Holder of Lightning

They moved through a landscape of green: farmland mostly, with occa-sional patches of wood. The High Road meandered, following the line of Lough Lar closely. Not long after they'd left, as they rounded a bend in the road, they heard hooves and the nickering of a horse coming up from an

intersecting lane; a moment later, a rider came into view between a line of beech trees, a man wearing a plain cloca over pants and shirt. The hood of the cloca was up; the face in shadow. The man waved at them, then kicked his horse into a trot to meet them.

"Greetings, Tiarna Mac Ard, Bantiamas. A beautiful morning. We seem to be going in the same direction, if Ath Iseal is your destination. May I join you? With brigands on the road, four is safer than one." He pushed back the hood, and Jenna saw that it was Ennis O’Deoradhain. His eyes glittered as he glanced toward her, but he kept his attention on Mac Ard, who frowned.

"It isn’t brigands I particularly fear," he answered. "You have the advan-tage of me, since you seem to know me but your face isn’t familiar."

"My name is Ennis O’Deoradhain." He gestured to the fields on either side of him. "This is my family’s land. Not much, but enough to keep us fed. We’re three generations freelanded, loyal to the Ri Gabair, and the name O’Deoradhain is well known around the west of the lough. And I know you because I was at the Taisteal’s camp last night seeing if they had anything useful, and Clannhri Sheehan has a mouth large enough to swallow all of Lough Lar itself." He smiled and laughed at his own jest, and the harsh lines of his face relaxed in his amusement. "And if it allays your fears, I’m hardly a threat to you, Tiarna. I doubt my knife is a match for your sword." O’Deoradhain swept his cloca aside, showing them that the only weapon he wore was the knife Jenna had seen the night before.

"In my experience, a knife kills as easily as any weapon," Mac Ard told the man, but his voice was easier. "But a freelanded man loyal to the Ri shouldn’t be left alone to brigands, and the High Road’s open to all, if you’d like to ride with us."

Jenna could have spoken. She saw O’Deoradhain’s gaze flick toward her again, and she set her mouth in a firm, thin line of disapproval. Yet she held back. O’Deoradhain flicked the reins, and his horse moved out onto the road. For a time, he rode alongside Mac Ard, and Maeve, and they conversed in low voices. Then O’Deoradhain dropped back to where Jenna trailed behind. "And how are you today?" he asked. "Is the arm better?"

"It's fine," Jenna answered shortly. She didn't look at him, keeping her gaze forward to the road winding along the lakeshore. Lough Lar was narrowing, now no more than a few hundred strides across as they neared the falls of the Duan.

"So it seems you didn't mention our encounter last night to the tiarna."

"I didn't think it that important. I'd forgotten it myself until I saw you this morning." She answered him with the haughtiness she thought a Riocha would display. Now she did look over at him, and found him watching her with a strange smile on his lips. "Interesting that you'd hap-pen to be going to Ath Iseal today, and at the same time."

"What would you think if I told you that wasn't entirely coincidence?"

"I'd wonder if I should make up for my error last night and tell Tiarna Mac Ard."

'"Tiarna Mac Ard?' An awfully formal way to refer to your father," O'Deoradhain commented. Her face must have shown something at that, for he lifted his eyebrows. "Ah… I see I've been mistaken.

Evidently Clannhri Sheehan didn't know as much as he pretended he did. You never can trust the Taisteal. I thought… "

"I don't care what you thought."

"This does shed a different light on things, though, I must say," O'Deoradhain persisted. "What is your name, then?"

She remembered that Mac Ard had commented on their name being: Inish, and that O'Deoradhain had suggested that he thought her an Inishlander as well. She considered giving him a false name, but it didn't seem to matter now. Her mam would probably tell him, if he asked, or Mac Ard. "Aoire," she said. "Jenna Aoire."

The startled look on his face surprised her with its severity. For a moment, his eyes widened, and he seemed almost to rise up in his saddle. Then he caught himself, his features masked in deliberate neutrality. "Aoire. That's an Inish name, 'tis. So my guess wasn't so wrong after all."

"Aye," she admitted. "My father's parents were from the island, or so he claimed, though Mam says that they left the island when they were young."

O'Deoradhain's head nodded reflectively. "No doubt," he said. "No doubt." He shifted in the saddle, adjusted his cloca. "We should be in Ath Iseal by midafternoon," he said. "We'll be passing the falls in a bit; they're not as pretty this time of year without all the green, but they'll be impres-sive enough if you've never seen them before." It was obvious that he intended to change the subject, and Jenna was content to allow that to happen.