CHAPTER IX
But Conachúr had not retired.
He was seated in the central room away in the heart of his monstrous palace, and the great crystal ball swung at his shoulder. He had stared into it for hours and had seen nothing.
Lavarcham also was there, seated humbly on a stool.
“Fill my cup,” said Conachúr. “I am thirsty to-night, my heart. I could drain a sea and not drown this thirst.”
“You are troubled, lord. All this business has fevered you.”
“And you! Are you not excited at the thought of seeing your babe again?”
“I have interested myself in so many things these seven long years, master, I have almost forgotten her. She has dropped outof my mind, and now I would as readily not see her as see her.”
“I thought you loved that babe!”
“After all, she is not my babe. Felimid mac Dall’s wife bore her.”
“Is it so?” Conachúr mused. “I had almost forgotten that old tale.”
“I had but the labour of rearing her, and of being disappointed by her,” she said bitterly.
“You did not fill my cup, Lavarcham.”
“I did, master, but you have emptied it.”
“Fill it again, good friend.... She was beautiful, Lavarcham! She was a thing of joy and wonder!”
“Young girls are beautiful while they are young, master, but in a few years they look like any other person.”
“You think so?”
“They get fat or they get thin. It is not girls that are lovely, master, it is youth.”
“And I am forty-seven years of age! The years go by doing what I know to me, but for her there has been only the time to ripen what was immature. The green fruit will be ruddy and fragrant worked on by thesun and the wind. What age is she now, woman?”
“She is seven years older in time, and twenty years older in hardship. She will have forgotten how to lie in a bed, or how to eat proper food.”
“She will surely have changed,” said Conachúr.
A brisk moment returned to the great man, and he aroused himself.
“How will she look after her years of lying in the butt of a wet ditch or in the bog?”
“Ah me!” said Lavarcham.
“She will have plodded over tough hills with a thin belly and a dry lip. She will have slept with her fingers in her mouth to keep them warm in the winter. She will be lean and red-handed and windy-faced; with the arches of her feet broken down by too much walking, and her knees sagging under her like an old ploughman’s. Is that how the Troubler will look, Lavarcham?”
“I think, master, that she may be a long, thin, tough woman. She will be rheumatic——”
“She will awaken in the night coughing like a sick horse,” said the cheerful king.
“I do not wish to see her,” said Lavarcham sourly.
“No more do I,” said Conachúr. “Let her go.... My cup!” he murmured. “Lavarcham, you do not attend me well.”
Again he became moody.
“If I were not the king I would steal to the Red Branch and spy on her ruin through a window. I should like to see that she is lank and depressed.... Go you, Lavarcham; the guards know your privileges. Look through the window and bring me back that tale.”
“I do not want to see her at all, master. Let her stay with the people she has chosen, and let her torment our sleep no more.”
“Go, nevertheless, and bring me a full account of her. Fill up my glass. Examine her carefully, my soul, so that you can bring me a true report. But do not delay, for I shall be waiting for you. I am lonely to-night, woman; I am very lonely. Send me a man of the guard to fill my cup!”
Lavarcham, with every sign of distaste, almost of annoyance, set on her errand.
“Sit there, and take your ease,” the kingordered the guard who came in. “Do not stare at the floor, good soul, nor at the ceiling. Ah me! stand behind my chair then, and when my cup is empty refill it for me.”
The embarrassed soldier moved gratefully to cover, and the king fell again to his woeful meditations.
“Guard!” he said.
“A Rí Uasal!” the guard rolled sonorously.
“Have you ever looked in a crystal?”
“Never, king.”
“Look in this crystal, my friend. Can you see anything?”
“There is a fog in the crystal.”
“It has been there these three days. Look again, good lad.”
“I think there is a woman’s face.”
“What sort of a woman?”
“It has gone, majesty.”
“What sort was she?”
“I saw the loveliest face that ever brightened the world. It seemed like the face of a sky-woman or a lady of the Shí.”
“Sit on this little stool, and fill my cup. What age are you, guard?”
“Twenty-two years, majesty.”
“What is your name?”
“I am called Strong Fist, sir.”
“I remember you, Tréndorn, you are my hereditary man. Your father was my man before you. How did he die?”
“He was killed by Naoise, the son of Uisneac, sir.”
“I remember,” said Conachúr, “and your two brothers were killed by that Naoise. Do you remember that also?”
“I would not forget it, sir.”
“There are things that one should not forget, guard. Would you do an ill turn to the same Naoise?”
“If I had that chance I would take it, sir.”
“He is in the Red Branch,” said Conachúr. “He is there with the woman whose face you saw in the crystal. Go there for me, good soldier, and look through the window. See that no person within observes you, for these are murderous and skilful men, and if they saw you they would stop your breath.”
The guard stood glowering.
“In what way do I get equal with Naoise?” he demanded.
“Each thing in its time, good soul, foryou would not understand how the king moves. This is but the first step, and the second shall be taken in no short time. Climb to the window, and look carefully at the woman who is there with Naoise. Examine her well and bring me back news of how she seems and what she looks like. You have seen women before?”
“I have, majesty.”
“You know what to look for; you will know how to look at a woman. Go. Fill my cup, guard, and go on my errand.”