Holder of Lightning

by S L Farrell

  Through Lámh Shábhála, Tiarna Gairbith radiated violence. This was a man at whose hands hundreds had died and who would most likely be responsible for the death of hundreds more if he lived. There was no visceral enjoyment of death in him, though Jenna sensed a deep satisfaction within him at the results of his campaigns, and he carried no remorse or guilt at all in his soul. She knew that if the Rí ordered it, he would slay her with the same pragmatic lack of passion. But she could sense no direct threat in him at all: to him, she was simply a piece in the game and he would use her or not as the strategies of the game dictated.

  The emotional matrix around Mac Ard and the Rí were more complicated. There were strange colors and hues in their shapes, nothing that was overtly threatening, but she knew both of them wanted what she held and would take it if the opportunity arose. With Mac Ard especially there were tendrils of black secrets that snaked outward toward Jenna, vestiges of hidden plots that involved her. She wondered—more strongly this time—if Mac Ard were at the heart of the attacks against her, if his involvement with her mam weren’t simply a subterfuge to allow him access to her and Lámh Shábhála.

  The Rí’s emotions were simpler and yet more deeply hidden. He was wrapped in plottings and deceptions. Under it all was the burning orange-red of ambition: the Rí Gabair would be Rí Ard, if he had the chance ... and it took little imagination on Jenna’s part to believe that the Rí might feel Lámh Shábhála would give him that chance.

  The Rí moved aside to let Jenna stand next to the table. Lines were drawn on the parchment, and placed atop it were small triangular flags, some green and brown, others blue and gold. “This is Tuath Gabair,” the Rí explained to Jenna. “There, see that blue area? That’s Lough Lár. Here—” his stubby index ringer stabbed at the map. “That is Lár Bhaile, where we are now. Up here—” his finger moved up past Lough Lár to where a line of blue meandered, occasionally met by other, smaller branches. “That’s the River Duán and the Mill Creek feeding into it, and Knobtop and Ballintubber.” His finger touched the map again and again in concert with his words. Jenna nodded, but in truth the map meant little to her. How could marks on paper be Ballintubber or Knobtop?

  “The flags,” the Rí continued, “are where our troops and the troops of Tuath Connachta are currently located. Do you see here, southwest of Ballintubber, where the Connachta flags have bunched? That’s where their main army is camped, right on the border. That’s where they’ll make the first push toward us.”

  As the Rí spoke, images came to Jenna. It was as if she were a bird, hovering far above Tuath Gabair and looking down. There was the lough, and just past it . . . “Doire Coill is in their way,” Jenna said. “They can’t go through that forest with troops.”

  Tiarna Gairbith snorted through his long nostrils: a laugh. “I thought you said the Holder knew nothing of war, my Rí,” he said. The fingers remaining on his mutilated left hand traced one arc on the map, then another. “They will split their forces as soon as they reach the border of Doire Coill,” he said. “One arm, the larger and slower, will go north to secure the ford of the Duán at Áth Iseal, then attack Lár Bhaile from the north. The other, smaller and swifter, will cross the Duán at the southern ford and come up to Lár Bhaile from the south. ‘The Horns of the Bull,’ they call it; the Connachtans have used the tactic more than once. They hope to split our forces to deal with the twin attacks; if one horn fails, the other might still impale us.”

  “But your troops won’t let that happen,” Jenna said, looking at the men. “If you know where they’ll strike, you will have made plans against that. You have the advantage of knowing the land and deciding where to make your battle where you can use the ground to your benefit.”

  Again, the laugh. “I like this Holder,” Gairbith said to the Rí. “No talk from her of negotiation, of somehow avoiding the conflict. Instead, she sees that the battle will come and prepares to meet it.” He bowed to Jenna, approvingly, and she wondered whether the smile was genuine or if the man was simply mocking her. “Aye, we will do just as the Holder suggests,” Gairbith answered, “but many will die doing that, and after we push them back to their own borders, we will be too weak to do more than watch them leave. Unless . . .” His voice trailed off. He looked at Mac Ard, who stood with arms crossed, lips in a tight frown, his eyes almost angry.

  “Unless what?” Jenna asked, and Nevan O Liathain’s words echoed in her memory: “... the Rí no doubt hopes for Lámh Shábhála to be part of that battle . . . he would love to see the lightnings of the cloch smash the enemy and send them fleeing for their lives . . .”

  Rí Mallaghan saw the realization on her face. “Lamh Shábhála has been in countless battles over the centuries, Jenna,” he said, “many of them here in what is now Tuath Gabair. And while Lámh Shábhála is the only cloch na thintrí that is awake . . .” He spread his hands wide. “There is only one reason the Connachta are mounting their ar mies: they know Lámh Shábhála is here and they think to strike before you learn to wield the cloch as the cloudmages have in the past and my army comes to invade their land—because if they had the cloch, they would use it to strike us. They believe the only reason we haven’t yet struck is because the cloch or the Holder is still weak. But you’ve learned so much already, Jenna. I ask you, how many lives will it cost if Lámh Shábhála does not enter the battlefield? All we request of you is that you help us defend you, as the Holder.”

  The Rí’s words were spoken in a voice like sweet butter, thick and freighted with an unconscious arrogance that spoke of his expectation that he would be heard and obeyed. His eyes, behind their enclosing folds of pale flesh, stared at her unblinking. When Jenna opened her mouth to begin a protest, she saw those eyes narrow. Through the cloch, she felt a sudden surge of malice directed toward her from the Rí, and she knew that if she refused, he would use that answer to justify other actions against her. As Cianna had told her with O Liathain, “no” was not an answer she could give him.

  Is he the one, then? Has the Rí been stepping carefully only because the Tanaise Ríg was here also?

  “Jenna hasn’t fully learned to use Lámh Shábhála, my Rí,” Mac Ard interjected before Jenna could decide what to say. “Not in the way of the legends of the Before. Not in the way the cloudmages of song used them. Your majesty knows the pain involved for Jenna when the mage-lights come. You also know that Lámh Shábhála’s task right now is to unlock the other clochs na thintrí and that is what Lámh Shábhála has been teaching the First Holder—not the art of war. You ask too much of her too soon and place her in danger. You must remember, my Rí, that the Tanaise Ríg has expressed an interest in Jenna. He would not want her injured. Worse, what if the Connachtans should win the battle when Lámh Shábhála is involved? What if Rí Connachta were suddenly to possess the cloch? Do you think the Rí Ard or any of the other Tuatha would come to your aid, or would they sit and watch and wait and let the Connachtan vultures feed on the bodies of Lár Bhaile?”

  Through Mac Ard’s speech, the Rí’s face had grown progressively more ruddy. “So it’s Tiarna Mac Ard’s counsel that I throw my armies against Connachta and ignore the weapon that could easily turn the battle? You would take the sword from my hand and have me do battle with a butter knife.”

  “I say better a duel with butter knives than risk giving your enemy your sword, that’s all,” Mac Ard answered.

  “I have no plans to give the enemy this particular sword,” Tiarna Gairbith interjected. “I will cleave the ene my’s head from its shoulders with it and I will keep Lámh Shábhála safe—that’s my pledge.”

  The Rí laughed at that. “There, you see, Padraic? My Commander has made his promise.”

  “I think,” Jenna said loudly, and all three men turned their heads to her, “that everyone is talking as if I were incapable of making a decision for myself.” Mac Ard glowered, Gairbith gave a quick, shocked laugh, and the Rí sucked his breath in with an audible hiss. For a moment, Jenna thought she’d gon
e too far, but then the Rí applauded her, three slow claps of his hands. His eyes were still narrowed and dangerous, but his voice was soft.

  “The Holder seems to have no lack of courage in speaking her mind,” he said. “That is good—a ruler should know the true feelings of those under him. I assume the Holder realizes that when the Rí asks for an opinion, she may give it. And when he issues a command, she will obey it. Without any question at all.”

  The malice she felt in him increased, a dark arm swirling around her in cloch-vision. She knew he wanted submission now. He wanted her to drop her head, perhaps even to fall to her knees to beg forgiveness for her audacity in ques tioning him. Instead, she touched Lámh Shábhála, letting a trace of its cold energy seep into her to fill her voice. “Is the Rí giving me a command, then?” she asked, and the words were edged like a blade, filled with a warning and menace. “Does he believe the Holder to be like a ficheall piece that he can move about the board? If so, I would remind him that the Holder is the most powerful of all his pieces and that it might even strike the hand that tries to move it to the wrong square.”

  Jenna could see the Rí scowl at the words, saw him blink and take a step backward while the fury brought color to his cheeks. Tiarna Gairbith put a hand to the hilt of his sword; she knew that if the Rí ordered it, that blade would flash out toward her. Mac Ard’s hand was also on his weapon and in the cloch-vision his own emotions were chaotic and ambivalent: Jenna couldn’t tell what he might do. Jenna clutched Lámh Shábhála, and all three men watched her fingers close around the brightening stone.

  Mac Ard stepped out between Jenna and the Rí. “Jenna, the Rí is an excellent ficheall master, both in the game and in war. You need to trust his hand, for he wouldn’t put a piece as important as you in needless jeopardy. Believe me in this. I have been with him all my life and my parents served him also. He won’t ask more of you than you can give. All we are doing here is looking at the alternatives available to us for this threat. Nothing more. Rí Connachta has yet to make an irrevocable move. There is still some hope they will not.”

  Behind the Rí, Gairbith laughed again at that assessment.

  In the cloch-vision, the Rí was a thunderhead ready to spew lightning and wind and hail. Jenna knew that she had just pushed the man as far as he could be pushed—the Rí was accustomed to obedience and deference, at least on the surface. He had known nothing else; he would tolerate nothing else. Whether she would do his bidding or not when the time came, she couldn’t defy him now without using the cloch. And afterward . . . even if she walked out of this room still the Holder, what then? She would be a fugitive, a dangerous animal to be hunted down and killed.

  Jenna’s fingers loosened around the stone. They watched her hand drop back to her waist, watched her cradle the stiff, aching flesh to her abdomen. “I’m sorry, my Rí,” she said, lowering her gaze so that she stared at the man’s fat, sandal-clad feet below his clóca and hoping that her words sounded sufficiently apologetic. “I spoke too harshly. I . . . I’m still frightened by what happened yesterday, the attack by the Banrion’s gardai.”

  “Ah, that. . .” The Rí nodded; his stance relaxed and his voice was now gentle. “An unfortunate occurrence, to be certain, but one that shows me that you are learning to use the cloch, eh?”

  She nodded. “Aye, my Rí.”

  “Good,” he said. She thought that he might pat her with a fatherly hand. The malice in her cloch-vision hadn’t diminished, though; this was a man who would take her without a thought if he believed it to be to his advantage. There was no affection for her in his tone; only the satisfaction that came from watching her submit to his will. “Then we’ll make our plans appropriately. Tiarna Gairbith will be in contact with you regarding the plans and I know Tiarna Mac Ard—” the Rí’s gaze flicked over to Padraic and at the same time, Jenna saw the two of them in the cloch-vision, entangled in mutual webs of ambition and deceit “—will be helping us as well. I hope you understand, Holder Jenna, that we hold you in the highest esteem, and that everything we do here is for your benefit.”

  He said the words with compassion gleaming in his voice and deception in his heart.

  Jenna smiled at him and nodded.

  The mage-lights swirled in the night sky over the keep, and Jenna went to them. The bright communion was at once painful and joyous, and afterward Jenna staggered back into her room from the balcony, clutching her arm to herself, and half-fell into Maeve’s arms. Her mam helped her back to her bed, where she sat, eyes closed, feeling only the power surging through her. “Anduilleaf,” she managed to croak out. “Quickly.”

  The water was already boiling, the leaf already crushed in the bottom of the mug. Jenna heard her mam pour the water and smelled the aroma of the leaf wafting through the cold air. “Here,” Maeve said, and Jenna felt a warmth pressed against her left hand. She took the mug and lifted it to her lips, sipping noisily against the heat of the brew.

  “How many times more, Jenna?” There was a weary concern in her mam’s voice.

  “Is that what he wanted you to ask me?” Jenna answered. “Is he getting impatient to be a cloch Holder himself? You can tell him that it will be soon: two more appearances. Three, at most.”

  Maeve ignored Jenna’s scornful tone. “And what then?”

  “I don’t know,” Jenna answered heatedly. “If I did, I’d tell everyone so they’d stop asking these stupid questions of me.”

  She glanced up to see her mam bite her lower lip, looking away with hurt in her eyes. “I ask because I hate to see you in pain, Jenna,” Maeve answered, her voice trembling with the sob she held back. “I’ve been hoping that once the other clochs were open, you wouldn’t be . . . in so much . . .” Maeve couldn’t finish. She covered her mouth with a hand, tears spilling over her eyes. Jenna wanted to go to her, to comfort her mam as she had comforted Jenna a thousand times over the years, but she couldn’t make herself move. She hid herself behind the mug of leaf-brew, sipping and inhaling the steam as she watched her mam sniff and blot her tears with the sleeve of her léine.

  Jenna could see the swelling curve of her mam’s belly. She could feel the life inside, glowing like a banked fire in a hearth.

  “Maybe,” Maeve said, “Padraic should be the Holder.” She wouldn’t look at Jenna. “Maybe that’s what should have happened.”

  “Is that what Da would have wanted?” Jenna retorted. “Or have you already forgotten him and the fact that Lámh Shábála was once his?”

  Maeve turned, her clóca flaring outward with the sharp motion. “I will never forget Niall. Never. And I can’t believe that you’d be cruel enough to even suggest that.”

  Guilt made Jenna momentarily forget the throbbing coldness in her arm. “Mam, I’m sorry . . .”

  There was a tentative knock at the door and one of the servants stuck her head in. “Pardon, m’ladies, but Coelin Singer is here asking to see the Holder.”

  Maeve was still glaring at Jenna. “Tell him he may come in,” Jenna said.

  “In here, Holder?” the servant asked.

  “Do you not have ears?” Jenna snapped. “Aye, here. If the Tanaise Ríg doesn’t like it, then he should have left his own people to stand guard.”

  The servant looked at Maeve, who shrugged. “The Holder obviously doesn’t care to have anyone else suggest what she should do or question her commands.”

  The servant fled.

  “Mam—” Jenna began, but then the door opened again and Coelin entered. His face was full of concern and question, but he seemed startled when he saw Maeve.

  “Oh, Widow Aoire,” he said, nodding to Maeve and glancing once at Jenna questioningly. “I don’t mean to disturb . . .” He gestured at the door. “I can wait in the outer room.”

  “Stay. Maybe you can talk some sense into the girl,” Maeve said to Coelin. “I obviously can’t tell my daughter anything. She would rather learn from her own mistakes, I suppose. Just see that you’re not another one, Coelin Singer.” Maeve
didn’t turn back to look at Jenna, but walked out of the room. The sound of the door closing was loud in the apartment.

  “What was that about?” Coelin asked. “Jenna? I saw the lights, and thought that you might—”

  Jenna shook her head. “Don’t talk,” she said. “Just . . . come here. Please. Hold me.”

  Coelin, with a glance back at the door, went to the bed in two long strides. He took Jenna up in his arms.

  “Kiss me,” she said. “Make me forget about all this for a little bit . . .”

  And, for a time, she did.

  26

  A World Changed

  DEER Creek ran at the bottom of a steep ravine. Above, to the north, was the city of Lár Bhaile; south rose the steep and stony flanks of Goat Fell with the Rí’s Keep perched on top. Not far beyond the bridge that linked Low Town to Goat Fell and the ramparts of the keep, the creek widened and fanned out into a marsh-clogged mouth before flowing into Lough Lár. To Jenna’s mind, Deer Creek was more river than creek, nearly twice as wide as the Mill Creek that ran past Ballintubber, deeper and faster.

  And Deer Creek had seals; one, at least: on a flat slab thrusting out of the rushing water, a dark, shiny-furred head watched as Jenna made her way down the path from the Rí’s Market Square. Getting away from the keep had been easier than Jenna had expected. After the incident with the gardai, no one voiced an objection when she left the keep unescorted except by two chambermaids. Jenna noticed that another carriage departed the keep immediately after they left, and that the square seemed particularly well-populated with gardai. Jenna had opened the cloch slightly, letting its energy spread out over the square—there were at least a half dozen tendrils of attention leading to her, none of them overtly dangerous but all watching.

  And down in the hawthorn-choked ravine, another: O’Deoradháin.

  The chambermaids were easy: she gave each of them a mórceint and told them to go buy whatever they liked. It took time to lose the gardai, but she eventually managed to lose all the watchers and sneak away, to the wooden stairs leading down to Deer Creek and a small patch of meadow there where a few people sat fishing despite the cold. Jenna stayed under the trees, moving east along the creek and away from the meadow, where someone glancing down from the market above wouldn’t easily spot her. She saw movement out in the creek—the seal rose from the cold water and clambered onto one of the flat rocks in the middle of the stream.