by S L Farrell
“About?”
A hand lifted from the tablecloth and fell back. “Rumblings,” Edana said. “Some of my ears among the Riocha are telling me that there’s been strong talk lately—about you, and about your mam. About Jenna’s visit here and what it implies.”
Meriel would have laughed at that in dismissal had Edana’s face not been so serious. “There have always been rumblings like that,” she said. “For how many years now? Nothing’s ever come of it.”
“I know, but this is different. No Rí or Banrion of Inish Thuaidh has come here in five centuries, and now your mam is coming: the Mad Holder herself.” Meriel blinked and drew back at the term, and Edana pressed her lips together. “I’m sorry, Meriel, but you must know that’s what they’re saying. One of my people in Tuath Connachta said she overheard Rí Fearachan talking about a spy in Inish Thuaidh and how some plan is to be put into action.” Edana hesitated, looking away toward Ennis and Isibéal, and Meriel could sense that she was considering her next words. “The discontent among the Riocha is higher now than it has been since you became the Ard,” she said finally. “It’s been building for the last year, since you sent the troops to Céile Mhór.”
Meriel was already shaking her head. Sending out the army hadn’t been a choice she’d wanted to make. Sending soldiers off to war was never a decision with which she could be comfortable, especially since her husband and oldest son were among them. But the reports from Céile Mhór had been so dire and terrifying. The Arruk, vile creatures flooding into the peninsula from their homelands in Thall Mór-roinn, had pushed their way relentlessly north, killing and destroying as they went, and the Thane of Céile Mhór had finally sent a desperate plea for help to Dún Laoghaire. The discussion had raged for days when she’d called the Comhairle of Ríthe together. “Céile Mhór may be far from the Tuatha, but those are our cousin Daoine who the Arruk were killing and they are the buffer between us and the Arruk. If they fall, then the Arruk will inevitably come here and it will be our families who are slain and our fields trampled underneath. We need to—no, we must—answer the Thane’s call.” To demonstrate the seriousness of her belief, she had named Owaine as the commander for the Tuathaian army that would be sent, though the decision had made her tremble, and Kayne—full of youthful conviction and fervor—would not be left behind either. Yet though they’d all finally agreed, when the troops had assembled, the Ríthe had sent far fewer soldiers to her than promised. . . .
“The Arruk left us no choice,” she said to Edana. “We both know the arguments.”
“I agree, but . . .”
Meriel raised an eyebrow. “But?”
“You complained at the lack of troops from some of the Tuatha, but while Inish Thuaidh sent clansfolk, they didn’t offer any cloudmages at all, and Lámh Shábhála remained at home.”
“It’s that old complaint again? ‘The First Holder doesn’t do enough with her power. If I had it . . .’ Did you really expect Mam to go riding off to war with Lámh Shábhála?”
“I wouldn’t expect that at all,” Edana answered, and there was a sharpness buried in her words that indicated she expected very little of the Banrion of Inish Thuaidh in any case. “Meriel, you know the affection I have for you, so forgive me when I say that in some ways I must agree with that complaint. The First Holder hasn’t used Lámh Shábhála as much or as well as she could, and it’s well past time for Inish Thuaidh to become part of the Tuatha and under the control of Dún Laoghaire. Now, your invitation for the First Holder to come here and your treatment of Inish Thuaidh as if it were an entirely independent land is causing the anger of the Riocha to boil.”
Meriel felt her face flush with the criticism. “All the money and artisans Mam sent to rebuild Falcarragh, all the treaties she’s signed, the trade we now have between us, the peace that has existed between the Tuatha and Inish Thuaidh since that time . . . over three hands of years now, there’s been peace between the Tuatha. I would say that she’s done all she need do, and perhaps more. What do they expect of her: to ride all over Talamh An Ghlas and use Lámh Shábhála to plant the fields or clear the bogs or create whole new towns of sparkling stone? Even if she did that, the Riocha would all be complaining that she was planting the wrong crops and stealing their peat and that the streets in the new towns were too narrow. They’d come here screaming about her trespassing on their lands and insisting that she go back home.”
Meriel realized that Edana was waiting patiently and closed her mouth on the remainder of the tirade. “I’m sorry,” she told Edana. “I know that you’re giving me an honest evaluation of how you see things, and I appreciate that. It’s just . . . well, she’s my mam. Go on, say what you wanted to say.”
Edana’s hand brushed her again, the touch of a good and familiar friend. “I know she’s your mam, Meriel. I know you feel a need to defend her because of that. But ...” Edana shook her head as if she’d changed her mind about what she wanted to say. “I look at what you’ve done with Treoraí’s Heart, and I wonder what you could have done if Lámh Shábhála had been around your neck after Falcarragh.”
Meriel remembered the Battle of Falcarragh all too well. They were memories that would never fade: the terrible destruction, the death, the undeniable insanity of her mam at that time and the sacrifice that had been required to save her. Sometimes, she’d wondered herself at the cost. “Edana . . .”
The woman sighed quietly. “I know. You didn’t want the great cloch, and I understand that, too, even if Doyle never will. But you need to understand that the voices against the First Holder are rising again, especially since she chose not to lend her aid to Céile Mhór. And the voices are rising against you, because you did. The Ríthe see her arrival here as a symbol—one that diminishes them and favors her, and they hate her. They will always hate her.”
“What you’re saying is that there’s no path I could follow that would appease them.”
A shrug. “You have enemies: some of them old, some of them newer. Some Ríthe who wouldn’t mind being Ard themselves, or Riocha who think that by bringing you down they’ll increase their own standing, or that they might gain Lámh Shábhála or one of the Clochs Mór, or those who simply are angry because you so often choose to help the common folk over Riocha with Treoraí’s Heart.”
Meriel remembered the look on Bantiarna MacKeough’s face, just a few stripes of the candle ago—she could well imagine that she had made another enemy there. “The Riocha have money and servants to help them. The tuathánach have only themselves.”
Edana’s hand rose and floated down again like an autumn leaf. “I know. I don’t fault your choices, and I can only imagine how difficult they must be for you. I’m only saying that they gain you more enemies than friends among those who have the most influence, and that those Riocha you’ve passed over to help some sheepherder instead of them will resent your choice. I’m worried that the voices are on the verge of being no longer just words, that someone may attempt to do something more.”
Meriel could see the true concern in Edana’s eyes. She wondered if there were more. “Would Doyle’s be one of these voices you’re hearing?” she asked, and the twist of Edana’s mouth told her more than the woman’s reply.
“I don’t know. I hope not. He’s said nothing to me, but in truth . . . Well, of late we spend more time apart than together. He’s always in Lár Bhaile on some business of the Order of Gabair, or up in Infochla looking after his family’s estate, or visiting one of the children. Dún Laoghaire doesn’t interest him—or me, I’m afraid.”
The recent estrangement between the two was no secret to Meriel; she and Edana had spoken of it often enough over the last months, but the open pain in Edana’s voice made Meriel wonder. “Has something more happened . . .”
The woman shook her head. “No, there’s nothing new there. Meriel, I just want you to be careful. I’ve also heard that Owaine’s returning with less than a third of the soldiers who left and no victory—aye, I see the truth of tha
t in your face, and if I know this, then so do others, and that’s also going to cause a furor. You need to be careful.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll protect you, Mam.”
Ennis’ voice startled both of them. The boy had crept up unnoticed close to the railing of the porch. He was looking at Meriel with a look of such utter seriousness that she wanted to laugh and cry at the same time. “If someone hurts you, I’ll hurt them back,” he told her. His small hands were clenched into fists. “I will. I know it.”
Isibéal came hurrying up. The woman was a half Taisteal, with tightly-curled black hair and olive skin that reminded Meriel of Sevei, a Taisteal woman she had known years earlier, and for whom Meriel had named her own daughter—Sevei had saved Meriel’s life, and in doing so, had died herself. “I’m sorry, Banrions,” Isibéal said. “I was putting away the map and I looked up to see him over here.”
“It’s all right,” Meriel told her. She leaned over the railing and tousled her son’s hair. He grimaced, and she realized that the days were rapidly passing when she could treat him as a child. Already, she was beginning to see in his face the young man he would soon become. “Don’t worry, Ennis,” she told him. “No one’s going to hurt me.” She smiled at him as she said it.
“Aye, they will, Mam,” he insisted, shaking his head. “The blue ghosts told me.”
Meriel frowned. The “blue ghosts” were something Ennis had begun talking about not long after Owaine and Kayne had left for Céile Mhór a year ago. Her other children had indulged in imaginary friends as well, but most of them conveniently vanished after a few months while Ennis had been talking about seeing these creatures for a year now. “They’re what might be,” he’d said, when she’d questioned him about them, and she’d remembered Keira’s words: “He will be gifted, Meriel . . .”
“There aren’t any blue ghosts here,” she told him. “So they couldn’t have told you anything.”
Ennis shrugged. “Well, Aunt Edana thinks so, too.”
“No, she doesn’t,” Edana told him. She pointed at the gardai around the porch. “See? Your mam has people watching out for her. They’ll make sure she’s safe.” Edana’s gaze found Meriel. “We all will,” she said.
Ennis didn’t look as if he was convinced, but when Meriel stood up and helped him over the railing, he hugged her fiercely, and when she tickled him, his laugh rang from the walls of the keep, making them all laugh with him.
4
A Gifting
“IS KAYNE badly injured?” Jenna asked Sevei, her voice trembling with worry. Sevei and Kayne, who had shared Meriel’s womb together, had been Jenna’s first grandchildren. They’d been the only grandchildren for several years before Meriel became pregnant again, and Sevei knew that though Gram loved Tara, Ionhar, and Ennis, it was Sevei and Kayne who would always be Gram’s favorites.
Sevei shuddered at the memory of the vision she’d seen, but she shook her head. She’d seen worse; she’d seen much worse over the last year while Kayne had been in Céile Mhór—flashes of gory battles, of dead and dying men, of the grotesque creatures called the Arruk. This had been almost gentle in comparison. Though she could feel the pain in her brother’s side, she knew he would recover. But she wondered at the vision: the last letter she’d received from Kayne had said they should be returning home by now and she had thought that he had felt closer than any time since he’d left with Da, but there were no Arruk here . . . Had they decided to stay in Céile Mhór a while longer?
“No, Gram,” she told Jenna. “He’s not badly hurt—nothing serious, anyway.”
Gram looked uncertain and her fingers brushed the silver-caged facets of Lámh Shábhála, the stone which had opened the way for all the Clochs Mór and clochsmion, the major and minor stones which could hold the power of the mage-lights. With the gesture, the sleeve of her embroidered léine fell, displaying the white, swirling lines of the scars curling on her stiff right arm, the legacy of the mage-lights. “You’re certain, child?”
“I’m certain, Gram, and I’m not a child. Not anymore. Ask Máister Kirwan; he knows—he’s always watching me.”
Máister Kirwan grunted at that, his eyes narrowing under bushy white eyebrows. He sat on the ledge of one of the windows of his office, like a beam of sunshine caught and hardened. He glanced at Jenna, and Sevei thought she saw more than simple respect for the Banrion in his eyes. The two of them caught each other’s gaze, holding it for a moment . . . then Jenna was staring at Sevei, her mouth twisted in a small half smile as if she were amused.
The Banrion sat in Máister Kirwan’s padded leather chair behind his desk; she looked tiny there, her body hunched over with the inner pain Sevei knew bothered her more and more with each year. Sevei’s mam had tried to ease Jenna’s physical discomfort with Treoraí’s Heart, her own stone, a few years ago, but Jenna’s affliction was beyond the scope of the Healer Ard’s magic—“It’s Lámh Shábhála, Mam,” Meriel had said. “There’s nothing I can do for you.” A scent of spice lingered around Jenna, coming from the mug of kala bark tea in front of her. In the four years since Sevei had been fostered out—first to Dún Kiil and then to Inishfeirm to learn the mage-craft—she’d rarely seen her great-mam without some sign of discomfort twisting the lines of her face, making her look far older than her nearly five double-hands of age. Jenna used kala bark often, and, it was rumored, other more powerful and dangerous painkillers. Rumors also said that she rarely used Lámh Shábhála at all anymore, because the agony of wielding it was more than she could bear. Sevei only knew that she’d never actually seen Gram use Lámh Shábhála.
Jenna took a swallow of the tea, grimaced, and set it back down on the desk with a sharp clack that nearly made Sevei jump.
“No, you’re not a child,” Jenna said, her voice still strong and vital, even if her body was not. Her mouth tightened, dozens of small lines appearing around it. “Mundy—that is, Máister Kirwan—tells me that you’ve been swimming with the seals since the month of Brightflower.”
Sevei felt her face color. She heard Máister Kirwan shift on his window ledge in a rustle of heavy cloth, but she didn’t look at him. “Aye, Gram,” she answered, knowing it was useless to lie. “It was just after the Festival of Fómhar. I thought . . . I mean I know about you . . .” She ducked her head. “. . . about our family, and I wondered, and I heard the seals one night and went down to the beach . . .”
“I allowed her to go, Jenna,” Máister Kirwan interrupted. “I could have warded the doors, but that didn’t stop your daughter when she was here, and I know it wouldn’t have stopped you. You Aoires are extraordinarily stubborn.” He sniffed loudly.
Jenna’s mouth relaxed and she laughed, a crystalline sound that made Sevei relax slightly. “I knew you held the Saimhóir blood when I first saw you, child. I knew the sea would call you as it did me and your mam, even as I knew it would never call to Kayne. Was it the Saimhóir you swam with?” Jenna asked, and Sevei shook her head.
She had always imagined swimming with the Saimhóir whose lineage flowed in her veins: the great blue seals who could speak and use magic, whose fur sparked in the sun, but she’d never seen them, though families of them were reputed to come to the shore of Inishfeirm from time to time. Sometimes she even saw them, in the way that she sometimes saw Kayne or her mam. The whispers were that both Jenna and her own mam had once had lovers among the Saimhóir, and Sevei wondered at what that must be like. She’d wondered about that quite a lot, especially since she and Dillon had become intimate. “No, not the blues, Gram, just the normal browns.”
Jenna closed her eyes. Whatever was in her mind pursed her mouth again, as if she tasted something sour. “The Saimhóir don’t trust the earth-snared changelings, not anymore,” she said, and her eyes opened. “They certainly don’t trust our family.” Sevei nodded solemnly at that and Jenna seemed amused. “So you know that tale also? Not one of my finer moments, I have to say.” By the window ledge, Máister Kirwan coughed, drawing Sevei’s gaze. He was wa
tching Jenna, his eyes soft and gentle, his mouth seeming to smile under the beard.
“Mam always told me that what happened at Falcarragh wasn’t your fault, Gram,” Sevei said. “She said that the madness came because you’d lost Lámh Shábhála and because of the andúilleaf you were taking. She’s never blamed you, Gram. I’ve never once heard her say anything that would make me think that you did any of it deliberately.”
“Your mam is too gentle to say such things,” Jenna answered. “But I’ve blamed myself. And so have many others. I daresay that the Riocha are pleased that I’ve stayed in Inish Thuaidh ever since, and just as angry that I’ve finally accepted Meriel’s invitation to go to Dún Laoghaire. But I do miss my old homeland from time to time, and I wonder at the changes that have taken place there.” She took another sip of the tea. “I’m going to Dún Laoghaire,” Jenna said suddenly. “You’ll be going with me, Sevei.”
Sevei blinked in surprise and dropped her head again, but she could feel Jenna’s gaze probing her. “You don’t seem particularly overjoyed with that news,” Jenna said.
Sevei hesitated. “It’s not that I don’t want to go back,” she said finally. “It’s been so long since I’ve seen Mam, and Kayne should be heading back there with Da, and I haven’t seen the little ones in forever. Why, Ennis must be two double-hands now. It’s just . . . leaving right now . . .”
“What’s the young man’s name to whom you’re so attached?” Jenna asked. That brought Sevei’s head back up. “Oh, don’t look so surprised, child. I haven’t completely forgotten what it’s like to be your age.”
“Dillon Ó’Baoill,” Máister Kirwan interjected, “one of our young bráthairs.” When Sevei, blushing as she remembered her brief hope on the beach, glanced at the Máister, he lifted an eyebrow but said nothing more.
“So he’s an Ó’Baoill,” Jenna repeated. “From Tuath Airgialla, then?”