“I did not smile!” she cried. “It was satisfaction you saw on my face, for I was hoping that you would kill each other, so tired I am of men’s pawing and arguing.”
“Is this so?” He turned to her now, his fingers caught in the cat’s cradle he had made of the fishing line. His damp hair curled tightly on his forehead and his eyes were pale and ardent.
“Yes, it is so,” she said hastily, retreating. The wet gown clung to her and she held it out with both hands.
He went after her and took her arms.
“You feel soft to the touch and appear to be no myth. Is there truly a curse on you?”
“I have no curse. This is all foolishness.”
“Good, I have enough taboos which I must observe. An inheritance from my ancestors. I am sure that to desire a woman with a curse on her is also forbidden.”
She could not tell by his face whether he was joking.
“Yes, this is true. I am forbidden to wear the color green according to ancient prophecy, for it means my death. I am never to approach the gathering of the kings and chiefs from the north, but always make a circle sunwise about the gathering. I shall never hunt the bear. These are some of my taboos.”
She was suddenly uneasy.
“Do you keep them?” she asked.
“Oh, some of them, when I remember. Now, the bear I have often hunted, but without success. If one is to fall, it always dies by other hands than mine. A strange thing. As for green, I do not like the color.”
Now he was teasing. She laughed.
“What?” he said, putting his face very close to hers. “Are you laughing?” At that moment Flann came upon them. Doireann tried to pull away from Comac, but he held her tightly.
“I heard someone calling your name,” Flann said, “and I thought some trouble must have occurred.” He looked at Comac Neish, who grinned, Flann looked disconcerted.
“Are you coming by the fire?” Flann asked. “The child is growing fretful.”
“I am coming.”
Comac gently let his hands fall.
The light died quickly in the dense trees of he valley, but the sky above was pale and shimmering with the northern light. The birds twittered uneasily in the short darkness. Doireann and Flann lingered by the smudge fire after the others had rolled themselves in their cloaks to sleep. The air was full of gnats and whining mosquitoes, and the late stayers used this excuse for not retiring. Doireann had covered Ian with the plaid to protect him, but it was too warm for this and he slept restlessly.
Comac had seen to the horses. He joined Flann and Doireann and they talked for a while at the fire. Occasionally they laughed at some remark of Comac’s and roused the sleepers who sat up in alarm, blinking at the noise.
“Are you hungry?” Flann asked Doireann. He extended the pile of bones from the supper. There were still some uneaten pieces. She shook her head.
In the silence which followed, Doireann hugged her knees and hummed softly to herself. Comac looked up and asked the tune.
“‘The Vale of Laidh,’” she sang softly, “‘O the Vale of Laidh. There I slept under soft coverlet; and the fish and the venison were brought for my pleasure. “‘The Vale of Eti, O the Vale of Eti. In it I raised my first house. Lovely were the woods on rising; the milking house of the sun was the Vale of Eti. “‘Glendarua, O Glendarua! My love to everyone dwelling there. Sweet is
the cuckoo upon the bending bough on the cliff over Glendarua.
“‘Dear is Droighin over the far shore. Dear are its waters on white sand. I would never have come willingly from it, had I not come with my love. My love.’”
“So did Deirdre sing of her longing for the land of the Scots,” Comac said thoughtfully.
“I long for it too,” Doireann said dreamily. “I do not fear my returning, for I have been away for too long. It was this vale which made me think of her lament, so sweet that it is.”
“What was singing here?” a frightened voice cried. Diarmidh was sitting up, his face pale in the dark.
“I was singing,” Doireann called to him.
“I thought it was a sidhe,” he said wonderingly, “a fairy among the trees. There is a spell here, as in all places with falls and streams. A spirit living here.”
They laughed.
“Come, join us,” Comac said.
“No,” the young warrior answered. He sank back upon the ground. But they could tell by his tossing that he did not sleep.
“Well, I have had enough of the singing,” Flann said abruptly.
“What is the matter?” Doireann asked, puzzled.
“Nothing, nothing,” he told her. “But the curadh is right. This is not the place for ancient songs, pagan songs. Time passes too slowly in the vales, and little changes.”
The man and the girl stared at him.
“Listen to the night about us,” Flann continued. “With the sound of the ancient music in the air you would think the dark past had never left us. But this is the world created by God, and we are His children in it!”
He flung himself away from the fire and disappeared into the darkness. “Is he displeased with me?” she asked Comac.
The other smiled.
“There is no telling. All monks and priests are sensitive to the night and the voices in it, whether they be yours or others’. That is why some of them stand to their necks in the cold stream praying, and starve their bodies, wandering in rags in the winter’s wind.”
“I do no understand you.”
“I do not understand priests.”
She laughed at this, then shivered, rubbing her arms. “It is time for me to leave the fire also.”
He stood up with her and took her hand, drawing her to him.
“Come away from the fire,” he urged. “Come down to the pool and see how it is in the night, and whether the sidhe comes up from the depths to sing Deirdre’s Lament.”
She shuddered.
“Do not say these things, for I am uneasy. Besides, you do not wish to view the pool or anything in it, as well I know.” She tried to draw back her hand.
His eyes were like pale lights in his face.
“Do not be obstinate,” he told her. “If the Culdee has filled your ears with talk of sin then he has deceived you. The greatest pleasure comes from sinning. Besides, the Culdees take no vows of chastity as do the Roman priests. He probably has a wife and ten children on Iona’s Isle of the Women.”
“He has not said anything to me of sin or wives.”
“Then do not look so frightened. I only wish to make love to you. You know this.” “Do not speak to me like this!” she cried.
“Why not? From the first I have wanted you. I have not hidden it. And yet I am no fool to take you unwillingly. A man should not destroy the very thing he desires. He should be gentle before a woman and she should glow with her love so that all may see and envy him.”
“Yes, it is the man who profits,” she cried, “not the woman! She is torn between those who want her, like a lamb between dogs, and does not get much pleasure from the feel of their teeth on her.”
He laughed long and loudly.
“So you tell me that you do not desire my hands on you or the things which I might do?”
“Oh, be still!” she cried. “That is what I thought.” He snatched her close.”
“I find your body warm and yielding despite what your mouth says,” he whispered. “Why do you not listen to it a little? It says, I come to you, I bend to you.’”
She held the edges of the shoulder of the gown together, for it would fall if she let it go. She would have to pin it up when it was daylight. The others would see that it was torn and she could picture the grins on the faces of the curadhs. Now she felt pleasantly guilty and pleasantly ashamed for the wild things she had done and said this night, and for the wild things which the sleeping man beside her had done and said also. He was a demon, a fairy god with curling hair, and his skill betrayed the fact that he had known many women. But she had been a
s wild as he.
She shook her head. A woman could never live with a man such as this. The tending of a household and the duties of life would be impossible after nights like this. The ordinary fact of day and the wild delicious secrets of night would never mix. It would be like living a terrible dream, half world, half paradise.
He stirred beside her and looked up. “Where are you going?” he asked her.
“I must see to the child,” she said coldly.
He seized her and drew her down beside him.
“And the frown on your face? Is this the reason for it?” “Yes.”
He pulled her head down until her mouth touched his. “Not yet,” he murmured.
She pulled against him.
“Not yet, wait a while. This is what I am saying to you and yet you pull away from me. Are you the same woman who screamed out and urged me…”
She covered his mouth with her hand.
“Hush!” she said frantically. He was laughing and she drew her hand away. “You are caught and cannot get away. For that matter, so am I. I am fool enough to admit it. I will drag you before the priests with face red with your shameful longing, and declare you as my wife. It is a beautiful child you have with you, and the next shall be mine.” “Yes,” she whispered.
“Yes?” he mocked her. “Is this all you can say to such noble intent?” “Yes,” she repeated urgently.
The following day Comac Neish led the party on a wide detour to avoid the warring clans of the mac an Leigh whose rival chiefs were laying the land waste about them. For the first time Comac rode with Doireann and talked with her, telling her of the fierce mac an Leigh and the atrocities they had brought on each other.
“It is a sad thing,” he said to her, “to think of brothers and cousins turning against each other. These blood quarrels are the most savage of all. It is because love and hate are so closely mixed.”
“I hate Calum macDumhnull who is my blood kin,” she said soberly, “but now of a sudden I am glad that there will be a peaceful hearing before the brehons concerning my troubles. There will at least be no bloodshed.”
“Well, it is a better beginning, perhaps, but you cannot know the ending of these things Many bitter quarrels have begun where the brehon judges’ decisions left off.”
“That will not be the way of it, I swear it,” she said fervently. “If the Coire is to be for me and mine, then Calum is too much of a coward to draw a sword for it. And if the judgment falls against me, and Calum and his brother Donn are given the chieftains’ chair, I will not fight it. I do not have enough allies.”
He looked at her keenly.
“Ah, you forget your friends. They are many and powerful. There is Alpin, the Ard-Ri himself, who has gone to great lengths to fetch you home. And I have the curadhs. My name is yours, and that of my kinsmen in Eire. When we get to Cumhainn I will send Diarmidh by a fast ship to Ulaidh to the hall of my cousins, and they will lend me swordmen and the weight of their prestige, as kinsmen should. They will command respect for you in Cumhainn as no barefoot hill-chiefs could.”
“It is not necessary that you do this for me,” she said.
“Necessary? I do it not only for you but for myself. You do not think I would let the macDumhnulls outface me nor the woman I have said I would marry?”
The day was suddenly hotter, more oppressive, and her heart began to beat heavily.
“Comac Neish,” she told him, “if I say that I trust you, remember that I have never before given my love to any man. I am alone, and have only the child. Promise me that there will be no shedding of blood in the Coire.”
He reached out and pulled at the reins of her horse. The mounts stopped, and he looked down into her face.
“Are you not the famed woman of Lorne whom men are fated to love? Are you not also my beloved? I give you my hand, which has brought the death of many brave men, and tell you that it is always there to protect you. Those who would strike at you will also strike at me and my kinsmen. With me by your side you shall claim your father’s hall and there shall be none strong enough to challenge you.”
She lifted her eyes to him and saw in the glaring sunshine his rough face and smiling wild eyes.
“You would stay with me then, and my hall would be yours?”
“I am homeless and landless,” he said, suddenly bitter. “What could have been mine was forfeited unjustly in a quarrel, and it is gone. I am pledged to Alpin’s service, but he would free me if I asked it. Yet I would always owe him loyalty, and the tribesmen with me. I would also say this bluntly out of respect for your trust: if I were your husband in Cumhainn it would not be long before the clans there would call me chieftain.”
“I don’t know,” she said suddenly. “I am thinking that you are too clever for me.” “And this is as it should be, for I would fear you greatly if you were the
clever one.”
In circling the lands of the mac an Leigh they were close to the valley of the crannog of Glen Laghan. In a thoughtless moment Doireann chattered to Comac Neish of the winter flight she had made to the deserted village and of the hermit who lived there. In the midst of the recital she remembered Flann and turned to look at him, her voice fading guiltily away. His face, after the first shock, was unreadable.
“Did you then learn the name of this mad holy man?” he asked her quietly. “He said his name was Kevin, but of what clan or what land he did not
say,” she whispered.
“But after you had met with me in Inverness you suspected something of his story and mine? That he was, my brother and that I had spent many seasons in search of him here and in Ireland?” Flann pursued.
The curadhs drew up their horses and listened, their faces turning from one to the other interestedly. Doireann was full of flushed confusion. She glanced at Comac for support, but his eyes were bland.
“I was not sure,” she cried.
“You listened to Conor the bard telling of the three brothers of the Ui
Cinnsealaigh and it did not remind you off my journey and my quest?”
“You do not know it is the man,” she flung at him. “Why do you blame me now?” “It was to find my brother that I came into the land of the Picts and endured captivity. In all this wandering the thought of my failure has dogged me with my other failures, when a word from you would have spared me!” “But all men know of the wild man of Glen Laghan,” she protested. “It is no secret. You would have heard of this in time.” Her eyes dropped before his and she averted her face.
“You would have left me,” she whispered. “And I am alone enough now.” Flann sighed.
“There is a great wonder in me concerning the power which you have and which you foolishly abuse.”
She scrambled down from her horse and went to him and laid her hand on his arm.
“I have done nothing wrong,” she told him. “Gladly would I give you the tongue out of my head if it would pacify you. Suppose it had been Barra who had done this, thinking to keep you with us for our safety. Would you condemn him then?”
“So reckless are you in your self-seeking that you can not give thought to others!” he cried. “Did you think, as Conor said, that I had no other purpose, in this life save to wander the land with you, a prisoner in your train? I am not your servant, but a man of God!”
“So these are the evil things you have been thinking, this strange mood which has lain upon you since we left Inverness! Then I will prove to you that you have lost no time in your precious search. I would not have you with me unwillingly! I will go to Glen Laghan with you, for I am sure you will find what you are seeking there. I am not afraid of the place.”
But Comac Neish protested.
“We should not turn aside from the path to Cumhainn,” he warned her. “We are now in the land of many small tribes and there are here clans of the macDumhnulls who might be sympathetic to the Red Foxes.”
“I have told you what I will do,” she said stubbornly, “if only to prove to Flann the Culdee tha
t his time with us has not been wasted. I will ride into the valley of Glen Laghan, and if you and your curadhs do not wish to enter you may wait for me in the pass.”
Glen Laghan was changed. It was as silent as ever, but the flat plains about the lake were covered with tall grass which rippled in the dry August wind and appeared as desolate as the expanse of the great sea. Without a word Doireann handed Ian to Barra and spurred her horse after the Culdee, who had descended the hillside and was making his way through the shoulder-high grass toward the lake.
When she had come abreast of him she dismounted and followed him on foot, leading the horse.
“Flann,” she called breathlessly after she had walked for some time, “I cannot keep up with you.”
He did not answer her and she pulled at his bare arm. He had laid aside his spear but he still wore warrior dress.
“In God’s name,” she cried, “will you not speak to me, or are you still angry?”
“I am not angry with you. But there is nothing that I have to say to you now.” “In a little while we will part,” she said, desperately. “Have you no bless-
ing, no advice?”
“Why do you ask advice of me now, you who have so confidently followed your own way?”
“Oh, Flann, do not quarrel with me now, as you leave me.”
“I cannot quarrel with you. Nor can I advise you, for the burden of my past counsel rests heavy on my heart.”
“You blame me still for the blood which was shed at Inverness!”
“I am past blaming you. I can no longer find the right in your affairs. I have abandoned reason, for the world is mad. I cannot even judge God’s methods with reason, for it is too imperfect an instrument with which to approach the Infinite. Now you have my dilemma. I am like a ship which is driven upon the rocks of faith and lies stranded there. I am tired, tired, and I no longer understand this life about me. It seems that the very earth languishes with me and I suffer when it suffers. I dread the onrushing night of the pagan. The dry death of this hell-filled summer oppresses me, and my heart is filled with foreboding.”
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