Heir of Stone (The Cloudmages #3)

by S L Farrell

  Máister Kirwan halted. “Certainly, Banrion. Bráthair, if you’ll go on ahead with Sevei and escort her directly—” he paused to emphasize the word, “—to the women’s wing . . . and see that this time she doesn’t feel a need to use her clochmion.”

  “She won’t, Máister,” Dillon said. Sevei saw him start to grin, then his face went serious as he glanced back at Jenna.

  “Tea,” Dillon said to Sevei as Máister Kirwan shut the door behind them. The grin was back on his face. “I’ll bet she just wants him for tea.”

  She kissed his grin away, and then raised an eyebrow at him. “Tea,” she said firmly. “Or are you calling my gram a liar?”

  “Never,” he answered, his hands out in mock surrender.

  “It’s a good thing,” she told him, “because she and I are alike, and what you say and think about her you also say and think about me.”

  She smiled at Dillon, but the way his eyes narrowed told her that he heard the bones within the words.

  7

  Morning Affairs

  THE ARRUK SNARLED and hissed, raising its long-bladed jaka and swinging it toward Kayne. He brought his sword up to block, but the blade seemed impossibly heavy. Iron rang, and Kayne’s sword went spinning out of his nerveless hands to land in the mud three strides away. Everything seemed to stop and shift into underwater motion. He had forever to notice that his feet were mired to the ankle in the muck of the bog, that his armor and clothing were spattered with blood, that a storm was beginning to blow in from the west and that the battle around him was eerily silent.

  Da was standing at the top of a rise just behind the Arruk, and he held a bow in his hand with an arrow fitted to the string. His Cloch Mór sat untouched and gleaming on his gray léine. Owaine watched, but though the Arruk lifted his jaka again with a roar, swinging it back to make the strike that would kill Kayne, Da didn’t move, didn’t draw back the bowstring and send the arrow into the Arruk’s unprotected back, didn’t bring his hand to his cloch to send the terrible lightning of Blaze down on the creature.

  He just watched. Waiting.

  “Da!” Kayne screamed, but Owaine’s dark eyes only stared, impassive. Desperate now, Kayne tried to leap to one side to regain his sword, but the swampy ground held him fast. He could hear the mud squelching under him, could smell the ripeness of the bog and the rotting flesh odor of the Arruk’s breath. Kayne raised his hand in a useless, hopeless gesture of defense, knowing that the leather wrapping around his arms couldn’t hold back the bite of the notched blade, that his next few breaths would be his last. “Da!” he screamed again.

  Owaine shook his head, mute.

  “Da! Help me!” The blade was sweeping down, as inevitable and bright as the sun . . .

  “Tiarna!” A hand shook him. “Tiarna, wake up!”

  Kayne fluttered his eyes open to find a young woman’s face framed in unruly, long red locks staring at him. Dawn light streamed in through the painted slats of shutters and the remnants of a fire glowed dully in the hearth. Kayne was sweating and tangled in the sheets of the bed; the young woman, sitting up alongside him, was naked. She seemed to realize it belatedly, reaching to bring up the sheet and holding it before her with a tentative smile. “You were shouting in your sleep, Tiarna,” she said. Her voice held the thick Fingerlander accent.

  Kayne blinked, rubbing at his eyes. His head throbbed with the fumes of too much ale. His stomach was sour; his mouth was caked with foul-tasting gunk. He remembered only fragments of the night before: leaving the hall while his da had been speaking, arguing with Harik, and then going back to the hall and drinking until the building seemed to dance a reel about him. He remembered once looking across the room to see Da glaring at him reproachfully, but Kayne ignored him and continued drinking with a group of the gardai. Then, sometime not long before sunrise, he staggered up here with the village lass on his arm. He didn’t know her name; she’d told him, but he hadn’t bothered to remember it—that wasn’t important. She wasn’t the first lowborn tuathánach lass he’d lain with, and he’d made her no promises. He was certain they both knew the boundaries.

  Kayne was well aware of the double standards at work between the classes. He’d learned early on that while he had to be very careful of any dalliance with Riocha women, it didn’t matter if a girl without the proper pedigree turned up big-bellied. It didn’t matter if she claimed the child was that of a Tiarna—any unwed lass might do the same and none could prove it. For all Kayne knew, there might be a half dozen bastard children of his born or swelling the womb of a mam-to-be between here and the plains of Mid Céile Mhór. It would be different for Sevei, for instance, or any Riocha woman. Sevei would be carefully watched, especially with young men of lesser standing. And if Sevei ended up pregnant from such an encounter, it would mean a hasty negotiation between the respective families and almost certainly a marriage.

  There’d be a marriage or Kayne would have the man’s head, no matter what Sevei said.

  “Tiarna?” The girl was staring at him. “You look so fierce. Was it the dream?”

  “Aye,” he told her. “The dream . . .” The reminder brought back the images and he shuddered once, muscles rippling in sinewy forearms. The Arruk’s blade coming down to him; Da watching, just watching . . . His breathing, in response, quickened and he forced it to slow once more, swallowing hard. Someone seemed to be pounding a drumbeat on his temples, and his stomach lurched like a sour sea. “I need to get up . . .”

  Kayne threw back the blankets and stood in the cold of the room, reaching for his clothing. Her hand trailed his spine; he ignored it. “We’ll be mustering in less than a stripe. I have to go. You can stay here as long as you want—I’ll pay the innkeeper for another day and night, if you like.”

  He stood, turning to look down at her. Her face was that of a stranger, her features plain and unremarkable in the dawn light, her cheeks pocked with the scars of some childhood disease, her bright hair tangled and unkempt. There was hurt in her eyes. “If . . . if I come to Dún Laoghaire, Tiarna, you said . . .” She sniffed, rubbing her nose with her hand and wiping it on the bedsheet she held around herself. “. . . you said you would find me a position . . .” Her lower lip was trembling; he thought she would cry in a moment.

  “Come there and I will, lass,” he told her, forcing a smile to his face. It didn’t matter, he told himself. The likelihood was that she would never leave the Finger or come within a week’s journey of Dún Laoghaire. And if by some fluke she did, well, Mam’s staff would take care of it, as they’d taken care of the two local indiscretions Kayne had committed a few years previously: find the girl a lowly position in the household where she wouldn’t come into contact with Kayne or the rest of his family at all. A few mórceints in her purse and she’d be satisfied and properly silent. “I promise.”

  He reached down and let his fingers graze the length of her cheek. She smiled shyly at him and let the sheet drop. “Stay a bit longer?” she asked.

  There was no lust in him, looking at her. He was hungry, he was tired, he wanted desperately to empty his bladder. Looking at her reminded him of the nightmare. Looking at her reminded him how furiously he wanted to be home again. He wondered if Sevei would be there, or if she was still away at Inishfeirm learning the ways of the cloudmage . . . “No,” he told her. “I wish I could stay longer, but no.”

  He turned from her to slide on his clóca so he wouldn’t have to look at her disappointment. He turned his back to her to use the chamber pot, sighing with relief at the bright tinkling. Finally, he picked up his weapons and overcloak from where they lay, the equipment heavy in his hands. “I have to leave now . . .” he said, his voice trailing off.

  “Róise,” she said. “My name is Róise Toibin.”

  He nodded. He didn’t want the name, didn’t want to have to remember it. He wouldn’t remember it; his head hurt too much to make the effort. He fumbled with the leather purse on his belt and slipped out a few mórceints. “Thank you,” he s
aid. “There’s . . . something for you here.” He smiled again at her—a brief, empty lifting of his lips—and left the room before she could speak again. Outside, he leaned against the closed door, taking a long breath. Shaking his head, he went down the corridor to the short stairs and down into the main room of the tavern. The sergeants of the gardai were already there, breaking their fast with biscuits and sausage. A few of them grinned, lifting their mugs of tea in his direction. The innkeeper, his wife, and children bustled around the tables, serving.

  Da and Harik were there also, at the table nearest the stairs. Owaine glanced at Kayne, his gaze shadowed and careful. “You’re ready to ride, Kayne?”

  “Aye, Da,” Kayne answered, and the pain that Owaine allowed to show in his face made Kayne want to apologize for his rudeness of the night before. That’s what the dream was telling you—that you poison the relationship between your da and yourself. Sevei had warned him of that, before she’d gone off to Inishfeirm.

  “Da loves you more than life, Kayne, but he doesn’t understand you. He never will, not the way I do or Mam does. He wants to, but he can’t, and you can’t let yourself blame him for that.” She’d smiled at him then and hugged him. “I know you don’t understand him either,” she’d whispered into his ear. “But you should try. He’s a good man. He has to be, for both Gram and Mam to love him so much.”

  “And you understand Da completely?” he’d wanted to retort, but he’d held the words back. She did have a rapport with their da that he had never been able to manage. Twins, he and Sevei might be, aye, but though they loved each other, the two of them were more different than they were alike. . . .

  “Did you hear me, son?” Owaine was saying. “I said Harik’s going to stay here with five double-hands of the gardai—those who don’t have family to return to—until Rí Airgialla can send troops to watch the border. Harik’s going to go back to the ruins of the Bunús Wall. I want him to see if perhaps we could rebuild it as a defense work against the Arruk.”

  Kayne almost smiled. “I’ll stay, also,” he said. If the Arruk were coming, then he would stay here—he would lead the defense. He would lead the men as his da never had: without timidity and with raw courage.

  “No.” It was Harik who answered. “Tiarna Geraghty has already decided that you’ll return to Dún Laoghaire with him.”

  Kayne drew back, surprised at the temerity of the Hand answering before his da. Harik held Kayne’s gaze, his face carefully unexpressive. Owaine hurried into the tension. “This will be Harik’s command,” Owaine said. “To have you here, Kayne . . .” He shook his head. They all knew what he was saying: Harik MacCathaill might be the Hand but he was only a céili giallnai, one of the minor nobility, and a Riocha couldn’t serve under him, especially not the Banrion Ard’s own son.

  “Then give me the command, Da, and let Harik be my Hand as he’s been yours. I want to stay. There isn’t anything more important that I can do than to protect the border from the Arruk.”

  “No,” Owaine answered. “We’ve already discussed this and the decision’s been made. You’ll come with me; your mam would never forgive me if I left you behind when you were so close.”

  Kayne saw the truth then, coming to him in a flash as it sometimes did, and he spoke it rashly, as he also sometimes did. “Harik has already told you that he wouldn’t serve as my Hand, hasn’t he, Da?” He glared again at Harik, who looked back at him blandly.

  “Harik is the best man to stay here,” Owaine said, and all of them knew that he hadn’t answered the question. “He knows the Arruk and the men trust him. He’s loyal to Dún Laoghaire and the Tuatha and I trust him utterly.”

  “And you wouldn’t trust me.”

  Owaine frowned, and his voice lowered in both volume and tone. “After yesterday, Kayne? After all that you’ve said to me and Harik?” Owaine’s dark eyes held quiet reproach. Then he did answer, and the word was a blade slicing between Kayne’s ribs. “No.”

  “The gardai trust me,” Kayne said, a little too loudly—a few of them glanced over toward their table. “They would follow me—they did follow me. Just yesterday. Or have you forgotten?”

  “They admire your bravery, aye.” Again it was Harik who responded, and Kayne glared at the man’s temerity. “And they smile and tell you what they know you want to hear when you’re in their presence. They give you sweet little flatteries because you’re Riocha and they’re not. When you’re just a garda and a tuathánach, you hide your real thoughts from the Riocha. But do they trust you? Would they give you their lives?” Harik shook his head before Kayne could respond. “I know them, and the answer is ‘no,’ Tiarna. I don’t think they would. They’ve seen your bravery on the field and they admire it, but they also see how reckless it is. The kind of trust a commander needs you haven’t earned yet. Maybe one day you will. But not yet. Not now.”

  Kayne could feel the heat on his face. He wanted desperately to shout at Harik, to demand satisfaction for his harsh words, but Da’s face was steel and he could hear the sudden silence in the tavern as everyone pretended not to watch the three of them talking. He wanted to strike at Harik, to slap the man across the face and bury his words in blood. Every muscle in Kayne’s body felt as taut as a bowstring; he could hear his heart pounding against chest and temple.

  “Kayne!” It was Da’s voice, sharp. “I think you should see to the horses, if you’re not going to sit down and break bread with us. My decision’s made and it’s the right one. If you’re going to be a soldier, then right now you need to act like one and obey your orders.”

  Kayne trembled, his hands clenched. He was taller than his da by half a head, and younger and stronger. He ached to defy him. He clenched his teeth, hearing them grate against each other. Owaine stared and Harik watched: Kayne knew that if he moved, so would the Hand. “Aye, Tiarna Geraghty, Hand MacCathaill,” Kayne answered finally, almost spitting the words. “I’ll go see to the horses, then. I’ll be glad to put my back to this filthy shite-hole of a village and those who will be staying anywhere near it.”

  With that, he stalked out of the tavern. “Let him go, Tiarna,” he heard Harik say as he left. As he pushed open the door, he heard the talk begin behind him.

  You don’t want to like these people. You don’t want to admire them . . .

  Isibéal and Ennis watched through the grillwork at the end of the Heart Chamber, masked behind a screen of plants and draperies. There were five supplicants this morning in the Chamber, standing just behind Siúr Martain, the Hand of the Heart. Banrion Edana and Tiarna Doyle Mac Ard had also joined the Banrion Ard in the Chamber. Isibéal shivered: two Clochs Mór and Treoraí’s Heart all in the same room; two Banrions and a cloudmage—so much power was concentrated here.

  And one of them was Doyle Mac Ard, brushing back his long, fiery red locks. Seeing Tiarna Mac Ard here, so close, made her suck in her breath harshly enough that Ennis looked up at her.

  “We have to be very quiet,” Ennis told Isibéal with an overserious expression on his face. “Sevei showed me how to get back here before she left, but she said that Mam would be angry if she ever knew we were watching her, and the blue ghosts have shown me what would happen then.”

  “Then let’s not talk,” she whispered back to Ennis. “Just watch . . .”

  Isibéal cradled the boy on her lap and leaned in closer to the grille. The stone flags of the little alcove behind the chamber were cold on her bare feet. She could hear the voices faintly from the other end of the Heart Chamber.

  “Thank you, Siúr Martain,” the Banrion Ard said. “I appreciate all you’ve done today.” Through the grille, Isibéal saw the woman bow to Meriel. The Banrion Ard, holding Treoraí’s Heart in her left hand, walked over to the supplicants. Most of them lowered their heads as she approached, not daring to look at her directly; two of them, standing slightly apart from the others and, from their dress, obviously Riocha, did not; they met Meriel’s gaze. The Banrion Ard moved slowly down the line, pausing in front
of each one. There was conversation between the supplicants and Meriel, though it was so soft and garbled by the echoes in the hall that Isibéal couldn’t hear it. One of the supplicants, a woman with a bandage holding a greasy poultice of some sort to her head, gasped as Meriel spoke to her. She gave a shout of glee, ripping the poultice from her head, and the Banrion Edana and Tiarna Mac Ard applauded softly. The woman sank to her knees in front of Meriel, kissing the hand clutching Treorai’s Heart.

  “She’s not really the one,” Ennis whispered to Isibéal. “Mam says that many of those who come to her fix themselves somehow. She said maybe it’s just the Mother-Creator working on Her own. She’ll use the cloch with the lady who has the black hair.”

  “Why do you say that, Ennis?” Isibéal saw nothing special about the woman. The others all seemed to suffer from obvious physical deformities: a withered arm; a leg whose bandage seemed to be seeping some dark pus; the wrinkled, shiny scars of horrible burns on flesh. The black-haired woman—dressed in a ragged, torn léine and soiled woolen clóca—appeared healthy enough compared to the others, with no visible problem.

  “I just know,” he answered, snuggling up against her. “Can’t you see the blue ghosts?” Isibéal clasped her arm tighter around him, the movement instinctive and maternal. She remembered the child she’d lost—he’d been Ennis’ age, almost exactly, and sometimes when she held Ennis, she leaned in and smelled him, and he smelled like Adimu had. She could imagine she was holding her own son again . . . You don’t want to feel sympathy for these people . . .

  Meriel had stopped in front of the black-haired woman. She spoke, and the woman answered so softly that Isibéal could hear nothing. “Her sickness is inside,” Ennis said with a certainty that was curiously adult. “Mam says that’s the hardest thing to heal with her stone. She says it’s hard, too, because no one else can see it, and they sometimes wonder why she chose that person.”