“Then will I wait on thee,” said the fair girl, bluntly. “Ay, though I hate thee, Ethne of the Raven Hair. I will put all within reach of thy hand that thou need’st. I will go and come at thy beck and call—for thou hast rare skill in sickness, that I see—and I will serve him through thee.”
Ethne watched the boy jealously. An early training among the Druids had given her great knowledge in Nature’s laws, and she knew that the loss of blood which was the warrior’s chief danger could be cured by rest and food and air. She did not leave him night or day. Yet, as she watched him, there was neither love nor tenderness in her gaze.
On the fourth day after their journey to Glendalough he opened his eyes and looked at her. She saw the fever had left him.
“There, there,” she said, softly. “Sleep on now, and take your rest—wounds need time to heal, and time now we have in plenty.”
The boy would have raised his head, but at the attempt pain closed, like a vice, on his temples; a white arm, laden with bracelets, held him back on his pillow of heather.
His eyes dwelt on the white arm; he recognised the royal saffron-scent of the drapery that fell over it. With a feeble movement he turned so that his cheek might rest against it.
“Where is she—the Saxon—Elgiva?” he asked after a time.
“She prays,” was the answer; the boy knew, without looking, that there was a smile of scorn in the dark eyes and on the sneering lips above him.
Through the openings of the wattled cote in which he lay he had seen that the day was dark and gloomy; the sky so purple with coming storm that the sprays of hawthorn aloft had a faint, pinkish tinge upon them. The day was as dark and tempestuous as his own sad soul.
“She prays,” continued the scornful voice, “and has she not need to pray—to offer up thanksgiving? The Saxons smote us on one cheek, then we offered the other—full and grievously have we been smitten on both. Therefore she may well be pleased at our performance of the Christians’ Duty!”