Part 4

Thus it was that the golden tresses of Doirenn were covered by the white novice veil and she began life anew in the great school by the Sionan, famed for its learning from Gaul even to Egypt.

But the year of her preparation had not ended when Ruadan again rode to the dun of Fethna. He was hollow of eye, and his spent horses were glad of rest and fodder.

“Is there aught of Doirenn na Marvan known to you?” he asked, and the sons of Fethna, who had taken wives and forgotten the golden maid who had flouted them, looked at Ruadan and laughed.

“How is a man to know of a veiled maid?” one asked. “The walls are high and the fair ones are well guarded.”

“I was on the south shores and I heard her voice; it was her voice, there is none other like that. It was her voice calling—a troubled voice.”

“How could you hear a voice from the center of Erinn to the south shore?” they said, but Fethna looked in the fierce face of Ruadan and bade them be silent.

“Your father Ferdiad had ‘the sight,’” he said, “but my thought has been that it did not come to you because the priests were down on you. They can take away power if they think of it! What is it you would do because of that calling?”

“I would answer it,” said Ruadan. “No gate of a nun’s dwelling would open for me, but you have women about you. Take one and make a gift, and let me ride beside you. The call was coming to me and the gift I will provide. I will pledge them a book more fine than the one of my youth made for the abbot’s gift to Clonard. My hand has not lost its craft—I vow this thing!”

There was much talk of which wife would go, and the dress to wear, and to carry, for Bevind had wed and gone north to Orielle. Also the best horses were to bring in, and food to prepare. Hours were wasted ere they started on the way.

They would have been as well not starting, for soon they met people in fright and with awesome news.

While Turgesius harried the south shore and strengthened the Danish holdings there, Queen Ota, the pagan priestess of terrible things, had won to the heart of Erinn by the Sionan. She and her brother, Amlaf, had a fleet on Lough Rea and Lough Boderg. A fort of theirs was over at Rinnduin and the lands were ravaged by them. A battle at Cluain-mac-noise had won the churches and monasteries for the queen. Monks and nuns were killed, and there was much burning of all houses of farmers or herders. Not a handful of thatch was left on a house for miles, and runners had been killed with spear and with arrow.

It was too late for help. The warriors of Queen Ota were on the walls and in the towers of Cluain-mac-noise. They held the Sionan to north and south. It was not for nothing that the great night-sun with the tail of fire swept like a besom over the skies of Erinn that year. The young had fear on them, and the old went in secret ways to the high places of ancient druidcraft and made answering fires that help might come their way if the way of the saints failed them. Though bishop thundered from the altar, and monk prayed in the cell, yet fires did blaze where the temples of ancient faiths remained, but no prayer and no spell swept away Ota and her mate—or swept away that fiery trailing thing among the stars!

There were those who called it the war warning of the Dane, and the worst of all the evils it announced was the sacking of Cluain-mac-noise, because great wealth of jeweled books and costly gifts was centered in that place.

“What of Doirenn who was fosterling of Fethna?” asked Ruadan of the fleeing host.

“No one is knowing that. Ota likes not women about her except for labor to save her men. The young and strong may be taken overseas as slaves—no one can know that. West to the sea along the Sionan Ota has her swift oarmen as couriers to bring quick warnings, and a fort is there at Luimneach for all supplies, cattle and horses are held for her, and the people of the land only live by her mercy to harvest their own crops for her warriors. It is a sad time under the dreadful star for the people of Erinn.”

Ruadan looked about the little huddled group, pale with horror of what had been, and in further dread of what might be: with one army of the foreigner on the south shore, and one in the very heart of the land, and the fearful star of danger sweeping the heavens! He took Fethna aside, and when they were alone he spoke as follows:

“Go you back. This is not the game of an old man. Bid your sons keep silence as to the call I heard; I had too much of hill and valley to cover and have come too late. I will take my gille and go a day’s ride farther. I may learn somewhat.”

“It is better not to go, and not to know,” said Fethna. “When I was younger than you they stole the maid I was to wed; their ships sailed out to sea and no word was ever coming back. What is there to do for one man against an army? What is there for you to do at Cluain-mac-noise? We can gather men and fight them out, but it will take time. While we are getting our clans and arms together they will have ravaged the land and sailed away.”

“That is true,” said Ruadan. “Send your couriers to every point while I go on and see as I may. I will be back for a spear when the time comes, rest you easy on that.”

So, with his servant, he went on in deep thought and silence, striving to find ways to answer that call of Doirenn, who held him in bitter disdain.

When half-mad wanderers were met, fleeing from the Danish scourge, and smoking ruins were seen afar, Ruadan halted in a grove of little oaks and washed in the stream and took more sightly apparel from the bag carried on the horse of the servant. A purple cloak from overseas he put on, and from the lining of a girdle he took a golden ring with a great red jewel of beauty, and set it on his hand.

“From here you take the back road,” he said to his servant, “and if you would favor me, and the house in which your family had protection of spears, this is the time for the favor.”

“Tell it and it is done,” said the man.

“There may be half-Dane spies among these fleeing people. When they ask of me tell them I have made quarrel with my clan, and that the monks call me ‘God’s Dastard’ for putting off the robe and letting my hair grow as God meant it to.”

“It is a hard thing you are asking,” said the servant, “for it is myself has had many a fight to deny your unfaith.”

“I know that without words else I would not be trusting you. Say what you can to let them think I have cast off my own people to follow Queen Ota and her fortunes. There will be no need to say it to them, they will say it for you if they are given the hint. They will call me ‘pagan’ because I follow a pagan queen. And you can be sad and of downcast countenance, and say a prayer against evil for me. Never fear it will get to Ota herself before you get to your home.”

“And where will I be waiting for you, Ruadan?”

“In paradise, man, and good luck to you on the way! Go you back to Ardsolais. Tend the herds and wait what comes. It is not with chance our life is.”

Then he mounted his horse and when his servant looked downcast at the parting, Ruadan tried to cheer him, and sang words of the hymn of Saint Colum for a journey.

_It is alone I am on the mountain, O King Sun of the lucky road! There is nothing to fear on that road!_

_If I had three score hundreds of armies To defend the body When the day of my death comes There is no strong place to hold out against it._

_Whatever God has settled for a mortal He will not leave the world until he meets it. Although a high head goes looking for more He will not get the size of a grain of it!_

_He that is spent may find death in a church Or on an island of a lake he may find it; He that has luck to his way His life will be safe in the front of a battle!_

_It is alone I am in a wilderness, O King Sun of the lucky road! There is nothing to fear on that road!_

Queen Ota, wife of Ragnor who was called Thor’s servant, Thorgille—“Turgesius” by the christian land—was a thing of strange beauty in her first sailings with the fleets. Flaxen straight hair of a child was hers—silken straight. Her face had a slim whiteness, and her eyes of amber were the eyes of a white cat. Men had fought and slain each other for love of her red mouth and her round breasts. Her raids were more fierce than the raids of Turgesius or Amlaf, her brother, for no chief but knew that valor might win for him more than his share of the spoil if his deeds were worthy her smile.

But many sailings had been hers and much profit from Erinn, and none had been greater in one place than the spoils of Cluain-mac-noise, in the year of the Great Star, for princes of Gaul and Alba sent their sons to Cluain-mac-noise and had sent rich gifts with the sons, until the wealth at the great place of learning on the Sionan had become the wealth of kings.

All that wealth of gold and silver vessels and jeweled censor chains, and crosses of golden wonder, were heaped on the floor of the strongest of the stone towers. With them were heaped the dreaded magic altar-books of Erinn, in jeweled cases. Neither church bell nor church cross was feared by the pagans of the north seas as the mystic writings of the books were feared—it was dark magic to them, and to be burned or drowned or buried on every raid.

And Ota, wearied after the battle and sick of the smell of old blood—though the red of it fresh flowing from her opponents was sweet to her as red berries ripening for her in a garden—went within the dwelling from which Ronan, the abbot, had been dragged by her men. On a couch of furs over which broidered silk of altars had been spread, she rested herself and spoke wearily.

“Let none enter here until my rest is come to me,” she said, and the wife of Amlaf, whose name was Gurtha, looked at her in wonder that she would confess to need of rest, for the hatred of growing age was with Ota always.

“But Barolf, chief of your spear men, has been twice here for speech,” said Gurtha.

“I am wearied of Barolf. When he comes tell him I take it ill that he troubles me today.”

But a man stood in the doorway, broad of shoulder, his yellow hair reaching down to his gold-banded arms.

“O Queen, how has Barolf wearied you?”

She looked at him and the amber eyes narrowed to golden slits under the silken flax of her hair. He was a favorite of a year gone, who was daring much! He waited with folded arms—and Gurtha was watching!

“Yours was the word to the men to burn the bodies where winds brought stench to me, which is weariness enough,” she said. “I am badly served when Ragnor is south and Amlaf in the north.”

“Was it ill service when my men mowed down for you the clerics and guard of this place, and brought the wealth of it to your feet?” he asked. “No man of the blood of the queen has done her more service than that.”

The queen looked at Gurtha who frowned darkly. Well she knew that Amlaf, her man, should be first of the chiefs, yet because of his own nature, was not. His sister, the queen, was the greater warrior.

“Another time we will speak of the men of my blood,” said Ota, “but this day of weariness it is enough to say that fires of the dead must not be built in these days of summer. Illness is on me from that burning. Your men are strong to dig the earth. Let them dig.”

“It will be done,” said Barolf, “for the hounds are now full.” He looked toward Gurtha, and his look spoke hope that she be sent away, but Ota the queen chose not to see the look.

“That is well,” she said.

“And the division of the spoils, O Queen?”

“The time for that will be when Amlaf is with us for the counting.”

“And that other in the tower,” he began, but she made him secret sign for silence, and he spoke no more.

“When Amlaf is with us I will give you a feast and we will speak of all the things,” she said with less coldness, and at that there was nothing to do but go.

“He is not of quiet mind,” said Gurtha darkly, and Ota laughed.

“This victory makes him look long for the death of Ragnor, and his crown perhaps,” she said. “He forgets I have a brother to rule beside me in need.”

“Yet he was high in your favor with the coming of May,” said Gurtha.

“What of that? Springtime and summer bring different hunger. I am tired of huge white bodies and blue eyes, I would rest myself with other color.”

“You had that other color on the south shore a year ago, and Ragnor had a knife ready,” warned Gurtha.

“You lie. The man never was with me alone. But there was none like him! Wine-brown were his eyes, and his curls were shadows of night to nestle in.”

“He has no kingdom, and no army to fight for a queen if he chose one,” said Gurtha. “He is only a noble of Deasmond who was once a monk in this place.”

“In this place? That would be strange if it be true, but he looked not a monk to me.”

“No. He was rebellious and cast off the robe, for some anger. They call him a name of their own—it means outlaw to their gods.”

“And I let him go, not knowing that!” said Ota. “I would I had the year back—he should not go!”

Gurtha went out and left her regretful over a year of coveted love with one man, after the many years of love with the men she had grown tired of.

A day went by and the spoils were not divided. She carried the key of the treasure tower at her girdle, and walked among the ruins her fierce sea-wolves had made, and thought of wine-brown eyes and the searching smile of a man who had as a youth lived there by the Sionan in sanctuary.

Kings and warriors had given her wealth of love and wealth of tribute but the love of an anchorite was a new thought. It charmed her as the song of a bird of spring after the nuts are ripe and the ferns past their greening. In a cell of stone she saw one white robe untouched by ruin, and bade it be sent to the palace of the abbot, now her place of rule.

She laughed with it beside her on the couch of rich robes and silken broideries, and closed her eyes to fancy wine-brown eyes beside her.

Then the impossible chanced to her, and gave her strange belief in her own powers in which her devotees believed, and in the power of the strange trailing star, called “the star of the Danes” in Erinn.

For a runner from the south hills came to her with strange word, and she put secrecy on him, and told Barolf and told Gurtha that a strong ally of the nobles of the Irish was coming to swear fealty, and help in the conquest. One would bring two, and in time all Erinn would be ruled from the center by the children of Thor.

Barolf secretly mocked, but the other men did not mock, for they had fought the Irish and would rather have them as comrades than as enemies.

“Strain not your eyes looking,” Barolf laughed, and went up the river to the fort there of Rinnduin.

For all that, they did climb on the walls, and did look toward the hills of Meath, and when afar they saw one horseman who rode steadily and without fear, their wonder was great, for he was tall and handsome and dark Irish, and no other Irish in that day was seeking alone any fort of the Danes.

“Tell the stranger Ota sees no man of Erinn who comes without gauge,” said the queen, but she laughed and the robe she put on her was a robe of richness as if to greet a king of great armies.

“O Queen, the man brings a gauge, and his word is that it was a key of all gates when you wore it.”

“That is true,” said Ota, and looked at the ring he sent. “Give it to his hand in courtesy and lead him to me. It is still a key to all gates for Earl Ruadan.”

Ruadan walked between lines of men with lifted spears until he reached her portal. Two of the elder chiefs entered with him, and Gurtha was there watching.

“I come without bard to chant your praises or my wishes,” said Ruadan. “I come without men-at-arms or wealth or cattle. I bear no shield for battle, though I will take one at your hands. My own clan put shadow on my name because I cast off the robe of a monk. The priests add their word to my blame, and I will take service with you, Queen Ota of the ships, or I will go over to Gaul and fight there if you have no spear or no shield as a gift.”

Ota looked on her head men, and saw that the words pleased them.

“We will talk of that gift,” she said, and her smile was level and steady while the head men were there, and Gurtha was there.

But when they were gone, it was not a gift of shield or spear she would give Ruadan for the enchantings of his wine-brown eyes. Ota had been Queen of Love always, and gave royally.

“I brought you—I brought you here!” she whispered. “For a year I have wished it—and at last you have come to me! You shall be chief instead of Barolf who grows jealous. A knife from you to him in the dark and you shall head his fleet.”

“Give me the knife,” said Ruadan.

She laughed and kissed him.

“So keen are you? O wine-brown eyes! O dark man of the red mouth! Shields and spears are in that corner, and tomorrow we will make choice. Tomorrow you shall see the spoils of our raid and choose a jewel gift from me.”

“But the man who stands in my way to you?”

“He is gone north in a boat at dawn and no one stands in your way to me. When he comes again, and Amlaf, my brother, comes, we divide the spoil, but this night is ours and tomorrow night may be ours. See? I hold a monk’s robe here in memory of you, and dreamed of dark eyes and kisses, and through the wilderness you brought them!”

Gurtha lied for the queen to the men, but the men laughed, and knew. They were told that Ota promised a wine feast of welcome to the Irish earl, and that gladdened them, for they would get their share, and the wine of the cloisters was good.

There was starlight and it pleased Ota to walk with Ruadan in the night. And the cell where he had once slept was where she would go. It was whole and in no ways injured. She kissed him there, and asked of his dreams there, and of the Lady Luaine and the song made of him a year agone—all things heard of him had been remembered by her.

But he laughed and wound her long cloak of silk about her lest the river-damp do her hurt, and would not tell her the things she asked.

“What difference does her beauty make when I left all others to follow you?” he asked. “There is only one queen.”

The men on the walls saw them and made jests, for the trailing star left no darkness anywhere. None watched too closely; for their outposts were many and there was no enemy near for an uprising.

“Tomorrow we look at the spoils in that tower there,” she said. “I would that Barolf be the one to tear the jeweled covers from the mystic book of Christ’s men before the books are burned. There is evil magic in them, and I want no black enchantment from them. We will have Barolf live long enough for that work of danger. But go he must. He has wish for the place of Amlaf, my brother, and it is making troubles.”

Ruadan looked up at the tower where a white face moved at the narrow slit in the stone wall—the face did not reach the height of a man.

“You have a guard there besides the key at your girdle?” he asked, and she pressed his arm quickly.

“Speak not of that before Gurtha,” she whispered. “It is a young thing with a golden mane I am hiding for Amlaf. There is no other place to keep her from the men, and from Gurtha’s knife. Amlaf sulked because of a girl he lost in his last raid—I need his help to get Barolf out of my path, and the girl is a fair bribe. I dare not send her to him. When he comes he can hide her in a boat and take her to the north if she pleases him. If she please him not, she can go with the others.”

“And that is—where?”

“I never ask about women unless I need them. There was a convent across the raised road, but I see no women there now, and hear none.” Then she held his arm with both her hands, and looked up at him in the dusk and laughed shortly. “The other men may follow their will in a raiding, and take their women as they choose, but you must take no maid to wife!”

The sun was high in the morning when Ota the queen took her serving-man, who was her slave, and her new guest, of the Irish, to the tower of the spoils. The serving-man carried a dish of food and told Gurtha it was for a hound with a litter of wolf pups, but he did not pass the tower with the food.

The outer door was unbarred, and the inner door unlocked with the queen’s key; a ladder was there, and the queen was helped up by Ruadan, his arm circling her for safety. The slave sent up the dish of food in a basket by a rope of grape vine.

“There are ladders above and floors above, but the upper door is chained now because of the red bird caged here for Amlaf,” said the queen.

By the narrow slit of the embrasure a girl stood as far from the opened door as she could get. She was flattened against the stones of the wall in terror, and clasped to her was a flat golden-brown book, and the gold of its cover was set with amber disks, and pearls of the sea.

Ruadan of Ardsolais knew that book, for his own hand had wrought it and it was the writings of Mark the Saint, and the chapter in it was that of the sermon of the sea, and the great faith when the storm of the sea obeyed the Voice.

The Abbot Ronan had asked it as a gift for Clonard, but Clonard had been sacked, and he saw again his lost handiwork.

In a corner were many other books—great piles of vellum in their rich casings. And on and around them were chains of gold, and necklets of gems, woven armlets, and silver sandals, silver trappings of chariots and war horses were stacked with the rest, and women’s jewels in girdle or torque, or ring, beyond belief. The sun struck on the heap through an embrasure and set it all aglitter against the gray stone of the wall.

“It speaks a brave hosting,” said Ruadan, and lifted the jeweled shrine in which a tiny bell of holiness tinkled. He never looked at the girl.

“I will take all the bells for the decking of our steeds when I ride the forests with you,” said Ota the queen.

“Nay, it will not be bells we will care to carry,” said Ruadan, and she laughed, well content, and emptied a leathern bag of altar jewels on the stone floor. A golden bell and a jeweled chalice were there, and a wondrous monstrance of gold all aglitter with ruby and amber and pale pearls. A censor of jeweled chains was there, and armlets and necklets thrust in among the vessels of holy use. Ota lifted from them a gorgeous necklet set with smoldering rubies.

“This has been gift of some king of the far world,” she said, “and it goes well with the ring you had from me a year ago. I have brought you to choose a gift; choose the richest you can carry.”

“My thought is that I could carry you if your long cloak would not tangle my feet on the ladder.”

She laughed at that, and clasped the necklet on him and loosened the lacing of his garment that it might be hidden next his skin. Then she glanced at Doirenn, rigid and white against the wall.

“Look at her face,” she said laughing. “If she has looks of such scorn at Amlaf he will not risk the knife of Gurtha for her!”

“So good a sister should make a good wife,” said Ruadan; “few women would pick so much of beauty in a slave—unless for sale.”