"The Rl should have thought of that a few months ago."
Jenna saw the folds around the Banrion's eyes tighten at the remark but Aithne still smiled grimly. "That was an unforeseen and a terrible mistake on all of our parts-I'd remind you that your request for help was rather after the fact. Perhaps my husband would have stationed a garrison here if there had been a suggestion from the Moister that the Order's clochs na thintri were so vulnerable." Her hand waved, dismissing their words. "None of that can be undone now. It would be more terrible to make a second mistake, now that we realize the import of the clochs."
"I agree, Banrion. But I must still consider this. Will you stay with us? I could have one of the acolytes take you to the guest cells, and you're welcome to break your fast at our table. .?"
Aithne's lips tightened slightly. She glanced at the tray with its tea and few scones. "No," she said. "I'll return to my lodgings at the Black Gull. I think that may be slightly more comfortable. But only slightly." She picked up her overcloak and wrapped it around herself. She strode toward the door, and Ennis barely managed to open it before she reached it. Jenna wondered if she would have bothered to open it herself. Jenna heard a conversation suddenly go silent as the gardai outside straightened and fell in to flank the Banrion. Aithne turned back and nodded to Moister Cleurach,
Jenna, and Ennis. "Holder Aoire, it was good to meet you. Moister, I'll expect to hear your answer this afternoon before my ship departs. I trust it will be one that the RI and the Comhairle hope to hear, and we’ll take ship together."
The footsteps of the Banrion and her entourage echoed loudly in the marbled halls.
"We only have one answer, you realize," Moister Cleurach told them as they stood on the balcony watching the Banrion’s carriage wind away down the long road to the village. "Making her wait for it is just so much pettiness. But it feels good, nonetheless."
Jenna almost laughed. "She’s frightening. Those eyes, the way she stands, the tone in her voice."
"You haven’t met Ri MacBradaigh, Jenna," Ennis told her. "Behind his back, they call him the Shadow Ri. It’s Banrion Aithne who is the true power in Inish Thuaidh. She’s the one the Comhairle of Tiarna listen to. The Banrion didn’t come here because the Ri requested it; she came be-cause that’s what she wanted to do."
"And she knows we’d realize that," Moister Cleurach finished. He took in a long breath as the Banrion’s carriage vanished behind the trees at the first switchback, and let it out again loudly. The cloud that emerged from his mouth echoed the mist that cloaked the base of Inishfeirm and hid the sea. They seemed to be standing on an island floating in fog. "The Banrion has her faults, but she’s fair and what she does, she does with all of Inish Thuaidh in mind, not just herself. I might not entirely like her, but 1 do respect her. Most dangerous of all would be to underestimate her."
"I don’t think that will happen, Moister," Jenna answered. I did that once before, with Cianna. . Jenna felt the hair at the base of her neck rise with the memory, and a twinge of pain sliced up her right arm.
"Go prepare yourselves to leave," Moister Cleurach told them. "I’ll send a messenger to her after the noon meal and tell her that if she will wait until tomorrow morning, we’ll accompany her." The elderly man snorted. "She’ll likely bite the head off the poor acolyte I send, but it will do the Banrion good to spend a night here in the Black Gull’s beds, don’t you think?"
"I doubt the innkeeper will ever forgive you, Moister," Ennis com-mented.
A fleeting smile was the only answer.
Chapter 41: Cloch Storm
THERE were seals at the harbor quay. Jenna was disappointed to see that they were the common brown harbor seals and a few grays. Jenna wandered down to see them as she and Ennis waited for the Banrion's entourage and Moister Cleurach to arrive. The Banrion's ship, the name Uaigneas-Loneliness-emblazoned across its prow, cast a long shadow over the harbor front, and Jenna glanced at the ship as she walked along the beach with Ennis. Uaigneas dwarfed any craft Jenna had seen before, with a sparred central mast that seemed to prick the lowering clouds and six oars per side for use when the wind died. She could see several sailors on the deck and more swarming near it where it was docked alongside a long wharf extending out into the bay. The sides of the ship were painted in the blue-and-white colors of Inish Thuaidh in sweeping curves that were reminiscent of the long swells of the ocean.
"She's magnificent, isn't she?" Ennis said. Jenna nodded, silent. His hands touched her shoulder; before he could move away again, she leaned back against him, luxuriating in the feel of his closeness. But though he remained where he was, he wouldn't put his arm around her and his voice was carefully neutral. "We Inishlanders know how to build ships. Infochla may claim to have rule of the Westering and Ice Seas, but though they have more ships, ours are the better. The Banrion's ship is one of the best, which is why her captain was unafraid to sail at night. Inishlanders understand and respect the sea because it surrounds us. Even in the mid-dle of Inish Thuaidh, the ocean's but a day's ride away and its whims and its moods touch the entire land."
A hoarse roar punctuated the end of Ennis' sentence, and they both turned to look. A quartet of blue seals was hauling out on the rocky beach,
Jenna glanced at Ennis; he nodded to her. "Go on," he said and for the first time that morning, a smile touched his lips. "They've come to see you, not me."
She approached the group: a bull, two cows, and a pup. They watched as she and Ennis walked closer, their utterly black eyes glistening, their glossy fur rippling with sapphire highlights. The bull hung back, but the pup waddled awkwardly forward;
when Jenna crouched down in front of the animal, it nuzzled the hand she held out. The pup's breath was warm, its fur damp velvet. The larger of the two females came forward also. Up close, the seal smelled of brine, an odor Jenna found strangely pleasant. As the female came closer, Jenna took in a breath of wonder: the cow's fur was mottled in color: dark gray swirls and curlicues interrupted the blue-black and the fur there was stiff and wiry, as if the animal had been injured.
The pattern in the cow's fur was the same as the scars on Jenna's right hand.
The cow spoke, uttering a long string of moans and gargles and Jenna glanced back at Ennis. "She offers welcome to their land-cousin, the Holder," he said.
"Land-cousin?"
Ennis lifted a shoulder. "The blood of the Saimhoir-that's their name for themselves-is mixed with many Inish families. They say the Saimhoir can sense when a human has but a touch of their blood in their ancestry. She's saying that you're one of them." The seal spoke again, a bark and a braying cough. "She also says that I'm a poor translator and you should use the cloch."
"The cloch. .?" Jenna touched it. Curiously, she opened it slightly until she saw the seals in both her own vision and that of the cloch's energy. She closed her eyes, then opened them again, startled, when she heard the seal's voice.
"Land-cousin, can't you taste the salt in your blood? Thraisha is my name and Garrentha, who fought the darkbeast that attacked you, was of my milk." The words came overlaid with the sound of the seal's own language and came not from her ears but through Lamh Shabhala. Around Thraisha, there was a strange radiance in the cloch's vision, something Jenna had never experienced before.
Jenna laughed in wonder, glancing back at Ennis with wide eyes. Thraisha, you can understand me now when I speak?" Jenna asked, and she knew the answer immediately: her voice came back to her altered in the moans and calls of a seal.
"The language of Saimhoir is part of your blood, and Lamh Shabhala allows you to tap that part of yourself," Thraisha responded. "And I have chased and swallowed Bradan an Chumhacht, the first bright salmon of the mage-lights, which has come back to us. I am like you and I bear the marks. Aye, I understand you through Bradan an Chumhacht as you understand me through Lamh Shabhala."