Mage of Clouds (The Cloudmages #2) (17 page)

Siúr O’hAllmhurain was a grim-faced woman in her mid-twenties, unmarried, who like Bráthair O’Therreagh taught slow magics. Given the Siúr’s usual demeanor, Meriel was fairly certain why she was still unmarried. She glared hard at Meriel as she shepherded the girls into the bathroom on the lower floor of the Women’s Wing. She stopped Meriel, letting the other girls go past and shutting the door behind them. “I want you to know something,” she said to Meriel.

“Siúr?”

The woman’s lips pressed together; her eyes narrowed. “Your little expedition has made me a laughingstock,” she said. “I don’t care who your mam is or whether Máister Kirwan is your protector. I won’t let you do that to me.”

“Siúr O’hAllmhurain, I didn’t—”

The lines on her face tightened. “Inside,” she said. “I’ve said all I’m going to say and the stench of you is too much to bear.” She opened the door.

With the others, Meriel pulled off her soiled clothing and—shivering—climbed into the large tub at the center of the room, filled with water that was quickly murky and lukewarm. Siúr O’hAllmhurain tossed in cakes of hard soap. “Use that,” she told the girls. “Then empty the tub; I’ll have clean water brought in.”

Half a stripe later, Meriel and the others were done, dressed in clean léine and clóca as Siúr O’hAllmhurain herded them back upstairs to their rooms. She handed them each a small loaf of fragrant, warm bread, with a pat of butter melting golden in the middle. There was none for Meriel. “What a shame,” Siúr O’hAllmhurain said. “The kitchens must have made a mistake.” With a small smile, she turned and left.

When Siúr O’hAllmhurain came to the door of her old room, she passed it, turning instead down the corridor toward the common hall between the dormitory wings. Meriel saw Siúr Meagher standing in the open door at the end of the hall. She nodded to Meriel.

Meriel went into her room.

“You’d better not still be stinking.”

Meriel ignored Faoil, leaning back against the door, exhausted, famished, and wanting nothing more than to fall into bed. “And you’d better not be thinking of sneaking out of the room again at night,” Faoil continued. “Ever. I got an interrogation and a lecture from Siúr Meagher today about whether I knew you’d been leaving the keep, and she as much as told me that Máister Kirwan will hold me responsible if I don’t stop you next time. And you’ll notice that we now have Siúr Meagher watching us, so we’ll all suffer.” She sniffed in Meriel’s direction, as if she could still catch a whiff of manure and rot over the strong lye scent of the soap. “I certainly don’t intend to spend
my
time wallowing in the midden.”

“I’m sure you won’t, Faoil,” Meriel answered, her voice tired and hoarse. She went to her bed and lay down, unable to stop the long sigh that welled up from inside her. Her eyes closed almost of their own volition—
no excursions tonight, that’s for certain.
But thinking of it made her recall Dhegli, and the wonderful white smoothness of his skin when he walked toward her.

“Was it awful?” Faoil asked, her voice banishing the image of Dhegli. Having delivered her ultimatum, Faoil now sounded almost conciliatory—
or perhaps she’d decided that it wasn’t to her own best advantage to remain angry with the Banrion’s daughter,
Meriel thought. She forced her eyes open again to see the young woman staring at her in the wavering glimmer of the candles.

“What? The work? It was nasty, aye—foul and hard.” Meriel lifted her hands, palms out toward Faoil. “Look at these blisters. My arms feel like they’re about to fall off.”

Faoil glanced from Meriel’s hands to her own, smooth, soft, and unblemished: the hands of a Riocha. “Why in the Mother’s name would you go outside, when you knew what would happen if you were caught?” she asked. “Why would you take the chance?”

Meriel had no answer to that, or—more accurately—there were too many answers. “I don’t know,” Meriel answered. “Because I wanted to.”
Because I
had
to. . . .
That was more accurate, but she couldn’t say it.

“Where did you go? There are all sorts of rumors. They say your mam—”

“My mam,” Meriel interrupted, “has nothing to do with this. Leave her out of it.”

Faoil drew back as if Meriel had slapped her, and the girl’s gaze went distant and cold, as if she’d slipped transparent armor over her face. Meriel remembered other exchanges with Faoil and the other young women among the acolytes, and seeing that same guarded look go suddenly over their features also. A sudden realization came to her.
The problem’s with you, not them. Faoil and the others aren’t really being aloof or unfriendly. They’re making the effort; it’s
you
who won’t let them get close.
“I’m sorry, Faoil,” she said. “I’m just . . . tired. I didn’t mean to snap at you.”

“I understand,” Faoil answered in a tone that indicated she didn’t understand at all. “Why don’t you get some sleep?”

Sleep was easy; Meriel only had to lay her head down. Her dreams that night were of the sea, but Dhegli’s hair and eyes were sometimes dark and sometimes, sometimes strangely fair.

“W
HEN they told me that the Banrion was out ‘watching sheep, I didn’t believe them.”

Jenna turned to see Kyle standing near her on the slope, breathing heavily as he leaned on a walking stick. She gestured at the flock of black-headed sheep grazing on the steep pastureland beyond Dun Kiil Keep. A black-and-white herding dog was circling the flock, nipping at the heels of any sheep who strayed too far from the group. Well down the slope, a trio of gardai pointedly looked the other way.

“It’s meditative,” she said, smiling at him. “I come out here every once in a while. The keep shepherd lets me take them out for a little bit, but first I had to convince him that I could manage to bring them back without losing any. Being out here with them reminds me of home; I can pretend that I’m just a little girl again.”

“And how is it that I never knew this?”

“I’m sorry,” Jenna answered. “I wasn’t deliberately keeping it a secret. It just never seemed to be anything you’d want to know, and you’re usually in Dún Madadh looking after your own townland. It’s not that important.”

“The captain of
Uaigneas
tells me that you’ve decided not to go visit Meriel tomorrow.”

Jenna looked back to the sheep, not liking what she saw in Kyle’s eyes. “The Comhairle’s still all in an uproar because of the seat I gave to the Northern Clans of the Stepping Stones. They’re all afraid that will be enough provocation to bring the Tuatha down on us again. I thought I should remain here while they’re meeting to make certain that everything stays calm. Aithne thinks that there will be a motion to fix the number of voting seats to what it is currently—”

“And if there is a motion, Aithne and I can squash it without your being there,” Kyle finished for her. “We both read the last letter from Mundy. You should go talk to her, Jenna. You understand what she’s going through. I don’t.”

Jena turned around to face him. “Did
you
listen to your parents when they gave you advice at that age, Kyle? I know I didn’t. I knew better than my mam. I thought she was stupid and couldn’t possibly understand what I was feeling or what I was going through. She would—and did—give me advice that I wasn’t prepared to accept and didn’t believe.” Jenna gave a self-mocking laugh. “So now she has her revenge on me with my own daughter.”

“Because you didn’t listen doesn’t mean that Meriel won’t.”

“Maybe. But you know what, when I look back at it, I still think my mam was wrong and that if I’d taken her advice I’d have ended up in a far worse place. So maybe it’s the same for me and Meriel. Maybe all I have to give her are empty and useless opinions that would in the end make her miserable and unhappy.”

Kyle sniffed and he shook his head, pressing his lips together before speaking. “Give up the self-pity, Jenna. You don’t believe any of what you just said, and we both know it.”

“How
dare
you!” Jenna shouted back at him, flashing into sudden temper. The dog barked once at them before returning its attention to the sheep.

“You and your mam ended up apart for half of your life,” Kyle continued, ignoring her protest. “I’m sorry that happened, but you can’t change it now. Maybe you haven’t been the mam to Meriel that you wanted to be, but all you have the power to change is what happens from this moment forward.”

“I couldn’t
be
just her mam,” Jenna spat back heatedly. “I’m the Banrion. I’m the Holder of Lámh Shábhála.”

She remembered once saying the same thing to Meriel. She must have been five or six then, sitting in the middle of the room with a trio of dolls arrayed before her like supplicants. . . .
“Mam, why can’t you play with me. I want you to play with me.”

“Aye, you are the Banrion and the First Holder,” Kyle was saying. “No one can deny that. But right now you also have a child who needs you.”

“You go to her then. She calls you her da.”

“And I
will
go to her, if you won’t. I love Meriel, as much as if she really were my own child. But I can’t talk to her about what she’s feeling right now. Only you can do that. I know you love her, too, Jenna. I can see it. And I know she loves you also.”

“The Comhairle . . .” Jenna stopped herself. The ram started away from the flock and the dog ran after it, barking angrily until the sheep turned grumpily and went back to the others. Jenna sighed. “You’re right,” she said. “I’ll go. In a few days, once I know that the Comhairle’s settled.” She pressed her lips together, studying his face. “It’s what I have to do, my husband,” she told him. “It’s the task you and Aithne gave me. A few days. That’s all.”

Kyle grinned at her. “Then a few days is what it will be. But you’ll go. You’ll promise me that?”

“I’ll go,” she told him. “And if I’m going to take another jaunt to Inishfeirm, I can’t be daydreaming out here. Kesh!” she called to the dog, and it cocked its head toward her. “Bring them!” The dog barked once and then began running about in earnest, yapping at the sheep and nipping at their legs as they bleated in protest. The flock began to straggle back down the hill toward the keep, moving more steadily as the sheep realized that they were heading home. Jenna linked her arm in Kyle’s and followed alongside them. The gardai started moving out ahead of them.

“Thank you, my husband,” she said. “You’re a better friend than I deserve.”

He laughed, the sound causing Kesh to stop barking at the sheep for a moment. “And you’re a better friend than you believe,” he told her. “And a better mam as well.”

The Order of Gabair in Lár Bhaile was still a pale imitation of the Order of Inishfeirm. Even those in charge of the institution would have admitted that had it been politically safe to utter those words. But the Toscaire Concordai Rhusvak knew none of the Order of Gabair’s short history, and Doyle wasn’t about to enlighten him. The delegate from Céile Mhór had overheard Doyle’s plans to go to the Lár Bhaile and had asked about the Order. Edana had suggested that Rhusvak accompany Doyle. “
It gives you the chance to see if he can help us, and it masks your true reason for going,”
she’d said.
“You’ve seen how Ó Riain is hanging around the man.”

Three days later, they’d entered Lár Bhaile.

Doyle, the Toscaire Concordai, and their entourage rode up from the lower town around the lough to the stony flanks of Goat Fell, the mountain on which both the Ri’s Keep and the Order’s blue-painted tower sat. Finally, their horses sat snorting at the jagged edge of a deep ravine. Far below, the stream called Deer Creek thrashed its way to the lough, as the riders stared upward to the heights where the keep stood. The road ended here, abruptly, at a broken stone bridge, and if Rhusvak looked at the fallen edifice and wondered, he said nothing.

“The Order of Gabair was established by Nevan O Liathain on taking the title of Rí Ard from his da in 1132,” Doyle told Rhusvak. “The Rí Ard had experienced firsthand the defeat at Dún Kiil, and he realized that at least part of the blame for that defeat was the lack of training for our Tuathian mages.” Doyle gestured up at the Order’s tower looming far above them. “The Order of Gabair now teaches our own cloudmages. Many of the Holders of Clochs Mór—at least those who live in the various Tuatha—have taken their study here.”

“As you did?” Rhusvak asked.

“Aye,” Doyle told him. “I spent five years here, thanks to the patronage of the Rí Ard and my uncle Vaughn Mac Ard, may the Mother-Creator keep him in Her embrace.”