Part 11
The afternoon ambled on like a marching beetle and Saoirse, on Gavenleigh’s arm, strode Jabbot's field, plucking granny-tops and fiddle-furls as she went. She remembered Stane to him in stories, her father and the Scottish moors, the plush songs of summer and the hushed wools of winter.
Idle talk finally turned to Leannán and the wonderings and worries a young wife would naturally have waking up each day in an empty marriage bed. But the wet clay of her complaint drew no answer from Gavenleigh. And as the sun’s crawl across the sky stretched the shadow of the Brooding Tree ever eastward, the two sat down on an expansive, smooth rock by the south stream.
Gavenleigh pulled his roll of checkered vellum from his quiver and spread it onto the rock's surface. As he arranged the runes of Brandubh, Saoirse tried to remember how to play. “Am I white?”
“If you like. Here's your king.”
“Let's make her an all-powerful queen,” she said. “Did you know, Gaven, that Leannán has traveled up to Bawn Guelph? A summons just this morning, to discuss a paper coin.”
“Yes, I've heard some talk about it.” He arranged the runes on their respective squares and centered the white queen.
“What strange problems Irish monies seem to find,” Saoirse stroked the cool smoothness of the white rune at center. “My metal coins were found wanting in the village. Aoibhneas told me they'd been clipped.”
Gavenleigh nodded.
“It wasn't a problem for Naddy, though. Her coins were whole.”
“It'll be a problem for everyone, now.” He placed one of his black runes on a threatening square.
“Why is that?”
“Because Balor now forbids weights and that allows clipped coins to steal twice. The second theft, the invisible one, thrusts two fingers in everyone's pockets.”
“Gavenleigh, stop speaking in riddles! Explain it plainly.” She pressed her hand on his forearm. “I want to understand.”
“Well, at any given time, there's only so much silver in the shire.” He looked up to see if she'd follow.
Saoirse nodded and laid her back on the rock, forgetting her queen.
“And right now,” he continued, “there are 500 ounces of silver traded back and forth in Aduaine, all mined in the north by Ollom Fódla.”
“Who?”
“The bearded, bellied man of the northern hills. It was Ollom who melted out the slag and carried the silver to Carrickfergus. But it was Prince Balor who pressed that silver into 500 coins, each the same: a one-ounce argat that always equals 10 chickens.”
“Or one stone of wheat,” she added.
“Or a week's wage. And over time, as the coins passed through his treasury, Balor clipped one hundred of those argats before sending them back out again.”
“So those hundred coins are now worth less.”
“Yes, Saoirse, that's the visible theft,” Gavenleigh smiled. “But where's the invisible one?”
Saoirse pondered this, looking up at the sky through the branches of the Brooding Tree. Then her face brightened. “The faeries!”
“Nay, lass, not the faeries.” Gavenleigh made his move on the Brandubh board as Brighid swayed in the breeze, a flower at their feet.
The roots of Brighid's toes tendrilled down into dirt and curled in anger at this denial of her influence. Her feet felt the rumbles of an imp burrowing nearby and her foot-root kicked his rump. Listen to that impudence!, her swat seemed to say, but the loam-imp couldn't be bothered, rushing away with his newly stolen white rune.
Eyeing an opportunity, Brighid dropped herself, petal by petal, into the dirt and reformed into a gleaming, white marble Brandubh rune-in-replacement. Ah, to be held again in the small hand of a Castle Lady, the perfect place to bade a faery's bidding.
Saoirse, though, still hadn't noticed and it was Gavenleigh who finally spotted Brighid's white runishness in the dirt. When he picked it up, he could feel its tiny, unusual lifespark twinkle in his palm. With prudent haste, he dropped the rune into his leather pouch and cinched up the laces.
No!
The pouch shuddered and in a furious flash, Brighid took back her faery form and struggled to break free. “Your silly girl!” she shouted, in a voice human ears don't hear. “She can't see our theiving! Why show her? You're a fool to try!”
The faery sank, defeated, to the floor of Gavenleigh's purse and pressed a defiant chin on her two clenched fists. “Humans are so dull.”
“Where's my queen?” Saoirse asked, suddenly present in the moment.
“I captured your queen,” said Gavenleigh, laughing. “But she's arguing with me. So I've locked her away in here,” he held up his pouch, “'till she calms herself down.”
Saoirse smiled at her loss, forgetting the game. She watched her old friend from home roll up his checkered vellum and rearrange his pack. His simple hum cheered her. Without him here, surely her exile to Aduaine would have been unbearable.
And rather cold.
A chilled breeze came off the water and she wrapped her arms in her warm, woolen shawl, thinking now of power and coin... the invisible wings of bankers and kings.
In Bawn Guelph's hidden room of letters, Babda hovered, a damselfly in the drape as the fingers of Leannán's left hand drummed a slow heartbeat on the writing desk. He could feel the points of his bones bearing into the flesh of his fingertips. His recent decisions, intended to move his world forward, now seemed snagged like a coattail on the things he had left behind.
Babda, a faery sod-mother sent in prisoned Brighid's stead, fluttered rafter-high over his head and came to perch on a book of illuminated gospels. Through her spiny legs she could tune the opulent frequency of gold leaf burnished into the text and she shuddered with a joy that spasm'd her wings. The entire room was visible through her forty-faceted eyes. She watched Aoibhneas bustle in, a multitude of angles moving her in slightly different directions. Finally, her kaleidoscope of faces and shoulders and clasped hands stood before the arrow slit that faced east.
Aoibhneas looked briefly at her guest, then turned down her eyes. “A hundred pardons, Lord Leannán. Maybe he wasn't expecting you so promptly.” She hurried back out again, stranding the man with his thoughts.
Babda watched his fingers articulate angst like the legs of a crab. She needed him receptive at this meeting of the men. She needed this war. Perhaps, if she pollinated him: a quick graze of his collar with the legs of a wasp to inspire his warrior ways.
Leannán didn’t notice. He walked to the arrow slit to take in the earlier view of Aoibhneas. Below him, the road to the castle was empty and the horizon offered no news. He turned back and was startled by a woman standing silently in the doorway.
Until she spoke. “Hello, Leannán.”
“Beo?”
Leannán walked toward her, studying her face. He brushed her cheek. It was the same, in texture, in curve, in energy. Beochaoineadh reached for his hand and held it to her chest. An odd lightness was painted on her hair, maybe from the window. A new strength empowered her arm.
He stepped back. “Why are you here?”
“Aoibhneas told me you were coming.” She held his gaze. “How is your new wife?”
“The new wife is a clan strategy, Beochaoineadh. Nothing more.”
“I can't stay here long, Leannán. But I wanted to see you before the Autumn ended. I need to warn you about this woman.”
“She's harmless, Beo, a rough lass. And she seems fond of one of her retinue.”
“No. Not her, Leannán.” Her eyes checked the door and she stepped closer, leaning toward his ear. “Your seneschal.”
“My sen--” he stammered. “Why?”
“After our annulment, I stayed at Bawn Guelph and she administered here the household. And I saw her.”
“Saw her what?”
“She tunnels.”
Her former husband stood lacking in reaction and reply.
“She turns earth. It's damaging--check your foundations.”
Leannán shook his head in confusion. “What?”
“I think she's consorting.”
“Consorting?”
“I need to go!”
“Well, I'll keep--” He looked toward the arrow slit while forming a cogent response, but when he looked back, Beo was gone. Aoibhneas walked in with a tray of boxty and some kippers. Behind her tromped a giant knight in echoing boots.
“Echternach,” the giant nodded, walking in.
Aoibhneas was humming to herself. “Boxty on the griddle, boxty on the pan--”
The giant joined in. “If you can't bake the boxty, you'll never get a man!”
Aoibhneas laughed herself from the room while Leannán's face rested, unroused. “Mealladh of the ugly mouth, what news?”
He grunted through massive lips. “The page has seen the horses from the parapet. He rides up presently.” Mealladh picked up a dead wasp and poked the stinger between his teeth. “I have some questions for Uachtarán regarding that swift over-calling of your gallowglass. And what's more--” he underlined his emphasis by pointing the wasp at the window. “I'm a bit suspicious of that preponderance of frogs.”
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