Mage of Clouds (The Cloudmages #2) (26 page)

“Fia stoirm.”
Meriel heard Nico say. “Storm deer . . .” They filled the meadow now, and the lead stag lifted his head and called, an urgent ululation that several of them answered.

And they ran . . .

The herd lurched into motion: sudden, exhilarating, and frightening. The sound . . . So deafening it was nearly solid, hammering at Meriel’s chest, dinning in her ears so that she could not even hear her own startled scream as one of the stags hurtled over a wagon and through the middle of the camp not two strides from her, its hooves shattering pottery placed on a shelf of one of the wagons. For a few moments, the Taisteal and Meriel stood in the midst of a red thundercloud while the world itself seemed to roar. Then, just when Meriel thought she could bear it no more, the sound began to fade as the herd moved past the camp, across the road, and up the long slope to the north. In a few minutes, they passed the lip of the rise and were hidden from sight, though the faint sound of their passage remained, like the grumbling of distant lightning.

The children were laughing and pointing. Meriel felt an elbow nudge her ribs; she blinked. Sevei was grinning at her. “You should see your face,” she said. Her voice seemed thin and weak after the barrage of sound.

“I’ve never seen anything like that,” Meriel said. “I mean, I’ve seen one or two storm deer in the distance, but never . . .” She stopped, shaking her head.

“No one has seen this,” Nico answered, coming over to them. “Not in seven hundred years or more. The storm deer returned with the mage-lights, like the dire wolves or the wind sprites. New things and ancient things both now walk the world since the Filleadh. We know best, we Taisteal. We see what others don’t: those who are born, live, and die in sight of the same hills. And now we see what twenty generations of Taisteal haven’t seen.” He stared off at the hills where the storm deer had gone, a tight smile of satisfaction on his face. “ ’Tis glorious to live in a new-awakened land. More opportunities for profit.”

He sniffed and rubbed his jowls. “But there’s no profit to be made here. Let’s break our fast and move on. There’s a village we can reach by this afternoon if we hurry. Cailin, it’s time you started to earn your keep; Sevei, keep her busy.”

Sevei did that, and more. Meriel was quickly introduced to the routines of the Taisteal—preparing the stirabout for the clan, taking care of the children, striking the camp and packing everything in the wagons, feeding and caring for the horses that drew them, and in between it all taking care of her own needs. Sevei was never more than a stride or two from her, and every time that Meriel stole a glance to see if the woman was watching, she met dark eyes and an amused smirk. A stripe later, the caravan was lurching slowly down the road, heading farther inland with pots and pans jingling as the wagons bumped and swayed.

For most of the day, Foraois Coill stayed close at their right hand, then as the afternoon shadows started to lengthen, the ranks of twisted, old oaks curved away from the road until the wood was a dark line to the south. The road stayed near the higher hills to the north, moving along at the feet of long, steep slopes blanketed by heather and stands of maple and fir. Bogs sat steaming in the hollows.

After several stripes of travel, they moved into land that was recognizably inhabited. Occasional flocks of sheep watched them pass, their woolen flanks splotched with patches of pale blue or red that marked them for their owners. Low drystone fences defined fields where farmers labored, and here and there were dirt lanes leading from the road back to one-room, thatched cottages. Sometimes, someone would lean against the fence and watch them pass. Meriel could see their faces; streaked with dirt, browned and leathery with the sun: plain faces well-marked by their labor. “That’s the look of the true people,” Sevei said to Meriel as they passed a woman, clutching one child to her breast with another hanging snotty-nosed at her ragged, torn cloak. “The Riocha in their stone cities never think of the thousands out here who spin their fine cloth and grow their food, who bring in the lumber and cut the stone, who do all the work that makes it possible for the Riocha to live as they do. It doesn’t matter to
them
who sits on the throne—their lives won’t change. Their lives
never
change.”

Meriel glanced back over the side of the wagon at the woman. She’d turned away as the child coughed, a phlegm-rattled rack, her thin chest heaving. The woman stroked the child’s matted curls of red much the color of Meriel’s, crooning gently to her.

Meriel touched the cloch hidden under her clothing as the woman and her children slowly receded behind them. She could feel the warmth of its power, tingling in her fingers.

When she turned back to look at the road ahead, she felt Sevei watching her.

By the time the sun had dropped two fingers in the sky, they came across a village at a small crossing where another road wandered in from the northern hills and drifted out toward the now-unseen Foraois Coill. There were no signs, no posting—Meriel knew she would have been one of the few who could have read them, even if there had been. At Nico’s call, a man herding a small flock of sheep with his dog told them that this was Ballicraigh, that the Ald for the village was Toma Macsnei, and that they’d best put the wagons on the Eastlawn, a small field just past the inn.

Ballicraigh seemed to consist of less than a dozen buildings: a ramshackle inn, a mill alongside a quick-running stream, a smithy, a Draíodóir’s hut with the Mother’s circle painted above the door. There was a tanner somewhere near; Meriel could smell the ripe odor of dead animals. They were immediately noticed: small clots of children ran around their wagons and adult faces peered at them from windows or watched from open doorways. By the time they pulled into the Eastlawn, a gray-haired woman was striding purposefully toward them on the arm of a someone who might have been her daughter, an oaken stick held in one gnarled hand stabbing the earth.

“Here we go,” Sevei whispered to Meriel. “There’s always a bribe or two to pay.”

“Aldwoman Macsnei!” Nico called out as if he’d known her all his life, hopping down from his seat on the wagon. “Clan Dranaghi is pleased to be welcomed here. I am Clannhri Nico.”

The woman sniffed. She grinned, showing the few teeth remaining in her mouth. “Well, Clannhri Nico,” she said, “I hope you’re better than the last group of Taisteal who came through here. I gave them five crocks of my best honey for a cook pot, and the handle fell off not two hands of days after they left.”

Nice’s face stretched in almost comic horror, as he placed a hand at his breast. “Aldwoman, I am
appalled.
A few, a very few, of the clans . . . well, they are just not to be trusted. Perhaps the pot you purchased came from Inish Thuaidh; the workmanship there is so poor, as you know. I assure you that what we have is only the finest, the best . . .”

Aldwoman Macsnei waved a hand. “I’m sure, I’m sure,” she said in a tone that indicated the opposite. “Your wares have had slow magics of metal chanted over them as they’re made. They’ve been certified by the twelve Great Mages of Thall-Mór-roinn and will never rust or leak. I’ve heard all the fanciful Taisteal guarantees that mean nothing. Spare your breath.”

Nico gestured to Sevei, who rummaged about in the back of their wagon for a moment, then brought out a small hammered copper cook pot. She gave it to Nico, who presented it to Aldwoman Macsnei. “Ald-woman, let me give you this as a token of goodwill, and a small repayment for your troubles.”

The Aldwoman took the pot, turning it over in her hands and tapping it with the head of her walking stick as her daughter steadied her and the metal rang like a gong. She tugged at the handle, then shrugged, handing the pot to her daughter. “You’ll stay on the Eastlawn while you’re here,” she said. “I don’t want any of you Taisteal wandering about stealing things. I’ll call out the village gardai the first I hear of any trouble. If we find any of your men with our young women, I won’t be responsible for the reaction. Do we understand each other?”

“We understand each other perfectly, Aldwoman. Thank you for welcoming us to Ballicraigh.”

Aldwoman Macsnei grimaced sourly, sniffed, and spat, and waved her hand again. She started walking away, and Sevei nudged Meriel. “Time to work,” she said. “Stay with me, and don’t talk to the villagers unless they talk directly to you, and even then watch what you say. Nico wasn’t joking about what he’d do to you if you try to make contact with one of them or escape. You don’t want to be treated like a wild animal. Stay near me, and keep your mouth shut.”

The clan quickly unloaded tents and set up the camp as a few of the villagers started drifting out toward the meadow. The wares the Taisteal sold were as varied as their travels, as Meriel knew from the clan who had visited Dún Kiil. They were traders and barterers, crafts-folk and entertainers. There were the usual pots and pans showing a variety of origins and styles; blankets, clothing, and bolts of woolen cloth, some with geometric designs that spoke to Meriel of foreign hands and minds; exotic spices and flavorings; powders and elixirs interred in clay jars stoppered with wax and marked with unfamiliar symbols; jewelry that glittered and sparked on scraps of dark cloth, with stones of dubious origin hanging from silver and brass links or plain thread. The Taisteal would accept coins as payment if they had to, but they preferred barter: new-baked bread; the local honey; suckling pigs, chickens, or even the occasional sheep; grains and cereals; the work of a local potter that they could sell elsewhere—all the niceties that an itinerant lifestyle couldn’t provide.

Meriel realized quickly that the Taisteal also provided another commodity: news. In a land where most people lived their entire lives within walking distance of the place they were born, the Taisteal and other travelers along the roads provided the link with the greater world, and news now months old would be listened to with eager ears. If the Taisteal embellished it or twisted it to the advantage of the listener, so much the better.

Each of the clan members had their role to play in the economic dance. Meriel found that Sevei was, among other things, the Teller of Fortunes, and Cailin/Meriel was now to be her silent assistant. In their tent, they set up a small table draped with bright gauze with two rickety chairs, and lit racks of thick scented candles so that the tent’s interior glowed with warm, shifting light. Sevei produced a small wooden box and set it on the table. Lifting the lid, she let Meriel glance inside at the rectangles of thick, oiled paper. The cards were brightly colored and much-handled, the paper soft around the edges and covered with strangely-dressed figures and fanciful creatures. There were numbers in the corner of each card. “The cards came from Thall Mór-roinn, and were my mam’s and great-mam’s before me,” Sevei said in answer to Meriel’s unasked question. “There’s a true power in them, whether you believe that or not, and they tell me what to say. That, and what I see in the person before me.”

Despite herself, Meriel found her interest drawn to Sevei’s routine and soon developed a grudging admiration for the woman’s skill. The first person to come into the tent was a young woman of the village, who wanted to know about her future love life. Meriel listened, marveling as Sevei teased hints from the woman about her expectations and experiences and wove them all into a tale suggested by the fall of the dog-eared cards, their placement and arrangement. Sevei watched the woman closely, and Meriel realized that Sevei fine-tuned her words by the body language and facial expressions she saw. The performance was impeccable, and the woman left marveling at the cards’ ability to see her life and predict its future course.

“The power’s in you, not the cards,” Meriel said after the woman had left. Sevei lifted one shoulder as she shuffled the cards.

“Just now it was,” she answered. “I simply told her what she already knew and what she wanted to hear. It’s easy once you’ve mastered the knack of reading the person across from you. Watch me, and in a moon’s time or less you can take a turn at it. Now—go let the next one in.”

For the next few stripes, Meriel witnessed a slow procession of people coming through the tent. There was the grieving mam who was distraught over the fate of her son, who had been conscripted by the Rí Infochla’s gardai six summers before and had never returned; the farmer who wanted to know if the blight would hurt his barley crop again this year and how he might prevent it (the latter answer involved sending him to Nico for a potion to sprinkle in his fields); the couple who asked if Sevei could tell them whether they would remain childless (yet another potion, this time provided by Nico’s wife); the coincidental series of three men in a row, each of whom asked whether his wife was being faithful—which made Meriel curious to know if they’d managed to cuckold each other. “Is there anyone else out there?” Sevei asked after the last of the husbands had departed, smug with the knowledge that his wife had kept her vow.