Jenna laughed with the Banrion. "I know. And that's why I came to you."
She told the Banrion about O'Deoradhain, how he had lied to them about himself on their way to Ath Iseal, how he had reacted during the attack by the Connachtans, that she'd glimpsed him in Low Town (though she said nothing about du Val), and how she now suspected the man had been responsible for the assassin.
Gianna’s face was grim when Jenna finished. "Tell me where this man and I will have him fetched here for you," she said. "There’s no need for you to expose yourself to danger, Jenna-and the Tanaise Rig will be upset if you are injured while you remain with us."
Jenna shook her head. "Banrion, I will have Lamh Shabhala to protect me Your gardai will be there only as a precaution. I want to do this myself- I want to see his face and hear his voice."
"Jenna-"
"Please, Banrion. I don’t know any longer who I can trust. I can only trust myself."
Jenna saw Cianna gather herself for another argument, but the Banrion finally dropped her shoulders. She coughed softly a few times, rising from her chair. Servants appeared as if summoned by the rustling of fabric, and the Banrion waved them away. "Come, then," she said. "We should give our farewell to your future husband, and pretend that none of us is plot-ting anything."
"I need four to stay out here and make certain that no one leaves until I’m finished." Jenna gestured to Labras, a tall, burly man with hair so red it almost seemed to burn and eyes as gray as storm clouds. She wasn’t sure she liked the man at all; he seemed to radiate violence, and the abundant scars on his face spoke to his familiarity with it. Yet if the Banrion trusted him… or maybe her reaction to him was only the haze of the anduilleaf. She’d taken two mugs of the brew before they’d left the Keep, knowing she might well be using the cloch, and the herb was like a fog over her mind that wouldn’t quite clear. "Labras, bring someone with you and follow me."
She touched Lamh Shabhala once as the three of them strode toward the door of the small, two-story house. She could feel O’Deoradhain, could feel the pattern of his energy motionless on the second floor. She could sense no fear or apprehension in him.
She decided that would soon change.
An elderly woman came scurrying from the kitchen as they opened the door, stopping suddenly and gaping with an open, toothless mouth at Jenna and the armed men behind her. There were two elderly men in the front parlor, huddled over a
ficheall board and staring with frightened yes at the intruders: Labras with a drawn sword, his companion holding a nocked and ready crossbow. "You have nothing to fear if you stay where you are," Jenna told them. "Widow Murrin, you have a man here named Ennis O'Deoradhain."
"First door to the left at the top of the stairs," the woman said hurriedly pointing, then hopping back as Jenna and the gardai pushed past her and up the stairs. Jenna heard the click of a door shutting as she reached the landing; in the expanded awareness of the cloch, she could feel O'Deoradhain's presence: still and quiet, even though she knew he must have heard the commotion below, the pounding of feet on the stairs and the jingling of the mail over the gardai's tunics. She could sense no danger in him, though, as she had with the assassin. He seemed to be waiting, calm. She started toward the door, but Labras shook his head. "He may have a bow or sword, ready to strike the first person through," he whis-pered. "Let me go in first." He seemed almost eager to do so.
"You needn't worry," Jenna said firmly. "He has a dagger, and it is in its sheath."
"How-?" Labras began, then saw her white-patterned hand touch the stone around her neck. An eyebrow interrupted by the pale line of a scar lifted and fell again. "So he has a dagger. You can see with that?"
"Aye," she told him. She pushed the door open. O'Deoradhain was leaning against a table on the far side of the room, arms folded across his chest.
"I was wondering how long it would take you to find me," he said. His gaze went past Jenna to the two gardai crowding the doorway. "You don't need them."
"No?" Jenna answered. "Strange. I expected you to be running like a frightened rabbit again, as you did the last time I saw you."
"If I were a 'frightened rabbit,' I wouldn't have come to Lar Bhaile at all," O'Deoradhain responded easily. "I wouldn't have made certain you saw me at du Val's. I wouldn't have made it so easy for that handsome, stupid boy with the golden throat to track me down."
His remark caused anger to flare in Jenna. She
grasped Lamh Shabhala, opening it slightly with her mind so that the cold, blue-white power filled her hand. "You knew where I was," she spat. "If you wanted to speak to me, you didn’t need this charade."
O’Deoradhain snorted. He took a step toward her, his hands down at his sides. She saw the well-worn leather of the scabbard there, and heard the gardai shift uneasily behind her. But the man stopped two strides from her. "Oh, aye. I could have walked right up to the gate-and Mac Ard would have had me killed immediately, or the RI Gabair would have bound me in irons to be tortured until I gave them the answers they wanted, or the Tanaise Rig might have had me dragged behind his carriage as he left for Dun Laoghaire, just for the pleasure it would give him. But I could never have gotten to you, Jenna Aoire. They might call me their enemy and be right, but I’m not your enemy."
Aye That’s why you sent the assassin, she wanted to tell him, mockingly. But she saw him through the eyes of Lamh Shabhala, not just her own, and though she could sense that he desired the power she held, there was no malice in him toward her, only jealousy and envy and sadness. The certainty in her failed. "Who’s your master, then?" she asked. "Who sends you? The RI Connachta?"
He laughed and glanced at the gardai. He gestured at Labras with his chin his hands not moving. "I would rather not talk here. In front of them."
"You’ll talk here, or you’ll talk back at the keep. I’ll ask you again, and I’ll know the truth of what you say: are you with Tuath Connachta?"
Again, a laugh. "I gave you the truth when we met. I’m of Inish blood. As to who sent me… I’m a Brathair of the Order of Inishfeirm and the Moister there gave me this task."
Despite herself, Jenna found her interest suddenly piqued at the men-tion of Inishfeirm and the Order. She remembered her da Mall’s tale, and her great-mam’s and great-da’s escape from that island. "And what task was that?"
"To bring you back to Inishfeirm so you could be taught the ways of the cloudmage."
Jenna bristled. The anduilleaf rang in her ears, Lamh Shabhala pulsed in her grasp. "What makes
you think that I need your instruc-" In the fog of the anduilleaf, she nearly missed it: a sudden sense of danger, of attack-not from the man in front of her, but from behind. .
"Jenna!" O'Deoradhain shouted at the same time. He flung himself for-ward as Jenna turned to look.
She caught a glimpse of Labras, no longer holding a sword but with a long dagger in his hand, his gray eyes not on O'Deoradhain but on Jenna and the dagger already beginning to make a sweeping cut that would have found her neck. O'Deoradhain hit Jenna in that same instant; as she fell she glimpsed O'Deoradhain parrying Labras' attack with his own weapon, the clash of blade against blade loud. Then she saw nothing as she struck the floor with a grunt and a cry, trying to roll away. As she tumbled, she heard a shout and a horrible, wet strangling sound: Jenna, on her knees, saw Labras fall, a new, second mouth on his neck gaping wide and frothing blood. The crossbow twanged, the bolt hissing, and O'Deoradhain staggered backward. The remaining gardai tossed the now useless crossbow aside and drew his sword. He moved-toward Jenna, not the wounded O'Deoradhain.