They had rested three days now by the pool. It was a quiet spot, a little lake in a mountain declivity, fed by a stream, and from which, under an ash tree at the far end, a slip of clear water poured over a stone lip before descending through a gorsy gully into a winding ravine below. The slopes all round were thickly wooded. Nobody came there. Conall had built a shelter. They had fished in the pool, finding trout—small but good to eat. The first day they had rested there Conall had gone out, returning late the next morning with plentiful supplies and with wood he had cut for a fire. Deirdre, meanwhile, had washed their clothes in the stream.
The weather had been getting warmer for several days. Overhead, the sky was clear blue. The light breeze of the morning was growing faint. Conall was whittling a stick to spear fish when she asked him casually if he was going down into the valley that evening.
“No,” he answered quietly. “We have plenty of food. But tomorrow,” he added, “I shall be going away for several days.” Shortly afterwards, he waded into the pool and stood with his spear poised, waiting for fish.
Then she knew what she had to do. She did not know why, but she knew it must be that day.
It was early afternoon when they ate. She had cooked the two fish he had caught over the fire, which sent tiny wisps of blue-grey smoke into the still air. As well as the fish, she had cooked beans and lentils. He had brought a flagon of ale with him the day before, so they drank from that. To follow, she had made honeyed oatcakes. And it was as he lay back contentedly after this meal that she gently remarked, “It is lucky for me that we escaped, Conall. You saved my life.”
“That is probably true,” he agreed, staring up at the sky. “The queen is a fearsome woman.”
“Even without her, I’d not have gone back to the king. It was only you I wanted.”
“And yet,” he tilted his head forward to look at her, “if ever the king’s men catch us, they may kill me. Then you’d have to go back, you know.” He smiled. “Maybe the king would divorce the queen and send her away. It’s possible. You’d be safe enough then.”
But she only shook her head.
“The king will never have me, Conall. I’d kill myself.” She said it so simply he supposed it must be true.
“Oh,” he said, and leant his head back again and stared at the sky.
They remained silent after that, lying in the sun. There was not a breath of motion in the air now. The wisp of smoke from the fire was not dispersed, but rose straight up until it invisibly dissolved in the blueness above. It was silent all round the pond. Some way off, Deirdre saw a bird on an overhanging bough, its plumage gleaming like gold in the sun; but if it uttered any song, that sound, too, was stopped, as though the passing of time itself had ceased in the general silence of the afternoon.
Then, knowing what she must do, she quietly rose and, while he lay where he was, still staring up, went to the pond’s edge and, slipping off her shift and underclothes, stepped quickly into the tingling cold water and swam out towards the middle where she could tread water.
Hearing the sound, but unaware that she was naked, Conall glanced at the pond and, after a little time, sat up to look at her. She stayed where she was, making no suggestion he should join her, but quietly smiling at him, while he continued to look and the golden light was playing on the little ripples in the water that she made around her. They stayed like that, the two of them, for some time.
She swam a few strokes to the shallows and slowly rising up, with the water dripping from her hair and breasts, walked towards him.
And then Conall, with a little gasp, rose to his feet and took her in his arms.
For three days Larine waited at the meeting place. But he had only the birds, sweeping watchfully overhead, for company. Conall never came. And after waiting two more days, just to be certain, the druid returned, sorrowfully.
Despite his sadness over the disappearance of his friend, Finbarr could not help feeling elated as, with Cuchulainn bounding along beside him, he approached the Hill of Uisnech.
He had the black bull. It was certainly a most magnificent beast. While few of the island’s shaggy cattle came much above the midriff of a man, the black bull’s shoulder was level with his own. Its red and angry eyes glowered down at him. With both arms spread, he could only just touch the tips of the huge creature’s horns. Its coat was jet-black, the mighty tangle of its forelock as heavy as a man’s head.
The raid had been expertly carried out. Concealing themselves, he and his men had watched for two days until they were fairly certain that one of the cowmen who regularly disappeared into the woods must be the bull’s keeper. Following him the third day they found the huge beast, cleverly hidden in a small enclosure where the fellow was filling a trough to feed him.
“We shall need you to lead the bull,” Finbarr told him.
“What if I refuse?” the man enquired.
“I shall cut off your head,” Finbarr answered, pleasantly. So the man had come.
Following a circuitous route, they had brought the bull safely out of Connacht, and as they drew towards Uisnech, Finbarr sent one of his men back to the owner with the following message.
“The High King was sorry you were not there when he came to collect tribute, but he thanks you for the fine bull you have sent him instead.”
Their arrival could hardly have been more encouraging. There were still a number of chiefs remaining with the High King and his retinue at Uisnech. Quite a crowd, including many druids, lined the path as they made their way towards the High King’s quarters. But it was the queen who came towards them first, her face wreathed in smiles.
“That’s my bull,” she cried. And coming closer, in a quieter tone she repeated, “That’s my bull,” with rich satisfaction.
From the king, however, his reception was less warm. He did receive a nod and a grunt, which seemed to indicate that the success of his mission was accepted. But evidently there were other, more important matters on the king’s mind.
“Conall and Deirdre have been sighted.” It was Larine who told him. Of his own abortive journey the druid said nothing, and nobody had guessed about it. He had been puzzled and secretly rather hurt when, upon his return, he learned that Conall, at the very time he was waiting for him at their meeting place, had apparently been seen heading south into Munster with the girl. The search parties were still out, he now informed Finbarr. “But there’s been no word of him yet.”
It was a little before sunset when the king sent for Finbarr. He found the king sitting on a covered bench by a tree. From under his heavy brows the king eyed him thoughtfully.
“You performed your task well.” He waited as Finbarr politely bowed his head. “Now I shall give you another. First, however, tell me: do you know where Conall is?”
“I do not know.”
“Find him. And bring him back.” He paused and then with sudden anger burst out: “He was my sister’s son, Finbarr. I showed him nothing but kindness. Do you think he has the right to behave like this to me?” Finbarr could only bow his head again, for the king had said no more than the truth. “He is to return, Finbarr, and then he may tell me why he did this thing. But if he will not come, you will return with his head or not at all. I am sending two chiefs with you. They have their orders.”
To watch me, Finbarr thought. Aloud he asked: “And Deirdre?”
“She is not to be harmed.” The king sighed. “It would be a mockery for me to take her now. She will be returned to Dubh Linn. You may tell her that.”
“Perhaps we shall not find him.”
“Your parents and your brothers and sisters are poor, Finbarr. Succeed in this and I promise they will be poor no longer. Fail, and they will be poorer by far.”
“Then I have no choice,” Finbarr said bitterly, and left.
The High King watched him, but without anger. He would, he reflected, have felt the same in his place. But kings cannot always afford to be kind. Nor can they afford to be entirely honest.
&n
bsp; If Conall came with Finbarr, the two chiefs were to kill Conall on the journey. As for the girl, she would be returned to Dubh Linn. But before she reached there, she would be handed over to her new master. For the king had already sold her, as a concubine, to Goibniu the Smith.
It could not be otherwise, when you thought about it.
Slowly and carefully they travelled now, never venturing out onto open ground in the plain light of day.
It had been a close thing, the day they had been seen. They had just crossed a patch of heathland when two of the king’s riders, emerging onto it behind them, had caught sight of them and started to give chase. There had been nothing to do but run. Racing into the forest, they had left the track and managed to elude the king’s men; but the experience had shaken them both. The king would know they were hiding in Munster now. With its innumerable hills, creeks, and islands, it might be hard to find them, but he would be relentless.
It was Deirdre who had the idea.
From the hills of Munster, travelling eastwards, there were forest and hillside tracks for most of the way until one came to the ranges of hills that swept up the island’s eastern coastline and culminated in the magnificent heights of the Wicklow Mountains.
“While they go looking into every hill and valley in the south-west, we could be on our way up there,” she pointed out. It was a clever bluff—to return to the coastal edge of the very regions from which they had fled—and it was unlikely anyone would think of it. She also made another suggestion which surprised him: “We should leave the horses and go on foot.” But he soon saw the wisdom of this, too. No one would be looking out for Conall the prince on foot. And then she made two further suggestions which surprised him even more.
So it was the middle of June when a single druid, walking slowly with a staff and accompanied, a few steps behind, by a servant boy, made his way at dusk down from the Wicklow Mountains and took the track towards the crossing of Ath Cliath at Dubh Linn. Fergus and his sons, as Deirdre had told him they would be, were out on the grasslands far away, with their cattle. But it was deep night in any case when, skirting some way from the rath, in case there should be any dogs about, they made their way across the wooden causeway over the shallows of the Liffey. As they did so, Deirdre noticed that the rotted planks had still not been replaced. Then they passed onto the broad Plain of Bird Flocks.
Up to now, her plan had worked. When, at her suggestion, Conall had shaved his head in the druid tonsure, she had smiled to herself because he looked, it seemed to her, even more himself than he had before. When she in turn shaved her head like a slave, he burst out laughing. She had wondered whether the loss of her splendid hair would make her less attractive to him and interfere with their lovemaking which, since the afternoon at the pool, had been frequent. She discovered within moments of completing the operation that it would not.
But why had she suggested they should seek their hiding place so near to her home? Was it, at this time of crisis, that she was craving the security of her childhood and family? Perhaps. As they passed by her father’s rath in the dark, she felt a sudden stab of emotion; she longed to creep in, sniff the familiar scent of the hearth, see the pale shape of her father’s drinking skull on its shelf. If only the proud, talkative old man were there, so that they could take each other in their arms. But he was not there and she could not enter; and so she could only peer towards the rath’s faint outline as she went by in the dark. Yet her choice of hiding place was also clever. For nobody ever went there.
The first day Conall left her in the dolmen shelter up on the promontory. He went along the shore but had no luck. The second day he came back smiling. He had found an old widow woman living alone in a hut by the shoreline. Telling her he was a single druid seeking greater solitude, he had explained his needs and she was glad to provide them: a bit of food when he came for it, and the use of the small curragh that had belonged to her husband, who had been a fisherman.
Late that night, and quite unseen, Conall and Deirdre came down to the shore and set out in the curragh, upon a still and starlit sea, for the little island with the cleft rock that lay below the headland Deirdre loved. No one, she hoped, would find them there.
II
For a year the search continued. Spies from the High King watched the harbours; on several occasions they also secretly watched Fergus and his rath in case he was concealing his daughter; but each time they returned to report: “No sign.”
And for a year Finbarr travelled.
Day by day the pattern was unchanging—Finbarr, with Cuchulainn bounding along beside, rode first. The two chiefs followed behind. Sometimes they took winding tracks; sometimes they would journey along one of the island’s great slige highways. It might be a broad cattle drove across the upland pastures, a pathway cut through the forest, or a stout wooden track through a bog, but whatever the terrain, the three riders pushed ahead relentlessly. They asked at every farmstead; they questioned the boatmen at every river. Even in the great wildernesses of the island’s interior, it was hard for people to move amongst the tribal territories without encountering anybody. Someone must have seen them. But after the sighting reported by the king’s men down in Munster, they seemed to have vanished completely.
It was a grim time. The failure of the harvest the year before was a serious matter. It had not brought starvation to the land, so far. The chiefs of each territory usually saw to that. There was still milk and meat, vegetables and berries. As they led their people out onto the communal grazing lands, they knew that despite the failure of the crops at the farmsteads, they could still live in the manner of their distant ancestors before the raising of crops had come to supplement the tribe’s resources. But hardship there was. Oatmeal, bread, and ale, too, with the destruction of the barley, were all in short supply. In most cases on the farmsteads, Finbarr noticed, the chiefs had been ruthless in keeping back grain for sowing. It was as well, he thought, that the land of the island was rich, and that the chiefs had good authority. But if the people looked to their chiefs, and the chiefs to their kings, then the focal point of all their hopes was, more than ever, on the High King and his favour with the gods.
Just after Lughnasa, the rain began to fall. Not the usual rain that might be expected in the warm, wet coastal regions of ocean-bordered Munster, but driving storms and howling winds, day after day without ceasing. This year, too, it was clear the harvest would be ruined. And seeing this terrible evidence of the gods’ displeasure, though Finbarr loved his friend, he could not help wondering if Conall’s humiliation of the High King might not be the cause.
Fair weather or foul, they searched the coasts and hills of Munster; they scoured Leinster; they went up into Ulster. Sometimes they found shelter at a farmstead; sometimes they slept in the open and heard the howling of wolves. They crossed the rich pasturelands where great earthwork walls and ditches marked the divisions between the lands of one tribe and another; they ventured into the dark bogs where people lived in brannog settlements built on wooden platforms in the water. Everywhere they asked, and everywhere the answer was the same: “We have not seen them here.”
Once, just once, Finbarr had a feeling that they might be close. It was on the eastern coast, just above the Liffey’s bay. There, by a deserted strand of beach, he had met an old woman and asked if she had seen any strangers.
“Only the druid,” she had said, “who lives on the island.”
“Has he companions?” Finbarr had asked.
“He has not. None at all. He lives alone.”
Yet an instinct might have made him go out to the place, but for his two companions, who called to him: “Finbarr, come on. He is not here.” And so they departed.
At last they had come to Connacht, with its mountains and lakes and wild coastline. They do well, he thought, to call it the land of the druids. And thinking of his friend’s lonely spirit, it seemed to him that this was where he might be. So for months they searched, but there was not a whisper of him. Until
one day as they were standing on the great, sheer cliffs of Moher, staring out at the wild ocean in which somewhere, it was said, lay the Isles of the Blessed where the spirits of the great warriors went to their eternal rest—and Finbarr was just wondering whether perhaps his friend might have died and his spirit gone out there—one of his two companions spoke.
“It is time to return, Finbarr.”
“I cannot,” he replied. “I have not found him.”
“Come with us,” said the other. “You can do no more.”
And he realised that it was a year since they had set out.
Sometimes it seemed to Conall that he had never been happy before. His life with Deirdre had been a revelation to them both. It had not taken her long to become, in their lovemaking, even more adventurous than he. Often she would take the initiative, straddling him, controlling him, or making him lie still while she explored new ways to give him pleasure or arouse him again. As her slim body entwined with his, it was hardly surprising that Conall, for so long beset by doubts and inner tensions, should have learned what it was to feel very happy indeed.
Their life on the island worked surprisingly well. The late-summer rains had not troubled them. The cleft in the cliff provided protection as well as concealment and there, above the tiny cove and beach, Conall used branches from the island’s small supply of trees to build a cabin of mud and wattle that would certainly see them through the mild winter. The widow was glad to supply Conall with simple food which he could supplement by periodic trips inland where, as a wandering druid, he could purchase supplies without difficulty. On the island he could catch fish and he also planted beans and peas. Two other necessities were dealt with in the following way. To collect water for drinking, he found several places where rainwater ran off the rock face and dug three good-sized pits which he lined. For boiling vegetables or meat, which he was sometimes able to obtain, he constructed another, much smaller pit. Filling this with water, he would then transfer stones, heated red-hot in the fire, into the pit, which would bring the water to the boil and maintain it at that heat for some time. Those boiling pits were a speciality of the island people and were as effective as they were simple.