The Hound of Ulster (13 page)

The man loosed his hold on the window-ledge with a sobbing cry and dropped to the ground, and ran and stumbled back to King Conor with his bloody face in his hands.

‘The woman in the Red Branch Guest House is the fairest that ever I have seen. And if Naisi Son of Usna had not seen me and put out my eye with the fling of a golden chess piece, it is in my heart that I would have been clinging to the window-ledge and gazing at her still.'

Then Conor Mac Nessa in a black fury came out into his great hall and shouted to his warriors that were feasting there to be out and bring the three sons of Usna before him, he cared not whether alive or dead, or if they must pull down the Red Branch Hostel timber by timber and turf by turf to do it; for they were traitors that had done him foul wrong in the matter of the woman Deirdre.

The warriors sprang from the benches and snatched up their weapons and ran out, shouting, tossing the war-cry to and fro among them, and some, in passing the fires, pulled out flaming branches and whirled them above their heads as they ran, and so Naisi and the rest within the Hostel saw the red flicker of the firebrands through the high windows, and heard the shouting. And Deirdre cried out, wild as a storm-driven bird, ‘Treachery! Naisi, Naisi, I told you that I feared evil, but you would not listen to me!'

And in the same moment Naisi himself had leapt to drop the mighty bar across the door.

‘Look to the windows! The windows, my brothers, and you sons of Fergus who came here with us in his stead!'

And each catching up their weapons, they ran to their places, and for a breath of time there was stillness in the hall. Then the great voice of Celthair Son of Uthica cried to them from before the door. ‘Out with you, thieves and rievers! Come out to us now, and bring with you the woman you stole from the King!'

And standing within the door Naisi shouted back, ‘Neither thieves nor rievers are we, for the woman came to me for love and of her own wish; and with me and with my brothers she shall remain, though every champion of the Red Branch comes against us!'

But it was not long that they could hold the Hostel, for someone shouted, ‘Burn them out, then, we have the firebrands!' And the shouting rose to a roar, and the warriors thrust their blazing branches under the thatch. And Deirdre cried out at the sight of the red flame running among the rafters, and the hall began to fill with smoke.

Then Naisi said, ‘It is time to unbar the door, for it is better to die by the cold blade than the choking reek of fire!'

So they heaved up the bar and flung wide the door, and leapt to meet the King's warriors who were ready for them like terriers at the mouth of a rat hole. A great fight there was, about the threshold of the Red Branch Guest House, and many of the warriors of Ulster fell before the blades of the sons of Usna and the sons of Fergus Mac Roy. And in the fighting Illan the Fair got his death, but to Buinne the Red a worse thing befell, for the King contrived to have him surrounded
and brought living out of the fight, and bought him with the promise of much land.

Then with the Red Branch Hostel roaring up in flames behind them, Naisi and his brothers linked their three shields together and set Deirdre in the midst of them, and so made a great charge to break through the press of Conor's warriors. And spent and wounded as they were they might yet have won clear, but that Conor Mac Nessa, seeing how it was, bade certain of his Druids to make a strong magic against them, and the Druids made the seeming of a dark wild sea that rose and rose around the island of linked shields, so that the sons of Usna were fighting against the waves of it more than the warriors of the King's Guard. And Naisi, feeling the cold buffeting of the sea rise higher about him and seeing the white hissing break of the waves against their linked shields, caught Deirdre up on to his shoulder to save her from the sea. And they were choking and half drowned, while all the while, to all men save themselves, the King's forecourt was dry as summer drought in the red glare of the burning Hostel.

So at last their strength failed them and the Red Branch Warriors closed about them and struck the swords from their hands, and took and bound them and dragged them before King Conor where he stood looking on.

Then Conor Mac Nessa called for man after man to come forward and slay him the three, but it seemed that none of them heard him, neither Conall of the Victories nor Cethern Son of Findtan, nor Dubthach the Beetle of Ulster, nor Cuchulain himself, who was but that moment come upon the scene, until at last Owen Prince of Ferney stepped forward and took up Naisi's own sword from the ground where it lay.

‘Let you strike the heads from all three of us at one blow,'
said Naisi then. ‘The blade has skill enough for that; and so we shall all be away on the same breath.' And as they stood there side by side, and their arms bound behind them, the Prince of Ferney shored off their three proud heads at the one stroke. And all the Red Branch Warriors let out three heavy shouts above them. And Deirdre broke free of the men who held her, and she tore her bright hair and cast herself upon the three headless bodies and cried out to them as though they could still hear her. ‘Long will be the days without you, O sons of Usna, the days that were never wearisome in your company. The High King of Ulster, my first betrothed, I forsook for the love of Naisi, and sorrow is to me and those that loved me. Make keening for the heroes that were killed by treachery at their coming back to Ulster. The sons of Usna fell in the fight like three branches that were growing straight and strong; their birth was beautiful and their blossoming, and now they are cut down.

‘Oh young men, digging the new grave, do not make it narrow, leave space there for me that follow after, for I am Deirdre without gladness, and my life at its end!'

And as they would have dragged her away from Naisi's body, she snatched a little sharp knife from the belt of one of the men who held her, and with a last desolate cry, drove the blade home into her breast, and the life of her was gone from between their hands like a bird from its broken cage.

They buried Deirdre and Naisi not far apart, at the spot where in later times rose the great church of Armagh, and out of her grave and out of Naisi's there grew two tall yew trees, whose tops, when they were full grown, met above the church roof, mingling their dark branches so that no man
might part them more. And when the sea wind hushed through the boughs, the people said, ‘Listen, Deirdre and Naisi are singing together.' And when in summer the small red berries burned like jewels among the furred darkness of the boughs, they said, ‘See, Deirdre and Naisi are decked for their wedding.'

WHEN FERGUS MAC ROY
reached Emain Macha after the feast of Baruch, and found one of his sons dead and the other worse than dead to him, and the sons of Usna betrayed to their deaths from out of the shelter of his safe conduct, he cursed Conor the King with all the power of rage and grief within him, with all the strength of an old loyalty turned to hate, swearing to be avenged on him with fire and sword. Then he gathered his weapons and bade his charioteer to harness up, and drove like the Lord of the Wild Hunt out of Ulster, to take a new service with Maeve of Connacht.

So by King Conor's own act, the sorrow that he had tried to avert was begun indeed; for Fergus Mac Roy who had been
among the greatest of the Red Branch Heroes was gone with vengeance in his heart, to join himself to Ulster's enemies. And more than one, there were, that followed him, among them Dubthach the Beetle of Ulster, and Cormac Coilinglass, the King's own son. Cuchulain did not go with them for he could not bring himself to take service with Ulster's enemies, but he went away to his own place at D
Å«
n Dealgan, and was no more seen nor heard of at Emain Macha for a long time.

Now in Connacht it was as I told before, that the Chieftain-ship of the land passed from mother to daughter and the King counted for little. Maeve was as all the Royal women of Connacht had been, tall and fierce and very fair and heedful of nothing but her own wild will. And when Fergus came to her at her palace in Roscommon, she welcomed him and sought his aid in a certain matter.

For a short while before Fergus's coming, she and Ailell had had a great quarrel as to which of them had the greatest possessions, and in all things they had proved equal, save for the great white herd bull, the Finnbenach, who had been Maeve's, but had broken out to join the King's herd. Ailell had taunted her because the Finnbenach would not stay in the hands of a woman. This was not to be borne, and Maeve in a fury had sent for Mac Roth her steward and demanded that he should find her somewhere, anywhere in the length and breadth of Ireland, another bull as fine as the Finnbenach.

‘As to finding him, that is easily done,' the steward had said, ‘for the Brown Bull of Quelgney that belongs to Dara, Son of old Fachtna the Giant, is the mightiest bull in all Ireland. So broad is his back that fifty children can play upon it at the same time, and once when his keeper made him angry he trampled the man thirty feet into the ground!'

‘Get him for me,' said Maeve.

But the steward shook his head. ‘That is
not
so easily done, for Quelgney is deep behind the frontiers of Ulster, hard by the place where Cuchulain has his Dun; and do you suppose, even you, great Lady, that the Ulstermen will yield up their proudest herd bull for Connacht's asking?'

And within the hour, one came running to tell her that Fergus Mac Roy stood at her gate.

Before many days and nights were past, Fergus and Maeve and Ailell were linked together with plans for a cattle raid on Ulster, Maeve because she longed for the fighting and the beautiful bright danger, to make her drunk like seven-year mead, and because she knew that if they could carry off enough cattle beside the Brown Bull himself, they would have the wealth they needed to make war on Ulster: always cattle raiding before the war; that was the way of things. Fergus because he longed for vengeance for dead sons and lost honour and broken trust. And even Ailell, because they were stronger than he.

In the first place, that all might seem well and honestly done, Maeve sent an embassy to Dara Son of Fachtna the Giant, begging the loan of the bull for one year, that he might beget sons of his own kind for the Connacht herds, and offering in exchange fifty heifers, and the friendship of Maeve, and a chariot and team worth as much as a score of women slaves.

At first Dara was tempted by so splendid an offer, but then he chanced—or maybe 'twas no chance—to hear how the men of the Connacht embassy laughed among themselves, saying how if the bull were not yielded up willingly it would be taken by force, and how in any case its task was to strengthen and enrich the Connacht herds so that the day might draw nearer when Connacht could make war on Ulster. And so when the messengers came for their answer, he said, ‘An Ulster bull
does best on Ulster pasture and Ulster heifers. If Queen Maeve would strengthen her herd, let her look elsewhere for her herd bull; the Pride of Ulster is not for sale.'

And when his words were brought to Maeve as she sat in her great timbered hall at Cruachan, she smiled into the fire, and said, ‘So, I did not think that we should win the bull by fair means. Now we will win him by foul,' and she rose and took down a great sword from the wall and stood fingering it. ‘Now the time comes to send round the Cran-Tara.'

So the black goat was sacrificed, and the hazel rod with one end dipped in its blood and the other charred in the fire was sent throughout the province of Connacht, calling the tribes together for war. And from all over Connacht the warriors and the chieftains began to gather, headed by the seven sons of Maeve, each with their own war bands; and Ket and Anluan the sons of Maga, came with three thousand men; and a host of the men of Leinster following their King who was Ailell's brother; and Ferdia came with his band, as behoved a prince of Connacht, though his heart was sore within him, remembering how he and Cuchulain had sworn the Brotherhood when they were newly men. And already in Roscommon there were Cormac Son of King Conor, and old bitter Fergus Mac Roy, and those others who had abandoned Emain Macha for the sake of Deirdre's grief and the deaths of the sons of Usna.

The weapons rang all day on the swordsmith's anvil, and all Connacht thrummed like a hornets' nest that is near to swarming, and the thunder of the chariot wheels rolled from the Shannon to the Western Sea. And Maeve went to her chief Druid and bade him look into the smoke and the sand and the entrails of the black cock still quivering with life; and tell her
what he saw of the fortunes of the cattle raid. And he told her, ‘Whoever else comes not back, you yourself shall come back to your hunting-runs again,' and would say no more.

But on the hill track that led back from the Druid's house to Cruachan, the chariot horses came to a rearing halt, and she saw standing at the end of the yoke pole, a maiden with broom-yellow hair hanging to her knee like a shining cloak over her green gown, and she held a gold-hilted sword with which it seemed that she was weaving in the air a web of many colours.