Holder of Lightning

back. Neither one of them meant the gesture. Jenna would have made an excuse, as she often did, that her arm troubled her and she needed to retire. But Maeve leaned toward her. "Patience," she whispered. "Coelin will be singing in a few minutes."

Jenna brightened at that. She endured the barbed conversations around her until the doors at the end of the hall opened and Coelin walked through with his giotar. Mac Ard cleared his throat and leaned toward the Banrion and Ri. "I heard this young man in the village where the mage-lights first appeared, and he recently came to the city. He trained with the Songmaster Curragh, who came here now and again, if you remember. He really has an extraordinary voice, Highnesses. I thought you would enjoy hearing him."

'Well, then, let's hear him," the Ri said. He gestured to Coelin, and pointed. "Stand there, and give us this voice of yours."

Coelin bowed low, his eyes catching Jenna's as he did so. "Is there a song your Highnesses would like to hear?" he asked. "A story that Song-master Curragh used to sing, perhaps?"

The Ri seemed amused by that. "Are you saying your voice is the equal of your Songmaster's, young man?"

Coelin shook his head but the charming grin remained on his face. "Oh, no, my Ri. Songmaster Curragh always said my voice was the better."

There was a moment of silence before the Ri laughed, the rest of the table following his lead a moment later. "He seems to have a healthy ego, at least, Padraic. I suppose that's good. But we'll be the judge of his talent. Give me The Lay of Rowan Beirne, young man."

Mac Ard sniffed, as if the choice surprised him, and Jenna glanced at him curiously. Coelin strummed a chord on his giotar, his eyes regarding the ceiling of the hall as if the words to the song were written there. "A fine choice, Ri Mallaghan. Songmaster Curragh taught me that one, not long before he died. Let me think a moment, and bring back the verses Aye…" Coelin's gaze came back down and he nodded his head to the Ri. "I have it now," he said. His gaze caught Jenna's again, and he winked. He began to sing.

On the cusp of summer Rowan came forth

Bright armor on his chest, around his neck the stone

He saw the army on Sliabh Bacaghorth,

The banners of the Inish waving as Rowan stood alone. .

"Have you heard this song before?" Cianna whispered, leaning toward Jenna. Jenna shook her head.

"I don’t believe so, Banrion," she answered. She wanted to add. . and 1 still won’t have heard it, if you talk to me, but held her tongue.

Cianna glanced at Mac Ard, next to her. "He knows it," she said. "Don’t you, Padraic?"

"I do, Banrion," Mac Ard answered, his voice gruff and low.

"And do you enjoy it?"

"I think ’enjoy’ is too strong a word, Banrion. I find it… illuminating. And an interesting choice for the Ri."

"Indeed." Cianna leaned back then. Jenna puzzled over the exchange for a moment, but then Coelin’s rich voice drew her back, and she re-turned her attention to him, smiling as she watched him perform.

Jenna had indeed heard portions of the tale once or twice, though greatly altered and changed in the retellings. She had heard folktales of the hero Rowan, who had a magic stone-though she hadn’t realized until now that the stone was supposedly the one she held now, or that Rowan was anything other than a mythological figure. What Coelin sang now, though, gave the full background of the tales, and it was a history Jenna had never suspected. Rowan Beirne had been a Holder of Lamh Shabhala more than five centuries before, and the last Holder from Talamh an Ghlas. From the opening stanza on the eve of Rowan’s last day of life, the lay moved backward in time to the hero’s youth, to his first triumphs on the field of battle, to the unsurprising extolling of his skill with the sword and his prowess in battle, and to his consolidation of the smaller tuatha that were numerous around Tuath Infochla at the time.

But that wasn't what startled Jenna. Early in the lay, the verses gave the lineage of Rowan, and it was then that Jenna sat back in her chair, stunned, no longer even hearing Coelin's voice. Rowan's mam was a woman named Bryth, and she held Lamh Shabhala before Rowan. Bryth's surname, before she married Tiarna Anrai Beirne of Tuath Infochla, was Mac Ard.

A Mac Ard once held Lamh Shabhala. . Jenna barely heard the rest of the song: how Rowan foolishly allowed himself to be drawn north out of Falcarragh to a supposed parley with the Inishlanders, where he was ambushed and murdered by assassins in the employ of the Inish cloud-mage Garad Mhullien; and how Lamh Shabhala was taken from Rowan's body and brought to Inish Thuaidh. She barely reacted when Coelin fin-ished the song to the applause of the table, or when the Ri handed Coelin a small sack of coins and told him to return again four nights hence to entertain his guests at the Solstice Feast.