Holder of Lightning

He drummed the table with his fingers. "A dozen or more generations ago, I’m told, my own ancestors were among the last of the cloudmages as the mage-lights in the sky weakened. Then the lights vanished entirely, and with them the power to perform spells. If you listen to the old tales, with the lights also went other magics as well: that of mythical creatures and of hidden, ancient places. Now half the people think of those tales as myth and legend, no more than stories. At times, I’ve thought that, too. But looking at the lights, I felt. ." He tapped his chest, leaning forward, his voice dropping to a hoarse whisper. "I felt them calling me, here. I went running down from the tower, and dragged the town’s Ald back up so that I could show him. ’By the Mother-Creator, those are mage-lights, Tiarna,’ he said. They can’t be anything else. After so long…’ I thought the poor old man might cry, he was so moved by the sight of them. So I asked the Ri’s leave to come here, because they called me, because I wanted to see where they’d chosen to return." His eyes found Jenna, and again she felt the shock of that contact, as if his gaze could actually bruise her. "I’m told that you were up there that night, on Knobtop."

She wanted to shout denial, but couldn’t, not with her mam there. "Aye," she started to say, but the admission was more squeak than word. She cleared her throat. "I was there."

"And what did you see?"

"Lights, Tiarna Mac Ard. Beautiful lights, rippling and swaying." She could not stop the awe the memory placed in her voice.

"And nothing more?"

"They flashed at the end, brighter than anything I'd ever seen. Then they were. ." Her shoulder lifted. "Gone," she finished. "I told Kesh to bring the sheep along, and we came back here."

Mac Ard ruffled Kesh's head and fed him a piece of the mutton. "Strange," he said. "And nothing else happened? Nothing else. . un-usual?" His eyes held her. Jenna found herself thinking of the stone hid-den in the wall in their bedroom, not six strides away from Mac Ard, and of the cold lightning that flared from it and the red-haired man. She could feel her cheeks getting hot, and her mouth opened as if she wanted to speak, but she forced herself to remain silent as Mac Ard continued to stare. She thought that he could see through her, could sense the lie of omission that lay in her gut, burning, all the worse because now she was lying to a Riocha, one of the nobility of the land. Mac Ard's nostrils flared on his thin nose and he almost seemed to nod. Then he blinked and looked away, and the terror in her heart receded.

"How odd," Mac Ard said, "that the mage-lights would choose to reap-pear here."

"I'm sure neither of us know why, Tiarna," Maeve told him.

He pursed his lips. He glanced back once at Jenna before turning his attention to her mam. "I'm sure you don't. Tell me this, Widow Aoire, did you know your husband's family well?"

Maeve shook her head. "I was born and raised here. The truth, Tiarna, is that I know very little about them, and never at all met any of them. The farthest I've ever been from Ballintubber is Bacathair, a few months after my husband's death. I went there to see if the gardai could help me find out more about how he died, and who the murderers were."

"And did the gardai help you?"

Jenna saw Maeve's head move softly from side to side. "No. They had nothing more to tell me than I already knew, nor did they care much about the death of 'some Inishlander.'"

Mac Ard nodded slowly, contemplatively. "I've taken enough of your time and hospitality," he said. "Let me repay you. I understand that there's a

young man with an excellent voice who sings at the inn where I'm staying tonight. Come back there with me; be my guests for the evening, both of you. We can talk more there, about whatever you'd like."

Jenna had to stop herself from grinning, both from relief that the tiar-na's interrogation seemed to be over, and at the suggestion to go to Tara's. Coelin had promised her a song, and she hadn't wanted to ask, with the awful weather. But if the tiarna insisted. .

"Oh, no, Tiarna," Maeve started to say automatically, then glanced back at Jenna. He smiled at her and nodded, as if they shared a secret.

"Your daughter wants you to accept," Mac Ard said. "And I would be honored."

"I don't-" Maeve began. Jenna tightened her arms around her moth-er's shoulders, and felt her sigh. "I suppose we'd also be honored," she said.

The rain had subsided to a bare, cold drizzle. Mac Ard brought his stallion out from the barn. "You want to ride him?" he asked Jenna. She nodded, mutely. He picked her up, hands around her waist, and placed her side-ways astride the saddle, handing her the reins. He patted the muscular neck, glossy and as rich a brown as new-turned earth. "Behave yourself, Conhal," he told the horse, who snorted and shook his head, bridle jin-gling. "That's a special young woman you hold."