by S L Farrell
“I’d prefer to win the battle with as few losses as possible. Maybe if you had to look the dying men in their faces, you’d feel differently.” Owaine looked away. Back. “Can you ride, son?”
“Aye,” Kayne told him. “I can manage. Gainmheach . . .” The horse came this time at Kayne’s call, limping visibly from the injuries caused by the Arruk. Blood soaked its rump. “Take my horse,” Owaine said, but Kayne shook his head.
“I’ll walk him back, Da. Go on. I’m fine—see to the others. Make sure we’ve got all the Arruk.”
“Aye,” Owaine said, but he didn’t go. He regarded Kayne, watching as he wiped his blade on the grass and sheathed it. “Kayne.” Kayne looked over at his da. “What you did just now . . . There’s a difference between bravery and foolhardiness. You can’t just rush into battle without a plan, not if you want to come back out again.”
“The town was burning, Da. There were Arruk and we outnumbered them a good hand to one. Did you plan to wait until they’d taken Ceangail?”
The anger flashed again, Owaine’s nostrils flaring. “After a year in the field, I would think you’d have gained some knowledge and wisdom, Kayne.”
“I have, Da. I know that the Arruk think we Daoine are too weak to defeat them, and I’m wise enough to know why.”
He thought that Owaine was going to scream at him. His da’s face flushed and he sucked in a harsh breath, but Harik came riding up. “Tiarna Geraghty!” the Hand shouted to Owaine. “The Ald of Ceangail would like to speak with you, and the men are wondering where to make our encampment.”
“I’m coming,” Owaine said to Harik. With a final glare at Kayne, he stalked over to his horse and pulled himself up. He rode off without another word.
Harik stared hard at Kayne for a long moment before turning to follow.
3
Banrions
THE HAND OF THE HEART knocked once on the door of the Heart Chamber, a small room jutting from the main hall of the Banrion Ard’s keep in Dún Laoghaire. Meriel, waiting inside, adjusted the heavy golden torc over her clóca and nodded to the garda standing at his station by the door. The garda reached over and pulled at the ornate bronze handles chased in swirls of gold and silver: a bejeweled imitation of the mage-lights.
The Hand of the Heart—Áine Martain, a Siúr of the Order of Inishfeirm, her own clóca and léine a pure, unadorned white—stepped inside, followed by a hand and more of supplicants: a man with a twisted leg who hobbled in leaning on a gnarled length of hickory; a well-dressed young woman who met Meriel’s eyes unflinchingly and gave her a polite curtsey before entering the room; two men carrying a litter on which another man lay moaning softly. A pregnant woman walked alongside the latter group, holding the hand of the man on the litter. The litter bearers were all shabbily dressed, their hair and beards di sheveled and matted, and with them came a faint stench of manure and sweat that wrinkled Meriel’s nose. The woman’s clothes were as ragged as her companions’ and she looked as if she might drop the child at any moment.
They all formed a rough line in front of Meriel. “These are the chosen supplicants today, Banrion Ard,” Siúr Martain said.
Three supplicants. She knew that there had been several more when the keep’s gates had opened this morning— she’d watched them enter from the window of her private chambers high up in the keep: the lame, the sick, the deformed, the broken; a crowd of perhaps three double-hands or more, all of whom Siúr Martain had interviewed. That was the Hand’s task, each and every day that Meriel was in Dún Laoghaire as well as when she traveled throughout the Tuatha. Meriel was desperately glad such decisions were no longer hers.
She went first to the man with the crutch. She touched Treoraí’s Heart, on its chain that was nearly as heavy as the torc around her neck. The Heart was a cloch na thintrí, one of the stones of magic—and at the same moment her fingers brushed its surface, she put her hand on the man’s shoulder. She released a trickle of the energy that was captured within the pale blue cloch, letting it carry her awareness into the man. She could see the poorly-healed fracture in the lower leg and the knob of scar tissue where the break had healed crookedly. There was genuine pain there, but not so much that she recoiled. She released the Heart with a quiet sigh.
“Can you walk?” she asked him. “Without the stick?” The man’s eyes widened. Siúr Martain came over to him and held out her hand to take the crude cane. He handed it to her and took a tentative step, then another. He smiled. “Thank you, Banrion Ard,” he said. She could see tears welling in his eyes. Meriel returned the smile.
“Your thanks should be for the Mother-Creator, and for the Créneach Treoraí who gave us his own Heart,” she told him. “Not for me. I’m just a vessel.” She smiled again at him, patting his shoulder as she nodded to Siúr Martain—they both knew that Meriel had done nothing at all. The man’s leg was still as crooked as ever; she had only given him a reason to ignore the pain. “Go on, then. One of the Hand’s aides will see you out of the keep.” He mumbled his thanks again and walked from the Heart Chamber, limping visibly but leaving the staff of hickory behind.
Meriel turned to the Riocha woman, who had sidled away from the litter beside her. She noted that though the woman was well-attired and bejeweled, she wore no ring or chain with a marriage signet. “This is the Bantiarna Fainche MacKeough,” Suír Martain told Meriel as the woman curtsied again. “She suffers badly from lackbreath.”
“Bantiarna,” Meriel said. “I certainly know the MacKeough name. They’ve served the Tuatha well over the years.”
“Thank you, Banrion Ard.” Even with the initial greeting, Meriel could hear the wheezing from the woman’s lungs. She was unable to get more than a few words out at a time before pausing for breath. Her face was pasty and gray, the eyes sunken and ringed with unhealthy brown. “My da is Tiarna Blake MacKeough. We have our land near Taghmon in Tuath Éoganacht.”
“Aye. I was introduced to your da at the Festival of Méitha last year, as I recall.” She took a step closer to the bantiarna, closing her hand quickly around Treoraí’s Heart again as she took the woman’s hand. Meriel found herself taking a breath as she let herself merge with the young woman. Mother, it hurts to breathe . . . Each breath was a struggle, and her chest muscles ached from the exertion, and yet she could gain little more than a sip of air. Her lungs felt as if a great weight were sitting on them, and she coughed—a barking, thin sound laced with thick phlegm. She felt also the despair inside the bantiarna: All the nights where I lay there unable to sleep, fighting for every breath and wondering if this were the night I was going to die . . . The looks of sympathy from the men Da would bring to the house, but none of them would want a wife who would almost certainly die early, who would probably never give them an heir or even manage their house . . . the almost angry glare I’d sometimes catch on Da’s face when he looked at me gasping for breath . . .
Meriel released Treoraí’s Heart with a gasp. Cool, sweet air filled her lungs. “It’s so difficult for you, Bantiarna,” she said quietly. “I know. I understand.” She nodded to her, then turned to the man on the litter.
The two carriers stared at Meriel with wide, almost frightened eyes, stepping back from the litter as she approached; the pregnant woman stared also but stayed resolutely near the litter, though she looked like she wanted to bolt from the room. The man on the litter continued to groan, his eyes closed. He seemed oblivious to anything, lost in his pain. Meriel crouched down alongside the man, feeling the pull of Treoraí’s Heart as it yearned to be used. Her fingers absently brushed the stone as she spoke.
“Who are these people, Siúr Martain?”
“The injured man’s name is Cristóir Barróid, Banrion Ard,” Áine told her. “The woman is his wife, and the men with him are cousins. His horse fell on him a week ago, and he’s no longer able to be in the fields or keep his sheep.”
“The work’s hard enough, Banrion Ard,” one of the men against the wall said, “an’ we canna be there every da
y to work his land and our own besides. Marta’s heavy with their first child, as you can see, an’ besides Cristóir needs to be looked after all day. It would’a been more merciful if—” He stopped as Marta shot a venomous look at him.
Meriel nodded. She looked at Marta, cradling her heavy stomach with her hands. Her gaze was pleading and worried.
Meriel took Treoraí’s Heart in her left hand, and there was an audible intake of breath from one of the cousins as they saw the white scars that lined that hand. Meriel smiled reassuringly at them and closed her fingers around the cloch. She let her mind fall into the linkage between herself and the jewel. She saw with doubled sight yet again, her own vision overlaid with the bright world of the cloch. There, in the cloch-vision, she could see the red-orange mass of this man’s pain. She touched his arm, and the ruddy landscape rushed toward her, the tendrils of his agony lashing out toward her. She gasped at its touch but allowed herself to sink farther into him, to be him. Cristóir’s thoughts rose in her head as if they were her own. He knew nothing about where he was now. The constant pain overlaid everything, and his thoughts rested nowhere—. . . Mother, it hurts . . . the damned horse . . . when will this end . . . can’t bear it can’t bear it much longer . . . She could hear him screaming inside, a wail of torment that racked every muscle in his body though he remained nearly silent. The scream drowned out nearly everything else, yet . . . the internal howl contained more than just pain: there was a terrible worry and concern for Marta, for his unborn child, for the work undone on his small piece of land. There was despair, a certainty that he would die or, far worse, be trapped like this forever.
Meriel sobbed with him, helpless, her own emotions tied to his. She let herself drift through him, examining the bloody wreck of his body as she fought to keep her own identity separate from his: the broken ribs, the internal bleeding, the torn and bruised muscles, the spine that had been fractured. He would live, she saw, but he would never walk again, would never be without great pain, would never be more than a burden to his family.
She forced her fingers to release Treoraí’s Heart, though it ached to be used. She took a long, slow breath, closing her eyes. She could feel them all watching her.
This is the moment I hate. This is the hardest part: choosing. Treoraí’s Heart could be used once before needing to be replenished with the mage-lights that came nearly every night. And each and every day there were more people who came here, with injuries and afflictions as bad or worse than these . . . She couldn’t cure them all, only a bare few.
It’s never easy. It’s never fair . . .
“Bantiarna MacKeough,” she said, opening her eyes again. The woman smiled at her expectantly, and Meriel hated the hopeful expression on the bantiarna’s face. “My Hand will direct you to a healer here in Dún Laoghaire who has potions and herbs that should ease your breathing. I hope that will help you. Siúr Martain . . .” Áine came forward then, taking the bantiarna’s arm before she fully realized what Meriel was saying and escorting her to the door. Áine beckoned to one of her aides in the corridor outside and gave him quick, whispered instructions as the bantiarna turned her head to stare back into the chamber. The look on the young woman’s face was hurt and angry. Meriel had seen that look many times before. Too many times.
Áine came back into the room as Meriel turned to Marta. “The Heart will bring Cristóir back to you,” she said.
The woman nodded, silent, her eyes shining, biting at her lower lip as if to stop from crying.
Meriel took Treoraí’s Heart in her hand again, kneeling alongside Cristóir’s litter and placing her free hand on his chest. Again the pain and madness and screaming rushed at her, slamming into her like a gigantic sea wave, threatening to pull her under and drown her. Meriel fought to hold onto herself as Cristóir’s world merged with hers. . . . let me die let me die . . . Despair was sickly pus yellow; pain was fiery red. The colors lanced into her and she heard herself screaming as one with Cristóir. The part of her that was Meriel responded: this time she allowed the energy to flow out unrestrained from the cloch and she directed its path—where she let the power touch, the red heat subsided to yellow, fading through pale green, then blue to white before the false colors faded entirely. She took the broken bones in her mind, let Treoraí’s Heart knit them back together whole and smooth. She closed the wounds inside him and healed them. She salved the bruises and repaired the torn muscles and tendons.
She felt herself shudder as Cristóir’s eyes flew open, as the haze of pain receded like a morning fog. “Marta?” he said through dry and cracked lips, and Meriel spoke the woman’s name at the same time.
“Banrion Ard,” she heard Áine say as if from some great and vast distance. “It’s done. You may come back now.” Meriel sighed, letting her fingers relax around Treoraí’s Heart. The mage-scars stood out prominently on her hand and arm, pure white and raised. As the cloch dropped from her grasp, the sense of being two people fell away, the shock of the release causing her to reel backward in Áine’s waiting arms. The Hand helped Meriel to her feet as the final vestiges of Cristóir’s thoughts fell away from her. Cristóir was sitting up on his litter, Marta crying on her knees alongside him as they embraced each other, and the two cousins were gaping in wonder at the scene. Meriel’s left hand throbbed and ached, and she flexed stiff fingers, her whole arm trembling from the exertion of being a conduit for the mage-forces held within the now-emptied Treoraí’s Heart.
Someone cleared their throat near the door, and Meriel saw one of the pages for the keep standing there, his head discreetly lowered so his gaze was on the brightly-tiled floor. “Aye?” she asked the boy, and his head lifted.
“Banrion Ard, the Banrion Mac Ard asks that you meet with her,” the page said. His gaze flicked once over to Cristóir and Marta, still embracing tearfully without seeming to notice the others. Meriel grinned at Áine. “A good choice, I hope,” Meriel said, and Áine smiled briefly. “Escort the Banrion to the south porch,” Meriel told the page. “Tell her that I’ll be there directly.”
“Have you heard recently from the twins or Owaine?”
With the question, Meriel smiled. “Aye, all of them,” she said. “Sevei’s doing well at Inishfeirm, or so Máister Kirwan tells me. He thinks she might be ready for a cloch na thintrí of her own. Sevei wrote me a letter herself—she evidently has a beau there, someone named Dillon—one of the Ó’Baoill clan. She’ll be coming back here with her gram, though she doesn’t know it yet. And Owaine sent a message bird that arrived yesterday. He and Kayne should already have passed the Bunús Wall. I’ll be glad to have them home again, finally, also. And safe, thank the Mother.”
Edana, seated across a small table from Meriel, smiled in return. Meriel’s hand, cupped now around a mug of kala bark tea, still ached from using Treoraí’s Heart; Edana’s hand stretched over the linen to touch Meriel’s in mute sympathy. The keep servants had placed refreshments on the inner porch of Dún Laoghaire Keep. A quartet of gardai stood discreetly away from them on either side—with Edana as the Banrion of Dún Laoghaire and Meriel the Banrion Ard of all the Tuatha, they were rarely alone and unguarded outside their private chambers. On the grassy sward before them, Ennis, almost two double-hands of years of age and the youngest of Meriel’s children, was examining a map of Talamh an Ghlas under the supervision of his attendant-tutor Isibéal, a woman of perhaps thirty. The boy’s face was solemn and intent as he pressed his finger down on the parchment and asked Isibéal an unheard question. Ennis was always serious; sometimes, Meriel thought, too much so for such a young child. She wished he were playing with a ball or chasing butterflies rather than pressing his nose to a piece of yellowed, dusty paper.
“He should be out more,” Edana said, as if guessing Meriel’s thoughts. “I know a good family with holdings near Tuath Gabair who would be happy to take him in fosterage for a time—they have sons his age. Here in Dún Laoghaire, there’s so little for him. I think that’s why he’s so quiet and intens
e. Born with the caul over his face . . . well, you know what they say about that.”
Meriel smiled indulgently toward her son. “What’s the matter with him?” Meriel had said, worried and exhausted after the long labor. The two midwives were glancing nervously at each other, but Keira, the old Bunús woman who was also the Protector of the old forest Doire Coill, clucked angrily at them and took the child, holding it up. Edana saw the pale blue membrane over the infant’s face, like a translucent mask. Already, Keira was wiping it away with her hand as the baby squalled its irritation.
“Give me a piece of blank parchment,” Keira snapped at one of the midwives. “Now! Go, woman.” Then she turned back to Meriel. “You have another son,” Keira told her, much more gently. “And born with a caul . . . He will be gifted, Meriel.”
“Gifted?”
“Those with the caul are often given second sight. And the color of the caul and the size of it . . .” The midwife came scurrying back with the parchment. Keira had laid the baby down alongside Meriel. She took the membrane of the caul and pulled it slowly away from the child, placing it on the parchment. The Bunús studied it, biting at her lower lip. Her rheumy eyes, already enfolded in deep wrinkles, seemed lost as she frowned. “He’ll be a strong one, this one. A natural mage . . .”
“And Isibéal?” Edana said, the question taking Meriel away from her reverie. “She seems to be working out well.”
Meriel nodded. “Aye. I had misgivings, but with her references from Banrion Taafe . . . When Doyle comes back from Lár Bhaile, thank him for me for suggesting her. But you didn’t come here to talk about Ennis.”
Edana glanced away toward Ennis and Isibéal. “No,” she answered finally. “I’m . . . worried, Meriel.”