Cahsadhe, and one hundred and seventy lives were sent back to God in
her capture. She lived a hidden woman after that time, but the story
could not be hidden. That was before your birth, or mine, Ardan.”
“Dall Clairineach surely had knowing of that if it was a true thing,
Dervail, yet yours is the first word of it I am hearing.”
“It is not for nothing Diarmod founds monasteries and religious
houses! You have been bred in them, Ardan, and it is a place for
holding secret things.”
Kauth slipped through the arras to tell them the cocks were crowing
and the old day was gone. She looked strangely at Ardan, and to
Dervail, when alone, she said the youth had much of beauty, too much
for such distance of converse as was his custom.
“True enough,” said Dervail, unbraiding the pearls in her hair. “But
there are other men for other uses, and this one has such honestness
he would be useless to me except in his own spirit. Because I tell
him much, he thinks I tell him all; and in his prayers my name will
not be forgotten.”
[Illustration: Decorative separator]
Kauth, who had been lay sister of Clonard, was given higher place
than the place of a serving-woman in the castle of O’Ruarc, and her
dress held three colors. She rode abroad with Dervail when the days
were fine, and ever stood between when man or woman made approach to
the hall of the queen.
Thus she rode obedient with the glad riders of the springtime in the
forest, and with adroitness found way to lose herself with the queen
and Ardan, and all three rode in the edge of the great wood, and
looked out on the moor where women with their young were gathering
gorse bloom and marsh marigold to keep luck in the house when hung
over the door on May Eve. Others were plucking primrose for the
doorstep, and youths were seen bearing holly and rowan and a young
tree of the yew for the circle dance of the many stars around the
Still Star of the north.
“It would seem a strange nightfall to be out in the wilderness,” said
Ardan. “All christians are together elsewhere on the eve of Beltain.”
“Duffagan Mac Knea gives me word that the prayers are the same, and
only the difference is that saints’ worship is given instead of
druid. The dance does not change, and the harp music does not change,
and the faith does not change. I have spoken at every chance with
these people concerning all things, and not yet has Duffagan told me
anything not of easy proof.”
“But the castle cleric, Cineath, has he no reproof?”
“He knows Duffagan only as student and scribe, who has gone into the
foreign world to the shores of the Nile, and tells no cleric of the
deeper things learned there.”
They had reached a hill of three circles, and Kauth, who rode apart,
came close and slipt from her horse.
“No animal must press foot up above,” she said. “So said Duffagan to
me. Since the end of yesterday has he been here, and fasting. It is
new moon, and Beltain.”
Dervail sat on her white horse and looked up at the steep sides of
the hill, and looked beside her at a huge square stone, pierced, and
once rudely carven, but now covered with lichen gray and green and
russet. It was high as her own head and she on the back of the horse.
Other stones of the same bigness were seen as if standing guard
around the circle of a great earth temple.
“There were great men in the world when that thing was done,” she
said. “It was not two or three people who were coming here then to
take note of the sky and the clouds over the new moon.”
Ardan said no word. He saw Kauth take from under her cloak a white
pigeon wound about with white and saffron bands. She placed it in the
hands of Dervail and pointed upward.
“Not empty-handed must you go there,” she said. “Pluck a rowan or a
holly branch for the hand of your friend. I have my happiness in lack
of knowledge, and will be your guard of the horse below.”
A dim path went up through the wood clothing the steep, and at the
first terrace they saw other tall stones like sentinels circling the
hill. Ardan felt as if he had passed some strange dread portal into
an ancient life; far above he saw that which he had heard of in Gaul
but never dreamed to see in Erinn.
It was a temple in the open with the sky for roof. Great squared
pillars arose in a circle, and to the east a sanctuary was made by
a huge slab overhead and two uprights on either side. An altar was
there on a raised floor of stone, and Duffagan the silent, in white
robe and saffron bands, stood there watching the sinking sun, and
striking flint on flint craftily where the silken strands of the wild
flax made tinder.
A tiny spiral of smoke curled and drifted along the stone slab above
him, and the two at the edge of the circle stood still and spoke no
word.
A curious hoop of hazel wands was beside the altar, and two balls
suspended at either side—one of yellow, one white; twigs of rowan
were there, and twigs of yew.
The priest lifted the hoop and whirled it sunwise through the smoke,
and Ardan knew it was symbol of sun and moon circling thus through
the smoke of the earth altar.
As the last fire of the sun went beyond the great sea of mystery, the
blaze of the temple leaped up—it was as if stolen out of the western
sky!
Dervail thrust spray of holly into the hand of Ardan, and went
forward with her offering.
Ardan could hear the low murmur of a prayer or incantation as water
from a shallow cup in the stone was sprinkled in a circle about the
slender blaze.
Sun and Sky,
Moon and Earth,
Fire and Water,
Living Green!
As the priest lifted his eyes, Dervail went forward with her strange
offering. Without fear she walked, yet with a look of question. And
Ardan knew it was for the first time.
“As Life I make my offer,” said Dervail.
“As Life I give it again to the elements by which life endures.”
The voice of the man had a sweet singing note in it by which Ardan
was won in surprise. He had expected roughness or harshness in an
un-christian priest, yet Duffagan, who was also “Son of the Night,”
was gentle beyond belief.
So amazed was he at this that he scarce noted the firm, quick stroke
of the flint knife until the wings fluttered once, and then were held
close and steady while the blood trickled from the slit throat to the
altar where the fire was.
Dervail stood, serene, yet pale of face, for it was a place of
curious imaginings. Ardan saw her cast quick look over her shoulder,
and knew that, like him, she felt the movement, or the very breathing
of a multitude circling that high place of ancient mysteries. Once he
thought he heard the sound of shrill singing far off, to the tramp
of thousands of feet, but in another moment he knew it was a distant
shepherd’s pipe, and the wind hurtling through the forest below.
Wind caught the flame and blew it against the hazel hoop of the
symbols. Dervail led Ardan forward.
“Once I was to come to this place where you read the stars,
Duffagan,” she said. “I am here to keep faith, and I bring my one
friend who makes offer beside me.”
Ardan’s hand held out the branch of holly, and Duffagan stripped the
leaves, and let them fall one by one on the blaze. His watching of
each new flame was curious. He did not speak until there were left
only red embers of the twigs.
“Good it is that your soul is strong in faith, O Queen,” spoke the
strange, gentle, even voice. “The trial times of life will call for
much strength of yours, and it is well to prove faiths. I have fasted
and prayed here, and have read the sky at this new time of the moon,
but this is not a moon in which change will come to you. It is a moon
for patience. Your friend who has come as a new star in your sky is
safest if his going is soon. There are watchful eyes in the head of
the cleric of Breffni. Take you leave as if careless of time, but
ride for life when you have turned a hill!”
“Cineath the cleric?” mused Dervail. “He is a ferret for Tiernan. I
will provide for you extra horse on the way, Ardan.”
Ardan gave curious glances to the man whose words she heeded, and
made promise to act on. Dark he was, as his name denoted—dark, and
small, and gentle—and his dark eyes had a strange, withdrawn look as
if looking at the two mortals, yet listening to unseen things!
“The Great Bear of the stars points again to the east at fall of
night,” he said. “It is the mid-sign between heat and cold, and is
the time for searching. The old learning has been lost for the reason
that no royal protector dare stand against the craft of the saints
and their followers. But many, Dervail, will have your name in their
speech, and you will cause much wonder in the minds of many. That
is a thing I read in all castings for you, and it may come to pass
that you will be the royal one who dares openly sanction that ancient
hidden wisdom to which each simple heart makes secret prayer.”
“With aid from you, and guided by the powers unseen, I have brought
here in secret my vow offering,” said Dervail. “That is my pledge—a
fair white pledge—not to go backward on the road we are walking. In
one year—two years—a thousand men and women will face sunwise about
the circle where we alone stand now. You will be the honored priest
of divinings, the thousands will give you their strength when their
fear is lifted—and lifted it will be if you show me the time and the
road for Tara.”
“That will come—and strife will come—and terrors. Great hostings will
come, and kings will fall; but you will live through all, and your
name—your name—it is a name whispered secretly now, but in days to
come there will be shouting of that name—Dervail—Dervail—Dervail!”
His speech was half whispered, and he said her name as if repeating
echoes of it afar off. A faint smile was on his lips and his face
serene.
For the first time Ardan spoke.
“For what reason is Tara the key to any greatness when Tara itself
was cursed by Ruadan the saint, and is deserted ground, and crumbling
walls in our day?”
Duffagan did not at once make reply. It was as if he had drawn out of
hearing. Then he came back and spoke.
“Tara even in desolation is a word of power. Images of greatness
belong in that place—and some mortals see them! Tara is the mid-court
of dominion, and the Ard-Ri should face the sunrise from that center.
Tara is a symbol, as are these things before me symbols of the
heavens and the earthly life. By symbols spirit is caught in the
silence and held, breathless, for the union with knowledge. Tara
holds a message for the woman or man who would rule Erinn—and the
message cannot be carried to another. Each finds there that which
his own soul can circle. Dervail has made record that it is the rule
desired by her. My task is to study stars, and phases of the moon,
and find the safe time for such journey.”
“Will he, my friend, be beside me?” asked Dervail, and Duffagan
peered at her in the falling twilight.
“He will not be there. His road touches yours strangely, and a veil
between! Is he of your kindred?”
“I have no kindred,” said Ardan.
“I think that is not true,” said Duffagan, “for I see you bear
shadows or burdens of kindred.”
“Where do you see these things?”
“I read it in the leaves of your holly when the flame curled them
into shapes before burning; if not kindred to Dervail, it is to some
mortal close to Dervail.”
“We are going, Duffagan,” she said. “The dark will be coming, and the
spies of Tiernan on the road. I come to the sunset of Beltain because
of your prayers here, and in other days many will follow me.”
“They will,” he said. “I hear the voices of many calling your name.”
He held his hands out over her head in blessing, and made gesture of
the way they should circle the altar and the path of descent. He did
not look at them again, and as they passed without the great circle
they looked back. He was holding at arms’ length the hoop of the
hazel, and looking through it at the faint silver line of the new
moon against the dark purple of the western sky.
Dervail drew near to Ardan, and laid her hand on his as if to know
a mortal beside her, for red light from the sun long gone reflected
itself on a cloud in midheaven and fell on Duffagan. It turned his
robe and the stones about him into soft light of flame—and left a
strange image.
“It is as if a furnace of fire had opened at his feet, lighting him
only, and leaving all the other pillars in cold gray,” said Ardan, as
he watched the light fade again.
“Strange signs follow Duffagan, or, does his thought compel them?
He has fasted since set of last night’s sun, and will have no feast
until tomorrow. All this he does for the craft he follows.”
“His belief is strong as though his birth had been in Phadraig’s day,
and not in this,” said Ardan. “It is a strange end to my last day
with you, Dervail.”
She pressed his arm and walked beside him into the shadows of the
wood.
“Make me a song of this place, Ardan. A song of the old, old days
when sharp edges were yet on these great stones, and this hill was
saffron and white with the robes of Ancient Faith people.”
“That is far to go for a song, Dervail. I have made you songs most of
my years, but this is not the place I would seek for songs of you,
lest they be sad songs.”
The wife of Tiernan peered at him from under her golden mane.
“Is it fear on you, Ardan?”
“I think it is not fear, but this mystic hill is not a place to seek
lightly on the eve of Beltain.”
“What could come to us?” she asked and clung to his arm. “Ardan—many
times you have come close in my thoughts of old in my dreams. But the
words of Duffagan of the veil between—what meant he by that? Look,
Ardan, what other man would not turn warm when my warm hand touched
him? Yet you are cold; what is it, Ardan? Did some veil indeed fall
between at that altar? See, my hand did not touch you as we went up;
yet were we more close than now, Ardan.”
“Duffagan has given you dreams and fears, and it is best not to speak
of them now in this place,” he said.
“What could come to us?” she repeated.
“What could not? Is that altar jewel you wear so holy that it is
strong enough to guard you in all places?”
She drew away and stared at him, and drew her robe more closely over
her breast.
“Have you ‘the sight,’ Ardan? Times are when I think it. You know
that great jewel of white diamond and red ruby?”
“I heard of it at Armagh. It was the wondrous star of Clonard, and
strange wealth to wear riding the forest.”
She laughed at that, and shook forward the gold of her hair over her
breast. They were again near to Kauth, who stood with the horses.
“Tiernan forbade that the altar jewels see the light of day in his
absence,” she confessed. “But what use has a pilgrim of penitence
with gems of richness?”
He did not answer, but helped her on the horse. The question of the
jewel had changed the momentary love-light in her eyes, or the claim
of warmth for warmth. He knew she had been touched by fear in the
druid circle, and it had driven her to his arms if he would have her
there.
Kauth looked at them as they came down, but had no question. Though
drawn to Duffagan as a mate for his comfort, she had no wish to know
the secret things of his dark delvings.
They rode hard and fast until in sight of the castle, and then Ardan
spoke.
“I will carry your message south, Dervail, and I will go tonight
instead of on the morrow. I have seen your hopes and your dark road
to them.”
“And your thoughts are baleful and apart from me!”
“No. Call on me for that which I dare to serve you. But you have
taken yourself out of the world we know together. It may be I cannot
follow. Your strange Duffagan says there is a veil between our roads
of life—and neither of us can prove that this day. But take deep
thought to what you do, Dervail. Duffagan spoke of symbols, and I saw
one when you offered the white-feathered thing there for the altar
knife.”
“Ardan, what did you see?” and he knew she was thinking of that
strange _crowded_ feeling within the circle. The unlaid ghosts of the
centuries swept to the altar at the call of blood.
“I saw the white bird of a boy’s dream of beauty in a cloister. I saw
the caged bird I rode north to seek sight of, and to lead spears of
aid to—and I saw a queen who offered that bird as token for ambitions
of earth power. It was only a symbol, Dervail, but you placed all in
one under the knife there! Your white bird was a symbol instead of
the children other women, in other ages, have borne up to that druid
rath for sacrifice.”
“Ardan!” and her white hands were flung out toward him. “That will be
the veil between, and I will be a lone woman—terribly lone.”
“You will be queen of beauty and power, Dervail. But put your all
of white dreams and of heart-love on that altar, and you will then
indeed be alone in life and in death!”
She drooped there, her hair a veil about her in the gloaming, and her
hands clasped over her knee.
Two kerns ran out the castle gate and stood with lights at either
side to light her entrance. She straightened and tossed back her
hair, and rode forward in pride.
“Yet the dream of Tara is a great dream for a life,” she said.
[Illustration: Decorative separator]
The harvest of the year was not yet garnered when the pearl of
Dervail went south to Diarmod of Leinster by the hand of Duffagan.
It found him flushed with the victory of Moanmore against Turlough
O’Brian, and strong with the thought that O’Conor of Connaught owed
him and owed Meath too much of grace to lift sword or spear if the
sacking of Clonard Abbey by O’Ruarc was avenged at last by the lords
of Leinster.
In every secret way Diarmod and Malachi, Prince of Meath, had
gathered strength and made bonds in friendship for that hosting when
the time came, and the messenger of Dervail told the day O’Ruarc was
going north on a hosting of his own against a rebellious sub-chief
who had taken sides with O’Lochlainn of Ulster in his claims to the
rule of Ard-Ri of Erinn as against Turlough O’Conor, whose word was
the most weighty in all but the northlands.
The days of going and the days of return had been reckoned with care
by Duffagan, and there were plenty for the task.
As to a joyous fair rode the men of the spears of Diarmod, and he,
kingly in pride, in the midst of them. Years sat light on him, for
the message of Dervail had brought back his youth. It had come at a
time when the music of life was dulled by the discords of rule, and
the watchful eyes of Conor, the heir-apparent. But the dream of the
forbidden maid brought deep longings, and her secret call to him
brought again the fairy songs of youth to his soul.
Fierce was the assault on Breffni, and lightning quick the conquest
of the castle where Kauth had seen to it that every lock was loosed.
No woman was touched but the wife of O’Ruarc, who was bidden forth
with her chosen woman, as hostage to Diarmod of Leinster.
In garb royal, clad in the cloak of seven colors, walked Dervail out
from under the roof of the prince who had been her Key!
The men of Leinster and Meath gave long looks to her as she walked
between the rows of them to the champing racer straining on his bit,
and their eyes turned to each other, dazzled by the brilliant beauty
of her. No such hostage had ever been given from prince to king in
Erinn.
It was the hand of Diarmod touched her foot in the mounting, and they
two were speechless as their hands met. It was the wild dream coming
true, and the stars read by Duffagan had all her faith in that moment!
Kauth mounted her horse, and among her goods fastened to the saddle
was the gift-cup given by hand of Diarmod in the castle of Donough.
The sight of it helped Dervail to her voice.
“It has not been drunk from under that roof,” she said, “but now we
will be drinking from it again—and at the well of Nemnach in Tara we
will drink.”
“Your word is the word—and will be,” said Diarmod the king.
[Illustration: Decorative separator]
Murtagh, King of Meath, knew nought of the hosting until the spears
of Leinster were north of Ath-Luain, and there was none for comfort
but Donough of Orielle—and him only with the hope that Dervail would
seek shelter from all men in the abbey of Mellifont.
But Malachi, Prince of Meath, rode back the richer for the plundering
of Breffni, and spoke his content at the sisterhood claimed for
Dervail.
“No queen so queenly in Erinn,” he made boast, “and it is a foolish
thing to hide, as you have hid—her daughterhood! Take pride that she
is of our line, even though a shadow is on her dam—whom no one is
knowing! She will yet be queen for Diarmod—and our house remembered
because of her name.”
“That has been a long, dark, fear of mine!” said Murtagh the king.
But Malachi had no knowledge of the secret held by the older man, and
thought it a foolish saying.
“Meath has been made strong for us by this act,” he boasted. “The
troubles of yours with the clerics will be at an end, for Diarmod has
made pledges for Meath. From Clonard to the Shannon you are to be
protected by hostage; from Clonard eastward to the sea I am to divide
the rule. This makes stronger the border; thus much of gain already
for your tie—whatever it be—with the wife of Breffni.”
Murtagh frowned at the words and walked apart, deep in thought ere he
spoke.
“I wish death in peace,” he said, “and I can have that best by
forgetting the tie. Pray God she makes choice of a cloister!”
But she made choice of a different thing; from the rath of Malachi,
whom she now called “brother,” she went for some secret thing to the
ancient rath of the Kings at Tara on Midsummer’s Eve. There went
Diarmod to keep tryst with her, and drink from the well of Nemnach.
Until the morning star shone over the plain to the east they were
alone on the height where his forefathers had been high kings through
the centuries, and the look on his face was a look of entrancement
when he came down from that place, and Dervail beside him.
“She is my mate, and no woman before has been that to me,” he said
to Malachi. “The clerics must find a way for it, for she is queen to
me.”
Yet, because of fear for her at the hands of Conor, the son of Mor,
who was moving toward death, he took her not among his own children
at Ferns, but in gorgeousness and much comfort placed her in the
castle of O’Faelain in Kildare with a loyal guard, and the hostages
of a princess claimed for her safety from Rhudri, lord of the castle.
Thus came the daughter of Dyveke south into the region where the
Danes had their holdings under Leinster, and where her mother had
cursed the land, and all kings and all clans of Erinn!
[Illustration: Decorative separator]
Great wealth had been taken out of Breffni by Leinster—not only her
own dower wealth, but rich plunderings of Clonard, and the droves of
cattle taken were the wonder of the country in crossing.
Like fire in the forest after falling of the leaves ran the story
of that hosting, and of the vengeance on Breffni for the sacking of
Clonard. Murtagh of Meath, and Donough of Orielle, and Duighal the
prior went into prayer and deep converse over it. All things within
human power had been done by them for the hiding of Dervail—yet had
she ridden free and set their world afire!
But prayers of piety could do naught to stem the flood of rage
unloosed by her ambitions and the pillaging of Breffni. Turlough
O’Conor, the high king, took sides with O’Ruarc. Erinn was divided
in the struggle. The enemies made by Diarmod in his proud domination
turned their spears against him, and annihilation threatened on every
side. Turlough, the High King, sent a priest to deliver the doom of
Leinster unless Dervail and her dower were returned to O’Ruarc of
Breffni. And troops of Breffni followed the messenger.
Diarmod raged like a wounded bull.
“My men will die for her, though they may not save her,” he said. “I
cannot be the one to make choice; that is hers to make. But the army
of Turlough and Breffni have crossed the Shannon.”
[Illustration: Decorative separator]
Rhudri of O’Faelain came riding a foaming steed, and stumbled, dazed
and spent, before Diarmod.
“My plea is to serve you in some other way,” he begged. “More than my
troops are needed in the guarding of Queen Dervail for you. Her name
has carried on the wind to strange places, even to the cells of monks
in the wilderness. One of them, old and blind, and housed for charity
in my hall, made his way in secret to her chair, an evil knife under
his monk’s robe, and—”
“Harm to Dervail?” thundered Diarmod, and the speaker quailed—“the
lives of your household will answer!”