Said Cairide’:
Mongan’s wife at that time was Bro’tiarna, the Flame Lady. She was
passionate and fierce, and because the blood would flood suddenly to her
cheek, so that she who had seemed a lily became, while you looked upon
her, a rose, she was called Flame Lady. She loved Mongan with ecstasy
and abandon, and for that also he called her Flame Lady.
But there may have been something of calculation even in her wildest
moment, for if she was delighted in her affection she was tormented in
it also, as are all those who love the great ones of life and strive to
equal themselves where equality is not possible.
For her husband was at once more than himself and less than himself.
He was less than himself because he was now Mongan. He was more than
himself because he was one who had long disappeared from the world of
men. His lament had been sung and his funeral games played many,
many years before, and Bro’tiarna sensed in him secrets, experiences,
knowledges in which she could have no part, and for which she was
greedily envious.
So she was continually asking him little, simple questions a’ propos of
every kind of thing.
She weighed all that he said on whatever subject, and when he talked in
his sleep she listened to his dream.
The knowledge that she gleaned from those listenings tormented her
far more than it satisfied her, for the names of other women were
continually on his lips, sometimes in terms of dear affection, sometimes
in accents of anger or despair, and in his sleep he spoke familiarly
of people whom the story-tellers told of, but who had been dead for
centuries. Therefore she was perplexed, and became filled with a very
rage of curiosity.
Among the names which her husband mentioned there was one which, because
of the frequency with which it appeared, and because of the tone of
anguish and love and longing in which it was uttered, she thought of
oftener than the others: this name was Duv Laca. Although she questioned
and cross-questioned Cairide’, her story-teller, she could discover
nothing about a lady who had been known as the Black Duck. But one night
when Mongan seemed to speak with Duv Laca he mentioned her father as
Fiachna Duv mac Demain, and the story-teller said that king had been
dead for a vast number of years.
She asked her husband then, boldly, to tell her the story of Duv Laca,
and under the influence of their mutual love he promised to tell it to
her some time, but each time she reminded him of his promise he became
confused, and said that he would tell it some other time.
As time went on the poor Flame Lady grew more and more jealous of Duv
Laca, and more and more certain that, if only she could know what
had happened, she would get some ease to her tormented heart and some
assuagement of her perfectly natural curiosity. Therefore she lost no
opportunity of reminding Mongan of his promise, and on each occasion he
renewed the promise and put it back to another time.