Connachtans, or if Tara’s even still stood and wasn’t a burned-out hulk next to the road. She didn’t want to go forward; she wanted to go back. She wanted to see Ballintubber again and Knobtop and all the familiar places. If it were within her power, she would erase the events of the past several days and happily go back to her old, predictable life.

  She felt tears starting in her eyes, and she brushed at them almost angrily. “I’m tired,” she told her mam. “I’m going up to the tent.”

  Maeve glanced at her with concern, but she kissed Jenna. “We’ll do the same as soon as we eat,” she said. “I’ll check on you. Good night, darling.”

  “Good night, Mam, Tiarna.” Jenna nodded to Mac Ard. She brushed at her skirts and walked away from the fire toward her tent.

  She didn’t notice that one of the men to her left excused himself from his companions and rose, following a few moments later.

  11

  Two Encounters

  “BANTIARNA, a moment . . .”

  ‘The voice came from behind Jenna, low and gravelly. Startled, Jenna turned. The man was brown-haired with a longish beard, and she found his age difficult to discern—he could have been as young as Coelin or nearer to thirty. His face was drawn and thin, his skin brown from the sun; his strangely light green eyes neste
d deep under his brows, glinting in the light of the fire. His clothing was plain, but more like that of a freelander than the Taisteal, and Jenna saw a bone-handled knife in its scabbard at his belt. His appearance was that of someone used to a life of labor, his body toughened and scarred by what it had experienced. He stopped a few feet away from her, as if he realized that she would shout for Mac Ard if he came closer. She moved a few steps toward the ring of light from the campfire.

  “What do you want?” Jenna asked coldly.

  “Nothing that will trouble you,” he said. “A minute’s conversation, that’s all.” When Jenna remained silent, he continued. “My name is Ennis O’Deoradháin. I’m not with the Taisteal; I have land nearby and happened to come here to see if the Taisteal had anything interesting to sell—my father was born here and also died here, several years ago. But in his youth, he wandered, and went to the west as a fisherman and came to the north. He married a woman there, and brought her back to Lough Lár.”

  “What has that to do with me?”

  “My mam—may the Mother-Creator keep her soul safe—was an Inishlander. They say I’m more like her than my father. In some ways, I think that’s true. They say one Inishlander knows another. Maybe that’s true as well, or maybe the mage-lights have just sparked something in me that was dormant all this time.” He stopped, staring at her.

  “I’m from . . .” Ballintubber, she started to say, then realized that might not be something to admit either. “... Lár Bhaile,” she said. “Not Inish Thuaidh.”

  O’Deoradháin nodded, though his eyes seemed unconvinced. “Mam always said that I had a weirding in me. She also told me that one of our ancestors was a cloudmage, and wielded a cloch na thintrí under Severii O’Coulghan in the Battle of Sliabh Míchinniúint. Of course, one never knows about family history that far back and to tell the truth it’s a rare Inishlander family that doesn’t claim a cloudmage or three among their ancestors, true or not. If all the stories are to be believed, the land must have been ankle-deep in clochs na thintrí.”