Holder of Lightning tc-1

by S L Farrell Неизвестный Автор

  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 Lamh Shabhala, and she fell in love with the Ri of another small fiefdom named Teador 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 Lamh Shabhala 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 Lamh Shabhala, 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 Ri," he said. "The Ri rarely does anything without a reason, and I wonder why he ailed 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

  "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 herb-alist," 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 ex-hausted to care about anything but fixing a brew of the anduilleaf 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 Lamh Shabhala had a Holder and that she was in Lar 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 thintri. 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 band-aged 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

  "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 mois-ture, 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.
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br />   "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 Ri’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 Ri 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 leine. 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, most cov-ered 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. "Ban-rion, 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 Memo-ries," Cianna continued. "These are artifacts from the long history of Lar 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 pre-serve these things and clean them, and since then the hall hasn’t been opened in years. Previous Ris, 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 Bunus 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 Eilis' ring and Niall's carved seal back in her room. She'd never tried to bring Eilis 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 memory of being dragged back into this exis-tence by Lamh Shabhala. "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 Ri 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.

  "Maybe we should leave this room, Banrion," Jenna suggested, but Ci-anna drew herself up, her haunted, umber-circled eyes widening.

  "No. Listen to me, Jenna. There is talk. I hear it, though they think I don't listen or care. But I do. They want you for one thing, Jenna, and one thing only: to open the other clochs to the mage-lights. They know that the First Holder always suffers more than the Holders who follow- they're content to let you take that pain for now, even though some of them intend to take the cloch you hold, once you've opened the others."

  "Who?" Jenna asked. "Who wants it?"

  "Some I know for certain," the Banrion answered. "Nevan O Liathain, the RI Ard’s son, covets Lamh Shabhala-he’s made no secret of that. My husband does, as well; he’s more ambitious than you might think. Galen Aheron, the tiarna from Infochla who arrived a few days ago, has said things that make me suspect he would try for it as well. And even Padraic Mac Ard… "

  "You’ve heard him talking?" Jenna asked, her eyes narrowing. "Tiarna Mac Ard?"

  Cianna shook her head. "No, in truth, though I think that’s why the Ri called for the song, because he knew that Mac Ard had said nothing to you regarding his ancestors’ history with Lamh Shabhala. The Ri is always careful with Mac Ard, because he knows that a Mac Ard was once Ri and that Padraic could contend for the throne of Tuath Gabair. My husband and Padraic aren’t enemies, but they also aren’t entirely allies. Mac Ard’s said nothing against you that I’ve heard, but when he rode away from the keep weeks ago, when the mage-lights first came, I know he was eager to find the cloch. And if you were. ." Cianna paused. Coughed.". . no longer the Holder, aye, I believe he would try for the cloch himself."

  Jenna’s right hand, the fingers stiff and painful to move, closed around Lamh Shabhala on its necklace. Cianna noticed the gesture, and her fin-gers touched Jenna’s. "Your skin there is so cold and so hard, like the scales of a snake." She touched her cheek. "And so warm and smooth here." The Banrion smiled gently. "You’re so young to carry such a bur-den, Jenna. But I was a cycle and more younger when I was sent to marry the Ri and was a mam by the time I was your age. Women often carry their burdens early." She smiled again. "And long."

  Cianna picked up the torc from the shelf, brushing away the dust with a hand and pursing her lips to blow away the rest, though the effort cost her another fit of coughing. She held out the golden artifact to Jenna, though Jenna only looked at it, puzzled. "We have nothing of Rowan’s or of Bryth’s, but this torc was Sinna Mac Ard’s, great-mam of Rowan Beirne. I don’t know if she could give you answers to the questions you might have, but you may try. Take it, use it if you can."

  "Banrion, I can't. ."

  "If anyone asks why you have it, tell them to come to me. That's all you need say. Keep it." She gestured around her, at the gray-covered shelves, at the dim recesses filled with hundreds of unseen items. "You can see how much the past is revered here." She reached out and touched the cloch where it rested between Jenna's breasts. "But they will grab for what they see as the future," she said. "And some of them are quite willing to kill anyone who would get in their way."

  Chapter 19: An Assassin's Fate

  SHE could feel the strong tingling of a presence when she held the torc, and she knew that Cianna had spoken true-this had once 'been a Holder's beloved possession. But even though she found herself alone in the apartment when she returned, Jenna didn't let the cloch call the pres-ence forth. The experience with Riata had been frightening at first yet ultimately rewarding, but the ghost of Eilis had scared and nearly killed her and as for her da… seeing him hurt too much and left her unsatisfied and feeling more alone than ever.

  She doubted that Sinna's specter could help her at all.

  She placed the torc among her clothes where Aoife was unlikely to find it, thinking that she might use it that evening. But the mage-lights came again and she went to them, and afterward Jenna was in too much pain for anything but anduilleaf and bed.

  After Maeve had fussed over her for a bit (with Mac Ard hanging in the background at the door of the room, staring at her, Jenna thought, strangely), she lay in her bed, holding the cloch in her hand and staring into the darkness of the ceiling, seeing not the room but Lamh Shabhala. She gazed into the crystalline matrix of the cloch, seeing the nodes gleaming and sparking with the stored power of the mage-lights, flickering tongues of blue-white lightning arcing between the facets. She let herself drop deeper into Lamh Shabhala's depths toward

  the seething well at its heart, and she seemed to stand on a precipice, looking down into a maelstrom, a thunderstorm so bright that it nearly blinded her. The well was nearly full now-no more than three or four more nights, and it would overflow, filling the cloch. .then. .

  She knew what was supposed to happen, knew that Lamh Shabhala
was to "open the other clochs na thintri." But she didn't know how, didn't know what that would do to her, how it might feel or how it might hurt her or what it would be like afterward. She wondered if Tiarna Mac Ard might know, but she couldn't-or wouldn't-ask him. She was grateful to him for what he'd done to save her and her mam, and she knew that Maeve loved the man and seemed to be loved in return, yet she found herself holding back when she might speak to him. There was no one she trusted enough to ask that question who would know the answer.

  There were the dead Holders, of course. Riata she might ask, but she had nothing of his to bring him back; Eilis was too fey. Her da she'd already asked, but he had never held Lamh Shabhala while it was alive-he knew less than she did.

  She trembled, looking down into the depths, at the raging energy trapped there. She ached to know, she needed to know, if only to steel herself for the ordeal.

  She let go of the cloch, and the image of it faded in her mind, leaving only the darkness of her room.

  She threw aside the bedclothes, shivering in the cold, and went quickly to the chest holding her clothing, pulling out the tore Cianna had given her. Her hands tingled with the feeling of the presence within it, and she thought she heard her name called, a yearning summons. They feel you just as you feel them. .

  She went back to her bed, wrapping the quilts around her and snug-gling her toes under the heated plate of cotton-wrapped iron Aoife had placed beneath the covers to warm the bed. She placed the torc around her own neck, grimacing as the cold, burnished metal touched her skin.

  Sinna. .?

  Torchlight swam in the darkness.

  Sinna, come to me. .

  Jenna trembled, tugging the blankets tightly around her. She was in her room, but the portion in front of her was overlaid with a hazy image of another time. There, the fireplace was roaring; torches were set in their sconces along the walls, and embroidered hangings covered stone walls no longer plastered and painted. In the shadows, someone moved, a woman with plaited, long gray hair, wearing a leine of yellow under a long cloca of green. Around her neck was the torc Jenna wore and from Under the gold a fine chain held Lamh Shabhala. She stepped forward into the firelight, and Jenna saw that her movements were slow, her pos-ture stooped, her face lined with the furrows of age. Her right arm was marked to the elbow with swirling curves of scars, in the pattern Jenna knew all too well.