Holder of Lightning

"You've lost him," she said to him.

"How do you know?"

"I know," she answered.

He didn't question that. He simply smiled at her and kissed her again.

We're alone, then." He glanced around at the people moving along the cobbled lane, most of whom were staring openly at Jenna, too well-dressed to be an occupant of one of these small, shabby dwellings. Away from the market square, the city had turned drab and dirty and crowded.

The central gutter was choked with refuse, rotting garbage and excrement, and the fetid smell wrinkled Jenna's nose. The people were as shabby as their surroundings, dressed in rags and scraps of clothing. A child stared her from a nearby door, her feet wrapped in muddy rags, her hair matted and wild, though her eyes were dark and clear. She smiled tentatively at Jenna, who had to force herself to return the gesture. "Well, at least we're not where anyone knows you," Coelin finished. He gave a mock, sweeping bow. "And now where would you have me take you?"

"Somewhere other than here."

Coelin glanced around, and she realized that he saw nothing unusual: these were the streets where he lived, too, and he didn’t see the contrast, because he hadn’t lived as she had for the last few months. Jenna could feel herself recoiling in instinctive disgust and revulsion. She could not imagine having to live here-she would rather call on the power of the cloch and destroy it, to cleanse the earth in fire and storm. And she won-dered: Is this the way Tiarna Mac Ard felt, when he first walked into our little cottage back in Ballintubber? "There’s an apothecary I need to see," she told him. "Du Val, in Cat’s Alley."

He glanced at her curiously, then shrugged. "Let’s go this way, then, to avoid the market."

They approached du Val’s establishment from below the market. Jenna half expected to see one of the gardai standing outside the tiny shop, but none of these men had accompanied her on her first visit. A few dozen strides from the sign, she saw a man, dressed as a freelander, come out the doorway and turn away from her toward the market.

She stopped, her hand on Coelin’s arm. "What?" he asked.

"That man…" She knew him. Without seeing his face, she recognized the walk, the posture, the feel of him: Ennis O’Deoradhain, whom she’d last seen fleeing through the fields just across the River Duan near Ath Iseal. Jenna held her breath, wanting to duck into shadows and suddenly wishing that she hadn’t dismissed the gardai. Her hand went around Lamh Shabhala; if the man had turned, if he’d seen her and started toward her, she would have used the cloch and struck him down.

But he didn’t turn, didn’t seem to notice her at all.

"What about him?" Coelin asked. "Who is he?"

Jenna shook her head. O’Deoradhain was hurrying away, already at the end of the lane where it opened into the Low Town Market. "When…after we left Ballintubber, we met that man. I think he was part of the group of Connachtans who were pursuing us." And if he’s here in Lar Bhaile, if he’s snooping around after me, then chances are he’s the one who sent the assassin. .

"Well, let’s go after him, then," Coelin said, starting to pursue O’Deoradhain, but Jenna held

him back.

"No " she told him. "He's already too far away, and he may have friends with him. Let's talk to du Val."

The shop was as pungent and dark as before, but du Val was in the front bent over one of his tables with a mortar and pestle, grinding a small pinch of plant material into a powder. The dwarfish man glanced up as Jenna and Coelin entered, and grunted.

"It's not even been a month," he called out without preamble. "Well, this time the price is four morceints, as I told you. And six the next time."

Jenna was glad for the dimness of the shop, so that Coelin could not see the flush that crept up her neck. "I hear you," she said. "Just get it."

Du Val sniffed. He set the pestle on the table with a loud clunk. His ugly, craggy face seemed to leer at her for a moment, then he turned and went back into the recesses of the shop. Jenna wondered what Coelin was thinking, seeing her spend four morceints without a thought when he had been ecstatic to have received one the other night. She didn't dare look at him while they waited. Du Val returned in a few minutes with a pouch, which he extended to Jenna, palm up. When she reached to take it, he pulled his hand back. "Five morceints," he said.

"You told me four."

One robed shoulder lifted and fell. "1 changed my mind between then and now. Maybe the price will make you change yours about taking this, but if not,

I might as well line my pockets with your foolishness."

Jenna felt the words like a slap, her cheeks reddening. "All I have to do is whisper to the Ri or Banrion, and they will have you in irons before the evening bells ring."