Holder of Lightning tc-1 Read online

  "Where is he now?"

  "Inside. Lots of other people there now, too. You can go in if you want."

  Jenna glanced at the tavern, where yellow light shone through the streaks of gray rain. "I might. Can I leave the barrow here?"

  "Sure."

  There were at least a dozen people in the dim, smoky interior of the tavern, unusual in mid-afternoon. The stranger sat at a table near the rear, talking with Aldwoman Pearce. Jenna caught sight of a narrow face with a long nose, brown eyes dark enough to be nearly black, and a well-trimmed beard, a slight body clad in rich clothing, a delicate hand wrapped around a mug of stout. His hair was long and oiled, and the line of a scar interrupted the beard halfway to the left ear. Jenna could hear his voice as he spoke with Aldwoman Pearce, and it was as smooth and polished as his clothing, bright with the accent of the upper class and permeated with a faint haughtiness. The others in the tavern were pretending not to watch the stranger’s table, which made it all the more obvious that they were.

  Coelin was there, also, sitting at the bar with a mug of tea and a plate of scones in front of him,

  talking with Ellia. Tara was in the rear of the tavern, hanging the pot over the cook fire. Jenna went over and stood next to Coelin, ignoring the barbed glance from Ellia, behind the bar.

  "Who is he?" Jenna asked.

  Coelin shrugged. "Riocha. A tiarna from Lar Bhaile, if he's to be be-lieved. The Tiarna Padraic Mac Ard, he says."

  "What's he talking to Aldwoman Pearce about?"

  Coelin shrugged, but Ellia leaned forward. "Mam says he asked about the lights-didn't Aldwoman Pearce foretell that the other night? Says he saw them in Lar Bhaile from across the lough. When Mam told him how they were flickering around Knobtop, he asked to speak to the Ald."

  "Maybe he'll want to speak with you, Jenna," Coelin said. "You were up there that night."

  Jenna shivered, remembering, and shook her head vigorously. She thought of those dark eyes on her, of those thin lips asking questions. She thought of the stone in its hole in the wall of her cottage.

  "No. I didn't see anything that you didn't see here. Let him talk to the Ald. Or some of the others here who say they saw all sorts of things with the lights."

  Coelin snorted through his nose at that. "They saw things with the ale and whiskey they drank that night and their own imaginations. I doubt Tiarna Mac Ard will be much interested in that."

  "Why's he interested at all?" Jenna asked, glancing over at him again. "They were lights, that's all, and gone now." Mac Ard's eyes glittered in the lamplight, never at rest. For a moment, their gazes met. The contact was almost a physical shock, making Jenna take a step back. She looked away hurriedly. "I should go," she said to Coelin and Ellia.

  "Ah, ''tis a shame," Ellia said, though her voice was devoid of any sor-row at all.

  "Come back tonight, Jenna," Coelin said. "I made up a song about the lights, like you suggested."

  Despite her desire to be away from Mac Ard and the tavern, Jenna could not keep the smile from her lips, though the pleased look on Ellia's face dissolved. "Did you now?"

  Coelin tilted his head and smiled back at her. "I did. And I won’t sing it unless you’re there to hear the verses first. So will you come?"

  "We’ll see," Jenna said. Mac Ard was still looking at her, and Aldwoman Pearce turned in her chair to glance back also. "I really need to go now."

  As Jenna rushed out, she heard Ellia talking to Coelin- "Keep your eyes in your head and the rest of you in your pants, Coelin Singer. She’s still just a gawky lamb, and not a very pretty one at that…" — then the door closed behind her. The cold rain struck her face, and she pulled the cowl of her coat over her head as she ran through the puddles to the barn and retrieved her barrow of peat.

  She hurried back to the cottage through the rain and the fog.

  Chapter 3: A Song at the Inn

  JENNA had just lit the candles on the shelves to either side of the fire-place. The sun was down or lowering-the rain persisted, and the sky slipped from the color of wet smoke to slate to coal as the interior of their house slowly darkened. Maeve was peeling potatoes; Jenna was carding wool. They both heard the sound of slowly moving hooves through the drumming of rain, and Kesh lifted his head from the floor and growled. Leather creaked, and there were footsteps on the flags outside the door. Someone knocked at the door and Kesh barked. Maeve looked at Jenna.

  "Mam, I forgot to tell you. There’s a tiarna who was at Tara’s. ." Maeve set down her paring knife and went to the door, brushing at her apron. She opened the door. Mac Ard stood there, a darkness against the wet night.

  "I’m looking for Maeve Aoire and her daughter," Mac Ard said. His voice was deep and gruff. "I was told this was their home."

  "Aye, ’tis," Maeve answered, and Jenna heard a strange, awed tone in her mam’s voice. "I’m Maeve

  Aoire, sir. Come in out of the wet, won't you?"

  Maeve stood aside as the man ducked his head and entered. Kesh growled once, then slunk away toward the fire. "Jenna, put your coat on and take the tiarna's horse out to the barn. At least it'll be dry there. Go on with you, now."

  By the time Jenna got back, Mac Ard was sitting at the table with a plate of boiled potatoes, mutton, and bread, and a mug of tea in front of him. Kesh sat at his feet, waiting for dropped crumbs. His boots and cloca were drying near the fire. Maeve sat across from him, but she wasn't eating. Her face was pale, as if she might be frightened, and her hands were fisted on the table, fingers curled into palms. She glanced up as Jenna came through the door, shaking water from her hood and sleeves. "It's not raining as hard as it was," she said, wanting to break the silence. "I think it'll stop soon."

  Her mam simply nodded, as if she'd only half heard. Mac Ard had turned in his chair, the legs scraping across the floorboards. "Sit down, Jenna," he said. "I'd like to talk with you."

  Jenna glanced at her mam, who gave her a slight nod. Jenna didn't sit, but went over to Maeve, standing behind her, and resting her hands on her Mam's shoulders even as Maeve reached up to pat Jenna's hand reas-suringly. One corner of Mac Ard's mouth lifted slightly under the beard, as if he found the sight amusing.

  "I didn't expect to hear the surname Aoire, so many miles from the north," he commented. He stabbed a potato with a fork, brought it to his mouth, and chewed. "It's an uncommon name hereabouts, to be certain. Inishlander in origin."

  "My husband was from the north," Maeve answered. "From Inish Thuaidh."

  "Husband?"

  "He's dead almost seventeen years, Tiarna Mac Ard. Killed by bandits on the road."

  Mac Ard nodded. He blinked, and the dark eyes seemed softer than they had a moment before. "I'm sorry for your loss," he said, and Jenna thought she heard genuine sympathy in his voice. "For a woman as well-spoken and comely as yourself, he must have been an exceptional person for you to never have remarried. This is his daughter?"

  Maeve touched Jenna’s hands. "Aye. She was still a babe in arms when Niall was murdered."

  Another nod. "Niall Aoire. Interesting. Niall’s not an Inish name, though. In fact, my great-uncle was named Niall, though he was a Mac Ard." The tiarna sipped at the tea, leaning back in his chair. He seemed to be waiting, then took a long breath before continuing. "Four nights ago, I was standing on the tower of the Ri’s Keep in Lar Bhaile, when I saw colors flickering on the black waters of the lough. I looked up, and I could see the glow in the sky as well, to the north and west beyond the hills. They were nothing I’d ever seen before, but I’d heard them described, in all the old folktales. Mage-lights."

  He drummed the table with his fingers. "A dozen or more generations ago, I’m told, my own ancestors were among the last of the cloudmages as the mage-lights in the sky weakened. Then the lights vanished entirely, and with them the power to perform spells. If you listen to the old tales, with the lights also went other magics as well: that of mythical creatures and of hidden, ancient places. Now half the people think of those tales as myth and
legend, no more than stories. At times, I’ve thought that, too. But looking at the lights, I felt. ." He tapped his chest, leaning forward, his voice dropping to a hoarse whisper. "I felt them calling me, here. I went running down from the tower, and dragged the town’s Ald back up so that I could show him. ’By the Mother-Creator, those are mage-lights, Tiarna,’ he said. They can’t be anything else. After so long…’ I thought the poor old man might cry, he was so moved by the sight of them. So I asked the Ri’s leave to come here, because they called me, because I wanted to see where they’d chosen to return." His eyes found Jenna, and again she felt the shock of that contact, as if his gaze could actually bruise her. "I’m told that you were up there that night, on Knobtop."

  She wanted to shout denial, but couldn’t, not with her mam there. "Aye," she started to say, but the admission was more squeak than word. She cleared her throat. "I was there."

  "And what did you see?"

  "Lights, Tiarna Mac Ard. Beautiful lights, rippling and swaying." She could not stop the awe the memory placed in her voice.

  "And nothing more?"

  "They flashed at the end, brighter than anything I'd ever seen. Then they were. ." Her shoulder lifted. "Gone," she finished. "I told Kesh to bring the sheep along, and we came back here."

  Mac Ard ruffled Kesh's head and fed him a piece of the mutton. "Strange," he said. "And nothing else happened? Nothing else. . un-usual?" His eyes held her. Jenna found herself thinking of the stone hid-den in the wall in their bedroom, not six strides away from Mac Ard, and of the cold lightning that flared from it and the red-haired man. She could feel her cheeks getting hot, and her mouth opened as if she wanted to speak, but she forced herself to remain silent as Mac Ard continued to stare. She thought that he could see through her, could sense the lie of omission that lay in her gut, burning, all the worse because now she was lying to a Riocha, one of the nobility of the land. Mac Ard's nostrils flared on his thin nose and he almost seemed to nod. Then he blinked and looked away, and the terror in her heart receded.

  "How odd," Mac Ard said, "that the mage-lights would choose to reap-pear here."

  "I'm sure neither of us know why, Tiarna," Maeve told him.

  He pursed his lips. He glanced back once at Jenna before turning his attention to her mam. "I'm sure you don't. Tell me this, Widow Aoire, did you know your husband's family well?"

  Maeve shook her head. "I was born and raised here. The truth, Tiarna, is that I know very little about them, and never at all met any of them. The farthest I've ever been from Ballintubber is Bacathair, a few months after my husband's death. I went there to see if the gardai could help me find out more about how he died, and who the murderers were."

  "And did the gardai help you?"

  Jenna saw Maeve's head move softly from side to side. "No. They had nothing more to tell me than I already knew, nor did they care much about the death of 'some Inishlander.'"

  Mac Ard nodded slowly, contemplatively. "I've taken enough of your time and hospitality," he said. "Let me repay you. I understand that there's a

  young man with an excellent voice who sings at the inn where I'm staying tonight. Come back there with me; be my guests for the evening, both of you. We can talk more there, about whatever you'd like."

  Jenna had to stop herself from grinning, both from relief that the tiar-na's interrogation seemed to be over, and at the suggestion to go to Tara's. Coelin had promised her a song, and she hadn't wanted to ask, with the awful weather. But if the tiarna insisted. .

  "Oh, no, Tiarna," Maeve started to say automatically, then glanced back at Jenna. He smiled at her and nodded, as if they shared a secret.

  "Your daughter wants you to accept," Mac Ard said. "And I would be honored."

  "I don't-" Maeve began. Jenna tightened her arms around her moth-er's shoulders, and felt her sigh. "I suppose we'd also be honored," she said.

  The rain had subsided to a bare, cold drizzle. Mac Ard brought his stallion out from the barn. "You want to ride him?" he asked Jenna. She nodded, mutely. He picked her up, hands around her waist, and placed her side-ways astride the saddle, handing her the reins. He patted the muscular neck, glossy and as rich a brown as new-turned earth. "Behave yourself, Conhal," he told the horse, who snorted and shook his head, bridle jin-gling. "That's a special young woman you hold."

  For a moment, Jenna wondered at that, but then Mac Ard clucked once at Conhal, and the horse started walking, startling Jenna. They moved up the lane to Tara's, Mac Ard and Maeve walking alongside. The tiarna seemed to be paying most of his attention to Maeve, Jenna noticed. His head inclined toward her, and they talked in soft voices that Jenna couldn't quite overhear, and he smiled and, once, he touched Maeve's arm. Her mam smiled in return and laughed, but Jenna noticed that Maeve also moved slightly away from the tiarna after the touch.

  Jenna frowned. Her mam had never paid much attention to the other men in Ballintubber, though enough of them had certainly indicated their interest. She'd always rebuffed them-some gently, some not, but all of them firmly. But this dark man, this Mac Ard… He seemed to like Maeve, and he was Riocha, after all. Maeve had always told her

  how Niall, her da, was strong and protective and loving, and she could imagine that this Mac Ard might be the same way. .

  The conversation inside Tara’s stopped dead when Tiarna Mac Ard pushed open the door of the tavern so that Maeve and Jenna could enter, then, as quickly, the chatter resumed again as everyone pretended not to notice that the tiarna had brought company with him. Tara came out from behind the bar, and shooed away old man Buckles from one of the tables. "What will you have, Tiarna Mac Ard?" she asked with an eyebrows-raised glance at Maeve. Mac Ard tilted his head toward Jenna’s mam.

  "What do you recommend?" he asked.

  " Tara’s brown ale is excellent," Maeve said. She was smiling at Mac Ard, and if she remained a careful step away from him, she also kept her gaze on him.

  "The brown ale, then," Mac Ard said. Tara nodded her head and bus-tled off. Maeve sat across the table from Mac Ard; Jenna went over to where Coelin was tuning his giotar. Ellia was there also, her arm around Coelin. He glanced up, smiling, as Jenna approached; Ellia just stared.

  "So the tiarna found you, eh?" he said. "He came up right after you left and asked where you lived." Coelin glanced over at the table, where Mac Ard’s dark head inclined toward Maeve. Coelin lifted an eyebrow at Jenna. "Seems he likes what he found." Ellia grinned at that, and Jenna frowned.

  "I don’t find that funny, Coelin Singer," she said. She lifted her chin and turned to walk away.

  Coelin strummed a minor chord. "Jenna," he said to her back. "I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you." She looked over her shoulder at him, and he continued. "So what did he ask you? ’She’s the one who was up there,’ he said to me. ’I know this. I can feel it.’ That’s what he told me, before he even knew who you were."

  "What did the tiarna mean by that?" Jenna asked.

  Coelin shrugged. "I’m sure I wouldn’t know. What did he say to you? What did he ask?"

  "He only asked whether I saw the lights, that’s all. I told him that I had, and described them for him."

  "We all saw them," Ellia said. "That’s nothing special. I could describe the lights for him just as easily, if that’s all he wants to know." She tight-ened her arm around Coelin. Jenna looked at her, at Coelin. She tried to find a hint in his bright, grass-green eyes that he wanted her to stay, that her presence was special to him. Maybe if he’d spoken then, maybe if he’d moved away from Ellia, if he’d given her any small sign. .

  But he didn’t. He sat there, looking as handsome and charming as ever, with his long hair and his dancing eyes and his agile, long-fingered hands. Content. He smiled, but he smiled at Ellia, too. And he’d let either of us lift our skirts for him, too, with that same smile, that same contentment. The thought struck her with the force of truth, the way Aldwoman Pearce’s proclamations sometimes did when she scattered the prophecy bones from the bag sh
e’d made from the skin of a bog body. There was the same sense of finality that Jenna heard in the rattling of the ivory twigs. You’re no more to him than any other comely young thing. His interest in you is mostly for the reflection he sees of himself in your eyes. He flirts with you because it is what he does. It means no more than that.

  "I’ll be going back to my table," she said.

  "Stay," he said. "I’ll be singing in a minute."

  "And I’ll hear you just as fine from there," Jenna answered. "Besides, you have Ellia to listen to you."

  A trace of irritation deepened the fine lines around his eyes for a breath, then they smoothed again. His fingers flicked over the strings of his giotar discordantly. Ellia pulled him back toward her, and he laughed, turning his head away from Jenna.

  She went back to the table. Mac Ard was leaning toward Maeve, his arms on the table, his hands curled around a mug of the ale, and her mam was talking.". . Niall would go walking on Knobtop or the hills just to the east, or follow the Duan down to Lough Lar, or go wandering in the forests between here and Keelballi. But he always came back, was never away for more than a week, maybe two at the most. There was a wander-lust in him. Some people never seem satisfied where they are, and he was one. I never worried about it, or thought he was traipsing off with some lass. Once or twice a year,

  I’d find him filling a sack with bread and a few potatoes, and I’d know he would be going. Jenna,"

  Maeve glanced up as Jenna approached, and she smiled softly, "-she has some of that restless-ness in her blood. Always wanting to go farther, see more. I don't know what Niall was searching for, nor whether he ever found it. I doubt it, for he was wandering up to the end."

  Mac Ard took a sip of the ale. "Did you ever ask him?"