Holder of Lightning

by S L Farrell

  Mac Ard was playing his own game. They were all playing their own games. She had already learned that words and actions here were carefully considered, and often held more than one meaning. Jenna was already weary of ferreting out those meanings, especially since she seemed to be the prize at the end of the contest. She wanted straightforward talk again, the easy conversations she’d had back in Ballintubber with her mam or Aldwoman Pearce or the other villagers, words that were simply gentle and kind speech.

  Mac Ard smiled at O Liathain; O Liathain smiled back. Neither one of them meant the gesture. Jenna would have made an excuse, as she often did, that her arm troubled her and she needed to retire. But Maeve leaned toward her. “Patience,” she whispered. “Coelin will be singing in a few minutes.”

  Jenna brightened at that. She endured the barbed conversations around her until the doors at the end of the hall opened and Coelin walked through with his giotár. Mac Ard cleared his throat and leaned toward the Banrion and Rí. “I heard this young man in the village where the mage lights first appeared, and he recently came to the city. He trained with the Songmaster Curragh, who came here now and again, if you remember. He really has an extraordinary voice, Highnesses. I thought you would enjoy hearing him.”

  “Well, then, let’s hear him,” the Rí said. He gestured to Coelin, and pointed. “Stand there, and give us this voice of yours.”

  Coelin bowed low, his eyes catching Jenna’s as he did so. “Is there a song your Highnesses would like to hear?” he asked. “A story that Songmaster Curragh used to sing, perhaps?”

  The Rí seemed amused by that. “Are you saying your voice is the equal of your Songmaster’s, young man?”

  Coelin shook his head but the charming grin remained on his face. “Oh, no, my Rí. Songmaster Curragh always said my voice was the better.”

  There was a moment of silence before the Rí laughed, the rest of the table following his lead a moment later. “He seems to have a healthy ego, at least, Padraic. I suppose that’s good. But we’ll be the judge of his talent. Give me The Lay of Rowan Beirne, young man.”

  Mac Ard sniffed, as if the choice surprised him, and Jenna glanced at him curiously. Coelin strummed a chord on his giotár, his eyes regarding the ceiling of the hall as if the words to the song were written there. “A fine choice, Rí Mallaghan. Songmaster Curragh taught me that one, not long before he died. Let me think a moment, and bring back the verses . . . Aye . . .” Coelin’s gaze came back down and he nodded his head to the Rí. “I have it now,” he said. His gaze caught Jenna’s again, and he winked. He began to sing.

  On the cusp of summer Rowan came forth

  Bright armor on his chest, around his neck the stone

  He saw the army on Sliabh Bacaghorth,

  The banners of the Inish waving as Rowan stood alone . . .

  “Have you heard this song before?” Cianna whispered, leaning toward Jenna. Jenna shook her head.

  “I don’t believe so, Banrion,” she answered. She wanted to add . . . and I still won’t have heard it, if you talk to me, but held her tongue.

  Cianna glanced at Mac Ard, next to her. “He knows it,” she said. “Don’t you, Padraic?”

  “I do, Banrion,” Mac Ard answered, his voice gruff and low.

  “And do you enjoy it?”

  “I think ‘enjoy’ is too strong a word, Banrion. I find it . . . illuminating. And an interesting choice for the Rí.”

  “Indeed.” Cianna leaned back then. Jenna puzzled over the exchange for a moment, but then Coelin’s rich voice drew her back, and she returned her attention to him, smiling as she watched him perform.

  Jenna had indeed heard portions of the tale once or twice, though greatly altered and changed in the retellings. She had heard folktales of the hero Rowan, who had a magic stone—though she hadn’t realized until now that the stone was supposedly the one she held now, or that Rowan was anything other than a mythological figure. What Coelin sang now, though, gave the full background of the tales, and it was a history Jenna had never suspected. Rowan Beirne had been a Holder of Lámh Shábhála more than five centuries before, and the last Holder from Talamh an Ghlas. From the opening stanza on the eve of Rowan’s last day of life, the lay moved backward in time to the hero’s youth, to his first triumphs on the field of battle, to the unsurprising extolling of his skill with the sword and his prowess in battle, and to his consolidation of the smaller tuatha that were numerous around Tuath Infochla at the time.

  But that wasn’t what startled Jenna. Early in the lay, the verses gave the lineage of Rowan, and it was then that Jenna sat back in her chair, stunned, no longer even hearing Coelin’s voice.

  Rowan’s mam was a woman named Bryth, and she held Lámh Shábhála before Rowan. Bryth’s surname, before she married Tiarna Anrai Beirne of Tuath Infochla, was Mac Ard.

  A Mac Ard once held Lámh Shabhala. . . . Jenna barely heard the rest of the song: how Rowan foolishly allowed himself to be drawn north out of Falcarragh to a supposed parley with the Inishlanders, where he was ambushed and murdered by assassins in the employ of the Inish cloudmage Garad Mhúllien; and how Lámh Shábhála was taken from Rowan’s body and brought to Inish Thuaidh. She barely reacted when Coelin finished the song to the applause of the table, or when the Rí handed Coelin a small sack of coins and told him to return again four nights hence to entertain his guests at the Solstice Feast.

  She sat clutching at the stone on its chain around her neck. She couldn’t look at Mac Ard, and she fled the table as soon as she could make an excuse.

  18

  Secrets

  “WHY didn’t you tell us that your ancestors once ‘W held the cloch, Padraic? I don’t understand . . .”

  Maeve’s voice trembled, and Jenna could tell that her mam was on the verge of tears. Mac Ard, standing near the fireplace of their chambers, made as if to move toward her, but she lifted her head and he stopped with a shrug.

  “Maeve, would you have trusted me if I had?” he answered. “Or would you have thought that I’d come only to take it from Jenna?” He glanced at Jenna, seated next to her mam and still clutching the stone.

  “I don’t know what I would have thought,” Maeve answered. “Because you never gave us the chance to know. Why would you have come at all, if you didn’t want the stone?”

  “I did want it,” Mac Ard answered. “I won’t deny that. Had I found the cloch on that damned hilltop, aye, I would have kept it for myself. I wanted to be the Holder of Lámh Shábhála. I thought . . .” He took a breath and let it out in a nasal snort. “When I saw the mage-lights—here, so close to me—I thought that it was a sign that it was my destiny to bring the cloch back to my family. But Jenna already had it, though I didn’t know it. And when I did . . .”11 He raised his hands, let them fall. “If you remember, I did hold it once, after Jenna killed the riders, and I gave it back. Maeve, have I done anything, anything, to make you feel threatened, or to cause you to feel that I’m a threat to your daughter?”

  Jenna watched her mam shake her head slowly.

  “Have I made any attempt to take the stone from Jenna, even though I had the opportunity, even though I once actually held it in my hands, before she knew how to use it?”»

  “No,” Maeve admitted. She touched Jenna’s bandaged arm. “Though sometimes I wish you had.”

  “Then forgive me for not telling you all of the history I knew, but believe me when I say it was because I was afraid that you wouldn’t trust me, and because I was afraid that you would think that I lied when I told you I loved you.”

  “Padraic,” Maeve began, but the tiarna interrupted.

  “No, let me tell you all now, so there aren’t any more secrets. There isn’t much to tell.” He pulled a chair close to the two of them and took Maeve’s hands. His attention was on her; he glanced quickly at Jenna and looked away again before returning his gaze to her mam. “All this took place five centuries ago, so I don’t know what’s true and what’s been changed in all the telling and
retellings over the years. That’s too much time, and details change every time the story gets told. So I’m simply going to give you the bare, dry genealogy without any embellishment: Sinna Hannroia—a Riocha from a small fiefdom—once held Lámh Shábhála, and she fell in love with the Rí of another small fiefdom named Teádor Mac Ard, my several times great-da, and married him. The two of them had a daughter named Bryth and a son named Slevin. Sinna passed Lámh Shábhála to Bryth before her death, and as you know from Coelin’s song tonight, Bryth later married Anrai Beirne—a purely political alliance, from what our family history tells us—and eventually became the mother of Rowan Beirne, who lost the cloch to the Inishlanders. In any case, I’m not of Bryth’s direct line, which is dead now: Bryth had only Rowan, and Rowan left no children that anyone knows about. The Mac Ards of today, like myself, trace our lineage back to Bryth’s younger brother Slevin. So, aye, once someone of my blood and my name was the Holder of

  Lámh Shábhála, but it was long, long centuries ago in the Before. I have hand upon hand of cousins with the Mac Ard name who can say the same. There are many tiarna, as well as people of more common blood, who can say the same because there have been numerous Holders over the years. If you’re going to be afraid of all of those who share the same surnames, you’re going to be fearful of half the Riocha. You can’t blame me for history, nor hold me accountable for it.” He kissed the back of her hands, lifting them to his lips. “That’s the extent of it, Maeve. Don’t be afraid of my name. Don’t be afraid of me.”

  He smiled at her, and Jenna watched her mam smile in return. Then Mac Ard leaned forward and kissed Maeve. “I need to see the Rí,” he said. “The Rí rarely does anything without a reason, and I wonder why he called for that song tonight. I think he and I should have a conversation. If you’ll pardon me . . .”

  “Go on, Padraic,” Maeve told him. She continued to hold his hands as he stood. “And thank you. I do understand.”

  He kissed her hands again. “I’ll see you later, then. Jenna, I hope you also understand,” he added, and left the room. As he did so, Maeve placed her hands over her abdomen, pressing gently. Jenna’s eyes narrowed, and she must have made a sound, for Maeve glanced back over her shoulder and Jenna saw that she noticed where her daughter’s gaze lay. Maeve looked down at her hands herself, then back to Jenna, shifting in her chair so she faced her daughter.

  “Aye,” she told Jenna.

  “You’re certain?”

  “I’ve not bled for two moons, and I’ve been ill the last several mornings. But it’s far too early to feel the quickening and know for certain.” Jenna saw a slow satisfaction move over her mam’s face. “But it will come. I know it.”

  “Have you told the tiarna?”

  “No. Not yet. I’ll wait until I can feel the life. Then I’ll tell him.” She paused. “You’re supposed to ask if I’m happy,” she said.

  She went to her mam and hugged her fiercely. “Are you happy?” she whispered, burying her head in her mam’s scented hair.

  “Aye,” Meave answered. “I’m happy. I want you to be happy, too.”

  For a time, the two held each other, saying nothing. Finally, Jenna pulled away with a kiss to Maeve’s forehead. “Will Padraic give the child his name, and you also, do you think?”

  For a moment, Jenna saw uncertainty in her mam’s eyes. “I don’t know, Jenna. I don’t know how the Riocha do things. I don’t know all that Padraic can do and what he can’t. It doesn’t matter, though, as long he doesn’t change the way he feels toward me.”

  “But it does, Mam,” Jenna replied earnestly. “Everyone will know it’s Padraic’s child, and if he won’t acknowledge it, they’ll laugh at you, Mam. They’ll give you their meaningless smiles and then snicker at you behind their hands. You know they will. It won’t be Mac Ard who’ll have to bear all that; it’ll be you.” Jenna knelt in front of Maeve, her hands in Maeve’s lap.

  She knew she shouldn’t say it even as she spoke the words. “Mam, if this isn’t what you want, well, Aoife knows an herbalist in Low Town. He’ll have potions, like Aldwoman Pearce . . .”

  “Jenna!” Maeve said loudly, and Jenna stopped. “I don’t need your herbalist,” her mam continued, more softly. “I don’t want the herbalist.”

  “I know, Mam, but if after you tell him, what if he . . .”

  “Jenna—”

  . . . what if he isn’t as he seems? What if he’s angry, or if he abandons you, or you find that the love he says he feels is just another Riocha word? She couldn’t finish it. She didn’t want to finish it. She didn’t want to believe it herself.

  Instead she forced herself to smile, to lift up and give her mam another kiss and place her own hands on Maeve’s stomach. Inside, there is life. A brother, or a sister . . .

  “I trust him, Jenna,” Maeve said. “I love him.”

  Her face was so peaceful and content that Jenna nodded. “I know,” she said.

  Jenna didn’t see Coelin after his singing. She heard through Aoife that he’d left the keep late that evening, and that he had asked after her. She thought he might send word the next day; he didn’t. The mage-lights came again that night, and after taking in their power, she was too exhausted to care about anything but fixing a brew of the andúilleaf to blunt the pain. At least, that was what she told herself.

  More Riocha were arriving at the Keep each day as word spread that Lámh Shábhála had a Holder and that she was in Lár Bhaile. Most of them wore the green and brown of Tuath Gabair, though there were a few with the red and white of Tuath Airgialla, or the blue and black of Tuath Locha Lein. None wore Tuath Connachta’s blue and gold. They were men, mostly, and a few women, with rich clothes and rich accents and bright jewels around their necks, and some of those jewels, aye, were clochs na thintrí. She was introduced to them and as quickly forgot their names and titles, though she could feel them watching her as she wandered about the keep, staring at her, whispering about her, and pointing at her bandaged arm.

  Waiting. Waiting for Jenna to give them the power they wanted.

  “Jenna . . .”

  She heard Cianna’s voice as she walked along one of the deserted upper hallways, trying to avoid the eyes. Jenna stopped and turned: the Banrion stood at the end of the hall, with two of her ladies. Jenna curtsied and dropped her gaze as she’d seen the Riocha do in the woman’s presence. “Banrion,” she said. “Good morning.”

  “Please, no courtesies here. Not between us. Is it a good morning for you, or are you simply being polite?” Cianna asked. She cleared her throat, a phlegm-rattled sound. “None of them seem good to me lately. I think the new healer’s a fraud, like all the rest.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that, Banrion.”

  Cianna laughed, a sound that ended in a series of coughs. “It’s what I expected, my dear. I’m not quite as stupid and self-involved as some would have you believe. I know that I’m deluding myself—I don’t think any healer can cure what’s inside me. But I feel I have to try. Maybe, maybe one of them . . .” The Banrion’s eyes glittered with sudden moisture, and she caught her lower lip between her teeth. She sniffed and shook her head, and the mood seemed to pass. She waved her hand at her attendants.

  “Leave me,” she told them. They scurried away, glancing at Jenna. “They’re supposed to be here to help me, but they’re really just the Rí’s eyes,” Cianna said to Jenna, her voice dropping to a husky whisper. “They tell him everything they see. Come with me for a few moments, before they rush back to tell me that the Rí insisted they return. We should speak somewhere where no eyes watch or ears listen.”

  Cianna took Jenna’s arm. The Banrion seemed to weigh nothing; her hand looked that of a skeleton, poking from under the lace of her léine. She led Jenna along the hall and down a corridor, through a door and up a small flight of stairs. Taking a torch from one the sconces, she opened the door at the top of the stair, which led into a musty-smelling gallery. There were shelves along the gallery, and on them were items, mos
t covered in gray layers of dust. Their feet left marks in the film of it covering the floor, and cloudlets rose wherever they stepped. Jenna sneezed. “Banrion, this can’t be good for your lungs.”

  “Hush,” Cianna answered, tempering the word with a smile. “Do you know where we are?” Jenna shook her head. “This is the Hall of Memories,” Cianna continued. “These are artifacts from the long history of Lár Bhaile. Not many come here—my husband isn’t one for sentiment and history. He dismissed the Warden of the Hall, whose task it was to preserve these things and clean them, and since then the hall hasn’t been opened in years. Previous Rís, though, were rather proud of it and brought visitors here so they could view the artifacts.”

  “Remembering the past is important.” She said it politely, wondering why Cianna had brought her here.

  “Is that something you believe?” Cianna asked. “Is it true, Holder, that you can bring the dead Holders of that cloch back to life and speak with them? That’s what Tiarna Mac Ard tells me. He said he thought you had done it once, with an old Bunús Muintir Holder.”

  “Aye, that’s true, Banrion,” she told Cianna. She’d never told Mac Ard or her mam about the others: the Lady of the Falls and her own da. She still had Eilís’ ring and Niall’s carved seal back in her room. She’d never tried to bring Eilís back again, but she had talked to her da several times. It had been disappointing, for he stared at her as if he’d never seen her before, and she had to explain all over again who she was. The dead, it seemed, did not retain the mem ory of being dragged back into this existence by Lámh Shábhála. “If I’m near to where a Holder rests, or if I touch something that was once theirs I can speak with their shade. At least that’s what I’ve been told.”

  “Then come here . . .” Cianna gestured at one of the shelves. On it was a torc, the hammered gold incised with swirling lines that made Jenna glance at her bandaged arm. “Do you know why my husband chose to have that singer give the Lay of Rowan two nights ago?” Jenna shook her head. Cianna started to speak, then coughed a few times, patting at her mouth with a lace handkerchief. Jenna could see spots of blood on the ivory cloth. “This cough . . . it gets worse. Damn that healer. This is the way it is for us, Jenna. They let us suffer, me because I’ve already given the Rí what he wanted and now he no longer cares; you because they think you’re weak and they can take what they want from you later, when it’s less dangerous.” She coughed again, nearly doubling over with the racking spasms.