[CHAPTER XI]
The Deer of Ill-Luck
When Meave heard that already the Hound of Ulster stood upon her path, the words spoken by the fairy Feidelm and the Druid came back into her mind, and she resolved that not a moment would she linger by the way, but now at once, before the men of Ulster were risen from their weakness, she would push on direct to Emain Macha. “If one man alone and single-handed be formidable to us,” she said to Ailill, “still more formidable will he be with the gathered hosts of Ulster at his back, fighting for their country and their fatherland.”
So that very night she gave command that the army should move on, taking the direct way into Ulster; and when the men complained there was no road, she bid her soldiers take their swords and hew for the chariots a path straight through the forests. Haughtily she cried, “Though mountains and high hills stood in my way, yet should they be hewn down before me and smoothed to level lands. So by new paths mayhap we shall slip by Cuchulain unperceived, and fall on Ulster sleeping; thus shall we take Cuchulain in the rear.”
But whichever way the army turned, from that night forward Cuchulain was on the path before it, and though the warriors could not catch sight of him, at every point he cut off twos and threes, whenever scouts were sent before the host. At length they could not get the scouts to go, and whole bands went out together, but even so but few returned alive. And strange things happened, which alarmed the men, and Meave herself at last grew sore afraid. One evening, thinking that all was safe, Meave and her women walked to take the air, she carrying on her shoulders her pet bird and squirrel. They talked together of the wonders that Cuchulain wrought, and how that very day he had fallen alone upon a troop of men who cut a path through woods some miles away beyond the camp to eastward, and how but one of them escaped to tell the tale. Just as they spoke, a short sharp sound was heard, as of a sling-stone passing near their heads, and at Meave’s feet the squirrel dropped, struck through the heart. Startled, she turned to see whose hand had killed her pet, but as she turned, down from the other shoulder dropped the bird, slain also by a stone. “Cuchulain must be near,” the women cried; “no other hand but his so surely and so straight can sling a stone,” and hastily they turned and sought the shelter of the camp again. Meave sat down beside the King to tell him what had happened. “It could not be Cuchulain,” said the King; “he was far off on the other side of the host to-day.” Even as the words passed from his lips, close to them whizzed a hand-sling stone, carrying off the coronet or golden ‘mind’ that bound Meave’s hair, but hurting not so much as a lock upon her head. “A bad stroke that,” laughed out the fool that gambolled round the King, joking to make him merry; “had I been he who shot that stone, the head I would have taken off and left the ‘mind’ behind.”
Hardly were the words out of his foolish mouth, than a second stone, coming from the same direction as the first, in the full middle of his forehead struck the fool, and carried off his head, while at Meave’s feet dropped down his pointed cap. Then Ailill started up and said, “That man will be the death of all our host, before we ever step on Ulster’s soil. If any man henceforth makes mock at Cuchulain, ’tis I myself will make two halves of him. Let the whole host press on by day and night towards the coasts of Ulster, or not one of us will live to see the gates of Emain Macha.”
So day and night the camp moved on, but not thus could they outstrip Cuchulain; march as they would, he still was there before them. Yet, though they chased and sought him day and night, they caught no sight of him; only he cut off their men.
One day a charioteer of Orlam, Ailill’s son, was sent into a wood to cut down poles to mend the chariots broken by the way. It happened that Cuchulain was in this wood, and he took the charioteer to be a man of Ulster come out before their host to scout for them.
“The youth is foolhardy who comes so near the army of Queen Meave,” Cuchulain thought; “I will e’en go and warn him of his danger.”