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Deirdre
by
“They took from me the one who would have been my wife,” he said, “yet even that I can forgive, and if they would return to Erin, glad would my welcome be.”
At these words there was great rejoicing amongst the lords of the Red Branch and all those who listened, and Conor, glad at heart, said, “My three best champions shall go to bring them back from their exile,” and he named Conall the Victorious, Cuchulainn, and Fergus, the son of Rossa the Red. Then secretly he called Conall to him and asked him what he would do if he were sent to fetch the Sons of Usna, and, in spite of his safe-conduct, they were slain when they reached the land of the Ultonians. And Conall made answer that should such a shameful thing come to pass he would slay with his own hand all the traitor dogs. Then he sent for Cuchulainn, and to him put the same question, and, in angry scorn, the young hero replied that even Conor himself would not be safe from his vengeance were such a deed of black treachery to be performed.
“Well did I know thou didst bear me no love,” said Conor, and black was his brow.
He called for Fergus then, and Fergus, sore troubled, made answer that were there to be such a betrayal, the king alone would be held sacred from his vengeance.
Then Conor gladly gave Fergus command to go to Alba as his emissary, and to fetch back with him the three brothers and Deirdre the Beautiful.
“Thy name of old was Honeymouth,” he said, “so I know well that with guile thou canst bring them to Erin. And when thou shalt have returned with them, send them forward, but stay thyself at the house of Borrach. Borrach shall have warning of thy coming.”
This he said, because to Fergus and to all the other of the Red Branch, a geasa, or pledge, was sacrosanct. And well he knew that Fergus had as one of his geasa that he would never refuse an invitation to a feast.
Next day Fergus and his two sons, Illann the Fair and Buinne the Red, set out in their galley for the dun of the Sons of Usna on Loch Etive.
The day before their hurried flight from Erin, Ainle and Ardan had been playing chess in their dun with Conor, the king. The board was of fair ivory, and the chessmen were of red-gold, wrought in strange devices. It had come from the mysterious East in years far beyond the memory of any living man, and was one of the dearest of Conor’s possessions. Thus, when Ainle and Ardan carried off the chess-board with them in their flight, after the loss of Deirdre, that was the loss that gave the king the greatest bitterness. Now it came to pass that as Naoise and Deirdre were sitting in front of their dun, the little waves of Loch Etive lapping up on the seaweed, yellow as the hair of Deirdre, far below, and playing chess at this board, they heard a shout from the woods down by the shore where the hazels and birches grew thick.
“That is the voice of a man of Erin!” said Naoise, and stopped in his game to listen.
But Deirdre said, very quickly: “Not so! It is the voice of a Gael of Alba.”
Yet so she spoke that she might try to deceive her own heart, that even then was chilled by the black shadow of an approaching evil. Then came another shout, and yet a third. And when they heard the third shout, there was no doubt left in their minds, for they all knew the voice for that of Fergus, the son of Rossa the Red. And when Ardan hastened down to the harbour to greet him, Deirdre confessed to Naoise why she had refused at first to own that it was a voice from Erin that she heard.