She reviewed the situation and all the subsidiary situations. She thought of what her father, the High King, would say, and knew how he should be answered and by what arts he might be made an ally. She thought of what her two sisters would urge, but she thought of them negligently, considering that they would be more anxious to avoid than to meet her. And she thought of her third sister, about whom she need speculate no more; and Maeve’s hand that struck the blow had been as steady as was her mind that contemplated its memory. Conachúr had come to demand vengeance and had exacted marriage. That was his vengeance, and she thought of the cold-minded, furious-blooded king in every alternation from astonishment to rage, and in every mood except that of fear, for she was not afraid of him, or of anything that lived.
[4] Emain Macha = pronounced Evan Maha.
CHAPTER V
Her immediate intention was to get away from Ulster and so to order her conduct in the meantime that the king, who suspected everything and foresaw all, would have no suspicion of this: therefore, if she cogitated her plans she kept them in her own mind. She would have no confidant until the action was decided and the hour for it had struck.
And in this matter she had much to think of. But she patiently resolved these complexities, so that each went at last into its place in her plan, and she had the leisure to review and revise it until she could be certain that nothing was forgotten and that a perfect piece of machinery had been created. The machine was not visible, but it would appear as at a wave of her hand, and it would begin to move at the hour of its birth. It was not by chance that this lady was called by a masculine name,[5] for she had patience and tenacity and a clear, cool head.
Had it been merely a question of getting comfortably away there would have been nothing in the prospect to exercise the queen. She would have mounted her chariot, and, whether her husband was looking or not looking, she would have driven wherever she wished to go: she would have driven over him if he had stood in her way, and through his army if that had been unavoidable. The difficulty was that she did not intend to leave with Conachúr the possessions she had brought to Ulster and those that she had since acquired, for the High King had endowed his daughter in a manner befitting his condition and the rank she was to occupy; and, as a wife’s possessions were secured to her by the law of the land, she did not intend to leave Conachúr richer than he had a right to be.
It was the transport of this vast baggage which exercised the queen.
She owned flocks of sheep, herds of cattle, droves of horses and pigs. These naturally had multiplied during her residence at Emain. She had vessels of gold and silver, of findriny and bronze. She had rings and bracelets; shoulder torques as big as plates, and breast brooches that were twice as big. She had pleasure chariots and war chariots; she had rich fabrics of linen embroidered with gold and silver thread; many-coloured, silken shawls with deep fringes of gold or with tassels and bobberies of silver. She had head-dresses of every material and metal. Bronze spears, each with an hundred loose rings of gold that clashed musically up and down the handle, and on each of the rings there chimed a little silver bell. She had shields and breastplates of solid silver and gold, and they were set out with patterns of dainty gems. There were quilts of silk and fur, cushions that delighted the head or the eye that rested on them. She had bird-cages of ivory and crystal. Beds that had been chipped out of monster blocks of amethyst. Cups of carved ivory, each with a different gem set inside at the bottom so that it twinkled at you while you drank. Chess-boards of precious metals, and each man on the board had occupied the cunning artificer a long year of his age to fashion it. She had her own machinery for brewing and baking. What had she not got? Her dresses alone would pack a house and burst out through the roof and tumble down the glass of her Sunny Chamber like an untimely sunset for colour, and like a billow of the sea for exuberance.
She did not intend that as much as one thread of her threads should remain behind her in Emain Macha.
“No other queen shall waggle her toes in my draperies, nor enjoy what is proper for my enjoyment alone,” thought Maeve.