in the doors and shutters, and that candles were lit here and there along the shelves. The little man shuffled forward to the desk with an odd, rolling gait. He was dressed in a dingy, shapeless woolen tunic and pants, held together with a simple rope. His face reminded her a bit of Seancoim's-the same bony ridge along the eyebrows, the flattened face. She wondered if there wasn't Bunus Muintir heritage in him somewhere. He glanced up and down at her appraisingly. 'What can I do for you, Bantiarna?' he asked.
'Are you du Val?' He sniffed. Jenna took that for an affirmative answer.
'I’m looking for a certain herb that none of the healers in the keep seem to know,' she told him. 'I was told that you might have it.'
'The healers know shite,' du Val spat. 'They forget the lore their ances-tors knew. What are you looking for?'
'Anduilleaf.'
Du Val said nothing. He came from behind the desk and stood in front of her. He was no taller than her chest. He stared up at her face, then let his gaze travel over her body. He saw the cloth wrapped carefully around her right arm and took her arm in his hands. Jenna didn’t protest as he unknotted the cloth strip and rolled it back. When her hand was exposed past the wrist, he turned it over and back, examining the skin with its mottled, scarred patterns. Then, with stubby hands that were surprisingly graceful, he wrapped the arm again.
'So you’re the one? The one who calls the mage-lights?' Jenna didn’t answer. Du Val sniffed. 'You don’t have to tell me; I can look at your arm and see it. I’ve seen the mage-lights swirling around the keep and heard about the young figure that stands on the keep’s summit at their bidding and swallows them. I’ve heard the name Lamh Shabhala bandied about. I’ve heard the rumors, little ones and big ones, and I know more about the truth of them than some of the Riocha up in the keep. I’ve seen the Riocha come to Lar Bhaile all of a sudden with bright stones around their necks, and I know that the eye of the Ri Ard in Dun Laoghaire looks this way as well, and he’s also very interested in what’s going on. And the goons outside-I suppose they’re here to protect you and stop me from taking the cloch from you.'
Jenna felt a shiver not born of cold run through her. 'They’re fast and strong, well-armed and mean, and they will kill you if you so much as scratch me,' she told du Val. He seemed unimpressed. He scratched his side.
'Vermin,' he said. 'You can’t get rid of them. Not here in their natural habitat: the city. How long have you been taking the leaf?'
'Almost two months now.'
'Regularly?'
'Almost every day.' In truth, it was every day.
Sometimes twice. On the really bad days, the days after the mage-lights, even more. Du Val stroked his chin.
'You know that anduilleaf's addictive?'
Jenna shrugged. 'It takes away the pain.'
'So it does, so it does-though your healers would tell you that the leaf has no known pharmacological properties, if they recognize the herb at all. They wouldn't know where to find it, wouldn't notice it growing.
That knowledge's lost to them. The Old Ones knew, the Bunus Muintir. The few of them who are still around know, too. They also know how careful you have to be with the leaf, if you don't want to end up needing it forever.'
'If you're planning to talk me to death, I'll go elsewhere,' Jenna told him speaking to him in the tone she'd heard the bartiarnas use with their servants. 'I have another source.' She turned to go, hoping the bluff would work. She could feel tears welling up behind her eyes and knew that she couldn't hold them back once she closed the door behind her, no matter what the gardai might think. She was scared: lost in the need for the relief from pain the herb brought, lost in a level of society she didn't understand. There was no 'other source'-she had no idea how she could find Seancoim again, or how she would find her way to Doire Coill with-out having to explain it to the Ri and Mac Ard.
'All right,' du Val grunted behind her, and she wiped surreptitiously at her eyes before turning back to him. 'I have the leaf. 'Tis expensive.' He almost seemed to laugh. 'But considering who you are, that's probably not a consideration, is it? Who else knows you're dependent on it?' When she didn't answer, he did laugh, a snorting amusement that twisted his swarthy, broad face. 'If you're afraid that I'll use the information to black-mail you, forget it. You have worse worries than that.'
He went to the back of the room, rummaging around in the shadowy recesses of a leaning, bowed case of shelving. He returned with a glass jar half-filled with brown leaves. 'This is all I have,' he said. ''Tis old, but still potent.' Jenna reached for the jar, and du Val pulled it back to his chest, scowling up at her. 'First, it's two morceints.'
'Two morceints?' Jenna couldn’t keep the shock from her voice. Two morceints was more than a good craftsman made in a year. Back in Ballintubber, that might have been more money than the entire village together saw in the same time.
’Two morceints,' he repeated. 'And don’t be complaining. There’s few enough of us who would even know how and where to find this, and it grows in only one place anywhere near here.'
'Doire Coill,' Jenna said.
If du Val was surprised by her knowledge, he didn’t show it. 'Aye,' he said. 'The dark forest itself, and only in special places there. Two morceints,' he repeated, 'or you can check your ’other source.’' He smiled at her, with black holes where several teeth should have been.
All right,' she said. She fumbled in the pouch she carried. At least Tiarna Mac Ard wasn’t stingy with his money; she had the two morceints and more. She counted out the coins into du Val’s grimy, callused palm, then reached again for the jar. He wouldn’t release it.
'Does someone know you’re taking this?' he asked again.
'Aye,' she answered. 'My mam.' It was a lie. The truth was that no one knew, unless Aoife suspected it.
He nodded. 'Then tell your mam this: take the leaf no more than once a day, and for no longer than a month. Start with four leaves in the brew; cut the dosage by one leaf every week, or you’ll be back here again in another month, and the price will be four morceints. Do you understand that?'
'Aye,' Jenna answered.
With the word, du Val released the jar and closed his fingers around the coins. He jingled them appreciatively. 'A pleasure doing business with you, Holder.'
'I’m certain it was.'
He snorted laughter again. 'I’ll see you again in a month.'
'I don’t think so.'
'The magic you're trying to hold is powerful, but also full of pain. There's no cure for it. You can look for ways, like the leaf, to dull it, or you learn to bear what it gives you. Either way, it will always be there. Better to accept the pain as it is, if you can.'
'Do you charge for your platitudes, also?'
Du Val grinned. 'For you, I can afford to give the advice for nothing.'
'And that's exactly what it's worth,' Jenna retorted. 'I won't be back.'
She immediately hated the way the words sounded, hated the intention to hurt that rode in them: she sounded too much like some of the Riocha at the keep, the ones she despised for their haughtiness. If du Val had shown that her words stung, she would have felt immediate remorse. She would have apologized. But the dwarf shrugged and moved away behind the desk. He puttered with the flasks and vials there, ignoring Jenna. Finally, she turned and went to the door. When her hand touched the rope loop that served as a handle, du Val's voice came from behind her.
'I'm sorry for you, Holder. I truly am.'
She took a breath. She opened the door, nodded to the relieved glances of the gardai, and closed the door behind her again.
She spent another candle stripe or so in Low Town Market, desultorily pretending to shop as an excuse for the trip. The wind began to rise from off the lake, and she could see storm clouds rising dark in the west beyond the roofs of the houses, and finally told the gardai to fetch the carriage for the ride back. The carriage moved slowly through the twisting maze of narrow lanes, heading always up toward the stone shoulders of Goat Fell and the keep high above. Jenna lay back on the seat, eyes closed, listening to the sounds of vibrant, crowded life around her: the
