“M-madam?” His throat bobbed. The wispy red beard barely fuzzing over his cheeks told me he couldn’t have been older than sixteen or seventeen. “Help you?”
“Two cups of ale.” The boy busied himself with fetching tankards and pouring the frothing brown liquid. When he set them before me, I dared to ask, “Can you tell me why the pub is so empty? Is aught amiss in the village?”
He frowned, tilting his head to peer beneath my hood. I kept my head resolutely angled.
“If ye don’t know, madam… pardon my saying, but ’tisn’t my place to say.”
I sighed and fished out another piece of silver, simultaneously grateful to Rogan for leaving so much money lying around and annoyed with him for never carrying small denominations. The boy’s eyes widened—it had to be a month’s wages for him. He pocketed it swiftly, then leaned closer.
“The high queen is raising a vast army. Bridei’s able sons and daughters wend toward Rath na Mara, for Cairell Mòr has bent the knee, to spare our lands.” He shook his head. “Brighid only knows what good ’twill do us, when there’s no one left to plow or sow.”
Fear and hope played like shadows and light on the backs of my eyelids. Mother was mounting an army? Then she surely meant to stand against Eala. “Does Eithne have an enemy in mind?”
Again, the boy stared at me as if I was from another realm. “Surely ye know—Eithne Uí Mainnín no longer sits the throne.”
My hope burned away in a flash of black smoke. “Who does?”
“The Deathless Queen, of course. The one they name Grave Mother, for she calls the dead from Donn’s dark realm and embraces them as her own living children.” The boy leaned even closer and dropped his voice to just above a whisper. “Though I have also heard her called the Rotten Princess, for where she walks, the grass shrivels and the air stinks of decay.”
I jerked away, tasting grave dirt and carrion in the back of my throat. The boy seemed to realize he’d said too much, and guiltily returned to his barkeeping. I carried the tankards toward where Irian lounged threateningly, barely noticing the suds slopping over the rims onto my gloves.
Deathless Queen. Grave Mother. Rotten Princess.
We’d known Eala was already here. But in less than two months she had somehow deposed her mother. Stolen Fódla’s high throne for herself. And was now drafting an army of able-bodied citizens to supplement her horde of the dead.
Fear nearly throttled me. I thumped the cups onto the wooden table and slid in beside Irian, murmuring, “I spoke to the barkeep, and—”
But when I glanced up to his shadowed face, I saw he was not paying a whit of attention to me. His gaze was fixed halfway across the tavern, his lush mouth slightly parted in fascination.
“What,” he asked in disbelief, “is that shriveled humandoing?”
I followed his eyes. The elderly fiddler had taken a break from his music and sat before the hearth, puffing contentedly at a long wooden pipe. The tip flared red, and Irian’s eyes smoldered with it.
“He’s smoking.” I fought the urge to roll my eyes toward the heavens. “It’s a common pastime. Or vice. Depending on who you ask.”
“I wish to try it.”
What insane wish fulfillment was this? “We haven’t got a pipe. Nor weed to fill it.”
“Then go bid him give me his.”
“Irian, I cannot march over to that stranger and take his pipe.”
“Then trade it. For one of those shiny tidbits you keep handing out.”
Now I did roll my eyes. “You meanmoney?”
“Yes, that.” Irian made an impatient gesture. “If you do not wish to barter, then give it to me, and I shall perform the trade.”
Oh, ye gods. I stalked over to the geezer, who saw me coming from halfway across the room and blanched white as a sheet. I plucked one of the last coins from my pocket and held it out between my forefingers, hoping these townsfolk appreciated my forced largesse.
“Grandfather.” I fought to keep the annoyance from my voice. “I beg you sell us your pipe.”
Wordlessly, the old man handed it over. I returned with it to Irian, who wiped the stem on the hem of his damp cloak before unceremoniously popping it into his mouth. He sucked in a huge lungful of smoke, then blew it out in swirls of vapor that brieflyobscured his shadowed face, his stubbled jaw, his armored figure. I glanced over my shoulder, assured the whole bar was once again observing us.
We werenotblending in well at all.
“Gods alive, colleen,” Irian said with immense glee. “But this tastes like a charnel house. Do humans truly inhale ashes for fun?”
