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maybe it was simply irritation, flicker across his face. Then he called out to Coelin. “I’m told your teacher was a Songmaster. He must have given you the ‘Song of Máel Armagh.’ ”
    “Aye, he did, Tiarna,” Coelin answered. “But it’s a long tale and sad, and I’ve not sung it since Songmaster Curragh was alive.”
    “All the more reason to sing it now, before you lose it.”
    There was some laughter at that. Coelin gave a shrug and a sigh. “Give me a moment, then, to bring it back to mind . . .” Coelin closed his eyes. His fingers moved soundlessly over the strings for a few moments; his mouth moved with unheard words. Then he opened his eyes and exhaled loudly. “Here we go then,” he said, and began to sing.
    Coelin’s strong baritone filled the room, sweet and melodious, a voice as smooth and rich as new-churned butter. Coelin had a true gift, Jenna knew—the gods had lent him their own tongue. Songmaster Curragh had heard the gift, unpolished and raw, in the scared boy he’d purchased from the Taisteal; now, honed and sharpened, the young man’s talent was apparent to all. Mac Ard, after hearing the first few notes, sat back in his chair with an audible cough of surprise and admiration, shaking his head and stroking his beard. “No wonder the boy has half the lasses here in his thrall,” Jenna heard him whisper to Maeve. “His throat must be lined with gold. Too bad he’s all too well aware of it.”
    Coelin sang, his voice taking them into a misty past where fierce Máel Armagh, king of Tuath Infochla four hundred years before, drove his ships of war from Falcarragh to Inish Thuaidh, where the mage-lights had first shone in the Eldest Time and where they glowed brightest. The verses of the ancient lay told how the cloudmages of the island called up the wild storms of the Ice Sea, threatening to smash the invading fleet on the island’s high cliffs; Máel Armagh screaming defiance and finally landing safely; the sun gleaming from the armor and weapons of Máel Armagh’s army as they swarmed ashore; the Battle of Dun Kiil, where Máel Armagh won his first and only victory; Sage Roshia’s prophecy that the king would die “not from Inish hands” if he pursued the fleeing Inishlanders to seal his victory. Yet Máel Armagh ordered the pursuit into the mountain fastnesses of the island and there met his fate, his armies scattered and trapped, the Inishlanders surrounding him on all sides and the mage-lights flickering in the dark sky above. The last verses were filled with the folly, the courage, and the sorrow of the Battle of Sliabh Míchinniúint: the Inish cloudmages raining fire down on the huddled troops; the futile, suicidal charge by Máel Armagh in an attempt to win through the pass to the Lowlands; the death of the doomed king at the hands of his own men, who presented Máel Armagh’s body to Severii O’Coulghan, the Inishlander’s chief cloudmage, to buy their safe passage back to their ships. And the final verse, as Máel Armagh’s ship Cinniúint, now his funeral pyre, sailed away from the island to the south never to be seen again, the flames of the pyre painting the bottom of the gray clouds with angry red.
    The clock-candle on Tara’s bar had burned down a stripe before Coelin finished the song, and Mac Ard’s hands started the applause afterward as Coelin eased his parched throat with long swallows of stout. “Excellent,” Mac Ard said. “I’ve not heard better. You should come to Lár Bhaile, and sing for us there. I’ll wager that in another year, you would be at the court in Dun Laoghaire, singing to the Rí Ard himself.”
    Coelin’s face flushed visibly as he grinned, and Jenna saw Ellia’s eyes first widen, then narrow, as if she were already seeing Coelin leaving Ballintubber. “I’ll do that, Tiarna. Maybe I’ll follow you back.”
    “Do that,” Mac Ard answered, “and I’ll make sure you have a roof over your head, and you’ll pay for your keep