The Time Roads

Doubts continued to pursue him for the next hour, as he made his way out of Osraighe’s busy train station and summoned a cab to the palace. It seemed, if he could trust his recollections, that more guards patrolled the grounds outside Cill Cannig, and the sentries examined his papers more closely. A pair of runners escorted him from the gates to a suite of rooms within the Royal Enclosure. He noted that they glanced him over as soldiers might, and that they carried weapons, some obvious and some hidden.

Servants had already fetched his trunks from the station and laid out his clothes. There was a valet assigned to him, but Ó Deághaidh dismissed the man. He wanted a few moments alone before he faced his queen and her ministers.

He washed his face, changed into a new gray suit, and brushed his hair smooth. The mirror showed him a thin brown face, made sharper and thinner still from the events of the past eighteen months. Well, he could not help that.

The same runners waited outside to escort Ó Deághaidh to the audience chamber. It was one of the smaller rooms in this wing of the Enclosure, long and narrow, with windows set high in the walls. Below, a series of portraits alternated with centuries-old tapestries depicting Éire’s rise from Roman colony to independent kingdom to empire. Ó Deághaidh recognized the queen’s coronation portrait among those of her ancestors.

One person had arrived already and sat at the far end of the table—a middle-aged man in a dark blue suit, with iron-gray hair swept back in waves. Lord Ó Cadhla.

Ó Deághaidh paused.

Lord Ó Cadhla’s eyes were like dark bruises against his paper-white skin. He had wept in private, of course. Like all the men of his generation, he would display his grief to no one outside his family. Perhaps not even to them.

They tell me a lunatic murdered my daughter, Commander Ó Deághaidh. Find him.

I promise, my lord.

Ó Deághaidh blew out a breath. There was no help for it. He would have to face these false memories as they came. “My Lord Ó Cadhla.”

Ó Cadhla glanced up. For a moment, his face went still. Surprise? Dismay? The change in expression was so brief Ó Deághaidh could almost believe he’d imagined it, because the next moment, Ó Cadhla was on his feet. “Commander Ó Deághaidh. I had not heard you would be present at this meeting. I am … I am so very glad to see you.”

And he was glad. Ó Deághaidh could hear it in his voice. At the same time, there was that moment of unmistakable surprise.

You did not tell anyone about me, did you, Your Majesty?

Another clue, which did nothing to lessen Ó Deághaidh’s uneasiness.

Ó Cadhla was gesturing toward the chair next to him. “Come. Sit. The others should arrive momentarily—ah, and so they do. Mac Gioll, your watch runs in order these days.”

Lord Mac Gioll, a bent old man, limped into the room. He nodded at Ó Deághaidh in passing and lowered himself into a chair. “That jest was a weak jest twenty years ago, Ó Cadhla. And time does not improve its quality. Nor my humor.” He scowled. “I hope our beloved queen doesn’t have a mind to keep us here all afternoon.”

Mac Gioll’s entrance must have signaled the servants, because six liveried men appeared with silver tea carafes, crystal water pitchers, glasses etched with falling leaves, and delicate porcelain cups painted in the Oriental fashion. Lord Mac Gioll continued to grumble until he held a teacup in his trembling hands. “Much better. Can’t think when I’m soaked to the bones with cold.”

“It’s age,” Ó Cadhla offered. “Comes to us all.”

“Damn the age. I don’t like it. Neither do you.”

Ó Cadhla tilted his hand, as though to agree. “How does Lady Mhic Gioll?”

Ó Deághaidh took a seat several chairs down from the two men, grateful to be ignored as they chatted about family, their respective estates, the likelihood of good hunting come autumn. Two episodes within the day. Two moments revisiting a past that had never existed. Willing his hands to remain steady, he poured himself a cup of tea and drank, while Ó Cadhla went on to speak complacently about his daughter Maeve, who had just received a second degree with honors in mathematics.

“To what purpose?” Mac Gioll asked. “Damned fine accomplishment, to be sure, but what does she mean to do?”

Ó Cadhla for once appeared uncertain. “She hasn’t said definitely. She’s spending the summer with the family, naturally. After that, she mentioned taking a position in some new institute, run by that Síomón Madóc fellow and his sister. There’s talk about a new physics. New everything. I could not follow the subject, though it pains me to admit it.”

More names from the past. Ó Deághaidh closed his eyes against the vertigo. Maeve Ní Cadhla had lived—lived and prospered. Why should that be such a terrible thought?

An influx of voices recalled him. Servants and pages swept into the room, followed immediately by three more lords, their secretaries and aides. Then the chaos subsided as the Queen of Éire entered and everyone rose to their feet.

Áine Lasairíona Devereaux.

Ó Deághaidh drew a sharp breath and felt his pulse beat fast and strong. She was unchanged from when he last saw her. And yet the years had transformed her entirely.

He remembered a young woman dressed in silks and jewels, her finery a symbol of her office, she had once told him. The woman today wore no gems except a narrow gold circlet for her crown. Her gown swept in straight lines to the floor; her blood-red hair was pulled back smooth and tight over her skull. She was not beautiful, not in the conventional sense—she had inherited her father’s strong jaw and arched nose—but Ó Deághaidh thought her so. He saw traces of anxiety in her face, and the way her mouth tensed as she spoke to her secretary, before she turned to face her ministers.

“My lords. Commander Ó Deághaidh.”

Lord Ó Cadhla bowed. “Your Majesty. We are at your service.”