But for Deirdre a night went by which to the end of her days she would
not care to remember.
She had seen the king at last: that being, all memory and dream,
half monster and half baby, whom she remembered from Lavarcham’s
endless tale. She had seen the grave brow, the graver eyes, the
bushy, reddish-yellow hair looped back to the slope of his poll, and
the yellow beard cleft at the centre and foaming in two points to
the breast. She could not have thought that a man might be so huge,
so steady, so masterful. He was a being to whom one might pray, or
for whom one might die joyfully. If a lord came striding from the
Shí surely he would look as Conachúr did: massive and dazzling and
wonderful; with an eye from which one winced as from the sun, and with
a voice that trolled and astonished like the note of a beaten drum. She
remembered his hand that could hold both of her own with ease, and the
great ridge of his shoulders, sloping away like the easy run and fall
of a mountain.
And this terrific being claimed her as his wife!
Nothing but terror filled her heart at that prospect, for she could
not see him in any terms of intimacy or affection. He was and would
remain as remote as her childhood, and no mere nearness could make him
present. And he would be as unaccountable as are the elements that
smile to-day and rage to-morrow in hurricane. What woman could reckon
his parts or his total? He was like some god that had come out of the
hills to astonish and terrify.
And there was Naoise!
As her memory retrieved the beloved name her heart went bustling to her
throat, and she sat raging and terrified.
It was not that he would be defrauded of her: it would be his own
business to be woeful on that count; but she would be defrauded of
him, and her proper lack was as yet sufficient for her mood, for
lacking him what could be returned to her? Her hands went cold and her
mouth dry as she faced such a prospect.
The youth who was hers! Who had no terrors for her! Who was her equal
in years and frolic! She could laugh with him, and at him. She could
chide him and love him. She could give to him and withhold. She could
be his mother as well as his wife. She could annoy him and forgive him.
For between them there was such an equality of time and rights that
neither could dream of mastery or feel a grief against the other. He
was her beloved, her comrade, the very red of her heart, and her choice
choice.
Deirdre leaped from the bed, but she could not leap from her thoughts,
and she could not attempt the crazy and mazy corridors of her home to
fly to him; for the excited household was clattering and chattering in
the corridors, and she could no more escape by them than a bird can
escape by its cage.
It was not until two nights had passed that she could dare the wall;
and in the intervening days she must listen to Lavarcham, endless in
caution and advice.
Do this, but do not on your life do that. Remember this always, and
this and this and this. There seemed as much to remember not to forget
as there was to remember to remember.
Deirdre would turn an eye on her guardian so lack-lustre at times, and
again so woeful or wild, that the good lady marvelled.
“Do not be frightened, my silk of the flock,” her guardian soothed,
“there is every cause for joy and none for fear. In three days you
will be the most envied lady in Ulster, and in four you will be the
happiest. Tell Lavarcham what is in your mind and what you are afraid
of?”
“I am in dread of the king,” said Deirdre.
“That will pass,” Lavarcham advised, “and in a few days you will wonder
that you could have been frightened. But a maid is a maid: all that
she thinks or dreams is founded on inexperience, and has nothing to
do with reality: the world pours into a young girl’s lap heedless of
what she wished or dreaded; for no person can either hope or fear until
they know actually that which is hopeful or frightful. All you need do
is to accept what your heart approves of, and what your heart rejects
you can throw away. There is everything to hope for and nothing to be
afraid of.”
But her chance did come at last.
She found the sons of Uisneac still at their encampment, but they
were a silent trio. They were more than silent: they were abashed and
embarrassed.
“What is it?” Deirdre murmured, feeling the constraint.
“We are bidden to your wedding,” said Naoise shyly.
The mild candour of his voice went into her heart like a sword, so that
she could not speak to him, and it was to his brother she turned.
“What shall we do, dear Ainnle?” she asked.
But he had no answer for her, and it was the youngest who replied.
“Let us all run away,” Ardan cried, and his face went suddenly red and
his eager eyes shone like stars.
Naoise glanced at Deirdre from under his brows.
“Where could we run to from the king?” Ainnle grumbled impatiently.
“And we do not come of a race that run away,” said Naoise.
Silence fell. But the statement of his own quality had unlocked a door
of bitterness in Naoise’s heart.
“Nor will you easily find the girl who will run away from a kingdom,”
he continued as though addressing reasonable counsel to his juniors.
Deirdre faced him gravely and lovingly.
“I will run away with you,” she said.
“The king----!” Naoise gasped.
“I am afraid of that king,” she whispered urgently.
But her lover was pale and terrified.
It would be an affront that was never offered to a king in Eirè. It
would be a cruelty: it would be an awful deed.
He turned to his brothers. “The king is our uncle, he loves us,” he
said.
“Yes,” Ainnle agreed, “he loves us better than his own sons.”
“After Cúchulinn,” said Ardan, “he loves us best in the world.”
“And he loves me,” said Deirdre.
Naoise leaped to his feet.
“O gods of day and night!” he cried.
He seemed to plead to Deirdre for comprehension and pity.
“Conachúr reared me like his own son: I sat in his lap: he buckled this
sword on me with his own hand, he put his two palms on my shoulders
when I won my weapons, and he kissed me three times on each cheek. I
love and venerate him.”
Again silence throbbed among them.
“I shall go home to Lavarcham,” said Deirdre.
The boys looked at her and at each other and at the ground and did not
know where to look any more.
“I also shall be reared by the son of Ness,” she said gently. “I too
shall sit in his lap. He will not buckle a sword on me, but he will
unbuckle my girdle with his own hands; he will put his two palms on my
shoulders, and he will kiss me many times on each cheek.”
Naoise beat a fist against his brow.
“I am the king’s man,” he stammered.
But she turned her fleet smile and trembling lips on him.
“Am I to tell the king how well we loved each other, night after night
among the trees? or would it be better to keep that as a secret among
us four: they say that men can keep secrets.”
The two lads blushed painfully and turned away.
Naoise was as one who has renounced life.
“There is nothing to be done,” said his dry lips. And then, shaking his
shoulders, he tossed care from them.
“We shall be beyond the trees at this hour to-morrow night with the
chariots,” he said. “If the hour passes and you do not come we shall
attack the guards and take you out.”
He turned to the others.
“You must come with us, wherever we go, my brothers, for when the king
finds that I am gone he will slay you two for eric.”
“He wouldn’t kill me,” Ardan boasted, “for I wouldn’t let him.”
“Nobody but Cúchulinn could kill you,” Ainnle scoffed.
“You couldn’t, anyway,” the youngest retorted.
“Little boasting Pillar of Combat!” his brother gibed. “Pooh!
Battle-Torch of the Gael!”
And in terrified merriment they made the rest of their arrangements.