Heir of Stone (The Cloudmages #3)

by S L Farrell

  “Do you know to whom you’re talking?” Garvan snapped at the old man. “This is Kayne Geraghty, the son of the Banríon Ard herself, and we’ve been attacked.”

  The eyebrows climbed a little higher, but the man still didn’t move. “That may be. Or maybe not—people can say they’re whoever they want and the Mother won’t stop them, will She? One name’s no more impressive than another, anyway—out here in the Finger, we don’t much care for the doings of the Riocha.” Kayne felt anger starting to build in him as the man slowly looked from one to another of them without moving. He thought of drawing his sword and striking the man down where he stood for his insolence—let him complain to the Mother directly if he wanted.

  But the man shrugged even as Kayne’s hand started to move. “But you’re hurt and soaked through, and the Mother helps those who helps others. Come along—there’s a fire, food, and tea enough for all.” With that, he came up to Kayne and took Uilliam’s arm under his own shoulder. “You have the hospitality of my poor house,” he said to Kayne, “especially if you are truly the son of the Healer Ard.”

  A half-stripe later, they were sitting in the warm single room of the farmer’s house, munching on hard bread, cheese, and cold sliced mutton and drinking lukewarm tea. Caolán O Leathlobhair (“The family name means ‘half leper,’ ” the man told them. “My great-da had the affliction, and the name stuck to my own da”) bustled about the room, tearing sheets of old fabric for bandages, bringing water from the well, and talking incessantly. Kayne wondered if the old man talked this much when no one was there.

  “. . . I lost three sons, two daughters, and a wife,” O Leathlobhair was saying. He poured a half-glass of clear poteen into the seeping arrow wound in Sean’s belly, ignoring the man’s moaning as the liquid seared the tissue, then packed the wound and bound it up with the firm hands of someone used to the work. “The Bloody Cough took a son and daughter before they were even old even to be named; lost my last son and wife both while she was trying to birth him. My first son, Kyeil, reached two hands and two of age before he went climbing Tundaer Cliff with a friend and they both fell. Then Aighna, my last daughter and my pride, who looked so much like her mam that it hurt me sometimes to look at her, got caught in the eyes of a Taisteal boy who passed by here a hand of years ago and I haven’t seen her since.”

  Kayne thought that if the Taisteal happened to be a mute it might explain the daughter’s choice, but he said nothing. He stood by the door, staring out through the cracks between the planks at the meadow.

  O Leathlobhair didn’t seem to care whether anyone seemed to be listening or not. “Those were Airgiallaian arrows we took from your friends, Tiarna. I could be wondering how it is that the Banrion Ard’s son was attacked by the Rí Mac Baoill’s troops, and why he’s watching as if they were still chasing him.”

  “It’s none of your business.”

  “Aye. We agree on that. As I said, those here in the Fingerlands don’t much care for the Rí who sits in Dathúil. Morven Mac Baoill is no better than his da Mal—the Mac Baoills are all lowlanders and lake people, and they don’t know the Finger or the clans here at all. All we’re good for is the paltry bóruma we pay him every year and for the young men he presses into service because he knows Fingerlanders make fierce fighters. We don’t like Riocha business. We have our own ways here in the mountains and our own laws, whether the Rí of Airgialla likes it or not.” O Leathlobhair lifted his head as if hearing something, and a moment later the dog began barking and Kayne heard the low pounding of horses on wet earth. “It seems, though, that the Rí wants to know what happened to the Banrion Ard’s son.”

  Kayne put his hand to the stone under his léine as the riders—two hands or more of them—came into view near the river. One of them pointed to the cottage and they turned to approach. O Leathlobhair put his hand on Kayne’s shoulder. “Not yet, young Tiarna,” he said quietly. “Only at need. Stay here with your men.”

  With that, O Leathlobhair opened the door and slid out, walking toward the riders with a loud greeting. Kayne watched him through the cracks in the door. The rider stopped near the fence, the dog barking at them and the sheep looking nervous with the commotion. O Leathlobhair spoke to the leader, a Riocha with brown hair and a scarred face, the old man grinning and babbling as volubly as he had inside. The tiarna seemed as annoyed as Kayne had been with the man. O Leathlobhair gestured toward the house a few times, as if inviting the riders to look inside, and actually started to the door once. “. . . come in and let me show you some of the hospitality of the Fingerlands,” Kayne heard him say. “It’s been so long since I’ve had people here. Oh, there’s so much I could tell you about the Finger and the people here . . .”

  “That won’t be necessary,” the tiarna replied with a visible eye roll. “You’ve seen no strangers about?”

  “No, Tiarna. But the dog was barking early at something across the river, just before the sun rose. There’s a ford, just east of here, where someone could cross . . .”

  The tiarna nodded, waved at O Leathlobhair, and the group rode off, the dog growling and running after them for a bit. O Leathlobhair came back into the cottage. “Now,” he said to Kayne, “don’t you think that was easier than fighting them?”

  Kayne, despite himself, chuckled. “Aye, that it was.”

  O Leathlobhair grinned. “Good. Now, take some rest here for the morning, sleep a bit, and this evening when the shadows are long, I’ll take you to Liam O’Blathmhaic—he’s the clan-laird hereabouts. If you’re to survive here, you’ll need his protection and his help.”

  O Leathlobhair started to move past Kayne, going back to the hearth, but Kayne stopped him. “When I get back to Dún Laoghaire,” he said to the man, “I’ll make certain that you’re well rewarded for this. I promise.”

  The old man smiled sadly at Kayne. “I know this much about Rí Morven Mac Baoill: he’s not a man for bold moves. If Tuath Airgialla dares to march openly against the Banrion Ard’s husband and son, then I don’t think you’re going to find Dún Laoghaire the same if you go back there.”

  14

  An Ard’s Funeral

  EDANA DIDN’T LOOK up as Doyle approached, though he knew his wife had to have heard his approaching footsteps. At his entrance, the servants in the Great Hall judiciously scattered for the exits and other tasks. Edana continued to stare down at the body on the bier before her, but he saw her body tense under the ornate clóca she wore, the cloth dyed the dark gray of Dún Laoghaire, the same color worn by the body before her. A golden weaving of interlaced knots and curlicues shifted at the hem and collar.

  “How is Padraic?” Edana asked without turning to Doyle. “If you’ve gotten him injured or killed with this business, I will never forgive you. Never.”

  The question momentarily shocked him. He’d underestimated Edana in the past; it was a lesson he’d thought he’d learned, but if she knew that Padraic had been with him and where, then it was obvious that her network of informants was larger and more capable than he’d believed. So she knows at least some of it. He’d have to do some hard questioning of the staff at the Order of Gabair.

  And if she knew, there was no sense in maintaining the lie. “Our son’s fine, Edana,” Doyle answered. “Padraic’s unhurt. Unbloodied, even. There was . . .” He sighed, remembering. “. . . no fighting at all with weapons, and only a little with the clochs.”

  Her shoulders relaxed slightly, but she didn’t question his response, which told him that she knew where they’d been, and probably why. “Is he with you?”

  “No. Shay O Blaca sent me back with Quickship just now—Padraic will return with the others in a week or so. To Lár Bhaile. I told him to send you a letter, at least.”

  Edana nodded, still staring. Doyle came up behind her, standing there without touching her. He glanced over Edana’s shoulder at the body. Meriel lay behind a screen of filmy gauze, a pair of golden mórceints over her eyes, the string of an embroidered cap tied tightly under her ch
in to keep the mouth closed, her hands resting at her sides. He told himself he felt no guilt. He told himself that there was nothing he could have done that would have avoided this. He told himself . . .

  He sucked in his breath. He’d expected to see a smaller body lying in the bier next to Meriel, and she was alone. Worse, around Meriel’s neck there was a chain and a pendant with a jewel, but the stone wasn’t one that Doyle recognized. He felt a quick stabbing of worry and panic. Too much had gone wrong already—if this had been another failure, Rí Mallaghan would be furious, and Doyle knew who would ultimately be blamed. It doesn’t matter that this was all his plan, that I told him that I was uncomfortable with it all, that I thought we should wait, that I worried about what could so easily go wrong . . . “Where’s Treoraí’s Heart? Has someone taken it?”

  Edana took a breath and finally turned to face him, and there was ice and scorn in her gaze. “What’s the matter, Husband?” she asked. “Weren’t your orders followed? Did you really hate poor Meriel that much? Were you that jealous that she was Ard?” The muscles in her face were tight and there were dark hollows under her reddened eyes. “Riders came to me today, one from Tuath Éoganacht and the other from Tuath Locha Léin. Meriel’s other two children, Tara and Ionhar, seem to both have met unfortunate accidents in the last few days, despite the best care of their relatives. And there’s been talk that the gardai of Tuath Airgialla are out riding near the Finger, where Owaine and Kayne are expected. I suppose there have been ‘accidents’ there, as well. Can’t have any of the immediate family left to cause problems of succession, can you?”

  This wasn’t my idea, he wanted to tell her, as he’d told Jenna. I argued with the Ríthe against this, but Rí Mallaghan was adamant . . . He knew none of it would convince her or make her change the way she looked at him. He knew, also, that word would already have been sent to Rí Mallaghan about what had transpired here. They still did not have Lámh Shábhála; if they’d failed here also . . . “What of Ennis?” Doyle asked, and Edana’s gaze narrowed.

  “No one’s seen Ennis or the woman who was watching him—Meriel had supper with Isibéal and Ennis the night she died. My aides tells me that the dessert was poisoned—they fed a piece to a dog and it died within a few hours. The herbalist I consulted tells me that the poison was almost certainly a Taisteal concoction.” She cocked her head at Doyle, as if judging him. “Poison’s a coward’s tool, Doyle. I’m surprised even you would stoop to that. Perhaps I should hire someone to taste my own food in the future?”

  The scorn and disgust in her face was shocking, if not surprising. For the last year, perhaps a bit more, he and Edana been husband and wife in name only, no longer sharing the large bed in their inner chamber—ever since Rí Mallaghan had approached him with the concerns he and many of the other Ríthe had about the growing influence of Inish Thuaidh and the Mad Holder with the Ard, with her popularity with the tuathánach and the increasing dissatisfaction among the Riocha, with her concern over the Arruk who had yet to threaten the Tuatha. As the talk and planning became more serious, Doyle gradually found himself spending more days in his private cell in the Order’s tower in Lár Bhaile than in Dún Laoghaire. The more he had to keep hidden from Edana, whose friendship with Meriel had only grown deeper over the years, the more he felt her pulling away from him. They had always disagreed on politics; now the disagreements ignited into shouting arguments.

  He still loved her. He knew that. He’d even told himself, before he’d had Shay send him back here, that with Lámh Shábhála lost he needed her love more than ever. But if he’d wondered whether there were any remnants left in her of the affection they’d once shared, he saw Edana’s answer to that in her face now. The realization didn’t hurt anywhere near as much as he thought it should, but there was enough of the memory of their relationship left that he wanted her to understand.

  “My love—” he began and saw the muscles of her face tighten with that. “No one intends you any harm, Edana,” he told her. “You may think what you want about the assassination of the Banrion Ard, but this wasn’t done at my instigation. My hand’s not the one that started this, nor was I a willing part of it. You have to believe me.” That was a half-truth and an evasion—aye, Rí Mallaghan had made it clear that Doyle’s cooperation was required if he didn’t want his family harmed, but Doyle’s lust for Lámh Shábhála and knowing that Jenna would also die had made that cooperation easy. He suspected she knew that also.

  “No?” She stepped away from him, looking at his chest where Snapdragon, his Cloch Mór, lay. “Where’s Lámh Shábhála, Doyle? Aren’t you wearing it yet? Isn’t that why the Order sent so many mages west, and Padraic among them? If you’re going to assassinate the Banrion Ard, you couldn’t leave the Mad Holder alive to avenge her, could you?”

  Doyle scowled inwardly, only lifting his eyebrows at Edana’s questions. “I apologize, Edana. You’re much better informed than I expected. But you’ve known all along how much I loathed Jenna, and why.”

  Edana pointed to Meriel’s body. “Look at her, Doyle. She was my dear friend, and she was Banrion Ard because of me. She thought of herself as your friend, also—or, at least, she didn’t think of you as an enemy. She loved our children as much as we did. Do you remember when Padraic was ill with the Bloody Cough and she took Treoraí’s Heart and cured him? Do you remember? He’d be dead if Meriel hadn’t been here, Doyle.” Tears of grief and anger were spilling down her cheeks, and Doyle saw her wipe them away angrily and unashamedly. “Do you remember the last Feast, how the people of the city cheered her when she rode out to the temple? The common folk loved her, even if the Riocha didn’t. And so did I.” Edana sank to her knees alongside the bier.

  “Edana . . .” In years past, he might have gone to her, might have crouched down alongside her and taken her in his arms and let her sob her grief against his shoulder. He wanted to do that now, wanted it more than anything he could imagine, but he could not. Instead, he stood with his arms crossed, watching her as she lifted the gauze around the bier and clutched Meriel’s lifeless hand. “How can I make you understand? It was the other Ríthe who wanted this, not me; they kept it from you because they knew how you felt about Meriel.”

  “Then we could have stopped it, Doyle,” she said through her weeping. “With Lámh Shábhála, the Inishlanders and their clochs, with Snapdragon and Demon-Caller, with those who were loyal to her, we could have stood against them. The two of us, together. But you didn’t say anything. You didn’t say anything because part of this, at least, was what you wanted, too. No, maybe you didn’t start this, maybe you didn’t do anything actively against Meriel or Owaine or their children, but you also didn’t stop it. You didn’t want to stop it.”

  The accusations lanced deep inside him, piercing all the way to his troubled soul. “Once I knew, I had to cooperate or they would have killed me, too, Edana—and you and our children as well, perhaps. You can’t hate me for that. I . . . I cooperated to protect you.”

  “I’m sure they had to go to great lengths to convince you,” she said, the sarcasm lashing at him. “Did Torin Mallaghan—oh, I know it must have been him—offer Lámh Shábhála to you as payment, or did you tell them that Jenna’s cloch must be your reward for planning all this? All this has your feel to it, Husband.”

  If her voice had been a sword, it would have gutted him and laid his entrails open on the floor. He gave her, for the first time in years, the bare truth. “Lámh Shábhála is lost in the sea,” he told her, and he saw her gasp in surprise.

  “I wondered, last night when the mage-lights came . . . Then Jenna—”

  “—is also dead,” he finished for her. He hoped it was true. It must be true.

  “And Sevei, too?”

  Doyle nodded. Neither of their bodies had been found, but Jenna had been grievously wounded and the storm waves terrible and unrelenting. They’d watched for most of the day: for either the two of them or for Saimhóir, the blue seals. They’d glimpsed neither.
Doyle found it difficult to believe that either Jenna or Sevei could have survived. And that night, when the mage-lights had come, they had all noticed the absence of Lámh Shábhála.

  If Jenna were somehow alive, she didn’t have the Great Stone. That at least was some comfort; he could bear not having Lámh Shábhála himself as long as no one else held it. And now Treoraí’s Heart was missing also. The Ríthes’ victory, already bittersweet, soured a little further. If that half-breed woman Isibéal had taken the Heart and left Ennis alive against all the arrangements they’d made, he would personally kill her. Slowly.

  “Padraic saw this? Padraic saw the Mad Holder and Sevei die?”

  A nod.

  “You bastard,” she said.

  He said nothing. Edana sobbed for a few breaths, then drew up, sniffing. “They’re all gone, then,” Edana said, her voice hoarse and quiet. “The Mother-Creator will never forgive you, Doyle. No treachery before matches this. Will you be the new Rí Ard, Doyle, the new puppet for the Ríthe? Is that what they promised you for your part in this?”

  He might have been Rí Ard, had he been able to take Lámh Shábhála. Even though Torin Mallaghan yearned to be Ard, Doyle had thought that once Lámh Shábhála was around his own neck, he would have a piece on the board so powerful that even Rí Mallaghan would have to bend before him. Now . . . he was no longer sure. “I was just a player, not the instigator, Edana,” he said again. “There were no promises made to me. I tell you again; I had no choice. I was afraid that those I love would be hurt.”

  “I’m sure that eases your conscience.” She kissed Meriel’s hand, then pushed herself to her feet, confronting Doyle. “I’ve set the funeral for tomorrow—especially given what you’ve told me, I don’t want or expect the other Ríthe to be here personally; their representatives here in Dún Laoghaire will have to suffice. I expect you to be beside me as my husband. Once we’ve given Meriel to the flames and the Mother-Creator and the Draíodóiri have finished their work, you’ll leave Dún Laoghaire.”