'That's the extent of it, Maeve. Don't be afraid of my name. Don't be afraid of me.'
He smiled at her, and Jenna watched her mam smile in return. Then Mac Ard leaned forward and kissed Maeve. 'I need to see the Ri,' he said. 'The Ri rarely does anything without a reason, and I wonder why he ailed for that song tonight. I think he and I should have a conversation. If you'll pardon me…'
'Go on, Padraic,' Maeve told him. She continued to hold his hands as he stood. 'And thank you. I do understand.'
He kissed her hands again. 'I'll see you later, then. Jenna, I hope you also understand,' he added, and left the room. As he did so, Maeve placed her hands over her abdomen, pressing gently. Jenna's eyes narrowed, and she must have made a sound, for Maeve glanced back over her shoulder and Jenna saw that she noticed where her daughter's gaze lay. Maeve looked down at her hands herself, then back to Jenna, shifting in her chair so she faced her daughter.
'Aye,' she told Jenna.
'You're certain?'
'I've not bled for two moons, and I've been ill the last several mornings. But it's far too early to feel the quickening and know for certain.' Jenna saw a slow satisfaction move over her mam's face. 'But it
'Have you told the tiarna?'
'No. Not yet. I’ll wait until I can feel the life. Then I’ll tell him.' She paused. 'You’re supposed to ask if I’m happy,' she said.
She went to her mam and hugged her fiercely.
'Are you happy?' she whispered, burying her head in her mam’s scented hair.
'Aye,' Meave answered. 'I’m happy. I want you to be happy, too.'
For a time, the two held each other, saying nothing. Finally, Jenna pulled away with a kiss to Maeve’s forehead. 'Will Padraic give the child his name, and you also, do you think?'
For a moment, Jenna saw uncertainty in her mam’s eyes. 'I don’t know, Jenna. I don’t know how the Riocha do things. I don’t know all that Padraic can do and what he can’t. It doesn’t matter, though, as long he doesn’t change the way he feels toward me.'
'But it does, Mam,' Jenna replied earnestly. 'Everyone will know it’s Padraic’s child, and if he won’t acknowledge it, they’ll laugh at you, Mam. They’ll give you their meaningless smiles and then snicker at you behind their hands. You know they will. It won’t be Mac Ard who’ll have to bear all that; it’ll be you.' Jenna knelt in front of Maeve, her hands in Maeve’s lap.
She knew she shouldn’t say it even as she spoke the words. 'Mam, if this isn’t what you want, well, Aoife knows an herbalist in Low Town. He’ll have potions, like Aldwoman Pearce… '
'Jenna!' Maeve said loudly, and Jenna stopped. 'I don’t need your herb-alist,' her mam continued, more softly. 'I don’t want the herbalist.'
'I know, Mam, but if after you tell him, what if he!!
'Jenna-'
. . what if he isn’t as he seems? What if he’s angry, or if he abandons you, or you find that the love he says he feels is just another Riocha word? She couldn’t finish it. She didn’t want to finish it. She didn’t want to believe it herself.
Instead she forced herself to smile, to lift up and give her mam another kiss and place her own hands on Maeve's stomach. Inside, there is life. A brother, or a sister. .
'I trust him, Jenna,' Maeve said. 'I love him.'
Her face was so peaceful and content that Jenna nodded. 'I know,' she said.
Jenna didn't see Coelin after his singing. She heard through Aoife that he'd left the keep late that evening, and that he had asked after her. She thought he might send word the next day; he didn't. The mage-lights came again that night, and after taking in their power, she was too ex-hausted to care about anything but fixing a brew of the anduilleaf to blunt the pain. At least, that was what she told herself.
More Riocha were arriving at the Keep each day as word spread that Lamh Shabhala had a Holder and that she was in Lar Bhaile. Most of them wore the green and brown of Tuath Gabair, though there were a few with the red and white of Tuath Airgialla, or the blue and black of Tuath Locha Lein. None wore Tuath Connachta's blue and gold. They were men, mostly, and a few women, with rich clothes and rich accents and bright jewels around their necks, and some of those jewels, aye, were clochs na thintri. She was introduced to them and as quickly forgot their names and titles, though she could feel them watching her as she wandered about the keep, staring at her, whispering about her, and pointing at her band-aged arm.
Waiting. Waiting for Jenna to give them the power they wanted.
'Jenna…'
She heard Cianna's voice as she walked along one of the deserted upper hallways, trying to avoid the eyes. Jenna stopped and turned: the Banrion stood at the end of the hall, with two of her ladies. Jenna curtsied and dropped her gaze as she'd seen the Riocha do in the woman's presence. 'Banrion,' she said. 'Good morning.'
'Please, no courtesies here. Not between us. Is it a good morning for you, or are you simply being polite?' Cianna asked. She cleared her throat, a phlegm-rattled sound. 'None of them seem good to me lately. I think the new healer's a fraud, like all
'I’m sorry to hear that, Banrion.'
Cianna laughed, a sound that ended in a series of coughs. 'It’s what I expected, my dear. I’m not quite as stupid and self-involved as some would have you believe. I know that I’m deluding myself-I don’t think any healer can cure what’s inside me.
But I feel I have to try. Maybe, maybe one of them…' The Banrion’s eyes glittered with sudden mois-ture, and she caught her lower lip between her teeth. She sniffed and shook her head, and the mood seemed to pass. She waved her hand at her attendants.
'Leave me,' she told them. They scurried away, glancing at Jenna. 'They’re supposed to be here to help me, but they’re really just the Ri’s eyes,'
Cianna said to Jenna, her voice dropping to a husky whisper. 'They tell him everything they see. Come with me for a few moments, before they rush back to tell me that the Ri insisted they return. We should speak somewhere where no eyes watch or ears listen.'
Cianna took Jenna’s arm. The Banrion seemed to weigh nothing; her hand looked that of a skeleton, poking from under the lace of her leine. She led Jenna along the hall and down a corridor, through a door and up a small flight of stairs. Taking a torch from one the sconces, she opened the door at the top of the stair, which led into a musty-smelling gallery. There were shelves along the gallery, and on them were items, most cov-ered in gray layers of dust. Their feet left marks in the film of it covering the floor, and cloudlets rose wherever they stepped. Jenna sneezed. 'Ban-rion, this can’t be good for your lungs.'
'Hush,' Cianna answered, tempering the word with a smile. 'Do you know where we are?' Jenna shook her head. 'This is the Hall of Memo-ries,' Cianna continued. 'These are artifacts from the long history of Lar Bhaile. Not many come here-my husband isn’t one for sentiment and history. He dismissed the Warden of the Hall, whose task it was to pre-serve these things and clean them, and since then the hall hasn’t been opened in years. Previous Ris, though, were rather proud of it and brought visitors here so they could view the artifacts.'
'Remembering the past is important.' She said it politely, wondering why Cianna had brought her here.
'Is that something you believe?' Cianna asked.
'Is it true, Holder, that you can bring the dead Holders of that cloch back to life and speak with them? That's what Tiarna Mac Ard tells me. He said he thought you had done it once, with an old Bunus Muintir Holder.'
'Aye, that's true, Banrion,' she told Cianna. She'd never told Mac Ard or her mam about the others: the Lady of the Falls and her own da. She still had Eilis' ring and Niall's carved seal back in her room. She'd never tried to bring Eilis back again, but she had talked to her da several times. It had been disappointing, for he stared at her as if he'd never seen her before, and she had to explain all over again who she was. The dead, it seemed, did not retain the memory of being dragged back into this exis-tence by Lamh Shabhala. 'If I'm near to where a Holder rests, or if I touch something that was once theirs I can speak with their shade. At least that's what I've been told.'
'Then come here…' Cianna gestured at one of the shelves. On it was a torc, the hammered gold incised with swirling lines that made Jenna glance at her bandaged arm. 'Do you know why my husband chose to have that singer give the Lay of Rowan two nights ago?' Jenna shook her head. Cianna started to speak, then coughed a few
