Heir of Stone (The Cloudmages #3) (6 page)

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 that 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.

“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 watching 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?”

Máister Kirwan shook his head. “His branch of the family is from Tuath Connachta. Dillon’s da is a third cousin to the Rí. Most of our acolytes from the Tuatha are from Connachta or Infochla now; the others go to the Order of Gabair for training.”

Jenna’s face crumpled into a quick scowl at the mention of Gabair. She shook her head and turned back to Sevei. “So, is it serious?” Jenna asked her. “I hope you’re not considering marriage—that’s for politics, not love.”

“Gram!”

Jenna sniffed. “Oh, don’t be so dramatic, Sevei. You’re old enough to know love and smart enough to understand the consequences. I don’t know that I’d trust a Connachtan too far. Your loyalty is to Dún Laoghaire and Inish Thuaidh, equally.”

“To you and Mam, you mean,” Sevei answered evenly. “You don’t know Dillon, Gram. I do.”

“Is it love, then, or just infatuation?”

“More than infatuation,” Sevei answered. “And maybe love.” She felt her cheeks color. “Or, aye, I’d think it’s love, Gram.”

Jenna shook her head, but there was a faint smile on her lips as she leaned back in the chair. For a moment, her face twisted as if with some inner pain and her lips tightened, then relaxed again. “I should meet this young man while I’m here, then. Bring him to supper tonight in my chambers.” She took a long drink of the kala bark tea and pushed herself up from the chair. She moved like a woman much older than her true age. “Now, I have business to tend to. I think half the court of Dún Kiil traveled with me, and the Comhairle insists that all this session’s proposals have to be settled before I can leave for Dún Laoghaire. So . . .” She glanced at Máister Kirwan, and again Sevei saw a look almost of affection pass between them. “Mundy has something for you, Sevei. You’ll go with him, and I’ll meet you tonight for supper—with this Dillon Ó’Baoill of yours. We’ll leave Inishfeirm within the week.”

“Is Greada going with us also?”

“No,” Jenna answered shortly, without elaboration. Sevei wasn’t surprised at that: Sevei’s great-da Kyle MacEagan and Jenna seemed to have a placid if passionless marriage and were rarely together except for court occasions. Though Sevei loved her great-da and enjoyed his company, he lived most of the year attending to his duties in his clan’s ancestral keep in Dún Madadh, in his townland of Be an Mhuilinn rather than in the capital of Dún Kiil.

Jenna came around the desk and Sevei went to her, hugging the smaller woman and kissing her cheeks. “It’s good to see you again, Gram,” she said.

“And you, Sevei. You’ve become a young woman without my realizing it.” Jenna’s arms tightened around Sevei again for a moment before loosening. Sevei saw her glance again at Máister Kirwan. “That makes this visit all the more important,” she said. “We’ll talk later.”

Máister Kirwan had come over to Jenna; she took his arm as she walked to the door. Outside, Mahon MacBreen, the captain of the Banrion’s personal gardai, waited for her. He nodded to Máister Kirwan as Jenna transferred her arm to his. “I’ll talk with you later, also, Mundy,” Jenna said. “Perhaps I can convince you to come to Dún Laoghaire with us.”

With that, she turned to walk slowly down the ancient stone corridor of the White Keep. Acolytes passing in the hall stepped aside to let her pass, their heads bowed respectfully, then chattered in bright excitement as they moved on.

Máister Kirwan still held the door open. He inclined his head to Sevei. “Come with me,” he said.