Chapter II: Part 2

This he knew was not true, and he said it, and the fever of him ran hot, and he talked of the trees of magic where white flower and fruit of gold grew on the same branch, and where music was achingly sweet, and spoke without words! Back there to Tir-nan-Ogue would he go for Danaan, despite all, and he bade them as their king that they bring him a boat for the journey!

And so prayerful were the eyes of Roiseen that the holy man of the cave bade him sleep in peace, for with the rising of the sun the boat would be ready.

“Achone! Ay, father! But what shall we do if he wakens alive and holds you to that?” asked Roiseen, making the sign.

“What is there to do with god or man but to keep the faith?” said the priest. “He is not to be bound or held to life for the cares of this land except he be rowed to some island in the sea, and have the dream blown away on the wind.”

And it was so.

The chiefs waited on his word while he walked the hills with the priest and listened to the music unheard by all but him, and called on Danaan to come alive to him.

Strange tales went abroad that the king walked with angels, and the chiefs were patient, but to the holy man they said he must wear the crown or forfeit it, also that he must wed with a maid of degree, else no chief could bring wife or daughter to the halls of Ua Dinan, as was the custom in Tormond.

Phadraig, the king, listened and laughed with bitter thoughts.

“How may I wed a warm maid of the clans when my arms are yet chilled with the icy bosom of Danaan?” he asked. “The heart of me craves only a boat, and strength to fare forth to the shores where I held her.”

“And if we find a shore and no waiting maids, will you then take up the work waiting here to your hand?”

“That, if I cannot find her,” said Phadraig.

“And will you wed the lady who waits in the south, and hold court as of old for the good of your race?”

“Rather with her than another,” said Phadraig. “She is a fair and honest lady, and sweetly kind.”

And the holy man kept his word. He bore sacred symbols and a church bell, and sailed away with Phadraig to the west, and the chiefs on the shore were told it was a vow, and waited as they might and made prayers. The bells were rung from every tower that day to pray that Phadraig, the king, come again in health and safety.

No one ever knew what island in the sea they came to, but come to an island they did, and it was far away. The wood grew down to the shore, and there were mighty trees cast down as by a great wind, and the desolation of it was so great that no living thing moved or fluttered a wing, and out beyond the shore rested the white birds of Phadraig, the king, and they rocked on the waves there, and by no effort could be made follow.

“This is the farthest unknown land,” said the holy man. “By faith and prayer have we found it, and by the grace of God only shall we ever fare safely home or see again the faces of your clans. Look about you, Phadraig of the Dream, where are the ever-blossoming boughs and the castle of stone with the many towers?”

“Hear you not the music?”

“I hear only the sea wind moaning through the branches of dead trees.”

“Smell you not the fragrance of orchards?”

“I smell only the twists of seaweed cast up on the shore,” and the priest pushed aside a branch of wild thorns with green leaves reaching out from a gnarled and ancient bole.

But Phadraig caught the thorn branch, and under the scant green leaves was one tiny blossom, white and thick-petaled and with the fragrance of all sweetness of all the orchards in the world.

“See! Of this I told you, and it is alive here!”

“Then it is the sole live thing on the shore, for there is not even fish in this sea.”

But Phadraig led him over stones of great size piled high. Broken stone was there covered by sands—and other stone not broken, but squared on the four sides and grown over with lichens and wild vines.

“This is like the place of the tower where the sea tide swept into the moat,” he said.

And the holy man went over the stone, and stood on a broken wall. And beyond was a great place of sand piled high where the walls of a moat once stood.

“Come away,” he said, and crossed himself in fear. “This is no place of living things. No life has been here for a thousand years.”

But Phadraig held the blossom and heard the music of Danaan and would not.

“Come out first, as by your vow, to the forest,” he said, “for it was there I found her. Once only in my lifetime I was to come back if I had doubt. I have no doubt, yet I am here with you. Come you in.”

It was a wilderness beyond words, and the twisted thorn trees were gray and dead there, with neither green leaf nor white bloom.

“I am sorrowful to bring you through them,” said Phadraig, the king, for the priest was old and the way hard. “But over beyond the hill is the great forest—and there by the blue lake the pulse of the sea is—”

But the forest was a jungle with no path, and the lake was not there; only a bog stretched from the gray wood to a cliff of gray rock, and Phadraig could say no word but sat there on a crumbling stone and covered his eyes with his hands.

“Now, O Phadraig, will you come back to the warm blood of your own clans?” asked the priest. “For here is the end of the dream.”

But Phadraig, the lover, stood up and walked to the wall of gray rock at the edge of the bog.

“Not yet—O holy father,” he said. “Once only I was to come for proof in one lifetime, and here am I! Come you and look.”

He tore away from the rock wall the gray and green lichen and placed his fingers into the carving made there for the star of the north, and its circling seven, which makes both cross and wheel in the night sky.

“See! I drilled them deep as the flint knife would burrow the stone,” he said, “and the storm has beaten away the face of the rock until only the traces are here. But Danaan took one finger of her white hand and drew a circle as her bond, and it has eaten deep into the rock as if carved with tools of iron this day. Father, what should that tell to me?”

And the holy man looked in the face of Phadraig, the king, and made a prayer against enchantments, and rang the sacred bell of church there in the gray wood before he would speak.

“Since written bond it is, O Phadraig, rest your soul with the thought that it was a bond with a forbear of yours a thousand summers agone! You have only dreamed the dream that was born in your blood of that bond. You have kept the tryst for your ancestors, and risked your life and soul in the keeping. No more of duty for your race will be required of you in this life—naught but to wear the crown and rule in the ways of the clans.”

So Phadraig knelt there by the written bond of union, to the harmony of the circling stars, and he touched the circle of Danaan while he made his prayer, and then they went out again from the wilderness to the sea, and the white birds flew silently ahead of them on the sun-path to the home land of Erinn.

“Look not behind you,” said the priest, “but follow the birds and pray for all lost souls.”

For well he knew what would come of the church bell, and the Christian prayer in the gray wood. And come it did, for when he looked back the ancient island of enchantment was no more to be seen. And no living man has seen it to this day except its shadow every seven years far across the gold haze of the sunset path, and then the gray wood is glorified and young again—but there are those who can still hear the music of Danaan across the water in dusks and dawns.

And Roiseen of the Glen went to the great hall of Phadraig, the Ua Dinan, and nursed his children there, and gave comfort to Yva of Kilfernora, who was wife to him, and counseled her never to hedge in a child of the Ua Dinan from the open life and the old faiths; for in strange and dangerous ways they would cross the barriers, and it was safest to let them range free till they made the circle and came back to bide at the hearthstone and under the bell of the church.

The holy man of the cave of Saint Colman was given merit by the bishop for saving the soul of Phadraig, the king, who was known to have won a strange power through some holy source.

His hair whitened but his eyes were ever young, and his strength and wisdom grew, and his children’s children could not keep pace with him on the moors. He trained his eldest son to rule, and when the times were safe, he gave up the crown and wore the monk’s robe of white, and crossed over to Dun Aengus of the Isles of Arran. The singers of three centuries sang the songs of Nihil, his father, and the poets wrote of Phadraig, the king, as of a holy man by whom the white birds were tamed. Also he loved the stars and learned wisdom of them in the night, and in the blessed Isle of Arran he was always out under the sky when the wind blew from the west—and the music he heard then made him walk in beauty with the glad eyes of a lover who is beloved.

And when the Time came, he laid him down in the white robe and bade all doors be open, and all windows, that the west wind come over him! And the white birds came on the wind and circled the room and hovered there. While the brother monks lit candles and chanted the words for the dying, he smiled in content and whispered the music of the song of Nihil—

She takes my hand at the sea marge,
She whispers low on the wind,
She sets her sail for Tir-nan-Ogue
And leaves worn Life behind!

No pain was with him, and no sickness, but he went out on the wind as the birds went, and the monks who knelt by him, waiting some vision of his patron saint, heard him say at the last:

“Danaan, the star stands steady these thousand years and the circle closes. I come back on the breath of the gods!”

There was much learned discussion over this saying of his. Some thought he spoke of Daniel of the Hebrews, who was never a saint but was once a strong prophet. Others thought it was David, the king, of whom he spoke, for David was once a shepherd—and such were ever wise in the ways of the stars of night.

As to the “breath of the gods”—they could by no means make out the meaning of that, which would have been blasphemy had it been said by anyone, high or low, and in their charity the monks united to disbelieve their own ears and content their souls with the miracle of the white birds—which was a beautiful miracle indeed—and, of course, a holy one.

So Phadraig, the king, was buried in consecrated ground, and only two souls had lived in his day to read the riddle of his life. One was the Wise Woman of the Glen and the other a holy man of the cave of Saint Colman in the hills.

But each had passed on, long years before, and made their choice between heaven and Tir-nan-Ogue.

[Music]
THE ENCHANTING OF DOIRENN

Not lucky is it for a man when his own clan gives him low looks, and Ruadan of Ardsolais saw how the wind blew in the rath of Fethna in Meath when his kinsmen brought there a counting of cattle, and they grudged that payment of cattle and grudged twice over the twelve white cows, for the white cows were the darlings of the herd, and his kinsmen were coveting them for their own fields. And to Fethna, who was lord of the judgments in that place, they spoke.

“What is this debt to Cairell?” asked Donn, of his clan. “Far from Deasmond is the dun of Cairell; far to drive cattle, and waste of time coming.”

Fethna would have been a cloak for Ruadan had he dared, but justice must have light of the sun.

“It is no debt, and I could wish you made me no asking,” he said. “It is a fine, and it had to be paid when Cairell brought witness and made oath.”

“Why not give to them the tale?” asked Ruadan, and laughed. “If Cairell and his wife Luaine care so little to have songs of us going round the fire, what is it to me? Luaine of the white hands can be queen of cattle for all I am caring. That is the comfortable kind of wife to have for old age, and she is a fair, sweet body.”

“It would serve you better,” said Donn, of his clan, “to take a wife of your own, that your kinsmen could bring their women folk to your dun, as is fitting. Neither monk’s robe nor wife will you take or will you keep.”

“I am not yet brave enough in spirit to pledge my name for every man’s child a woman may take fancy to bring; it takes a brave man for that. Until I find the right woman it is cheaper to pay trespass in cattle.”

“You talk heresy; for marriage is called sanctified.”

“So the priests are telling, but it takes more than their words to prove it so. Make not your quarrel here, because there is no wife in my dun, when all these coveted cattle are paid by me because there was a wife in my camp in the forest—ill-luck on that night!”

His kinsmen stared darkly, feeling they were laughed at, but Fethna spoke.

“It is the truth: the woman followed him, he makes no denial.”

“What good of it?” laughed Ruadan. “I left his dun and asked no company. Every jester in Erinn would have a song of me if I took flight from the same woman twice. And where would there be profit in it to anyone?”

“There would be profit in that you would not lose the love of Niall, the king,” said Fethna sorrowful, and Donn changed looks with the others.

“True enough,” agreed Ruadan, “but if Niall was pleased to give me love himself, why should he be in anger for the reason that his uncle’s cousin’s daughter should have followed after to do the same? How was I to know? Does a man waste time to ask about grandsires when a lovely woman would creep under his cloak? Out on you for a lot of cold-blooded fish! Niall Caille will show temper for a year perhaps, and I’ll be keeping my distance till he has need of a spear.”

“Is the favor of a king so small a matter that you pick it up and put it aside as you will?” asked Donn jealously. “Strange tales have come to us of other heads with crowns and other friendships of yours.”

Ruadan looked at his hand on which a foreign ring shone—a ring of deep gold and a red jewel in it.

“Rest you easy on that. There will be no cattle to pay there! I was on the business of the king; and the jewel was given only to the king’s messenger.”

“Ask of Niall another gille next time,” said Fethna, “for the last one had tales to tell of Queen Ota and that ring of yours! Turgesius of the Danes needs two eyes for her alone. Since kings and queens do not come to me to set fines for loves, I can laugh at that, and leave it to Niall. But the bards do be making songs of that and even the maids are singing them in their chamber.”

Back of the arras there was a movement and a scuttling of feet; maids were there listening because the drive of cattle had made talk.

Bevind, daughter of Fethna, was there, and held by the hand Doirenn, of the deep voice, to listen.

“Do you have wonder that I give him my looks when queens have given him love?” she asked, but the girl Doirenn looked her gloom and her scorn.

“How is it that you give looks to him whom they call ‘God’s Dastard’ when your eyes have looked on goodness in Geroid who has no blemish?” she asked. “This man has much blemish, and is not in shame because of it.”

“You are as hard on him as the monks, for it was the monks that put that name on him. It is heavy to carry, Doirenn. To put an ill name to a boy and hope he walks the white path is much to hope for, Doirenn.”

Doirenn looked at her, frowning.

“I have not seen his face, yet I am thinking ill of him,” she said. “Geroid would have no light word of women and cattle such as this man speaks. Give him no looks, Bevind, and no words. It is said that monks learn holy ghostly things, and, if turned dastard to God, they can use power for enchantments. If a queen, even a pagan queen, looked love on him, and a king’s cousin followed him, what can it mean but enchantings?”

Bevind gasped and rolled her eyes.

“I did hear old Aillve tell a tale of enchantment by love, and the man was old as the world, yet looked young, and he snared maids and took them to his rath where they were changed to white cats. His forest was full of beautiful white cats, waiting for a brave and pure youth to ride their way and make prayers there; and that would free them, and nothing else would free them.”

“Geroid could be that one,” said Doirenn. “All his verses on the tablets are against enchantments in these days. Here is one—

_Against incantations of false prophets,
Against craft of idolatry, against spells
Of women, and smiths, and druids, I bind
Myself to the strong strength._

The prayer of a saint is that prayer, Bevind, and with it he could ride safe to free all enchanted souls.”

“But would he?” asked Bevind. “He is my kinsman more than yours, and the safe side of a good wall was ever the choice of Geroid when the play was getting rough. My brothers are wild to fight out the Danes when the time comes, but Geroid casts no spear for that practice.”

Doirenn sulked and frowned.

“Your brothers have not souls of religion,” she said, “they have jealous hearts because of the high words of Geroid.”

“They have jealous hearts because of your own beauteous eyes, and because not one of them would shut himself away with the monks, and feed a maid like yourself on letters and on the prayers of the old-time saints, and that is what Geroid is doing to you.”

“The tongue of you is bitter from some poison herb you have chewed on,” declared Doirenn, “you have no good word for the godly, but many good words for that swaggering lover of queens and other men’s wives. The more shame to you!”

Bevind laughed again. “Alanna,” she said, “he has no love, else he would have kept Luaine who followed his road. He would be fighting for her and not paying cattle for her—no—Ruadan of Ardsolais has not yet found Love, he has only found many fond women. Achone! That I was promised in troth before I was seeing him, for his kinsmen are saying it is a wife he should have, far away there, back of beyond where his dun is in the mountains.”

But Doirenn cared not where he lived, nor when he wived. She carried the last tablet of Geroid out through the arbor where she could read over again and again the written words of the lad who was dear and was far. She unbraided the red gold of her hair, and let it fall about her as a shimmering curtain. She had days in that sixteenth year of hers when the veil of a nun would have seemed to her a sweet thing to wear in sanctuary, but the cutting of that golden shower was a thing to shrink from; and the thought of Geroid was another reason!

It was there in the arbor Ruadan saw her, while his kinsmen fed and Fethna did a host’s duty.

At first he could see little but the glory of her hair and the bare feet under the striped skirt of white and brown. He was above her on the wall, and stood waiting some movement that her face might be uncovered.

Fethna found him thus, for she had not moved and he had watched her long.

“Who is that?” he asked, “or do I dream of magical gold in the shape of a maid?”

“It is Doirenn, daughter of no man now, for Marvan that was her father, and all his household, were swept into death by the men of Lochlann, and the gold of her hair is all the dower the child brings.”

“What does she there?”

“She is devoted these days because a queer twist of a lad is devoted, and hours she reads the prayers he is sending on tablets. It is a game of young years and is on the love path. She grows tall and nearing time to wed.”

“And she reads the writings?”

“She does, and who wants a cleric in a wife? Marvan taught her as a scribe ere he went the way—cows and slaves would be a better portion.”

“I do not say that,” said Ruadan. “Ten years I worked on letters alone in Cluain-mac-noise and books I made were gifts to kings. There is a joy in that. If in this life I found no house, I may go back to the pen and color pot after I have covered my circle.”

Then the voice of Bevind called from somewhere, and Doirenn stood up and shook back her golden mane.

“She has dower in plenty,” said Ruadan.

He listened to her voice and remembered its deep music, and he rode west with his kinsmen, who planted his fields and counted his herds.

A month went by, and again he stood at the gate of Fethna.

“Does that maid know me, Ruadan, from Donn or the others of my clan?” he asked, and Fethna looked at him and laughed loud.

“The last time it was a cattle-fine for a wife you paid, and now you are coming to ask of a maid and no name to her!”

“There is only one in the world,” said Ruadan. “She is Doirenn na Marvan, and I would have speech with her.”

“Sorrow the day,” lamented Fethna, “it is not now you would be seeing that one; grief of the world is on her, for Geroid who was her lover has gone into the ‘Solitary’—far west has he gone down the Sionan to the ancient cell of Saint Senan on the shores of Lough Dearg. She thinks the sorrow of the world is hers.”

“I would lift that load and carry it,” said Ruadan.

“You mean to take her to wed?” and Fethna’s face had a frown on it. It was not easy to shift the sails for every wind with Ruadan.

“It would mean war with me, or a race beyond me to the man who would offer her less,” he said.

But for all the urging of Bevind, Doirenn would not come where he was. She said he was the contrary in all ways to the pious youth who had her heart. If she loved Geroid, there could be only hate in her thoughts for one so near to the evil one as “God’s Dastard” was said and was sung.

“She has not seen me,” said Ruadan when her refusal came. “Let her see me and hear me, and let my own ears hear her words.”

It was not a pleasant day of joy for Fethna and the family of Fethna. His own sons were asking the same thing, and the girl had only one thought, and that was not of marriage.

But after much argument Doirenn put aside Bevind and walked alone into the great hall where Ruadan—God’s Dastard and the darling of fond women—waited.

White she was, and afraid, but the fear only made darker the blue eyes of her. Her hair was braided in long strands over each shoulder. Bevind had dressed her in white and the broidered shoes of skin were white. She was more lovely than a queen of the Danaan in the ancient legends.

But she stood, a pale, proud, frightened child in her loveliness, and she looked past Ruadan and not at him.

“I came by the courtesy of Fethna,” she said. “I do not come by my wish.”

Ruadan looked at her and saw the fluttering of the white throat and the tight clenching of her hand. She looked like a bird trapped.

“And I come despite my wish to go elsewhere,” he said grimly. “Child, I saw you once in the arbor and I shall not be forgetting the seeing of you. I meant not to see you again, but a dream came to me in the forest and it brought me to you, for you were in it.”

She looked at him then and looked away proudly.

“Your dream was false,” she said. “It should have been of Luaine who claimed your cattle, or Ota the queen, whose love gift you wear.”

“By the Elements,” he began darkly, but she put out her hand.

“I have no desire for speech with unholy men,” she said. “Priest and monk say you are that, and they have a name for it! They tell me you speak marriage for me, but I have a choice: If Geroid goes into sanctuary I also will go; I am going. The veiled women of Cluain-mac-noise will take me without dower. Your dream in the forest has no meaning to a veiled maid.”

“It will have in another time,” he said in patience, for her voice had the sound of tears, and it made a strange ache in his heart. “I dreamed that you were in sorrow and that I was to offer you shelter. I did not know your sorrow but I turned and rode back to learn. From Fethna I learned.”

“It is not your sorrow,” said Doirenn.

“It may be, and we may live to know it,” Ruadan made answer, and strove to gentle his voice to her sadness, “for I dreamed I saw you in a very different place—away to the west and in hills I know and by a shore you never have seen.”

“The west!” she whispered. “Geroid is there now, a stone cell in the mountains of the west!”

“I did not see the cell. I saw you there at a shore I know, and Bronach the Lamentable was there—the wraith washing the shrouds of mortals. I woke in the night with that dream, and turned in the night to take the road here. To the people of my house Bronach does not come for naught. You were in that dream, it means a bond with our house, and I am here to keep that bond, and offer what I may.”

Doirenn, by the arras, called Bevind and her father.

“You told me of enchantments men make on maids when of evil mind,” she said. “The power Ruadan learned as a monk he would turn to much usage today. Was it by tales of dreams you witched the ring from a queen’s hand? And witched the Lady Luaine to the forest?”

And then she laughed and went out and left them there. But when Bevind found her in her chamber she was weeping bitterly and would not tell them of the dream or the enchantment.

And within seven days Fethna was glad of heart to take her to Cluain-mac-noise for the year of preparing a soul for the veil. Between her weeping for Geroid, and the raging of his own sons there was no peace for a quiet man in his own house.

Thus it was that the golden tresses of Doirenn were covered by the white novice veil and she began life anew in the great school by the Sionan, famed for its learning from Gaul even to Egypt.

But the year of her preparation had not ended when Ruadan again rode to the dun of Fethna. He was hollow of eye, and his spent horses were glad of rest and fodder.

“Is there aught of Doirenn na Marvan known to you?” he asked, and the sons of Fethna, who had taken wives and forgotten the golden maid who had flouted them, looked at Ruadan and laughed.

“How is a man to know of a veiled maid?” one asked. “The walls are high and the fair ones are well guarded.”

“I was on the south shores and I heard her voice; it was her voice, there is none other like that. It was her voice calling—a troubled voice.”

“How could you hear a voice from the center of Erinn to the south shore?” they said, but Fethna looked in the fierce face of Ruadan and bade them be silent.

“Your father Ferdiad had ‘the sight,’” he said, “but my thought has been that it did not come to you because the priests were down on you. They can take away power if they think of it! What is it you would do because of that calling?”

“I would answer it,” said Ruadan. “No gate of a nun’s dwelling would open for me, but you have women about you. Take one and make a gift, and let me ride beside you. The call was coming to me and the gift I will provide. I will pledge them a book more fine than the one of my youth made for the abbot’s gift to Clonard. My hand has not lost its craft—I vow this thing!”

There was much talk of which wife would go, and the dress to wear, and to carry, for Bevind had wed and gone north to Orielle. Also the best horses were to bring in, and food to prepare. Hours were wasted ere they started on the way.

They would have been as well not starting, for soon they met people in fright and with awesome news.

While Turgesius harried the south shore and strengthened the Danish holdings there, Queen Ota, the pagan priestess of terrible things, had won to the heart of Erinn by the Sionan. She and her brother, Amlaf, had a fleet on Lough Rea and Lough Boderg. A fort of theirs was over at Rinnduin and the lands were ravaged by them. A battle at Cluain-mac-noise had won the churches and monasteries for the queen. Monks and nuns were killed, and there was much burning of all houses of farmers or herders. Not a handful of thatch was left on a house for miles, and runners had been killed with spear and with arrow.

It was too late for help. The warriors of Queen Ota were on the walls and in the towers of Cluain-mac-noise. They held the Sionan to north and south. It was not for nothing that the great night-sun with the tail of fire swept like a besom over the skies of Erinn that year. The young had fear on them, and the old went in secret ways to the high places of ancient druidcraft and made answering fires that help might come their way if the way of the saints failed them. Though bishop thundered from the altar, and monk prayed in the cell, yet fires did blaze where the temples of ancient faiths remained, but no prayer and no spell swept away Ota and her mate—or swept away that fiery trailing thing among the stars!

There were those who called it the war warning of the Dane, and the worst of all the evils it announced was the sacking of Cluain-mac-noise, because great wealth of jeweled books and costly gifts was centered in that place.

“What of Doirenn who was fosterling of Fethna?” asked Ruadan of the fleeing host.

“No one is knowing that. Ota likes not women about her except for labor to save her men. The young and strong may be taken overseas as slaves—no one can know that. West to the sea along the Sionan Ota has her swift oarmen as couriers to bring quick warnings, and a fort is there at Luimneach for all supplies, cattle and horses are held for her, and the people of the land only live by her mercy to harvest their own crops for her warriors. It is a sad time under the dreadful star for the people of Erinn.”

Ruadan looked about the little huddled group, pale with horror of what had been, and in further dread of what might be: with one army of the foreigner on the south shore, and one in the very heart of the land, and the fearful star of danger sweeping the heavens! He took Fethna aside, and when they were alone he spoke as follows:

“Go you back. This is not the game of an old man. Bid your sons keep silence as to the call I heard; I had too much of hill and valley to cover and have come too late. I will take my gille and go a day’s ride farther. I may learn somewhat.”

“It is better not to go, and not to know,” said Fethna. “When I was younger than you they stole the maid I was to wed; their ships sailed out to sea and no word was ever coming back. What is there to do for one man against an army? What is there for you to do at Cluain-mac-noise? We can gather men and fight them out, but it will take time. While we are getting our clans and arms together they will have ravaged the land and sailed away.”

“That is true,” said Ruadan. “Send your couriers to every point while I go on and see as I may. I will be back for a spear when the time comes, rest you easy on that.”

So, with his servant, he went on in deep thought and silence, striving to find ways to answer that call of Doirenn, who held him in bitter disdain.

When half-mad wanderers were met, fleeing from the Danish scourge, and smoking ruins were seen afar, Ruadan halted in a grove of little oaks and washed in the stream and took more sightly apparel from the bag carried on the horse of the servant. A purple cloak from overseas he put on, and from the lining of a girdle he took a golden ring with a great red jewel of beauty, and set it on his hand.

“From here you take the back road,” he said to his servant, “and if you would favor me, and the house in which your family had protection of spears, this is the time for the favor.”

“Tell it and it is done,” said the man.

“There may be half-Dane spies among these fleeing people. When they ask of me tell them I have made quarrel with my clan, and that the monks call me ‘God’s Dastard’ for putting off the robe and letting my hair grow as God meant it to.”

“It is a hard thing you are asking,” said the servant, “for it is myself has had many a fight to deny your unfaith.”

“I know that without words else I would not be trusting you. Say what you can to let them think I have cast off my own people to follow Queen Ota and her fortunes. There will be no need to say it to them, they will say it for you if they are given the hint. They will call me ‘pagan’ because I follow a pagan queen. And you can be sad and of downcast countenance, and say a prayer against evil for me. Never fear it will get to Ota herself before you get to your home.”

“And where will I be waiting for you, Ruadan?”

“In paradise, man, and good luck to you on the way! Go you back to Ardsolais. Tend the herds and wait what comes. It is not with chance our life is.”

Then he mounted his horse and when his servant looked downcast at the parting, Ruadan tried to cheer him, and sang words of the hymn of Saint Colum for a journey.

_It is alone I am on the mountain,
O King Sun of the lucky road!
There is nothing to fear on that road!_

_If I had three score hundreds of armies
To defend the body
When the day of my death comes
There is no strong place to hold out against it._

_Whatever God has settled for a mortal
He will not leave the world until he meets it.
Although a high head goes looking for more
He will not get the size of a grain of it!_

_He that is spent may find death in a church
Or on an island of a lake he may find it;
He that has luck to his way
His life will be safe in the front of a battle!_

_It is alone I am in a wilderness,
O King Sun of the lucky road!
There is nothing to fear on that road!_

Queen Ota, wife of Ragnor who was called Thor’s servant, Thorgille—“Turgesius” by the christian land—was a thing of strange beauty in her first sailings with the fleets. Flaxen straight hair of a child was hers—silken straight. Her face had a slim whiteness, and her eyes of amber were the eyes of a white cat. Men had fought and slain each other for love of her red mouth and her round breasts. Her raids were more fierce than the raids of Turgesius or Amlaf, her brother, for no chief but knew that valor might win for him more than his share of the spoil if his deeds were worthy her smile.

But many sailings had been hers and much profit from Erinn, and none had been greater in one place than the spoils of Cluain-mac-noise, in the year of the Great Star, for princes of Gaul and Alba sent their sons to Cluain-mac-noise and had sent rich gifts with the sons, until the wealth at the great place of learning on the Sionan had become the wealth of kings.

All that wealth of gold and silver vessels and jeweled censor chains, and crosses of golden wonder, were heaped on the floor of the strongest of the stone towers. With them were heaped the dreaded magic altar-books of Erinn, in jeweled cases. Neither church bell nor church cross was feared by the pagans of the north seas as the mystic writings of the books were feared—it was dark magic to them, and to be burned or drowned or buried on every raid.

And Ota, wearied after the battle and sick of the smell of old blood—though the red of it fresh flowing from her opponents was sweet to her as red berries ripening for her in a garden—went within the dwelling from which Ronan, the abbot, had been dragged by her men. On a couch of furs over which broidered silk of altars had been spread, she rested herself and spoke wearily.

“Let none enter here until my rest is come to me,” she said, and the wife of Amlaf, whose name was Gurtha, looked at her in wonder that she would confess to need of rest, for the hatred of growing age was with Ota always.

“But Barolf, chief of your spear men, has been twice here for speech,” said Gurtha.

“I am wearied of Barolf. When he comes tell him I take it ill that he troubles me today.”

But a man stood in the doorway, broad of shoulder, his yellow hair reaching down to his gold-banded arms.

“O Queen, how has Barolf wearied you?”

She looked at him and the amber eyes narrowed to golden slits under the silken flax of her hair. He was a favorite of a year gone, who was daring much! He waited with folded arms—and Gurtha was watching!

“Yours was the word to the men to burn the bodies where winds brought stench to me, which is weariness enough,” she said. “I am badly served when Ragnor is south and Amlaf in the north.”

“Was it ill service when my men mowed down for you the clerics and guard of this place, and brought the wealth of it to your feet?” he asked. “No man of the blood of the queen has done her more service than that.”

The queen looked at Gurtha who frowned darkly. Well she knew that Amlaf, her man, should be first of the chiefs, yet because of his own nature, was not. His sister, the queen, was the greater warrior.

“Another time we will speak of the men of my blood,” said Ota, “but this day of weariness it is enough to say that fires of the dead must not be built in these days of summer. Illness is on me from that burning. Your men are strong to dig the earth. Let them dig.”

“It will be done,” said Barolf, “for the hounds are now full.” He looked toward Gurtha, and his look spoke hope that she be sent away, but Ota the queen chose not to see the look.

“That is well,” she said.

“And the division of the spoils, O Queen?”

“The time for that will be when Amlaf is with us for the counting.”

“And that other in the tower,” he began, but she made him secret sign for silence, and he spoke no more.

“When Amlaf is with us I will give you a feast and we will speak of all the things,” she said with less coldness, and at that there was nothing to do but go.

“He is not of quiet mind,” said Gurtha darkly, and Ota laughed.

“This victory makes him look long for the death of Ragnor, and his crown perhaps,” she said. “He forgets I have a brother to rule beside me in need.”

“Yet he was high in your favor with the coming of May,” said Gurtha.

“What of that? Springtime and summer bring different hunger. I am tired of huge white bodies and blue eyes, I would rest myself with other color.”

“You had that other color on the south shore a year ago, and Ragnor had a knife ready,” warned Gurtha.

“You lie. The man never was with me alone. But there was none like him! Wine-brown were his eyes, and his curls were shadows of night to nestle in.”

“He has no kingdom, and no army to fight for a queen if he chose one,” said Gurtha. “He is only a noble of Deasmond who was once a monk in this place.”

“In this place? That would be strange if it be true, but he looked not a monk to me.”

“No. He was rebellious and cast off the robe, for some anger. They call him a name of their own—it means outlaw to their gods.”

“And I let him go, not knowing that!” said Ota. “I would I had the year back—he should not go!”

Gurtha went out and left her regretful over a year of coveted love with one man, after the many years of love with the men she had grown tired of.

A day went by and the spoils were not divided. She carried the key of the treasure tower at her girdle, and walked among the ruins her fierce sea-wolves had made, and thought of wine-brown eyes and the searching smile of a man who had as a youth lived there by the Sionan in sanctuary.

Kings and warriors had given her wealth of love and wealth of tribute but the love of an anchorite was a new thought. It charmed her as the song of a bird of spring after the nuts are ripe and the ferns past their greening. In a cell of stone she saw one white robe untouched by ruin, and bade it be sent to the palace of the abbot, now her place of rule.

She laughed with it beside her on the couch of rich robes and silken broideries, and closed her eyes to fancy wine-brown eyes beside her.

Then the impossible chanced to her, and gave her strange belief in her own powers in which her devotees believed, and in the power of the strange trailing star, called “the star of the Danes” in Erinn.

For a runner from the south hills came to her with strange word, and she put secrecy on him, and told Barolf and told Gurtha that a strong ally of the nobles of the Irish was coming to swear fealty, and help in the conquest. One would bring two, and in time all Erinn would be ruled from the center by the children of Thor.

Barolf secretly mocked, but the other men did not mock, for they had fought the Irish and would rather have them as comrades than as enemies.

“Strain not your eyes looking,” Barolf laughed, and went up the river to the fort there of Rinnduin.

For all that, they did climb on the walls, and did look toward the hills of Meath, and when afar they saw one horseman who rode steadily and without fear, their wonder was great, for he was tall and handsome and dark Irish, and no other Irish in that day was seeking alone any fort of the Danes.

“Tell the stranger Ota sees no man of Erinn who comes without gauge,” said the queen, but she laughed and the robe she put on her was a robe of richness as if to greet a king of great armies.

“O Queen, the man brings a gauge, and his word is that it was a key of all gates when you wore it.”

“That is true,” said Ota, and looked at the ring he sent. “Give it to his hand in courtesy and lead him to me. It is still a key to all gates for Earl Ruadan.”

Ruadan walked between lines of men with lifted spears until he reached her portal. Two of the elder chiefs entered with him, and Gurtha was there watching.

“I come without bard to chant your praises or my wishes,” said Ruadan. “I come without men-at-arms or wealth or cattle. I bear no shield for battle, though I will take one at your hands. My own clan put shadow on my name because I cast off the robe of a monk. The priests add their word to my blame, and I will take service with you, Queen Ota of the ships, or I will go over to Gaul and fight there if you have no spear or no shield as a gift.”

Ota looked on her head men, and saw that the words pleased them.

“We will talk of that gift,” she said, and her smile was level and steady while the head men were there, and Gurtha was there.

But when they were gone, it was not a gift of shield or spear she would give Ruadan for the enchantings of his wine-brown eyes. Ota had been Queen of Love always, and gave royally.

“I brought you—I brought you here!” she whispered. “For a year I have wished it—and at last you have come to me! You shall be chief instead of Barolf who grows jealous. A knife from you to him in the dark and you shall head his fleet.”

“Give me the knife,” said Ruadan.

She laughed and kissed him.

“So keen are you? O wine-brown eyes! O dark man of the red mouth! Shields and spears are in that corner, and tomorrow we will make choice. Tomorrow you shall see the spoils of our raid and choose a jewel gift from me.”

“But the man who stands in my way to you?”

“He is gone north in a boat at dawn and no one stands in your way to me. When he comes again, and Amlaf, my brother, comes, we divide the spoil, but this night is ours and tomorrow night may be ours. See? I hold a monk’s robe here in memory of you, and dreamed of dark eyes and kisses, and through the wilderness you brought them!”

Gurtha lied for the queen to the men, but the men laughed, and knew. They were told that Ota promised a wine feast of welcome to the Irish earl, and that gladdened them, for they would get their share, and the wine of the cloisters was good.

There was starlight and it pleased Ota to walk with Ruadan in the night. And the cell where he had once slept was where she would go. It was whole and in no ways injured. She kissed him there, and asked of his dreams there, and of the Lady Luaine and the song made of him a year agone—all things heard of him had been remembered by her.

But he laughed and wound her long cloak of silk about her lest the river-damp do her hurt, and would not tell her the things she asked.

“What difference does her beauty make when I left all others to follow you?” he asked. “There is only one queen.”

The men on the walls saw them and made jests, for the trailing star left no darkness anywhere. None watched too closely; for their outposts were many and there was no enemy near for an uprising.

“Tomorrow we look at the spoils in that tower there,” she said. “I would that Barolf be the one to tear the jeweled covers from the mystic book of Christ’s men before the books are burned. There is evil magic in them, and I want no black enchantment from them. We will have Barolf live long enough for that work of danger. But go he must. He has wish for the place of Amlaf, my brother, and it is making troubles.”

Ruadan looked up at the tower where a white face moved at the narrow slit in the stone wall—the face did not reach the height of a man.

“You have a guard there besides the key at your girdle?” he asked, and she pressed his arm quickly.

“Speak not of that before Gurtha,” she whispered. “It is a young thing with a golden mane I am hiding for Amlaf. There is no other place to keep her from the men, and from Gurtha’s knife. Amlaf sulked because of a girl he lost in his last raid—I need his help to get Barolf out of my path, and the girl is a fair bribe. I dare not send her to him. When he comes he can hide her in a boat and take her to the north if she pleases him. If she please him not, she can go with the others.”

“And that is—where?”

“I never ask about women unless I need them. There was a convent across the raised road, but I see no women there now, and hear none.” Then she held his arm with both her hands, and looked up at him in the dusk and laughed shortly. “The other men may follow their will in a raiding, and take their women as they choose, but you must take no maid to wife!”

The sun was high in the morning when Ota the queen took her serving-man, who was her slave, and her new guest, of the Irish, to the tower of the spoils. The serving-man carried a dish of food and told Gurtha it was for a hound with a litter of wolf pups, but he did not pass the tower with the food.

The outer door was unbarred, and the inner door unlocked with the queen’s key; a ladder was there, and the queen was helped up by Ruadan, his arm circling her for safety. The slave sent up the dish of food in a basket by a rope of grape vine.

“There are ladders above and floors above, but the upper door is chained now because of the red bird caged here for Amlaf,” said the queen.