CHAPTER IV
“You understand?” said the king.
“I understand well, master,” said Lavarcham.
“First you are to send Conall to me. Half an hour afterwards you shall send Cúchulinn. In another half-hour you shall send me Fergus, and when he comes you shall see that Borach is in waiting.”
“I understand well, master.”
“In a little while you shall see your babe again.”
She scrutinized his face humbly and gravely.
“You are most gentle, master.”
“Are you not contented?”
“I am filled with joy and grief,” she answered.
“And grief!” the king echoed mildly.
“She will not be the girl I knew,” said Lavarcham.
“How so?”
“She will have been destroyed by hardship.”
“Girls are tougher than women pretend,” said Conachúr.
“A man grows directly from the boy he was,” she continued. “He keeps the boy you knew even when he is an old man. But a girl grows suddenly at an angle to all that she was. She becomes a stranger in a year.”
“Hum!” he scoffed.
“The Deirdre we knew is dead, and some weather-wise, weather-wasted woman will look at me with unknown eyes and say, ‘How do you do.’ I shall not know how to talk to her,” said Lavarcham.
“If it is so we shall see it so,” said Conachúr. “Go now and send me Conall, and then the others in the order I told you.”
Lavarcham left the room.
When she was beyond the king’s hearing she stood for a good five minutes musing deeply within herself; listening as it were to her heart, to her instincts, to that monitor on whom we call when the times are momentousand doubtful and there is no other help but our own to be summoned. She sighed inaudibly, tremulously, and went about her business.
Conall Cearnach stood in the doorway.
“Good, O Chief and King!” he saluted.
“Life and happiness!” Conachúr replied briskly. “Sit here, my heart, for there is but one chair. I shall walk up and down while we discuss this business.”
His guest sat down.
“It is about Uisneac’s boys. You think they should come home?”
“Every one thinks so; there is a gap among your gentlemen while they are away.”
Conachúr nodded.
“There is an even worse gap among your captains.”
“It is so.”
“And among the boys growing from the troop,” Conall resumed, “there is no one to replace these three. They were already at the force of manhood, and even then their skill and knowledge were remarkable.”
“True,” Conachúr agreed. “They were trained by me.”
“The last six years of combat and ambuscade and flight will have made them but the better soldiers.”
The king strode to his visitor and laid a hand on his shoulder.
“Conall, my friend, these three have treated me shamefully.”
“The only way to forgive a thing is to forget it. You have forgiven, Conachúr—and forgotten.”
“If they returned with you, Conall, and if evil happened to them while under your surety, what would you do?”
Conall rose from his chair, and in rising displaced the king’s hand. He looked at the king with his steady, pale regard.
“If evil came to a person placed under my protection I would kill the person by whom that evil came.”
Conachúr laughed merrily.
“Even the king himself?” he quizzed.
“I would kill any person that dishonoured me,” said Conall sternly.
“You would be quite right to do so,” said Conachúr heartily.
He seated himself in the chair that Conall had vacated.
“The matter I wish to discuss is your uncle, Cet mac Magach, Cet of Connacht. That man scorns our borders, and his depredations are costly and impertinent. Our young men also are not equal to that able reiver. Could you not talk to him, Conall, and draw him off us?”
“I talk to Connachtmen with a sword.”
“You may talk to him that way if you please.”
Conall reviewed the invitation imperturbably.
“I would not care to kill Cet mac Magach. He is my mother’s brother.”
“And he is not an easy person to kill,” said Conachúr. “We shall make our own arrangements about him. Blessing and long life to you!”
The dismissed champion strode from the room.
“That man,” Conachúr thought moodily, “has been hammered together stone by stone, and is no more than a petrified vanity. He loves nothing but his honour, which is that he loves himself.”
“Come in, the Cú,” he called. “Come in, and an hundred welcomes, my sweet lad.”
Cúchulinn, magnificent in red silk and gold embroideries, came leaping in.
“Well, my pulse!” cried Conachúr. “And you have a new mantle!”
“Emer made it,” the Cú boasted. “She does the finest embroidery in the world. She told me so herself.”
“If she told you so——” said Conachúr. “Let me look at the sleeve. It is not bad, my delight. But I have a few pieces somewhere—Did you pass Conall Cearnach as you came in?”
“I did; he smiled a frozen smile at me, and clapped my shoulder with a fist of lead.”
“We were arguing about honour. If a person was placed under your protection and was then killed, what would you do, Cúcuceen?”
“I would kill the other person,” said Cúchulinn.
“If it was the king, my pet?”
“I would kill the king.”
Conachúr sat round at him in a rage.
“Would you kill me?” he demanded.
“I would,” Cúchulinn returned as fiercely. “I would kill any one who destroyed a person under my protection.”
“You wouldnotkill me, Cúchulinn!”
“As sure as dawn begins the day.”
“Begone, young puppy! Begone, cockscomb!” he thundered.
“Honour——” Cúchulinn commenced.
“You do not love me,” the king stormed.
“I do love you.”
“Begone,” the king roared, and stamped the floor.
The laughing Cúchulinn backed before his rage.
“I do love you,” he shouted; and he continued to shout, “I love you.... I love you,” until he reached the end of the corridor and turned the corner, where the guards poked each other in the ribs and giggled with joy.
Conachúr tugged at his beard half in anger and half in laughter.
Another vanity in a mantle, he thought. That boy loves me indeed, and he would as surely kill me, for it is certain that I could not think of killing him. Is there no person in my realm who loves me better than his own poor pride? And what a three that—Naoise—must choose for his sureties!
He strode savagely up and down the room.
“We shall see now what Fergus is like,” he sneered. “He professes to adore me, and eyes me with the devotion of a dull dog. A dull dog he is, and a monster of sufficiency to boot.”
If he dares to thwart me—the king gloomed, and went into a bitter rage of meditation.
A great voice boomed on him.
“Good my soul, Conachúr!”
“It is Fergus,” cried the king joyfully, and strode to meet his visitor.
“Come, my pulse and best. Sit you and I shall stand. Nay, sit,” he chided gently. “Indeed, if things were right you should sit always, and this man,” tapping his own breast, “should bend a lover’s knee before you. You bear no ill-will, sweetheart, for that trick of long ago?”
The giant sat.
“I never think of it, or I think of it with relief when I remember the Judgement Seat, and the knots and tangles and questions that came day by day. I was not bad at justice, but I was a sad fumbler at law, and the best man has the best place, my dear. Do not torment yourself with memories of that old——”
He halted for a word.
“Treachery,” said Conachúr.
“That is not the word I wanted,” Fergus laughed. “You are too sensitive, Conachúr. The nobles agreed and I agreed that you should be the king, and I am your most loving subject.”
“You do love me?”
“Have I not proved it?” the other smiled.
“Many a time. Times out of mind,” said Conachúr.
He turned aside and closed his eyes. A pang of dull hate smouldered and stirred in him.
“If this man were dead!” he thought with weary despair. “If this man would but cease and disappear and begone, how free my soul could be!”
He turned again to Fergus.
“Let us talk of other things,” he said. “Those sons of Uisneac——”
“You did a rare deed there,” said the other approvingly.
“Rare or not rare they will be brought back, and you shall go for them.”
Fergus nodded.
“If they claim my protection——” he began.
“They do claim it, and they will return under your protection.”
“Then I shall go for them. I shall be glad to see these boys again: they had the makings of great fighters in them.”
“That is settled,” said Conachúr. “You can start to-day?” he inquired.
“I can start within the hour.”
“Good.”
Conachúr mused, and turned thoughtful eyes on his companion.
“If anything happened to these three while they were under your protection, Fergus, what would you do?”
“I would kill the person who interfered with my protection.”
“No matter who it was?”
“No matter who it was.”
“I wonder would our mutual love withstand even an attack on honour,” said Conachúr thoughtfully. “There are bounds to love, but I doubt that I could lift a hand against you even if you attacked my honour.”
“Our love is a great bond,” said Fergus simply; “it would be hard to destroy.”
“Nevertheless,” the king smiled, “if I injured your honour—say that I attacked these sons of Uisneac while in your surety, your affection for me would scarcely withstand that.”
“That would be a hard case indeed,” Fergus laughed.
“You would kill me?” the king queried with a genial smile.
“You know,” said Fergus, “that I could not kill you whatever you did.”
“We love one another well,” said Conachúr. “It is a great thing to love as we do, my friend.
“But now,” he continued briskly, “we must attend to this troublesome business, and we must have a third person present in order that the world may know how we despatch it.”
He clapped his hands, and, to the servant who appeared:
“Who is in waiting?”
“Borach, lord.”
“Tell him to come here.”
“That is the man who feeds his guests on sharks,” said Fergus.
“He is on duty of honour to-day,” theking replied carelessly, “and he will be witness to the world of my instructions and of your charge. Come forward, good Borach.”
The bulky man strode in.
“You shall listen to my instructions to our dear Fergus, and you shall be the witness to this arrangement.”
Fergus thereupon stood up and Conachúr seated himself.
“Fergus, my friend, you shall go to Scotland and bring back to this court the three sons of Uisneac and the woman Deirdre. There shall be no delay about the execution of this duty.”
“There shall be no delay,” Fergus affirmed.
“The instant they set foot in Ireland you shall proceed here with them; and if, from any cause whatsoever, you cannot come yourself, you shall cause them to come to me without the delay of even one half-hour.”
“That will be done,” said Fergus, “but I shall be with them.”
“With you or without you, whether they arrive by day or by night in Ireland, theyshall be sent here to me without the delay of even one half-hour.”
“That will be done,” said Fergus.
“I bind that on you to the letter,” said Conachúr.
“I accept it so,” Fergus returned. “I shall bring my two sons to Scotland, and if, by any miracle, I should be delayed myself, they shall go forward with every speed and deliver these four people safely at Emain Macha.”
“A speedy return to you,” said Conachúr. “Go at once, my dear friend. But you, Borach, stay yet awhile. I have the matter of our feast to discuss with you.”
Fergus smiled broadly as he withdrew.
“Sharks,” he murmured quite joyfully. “Sharks!”