Chapter VI: Part 6

“In that rune he had the vision of the greatness of Erinn if tribe by tribe they made bonds only with each other for the glory of Inis Fohdla, which, even in far ancient days, was named that—the Isle of Destiny.”

“Why is Erinn, in the ancient runes, called by that calling?” asked Donough.

Kieran Dall shook his head.

“I do not know. God knows! Men who named the stars called it by that name, and had ‘the sight.’ A land was given to the Hidden People, who were great people; they have not known death, yet have never left the land of Inis Fohdla. In the years ahead they will again have a birthing, and the hidden things of the wise are in their keeping until that day. For three centuries Erinn has been the school for the sons of Brythen and France, and other foreign people. The Dane invaders were driven home by Brian of the Tributes, and Inis Fohdla pays tithing to no viking of the foreign in our day; it may happen that we are near to reading the riddle of Inis Fohdla and that naming; it may be so if the faith is kept in peace, and the rune of that king of the tortures be not lost again as it was lost by Cuan the Dark in the days I hold in memory.”

“Who was Cuan the Dark?” asked Donough.

“He was of the blood of that priest-king of the rune; he was also of my blood, but his own name is not spoke. He was of the sacred line into which no blood of the enemy must flow lest it bring the curse of a thousand years’ helotage on Inis Fohdla.”

There was silence as the slow words of the blind hermit sunk to the minds of the two kings.

“A thousand years!” muttered Diarmod. “How could Erinn be held as tribute-payer for a thousand years to a king of the foreign? Thorgils and Ota the queen did hold the Sionan and many harbors, and the tax paid to the Danes was a heavy tax. But years more than one hundred are gone since there was taxing like that. How could it be coming again?”

“I have not the sight for that,” said Kieran. “It was the prophecy, and the penalty spoken in the ancient rune if that line of the kings should take mates from the red-wolf women of Alba.”

“But—it was of one line alone—one family—or one clan,” said Diarmod.

“Aye—it was one alone, but that one was the sacred line of the priest-kings. Their rule was the rule for the men of the crown and the temple, and the people of lower rank would follow. It was before the time of christian men in Erinn. It would take more than the time of one winter night to tell you all the difference in minds and lives between that day and this day. But through all the changes the line of Cuan the Dark kept to the law of that rune—eight times one hundred years was the time it was held to and the line was clean, and the record of that line was proud.

“And then?”

“Then the young had the teaching that no thing could be truth but the truths spoke by the saints of the New God, though truth was in the world before Mary came to the birth.

“Truth is truth for always, and even the pagans had many true things in their hearts. But the young are light of mind, and do not see these things. So it was with Cuan the Dark.

“To Spain he sailed for a matter of import, and I was beside him. To the land of France we went, and I walked the lines of mighty Carnac, and thought of kindred wonders at Knocknarea in our own land. There were women everywhere, and they were the days of his youth, and he gave them love, and good-will, and farewell! So it was with us, and home he sailed, glad and free of heart; and it was here in Erinn he met that trial he was to meet. He broke the geis laid on his line, and on his birth, when he looked on Dyveke the Dove, child of Gorm, son of Knud of the rath of Knud.

“The mother of Dyveke had been a woman out of Alba, blue of eyes and flaming of hair, and in her own land she had been to the front with her kinsmen in battle. But Gorm the Dane had his way with her and stole her to sail the seas with him, as was well-fitting, for each was of a tribe drinking from skulls at their joy-feasts, and fierce alike in their lovings.

“Sons they had, but they never kept life long; that fierce mother held her strength for her own passions. There was a saying for that among the Danes. Then Dyveke came to birth, and the mother went out of life. It may be there were fairer things on earth than Dyveke; but I never saw them.

“Dyveke means ‘dove’ in the wording of her father, Gorm, and no breast of dove was whiter, and no flight of dove had more of grace—and no love-call of a dove had more of music than her voice.

“From her grianan she smiled down with look of longing on Cuan the Dark, who sat on his black racer below, and the madness came on him there for that look and for that woman—and the madness stayed.

“None of his elders was there—I alone who knew the geis was there—the _geis_ every son of our line was bondman to.

“But he was deaf to my words when she spoke!

“A noble of the Danes named Thorold had heard, in the far north, of the beauty of her, and came with gifts and with offers. She took his gifts and gave him love looks as she gave to Cuan the Dark. The boats of Thorold the Dane were anchored in the bay, and the word went out that it would be with Thorold she would sail as wife.

“That was the day Cuan the Dark changed to a wild thing showing his teeth—the girl Dyveke had looked love on him, and he had that madness.

“I made him listen to the record of the ancient horror when a woman of Alban birth had brought death in life to a prince of his line.

“I held him as I reasoned with him, speaking over the names of the men who for the hundreds of years had taken the vow and the bond for his own life, and the lives of his children. He fought me and growled back that the vows were pagan vows—not christian—and not binding on a christened man.

“I spoke the rune of the priest-prince who had warned his clan to make no bond forever with the fierce Albans of the jealous eyes:

* * * * *

Thus shall it ever be:
Honor and sanctity
Shed on the sons of Eire.

Sleep with the sword between
Sons and a foreign queen!
To daughters the blue dirk’s sheen
Sooner than blood unclean!

For Fohdla the Fair
Hold blood and the land,
Else victors of Erinn
Swarm red on her strand!

For eric is breaking;
For soft heart in taking
A mate out of Alba
A thousand years’ snare!

A thousand years’ yoke
On the bent neck of Erinn;
A thousand years’ tribute of blood,
Inis Fair!

“That was the _geis_ made binding by the priest-king in exile ere they cut out the tongue from him, and left him to rot when his clans heard of the maiming and sent no more gold of the ransom to the woman who had netted him. She was a queen; she had heard of his beauty and his sacred knowings, and had the jealous eye for that which was too fine for the vision of her people. Aye—she netted him and tricked his clan to pay eric against the day of his return. And in the end he fed with her wolfhounds, and was torn to death in their fightings. That is how it was; but he had the clear vision of the future years before his going! That rune I told, and the vision I told, to Cuan the Dark that it make strong his geis to hold against the charm of Dyveke the Dove.”

“Did it hold?” asked Diarmod.

“It did not hold. He broke from me and shouted that there were christian bonds between Erinn and the ancient enemies to the east. He would follow the christian bond, and make a forgetting of pagan geis laid upon princes of his line. That is how it was. I was the one who sent for the elders of our house, but it was too late. She was in his dun at Cualann ere their coming. There it was the men of his line put against him the ban of the unnaming, and the forgetting. That is where her lover, Thorold the Dane, stood him siege for her and made break in his walls. The curse of the _geis_ came in quickness to Cuan, for it was the hand of Dyveke, of the whiteness of doves, by which a knife found his heart, and his head was tossed by her from the tower to the feet of her lover, Thorold!

“With Thorold she sailed out to sea, but the girl child she had borne to Cuan after that beheading was hid in the cell of a monk who was let near for some shrivings. Thorold was raging like a maddened bull for the death of the child not his. Two were born that night. One was dead; it was given into his hands, and the fierce soul of him was content with that, not knowing. But Dyveke, the white, knew somewhat. She had heard the unnaming and the ban of his clan against Cuan for her sake. She had heard the _geis_ of the rune, and she had bitter hate for the banning of her, or of her blood, and it was a bitter curse she put against Erinn at her going away, and a bitter prayer she made that the seed of Cuan might raise up hosts of wolves to tear each at the throat of the other till the geis of the rune held true, and Erinn was broken, and her neck under the foot of the foreign men of enmity.”

The two kings looked at each other across the light of the fire and Diarmod turned to the portal as if a cold wind had struck him. He moved more close to the hearthstone and drew over him a robe of otter skin.

“And that was the ending?” he said.

“God and Mary knows! Mayhaps it was the beginning! It was the year Adrian, Pope in Rome, signed the grant of Erinn to King Henry what time he could win warriors for its conquering. The conquerors have not yet sailed from Alba, but the eyes of Alba are jealous eyes, and the grant was given the year the child of Cuan, Dyveke Og, came, born living, into the land of Erinn.”

“Young Dyveke?” repeated O’Carroll. “That name for her was never told me.”

“Your sister, the Lady Ethnea, had hatred of it, and Dervail was the name she made choice of instead. The mother of Cuan had kindred in the Ua Machflain, and to King Murtagh went the Lady Ethnea with concern for the dower and station of the unwelcome woman-child. A dower was given for her life in sanctuary, and that dower was doubled by Ethnea who had love for the father of the child. The ward of King Murtagh she has been called, and it may be she is thought of his breed. But Duighal knows she is Dervail nan Ciar, who had no right to live; and King Murtagh has no longing to see the evil face of her—she is of the shadows, and to be forgotten in walls of sanctuary—and the walls built high.”

“It is the first full hearing of the child I have asked for, though I had fear of the truth,” said Donough. “From the monastery she was taken to the castle of Ethnea, my sister. At the dying of that sister, she was brought to Maureen, who thinks her a bud of the tree of Machflain of Meath, to end in the convent of sheltered women.”

“Aye—that was hope of the prior when he gave penance to the monk who carried that white wolf’s whelp to his cell for safety! Aye—the years pass, and she has reached the age. No sons and no daughters should come to Erinn of that breed of Dyveke. I saw what I saw of the broken _geis_, and my hair went white in that seeing, and for that the fear is on me for that breed.”

“Then it was not in the young years the sight dark came on you, Kieran of the cell?” said Diarmod the king.

“It was not in the young years. It was by the hand of the one love of my kinsman, Cuan the Dark. Her lover, Thorold, found me out where I was putting a cover of earth over his headless body. The brute men of Thorold held me, and her white hand drew the hot iron across my eyes. She was hard, jealous, and she forgot nothing. She was Alba! She had the name of Dyveke the Dove, and her looks were sweet looks, and her voice had the music of birds, but her heart was the heart of her foremothers who ran with the wolf pack.”

Diarmod laughed low. “Your words are not the words of a priest of Mary,” he said. “An army of men with your heart would be a good army for battles.”

“Battles for Erinn were dreams in my life,” said Kieran. “Dyveke knew the dreams, and let me have my blinded life for the mourning of them! I wear the robe and do penance for my sins and for the sins of Cuan who died unshriven. But there is no sin in the strangle of a wolf, and no seas would be too wide for her following if I had but the sight. May she burn in hell all the years there is shadow on Erinn!”

“Be it so if she brings that shadow,” said Donough, “for that is no sin to say.”

“Truth for you! And the same to all who would walk in her thoughts! In the name of the Elements, and Mary, and the Father and Son!”

“In the holy names,” said Diarmod the king, and rose and stood by the fire with the otter skin robe about him in a quick tremble of cold.

Donough O’Carroll looked at him, and poured wine from the flagon into a jeweled cup.

“To your warmth,” he said. “We have talked the fire low on the hearth. Empty the guest cup with me for comfort of the body.”

Then he poured a cup for Kieran, thanked him and asked what gift he could give him for the story of the blood of Dervail nan Ciar, whose true name was Danish dove.

“Give your gift to Erinn for me, and make your own choice of that gift,” said Kieran, “but let it be a good ship to take the wolf’s whelp as far out of the land as the shores of Egypt, and that is a far sail for a good ship; or failing that, build a wall of stone, doubled, around the convent where she is barred from the sight of men. If she has what her mother, Dyveke, had, say prayers to Phadraig and to Brighde that the curse of the eric be not laid on Erinn.”

“That besides the doubled wall?” said Diarmod, who was warmed by the wine, and spoke lightly.

“Aye—besides the double wall! The paying of that eric is beyond thought. It is the yoke of a slave and a thousand years of blood on the bent head of Erinn!”

Kieran was led to rest by a servant of the castle, and was not told that Diarmod the king had been a listener to the tale of the rune.

Diarmod paced the room and quaffed another cup of the red wine of Gaul.

“Is it not enough that the priestly rules are ever near to ban anything of beauty coming a man’s way?” he grumbled. “But a hermit must bring runes of a thousand years to strengthen that ban! The tale would witch a man to follow her if but to see if she had the wonder in her of Dyveke the Dove—and tame that wonder as a falcon is tamed for the wrist of the master.”

“But that is a bird you will not take from its cage, Diarmod?” said Donough. “Take to memory the _geis_ of your own line against the hunting of birds—it is more than a thousand years, yet the bards are telling the legend even in our day—and it was a white bird in the legend, Diarmod, a white bird coming to earth with love-words and warnings to your ancestress, who was queen—and this white bird of the cloister you will not be seeking cage for, Diarmod?”

There was silence but for the crackle of the new wood heaped on the fire, and Diarmod looked long into the red heart of the flame before he spoke.

“No, Donough—one veiled maid of the cloisters brought shadow enough and blame enough to me—that is long since, yet never forgot.”

“It is Dhira you mean?”

“It is Dhira. Rest to her soul! She was robbed from me again by Dall Clairineach and hid in shadow to her death. No, I will not take another maid from convent walls—and no guest of yours from your castle; but if she is fair of body as that white mystery in the cloister, it is as well I have not crossed her path a-nutting in the forest.”

“You put light in my heart at that saying, Diarmod, for I saw the thought of you. But there are women always for you; women a-plenty.”

“Of a sort,” said Diarmod, who had to wife Maelmor na Tuathal, sister of Laurance the saintly, and a queen-woman in her own way, and a pious, of a sort, “but white birds with reaching wings do not wait on every road for a man.”

Donough O’Carroll went to his rest with content that night, and unburdened the cares of the day to Maureen, his wife.

“Get the maid, Dervail, on the road to sanctuary of Cluain-mac-noise in the dawn of tomorrow,” he said. “Our shelter has not kept her name from the ear of the king. Strange happenings have been, and curious portents. She is not one to win friend for any king of Erinn.”

“In truth she is the fairest thing in all your province, Donough, my heart,” said Maureen, “but, like a bird, she is—untamed.”

“Do not make that saying of her to me,” said Donough, “or sleep could not come to my bed this night. Too much I have heard this day of bird-women, both doves and falcons, and I would that the maid was ugly as a mud-hen among the bogs. Woman, let me have sleep, and pray that Saint Brighde speeds her in safety on the road from us tomorrow. If she is in truth of the blood of Murtagh of Machflain, King of Meath, the time has come for his claim of her. The mystery of her is abroad on the winds, and the very name of her sounds temptation to Diarmod!”

It was in the mist of the gray dawn when Ardan crept like a thief down the turret stairs, and to the castle wall on which the grianan of the queen gave entrance. The door of it opened from within, and to meet him came the maid called by Maureen the fairest in all the kingdom of Orielle.

Like forest pools were her eyes—gray with a glint of blue; her mouth was the rose for beauty, and her hair held the warm flame of red gold; heavy it fell either side of her face and reached below her girdle. A cloak of royal blue touched the stone floor, and a veil of silvery gray broidered with blue was held by the wire-spun circlet of gold about her head. The falling of that silvery veil gave her a strange mystical look to Ardan, and the dignity of the cloak hid every maidenly curve of her young body.

“Argatonel,” spoke Ardan as he stood staring at the beauty of her, “‘Silver Cloud’ in truth you are, Dervail; and you look as if you had slept in a fairy’s rath and woke changed and not young any more.”

“Sleep I did not at all—for the doom of going away was put on me ere the turn of the night. That was the time I sent the maid Kauth to seek you. The castle of the holy women at Cluain-mac-noise is to be my prison. Some sudden thing has stung the prior, Duighal, and his monks are to be my guard to sanctuary. It will be my grave they take me to!”

“I am to blame—to blame!” said Ardan. “I, too, must go a road this day, but it is to the Culdees of Saint Hilary. For my fault I am to study in a new place and among strange scholars.”

“Why are you to blame? You that were my comrade?”

“It is forbidden that I tell you all, or think of it—but I made an image of snow like a white bird that yet was a maiden. I thought of you and made it all of whiteness, but like you, too, in beauty. It was in the cloister. Duighal the prior says it is an evil thing to image any but sainted women, and a penance is put on me that I go.”

“But you—you have no unhappy heart at that going,” said Dervail, and sighed as she looked at him. “You will walk free to make other beautiful things in other places.”

“I will remember you in the far places, and the beauty I make will be thoughts of you.”

Dervail smiled on him with closed lips and eyes peering sideways through the silver veil. The veil made a new mystery of her face.

“Argatonel,” he said again, and was thinking of a rhyme for it to make a poem as a farewell gift, “Argatonel!”

“You do not love me, Ardan,” she said; “you only love beauty.”

“But you are that beauty.”

“You do not love me; you do not know I am alive! You look at me as on a saint, high on the church wall. I would rather dance free with the Ever Young People in the Hidden Hills!”

He did not know what to answer. Cormac had said hell waited for people of pagan thoughts, and Cormac had a soul of good intent.

“You are my best comrade, and as my sister,” he said; “my grief is much that you go unwilling—I would that you went not out from here until a marriage feast gave you to some righteous king. You look like a queen with that cloak and the veil of the silver cloud.”

She laughed a little bitterly.

“I said you did not love me, and I said true; you are almost of my age, yet you would pick a king out of the world for me! I steal ere the dawn to seek farewell of a poet, and his only seeking is a rhyme for my name—not to be found!”

“But I have found it!” he cried in triumph. “I will write it for you ere the troop leaves the portal. I will sing it in the lonely west where I go for scholarship. Dervail, what other thing could I do to show my thoughts and my heart to you?”

“I do not know. It is a boy you are, and my thoughts are of a man’s thoughts. Look: I am cloaked and shod for travel; there are swift steeds below, and there are boats at the sea’s marge. Beyond where the low sky takes the silver of morning, there is another land. Had I the strength of a man beside me, it is there I would go.”

“With the troops of two kings of power to claim you for the church? Who would dare give shelter to you in such flight?”

“Two kings?” she asked, puzzled and frowning.

“Diarmod of Leinster is guest of King Donough.”

She laughed again.

“So: that is why I have been kept to the grianan of the queen for three days! It has been so always when guests of might are housed here. What crooked stick of the forest am I that no prince or king must look my way?”

“The fairest things of earth are God’s offerings, Dervail,” he said. “I think of you as abbess of some white sisterhood of Mary. On some day of days I will surely see you so, and kneel for your blessing. You will be ever the white bird and the silver cloud to me.”

“That makes the cold stone no softer a pillow,” she said. “You live in dreams—sometimes you have made me see the dreams, but this no dream today. They take me for other prison and call it serving God!”

A clink of metal on stone sounded above them where the flying buttress carried a windowed room as a canopy above where they stood.

Dervail sped quickly back out of sight, but Ardan stepped further out to look above. What he saw there was Diarmod of Leinster with his finger on his lip. Horsemen clattered through the castle gate, and Ardan looked down at them from the edge of the wall.

“The castle is awake, and there is no other moment for speech,” he said. “My heart goes with you on the road, comrade maid of mine. May that road lead you to peace!”

She stood looking at him moodily while he lifted the hem of her cloak to his lips.

“Almost I see you here a queen in the queen’s grianan,” he said. “You look it in that robe you wear. Have you no farewell to me, Dervail?”

“For that I came, Ardan, and may it be so to you! I would you could teach me the content of dreams—my dreams lack content. Farewell, comrade! In the gray days I will think often of the white bird by which we are exiled. Fare you well, Ardan! Go you the way of your white dreams!”

There was a weariness in the sweet voice. So few days before she had run races and tossed the ball in the games, but the Dervail in the silver veil at the dawn was a different maid.

The veil—the silver cloud—Argatonel!—in a moment more he had out the inkhorn and quill and was tracing on the smooth stone the first words of the rhyme singing in his ears—he had promised her a verse of farewell.

The sun has set at morningtide,
Argatonel!
The wall between is high and wide,
Argatonel!
Above it stars of heaven may rise
In witchery,
But none so bright—

The rhythm of it sang itself, and he was glowing with eagerness when he became suddenly conscious of someone near, and turned to find Diarmod smiling at him in great good humor.

“I had joy of my eavesdropping, though I could get no glimpse of her face,” he said. “Anyone seeing your tryst might have had his doubts, but I’ll go your warrant to any father alive who has sweet-voiced daughters in want of a playmate.”

Ardan bent knee to him, and thus turned from the words, roughly noted in ink, still wet. Little escaped the eye of Leinster, and a step took him beside it.

“What’s to do here? ‘The sun has set at morningtide.’ That is against nature. How could that be?”

“My King, I cannot make you see it when you did not see her face—and she goes at morningtide.”

“So, that is it! My grief, to hearken to a tryst with a lad when it was the strength of a man she gave call for! And this—Argatonel?”

“It is the silver cloud of the veil she wore—the veil by which she was hidden from you above.”

“Very good—it looked, indeed, a veil of silver over hair of gold. Go on—finish your lines. Here is a scrap of vellum of no import; write it across that. Your craft is curious, and has interest to me. You shall write lovepoems for my daughters. Go on! ‘But none so bright—’”

And Ardan, encouraged by the king’s mood, plodded placidly on.

But none so bright as are your eyes
Of mystery.
Argatonel, white wings to you!
Argatonel, deep heart to you!
O Silver Cloud, that wraps the world,
God’s Sun to you!

He finished writing and read it aloud, and the eyes of the king were on him curiously.

“That, and a maiden tryst at dawn, and you fasting!” he said. “What works then might you not do with good meat under your ribs? I’ve a mind to take you with me, if only to feed you, and watch your growth. Come! We’ll talk of it and eat. Clean white vellum shall be yours for your love-lines, though the maid read you true, my young cock-robin! You had no heart-love to give your Argatonel; your only seeking was some fair thing to sing about.”

Thus it was the friendship began between Diarmod the king, and Ardan, the fosterling of King Donough of Orielle, and thus it was that they went out together at sound of the gathering guard in the castle yard that morning, and from the shadow of the portal Diarmod looked on the unveiled face of Dervail.

The rising sun touched her hair to a glory, where it fell in braids to the saddle cushion. The deep pools of her eyes held shadows, and the black lashes were wet against her rosebloom cheek, yet the head of the silver veil was not humbled, and her chin was lifted in pride as she looked about her on the household back of the spearmen, and her maid, and the page holding her restless steed as it pawed the earth, and grew restless under the tinkling sweetness of its bridle bells.

“Truly you said it, Ardan; she is the sun at morningtide,” said Diarmod the king; but when Ardan attempted speech in reply he was silenced lest a note of the music of her voice be lost.

“Think of me as Regina in that new life,” she said to Queen Maureen at the farewell. “I wear the blue mantle that Mary the Mother may see I serve her in a royal way. The gray of life has no liking for me, and to the last I will wear colors of the deep sea, and the sky.”

“What a queen can do will be done that no gray robe is yours until the day you make choice of it,” said Maureen in kindness. “A writing to that end goes with you to the holy women.”

“All have spoke a farewell but yourself, King Donough of Orielle,” said the girl Dervail, with proud coldness in her voice. “I give thanks to you for years of sanctuary. Am I to have no host’s gift of the stirrup cup at my going?”

“A white road, and a white welcome to you,” said Donough, whose tongue was stiff with fear that she go not quickly enough. The wind of the morning had caught the silver cloud of her veil, and swept it back over the golden circlet; she looked a girl queen beyond all queenly beauty, and too fair for the men of Leinster to view.

Donough waved forward the bearer of the cup and the wine, and lifted his hand to pour the draught, but Diarmod, who stood in the portal with Ardan, came forward, and the hand of Diarmod was before that of Donough.

“That the right may be my right,” he said and filled the cup.

The servitor dropped to one knee, and the King and Queen of Orielle bowed low, and Dervail saw them, for the first time, stand aside for another man in their own castle keep.

The wonder of it filled her, and her lips opened for question, but Diarmod stood at her stirrup. He gave to her the verse of Ardan and lifted the cup, and when their eyes met she forgot that a king and his household bent low while only one man stood.

“Will you not kiss the cup?” he asked. “It is my grief that it is the farewell, and not the welcoming.”

With both hands she reached for the cup, with both hands he held it up, but their eyes never parted. Their look was a long, strange look, and the smile was gone from her face.

“I speak thanks to you, O my lord,” she said, “and the cup of parting will be remembered by me.”

The prior rode through the portal with six stalwart monks at his heels.

“I go north for pilgrimage to the shrine of Phadraig,” he said, “and we will add guard to the new nun for Cluain-mac-noise.”

He did not look at her at all, and his speech was to Donough O’Carroll.

Diarmod turned darkly on the cold-faced prior.

“Six of my own men will ride with you as far as the Shannon,” he said. “They are the best of my horsemen, holy father, and will bear to the abbott a message. A gift will go to the abbess as a dower for the Lady Regina, for such is her new name in religion. This on the word of Leinster.”

The prior stared at him, and bent head in brief courtesy. Never before had Leinster dowered maids, except they, in one way or another, were among his possessions.

But Diarmod, with full knowledge of the sharp ears and keen dark thoughts about him, followed his mood because of the red mouth of Dervail, and her trancelike gaze. He slipped a ring of gold from his hand and put it on hers.

“This my gauge of the promise,” he said. “Let it go with the dower. In sanctuary pray for Diarmod of Leinster.”

“Diarmod!” and her voice was a whisper of wonder, but her face held liking, and swift joy, and hope. It was plain to see that cold sanctuary was none of her choosing. “Diarmod, O some time Ard-Ri of Erinn!”

Fire of pride flamed in his eyes at her words. She had voiced his secret hope that the cloak of Leinster like the mantle of Brighde’s legend might gain magic growth to cover all the land.

“The prayer of you for that day, O Regina,” he said, and lifted the cup to drain the leavings of her draught. “By the Elements, I wish for you all you seek in life!” The emptied cup of silver he put in the hand of Kauth and stepped a pace aside as Duighal the prior spurred his steed forward, and spoke to Dervail without glance of the eye. He had known Dyveke, her mother, in her day of beauty, and had seen the christening of the wolfs whelp—also he knew the moods and loves of Diarmod of Leinster. Kindling for the pit of hell were both of them!

“Veil your face from the eyes of man, girl, and ride forward with your maid,” he said.

Dervail lifted her hand to the veil, but lifted proudly her head as well, and cast one slow look over the awed group. Between the church and the king none dared speak, and Maureen grasped the arm of Donough in fear.

The eyes of Dervail rested last on Leinster and her eyes spoke for her as she drew the veil and shrouded the beauty of her face.

Two by two the riders passed the outer portal, and yet Diarmod stood, stroking his beard, and staring after the blue cloak and the shrouding veil.

“What is your will for the day’s hunt?” asked Donough at last, and Leinster swung on him as if to find vent to his humor.

“What joy in the hunting of deer when Paradise opens portals a man may not enter?” he demanded. “You played well to get my promise before my eyes had looked on her! You played well, Donough!”

“But the promise was a good one, and you will live to give thanks for the making of it.”

“It will not be this day you will hear such thanks,” spoke Diarmod shortly. “The beauty of her is beyond belief, and it is not her beauty alone! There is something—something—”

“True, there is,” said Donough, “there is the beauty of Dyveke, her mother, but she is stronger than Dyveke, for she has the charm of the man named The Dark, because he was made Nameless, and those that were loving him could never see charm in another man. My sister, Ethnea, was one. Her life wore itself out making prayers because he died unshriven, and there is Kieran Dall, devoted even to vengeance if need be!”

“Oh, you make it strong, and I have given my word,” said Diarmod, “but it is well it was you and the church I promised. Had it been one man claiming her—Murtagh of Meath or _any_ man—I would be gathering a troop now to bear her back, and the monks with their prophecies might carry their runes to hell.”

Two years Ardan lived between the castle of Diarmod and the Culdees of Saint Hilary’s cloisters, and then, with Diarmod’s sanction and help, he joined a group of pilgrims for Tours, and thence on to see the glories of Rome.

Five years of books and songs and travel he had, but ever close was the craft of carving, and Diarmod’s attempt to make him a bard, and a bard only, had not been a success.

“Let me work out my poems in stone if I can find them that way,” he said. “Some need a pen, some need a brush and color for the telling, and surely the stone has its own hymns—and it endures.”

“It is not a bad thought,” agreed Diarmod. “If the ancient books had been carved of stone tablets the Dane raiders would not have carried away so many of the treasures. And in our own day O’Ruarc of Breffni is laying tribute on many an abbey of the north. The Culdees had best save their parchment and use the chisel.”

“I saw him when I was a child at the ford, O’Ruarc,” said Ardan, “and had bad dreams. He had only one eye, and an evil look. The monks told tales of him, but they say his castle at Lough Gilla has the riches of an emperor.”

“Well may be! His men hold the fords of the north for heavy toll, and his robbings give him jewels enough to cover the many women he steals.”

“As I mind him, he would get them no other way—none would go to Lough Gilla for love of him.”

“Aye! But he has his ruler, strong as he is,” said a monk of the north. “I heard of her in Armagh from a wandering bard who boasted that he traveled north in poverty, but by her grace he wanted for naught on his way back. Some message was his to bear for her, and he was fair delighted by the rare beauty of her. Songs he was making of her milk skin, and her gold of hair, until men fell in love to listen.”

“Where found Breffni such pleasing treasure?” asked Diarmod.

“I know not—God knows! There are tales told. One is that a boat of the Danes was wrecked on the north coast, and she was of that wreckage. Another is that he got her when he sacked the abbey of Clonard, and the new house of the nuns there. That may be. Her name is Regina, and that is no name of a Danish maid—it is christian name for a queen.”

“Regina!”

Diarmod whispered the name under his breath and stared at the guest of the north, but Ardan cried out in horror of the heart, and turned to Diarmod.

“My comrade maid, the white-winged one of sanctuary! Is there word from King Donough as to that?”

“There is no word,” and the face of Diarmod had brooding blackness on it. “To me he would not be sending that word. He would go first to Murtagh of Meath, and abide by his word, and the word of Duighal the prior. There is no love in their hearts for Breffni. It may be they care not for her taking, if she is taken far enough north—and the mountains and the bogs between!”

After that, Diarmod said no more, but left guests and tale tellers and singers to have their own cheer of the night—and went to his own chamber. There he sent for Ardan.

“You have art enough to pass for a wandering singer, a cunning worker in gold, or a carver of stone,” he said. “O’Ruarc adds to his craftsmen as he can, to change treasures of the abbeys into gauds for his women. Go you north into Breffni, and learn the truth of it. Here is gold for your faring. Guard your own life for me, but venture all else to bring me word.”

“And if Donough is on their track?”

“No word to Donough of this matter! If she is safe again in his castle, or safe in the convent, come you back to me in silence. If the tale be true, find her and bring me word of her need.”

So it happened that Ardan had crossed the Shannon at Ath-Luin when the wandering bard from the north found the way to the castle of Diarmod, and craving audience, knelt and offered a ring.

“This from her who calls herself Regina,” he said. “The dower given to the convent for her has gone to Lough Gilla Castle with many other things. The ring of the south should not be among the plunder of the enemy, and for that reason it is sent back.”

“Is that the only word?”

“All that was given me.”

“Is she—in prison?”

“She is the wife of Tiernan O’Ruarc, King of Breffni; she rules all within the castle by his love of her.”

“He has then taken a nun to wife against all rule of Rome? Has there been naught of protest from King Murtagh of Meath?”

“Nay, O Diarmod, no vows had been laid upon her. She was free to be sought in marriage to any man, and O’Ruarc was the man.”

That rankling thought was not good company for the man who had let her ride out from O’Carroll’s castle into the new prison, and the man who got her was his enemy!

Two days Diarmod fumed over the thought, and then rode with his spearmen and bowmen to council with King Donough.

“Is it in silence the men of Meath and men of Orielle let the plunderer from Lough Gilla strip the holy churches and carry away the cloistered women?” he asked. And Donough walked with him apart that Queen Maureen might not hear.

“As to Clonard Abbey, it is true, and we should stand against this, and send a spokesman to O’Ruarc; but as to women there was only one, and that one is his wife. There is no profit in going against that. She is Queen of Breffni and content enough. Since it is so, what call for speech of it among the people? It is well her own name is lost from her in those changes. To ride to her rescue would but bring her back for other princes to fight for. She is too fair for peace to be her dower in any land. Let that hawk of the north keep her safe at his own nest.”

“She has brought him lucky fortune, since he sweeps all of church wealths into his chests and goes scatheless, and it was a different prophecy of her told by Kieran Dall.”

“We are born, but not dead yet,” said Donough, “and it is ill profit to think of her now—and her a strong king’s wife.”

“Yet I am thinking of her, O’Carroll, and the promise holds me no more. From your castle I would not take her, nor from the church, but she is with neither. She and the other stolen things are now free to who can take them.”

“No man will fight for her when her name is known, and Turlough O’Conor will not be the man to let Breffni be robbed of a covenanted woman. Murtagh of Meath knows it, and cares not how soon she brings ruin to O’Ruarc—if bring it she does—_he_ is not of the line forbidden to her blood.”

Diarmod glowered darkly and showed contempt.

“The short sight was on me when I let her ride away, and foolish was the tale of Kieran Dall. Strong houses have ere this taken mates from the Lochlannach. Why should a ban, forgotten for a thousand years, be uncovered for her house or for mine? My own thought is that her dower was the dower of a king’s daughter, and a gain for any holy group of the veil. Without doubt she was a chance child of Murtagh of Meath, and the tale of Kieran Dall was made to fit. I have had no other word concerning Cuan the Dark; it is some old world tale of druid power.”

“If ban, or banishment and un-naming is pronounced in secret against a man, it is more than death against him, Diarmod. There is no record left that he was ever living. The father of Dyveke had youth with him—he was the firstling of a devout house, and was meant for holy life—there may be many who think he is living out his years in work and prayer among foreign pagans. As a man he has left no name and no record. Now that O’Ruarc has the maid, and caused question of the source of the dowry, there is but one thing to do in the house of Machflain. She is called ward of the King of Meath, and daughter as well. It is a rich cloak to cover her white shoulders and cover a buried and bitter scandal for the house of the man called ‘The Dark.’ It will never be safe to lift that cloak, Diarmod; too many pious hands have helped weave it, and work over each rough seam with careful broiderings. Hidden forever now is father or mother of hers. She is no longer Dervail of the Shadow; she is daughter of Murtagh Machflain, King of Meath, and is wife to Tiernan, Prince of Breffni. The whole of Erinn is between your shore and hers, and no cause for your thoughts to cross over.”

“Yet are they crossing over,” said Diarmod, and looked at a ring of gold. “There is no joy for her there in Breffni, and her own thoughts are crossing the wide land.”

Donough O’Carroll was not easy in his mind after that speech. He had remembrance of the words of Malachi, son of Murtagh of Meath. He also was afire because of her beauty, and the little love he had for Tiernan O’Ruarc. He also could see no reason why the maid, and her dowry as well, should go to a prince so well hated. For the truth of her was not told by Murtagh of Meath to any of his household. Duighal and certain monks knew it, and among them they hoped to hide the fact that the child of Dyveke lived though she should have died. Some fear of Dyveke’s curse was on Murtagh, and for that reason the maid was dowered for sanctity as had been his own daughter, with little thought that his enemy of the north would sweep hawklike on Clonard and bear away the troublous maid with all her mysterious wealth.

“Hark to me, Diarmod,” said O’Carroll in all kindness. “Murtagh Machflain is well pleased that she is taken to the far end of Erinn by a man—any man—strong enough to hold her there! You are not the only man she makes restless by a look, or a word, or it may be a pledge! If it is adventure you hunger for, forget her beauty and seek victories in the west where the men of O’Brian are ever snapping like wolves across borders of Connaught or Leinster; I am with you to join shields with Turlough O’Conor against them at any dawn you name to set forth. Make yourself strong with allies ere you venture a hosting into Breffni. With care you can be chief king of Leith Mogh.”

“You have the King of Meath and all the bishops on your side,” agreed Diarmod of Leinster, “yet if I was a wifeless man, I would make her a queen of more than Breffni. Tiernan of Breffni will yet pay with his life for having her before me!”

Diarmod had never forgotten her words of admiring when she greeted him as “Ard-Ri of Erinn.” It was but a tiny seed let fall from her rose-leaf lips, yet had it grown in his mind, nourished by the records and legends of his own royal line until he saw no head of Erinn more fit for crowning! This was a dear secret thought of his, spoken of to none, yet when he heard Turlough O’Conor called “King with opposition” there came flashing back to him the music of her words, and with them a long look ahead to the days when Turlough was gone! To be chief king of Leith Mogh—all southern Erinn—would seem to Donough a natural ambition. But to dream of the crown of High King over all would put fear in the mind of every friend who was loyal to Leinster. No thought of it had come to any heart but his own—and hers!

That was the hold she had over his dreams; she had voiced the secret thing much desired. And in his dreams she became a part of that which was desired—the beautiful part!

Yet Diarmod of Leinster did consider the words of King Donough, and did join shields with Turlough against the men of O’Brian to the west, and did make himself allies for the days when need would be his, for that was his way. The strong family of Mor, his wife, he had in bonds to him, and strong churchmen he had; if ever he ventured to follow his dream he meant to have help of Rome through princely clerics.

He took credit to himself for joining shields to Turlough the king at that time. His mind was to go north, but the counsel of Donough brought him thought and remembrance that Murtagh of Meath was no strong ally even if he should make choice of the road of spears into Breffni for the maid of beauty. Though reinstated in his holdings, no one was forgetting that, for the blow to Gelasius the bishop, Murtagh had suffered for a space the loss of all kingly rights, and the devout and the spiritual fathers held it against him. It was no good time for making bonds with him, even if he and Malachi, his son, had been eager—for Malachi held no great strength of his own. The time must be on another day.

But in all his thoughts of her there was the curious certainty that their own time would come. She was the music singing far in the forest of a fairy rath; she was the veiled maid beyond the lattice; she was ever Argatonel, the silver cloud out beyond the nearer gray! His men of the spears and battle-axes would have had curious thoughts if they had known that the music to which the great Diarmod of dread kept pace on his warhorse was the song of the boy, Ardan, in boyish praise of her beauty.

He had forgotten that song, or thought he had, but in some far corner of his mind it lay sleeping, and the thought of her whiteness in the arms of that red terror of the north wakened it, and gave it music until he heard the feet of his men and the feet of his warhorse marching to it!

And the young maker of the song?

His travels abroad made the wandering northward an easy path. He slept at monasteries, and was known only as ward of “Dall Clairineach,” who had been the scholarly abbot of Ardbreccan. But that name, given the learned O’Cahsadhe, was a key to every door. At Armagh, Ardan was even trusted with messages to other retreats of religious men further along his way, and at one monastery was offered a Saxon slave as gille, and a letter to Tiernan O’Ruarc, prince of Breffni, giving thanks from a fortunate prior to whom he had sent vestments and altar candles!

This lucky chance brought aid to Ardan and much comfort. He had only to say, “A letter from a grateful priest to a gracious prince.” And over mountain or moor the message was given a pleasure path. Near his own domains the O’Ruarc did not plunder or lay waste, and the way to Lough Gilla was an open way when within the Breffni borders.