They stood on the slope of a hill in a rounded and rolling country looking down on Emain Macha. The evening was advanced, and the late sunlight, all a glimmer of gold, was shining tenderly on the city, so that the mighty ten-acre palace of Conachúr shone back again as though it also were a sun. The great bronze doors, polished like mirrors, were blazing in red lakes of flame, the glass windows of the women’s sunny rooms were like blinding pools of gold, and the roofs, painted in broad reaches of red and green and orange, glowed and sparkled in the mellow evening.
“It is good to look on that again,” said Naoise in a low voice.
“I had almost forgotten it,” said Ainnle.
But Ardan squatted in the grass and stared and stared with his soul in his eyes.
“You have not seen the city for seven years!” said Buinne.
Naoise drew Deirdre to him.
“Are you not contented now, my heart?”
“Our wanderings are ended,” he continued tenderly. “We are outlaws no more, and that long vagabondage is done with. You will sleep at last in a bed,” he smiled.
“Oh, my dear!” she breathed.
“We are home again,” he said, and his heart filled suddenly so that he could not tell if it were really joy that stayed his tongue and blinded his eyes, or if the grief of seven long years had risen within him like a wintry tide.