It happened at last that Maeve came to the decision which for a long
time had been forming in her mind. She decided that she would not
remain with the King of Ulster any longer, and, having so decided and
faced all its implications, she was not long in finding an opportunity
to get away from him. It is not right to say that she “found” an
opportunity, for she was of those who create chance, and who do at all
times everything that is in their minds.
There were many reasons why she might have been discontented as the
wife of Conachúr. The similarity of their characters, their equally
imperious temperaments, their equally untiring and almost identical
habits of mind, rendered each an object of suspicion and endless
cogitation to the other. They could not rest together or apart, for
each knew what, in certain circumstances, he or she would do, and
unerringly credited the other with the performance of these surmised
deeds. Thus leisure, which might have been profitably spent by either,
was wasted by both in courteous ambuscades and counter or parallel
schemes, so that the private habit of one was a perpetual cancelling of
the private desires of the other, and a state of exasperation existed
between them which, as it could not come to the surface and be faced or
downfaced, ended by being a very poison to life.
In settling out these terms it is more proper to refer them to Maeve
than to the king, for in the large conduct of his affairs he could
escape from his household and forget in the Council Hall or the
Judgement Seat that which his wife was given only the greater leisure
to remember in her Sunny Chamber or among her servants and sycophants.
But matrimony had been poisoned for them at the very fountain, and a
dear, detestable memory for Maeve was that her husband had outraged
her before he married her, and that he had taken her then and
thereafter in her own despite.
If it had been a question of morality she might have forgiven Conachúr
almost before forgiveness could be prayed for, but it was not a moral
violence she raged against. She was a lady to whom nothing in the
world was so dear and instant as she was herself, and that any man
should lay an uninvited hand upon her outraged her sense of propriety
as no general idea could have done. But she was as courageous as she
was beautiful and as unblushing as either. The world might have heard
her statement of the virtues she demanded in a husband, and if the
world was alarmed the young queen permitted it to be as it pleased, on
condition that it did not interfere with her, nor question her wish.
“My husband,” she said, “must be free from cowardice, and free from
avarice, and free from jealousy; for I am brave in battles and combats,
and it would be a discredit to my husband if I were braver than he. I
am generous and a great giver of gifts, and it would be a disgrace to
my husband if he were less generous than I am. And,” she continued,
“it would not suit me at all if he were jealous, for I have never
denied myself the man I took a fancy to, and I never shall whatever
husband I have now or may have hereafter.”
It is possible that her husband did not fulfil these conditions as
completely as Maeve desired. Of his courage there could be no doubt.
He had proved that on many an opponent, and although there were better
soldiers there were few who breasted danger with such gay violence. As
to his generosity, that might be questioned by one so whole-hearted as
Maeve, for although he would give often and largely there might be more
of calculation than of spontaneity in the gift. But it is in the third
of her stipulations that Conachúr would probably be found wanting; for,
given his temperament, his furious passions, his habit of command, and
his endless cleverness, he should have been a very madman for jealousy.
All clever men are jealous: it is one of the forms of egoism.
He must have tracked the discontented lady with the persistence of a
bloodhound and all the casual anonymity of a husband. He would have
been always just there in the place where she least desired to see him;
and it is possible that gentlemen on whom her eyes rested approvingly
would disappear before her eyes had adequately rested on them. It may
have seemed to Maeve that some one like Conachúr was standing at every
corner in Emain Macha,[4] and that at the few corners where he was not
his conversation-woman was, or some other withered crone was there
blaring hideously on her yellow tusk and making a noise that would
annoy a young woman, but which might absolutely terrify a young man.
She reviewed the situation and all the subsidiary situations. She
thought of what her father, the High King, would say, and knew how
he should be answered and by what arts he might be made an ally. She
thought of what her two sisters would urge, but she thought of them
negligently, considering that they would be more anxious to avoid than
to meet her. And she thought of her third sister, about whom she need
speculate no more; and Maeve’s hand that struck the blow had been as
steady as was her mind that contemplated its memory. Conachúr had come
to demand vengeance and had exacted marriage. That was his vengeance,
and she thought of the cold-minded, furious-blooded king in every
alternation from astonishment to rage, and in every mood except that of
fear, for she was not afraid of him, or of anything that lived.
[4] Emain Macha = pronounced Evan Maha.