S Farrell - Holder of Lightning

agony." Jenna could hear the words underneath what he said: Perhaps you are too stupid and too common to be the First. Perhaps someone of the right background would be better able to use it… O Liathain smiled; he was handsome, with hair black as Seancoim's crow Denmark, and eyes of glacial blue. Thirty, with a body hardened by training and an easy grace, his wife dead two years now leaving him still childless, he turned the heads of most of the available women in the keep, even without the added attraction of his title. He knew it, also, and smiled back at them indul-gently.

But not at Jenna. Not at Maeve. Jenna had overheard him talking to the Ri one night, a few days after his arrival. "Why do you keep them?" he asked the Ri, laughing. "Listen to them. Their accents betray their commonness, and their manners are, well, nonexistent. 1 can't believe Mac Ard would be consort-ing with that stupid cow mother of the Holder-if I were going to take one of them to my bed, as disgusting a thought as that is, I would have chosen the girl, who's at least trainable. Better to have left them back scrabbling in the dirt, which is all they're suited for. One of us should take the cloch from this Jenna now, before she truly learns to control it, and be done with the charade… "

She hadn't heard the Ri's answer. She'd slipped away, steeling herself to fight for the possession of

the cloch that night if she had to, trying to stay awake lest the Ri’s gardai enter her bedroom, but eventually exhaus-tion claimed her and she drifted off to sleep, awakening the next morning with a start. But the cloch was still with her, and the Ri Gabair, if anything, seemed almost conciliatory toward her when she saw him later that morning.

She smiled at O Liathain now across the table, but her smile was as artificial and false as his own. "Each cloch tells its Holder the way to best use it, as the Tanaise Rig might learn one day should he actually have a cloch of his own." Her smile widened on its own; O Liathain wore what he thought was a cloch na thintri around his neck; while it was certainly an expensive jewel worthy of a Ri, it pleased Jenna to know that it was simply that, not a cloch na thintri.

O Liathain frowned and fingered the polished facets of his stone on its heavy gilded chain. He looked as if he were about to retort, but the Ri guffawed at the exchange. "You see, Nevan," he said to O Liathain. "The Holder is more than she appears to be. She has an edge on her tongue."

"Indeed, she does," O Liathain replied. He inclined his head to her. ’My pardon." There was a distinct pause before the next word. "Holder," he finished.

Mac Ard speared a piece of mutton with his knife and set it on his plate. "The Tanaise Rig is gracious with his apology," he said, but Jenna and everyone else who heard it knew the tone of his voice and the hard stare he gave O Liathain added another thing entirely: and it was necessary if you didn’t want me to take offense. Maeve touched Mac Ard’s arm and smiled at him. Mac Ard, at least, seemed protective of them, though Jenna noted that while he might spend the night with Maeve, he also hadn’t offered to legitimize the relationship.

Mac Ard was playing his own game. They were all playing their own games. She had already learned that words and actions here were carefully considered, and often held more than one meaning. Jenna was already weary of ferreting out those meanings, especially since she seemed to be the prize at the end of the contest. She wanted straightforward talk again, the easy conversations she’d had back in Ballintubber with her mam or Aldwoman Pearce or the other villagers, words that were simply gentle and kind speech.

Mac Ard smiled at O Liathain; O Liathain smiled

back. Neither one of them meant the gesture. Jenna would have made an excuse, as she often did, that her arm troubled her and she needed to retire. But Maeve leaned toward her. "Patience," she whispered. "Coelin will be singing in a few minutes."

Jenna brightened at that. She endured the barbed conversations around her until the doors at the end of the hall opened and Coelin walked through with his giotar. Mac Ard cleared his throat and leaned toward the Banrion and Ri. "I heard this young man in the village where the mage-lights first appeared, and he recently came to the city. He trained with the Songmaster Curragh, who came here now and again, if you remember. He really has an extraordinary voice, Highnesses. I thought you would enjoy hearing him."

'Well, then, let's hear him," the Ri said. He gestured to Coelin, and pointed. "Stand there, and give us this voice of yours."

Coelin bowed low, his eyes catching Jenna's as he did so. "Is there a song your Highnesses would like to hear?" he asked. "A story that Song-master Curragh used to sing, perhaps?"

The Ri seemed amused by that. "Are you saying your voice is the equal of your Songmaster's, young man?"

Coelin shook his head but the charming grin remained on his face. "Oh, no, my Ri. Songmaster Curragh always said my voice was the better."

There was a moment of silence before the Ri laughed, the rest of the table following his lead a moment later. "He seems to have a healthy ego, at least, Padraic. I suppose that's good. But we'll be the judge of his talent. Give me The Lay of Rowan Beirne, young man."

Mac Ard sniffed, as if the choice surprised him, and Jenna glanced at him curiously. Coelin strummed a chord on his giotar, his eyes regarding the ceiling of the hall as if the words to the song were written there. "A fine choice, Ri Mallaghan. Songmaster Curragh taught me that one, not long before he died. Let me think a moment, and bring back the verses Aye…" Coelin's gaze came back down and he nodded his head to the Ri. "I have it now," he said. His gaze caught Jenna's again, and he winked. He began to sing.

On the cusp of summer Rowan came forth

Bright armor on his chest, around his neck the stone

He saw the army on Sliabh Bacaghorth,

The banners of the Inish waving as Rowan stood alone. .

"Have you heard this song before?" Cianna whispered, leaning toward Jenna. Jenna shook her head.

"I don’t believe so, Banrion," she answered. She wanted to add. . and 1 still won’t have heard it, if you talk to me, but held her tongue.

Cianna glanced at Mac Ard, next to her. "He knows it," she said. "Don’t you, Padraic?"

"I do, Banrion," Mac Ard answered, his voice gruff and low.

"And do you enjoy it?"

"I think ’enjoy’ is too strong a word, Banrion. I find it… illuminating. And an interesting choice for the Ri."

"Indeed." Cianna leaned back then. Jenna puzzled over the exchange for a moment, but then Coelin’s rich voice drew her back, and she re-turned her attention to him, smiling as she watched him perform.

Jenna had indeed heard portions of the tale once or twice, though greatly altered and changed in the retellings. She had heard folktales of the hero Rowan, who had a magic stone-though she hadn’t realized until now that the stone was supposedly the one she held now, or that Rowan was anything other than a mythological figure. What Coelin sang now, though, gave the full background of the tales, and it was a history Jenna had never suspected. Rowan Beirne had been a Holder of Lamh Shabhala more than five centuries before, and the last Holder from Talamh an Ghlas. From the opening stanza on the eve of Rowan’s last day of life, the lay moved backward in time to the hero’s youth, to his first triumphs on the field of battle, to the unsurprising extolling of his skill with the sword and his prowess in battle, and to his consolidation of the smaller tuatha that were numerous around Tuath Infochla at the time.

But that wasn't what startled Jenna. Early in the lay, the verses gave the lineage of Rowan, and it was then that Jenna sat back in her chair, stunned, no longer even hearing Coelin's voice. Rowan's mam was a woman named Bryth, and she held Lamh Shabhala before Rowan. Bryth's surname, before she married Tiarna Anrai Beirne of Tuath Infochla, was Mac Ard.