CHAPTER VIII
“You have not told me one word about Duv Laca,” said the Flame Lady reproachfully.
“I am coming to that,” replied Mongan.
He motioned towards one of the great vats, and wine was brought to him, of which he drank so joyously and so deeply that all people wondered at his thirst, his capacity, and his jovial spirits.
“Now, I will begin again.”
Said Mongan: There was an attendant in Fiachna Finn’s palace who was called An Da’v, and the same night that Fiachna’s wife bore a son, the wife of An Da’v gave birth to a son also. This latter child was called mac an Da’v, but the son of Fiachna’s wife was named Mongan.
“Ah!” murmured the Flame Lady.
The queen was angry. She said it was unjust and presumptuous that the servant should get a child at the same time that she got one herself, but there was no help for it, because the child was there and could not be obliterated.
Now this also must be told.
There was a neighbouring prince called Fiachna Duv, and he was the ruler of the Dal Fiatach. For a long time he had been at enmity and spiteful warfare with Fiachna Finn; and to this Fiachna Duv there was born in the same night a daughter, and this girl was named Duv Laca of the White Hand.
“Ah!” cried the Flame Lady.
“You see!” said Mongan, and he drank anew and joyously of the fairy wine.
In order to end the trouble between Fiachna Finn and Fiachna Duv the babies were affianced to each other in the cradle on the day after they were born, and the men of Ireland rejoiced at that deed and at that news. But soon there came dismay and sorrow in the land, for when the little Mongan was three days old his real father, Mananna’n the son of Lir, appeared in the middle of the palace. He wrapped Mongan in his green cloak and took him away to rear and train in the Land of Promise, which is beyond the sea that is at the other side of the grave.
When Fiachna Duv heard that Mongan, who was affianced to his daughter Duv Laca, had disappeared, he considered that his compact of peace was at an end, and one day he came by surprise and attacked the palace. He killed Fiachna Finn in that battle, and be crowned himself King of Ulster.
The men of Ulster disliked him, and they petitioned Mananna’n to bring Mongan back, but Mananna’n would not do this until the boy was sixteen years of age and well reared in the wisdom of the Land of Promise. Then he did bring Mongan back, and by his means peace was made between Mongan and Fiachna Duv, and Mongan was married to his cradle-bride, the young Duv Laca.
CHAPTER IX
One day Mongan and Duv Laca were playing chess in their palace. Mongan had just made a move of skill, and he looked up from the board to see if Duv Laca seemed as discontented as she had a right to be. He saw then over Duv Laca’s shoulder a little black-faced, tufty-headed cleric leaning against the door-post inside the room.
“What are you doing there?” said Mongan.
“What are you doing there yourself?” said the little black-faced cleric.
“Indeed, I have a right to be in my own house,” said Mongan.
“Indeed I do not agree with you,” said the cleric.
“Where ought I be, then?” said Mongan.
“You ought to be at Dun Fiathac avenging the murder of your father,” replied the cleric, “and you ought to be ashamed of yourself for not having done it long ago. You can play chess with your wife when you have won the right to leisure.”
“But how can I kill my wife’s father?” Mongan exclaimed. “By starting about it at once,” said the cleric. “Here is a way of talking!” said Mongan.
“I know,” the cleric continued, “that Duv Laca will not agree with a word I say on this subject, and that she will try to prevent you from doing what you have a right to do, for that is a wife’s business, but a man’s business is to do what I have just told you; so come with me now and do not wait to think about it, and do not wait to play any more chess. Fiachna Duv has only a small force with him at this moment, and we can burn his palace as he burned your father’s palace, and kill himself as he killed your father, and crown you King of Ulster rightfully the way he crowned himself wrongfully as a king.”
“I begin to think that you own a lucky tongue, my black-faced friend,” said Mongan, “and I will go with you.”
He collected his forces then, and he burned Fiachna Duv’s fortress, and he killed Fiachna Duv, and he was crowned King of Ulster.
Then for the first time he felt secure and at liberty to play chess. But he did not know until afterwards that the black-faced, tufty-headed person was his father Mananna’n, although that was the fact.
There are some who say, however, that Fiachna the Black was killed in the year 624 by the lord of the Scot’s Dal Riada, Condad Cerr, at the battle of Ard Carainn; but the people who say this do not know what they are talking about, and they do not care greatly what it is they say.
CHAPTER X
“There is nothing to marvel about in this Duv Laca,” said the Flame Lady scornfully. “She has got married, and she has been beaten at chess. It has happened before.”
“Let us keep to the story,” said Mongan, and, having taken some few dozen deep draughts of the wine, he became even more jovial than before. Then he recommenced his tale:
It happened on a day that Mongan had need of treasure. He had many presents to make, and he had not as much gold and silver and cattle as was proper for a king. He called his nobles together and discussed what was the best thing to be done, and it was arranged that he should visit the provincial kings and ask boons from them.
He set out at once on his round of visits, and the first province he went to was Leinster.
The King of Leinster at that time was Branduv, the son of Echach. He welcomed Mongan and treated him well, and that night Mongan slept in his palace.
When he awoke in the morning he looked out of a lofty window, and he saw on the sunny lawn before the palace a herd of cows. There were fifty cows in all, for he counted them, and each cow had a calf beside her, and each cow and calf was pure white in colour, and each of them had red ears.
When Mongan saw these cows, he fell in love with them as he had never fallen in love with anything before.
He came down from the window and walked on the sunny lawn among the cows, looking at each of them and speaking words of affection and endearment to them all; and while he was thus walking and talking and looking and loving, he noticed that some one was moving beside him. He looked from the cows then, and saw that the King of Leinster was at his side.
“Are you in love with the cows?” Branduv asked him.
“I am,” said Mongan.
“Everybody is,” said the King of Leinster.
“I never saw anything like them,” said Mongan.
“Nobody has,” said the King of Leinster.
“I never saw anything I would rather have than these cows,” said Mongan.
“These,” said the King of Leinster, “are the most beautiful cows in Ireland, and,” he continued thoughtfully, “Duv Laca is the most beautiful woman in Ireland.”
“There is no lie in what you say,” said Mongan.
“Is it not a queer thing,” said the King of Leinster, “that I should have what you want with all your soul, and you should have what I want with all my heart?”
“Queer indeed,” said Mongan, “but what is it that you do want?”
“Duv Laca, of course,” said the King of Leinster.
“Do you mean,” said Mongan, “that you would exchange this herd of fifty pure white cows having red ears—”
“And their fifty calves,” said the King of Leinster—
“For Duv Laca, or for any woman in the world?”
“I would,” cried the King of Leinster, and he thumped his knee as he said it.
“Done,” roared Mongan, and the two kings shook hands on the bargain.
Mongan then called some of his own people, and before any more words could be said and before any alteration could be made, he set his men behind the cows and marched home with them to Ulster.
CHAPTER XI
Duv Laca wanted to know where the cows came from, and Mongan told her that the King of Leinster had given them to him. She fell in love with them as Mongan had done, but there was nobody in the world could have avoided loving those cows: such cows they were! such wonders! Mongan and Duv Laca used to play chess together, and then they would go out together to look at the cows, and then they would go in together and would talk to each other about the cows. Everything they did they did together, for they loved to be with each other.
However, a change came.
One morning a great noise of voices and trampling of horses and rattle of armour came about the palace. Mongan looked from the window.
“Who is coming?” asked Duv Laca.
But he did not answer her.
“The noise must announce the visit of a king,” Duv Laca continued.
But Mongan did not say a word. Duv Laca then went to the window.
“Who is that king?” she asked.
And her husband replied to her then.
“That is the King of Leinster,” said he mournfully.
“Well,” said Duv Laca surprised, “is he not welcome?”
“He is welcome indeed,” said Mongan lamentably.
“Let us go out and welcome him properly,” Duv Laca suggested.
“Let us not go near him at all,” said Mongan, “for he is coming to complete his bargain.”
“What bargain are you talking about?” Duv Laca asked. But Mongan would not answer that.
“Let us go out,” said he, “for we must go out.”
Mongan and Duv Laca went out then and welcomed the King of Leinster. They brought him and his chief men into the palace, and water was brought for their baths, and rooms were appointed for them, and everything was done that should be done for guests.
That night there was a feast, and after the feast there was a banquet, and all through the feast and the banquet the King of Leinster stared at Duv Laca with joy, and sometimes his breast was delivered of great sighs, and at times he moved as though in perturbation of spirit and mental agony.
“There is something wrong with the King of Leinster,” Duv Laca whispered.
“I don’t care if there is,” said Mongan.
“You must ask what he wants.”
“But I don’t want to know it,” said Mongan. “Nevertheless, you musk ask him,” she insisted.
So Mongan did ask him, and it was in a melancholy voice that he asked it.
“Do you want anything?” said he to the King of Leinster.
“I do indeed,” said Branduv.
“If it is in Ulster I will get it for you,” said Mongan mournfully.
“It is in Ulster,” said Branduv.
Mongan did not want to say anything more then, but the King of Leinster was so intent and everybody else was listening and Duv Laca was nudging his arm, so he said: “What is it that you do want?” “I want Duv Laca.”
“I want her too,” said Mongan.
“You made your bargain,” said the King of Leinster, “my cows and their calves for your Duv Laca, and the man that makes a bargain keeps a bargain.”
“I never before heard,” said Mongan, “of a man giving away his own wife.”
“Even if you never heard of it before, you must do it now,” said Duv Laca, “for honour is longer than life.”
Mongan became angry when Duv Laca said that. His face went red as a sunset, and the veins swelled in his neck and his forehead.
“Do you say that?” he cried to Duv Laca.
“I do,” said Duv Laca.
“Let the King of Leinster take her,” said Mongan.
CHAPTER XII
Duv Laca and the King of Leinster went apart then to speak together, and the eye of the king seemed to be as big as a plate, so fevered was it and so enlarged and inflamed by the look of Duv Laca. He was so confounded with joy also that his words got mixed up with his teeth, and Duv Laca did not know exactly what it was he was trying to say, and he did not seem to know himself. But at last he did say something intelligible, and this is what he said.
“I am a very happy man,” said he.
“And I,” said Duv Laca, “am the happiest woman in the world.”
“Why should you be happy?” the astonished king demanded.
“Listen to me,” she said. “If you tried to take me away from this place against my own wish, one half of the men of Ulster would be dead before you got me and the other half would be badly wounded in my defence.”
“A bargain is a bargain,” the King of Leinster began.
“But,” she continued, “they will not prevent my going away, for they all know that I have been in love with you for ages.”
“What have you been in with me for ages?” said the amazed king.
“In love with you,” replied Duv Laca.
“This is news,” said the king, “and it is good news.”
“But, by my word,” said Duv Laca, “I will not go with you unless you grant me a boon.”
“All that I have,” cried Branduv, “and all that every-body has.”
“And you must pass your word and pledge your word that you will do what I ask.”
“I pass it and pledge it,” cried the joyful king.
“Then,” said Duv Laca, “this is what I bind on you.”
“Light the yolk!” he cried.
“Until one year is up and out you are not to pass the night in any house that I am in.”
“By my head and hand!” Branduv stammered.
“And if you come into a house where I am during the time and term of that year, you are not to sit down in the chair that I am sitting in.”
“Heavy is my doom!” he groaned.
“But,” said Duv Laca, “if I am sitting in a chair or a seat you are to sit in a chair that is over against me and opposite to me and at a distance from me.”
“Alas!” said the king, and he smote his hands together, and then he beat them on his head, and then he looked at them and at everything about, and he could not tell what anything was or where anything was, for his mind was clouded and his wits had gone astray.
“Why do you bind these woes on me?” he pleaded.
“I wish to find out if you truly love me.”
“But I do,” said the king. “I love you madly and dearly, and with all my faculties and members.”
“That is the way! love you,” said Duv Laca. “We shall have a notable year of courtship and joy. And let us go now,” she continued, “for I am impatient to be with you.”
“Alas!” said Branduv, as he followed her. “Alas, alas!” said the King of Leinster.
CHAPTER XIII
“I think,” said the Flame Lady, “that whoever lost that woman had no reason to be sad.”
Mongan took her chin in his hand and kissed her lips.
“All that you say is lovely, for you are lovely,” said he, “and you are my delight and the joy of the world.”
Then the attendants brought him wine, and he drank so joyously of that and so deeply, that those who observed him thought he would surely burst and drown them. But he laughed loudly and with enormous delight, until the vessels of gold and silver and bronze chimed mellowly to his peal and the rafters of the house went creaking.
Said he:
Mongan loved Duv Laca of the White Hand better than he loved his life, better than he loved his honour. The kingdoms of the world did not weigh with him beside the string of her shoe. He would not look at a sunset if he could see her. He would not listen to a harp if he could hear her speak, for she was the delight of ages, the gem of time, and the wonder of the world till Doom.
She went to Leinster with the king of that country, and when she had gone Mongan fell grievously sick, so that it did not seem he could ever recover again; and he began to waste and wither, and he began to look like a skeleton, and a bony structure, and a misery.
Now this also must be known.
Duv Laca had a young attendant, who was her foster-sister as well as her servant, and on the day that she got married to Mongan, her attendant was married to mac an Da’v, who was servant and foster-brother to Mongan. When Duv Laca went away with the King of Leinster, her servant, mac an Da’v’s wife, went with her, so there were two wifeless men in Ulster at that time, namely, Mongan the king and mac an Da’v his servant.
One day as Mongan sat in the sun, brooding lamentably on his fate, mac an Da’v came to him.
“How are things with you, master?” asked Mac an Da’v.
“Bad,” said Mongan.
“It was a poor day brought you off with Mananna’n to the Land of Promise,” said his servant.
“Why should you think that?” inquired Mongan.
“Because,” said mac an Da’v, “you learned nothing in the Land of Promise except how to eat a lot of food and how to do nothing in a deal of time.”
“What business is it of yours?” said Mongan angrily.
“It is my business surely,” said mac an Da’v, “for my wife has gone off to Leinster with your wife, and she wouldn’t have gone if you hadn’t made a bet and a bargain with that accursed king.”
Mac an Da’v began to weep then.
“I didn’t make a bargain with any king,” said he, “and yet my wife has gone away with one, and it’s all because of you.”
“There is no one sorrier for you than I am,” said Mongan.
“There is indeed,” said mac an Da’v, “for I am sorrier myself.”
Mongan roused himself then.
“You have a claim on me truly,” said he, “and I will not have any one with a claim on me that is not satisfied. Go,” he said to mac an Da’v, “to that fairy place we both know of. You remember the baskets I left there with the sod from Ireland in one and the sod from Scotland in the other; bring me the baskets and sods.”
“Tell me the why of this?” said his servant.
“The King of Leinster will ask his wizards what I am doing, and this is what I will be doing. I will get on your back with a foot in each of the baskets, and when Branduv asks the wizards where I am they will tell him that I have one leg in Ireland and one leg in Scotland, and as long as they tell him that he will think he need not bother himself about me, and we will go into Leinster that way.”
“No bad way either,” said mac an Da’v.
They set out then.
CHAPTER XIV
It was a long, uneasy journey, for although mac an Da’v was of stout heart and goodwill, yet no man can carry another on his back from Ulster to Leinster and go quick. Still, if you keep on driving a pig or a story they will get at last to where you wish them to go, and the man who continues putting one foot in front of the other will leave his home behind, and will come at last to the edge of the sea and the end of the world.
When they reached Leinster the feast of Moy Life’ was being held, and they pushed on by forced marches and long stages so as to be in time, and thus they came to the Moy of Cell Camain, and they mixed with the crowd that were going to the feast.
A great and joyous concourse of people streamed about them. There were young men and young girls, and when these were not holding each other’s hands it was because their arms were round each other’s necks. There were old, lusty women going by, and when these were not talking together it was because their mouths were mutually filled with apples and meat-pies. There were young warriors with mantles of green and purple and red flying behind them on the breeze, and when these were not looking disdainfully on older soldiers it was because the older soldiers happened at the moment to be looking at them. There were old warriors with yard-long beards flying behind their shoulders llke wisps of hay, and when these were not nursing a broken arm or a cracked skull, it was because they were nursing wounds in their stomachs or their legs. There were troops of young women who giggled as long as their breaths lasted and beamed when it gave out. Bands of boys who whispered mysteriously together and pointed with their fingers in every direction at once, and would suddenly begin to run like a herd of stampeded horses. There were men with carts full of roasted meats. Women with little vats full of mead, and others carrying milk and beer. Folk of both sorts with towers swaying on their heads, and they dripping with honey. Children having baskets piled with red apples, and old women who peddled shell-fish and boiled lobsters. There were people who sold twenty kinds of bread, with butter thrown in. Sellers of onions and cheese, and others who supplied spare bits of armour, odd scabbards, spear handles, breastplate-laces. People who cut your hair or told your fortune or gave you a hot bath in a pot. Others who put a shoe on your horse or a piece of embroidery on your mantle; and others, again, who took stains off your sword or dyed your finger-nails or sold you a hound.
It was a great and joyous gathering that was going to the feast.
Mongan and his servant sat against a grassy hedge by the roadside and watched the multitude streaming past.
Just then Mongan glanced to the right whence the people were coming. Then he pulled the hood of his cloak over his ears and over his brow.
“Alas!” said he in a deep and anguished voice.
Mac an Da’v turned to him.
“Is it a pain in your stomach, master?”
“It is not,” said Mongan. “Well, what made you make that brutal and belching noise?”
“It was a sigh I gave,” said Mongan.
“Whatever it was,” said mac an Da’v, “what was it?”
“Look down the road on this side and tell me who is coming,” said his master.
“It is a lord with his troop.”
“It is the King of Leinster,” said Mongan. “The man,” said mac an Da’v in a tone of great pity, “the man that took away your wife! And,” he roared in a voice of extraordinary savagery, “the man that took away my wife into the bargain, and she not in the bargain.”
“Hush,” said Mongan, for a man who heard his shout stopped to tie a sandie, or to listen.
“Master,” said mac an Da’v as the troop drew abreast and moved past.
“What is it, my good friend?”
“Let me throw a little small piece of a rock at the King of Leinster.”
“I will not.”
“A little bit only, a small bit about twice the size of my head.”
“I will not let you,” said Mongan.
When the king had gone by mac an Da’v groaned a deep and dejected groan.
“Oco’n!” said he. “Oco’n-i’o-go-deo’!” said he.
The man who had tied his sandal said then: “Are you in pain, honest man?”
“I am not in pain,” said mac an Da’v.
“Well, what was it that knocked a howl out of you like the yelp of a sick dog, honest man?”
“Go away,” said mac an Da’v, “go away, you flat-faced, nosey person.” “There is no politeness left in this country,” said the stranger, and he went away to a certain distance, and from thence he threw a stone at mac an Da’v’s nose, and hit it.
Original Size
CHAPTER XV
The road was now not so crowded as it had been. Minutes would pass and only a few travellers would come, and minutes more would go when nobody was in sight at all.
Then two men came down the road: they were clerics.
“I never saw that kind of uniform before,” said mac an Da’v.
“Even if you didn’t,” said Mongan, “there are plenty of them about. They are men that don’t believe in our gods,” said he.
“Do they not, indeed?” said mac an Da’v. “The rascals!” said he. “What, what would Mananna’n say to that?”
“The one in front carrying the big book is Tibraide’. He is the priest of Cell Camain, and he is the chief of those two.”
“Indeed, and indeed!” said mac an Da’v. “The one behind must be his servant, for he has a load on his back.”
The priests were reading their offices, and mac an Da’v marvelled at that.
“What is it they are doing?” said he.
“They are reading.”
“Indeed, and indeed they are,” said mac an Da’v. “I can’t make out a word of the language except that the man behind says amen, amen, every time the man in front puts a grunt out of him. And they don’t like our gods at all!” said mac an Da’v.
“They do not,” said Mongan.
“Play a trick on them, master,” said mac an Da’v. Mongan agreed to play a trick on the priests.
He looked at them hard for a minute, and then he waved his hand at them.
The two priests stopped, and they stared straight in front of them, and then they looked at each other, and then they looked at the sky. The clerk began to bless himself, and then Tibraide’ began to bless himself, and after that they didn’t know what to do. For where there had been a road with hedges on each side and fields stretching beyond them, there was now no road, no hedge, no field; but there was a great broad river sweeping across their path; a mighty tumble of yellowy-brown waters, very swift, very savage; churning and billowing and jockeying among rough boulders and islands of stone. It was a water of villainous depth and of detestable wetness; of ugly hurrying and of desolate cavernous sound. At a little to their right there was a thin uncomely bridge that waggled across the torrent.
Tibraide’ rubbed his eyes, and then he looked again. “Do you see what I see?” said he to the clerk.
“I don’t know what you see,” said the clerk, “but what I see I never did see before, and I wish I did not see it now.”
“I was born in this place,” said Tibraide’, “my father was born here before me, and my grandfather was born here before him, but until this day and this minute I never saw a river here before, and I never heard of one.”
“What will we do at all?” said the clerk. “What will we do at all?”
“We will be sensible,” said Tibraide’ sternly, “and we will go about our business,” said he. “If rivers fall out of the sky what has that to do with you, and if there is a river here, which there is, why, thank God, there is a bridge over it too.”
“Would you put a toe on that bridge?” said the clerk. “What is the bridge for?” said Tibraide’ Mongan and mac an Da’v followed them.
When they got to the middle of the bridge it broke under them, and they were precipitated into that boiling yellow flood.
Mongan snatched at the book as it fell from Tibraide’s hand.
“Won’t you let them drown, master?” asked mac an Da’v.
“No,” said Mongan, “I’ll send them a mile down the stream, and then they can come to land.”
Mongan then took on himself the form of Tibraide’ and he turned mac an Da’v into the shape of the clerk.
“My head has gone bald,” said the servant in a whisper.
“That is part of it,” replied Mongan. “So long as we know,” said mac an Da’v.
They went on then to meet the King of Leinster.
CHAPTER XVI
They met him near the place where the games were played.
“Good my soul, Tibraide’!” cried the King of Leinster, and he gave Mongan a kiss. Mongan kissed him back again.
“Amen, amen,” said mac an Da’v.
“What for?” said the King of Leinster.
And then mac an Da’v began to sneeze, for he didn’t know what for.
“It is a long time since I saw you, Tibraide’,” said the king, “but at this minute I am in great haste and hurry. Go you on before me to the fortress, and you can talk to the queen that you’ll find there, she that used to be the King of Ulster’s wife. Kevin Cochlach, my charioteer, will go with you, and I will follow you myself in a while.”
The King of Leinster went off then, and Mongan and his servant went with the charioteer and the people.
Mongan read away out of the book, for he found it interesting, and he did not want to talk to the charioteer, and mac an Da’v cried amen, amen, every time that Mongan took his breath. The people who were going with them said to one another that mac an Da’v was a queer kind of clerk, and that they had never seen any one who had such a mouthful of amens.
But in a while they came to the fortress, and they got into it without any trouble, for Kevin Cochlach, the king’s charioteer, brought them in. Then they were led to the room where Duv Laca was, and as he went into that room Mongan shut his eyes, for he did not want to look at Duv Laca while other people might be looking at him.
“Let everybody leave this room, while I am talking to the queen,” said he; and all the attendants left the room, except one, and she wouldn’t go, for she wouldn’t leave her mistress.
Then Mongan opened his eyes and he saw Duv Laca, and he made a great bound to her and took her in his arms, and mac an Da’v made a savage and vicious and terrible jump at the attendant, and took her in his arms, and bit her ear and kissed her neck and wept down into her back.
“Go away,” said the girl, “unhand me, villain,” said she.
“I will not,” said mac an Da’v, “for I’m your own husband, I’m your own mac, your little mac, your macky-wac-wac.” Then the attendant gave a little squeal, and she bit him on each ear and kissed his neck and wept down into his back, and said that it wasn’t true and that it was.
Original Size
CHAPTER XVII
But they were not alone, although they thought they were. The hag that guarded the jewels was in the room. She sat hunched up against the wail, and as she looked like a bundle of rags they did not notice her. She began to speak then.
“Terrible are the things I see,” said she. “Terrible are the things I see.”
Mongan and his servant gave a jump of surprise, and their two wives jumped and squealed. Then Mongan puffed out his cheeks till his face looked like a bladder, and he blew a magic breath at the hag, so that she seemed to be surrounded by a fog, and when she looked through that breath everything seemed to be different to what she had thought. Then she began to beg everybody’s pardon.
“I had an evil vision,” said she, “I saw crossways. How sad it is that I should begin to see the sort of things I thought I saw.”
“Sit in this chair, mother,” said Mongan, “and tell me what you thought you saw,” and he slipped a spike under her, and mac an Da’v pushed her into the seat, and she died on the spike.
Just then there came a knocking at the door. Mac an Da’v opened it, and there was Tibraide, standing outside, and twenty-nine of his men were with him, and they were all laughing.
“A mile was not half enough,” said mac an Da’v reproachfully.
The Chamberlain of the fortress pushed into the room and he stared from one Tibraide’ to the other.
“This is a fine growing year,” said he. “There never was a year when Tibraide’s were as plentiful as they are this year. There is a Tibraide’ outside and a Tibraide’ inside, and who knows but there are some more of them under the bed. The place is crawling with them,” said he.
Mongan pointed at Tibraide’.
“Don’t you know who that is?” he cried.
“I know who he says he is,” said the Chamberlain.
“Well, he is Mongan,” said Mongan, “and these twenty-nine men are twenty-nine of his nobles from Ulster.”
At that news the men of the household picked up clubs and cudgels and every kind of thing that was near, and made a violent and woeful attack on Tibraide’s men The King of Leinster came in then, and when he was told Tibraide’ was Mongan he attacked them as well, and it was with difficulty that Tibraide’ got away to Cell Camain with nine of his men and they all wounded.
The King of Leinster came back then. He went to Duv Laca’s room.
“Where is Tibraide’?” said he.
“It wasn’t Tibraide was here,” said the hag who was still sitting on the spike, and was not half dead, “it was Mongan.”
“Why did you let him near you?” said the king to Duv Laca.
“There is no one has a better right to be near me than Mongan has,” said Duv Laca, “he is my own husband,” said she.
And then the king cried out in dismay: “I have beaten Tibraide’s people.” He rushed from the room.
“Send for Tibraide’ till I apologise,” he cried. “Tell him it was all a mistake. Tell him it was Mongan.”
CHAPTER XVIII
Mongan and his servant went home, and (for what pleasure is greater than that of memory exercised in conversation?) for a time the feeling of an adventure well accomplished kept him in some contentment. But at the end of a time that pleasure was worn out, and Mongan grew at first dispirited and then sullen, and after that as ill as he had been on the previous occasion. For he could not forget Duv Laca of the White Hand, and he could not remember her without longing and despair.
It was in the illness which comes from longing and despair that he sat one day looking on a world that was black although the sun shone, and that was lean and unwholesome although autumn fruits were heavy on the earth and the joys of harvest were about him.
“Winter is in my heart,” quoth he, “and I am cold already.”
He thought too that some day he would die, and the thought was not unpleasant, for one half of his life was away in the territories of the King of Leinster, and the half that he kept in himself had no spice in it.
He was thinking in this way when mac an Da’v came towards him over the lawn, and he noticed that mac an Da’v was walking like an old man.
He took little slow steps, and he did not loosen his knees when he walked, so he went stiffly. One of his feet turned pitifully outwards, and the other turned lamentably in. His chest was pulled inwards, and his head was stuck outwards and hung down in the place where his chest should have been, and his arms were crooked in front of him with the hands turned wrongly, so that one palm was shown to the east of the world and the other one was turned to the west.
“How goes it, mac an Da’v?” said the king.
“Bad,” said mac an Da’v.
“Is that the sun I see shining, my friend?” the king asked.
“It may be the sun,” replied mac an Da’v, peering curiously at the golden radiance that dozed about them, “but maybe it’s a yellow fog.”
“What is life at all?” said the king.
“It is a weariness and a tiredness,” said mac an Da’v. “It is a long yawn without sleepiness. It is a bee, lost at midnight and buzzing on a pane. It is the noise made by a tied-up dog. It is nothing worth dreaming about. It is nothing at all.”
“How well you explain my feelings about Duv Laca,” said the king.
“I was thinking about my own lamb,” said mac an Da’v. “I was thinking about my own treasure, my cup of cheeriness, and the pulse of my heart.” And with that he burst into tears.
“Alas!” said the king.
“But,” sobbed mac an Da’v, “what right have I to complain? I am only the servant, and although I didn’t make any bargain with the King of Leinster or with any king of them all, yet my wife is gone away as if she was the consort of a potentate the same as Duv Laca is.”
Mongan was sorry then for his servant, and he roused himself.
“I am going to send you to Duv Laca.”
“Where the one is the other will be,” cried mac an Da’v joyously.
“Go,” said Mongan, “to Rath Descirt of Bregia; you know that place?”
“As well as my tongue knows my teeth.”
“Duv Laca is there; see her, and ask her what she wants me to do.”
Mac an Da’v went there and returned.
“Duv Laca says that you are to come at once, for the King of Leinster is journeying around his territory, and Kevin Cochlach, the charioteer, is making bitter love to her and wants her to run away with him.”
Mongan set out, and in no great time, for they travelled day and night, they came to Bregla, and gained admittance to the fortress, but just as he got in he had to go out again, for the King of Leinster had been warned of Mongan’s journey, and came back to his fortress in the nick of time.
When the men of Ulster saw the condition into which Mongan fell they were in great distress, and they all got sick through compassion for their king. The nobles suggested to him that they should march against Leinster and kill that king and bring back Duv Laca, but Mongan would not consent to this plan.
“For,” said he, “the thing I lost through my own folly I shall get back through my own craft.”
And when he said that his spirits revived, and he called for mac an Da’v.
“You know, my friend,” said Mongan, “that I can’t get Duv Laca back unless the King of Leinster asks me to take her back, for a bargain is a bargain.”
“That will happen when pigs fly,” said mac an Da’v, “and,” said he, “I did not make any bargain with any king that is in the world.”
“I heard you say that before,” said Mongan.
“I will say it till Doom,” cried his servant, “for my wife has gone away with that pestilent king, and he has got the double of your bad bargain.”
Mongan and his servant then set out for Leinster.
When they neared that country they found a great crowd going on the road with them, and they learned that the king was giving a feast in honour of his marriage to Duv Laca, for the year of waiting was nearly out, and the king had sworn he would delay no longer.
They went on, therefore, but in low spirits, and at last they saw the walls of the king’s castle towering before them, and a noble company going to and fro on the lawn.