eyes. Her dark friend, Duffagan, gave his blood instead of hers, and
wounded the monkish murderer to the death. But the dying monk said
some things of horror for her ears, and all who lavished courtesies
on that fair lady now flee from her! It is a mystery—like rats
seeking holes, they scatter as I turn my back. To save her there in
life and dignity is beyond the power of man without guards—without
servants.”
“What is their fear?”
“They will not voice it. May happen it is the death of the monk, or
his words not heard by me. It may be the death of Duffagan of whom
they had great awe. At her feet it is he died, and her own robe red
with the blood of them both, yet there was no shrinking of her and no
scream.”
“She is a fitting queen, and royal her daring,” muttered Leinster,
“and it is a baleful task to speak any going backward on the road for
her! There is none to bear that word but one friend, and he would be
loth, though constant. You, Donall, send to Glendalough for Ardan,
the fosterling of Donough.”
The lord of O’Faelain put out his hand to stay the son of Diarmod.
“That message has gone on swift feet,” he said. “It was the first
request of Queen Dervail.”
“Gone? And for what purpose?”
Donall the Illegitimate looked at him and gave quiet but scornful
laughter.
“Ardan has a good shape and good looks,” he said.
The great hand of Diarmod smote him on the mouth, and the dirk of
Diarmod was out.
Conor, the heir-apparent, caught his arm and was flung aside, and
Rhudri of O’Faelain stepped between.
“Take time with you in counsel, Diarmod, ere you slay a son for sake
of a hostage you will be forced to return.”
“Hostage?” said Diarmod, glowering.
“Is not that word the right word?” asked Rhudri. “It is the only
one used for our queen guest in our keep. Connaught and Breffni are
moving their troops to win her return, for the loss of Dervail is a
greater blow to the pride of O’Ruarc than the loss of Longford and
Leitrim. Is not hostage the wise word? Hostages are ever to be given
back again, and in safety.”
“She was hostage of Destiny to me, and not to be given back ever in
life,” said Diarmod.
Conor got Donall, with his bleeding mouth, out of the hall, and
Diarmod sat steeped in gloom, turning over in his mind the attack on
the life of Dervail. The word “hostage” as applied to her to cover
her flight was a bitter word and—heavier than all—the thought of
her going again out of his life, and she the glory of his dream of
kingship over Erinn!
He arose, frowning, and with set jaws.
“No other must tell her since it must be told. I ride with you.”
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Ardan was first at the castle of O’Faelain, and there was sickness on
his soul for what he met in that place.
Herdsmen and kern, ploughman and smith, raged like a sea of storm
about the walls of Faelain, and the name of Dervail was shouted
in hate heard even at a distance. At times it would die away to a
murmur, and then some wild voice would shrill aloud and the wave of
sound would again roll upward—“Dervail the Shadow! Dervail of dark
crafts! Dervail, the curse of Leinster!”
At sight of the scholar’s robe of Ardan and the foam-wet steed, the
mob made way, and held parley.
“Be our spokesman to the white slut who is harlot of two kingdoms,”
they said, “and we will let you pass safely. You are of the
cells—they will let you speak. Tell the woman, and tell the governor,
that none of our men will fight to hold her for Diarmod. The High
King of Erinn is against him, and much of Leinster is against him. A
free road to her if she takes the Breffni way; and death on her if
she makes a stand in Kildare! A holy man is done to death in there by
her dark comrade, and the curse of all saints is against her forever
for that! Dervail! Dervail, the malediction of men!”
They let him pass, and inside the gates white, stricken faces turned
to him. The guard held spear and battle-axe against a rush of the
crazed household. They pointed dumbly within when he spoke the name
of Dervail. Only one man of the guard led the way, and he halted at
the portal of her chamber.
A horrid weeping was heard within, quivering sobbing and choking. It
was the woman Kauth, who had seen Duffagan dragged into the court
below, and there hung in ghastly manner against the castle wall for
the killing of Kieran Dall.
But the more ghastly thing was that Kieran had not yet died. He was
coming out of a swoon of pain, and was prodded by Dervail, who sat
beside him, dagger in hand, and steadily, in a dull, weary tone,
making question.
“You lie, monk, but I would have you damn your soul with other lie
at the last breath! What reason to ban my race more than the race of
another? What reason to ban my mother? Speak ere I rack your wounds!
What reason—blind monk?”
“The reason—the reason—Dyveke—is—proving—itself—in you! Your hand
gave death—to him—to the father of your child, ere you went to your
lover Thorold, fierce Dyveke!”
“Again you lie yourself to hell! The name Dyveke is a name I never
heard; I am a queen—Dervail the queen! Speak again the name of the
race of the father of Dervail—speak!”
The woman Kauth never ceased the dreary, smothered keione of
despairing, but neither Dervail nor the man with the black wounds
gave heed. He had again sunk half out of life, and the breath of him
was a hollow rattle.
“Speak, monk!” And again the prick of the knife was in his flesh.
“You said it; say it again! The race of ancient kings? The branch
sanctified in secret ways? It exalts me, that blood—and you shall
speak! I am Dervail—I would know of that race. Speak! Speak again!”
There was a struggle, a twitching of the body, and a whisper.
“The race—dies out! Hark you! I hear wild waves on the shore; they
are shouting curses—hark you! Dervail—Dervail! Dervail! The world
rocks with that name of evil—
For eric in breaking
- - - -
A thousand years’ yoke
On the bent neck - - of Erinn!
A - - thousand years’ tribute of blood
- - - Inis Fair!”
Then there was only the rattle—and after that no whisper, and his
head lolled sideways and was pricked by the dagger to no good. And
Ardan made the sign of the cross at sight of the thing she did, and
caught her hand in horror.
“Dervail! He has gone to God—and was a holy man!” “He has gone to
hell—and was a liar! Also he was a cheat! He died too soon, not
telling all—only fragments of his hate for me. He brought death to
Duffagan, and he brought that pack of wolves howling below—and
without Duffagan the road I crave is a dark way for me! Is Diarmod
dead that these things are?”
It had been a long night and a morning she had sat there with her
blind victim, and she viewed his dead face with disdain. And from
weariness she was as in a daze. She looked at the blackened dagger,
and again at Kieran Dall.
“Who was he that a place was made for him at the table of a noble?”
she asked. “Who was he that he was filled with hate against me in the
lands of Leinster?”
“He was a prince whose name was hidden under the robe, Dervail.”
“Learn all for me and tell me! He made speech of things to madden my
soul! I want Diarmod, and I want you to go to him! Hearken to the
cries down there! It has been since sunrise—and ever more coming.
Hearken to my name! Dervail! Dervail!”
“That is the thing prophesied by Duffagan, whom they call your ‘Dark
Comrade.’ He told you in Breffni he heard the echoes of your name in
countless voices on the winds.”
“That is true,” and she crouched there looking over her shoulder at
him in a strange and fearful way; “but—but _Ardan_—this calling is in
hate! They are not human beings down there—they are a hunting pack,
howling for victim!”
“They are mortals, indeed, Dervail, but they are made mad by fear. An
army of men are bearing shields against Leinster for the sake of you,
and there is only one road of life and safety open for your feet.”
“And that road, Ardan?”
“That road is north into Breffni.”
“No! Not with Diarmod for my safety; not with his words of bondage
still sounding in my ear!”
She rose to her feet as if the very words gave strength to her, and
her eyes looked proud even while her face went pale at the louder
screams of fierceness down below.
“Dervail, that dream has died with your Dark Comrade; such is my
thought. Diarmod is no longer safety for you. His own life he may
not be saving. Between you two, all Leinster and Meath can be made
desolate.”
“What then? When he is triumphant, more than Leinster may be his. His
vows to me were made in Tara, and who more fit than he to rule again
in the ancient place of the great kings? No! The dreams did not end
with Duffagan—they endure! Beside Diarmod I will ride to find them!”
Ardan turned to Kauth.
“Bring cover for the dead,” he said, “and robe your queen for a
dreary journey—and a speedy one.”
Kauth covered the dead face of Kieran and then backed, sullen and
defiant, against the wall.
“I have no queen in this place,” she said. “Because of her, Duffagan
is beheaded, and his head on a pike below. I saw what I saw done
on that holy man who is dead, and I hear what you hear below in
the shoutings. I think it is truth they tell down there in their
cries—she is a malediction! Death to all is her one thought, so that
she walks safe—that is her thought. In thrall to her was held Tiernan
and Duffagan—they were a bridge for her feet. But I am no longer in
thrall to her! I have seen unholy and unlucky things, and the words
of dead Kieran are a curse against Dervail for always. If you, Lord
Ardan, are brave to walk beside her now—you are the only man brave
enough for it.”
“Madness has fallen on her,” said Dervail. “The death of her man took
her little wit.”
“Not all of it,” said Kauth, who had a most evil look with her red
eyes and swollen face, and her grin of malice. “This is the one man
who never took the gift of you at your offer—and he is the only one
of all your lovers to brave your enemies to reach you this day of
your days.”
“Go!” screamed Dervail in white fury. “Scullion, whom I lifted and
strove to make human! Join your mates below ere I have you thrown to
them from the battlements!”
The woman slunk to the far end of the room of shadows, but cowered
there, fearful of going down to the screaming mob. Dervail turned
away and covered her ears with white, jeweled hands to shut out the
clamor.
“Ardan,” she whispered, “it is not all a lie she tells. They _have_
scurried away from me like rats after a singeing! Rhudri of the
Faelain has gone, and every woman of them is out of sight.”
“I know the truth of that,” he said, “for the men of the woodland are
bearing brush and straw and great timbers. They will smoke you out
unless you take the Breffni road with me, and the choice must be now.”
“The choice?” she muttered, and walked wildly from window to window
looking down on the horrid, waiting, upturned faces. “The choice?
Ardan—soul of me always! Yours was the choice for me, and mine the
rebellious heart! Yours was the true vision, for the vision of
Duffagan has led me here to this trap! Yours was the hand I should
have held to; yours was the white way for me, Ardan, the white way of
the sun; and I am at last saying it!”
She flung herself on his shoulder, and her tears of self-pity touched
his hand as he took her in gentleness toward the seat by the window.
But the seat was not reached, for the reason that Diarmod and
O’Faelain came into the room at that minute, and Diarmod, in a rush
of rage, caught the shoulder of Dervail and flung her until she
stumbled and fell across the dead body of Kieran.
“The shouts below are the shouts of the prophets,” he said, “O royal
harlot, who, in making choice, passes no man by!”
Ardan turned toward the king with lifted hand of protest, and Diarmod
whipped out his dirk at that moment and thrust downward a mighty blow.
“You to the white way of your choice!” he said. “You to your white
road—the two of you!”
Ardan fell under the weight of the blow, and blood stained his white
garment, but a strange thing chanced at his falling, for the dagger
was caught and wrested from the king’s hand.
“A deep stroke, Diarmod, and an unlucky one. The youth is under
misjudgment; my faith on that!” said O’Faelain, lifting Ardan and
tearing open the white undergarment.
He crossed himself at what he saw there—and it was strange enough.
The slender blade of the king did not go deep for the reason that
the point was bedded in a golden ring, and the ring on a golden flat
chain fastened around the neck of Ardan.
O’Faelain undid the chain and handed it to Diarmod with the dagger
pendant.
“God and Mary have no wish that you do murder or vengeance for this
woman—and the sign of it is here,” he said.
Ardan struggled to his feet—bloodstained and pale, his hand
staunching the wound.
“You have robbed me of a thing precious,” he said. “To a king and a
lord of Erinn it can have little worth, but as for me, if it is my
time to die, I would wish to go into death with that token.”
Diarmod looked from the gold ring on which there was graven a circled
star and words in _ogham_ and as his eyes met Ardan’s eyes, he was
more blanched than Ardan, and his voice was husky and strange.
“How is this precious to you—this thing more ancient than you can
know?” he asked.
“It was on the breast of my mother at her death, and more than that I
do not know. Dall Clairineach bade me use it as a token to any king
of Leith Mogh if danger threatened me. For myself I would not use
it—but if it has virtue I will use it that Dervail the queen rides
safe.”
“She will ride free,” said Diarmod in a dull, strange way. “Look,
Rhudri—see my punishment.”
O’Faelain looked, and crossed himself, and lifted the hand of Ardan
to his lips.
“O perfect prince—and the first born,” he said, “you are a grace, and
no punishment.”
Dervail leaned forward, breathless at the words and at the look of
Diarmod: she was forgotten by him and by O’Faelain. Their eyes saw
only Ardan.
“You knew your mother?” asked Diarmod.
“I did not know her. Death took her. Dall Clairineach alone knew my
blood, and he gave me no word. I am of his clan—so I am thinking.”
“You are of the race of Conaire Mor, and your mother was Dhira of the
Dark Hair whom they forced from me and hid away—a veiled woman! None
told me there was a son, but her son could be only mine. You are the
heir of my youth.”
“Dhira!” said Dervail, her head thrust forward like a golden-headed
serpent with its stroke of poison. “_That_, Ardan, was the nun he
took from sanctuary—that was the thing of which I told—and the thing
you would not give your faith to—and you the living witness!”
Ardan looked at Diarmod in frowning question, and it was the eyes of
Diarmod that wavered and fell.
“This is between these walls,” said Ardan, and reached his hand for
ring and chain. “Beyond the portal it is never to be spoke. If the
token brings me fealty of a guard I will make use of it to lead this
queen back in safety to her kingdom.”
“See to it, Rhudri,” said Diarmod. “All that he asks of Leinster is
his. You had my love, boy, and today I am knowing that her eyes were
ever looking out on me from your own.”
Ardan made no reply. He was staunching the blood with linen torn in
strips by O’Faelain.
“Diarmod,” spoke Dervail, “has an old love weakened you to pleading
for crumbs? Is it true that Turlough O’Conor and Tiernan of Breffni
have cast the shadow of their spears against you and weakened your
courage? You hear Ardan say he will guard me out of your kingdom, and
you speak no word of protest? Did I then ride south beside you for
only a holiday or a fair?”
“You came, a stolen queen as hostage,” said Diarmod, “that is the
tale to tell. The hours are past for words of that: you must go with
the prince if you would keep life in you; the spears of two armies
are already across our border to force your return to Breffni. I will
have vengeance for the loss of you but that will be on another day—on
this one there is only flight in all haste for you.”
Thus he spoke, but his eyes were on Ardan and she saw it.
“You are not Diarmod the king this day,” she said. “You are only a
man in a trance who has the looks of Diarmod. This dead monk had
devil’s words of you, and of me. He called me ‘Dyveke the Dove’ and
said you were under _geis_ to hold no white birds under snare. He had
lies of old magic, and a curse for me in all of them. Are you knowing
that baleful rune he mouthed? Know you that he met his death striving
to do murder on me?”
“It is known, and it is a sorrow,” said Diarmod, “and his is the
first death of the many ere the end comes; thus has his life paid
for his prophecy. Ulster will join me to war against Turlough and
O’Ruarc; in another year Leinster will have allies and strength, and
you will again ride south to rule.”
“Your lips speak,” said Dervail coldly. “You are not the king of the
night on Tara.”
Rhudri returned with a frightened maid and the cloak of Dervail.
“I pledge myself to send your goods on a morrow,” he said; “it cannot
be now. While the humor of the mob gives sanction to your going, is
the time to go.”
The smile of Dervail was bitter and dreary as she looked at the three
men. She was no longer the first thought in any mind there. Ardan the
prince, and the first-born of Diarmod, was suddenly most wonderful
and pleasing in the eyes of the two men. Even the disdain of Ardan
gave them pride in him.
“You to have royal rule when it means naught to you!” she said,
looking at him, “and I to be robbed of it when it is breath of life
to me!”
“I claim no rule—nor will I,” said Ardan. “My mother died in
sanctuary, and thus will I. Enough sons are in Leinster to divide the
spoils. Cover well your head in the veil, for rain is falling. Give
extra cloak to the maid, and I ask grace for her, and comfort if her
courage lasts through the trials of the way.”
“She shall have honor that she heeds your word, and the children of
her shall have honor after her, O prince,” said Rhudri O’Faelain.
It was an awkward moment and strange, as Dervail stood, veiled and
gray, beside the body of Kieran, waiting to go.
“The curse came when he came,” she said, looking down on him. “It
seems a thousand years past—and it was but yesternight.”
Smoke drifted up on the heavy air, and curled blue-white through the
windows. Some of the mob, impatient of delays, had fired brush, and
the falling rain drowned it, yet it bore its warning!
There was a lull in the shouting as the guard of the king formed
without—and then the great gate of the castle opened and a horse was
seen with woman’s furnishings, and a roar went up.
“Dervail! Dervail! Dervail, the accursed of Leinster!”
Dervail stooped and picked up the dagger let fall when she ceased the
torture of Kieran.
“Dervail, there will be another day for us,” said Diarmod the king.
“Your lips speak, O king!” said Dervail.
She felt sullenly that the dark-eyed nun—long dead—had thrust herself
between them at the end—and in a strange way she felt that the monk
who had saved his last breath for curses had some way brought all
this evil to be when he sunk his knife in Duffagan: that, and his
words of mystic things, had changed the world for her.
He had caught her imagination and enthralled her soul by the mystic
things he left in shadow, and the shadow and fear remained on her
like a heavy cloak of gray.
Suddenly she turned to Ardan.
“Use your new strength—do not let the king show himself beside me. I
do not choose he should hear the wild beasts and their hate of me.”
“It is their fear of you, Dervail.”
“To the blind monk the thanks for that; but do not let him come.”
So, in the gray rain, drearily falling, she rode out beside Ardan in
the center of twice sixty of the king’s guard. Her name was echoed by
them a thousand times with all the terms of evil they could invent or
remember, and more than once a bowman sent an arrow hurtling overhead
as a warning to haste.
Once she looked back, thinking to see Diarmod on the wall, but she
saw only Kauth staring down over the gateway on which the head of
Duffagan was spiked.
It was the first day of the deaths of the prophecy, the “thousand
years’ tribute of blood,” for Dervail of the Shadow!
[Illustration: Decorative separator]
Many souls were sent for judgment in the slaughter done by
Diarmod—and done against him in his revenges for the shame of losing
her again to Breffni.
So great was the rage against her that even the castle of O’Ruarc was
no safety. Widows and the children of slaughtered soldiery cried out
against the curse of her beauty for which men died, and she became a
secret woman in the sanctuary of Cluain-mac-noise from which great
wealth went out through her hands for holy walls and holy vessels,
and endless prayer.
And ever, for the rest of her life, on the sweet spring nights of
Beltain, she knelt on the cold stone of the chapel floor to undo the
false magic of Duffagan on the hill of the druids. He had seen truly
there, yet his reading of what he saw was not true; and the proof of
it was the bridge she had built for evil to cross on.
It was not that she doubted the magic of druidcraft, but it is an ill
and unlucky thing to go to the old gods after the saints have rung
bells against them. Even the true things are twisted after that.
Her beauty was still on her, and the dreams of Tara were not dead.
But the fear of the words of Kieran remained as the shadow of a gray
ghost, sending her to frightened prayer.
The curse of the blind monk was too heavy to be cast aside even by
penance, and she walked veiled and dreamed of a day when Diarmod
would again be chief of victories and change the gray cloak of dread
to the royal robe of seven colors.
When the word came of his solemn banishing out of Erinn by vote of
the Irish nobles, she brooded, and reckoned the wealth still hers,
and waited message.
When he came again, with his English allies and the curst name
“Diarmod of the Foreigners” on him, her step was light with hope, for
the soldiers out of England would make him king indeed over all the
proud nobles who had banished him away! The dream of Tara was still a
sweet, yet fearful dream.
But when the death of Diarmod was come to him in horror, and the head
of Tiernan O’Ruarc was sent to England, while his body was hung by
the feet on the north wall of Dublin, then again did wild rage of the
Irish burn high against the name of Dervail of the Shadow.
It was sung in songs linking her ever with the hated invaders. Even
through convent walls that hatred came—hatred against her and against
the arch-traitor who had brought the English enemy to help win the
throne of Erinn, because of her beauty and her daring dream.
In secret and in darkness, she was guarded to Mellifont and a new
name given her for safety, and among the nuns she was never known to
have worn the royal colors of a queen. And the dream of Tara was a
gray horror—yet it had been told by Duffagan that kings who battled
for her would sink in death, while she alone survived—and it was so.
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But a monk whispered her name in the sunny walk of the garden one
day in spring, and she looked again into the dark eyes of Ardan, who
should be King of Leinster.
He held out to her a pearl and a ring she knew.
“These were to go back to you, and I made promise,” he said. “I was
with him at the last, when no one else was with him.”
“Did his blessing come with them?” she asked. “It is said he died as
Kieran died—cursing Dervail.”
“They should not have told you that.”
“Nay, none are telling me; it is on the air wherever the invading
enemy are known and hated—Diarmod and Dervail, Dervail and Diarmod
of the Foreigners! In my dreams I am hearing the curses on the two
names!”
“Duffagan made such prophecy of your name and its echoes in the druid
circle.”
“He did. Give the pearl to some altar and wear you the ring of your
father. They are tokens of fear to me—fear of what I dared in my days
of daring.”
“There are other sons to wear the ring. Mine is now the monk’s robe.
I am a builder and a carver of stone. If the churches rise against
the invading English, I will be a soldier to help undo the curse of
Diarmod.”
“And the curse of Dervail,” she said, and wept.
He made no answer.
“Ardan,” she said, “Kieran the monk said, a thousand years’ bondage
on Erinn for me, a thousand years of the yoke—the yoke on the bent
neck of Erinn! You have had the true vision all our lives; you were
the only true thing, Ardan. Can you read the days to come, and tell
me the end of that curse? For the yoke is on Erinn, Ardan.”
“I dare not read, or make prophecy, Dervail.”
“A white road to you! The bell of vesper sounds, and it is
Beltain—and a time of fear to me! Ardan, I have long had a thought
unspoken. A tomb will be mine some restful night. I would that your
hand had the carving of that bed. Your hand, comrade, will carve the
tomb? It will be the end of the flight of the bird, Ardan.”
“I will do that: I saw the form of it when we rode out through the
smoke and the furious pack there at the castle in Kildare.”
“And it will be—?”
“The circled cross—and a gray falcon there with broken, trailing
wings, Dervail.”