THE FAIR.
More than a year had gone by since his flight from Damnonia when Cormac
found himself once more in Britain. Following the advice of S. Columba,
he landed in Northern Wales; and, leaving the body of his warriors to
follow, made haste to the great Fair on the banks of the Conway, in
connection with the ancient assembly--the Gorsedd, from which arose, a
little later, the Eisteddfod.
He was almost unattended. He wished to mix, as a stranger, with the
crowd at the Fair, believing in this manner he would more easily become
acquainted with the people from whom he wished to gather warriors.
Long before he arrived at the scene of the Fair he found the country
scattered with the mares and stallions of the visitors, who had
journeyed there before him. As he rode down a rich glade the clang and
clash of barbaric music came to his ears, a quaint city rose in sight,
backed by wild and glorious hills. The walls of the city were shaped
into a triangle; they bristled with spear and pike-point, standard and
pennon. The one and twenty towers, rising from the walls, were hung
with quaint scrolls written with the weird characters of the Ogham
language, bidding all the world make merry in the assembly that Aedd
the Great had founded centuries before Julius Cæsar had landed in
Britain.
The scent of mead came to Cormac’s nostrils as he entered the crowded
labyrinths of the Fair. Great vats of it were piled just near the
entrance; some of the vats had been broken open, the mead spilt upon
the ground, its pungent sweetness filling the air--the famous Pictish
mead brewed from heath honey, and so fragrant that Boetius believed it
was brewed from flowers themselves. Beside the spilt mead some drunken
Caledonian Picts were sleeping in the sunshine; their wares lay around
them--brooms, brushes, and beds of heather, and soft bales of yellow
heath-dyed wool, bound together by hempen ropes.
Passing through a place of barter Cormac found himself amongst booths
and work-shops. On every side was a continuous crush of musicians,
merchants, snake-charmers, bards, and law-givers. Spinners, potters,
carpenters, workers in gold and silver cried their wares. Everything
was offered to the passer-by, from an ingot of gold to roasted
cow-flesh on spits. Now came a blinding flash from sun-lit metal,
and a sword was thrust in Cormac’s face. Gold and silver-smiths were
proclaiming their work. “An Excalibur! An Excalibur!” they chanted.
“Without trouble of crossing the lake and suing unto Morgan le Fay!
Young men and warriors! An Excalibur!”
Other marvels of their work they showed; delicate thread of pure gold
as fine as hair, and sword handles of such miraculous workmanship that
a square inch of mosaic held on its surface more than two thousand
points of gold.
Cormac made his way, with care, through mazes of pottery--art brought
from Rome. There was precious Samian ware; red, satin-glazed and
wrought with fairy-like ornament--fit for daintiest lady, and so highly
prized that when broken it was delicately mended with rivets of bronzed
lead; plain biscuit ware, shaped into lamps, and other common vessels
of black Roman pottery. He stopped and watched the play of the potter’s
wheel--as hundreds have done before and after him--to see the clay,
rising birdlike, to the potter’s hand; receiving there, as it were, his
life and thought--created, not made. Poets sang of its dance of joy
upon the wheel; bards symbolised its play in their music. Homer had
compared the rhythm of its rise and fall under the potter’s hand to a
dance.
Then he lingered, fascinated, before the work of the Gaulish
bell-casters. Fair and noble ladies knelt before the furnace
and cast therein their ornaments of gold and silver; a joy and
penance--both--that they should add to the golden tongues that called
the folk to prayer; some of the little four-sided bells bore upon them
that mystic form of the cross--the Fylfot.
Sheltered by hempen awnings lay the book-stalls, with a large display
of plain, waxed tablets, made of birch, elm, and the inner bark of ash;
scribes were busy among them with reed and stylus. Towering above were
some ancient papyrus rolls, fifteen cubits in length--reed-written
with ink of gum-water and soot, and there were many plain boc-fell
folios such as Cormac’s countrymen wrote on by day and night in tower
and monastery, with red cinnabar and cuttle-fish ink. There were a
few Hibernian bindings, splendid and massive, with clasps, hinges, and
bosses upon them, that might have been used upon an abbey-door. But
it was a poor collection after former days of Roman splendour--when
bejewelled diptycha of gold and silver had been common--now people
contented themselves with coarse birch, joined by common wire.
Leaving the book-stalls behind him, Cormac made his way through many
cubics’ length of earth covered with basket work of every shape and
size--the famous wicker-work of ancient Britain. Marvels, too, he saw
of British wool--which the Romans had taught them to spin so finely it
was likened to spiders’-webs.
At every point he was assailed by eager vendors. At length he sat
down, tired, upon some felled trees where a group of diviners, with
their dice and knuckle-bones were lounging; close to a booth where a
fluttering pennon announced that a two-headed cow was on show within.
From his position on the fallen tree, Cormac caught glimpses of the
stone chair of the Brehon or Judge, which was placed on the great
burial mound around which the Fair centred. On his right-hand stretched
the race-course and wrestling rings; on his left the sea gleamed in
the distance.
It was not long before Cormac became aware that a woman formed one in
the group of people around him. Although half-hidden by the foliage of
the tree, she was quite close to him--so close that her flowing lenn
almost brushed his knee, and the saffron fragrance of her robes was
quite distinct to him.
It was a strange thing to see a fair and delicately-dressed woman
amongst these rude jugglers. Cormac was full of wonder. He wished he
could see the girl’s face. Every moment his wonder increased; was
she some high-born Druidess, mated by caprice with one of these low
serpent-charmers? No, the ring on her hand would never be worn by a
Druidess; he could see her hand, plainly with the ring upon it--bearing
the monogram of Our Lord, the bezel ornamented with a dove within an
olive branch.
What power in the loosely-lying hand and arm! White and delicate, but
of a strength to wield a battle-axe. And the wide sloping shoulders
and snow-white column of her throat, gleaming like marble through
the meshes of her yellow hair--such women, surely, stood before the
southern sculptors when they chose their images to bear the weight of
temple and palace!
Where had he seen such women? Not amid the nervous fiery creatures of
his own race, not among the beautiful fragile ladies of Roman-Britain.
A faint dislike, a sudden shuddering sense of disaster came upon
him--he knew now where he had seen such great, fair, goddess-like
women! But they had not been thus clothed in delicate raiment,
glossy-haired, perfumed, and dainty--but dishevelled and gory with hair
streaming in the fore-ranks of the Saxons.
Every moment his wish to see her face grew stronger.
He could see she made her replies unwillingly to the man at her side;
and evidently wished to remain silent and unnoticed. Indeed, there were
strong reasons why she should desire to escape notice, for at these
great fairs men and women were kept apart under fear of death.
Cormac looked with rage at the girl’s persecutor. Every minute he was
attracting attention to her; others besides Cormac had turned their
eyes on the pair.
Cormac was powerless; to interfere was to attract more notice to the
woman. Her persecutor was one of his own countrymen; of a low, juggling
order with a Pictish accent of the coarsest kind--a snake-charmer with
gold rings in his ears and a speckled cloak such as the Druids wore. He
had ringed himself round with hissing serpents--on arm and ankle, round
neck and trunk.
Cormac could see that the girl looked on the serpents with horror.
The snake-charmer thrust his hands, out-spread, towards her and
contemptuously cracked every finger-joint in her face. With a brutal
movement he came a step nearer, so that the vipers thrust their tongues
almost in her face--and then, with a dexterous movement slipped one
of the serpents from his arm to hers. The girl had stood her ground
bravely and uttered no sound; but at this outrage she sprang backward
and came with some force against Cormac, who threw one arm around her;
and, with the other, cast the serpent in the charmer’s face.
“Fool and meddler!” cried the snake-charmer, angrily. “Leave my
business alone. You shall pay for this!”
He recovered the viper; and folding it together with its fellows,
slipped them into his breast. There was an angry glitter in his eye,
and he withdrew from the spot, muttering ominously.
Cormac feared for the girl’s safety. He looked around for some place of
safety for her--there was none. All that could be done was to draw her
into the shadow of the felled trees. He turned towards her, and for the
first time saw her face.
It was Elgiva, the Saxon!
They stood gazing at each other. They must have remained in this
position for some moments when they were startled by screams of
wrath--that which Cormac had dreaded now happened.
An angry mob, headed by the snake-charmer, surrounded them--a
murderous, screaming crowd which grew larger every moment; serfs drew
their whittles and joined in--stragglers and rude horse-boys, armed
with clubs and yew-staves, came at the call.
“A woman--a woman!” The angry cry spread like lightning “a woman--a
woman in the Men’s Airecht! Deliver her to justice!”
Cormac planted himself in front of his companion; he had thrown his
cloak around her, to hide her dress. Now he forced her into the leaves
and twigs of the fallen tree.
“Ay, and a Saxon woman, too!” screamed the snake-charmer, “a Saxon, a
Saxon!”
There was a further howl of wrath from the crowd; and Cormac’s body
would have been hewn down instantly, but that the slaying of a man at a
Fair meant not only death, but a curse after death on the spirit of the
slayer.
Cormac was parrying blow after blow; men were climbing towards the
woman along the trunk of the hewn tree, and some were trying to set on
fire the dried leaves and twigs.
“A Saxon! a Saxon!” they yelled. “If a man do but enter the airecht of
the women he must die--let her die also! Let her die the death!”
Their enemies pressed closer upon them--still kept at bay by Cormac’s
sword. Some of the wildest in the mob took up stones and began to stone
them. Cormac and the girl retreated more and more under the thick
foliage. Suddenly their retreat was cut off--they touched upon a great
rock against which the felled trees had been massed.
For a minute they were left in peace.
Then Cormac saw a flame of fire run along a withered branch towards
them. A stone struck him on the shoulder.
“Cravens!” he said, “they will stone or burn us!”
Elgiva was examining the surface of the rock against which they stood;
drawing her hand over it through its veil of thick leaves. She gave
a little cry of joy as she entered a crevice in the stone, and drew
Cormac after her. The passage was so narrow he was forced to leave his
shield behind him. They pressed onward for a few feet, hand in hand,
until they felt they were in the heart of the rock.
“On!” cried Cormac, “on!” and slipping his arm around the girl forced
her forward--till the light behind them had disappeared and the rock on
either side had given place to damp earth.
“This path leads to the cliffs!” exclaimed Elgiva. And then she gave a
sudden cry.
“I slip! I fall!”
Their path descended with terrible rapidity, but she did not fall, for
Cormac’s arm prevented her.
“On!” he cried, “on! Though escape lead us to a second death!”
They were almost running now; pitch-dark around them; a slippery and
treacherous foothold beneath; thick about them a sudden swarm of
startled bats.
Day seemed, in a strange manner, to be dawning from beneath them.
The quick movement, the strange flight, and weird surroundings brought
cries and laughter both from Elgiva’s lips--the first sign of weakness
she had shown.
“Ah me!” she cried, “we have flown from the pikes and knives of men
to the awful dwellings of gnomes and mermen. I can stay my feet no
longer--I faint, I fall!”
Full daylight flashed upon them; a rush of earth and stones accompanied
them, as they slid, suddenly, into a shell-strewn cave.
They found themselves in the heart of a grotto; a ledge in the
steep cliff-side with the wild sea below; inaccessible, save by the
subterranean passage through which they had entered.