“So much. We must think of marrying her to some friend. Perhaps one of our kinsmen of Scotland. I must be reminded again of it.”
“Come and see her, master, and then you will be able to decide how she should be disposed of.”
“I shall go to see her some day.”
CHAPTER VIII
Deirdre’s education in the art of the king continued, but it proceeded now somewhat obliquely to its former trend.
What woman in Lavarcham’s place could avoid treating her master’s later affairs without something of sentimentality creeping into the terms? And what young girl could regard Maeve otherwise than as a heroine for having dared so shocking a scandal, and such a round of perils? As Lavarcham detailed Maeve, Deirdre interpreted her, and at the close of the statement the judgement of each was so different, so opposed, that a third person might have marvelled at the tricks the understanding can play; for what was black to the one was not only white to the other, but it was crimson and purple and gold; and what was treachery to Lavarcham gleamed on Deirdre like a candid sunrise.
We assimilate knowledge less through our intellects than through our temperaments; and a young person can by no effort look through the eyes of an older. There are other ways by which a mutual perception can be so deflected that the same thing is not similarly viewed, and so Lavarcham’s appreciation of Maeve’s conduct would differ from Conachúr’s, as his would be unlike Cathfa’s or Bricriu’s or Fergus mac Roy’s, and as these would be obscure to one another. The element of self-interest in each would act as a prism, and each would understand as much of the tale as he desired to understand, but no more, and would forgive or condemn on these arrested findings.
To Lavarcham Maeve’s flight was treachery and deserved punishment; but it was not, in her thought, a misfortune for which even Conachúr need weep. She had thoroughly disliked Maeve, for though she could impose on every one she could not impress that imperious lady, and she had never dared tell one half of Maeve’s doings lest the violent queen should suspect, and loose a slash that would cut her in two halves in the very presence of the king.
The departure of Maeve meant also the departure of mac Roth, and to be free from that jovial, crafty eye was so great a relief that Lavarcham could have wept in thankfulness; for to be a spy is a simple thing, an occupation like any other, but to be spied upon when one is a spy is a monstrous inversion of what is proper, and might easily give one palpitations of the heart.
Mac Roth had her frightened, and could have cowed her any time he wished. In her own craft he was her master, for, after all, she was only a household spy, but he was a—spy. She could glean from the kitchen or the Sunny Chamber everything that was there; but she must have walls about her and work behind those; while mac Roth did not mind whether he was in a room or in a forest; he would spy in a beehive; he would spy on the horned end of the moon; he would spy in the middle of the sea, and would know which wave it was that drowned him, and which was the wave that urged it on.