“I am Flann’s wife to be,” said Gilveen, smiling in his face.
“Yes, my wife to be,” said Flann. Then the King welcomed Gilveen too, and they all went into the Castle. He told his wife he had messages from the King of Senlabor about his other sons Dermott and Downal, saying that they were making good names for themselves, and that everything they did was becoming to sons of Kings. In the hall Fedelma saw Aefa her other sister. Aefa was so proud of herself since she married Maravaun the King’s Councillor that she would hardly speak to anyone. She gave her sisters the tips of her fingers and she bowed very slightingly to the two youths. The King questioned his druid as to when it would be well to have marriages made in his Castle and the druid said it would be well not to make them until the next appearance of the full moon.
IV
As for Morag she went by track and path, by boher and bohereen, through fords in rivers and over stepping-stones across them, until at last she came to the country of Senlabor and to the Castle of the King.
No one of high degree was in the Castle, for all had gone to watch the young horses being broken in the meadow by the river; the King and Queen had gone, and the King’s foster-daughters; and of the maids in the Castle, Baun and Deelish had gone too. The King’s Councillor also had gone from the Castle. Morag went and stayed in the kitchen, and the maids who were there did not know her, either because they were new and had not heard her spoken of at all, or because she had changed to such beauty through eating the berry of the Fairy Rowan Tree that no one could know her now for Morag who had cleaned dishes in that kitchen before.
It was Breas the King’s Steward who came to her and asked her who she was. She told him. Then Breas looked sharply at her and saw she was indeed Morag who had been in the King’s kitchen. Then he said loudly, “Before you left you broke the dish that the King looked on as his especial treasure, and for this, you will be left in the Stone House. I who have power in this matter order that it be so.” Then he said in her ear, “But kisses and sweet words would make me willing to save you.”
Morag, in a voice raised, called him by that evil name that he was known by to the servants and their gossips. But the servants, hearing that name said in the hearing of Breas, pretended to be scandalized. They went to Morag and struck her with the besoms they had for sweeping the floor.
Just then her foster-sisters, Baun and Deelish, came into the kitchen. Seeing her there they knew her. They spoke to her quietly, but with anger, saying they had not wanted her to go on the journey she had taken, but, as she had gone it was a pity she had come back, for now she had behaved in an iii-mannered way, and they who were her foster-sisters would be thought to be as ill-mannered; they told her too that before she came back they were well-liked by all, and that Breas had even ordered a shady place to be given them at the horse-breaking sports, and they had been able to see the two youths who had broken the horses, Dermott and Downal.
“It was for a benefit to you that I came back,” said Morag. “I shall ask one of you to do a thing for me. You, Baun, sing for the foster-daughters of the King. Before they sleep to-night ask them to tell the Queen that Morag has returned, and has a thing to give her.”
“I shall try to remember that, Morag,” said Baun. Morag was taken to the Stone House by strong-armed bondswomen, and Baun and Deelish sat in corners and cried and did not go near her.