They were in their second day of storm.
" Tis no worse than others I've seen," Moister Cleurach said. "The sea is a fey mistress and we're no more than a speck in her hand-there's no escaping her whims, not in Inish Thuaidh."
Jenna huddled sullen and miserable on her horse. The reedcoat she wore flapped in the gale force winds that shredded the gray-black clouds above and pushed them firmly across the sky. The persistent and steady rain, blown nearly horizontal, had penetrated every fold and gap in the reedcoat and plastered her hair to her skull under the hood she held over her face. Her mount plodded through the deluge, great clumps of mud clinging to her hoofs and fetlocks, her mane dripping and the leather saddle and reins sodden. The clouds ran aground on the tops of the steep mountains to either side of them, a thousand dancing and splashing rills and streams plummeting down their sides toward the river whose banks they followed.
It helped, a little, that the others in their small party were suffering with her. Moister Cleurach sniffled and coughed, the gardai and retainers grumbled and muttered. Only the Banrion Aithne seemed unaffected by the weather, sitting uncomplaining on her black mare as she peered around her.
"Another few hours," she said. "We’re nearly there."
Glenn Aill emerged from the storm and haze like an apparition: a curving half-moon rampart of native stone thirty or forty feet high, its horns ’acing outward toward them. Huddled high on a steep mountainside and adorned with draperies of vine and moss, the fortification could have been part of the landscape. Dour, small windows peered out from two towers at either end of the structure; a single massive oaken door at the center led out into a cramped, winding path through fifty yards of chevaux de frise: pointed, tall rocks set like thousands of teeth bristling in the gums of the earth, through which an army would have trouble advancing at any speed. The rocks gave way to a long, sloping meadow separated by stone fences into dozens of small fields planted with various crops or grazed by sheep, all running down to a narrow black lough that filled the valley in front of them. A stone-walled bridge with wooden planks arched over the water. No more than two riders could have ridden across it*abreast. "Glenn Aill was built over two hundred years ago and has never been taken by force of arms, though there have been attempts," the Banrion said. "Beyond the walls is the keep, also built of stone. Even if the outer wall and keep were overrun, there are corridors leading back into caverns in the mountain where you could hide forever, or come out far from here."
"You lived here?" Jenna asked. Aithne nodded, her gaze on the fortifi-cations looming above.
"Now and again, when there was need," she answered. "Normally, there are only a few families of attendants here to keep the place ready. Our parents retreated here once, when the chieftain of
Carraig an Ghaill attacked us over a dispute about grazing lands. I remember watching the battle-they never got farther than the bridge before they turned and retreated again. And my family would come here every so often, just to visit."
Jenna glanced at the forbidding scene, and Moister Cleurach shifted in his saddle. "Such a lovely holiday spot," he muttered, droplets falling from his white beard as he spoke. The Banrion only smiled.
"I think that right now Aron feels it's quite lovely," she said.
They rode over the bridge. The workers in the field stopped to look at them, and up on the mountainside, the great door in the wall opened. Several riders emerged, making their way through the chevaux de frise. "We should wait here," the Banrion said. "Out of any archer's range."
They pulled up their horses. The rain pummeled them as the riders made their way down the long slope. "This is your last chance, Holder, Aithne said to Jenna. "We could still turn and leave." Jenna only shook her head.
The riders stopped a few hundred yards from them. Aron was at their head. He reined in his horse and lifted a hand. "I expected no one but my sister," he said, his voice sounding distant and muffled in the storm.
"I need to see Ennis," Jenna called back to him. "I need to know that he's still alive."
Aron made a gesture, and two horsemen from the rear came forward. On one steed was Ennis, his hands bound together in front of him. The other was one of Aron’s men, with one hand on Ennis' arm and a long dagger placed firmly against his throat.
"Ennis. ." Jenna nearly sobbed the word. He sagged in his saddle as if desperately weary, and his green eyes were clouded with pain. His hair was disheveled and plastered to his skull with the rain; his skin was pallid and drawn. He stared at Jenna, pleadingly, and shook his head, water splattering on his face so that he blinked. He looked beaten. Defeated. Jenna nearly despaired, seeing him.
"Jenna," he husked. "Don't-" He stopped with a gasping intake of breath as the man holding him jabbed the blade against his throat.
"Be quiet," Aron warned him. "You are to say nothing."
She wanted desperately to go to Ennis, to rip the bonds from his hands and kiss him, to hold him in her arms again. And yet… he gazed at her like a lost thing, with no hope or joy in his eyes at all. Is this the way Mac Ard was after I took the cloch from him? Is this what I would look like once Lamh Shabhala is gone-or worse, since it's woven itself so deeply into me. .? She started to urge her horse forward, but Aron lifted his hand and the man holding Ennis pressed the dagger tight. "Move this way, Holder, and he dies. You know what I want. Give it to my sister. Now!"
Jenna let her hood fall back, uncaring of the rain. She brought her hands up and touched the chain around her neck. Muscles jumped in her face; she tightened her mouth, closing her eyes.
She lifted the chain from around her neck, the stone swinging in its silver cage, and handed it into Aithne's waiting hands. She bowed her head, clutching herself around the waist and cradling her right arm to herself as she gave a sobbing cry. Aithne glanced at the stone in her hand. Her lips lifted slightly, and Jenna quickly dropped her gaze away from the Banrion's face.
Aron’s laughter came from up the hill. "Well, you are stronger than I thought possible, Holder. You should have heard your lover scream when I plucked the cloch from his hands," he called down to them. "Aithne, you may come forward now."
Moister Cleurach, alongside Jenna, leaned toward her. "She knows," he whispered.
"Maybe. It doesn't matter. Aron takes the stone, sends Ennis to us, and We g°>" Jenna replied.
"And after that?"
"We ride hard and fight if we must."
Jenna heard the Banrion slap her horse's neck with the reins, heard the animal take a few steps forward through the mud. Then she stopped halfway between the two groups. "It's not much of a jewel, Aron," she said. "But I wonder. . how it would look on me?"
"Aithne!" He shouted the name, a call of fury. Moister Cleurach hissed in irritation. Jenna glanced
up to see Aron’s horse rear in alarm, and nocked crossbows appeared from under the cloaks of his companions "Don’t be a fool, Sister. You’ll wear that cloch for no longer than a breath The moment you take it in your hand and try to claim it will be your last."
4
Aithne laughed. "Such glorious threats. What will you do with it, Brother? Use it to promote yourself? Such a banal and selfish "purpose."
"Aithne, I warn you. The blood we share won’t stop me from giving the order."
"Oh, I know it won’t." Jenna watched Aithne heft the stone in her palm, as if in thought. "In truth, I gave this almost no thought until just now, when I took it into my hand…" She lifted her head up. "The truth is, Aron, that I trust the Holder Jenna more than I trust you. But. ." She clucked at the horse, urging it forward again. As she came alongside Aron, she nodded her head to Ennis.
"Let him go now," Jenna heard her say. "That was the agreement."