It might be important not to smile at this diminutive warrior. Shea identified himself gravely and asked in turn, «And who are you, sir?»
«I am Goistan mac Idha, of the boy troop of Cruachan, and it is better not to interfere with me.»
Shea said, «We have come from a far country to see your King and Queen and the druid Ollgaeth.»
He turned and waved his spear toward where a building like that at Muirthemne, but more ornate, loomed over the stockade, then marched ahead of them down the road.
At the gate of the stockade wasa pair of hairy soldiers, but their spears were leaning against the posts and they were too engrossed in a game of knuckle-bones even to look up as the party rode through. The clearing weather seemed to have brought activity to the town. A number of people were moving about, most of whom paused to stare at Brodsky, who had flatly refused to discard the pants of his brown business-suit and was evidently not dressed for the occasion.
The big house was built of heavy oak beams and had wooden shingles instead of the usual thatch. Shea stared with interest at windows with real glass in them, even though the panes were little diamondshaped pieces half the size of a hand and far too irregular to see through.
There was a doorkeeper with a beard badly in need of trimming and lopsided to the right. Shea got off his horse and advanced to him, saying, «I am Mac Shea, a traveler from beyond the island of the Fomorians, with my wife and bodyguard. May we have an audience with their majesties, and their great druid, Ollgaeth?»
The doorkeeper inspected the party with care and then grinned. «I am thinking,» he said, «that your honor will please the Queen with your looks, and your lady will please himself, so you had best go along in. But this ugly lump of a bodyguard will please neither, and as they are very sensitive and this is judgment day, he will no doubt be made a headshorter for the coming, so he had best stay with yourmounts.»
Shea glanced round in time to see Brodsky replace his expression of fury with the carefully cultivated blank that policemen use, and helped Belphebe off her horse.
Inside, the main hall stretched away with the usual swords and spears in the usual place on the wall, and a rack of heads, not as large as Cuchulainn’s. In the middle of the hall, surrounded at a respectful distance by retainers and armed soldiers, stood an oaken dais, ornamented with strips of bronze and silver. It held two big carven armchairs, in which lounged, rather than sat, the famous sovereigns ofConnacht.