Shea said, «As a matter of fact.» but Ollgaeth rushed past him with: «I call to mind there was a man — what was his name? — had a geas on him that he would be seeing everything double. Now that was an illusion, and it was me he came to in his trouble. I.»
Shea was spared the revelation of what Ollgaeth had done in the case of the double vision by King Ailill’s rapping on his table with the hilt of his knife and saying in his high voice, «We will now be hearing from Ferchertne the bard, since this is the day of Lugh, and a festival.»
Serfs were whisking away the last of the food and benches were being moved to enlarge the space around Ferchertne. This was a youngish man with long hair and a lugubrious expression; he sat down on a stool with his harp, plucked a few melancholy twangs from the strings, and in a bumpish baritone launched into the epic of the «Fate of the Children of Tuirenn.»
It wasn’t very interesting, and the voice was definitely bad. Shea glanced around and saw Brodsky fidgeting every time the harpist missed a quantity or struck a false note. Everyone else seemed to be affected almost to the point of tears, however, even Ollgaeth. Finally Ferchertne’s voice went up in an atrocious discord, and there was a violent snort.
The harp gave a twang and halted abruptly. Shea followed every eye in the room to the detective, who stared back belligerently.
«You would not beliking the music now, dear?» asked Maev, in a glacial voice.
«No, I wouldn’t,» said Brodsky. «If I couldn’t do better than that, I’d turn myself in.»
«Better than that you shall do,» said Maev. «Come forward, ugly man. Eiradh, you are to stand by this man with your sword, and if I signal you that he is less than the best, you are to bring me his head at once.»
«Hey!» cried Shea, and Brodsky: «But I don’t know the words.»
Protest was useless. He was grabbed by half a dozen pairs of hands and pushed forward beside the bard’s seat. Eiradh, a tall, bearded man, pulled out his sword and stood behind the pair, a smile of pleasant anticipation on his face.