Chapter VII: Part 7

But the Prince of Breffni was not at home to receive the priest’s letter of thanks. He was gone north to the shrine of Phadraig in Lough Dearg, as was his custom after great hostings. Even his enemies never could say the O’Ruarc shirked pious pilgrimage, or rich gifts of hospitality. The flat top of a great hill above Lough Gilla was seen afar as a landmark and named the “Table of Breffni.” It fitted in well with the giant cromlechs of the ancients to which the Saxon slave made curious circles of respect, and told to Ardan the faith for which the ancient gods had left such monuments. It was different from the faith of the saints by which Ardan had been given instruction, and he chided the slave and made a prayer, and went on between hills touched golden by the carpet of gorse, and touched blue as peat smoke when seen afar along the fair waters of lake and river.

The letter from the cleric opened the portals of Breffni for Ardan, and his own youth and sunshine of face made him welcome alike to steward and warrior. The cleric of the castle was less friendlike, and had searching and priestly questions, and another man in scholar’s robe gave long looks to him, but no question. He was called Duffagan, and had been of the captured at Clonard—a silent student to whom Tiernan gave care of the plundered books, because of his learning in such craft.

No word did Ardan send to Dervail, but with a bard of Breffni he made pact of friendliness, and told him of Erinn’s music in monasteries, and the courts of princes in Gaul and beyond it to the east. An Irish air he had brought back from Rome set to words of Italy, and he sang it to the delight of all in the great hall. After the supper and the songs of olden days, the little harp was given to his hands, and he took his turn in making music, as was the custom and joy among those of the musicians and poets. Young lovers would thus sing their thoughts to the one maid most longed for, and maids and women of the household of Breffni had their pleasure of the evening in that pastime. The castle took to itself neither silence nor added prayer for that Tiernan, the lord of it, had fared north for penitence at the shrine of Phadraig.

It was a gay and very beautiful hall where the music was made, for no stone of the wall but was covered with hangings of rich weavings from the lands foreign, and under foot were many skins of animals, and one of a great white bear was beneath the feet of Dervail where she sat on the throne seat.

At the far end of the hall she sat with her maidens, and the chiefs and ladies of Breffni’s household. Wearily enough she sat there above the others, and brooding she sat in a robe of white, heavy with gold threads and girdled with green ropes of gold-set emeralds from the Kerry hills. Her veil was of white, and fell from a crown of gold and glimmering green jewels. Her chin rested on her hand, and she had a sidelong look for a chief who sat near her, reciting some late glory of her lord’s victories.

Ardan noted it all afar off where he hid himself with the younger singers. The song that came to his mind was of a white bird weighted with golden chains. But in the old Irish tales of chained doves or swans there were ever two birds chained together with golden links—and she was alone. In his heart he was glad it was so. He could not think of her in another way. She was still to him the lone white bird, though a jeweled queen.

But it was not of that he dared sing when the tiny harp was put in his hand, for he was to the others only a chance bearer of a letter, and traveling in no great honor. And she was wife to Prince of Breffni and sat on a throne.

And the thing he sang was the farewell song he had made for her in a far dawn when she had worn a silver-gray veil instead of a queen’s crown. And he had named her silver cloud—Argatonel.

The sun has set at morning tide,
Argatonel!
The wall between is deep and wide,
Argatonel!
Above it stars of heaven may rise
In witchery,
But none so wondrous as your eyes
Of mystery.
Argatonel—white wings to you!
Argatonel—white road to you!
O Silver Cloud that wraps the world,
My song to you!

He marked the very heart-beat in which she knew the song and the singer, though she did not turn head or glance to where he was, and her attention was given entirely to converse with the chief of Mac Roigh and his lady wife who was an Irish princess out of Alba, where Irish tribes had gone in a far-off time.

But when the song was ended, Dervail turned as if for mere courtesy, and spoke.

“It is a fair, mellow voice, and a new song for us,” she said. “Bid the singer come for speech.”

The steward of the castle brought forward Ardan, and told his name and errand, and showed the letter and spoke.

“I bade him wait the return of our Lord of Breffni, and while he waits we seek to give him fair courtesies, and the usage of a chief’s son.”

“You serve your lord well,” said the queen. “He shall be of our household. Whence come you, strange singer?”

“Late from Rome and other far lands,” said Ardan, his eyes on the golden hem of her robe, and not lifted to her face, for the eyes of the others were looking, and had nought else to do but look.

“Do pilgrims to Rome come back with songs of gallantry to bright eyes?” she asked, and smiled, and the younger maids pressed close to listen.

“A pilgrim sometimes carries the songs, and the memory of eyes, on all the wide circle from the white strand of Erinn to the harbor of return,” said Ardan, and she laughed at that, and bade him to a seat near, and told him he should sing for her again, and he might teach one of the maidens the song of “Argatonel,” for the air was a sweet air, and a plaintive.

Then, having shown him this much of courtesy, her mind in appearance strayed from him to matters of more import, but the youths and maids circled him, and had their pleasure in questions of far lands, and Roderick, son of Turlough, the King of Erinn, was there, and spoke of Rome and the scriptures of the Irish sent eastward to carry both religion and book craft to the Germanic peoples, and their neighbors, the Gauls.

“For that purpose was Erinn the savior of learning for all Europe,” said the Mac Roigh. “In the wars of the Huns and the Northmen the great eastern land was swept bare of scholars, and Greek was lost to the Gallic tribes until our books and our men carried it back again.”

“Strange to hear—that is,” mused Roderick. “As strange as to think that the Gaelic and the Latin we speak and read could be lost to our children in another day.”

“It may be that the waters on every side of Erinn will be the wall to keep that loss far from us forever,” said Mac Roigh, “but in the great foreign land there is neither wall nor waters of separation. The tribes overrun and melt into each other, or they fight and harvest the enemy as grain in a field. It is all and always change there; thus were their settlements of religious men reaching out for the Irish scriptures made here in sanctuary. Gelasius the bishop was telling us of that at Clonfert.”

“I had thought,” ventured Roderick, “that between the Danes and raiders of Norway and their Saxon mates, Erinn had work in plenty to save even life, without the strife to save learning enough to civilize her invaders. It’s a good gift they got from us when our saints taught them religion. And it was an evil payment they made to us with their ships full of raiders.”

“Our well-beloved Dall Clairineach told me Erinn was set apart like a jewel in a lost casket,” said Ardan. “The old south sea-way to us was lost to the traders of Europe through the time of the great wars; our land was out of the path of battle and was forgot. When they found us again, it was in a different way—an island beyond an island in the sea! While they had fought and made destruction of all things, our men of many crafts and many books had worked to garner and build. All the learning was here to start anew the broken, foreign tribes.”

“More than some godly souls made welcome!” said Roderick. “I ever had wonder on me to know what penance was given Forgal the saint when the Pope at Rome reproved his heresy in writing that the world was round instead of flat as we all are knowing it.”

“Forgal had lived on the coast here at home,” said Cineath the cleric, “and took note that the masts of a vessel at sea are seen before the body of the vessel is seen. Yes, he was given strong reproof for saying it, but his writing was not changed because of that—he left it as the words were written. In all else it is known he was a true scholar, and a holy man—the blessing of God on his soul, and on us!”

The talk went on thus, and the queen and her ladies listened. Ardan could feel her eyes on him, though never once did he meet her gaze with directness. He did not obtrude his speech, except as one of the men of rank asked of his journey afar, but he knew that he did not seem out of place near her throne, and had a pride in that.

“You speak of the wise and holy abbot of Ardbreccan,” said Mac Roigh as the time for rest came, and the prayer of the cleric was ended. “Was he well known by you?”

“He was as my father while he lived, and left me to his close friend when he died,” said Ardan. “His fancy was to make me as a scribe and genealogist—but why should I, a son of no family, turn genealogist?”

“No family?” said Mac Roigh, and looked at him. “If you were not of blood and race, think you so renowned a man would have found in you the stuff for his science? And you wear the colors of a noble.”

“Youth thinks not so much of these matters, and I was but a youth when I turned from that work,” said Ardan. “Instead of a devout priest with quill and ink pot I am a priest’s message bearer to royal houses.”

“We will see you again tomorrow,” said the queen graciously. “If you ride, you could attend on the ladies who fancy sport with the falcons on the moor.”

“I ride,” said Ardan.

Three days they were speaking like that before princes and chiefs, and three nights he was led by Kauth, her woman, to Kauth’s own curtained room of sleeping, and there Dervail came to him. Kauth was their guard, and their nights were of whispers. He heard there her dreams of strange greatness, and knew that Breffni’s crown was as a golden rung in a ladder she meant to climb.

“And you, Ardan, will climb with me, for it is true what the chief of Mac Roigh has said: no youth below the noble rank of _aire-desa_ wears the colors, and is taught music and chess, shooting and the riding of horses—swift riding beautiful! You are fitting in all ways, and have the trust of Diarmod, and that is a thing lucky. When the day comes I will have you near the throne and my eyes are made glad that you have visage and speech of a prince. It will be well for you.”

“Your talk is in circles,” he said. “You are queen—yet you talk of the day when you win the throne! I come through all the wilderness for the reason that you were a soul in prison—and it is a different thing I find. You have freedom for the first time, and are using it on men.”

“I do the things of my girl dreams,” she said. “I never was told how women had power and here I am learning. When I go to Diarmod—”

“No,” he said, “it is not good to dream that. There is Prince of Breffni and Mor na Tuathal between you two! Her people are of greatness in power, and even a strong king might not stand out against them. She is his wife, and her brothers are his watchers.”

Dervail lifted a feather, and tossed it upward.

“She, and her brother abbots, and sainted priests will weigh not so much as that against my wish, when I wish it,” she said. “I am out of the convent walls forever and am learning the power of women—and the strength of it is sweet.”

“And what answer to Diarmod who would save you again for sanctuary if your prayer was for that? for without your word he may not take this road.”

“The time will come when I send him signal. It will be—it will be a white pearl of royal size. There are creels of jewels here! I will be sending one to him more beautiful than the one given by Gillebart of Limerick to Anselm the archbishop oversea—and that one was called a royal gift to the prince of the English church. Yes, it will be a pearl I will send when I send the call for him. It is a fine thing for me that I am able to bind my friends with a queen’s gifts.”

“It—is not a queen to whom he was sending me, Dervail. It was a veiled maid of the cloisters, and she calling for champion.”

She laughed low, and looked at him in pride.

“Every man in this keep would be champion of mine if I called—and if I gave him my smiles,” she said, “but not one is strong to control all the others. I have given much thought to that matter and secret knowings have been spoken to me by a man of the Old Wisdom! Diarmod is, of all Erinn, the one of strength; and he will be stronger in days to come, for his gathering of spears will be a great gathering. The spears he gathers will make a new ruling for all Erinn. And I was knowing that thing before the day I laid sight on Tiernan the ravager.”

“You are talking of dark, hidden things, Dervail, and they are forbidden.”

“They are true things, and the stars tell them! A secret man, who has the name of Duffagan, told me that thing in Clonard. He was a scholar but no monk, and Kauth gives him fellowship. When O’Ruarc would in willingness bring any retainer of mine, I brought him as husband to Kauth, and that was saving his life. He has a fever on him for old books, and his was the task to carry north the annals most rare. He has the trust of O’Ruarc who thinks him a book fool; but he knows the stars and the tides, does Duffagan Mac Knea, and he knows the tides of men’s lives as he does the tides of the sea! When he tells me it is time to send call to Diarmod of the Spears, it will be gladness for me to be sending it. And until that day comes I am waiting and learning and dreaming my dreams.”

“Mac Knea,” said Ardan, “that means ‘Son of the Night’—it is a curious name to put on a man.”

“Yet it is fitting,” said Dervail, “else he would not be having it. Words have power, and the wrong word he would not have on him. He has a wisdom not to talk of to every bird crossing over, and none of these people are knowing it. They laugh at him, and call him the little dark spider sitting ever alone in a corner with watching eyes; but a spider spins webs beyond craft of mortal.”

“It may be evil craft you praise in him! How then if you find it so?”

“It is true craft,” she insisted. “Already it has proven itself on me. Of Tiernan’s hosting I was warned by him. I was ready on that day, and it was no weeping novice he found in me, but a king’s ward, with the rights of a noble. He was my key to the world, and I used him. I came not out of the walls a captive: it was the wife of the Prince of Breffni who rode beside him.”

“A mystery are you to me, Dervail,” said Ardan, “and not the caged bird I crossed the kingdoms to find.”

“The caged bird!” she said. “Ardan, have you memory of the snow bird you made of me in the cloisters?”

“I have the memory—and the guilt,” he said. “When I listen to you I think I was ‘fey’ that night I worked on it. I had cold and hunger and my soul afire. Had I made likeness of the Holy Ones with such perfectness, the monks would have made a saint of me; instead of which they banished us both far as was in their power. And—they did not break down its white wings of ice quick enough to save it from the eyes of Diarmod!”

She gave a little cry at that, but it was a sound of joyous triumph.

“Again has Mac Knea proven true,” she said. “He told me it was by some work of another that Diarmod’s heart turned to thought of me. That I did not believe, and so I have said; but it was true! You, Ardan, made one image of me poised for flight—you must make for me another—when I have reached the end of the flight and picked my throne.”

He thought she made a jest of him, but her beauty was so great that he was content to look in silence, as he thought that no queen ever told of in song or annal had such beauty as hers. Not fair Dierdre of the sorrows, or the wondrous Brighde who was goddess of beauty and art, or that Grania whose beauty and courage were as one when her beauty won a crown, and her courage dared toss it aside as a ball in her great game—and her game was Love.

He sat thinking these things, and knowing that all the beauty of all of them could not equal the beauty of Dervail. It was seemly enough that her fame might indeed grow great as she hoped, and her name be widely known among the rulers of Erinn.

So deep was his dreaming of it that he kept no count of his silence, or her curious looks.

“Of what are your thoughts when you stare past me as if there was naught between yourself and the skins on the wall?” she asked, and he roused and looked at her.

“I am thinking there was never your equal for beauty in all the wide world, Dervail,” he said simply, “neither them that are living, nor them who are gone the Way.”

“You are the same Ardan,” and her smile was strange.

“You think I fail to make note of beauty because I do not play the sighing champion for your favor,” he said, “but you read me wrong. As ward of Murtagh of Meath, and foster child of Donough of Orielle it is a pretty puzzle to me why each king was not striving to make best marriage for you with ally of his own. They shut you in high walls for life without choice of yours—and would have forgot you were living if—”

“If the Son of the Night had not made the key to come to my cell!”

“What would you say?”

“Three new moons was his work to help it to come that way,” she whispered. “He made secret prayers for that thing—to the four ways he was sending that call for the man—and Tiernan was the man to hear it, and to come there, and Tiernan was the key!”

“More like it was that Tiernan sent your master of druid lore to spy out the wealth of Clonard! You were part of that wealth, Dervail.”

“I have wonder if that be true,” she mused, and her eyes were looking sideways in thought, but the red-rose lips curved over the white little teeth of her, and the blue eyes had laughing pride.

“Even if it be so, the rule of Tiernan is over with that man, and mine is the rule,” she said. “He pins his life to my service. Tiernan is now but a man on our chessboard. And you are wrong in one thing: Tiernan knows nothing of Duffagan’s hidden wisdom; no, Tiernan has dread of such learning, for he was born at Whitsuntide, and it was foretold that by a man and a woman of druid craft would his downfall be if he followed their steps. That is why, after every hosting, or every great killing he makes faithful pilgrimage to the shrine of Phadraig. Great and rich gifts he will be leaving there to prove he is christian surely. No—Ardan, Tiernan of Breffni has fear, and has horror of all ‘Old Wisdom,’ and the life of Mac Knea would go out like a rushlight in the wind if Tiernan knew.”

“And you! Is there no fear on you?”

“At first there was fear—and great fear—but not now. The strength of the stars is with us, and that lifts and bears me above the fear. The ‘Old Wisdom’ has made me Queen of Breffni and that, Ardan, is my first move in the game, and it is a great game.”

“If someone should be telling Tiernan O’Ruarc?”

“I would kill that one, Ardan, and you alone have my secret.”

“Suppose I tell it to Diarmod?”

She looked at him, and thought a bit and laughed in silence.

“That would be favor to me,” she decided. “He has no love for me—yet; though he has much thought of me. That telling would give him more thought, for I will spend one secret night on Tara with the man whose name will go down the centuries with mine! Take that saying to Diarmod for me, Ardan; it will tell him that no pale-blooded nun has come north to rule in Breffni. Let him give dreams to a night in Tara!”

“Tara has been desolate these many generations.”

“Yet his fathers did rule there, Ardan, and it may be my own did! It is the place for Ard-Ri of Erinn, and it may be a great rule will yet be built on its ruins.”

“It is a dream, Dervail.”

“Duffagan is saying all great things of life have been grown from dreams, and that the moon and the stars govern our dreams.”

“I would see this priest of the forbidden ere I journey south, and tomorrow is the latest I may linger. It is no wish of mine to see Tiernan of Breffni, whose plunder is sacred things of altars.”

“Yet are you loyal to Diarmod.”

“What then? Diarmod gives endless wealth to holy houses. His own gold has built monasteries and churches for the glory of saints.”

“Ardan,” said Dervail, gently smiling, “all this is truth, yet there are other truths of him; when a lord of the south refused his daughter to Diarmod in the days of Diarmod’s youth, he gathered spears and took her with the veil and the vows of a nun on her! In amorous fellowship she was held in his castle and wedded there to a lord of his choosing. That is the custom of a king who has power, Ardan! He takes what he wants! I hear much of the power of Diarmod of Leinster. He has their hate, but their tales are tales of praise to me, for they tell of his strength.”

“Their hate may build untruths against him. When was this ravaging?”

“In Kildare, and her name was Dhira. Her house was the house of Cahsadhe, and one hundred and seventy lives were sent back to God in her capture. She lived a hidden woman after that time, but the story could not be hidden. That was before your birth, or mine, Ardan.”

“Dall Clairineach surely had knowing of that if it was a true thing, Dervail, yet yours is the first word of it I am hearing.”

“It is not for nothing Diarmod founds monasteries and religious houses! You have been bred in them, Ardan, and it is a place for holding secret things.”

Kauth slipped through the arras to tell them the cocks were crowing and the old day was gone. She looked strangely at Ardan, and to Dervail, when alone, she said the youth had much of beauty, too much for such distance of converse as was his custom.

“True enough,” said Dervail, unbraiding the pearls in her hair. “But there are other men for other uses, and this one has such honestness he would be useless to me except in his own spirit. Because I tell him much, he thinks I tell him all; and in his prayers my name will not be forgotten.”

Kauth, who had been lay sister of Clonard, was given higher place than the place of a serving-woman in the castle of O’Ruarc, and her dress held three colors. She rode abroad with Dervail when the days were fine, and ever stood between when man or woman made approach to the hall of the queen.

Thus she rode obedient with the glad riders of the springtime in the forest, and with adroitness found way to lose herself with the queen and Ardan, and all three rode in the edge of the great wood, and looked out on the moor where women with their young were gathering gorse bloom and marsh marigold to keep luck in the house when hung over the door on May Eve. Others were plucking primrose for the doorstep, and youths were seen bearing holly and rowan and a young tree of the yew for the circle dance of the many stars around the Still Star of the north.

“It would seem a strange nightfall to be out in the wilderness,” said Ardan. “All christians are together elsewhere on the eve of Beltain.”

“Duffagan Mac Knea gives me word that the prayers are the same, and only the difference is that saints’ worship is given instead of druid. The dance does not change, and the harp music does not change, and the faith does not change. I have spoken at every chance with these people concerning all things, and not yet has Duffagan told me anything not of easy proof.”

“But the castle cleric, Cineath, has he no reproof?”

“He knows Duffagan only as student and scribe, who has gone into the foreign world to the shores of the Nile, and tells no cleric of the deeper things learned there.”

They had reached a hill of three circles, and Kauth, who rode apart, came close and slipt from her horse.

“No animal must press foot up above,” she said. “So said Duffagan to me. Since the end of yesterday has he been here, and fasting. It is new moon, and Beltain.”

Dervail sat on her white horse and looked up at the steep sides of the hill, and looked beside her at a huge square stone, pierced, and once rudely carven, but now covered with lichen gray and green and russet. It was high as her own head and she on the back of the horse. Other stones of the same bigness were seen as if standing guard around the circle of a great earth temple.

“There were great men in the world when that thing was done,” she said. “It was not two or three people who were coming here then to take note of the sky and the clouds over the new moon.”

Ardan said no word. He saw Kauth take from under her cloak a white pigeon wound about with white and saffron bands. She placed it in the hands of Dervail and pointed upward.

“Not empty-handed must you go there,” she said. “Pluck a rowan or a holly branch for the hand of your friend. I have my happiness in lack of knowledge, and will be your guard of the horse below.”

A dim path went up through the wood clothing the steep, and at the first terrace they saw other tall stones like sentinels circling the hill. Ardan felt as if he had passed some strange dread portal into an ancient life; far above he saw that which he had heard of in Gaul but never dreamed to see in Erinn.

It was a temple in the open with the sky for roof. Great squared pillars arose in a circle, and to the east a sanctuary was made by a huge slab overhead and two uprights on either side. An altar was there on a raised floor of stone, and Duffagan the silent, in white robe and saffron bands, stood there watching the sinking sun, and striking flint on flint craftily where the silken strands of the wild flax made tinder.

A tiny spiral of smoke curled and drifted along the stone slab above him, and the two at the edge of the circle stood still and spoke no word.

A curious hoop of hazel wands was beside the altar, and two balls suspended at either side—one of yellow, one white; twigs of rowan were there, and twigs of yew.

The priest lifted the hoop and whirled it sunwise through the smoke, and Ardan knew it was symbol of sun and moon circling thus through the smoke of the earth altar.

As the last fire of the sun went beyond the great sea of mystery, the blaze of the temple leaped up—it was as if stolen out of the western sky!

Dervail thrust spray of holly into the hand of Ardan, and went forward with her offering.

Ardan could hear the low murmur of a prayer or incantation as water from a shallow cup in the stone was sprinkled in a circle about the slender blaze.

Sun and Sky,
Moon and Earth,
Fire and Water,
Living Green!

As the priest lifted his eyes, Dervail went forward with her strange offering. Without fear she walked, yet with a look of question. And Ardan knew it was for the first time.

“As Life I make my offer,” said Dervail.

“As Life I give it again to the elements by which life endures.”

The voice of the man had a sweet singing note in it by which Ardan was won in surprise. He had expected roughness or harshness in an un-christian priest, yet Duffagan, who was also “Son of the Night,” was gentle beyond belief.

So amazed was he at this that he scarce noted the firm, quick stroke of the flint knife until the wings fluttered once, and then were held close and steady while the blood trickled from the slit throat to the altar where the fire was.

Dervail stood, serene, yet pale of face, for it was a place of curious imaginings. Ardan saw her cast quick look over her shoulder, and knew that, like him, she felt the movement, or the very breathing of a multitude circling that high place of ancient mysteries. Once he thought he heard the sound of shrill singing far off, to the tramp of thousands of feet, but in another moment he knew it was a distant shepherd’s pipe, and the wind hurtling through the forest below.

Wind caught the flame and blew it against the hazel hoop of the symbols. Dervail led Ardan forward.

“Once I was to come to this place where you read the stars, Duffagan,” she said. “I am here to keep faith, and I bring my one friend who makes offer beside me.”

Ardan’s hand held out the branch of holly, and Duffagan stripped the leaves, and let them fall one by one on the blaze. His watching of each new flame was curious. He did not speak until there were left only red embers of the twigs.

“Good it is that your soul is strong in faith, O Queen,” spoke the strange, gentle, even voice. “The trial times of life will call for much strength of yours, and it is well to prove faiths. I have fasted and prayed here, and have read the sky at this new time of the moon, but this is not a moon in which change will come to you. It is a moon for patience. Your friend who has come as a new star in your sky is safest if his going is soon. There are watchful eyes in the head of the cleric of Breffni. Take you leave as if careless of time, but ride for life when you have turned a hill!”

“Cineath the cleric?” mused Dervail. “He is a ferret for Tiernan. I will provide for you extra horse on the way, Ardan.”

Ardan gave curious glances to the man whose words she heeded, and made promise to act on. Dark he was, as his name denoted—dark, and small, and gentle—and his dark eyes had a strange, withdrawn look as if looking at the two mortals, yet listening to unseen things!

“The Great Bear of the stars points again to the east at fall of night,” he said. “It is the mid-sign between heat and cold, and is the time for searching. The old learning has been lost for the reason that no royal protector dare stand against the craft of the saints and their followers. But many, Dervail, will have your name in their speech, and you will cause much wonder in the minds of many. That is a thing I read in all castings for you, and it may come to pass that you will be the royal one who dares openly sanction that ancient hidden wisdom to which each simple heart makes secret prayer.”

“With aid from you, and guided by the powers unseen, I have brought here in secret my vow offering,” said Dervail. “That is my pledge—a fair white pledge—not to go backward on the road we are walking. In one year—two years—a thousand men and women will face sunwise about the circle where we alone stand now. You will be the honored priest of divinings, the thousands will give you their strength when their fear is lifted—and lifted it will be if you show me the time and the road for Tara.”

“That will come—and strife will come—and terrors. Great hostings will come, and kings will fall; but you will live through all, and your name—your name—it is a name whispered secretly now, but in days to come there will be shouting of that name—Dervail—Dervail—Dervail!”

His speech was half whispered, and he said her name as if repeating echoes of it afar off. A faint smile was on his lips and his face serene.

For the first time Ardan spoke.

“For what reason is Tara the key to any greatness when Tara itself was cursed by Ruadan the saint, and is deserted ground, and crumbling walls in our day?”

Duffagan did not at once make reply. It was as if he had drawn out of hearing. Then he came back and spoke.

“Tara even in desolation is a word of power. Images of greatness belong in that place—and some mortals see them! Tara is the mid-court of dominion, and the Ard-Ri should face the sunrise from that center. Tara is a symbol, as are these things before me symbols of the heavens and the earthly life. By symbols spirit is caught in the silence and held, breathless, for the union with knowledge. Tara holds a message for the woman or man who would rule Erinn—and the message cannot be carried to another. Each finds there that which his own soul can circle. Dervail has made record that it is the rule desired by her. My task is to study stars, and phases of the moon, and find the safe time for such journey.”

“Will he, my friend, be beside me?” asked Dervail, and Duffagan peered at her in the falling twilight.

“He will not be there. His road touches yours strangely, and a veil between! Is he of your kindred?”

“I have no kindred,” said Ardan.

“I think that is not true,” said Duffagan, “for I see you bear shadows or burdens of kindred.”

“Where do you see these things?”

“I read it in the leaves of your holly when the flame curled them into shapes before burning; if not kindred to Dervail, it is to some mortal close to Dervail.”

“We are going, Duffagan,” she said. “The dark will be coming, and the spies of Tiernan on the road. I come to the sunset of Beltain because of your prayers here, and in other days many will follow me.”

“They will,” he said. “I hear the voices of many calling your name.”

He held his hands out over her head in blessing, and made gesture of the way they should circle the altar and the path of descent. He did not look at them again, and as they passed without the great circle they looked back. He was holding at arms’ length the hoop of the hazel, and looking through it at the faint silver line of the new moon against the dark purple of the western sky.

Dervail drew near to Ardan, and laid her hand on his as if to know a mortal beside her, for red light from the sun long gone reflected itself on a cloud in midheaven and fell on Duffagan. It turned his robe and the stones about him into soft light of flame—and left a strange image.

“It is as if a furnace of fire had opened at his feet, lighting him only, and leaving all the other pillars in cold gray,” said Ardan, as he watched the light fade again.

“Strange signs follow Duffagan, or, does his thought compel them? He has fasted since set of last night’s sun, and will have no feast until tomorrow. All this he does for the craft he follows.”

“His belief is strong as though his birth had been in Phadraig’s day, and not in this,” said Ardan. “It is a strange end to my last day with you, Dervail.”

She pressed his arm and walked beside him into the shadows of the wood.

“Make me a song of this place, Ardan. A song of the old, old days when sharp edges were yet on these great stones, and this hill was saffron and white with the robes of Ancient Faith people.”

“That is far to go for a song, Dervail. I have made you songs most of my years, but this is not the place I would seek for songs of you, lest they be sad songs.”

The wife of Tiernan peered at him from under her golden mane.

“Is it fear on you, Ardan?”

“I think it is not fear, but this mystic hill is not a place to seek lightly on the eve of Beltain.”

“What could come to us?” she asked and clung to his arm. “Ardan—many times you have come close in my thoughts of old in my dreams. But the words of Duffagan of the veil between—what meant he by that? Look, Ardan, what other man would not turn warm when my warm hand touched him? Yet you are cold; what is it, Ardan? Did some veil indeed fall between at that altar? See, my hand did not touch you as we went up; yet were we more close than now, Ardan.”

“Duffagan has given you dreams and fears, and it is best not to speak of them now in this place,” he said.

“What could come to us?” she repeated.

“What could not? Is that altar jewel you wear so holy that it is strong enough to guard you in all places?”

She drew away and stared at him, and drew her robe more closely over her breast.

“Have you ‘the sight,’ Ardan? Times are when I think it. You know that great jewel of white diamond and red ruby?”

“I heard of it at Armagh. It was the wondrous star of Clonard, and strange wealth to wear riding the forest.”

She laughed at that, and shook forward the gold of her hair over her breast. They were again near to Kauth, who stood with the horses.

“Tiernan forbade that the altar jewels see the light of day in his absence,” she confessed. “But what use has a pilgrim of penitence with gems of richness?”

He did not answer, but helped her on the horse. The question of the jewel had changed the momentary love-light in her eyes, or the claim of warmth for warmth. He knew she had been touched by fear in the druid circle, and it had driven her to his arms if he would have her there.

Kauth looked at them as they came down, but had no question. Though drawn to Duffagan as a mate for his comfort, she had no wish to know the secret things of his dark delvings.

They rode hard and fast until in sight of the castle, and then Ardan spoke.

“I will carry your message south, Dervail, and I will go tonight instead of on the morrow. I have seen your hopes and your dark road to them.”

“And your thoughts are baleful and apart from me!”

“No. Call on me for that which I dare to serve you. But you have taken yourself out of the world we know together. It may be I cannot follow. Your strange Duffagan says there is a veil between our roads of life—and neither of us can prove that this day. But take deep thought to what you do, Dervail. Duffagan spoke of symbols, and I saw one when you offered the white-feathered thing there for the altar knife.”

“Ardan, what did you see?” and he knew she was thinking of that strange _crowded_ feeling within the circle. The unlaid ghosts of the centuries swept to the altar at the call of blood.

“I saw the white bird of a boy’s dream of beauty in a cloister. I saw the caged bird I rode north to seek sight of, and to lead spears of aid to—and I saw a queen who offered that bird as token for ambitions of earth power. It was only a symbol, Dervail, but you placed all in one under the knife there! Your white bird was a symbol instead of the children other women, in other ages, have borne up to that druid rath for sacrifice.”

“Ardan!” and her white hands were flung out toward him. “That will be the veil between, and I will be a lone woman—terribly lone.”

“You will be queen of beauty and power, Dervail. But put your all of white dreams and of heart-love on that altar, and you will then indeed be alone in life and in death!”

She drooped there, her hair a veil about her in the gloaming, and her hands clasped over her knee.

Two kerns ran out the castle gate and stood with lights at either side to light her entrance. She straightened and tossed back her hair, and rode forward in pride.

“Yet the dream of Tara is a great dream for a life,” she said.

The harvest of the year was not yet garnered when the pearl of Dervail went south to Diarmod of Leinster by the hand of Duffagan.

It found him flushed with the victory of Moanmore against Turlough O’Brian, and strong with the thought that O’Conor of Connaught owed him and owed Meath too much of grace to lift sword or spear if the sacking of Clonard Abbey by O’Ruarc was avenged at last by the lords of Leinster.

In every secret way Diarmod and Malachi, Prince of Meath, had gathered strength and made bonds in friendship for that hosting when the time came, and the messenger of Dervail told the day O’Ruarc was going north on a hosting of his own against a rebellious sub-chief who had taken sides with O’Lochlainn of Ulster in his claims to the rule of Ard-Ri of Erinn as against Turlough O’Conor, whose word was the most weighty in all but the northlands.

The days of going and the days of return had been reckoned with care by Duffagan, and there were plenty for the task.

As to a joyous fair rode the men of the spears of Diarmod, and he, kingly in pride, in the midst of them. Years sat light on him, for the message of Dervail had brought back his youth. It had come at a time when the music of life was dulled by the discords of rule, and the watchful eyes of Conor, the heir-apparent. But the dream of the forbidden maid brought deep longings, and her secret call to him brought again the fairy songs of youth to his soul.

Fierce was the assault on Breffni, and lightning quick the conquest of the castle where Kauth had seen to it that every lock was loosed.

No woman was touched but the wife of O’Ruarc, who was bidden forth with her chosen woman, as hostage to Diarmod of Leinster.

In garb royal, clad in the cloak of seven colors, walked Dervail out from under the roof of the prince who had been her Key!

The men of Leinster and Meath gave long looks to her as she walked between the rows of them to the champing racer straining on his bit, and their eyes turned to each other, dazzled by the brilliant beauty of her. No such hostage had ever been given from prince to king in Erinn.

It was the hand of Diarmod touched her foot in the mounting, and they two were speechless as their hands met. It was the wild dream coming true, and the stars read by Duffagan had all her faith in that moment!

Kauth mounted her horse, and among her goods fastened to the saddle was the gift-cup given by hand of Diarmod in the castle of Donough. The sight of it helped Dervail to her voice.

“It has not been drunk from under that roof,” she said, “but now we will be drinking from it again—and at the well of Nemnach in Tara we will drink.”

“Your word is the word—and will be,” said Diarmod the king.

Murtagh, King of Meath, knew nought of the hosting until the spears of Leinster were north of Ath-Luain, and there was none for comfort but Donough of Orielle—and him only with the hope that Dervail would seek shelter from all men in the abbey of Mellifont.

But Malachi, Prince of Meath, rode back the richer for the plundering of Breffni, and spoke his content at the sisterhood claimed for Dervail.

“No queen so queenly in Erinn,” he made boast, “and it is a foolish thing to hide, as you have hid—her daughterhood! Take pride that she is of our line, even though a shadow is on her dam—whom no one is knowing! She will yet be queen for Diarmod—and our house remembered because of her name.”

“That has been a long, dark, fear of mine!” said Murtagh the king.

But Malachi had no knowledge of the secret held by the older man, and thought it a foolish saying.

“Meath has been made strong for us by this act,” he boasted. “The troubles of yours with the clerics will be at an end, for Diarmod has made pledges for Meath. From Clonard to the Shannon you are to be protected by hostage; from Clonard eastward to the sea I am to divide the rule. This makes stronger the border; thus much of gain already for your tie—whatever it be—with the wife of Breffni.”

Murtagh frowned at the words and walked apart, deep in thought ere he spoke.

“I wish death in peace,” he said, “and I can have that best by forgetting the tie. Pray God she makes choice of a cloister!”

But she made choice of a different thing; from the rath of Malachi, whom she now called “brother,” she went for some secret thing to the ancient rath of the Kings at Tara on Midsummer’s Eve. There went Diarmod to keep tryst with her, and drink from the well of Nemnach.

Until the morning star shone over the plain to the east they were alone on the height where his forefathers had been high kings through the centuries, and the look on his face was a look of entrancement when he came down from that place, and Dervail beside him.

“She is my mate, and no woman before has been that to me,” he said to Malachi. “The clerics must find a way for it, for she is queen to me.”

Yet, because of fear for her at the hands of Conor, the son of Mor, who was moving toward death, he took her not among his own children at Ferns, but in gorgeousness and much comfort placed her in the castle of O’Faelain in Kildare with a loyal guard, and the hostages of a princess claimed for her safety from Rhudri, lord of the castle.

Thus came the daughter of Dyveke south into the region where the Danes had their holdings under Leinster, and where her mother had cursed the land, and all kings and all clans of Erinn!

Great wealth had been taken out of Breffni by Leinster—not only her own dower wealth, but rich plunderings of Clonard, and the droves of cattle taken were the wonder of the country in crossing.

Like fire in the forest after falling of the leaves ran the story of that hosting, and of the vengeance on Breffni for the sacking of Clonard. Murtagh of Meath, and Donough of Orielle, and Duighal the prior went into prayer and deep converse over it. All things within human power had been done by them for the hiding of Dervail—yet had she ridden free and set their world afire!

But prayers of piety could do naught to stem the flood of rage unloosed by her ambitions and the pillaging of Breffni. Turlough O’Conor, the high king, took sides with O’Ruarc. Erinn was divided in the struggle. The enemies made by Diarmod in his proud domination turned their spears against him, and annihilation threatened on every side. Turlough, the High King, sent a priest to deliver the doom of Leinster unless Dervail and her dower were returned to O’Ruarc of Breffni. And troops of Breffni followed the messenger.

Diarmod raged like a wounded bull.

“My men will die for her, though they may not save her,” he said. “I cannot be the one to make choice; that is hers to make. But the army of Turlough and Breffni have crossed the Shannon.”

Rhudri of O’Faelain came riding a foaming steed, and stumbled, dazed and spent, before Diarmod.

“My plea is to serve you in some other way,” he begged. “More than my troops are needed in the guarding of Queen Dervail for you. Her name has carried on the wind to strange places, even to the cells of monks in the wilderness. One of them, old and blind, and housed for charity in my hall, made his way in secret to her chair, an evil knife under his monk’s robe, and—”

“Harm to Dervail?” thundered Diarmod, and the speaker quailed—“the lives of your household will answer!”

“No harm has come to her beyond the baleful deed done under her eyes. Her dark friend, Duffagan, gave his blood instead of hers, and wounded the monkish murderer to the death. But the dying monk said some things of horror for her ears, and all who lavished courtesies on that fair lady now flee from her! It is a mystery—like rats seeking holes, they scatter as I turn my back. To save her there in life and dignity is beyond the power of man without guards—without servants.”

“What is their fear?”

“They will not voice it. May happen it is the death of the monk, or his words not heard by me. It may be the death of Duffagan of whom they had great awe. At her feet it is he died, and her own robe red with the blood of them both, yet there was no shrinking of her and no scream.”

“She is a fitting queen, and royal her daring,” muttered Leinster, “and it is a baleful task to speak any going backward on the road for her! There is none to bear that word but one friend, and he would be loth, though constant. You, Donall, send to Glendalough for Ardan, the fosterling of Donough.”

The lord of O’Faelain put out his hand to stay the son of Diarmod.

“That message has gone on swift feet,” he said. “It was the first request of Queen Dervail.”

“Gone? And for what purpose?”

Donall the Illegitimate looked at him and gave quiet but scornful laughter.