“Do not be angry with me. Let that last unhappiness be spared me. I am your wife, Naoise. I would prefer that evil should happen to all the world rather than one small misfortune should come to you. I am not Deirdre any more. I am Misery.”
But he kissed and petted her, putting back the hair from her brow and framing her face in his hands.
“We are here now,” he said, “and no matter what awaits us we must go to meet it. You would not wish me to run away, Deirdreen.”
“We ran away before,” she said, “and we have greater reason to run away now than we had then. The spider is waiting for us in the web.”
“You forget, and you will keep on forgetting it, that we are under the protection of Fergus, and through him we are under the protection of all Ireland.”
But she looked at him almost angrily.
“Fergus,” she scoffed. “He is a traitor, that Fergus. He is being used by the king to betray us.”
Naoise bit his lip and his eyes became hard and sombre.
“Let us go on,” he said. “We should reach Ard Saileach ere the evening.”