“I imagined it so,” he said; “I imagined how the thin red lip would arch and curve and cling to the cup; and I foresaw how it would cling and uncurve and re-arch and withdraw. The poets tell of such wonders when they can, but I know these things by my own virtue better than they do. One day, O shy cluster of delight, you will sing to me: my harper shall listen to that when I can bear a companion, for I may grudge a sight or a sound of you even to the men of art. I shall see your hair done otherwise, and this way again. I shall see you stir about me, this side and that and backwards; a thousand harmonies of movement that I divine and a thousand that I know nothing of. Do not be fearful, O little twisted loop of the ringlets, for you are my beloved. You shall have no weariness or lack for ever, for I shall fold you in my affection as a hawk folds air within her wings. You shall leave these bleak halls and yon mangy field to sit at the banquets in the Red Branch: to be the Queen of Ulster, the pearl of the world, and my own heart’s comrade.”
Deirdre was the more alarmed, not only because a strange and mighty gentleman was holding a strange and monstrous discourse to her, but he was holding her hand, and she did not know how to retrieve it. She thought it would not be polite to laugh, although she vastly wanted to, and she knew it would be foolish to cry, although she was so bewildered and terrified that an ocean of frightened tears was surging behind her eyes.
“Lavarcham, my sweet mother,” she murmured in distress.
And that low plaint went to Conachúr’s heart like a sword of delight, so that his soul was shaken and he could have wept for pity and love.
“Return to your embroidery, my child,” said Lavarcham. “I shall come to you later and prepare your mind for all that is in store for you.”
Deirdre stood up then and fled, only remembering her courtesy at the doorway.
CHAPTER XX
Lavarcham came to her as promised, and she told Deirdre for hours of the delights to come.
“In a week,” she said, “you will be gone from here, and our home will be desolate indeed. But although the king called this a bleak den, and spoke of our demesne as a mangy field, he was not right in doing so. A house is bleak that has no children running and shouting in it, and this house will be bleak when you are gone; but in all other respects a cleaner or better appointed dwelling will not be found in the Five Great Fifths of Ireland; mark me well, child, the king was excited and unjust, and I shall tell him so. When you rule in Emania you will find how difficult it is to keep all things in order, and how hard it is to have even one room clean; for men will be stirring at all hours of the day and night in your palace, and although they can make a home in a field men make nothing but dirt in a house.
“You will have much to do and to remember, my secret bud, but, above all, you must remember the genealogies of Ireland and the precedences of the court as I have taught them to you, and in any doubt or dispute ask me rather than the herald. The chief cause of trouble in a country is the herald, for he is always wrong, and even when he is right in fact he is wrong in tact. Do not take any other woman’s counsel in those matters; do not even seek it—the one wish of all women is to advance their husbands, and themselves by consequence, and they will ruin the world if they are let.