'Take this lad and get him proper clothes for the supper tonight with the Ri. He'll be singing for us.
Go on, then, Coelin, and practice until you’re called for.'
Coelin grinned again. 'Thank you, Tiarna,' he said. His gaze strayed to lenna, and he winked once at her. She smiled back at him.
'You can repay me by keeping quiet,' Mac Ard told him. 'Because if you don’t, I will make certain you never talk to anyone else again. I trust that’s clear enough for you.'
The grin had fallen from Coelin’s face like a leaf in an autumn wind. 'Aye, Tiarna' he said to Mac Ard, and his voice was now somber. 'It’s very clear.'
'Good.' Mac Ard glanced from Coelin, to Jenna, and back again. 'I would not forget my place and my task, if I were you, Coelin Singer.'
Coelin nodded. He left the room with Aoife, and did not look again at Jenna.
The Ri’s suppers were in the great Common Hall of the keep, a loud and noisy chamber with stone walls and a high, dim ceiling. A trestle table was set down the length of the hall. Torin Mallaghan, the Ri Gabair, sat with his wife Cianna, the Banrion, at the head of the table, jeweled torcs of beaten gold around both of their necks.
Arrayed down either side of the table before the royal couple were the Riocha in residence at the keep.
Not surprisingly, there was a delicate etiquette involved in the seating. Immediately to the Ri’s left was Nevan O Liathain, the first son of Kiernan o Liathain, the Ri Ard-the High King in Dun Laoghaire. Nevan’s title was 'Tanaise Rig,' Heir Apparent to the Ri Ard. He had come to Lar Bhaile at his father’s request, as soon as the rumors of the mage-lights had reached the Ri Ard’s ears.
Padraic Mac Ard sat at the Ri’s right hand next to Cianna, a sign of his current favor, and Maeve and Jenna were seated after him. There were Riocha from most of the tuatha present as well, and many of them wore prominent necklaces with stones that were reputedly cloch na thintri, though none of them knew for certain. Jenna knew, however. She could open her mind to the cloch she held, and see the web of connection from her cloch to theirs. A good number of the stones were simply pretty stones, and those who owned them would be
disappointed when the Filleadh came. But some. . some possessed true clochs na thintri. One of them was Mac Ard, even though the cloch he held was never visible.
Farther down, below the salt, were the ceili giallnai-the minor Riocha — then the Ri's clients and a few prominent freepersons of Lar Bhaile.
Jenna hated these suppers, and usually pleaded illness to avoid them.
She hated the false smiling conversations; hated the undercurrents and hidden messages that ran through every word; hated the way Ri Mal-laghan sat in his chair like a fat, contented toad contemplating a plate of flies before him; hated when his eyes, half-hidden in folds of pale flesh, regarded her with an appraising stare, as if she were a possession of his whose value was still in question. She wanted to dislike Cianna, the Ri's ailing wife, whose eyes were always hollow and sunken, ringed with dark flesh, but she couldn't, more out of pity than anything else. Cianna was as thin as the Ri Gabair was corpulent yet she wheezed constantly, as if the exertion of moving her frail body about was nearly too much for her. Cianna, unfortunately, seemed to have fastened on Jenna as a fellow suf- ferer and talked to her often, though she treated Jenna like an addled child, always explaining things to her in a breath scented with the mingled odors of cinammon and sickness. She leaned toward her now, bending in front of Mac Ard and Maeve, the torc around her neck swinging forward, glinting in the torchlight. Her dark, haunted eyes fastened on Jenna's. 'How are you feeling today, dear? Did that healer I sent to you from Dubh Bhaile help you?'
'Aye, Highness,' Jenna answered. 'The arm feels a bit better today.' Actually, Jenna had endured the man's prodding and poking, and had thrown away the potion he offered, taking instead some of the anduilleaf she'd bought that morning. She could feel it easing the pain in her arm.
Cianna looked pleased. 'Good,' she said. 'He's certainly done much for me, though I still can feel the pain in my back.'
Jenna nodded. The Banrion had gone through three new healers in the two months they'd been at the keep; each time the Banrion seemed to get a little better, but then she inevitably slumped back
into illness and the current healer was dismissed and another summoned. If her back was hurting now, this healer would be leaving before another fortnight. The Rl himself never seemed to notice-he'd perhaps seen too many healers already, and no longer inquired after his wife's health. She'd borne him a son and a daughter early in their marriage; both were away in fosterage- the son to Tuath Infochla, the daughter to Tuath Eoganacht. The Banrion Cianna had performed her duty and could keep her title. As to the rest. . well, the Rl had other lovers, as Jenna already knew from keep gossip. For that reason, she was careful when the Rl smiled at her-two of the Ri's current lovers were as young as Jenna.
The Tanaise Rig, Nevan O Liathain, had evidently been listening to Cianna's conversation with Jenna. He looked across to her as the servants set the meat trays on the table. 'Perhaps the pain will lessen when the other clochs are opened, Holder,' he said. 'Or perhaps there is another way to use the mage-lights that wouldn't cause a Holder so much.
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
