Mage of Clouds (The Cloudmages #2) (23 page)

Sevei released Meriel’s wrists abruptly, rolling away from her in a lithe movement and standing, her hand on the hilt of her knife. Meriel sat up slowly, brushing bits of leaf and dirt from her clóca and hair. She glared at Sevei, rubbing her stomach and trying to get her breath back.

“I admire that,” Sevei said easily. “I do. I’d have done the same, in your place. I want you to know that this incident is just between us.”

“Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

A shrug. “No. I’m just telling you that I understand. I’m also telling you that if you try it again, you’ll spend the rest of your days and nights here with chains. Nico won’t be at all happy, and as a result, neither will you. It’s your choice.”

“If I had a
choice,
I wouldn’t be here.”

“But you are, and now you have to decide how it’s going to be for you. No matter what you’ve heard of the Taisteal, we’re not cruel people and when we give our word, we keep it.”

“Aye. You’re just fine folks. Like that bastard Doyle Mac Ard.”

Sevei pressed her lips together. Her hand drifted away from the knife and her stance relaxed. “Say what you will about your uncle. I don’t know the man, but he could have just as easily killed you or done worse. He could have made you a prisoner of the Rí Ard and you would have become a pawn in that struggle with all the Riocha trying to use you for their own best advantage. He didn’t. He kept you safe and brought you to where you’ll be treated as well as possible and where those who might wish you harm can’t get to you. You didn’t want to be a hostage, I know, but if that had to happen, I’d say you should be grateful to him for bringing you here, to people who know the value of their word.”

“To thieves and liars and orphan-sellers.”

Sevei grimaced, her breath sharp between her teeth, black eyes narrowing under the fall of hair. “You’re just showing your ignorance, girl. Now, make up your mind. I’m going to turn my back now and start back. You can either follow me, or you can try to escape again. But when I catch you, I’m not going to be as understanding. After all, I’m only a thief and a liar.”

With that, Sevei spun gracefully on the balls of her feet and started walking away, her boots crunching against the dry leaves. Meriel sat on the ground, watching her go. It would be easy to get up and run; the woman was already a dozen strides or more away, not even visible through the tree trunks. The sound of her footsteps was receding, growing fainter.

Meriel pushed herself to her feet, bits of leaves falling from her clothes. A breeze stirred the tops of the oaks and the scent of must and rot wafted from the shadows farther in. The limbs of the trees around her groaned and swayed. There was a feeling of eyes watching, all the hairs on the back of her neck rising.

Meriel hugged herself. Dhegli’s presence throbbed once in her head—faint and far, far away.

She followed the sound of Sevei’s boots back to the tent.

T
HE FRAGRANT aroma of the cook fire filled the meadow as the sun eased itself down behind the trees of Foraois Coill and the light shifted to the gold-green of evening. Meriel found a log near Sevei’s tent and sat, watching as the clan busied itself preparing for departure. There seemed to be several family units within the clan. The heavyset, large woman by the black iron cook pot was Keara, Nico’s wife, and their children and respective spouses, their grandchildren and a few assorted relatives like Sevei made up the rest of the clan, ranging in age from infants still nursing on up to gray-beards. Meriel had been introduced to each of them, though most of the names had already escaped her. She hoped she wouldn’t be here long enough to need to know them.

“Here . . .”

Sevei handed Meriel a bowl of meat stew and a wooden spoon. Meriel glanced curiously at the bowl. She’d never seen pottery like this: a translucent blue glaze on top of fired brown clay, the glaze forming intricate curlicues of vines and leaf forms. “It’s from Céile Mhór,” Sevei said in answer to her unasked question. “We brought them over with us when we came. We sold most of the stock in Falcarragh to a newly-married bantiarna for her estate, but I kept a few for my own use because I liked the way they looked.”

“You’ve been to Céile Mhór?” It seemed so far away, a place of dreams.

“I was born on the
other
side of Céile Mhór from here, in Thall Mór-roinn,” Sevei answered and Meriel’s eyes widened at the thought of being so impossibly distant from the place of your birth. “One day, perhaps a year from now, we’ll be back there.”

“How can you stand it, traveling all the time?” Sevei tossed her hair back. “How can
you
stand it, staying in the same place all the time?”

Nico came up to them before Meriel could answer, sitting down with a grunt on the log next to Meriel. He belched once. “Sevei says that you can be trusted and that I don’t need to shackle you for the night. This is true?”

Meriel glanced at Sevei, then nodded slightly. “Good,” Nico said. “Now, I must talk and you will listen. We leave with the sun tomorrow, and we hope to find a village before dark where we can offer our services and sell our wares. Unless I silence you while we are there—which I
can
do—I can’t prevent you from blurting out to them who you are, even if Sevei stays near you.”

Meriel imagined being bound and gagged for all of the day in the stifling atmosphere of a tent. “Clannhri—” she began, but Nico lifted his hand.

“I talk, you listen. This is how it will be and you need to understand. You need to remember where you are—in the Tuatha, not in Inish Thuaidh. Those we meet won’t be your allies, and will go to the Tuathian Riocha and not the Inishlanders—
if
they bother at all. Most won’t; they don’t want to be caught up in the affairs of the Riocha; they learned long ago that they are happier and safer when the noble folk are far away in their cities. That’s assuming they even believe your tale at all. They’ll look at you—dressed like one of us, as road-dusted as us, and think that you’re just some useless fourth or fifth daughter who was sold to us . . . and one we’ve been unable to sell away to anyone else because she’s obviously addled and too much trouble. And
if
that happens, we’ll laugh with the villagers and take you back, and then I’ll let Sevei deal out the punishment. Maybe we’ll even do the lashing in front of the villagers, just for the pleasure they’ll have watching it. They’ll laugh while you scream.”

Meriel’s eyes widened. “You wouldn’t.”

Nico’s eyebrows climbed, deepening the furrows of his brow. “My promise to Tiarna Mac Ard was that I would keep you safe and alive, and we Taisteal have learned long ago how to tame those we sell without leaving permanent marks. You’ll have no scars that anyone can see, but I guarantee you’ll remember the pain. I keep my word. Always. Look at my face, girl—you can see the truth there. None of this is anything I want to do. But if I must, I will. You will make the choice, not me.”

Meriel could see no anger in the lines about his eyes, only an earnest seriousness. If he didn’t smile, neither did he scowl. “My mam will find me,” she insisted. “You don’t know how powerful she is.”

“If she does find you, she can have you: alive, and with Clan Dranaghi to thank for it. The Riocha’s squabbles aren’t ours.”

“Unless you can make a profit via them.”

Nico shrugged at that. “There’s no sin in profit. In the meantime, you will need a new name. You will be . . .” He hesitated, eyes rolling upward as if the answer were written in the smoke curling up from the fires. “. . . Cailin. Aye, that’s a good name; we would have named our next daughter that.” He patted her leg as a da might, and she moved away from him. He laughed, getting up. “Do you hear that?” he called out loudly to the others. “The new filly’s name is Cailin.” There were calls of acknowledgment from around the wagons and tents as Nico walked away toward the cook pot, still chuckling. Meriel stared at her untouched stew.

“Cailin.”

“Cailin?”

Meriel started at the unfamiliar syllables. Sevei was standing there, watching her in the deepening dark. “Eat your stew before it gets cold,” the woman said. “Then come to the tent with me.”

With the stew heavy in her belly, Meriel entered the tent as the Seed-Daughter’s Star appeared just over the eastern horizon. “Take off your clothes,” Sevei said as she let the tent flap close behind her. Sevei was sitting on the nest of pillows to one side, watching Meriel in the light of several candles set on a box.

“What?”

“Take off your clothes. Give them to me.”

“No.” Meriel clutched the filthy white clóca to herself.

“You don’t have a choice. You can’t wear the Order’s colors anymore. Here—” She tossed a pile of clothing toward Meriel. “Put those on.”

“Then leave the tent.”

“I’m comfortable. If you don’t want me to watch, then go outside and do it. I’m sure my male cousins would appreciate the view.”

Meriel hesitated, her hand on the clóca. She could feel the clochmion underneath her palm. “Turn away, then,” she said. Sevei shook her head, but she turned. As quickly as she could, Meriel stripped off her clothing. As she reached for the clothes Sevei had given her, she heard the rustle of cloth and saw Sevei staring at her.

“So
that’s
what you’re hiding. What is that?”

Meriel put her hand over the cloch and herself. “It’s nothing. A stone my mam gave me, that’s all.”

Sevei’s eyes moved from Meriel’s hands to her face. Her head tilted to one side, the black hair falling in a satin waterfall over her shoulders. “One might be suspicious of a stone around the neck of someone from the Order of Inishfeirm. I know Nico would be.”

“It’s a pretty crystal, that’s all, and not even an expensive one. I was just an acolyte and they don’t give clochs na thintrí to us. This is all I have from my mam now.” Meriel could feel her breath coming fast and hard, and it was difficult to look back into those eyes. She hoped Sevei wouldn’t notice, that the curling of her lip and the lifting of an eyebrow was only coincidence.

“You were no common acolyte. You’re the daughter of the Banrion.”

Meriel gave what she hoped was a scoffing laugh. “The Máister hardly worried about that. Besides, my uncle—Tiarna Mac Ard—he would have taken it if it had been a cloch.”

“Aye, I’m sure he would have, if he’d thought it to be a Cloch Mór and if he even thought to look for it, hidden as it was. But it
wouldn’t
be a Cloch Mór, would it? You would have used such a stone trying to escape from him or from me. But a clochmion with one small gift . . . I’ve heard that if you take a cloch away from the Holder, that the loss can drive them mad—even a clochmion. Your uncle—the uncle you think is such a heartless bastard—would know that. He’d understand how it would hurt, but if he saw a clochmion, he might not be so concerned. And perhaps he isn’t quite so heartless as you think and didn’t mention it to the others and let you keep it to spare you the pain. Or, as you said, it might just be a pretty crystal gift for a daughter.”

Meriel could feel her hands and legs trembling as if she were chilled. Sevei stretched, yawning. She swung her feet around and stood, walking over to Meriel. She seemed to tower over her even though they were the same height, her gaze too insistent and intimate. Still staring at Meriel, Sevei bent down and picked up her old clothes. She was standing close to Meriel, so close that she could feel the heat of the woman’s body against her skin. “I’ll get rid of these,” Sevei said, her voice quiet and low. “You can get dressed.”

Her eyes released Meriel. She went to the tent flap and out into the night.

Her breath still fast, her hands shaking, Meriel dressed as quickly as she could.

In the darkness, Meriel could hear the deep, slow breathing from Sevei across the tent and a rattling snore from someone—probably Nico—in one of the wagons nearby. The night was quiet enough that she could hear the call of night insects from the forest and the rustling of moths’ wings against the fabric of the tent. A horse nickered softly.

Mage-lights swayed in their rippled patterns through the tent roof, but though Treoraí’s Heart called to her, it was still full and the urge to go to the lights was weak enough to ignore—she was grateful for that. The faint light, though, was a help. She could see Sevei’s form, a mound under woolen blankets.

Watching Sevei and trying to move noiselessly, Meriel slowly pushed her blankets aside. She pulled leggings and boots over her feet and stood. Stepping quickly to the tent’s flap and untying the strings there, she slid out.

The dew was wet on the grass, and the small area between the tents and wagons was deserted. As Meriel passed near the glowing embers of the cook fire, a flight of wind sprites swept by her in a gust of cold air and a flurry of green, sparking light. Meriel felt the touch of a thousand ghostly hands on her face and arms and heard their breathy, indistinct voices speaking in a language far older than that of the Daoine. They curled around her as if curious and then were gone, flitting toward the shadows of the forest and vanishing among the trunks of the oaks.