TWO.

TARA.

I.

The first night had been kind to them. They had taken two strong, swift mounts and two good packhorses. They prepared in a hurry; Conall had not taken his sword or spear, but only a hunting knife; he also brought a small bar of silver, concealed in his belt. It was deep night when they made their way out of the encampment where everyone was sleeping. It would probably be long after dawn before anyone even noticed their absence. And though their pursuers would no doubt move fast, they would not know which way they had gone.

Which way should they go? Up into the wilds of Connacht?

Over into Ulster, where they could find a ship across to Alba? No, Conall decided: that would be the first thing the king would think of; within days he'd have spies on the lookout in every harbour. If they wanted to escape across the sea, they'd better wait. So where could they evade the long arm of the High King?

"Our best hope lies south," he told her.

"In Munster." The huge, lovely coastline of the south-west, with its innumerable hills, inlets, and islands, gave endless opportunities for concealment, as well as being less under the control of the High King than any other part of the island.

Through the first night, they took the track southwards.

The country was flat, the forest frequently broken by open pasture. As caret dawn broke they found a landscape around them of empty bog and*" continued cautiously for a little while, fording a small river, until they reached some dry ground, where they rested. It was already early afternoon when Deirdre awoke, to find Conall standing beside her. "I've scouted ahead," he told her. "We should keep moving on." All afternoon they rode carefully. The island's main tracks were usually kept passable.

In many places, the undergrowth beside them was so thick that it was only the work of a few moments to find concealment; but this meant that the tracks were the only way to travel. And so even in the least populated areas, there was always the risk of meeting someone on the road.

Once, they came to some undulating heathland, where they encountered an empty shepherd's hut. Later, discovering there was a farmstead ahead, they made a wide circuit to avoid being seen; but the branches whipping across their faces made progress so slow that they lost valuable time. It was midafternoon when they came over a ridge and Conall paused. "There." He pointed southwards. And in the distance Deirdre could just make out a long, thickly wooded range of hills rising up out of the plain. "The Slieve Bloom Mountains," he explained. "If we can reach them tomorrow without being seen, we'll be hard to find."

And they were well within sight of them when, at nightfall, they wrapped themselves in their cloaks and lay down under the stars.

Deirdre remained awake for some time, however, and when she did rail asleep, her sleep was fitful. Twice during the night, she thought she heard the distant howling of wolves.

Deirdre woke at the first grey glimmer of dawn and shivered. A cold, damp breeze had sprung up. Conall was already awake, and nodded to her. "It will be raining soon. That's good, as we have to cross some open ground."

The rain was not heavy, but it persisted all morning, screening them as they followed a track that led across open grassland and heath until, around the middle of the day, it began to rise up a long slope. Trees appeared on either side, the track began to twist, and Deirdre realised with relief that they had reached the safety of the mountains. Soon after this, the rain began to clear, and from the occasional rocky outcrops she could see magnificent views of the countryside spreading out below. They paused and she discovered that she was very hungry. She had brought bread and meat with them when they left. Some of each remained. Now, sitting by a small mountain stream, they ate the last of the meat and drank water from the stream, which tasted sweet.

"From here," Conall said, "we can follow the forest tracks deep into Munster."

"And what will we be eating, may I ask?" she enquired.

"I saw a hare." He smiled ruefully.

"Hazelnuts will keep you going. There are fish in the rivers, and deer in the woods. I could go down to one of the farmsteads, tell them I'm a poor traveller and beg a little bread."

"You'd better not be wearing that cloak then," she laughed. "Or even be seen with it," she added more seriously. "It's the cloak of a prince."

And as Conall looked at his cloak, its rich material and its trimming of fur, he knew she was right.

"What a fool I am," he exclaimed, "running across the country with a thing like this." He shook his head, went to one of the packhorses and pulled out a light axe. Then, scraping away some leaves from a bare spot behind a tree, he began to dig a shallow pit. It wasn't long before he had dug a good enough trench to receive the cloak, covered it over, and scattered the leaves across the place again.

Satisfied with his work, he returned, replaced the axe, and gave her a smile.

"So, you've buried your fine clothes now, have you?"

She returned his smile.

"Yes." But suddenly the smile left his face and he looked thoughtful.

"What is it?" she asked.

"Nothing," he said. "Nothing of importance. Shall we ride on?"

And then she remembered the three geissi of which her father had told her.

Conall shall not die until: He has laid his own clothes in the earth.

He has crossed the sea at sunrise.

He has come to Tara through a black mist.

He had just broken the first.

She started, a little uncertainly, to say something. But he was already riding ahead.

Only one thing puzzled Deirdre. He had made no physical advances yet. They had been travelling, of course: the circumstances were hardly convenient. But he had not so much as touched her. She supposed he would in his own time. Meanwhile, she wasn't sure whether to do anything to encourage him or not. She tried holding his arm, or standing with her back to him waiting for him to put his arms round her. She tried standing facing him, waiting to be kissed.

All she got was a smile.

She remembered her mother once remarking, "All it takes with a man is a little time and a good meal." So she was doubly hopeful when, as they made their way along the high tracks of the Slieve Bloom Mountains, Conall told her, "Tomorrow, I'll be away looking for food."

The next morning, leaving her with the last of the bread, he set off early, promising to return by evening. The day passed pleasantly. andbrvbarbb.the weather was fine. From a gap in the trees, she could enjoy a magnificent view. Apart from the twittering of the birds, it was silent.

Not a soul came near. The sun was already sinking onto the horizon when Conall appeared. He was carrying a bag containing bread, wheat cakes, and other provisions. He looked pleased with himself.

"I got food from a farmstead," he explained.

"Told them I was a messenger going to the King of Leinster."

They ate well that evening. Conall made a small fire. When it was done, she lay contentedly on her back beside it. The firelight, she knew, was playing on her face. She smiled at him. But Conall only smiled back, yawned, remarked that it had been a long day, and, wrapping himself in a woollen blanket, rolled over and went to sleep.

He had not told her about the message he had sent.

It had been luck, finding the traveller on the road. There were travellers on the island, of course, as there were in most places in the world: merchants, messengers, holy men, entertainers.

These last in particular, in the Celtic world, were always roaming. Musicians, dancers, bards. He supposed it was in their nature. Sometimes they would stop at a farmstead for the night and entertain the company in return for food and lodging. At the court of a great chief, however, they would be well rewarded.

He saw the man from a distance. He was on foot, walking down the woodland track with an easy, swinging gait. Concealing his horse in the trees, Conall came towards him.

The traveller was a bard. They fell into conversation easily, and Conall was able to exhibit such a knowledge of poetry that the stranger quickly took him for another bard like himself. Conall judged the man to be a good practitioner of his craft, but it was not long before he learned that the bard was leaving Munster to escape trouble of some sort. So when Conall suggested that he might be able to help his new acquaintance find employment at the court of the High King, he was not surprised to see the fellow's eyes light up.

"You must go to Uisnech, while the king is still there," he told him. "I have a friend, a druid named Larine. If you go to him and say I sent you, he may be able to help you. But I have enemies myself, so you must tell nobody who sent you.

Just go straight to Larine."

"But how will he know who sent me?" he asked.

"I shall give you a token," Conall replied. And breaking a small branch from a nearby tree, he whittled it with a knife and after carefully making marks on it in ogham script, he gave it to him.

"Show him this and say that I told you he would help you."

"I shall indeed," the man promised, and went on his way.

What Conall had written on the stick was a request. He had just asked Larine to come and meet him. He had to get a message to the king.

In the days that followed, they went sometimes southwards, sometimes westwards, at a more leisurely pace.

They dropped down to move cautiously past some scattered farms, before finding high ground and forest again.

They also fell into a new mode of travel.

It was his meeting with the bard that had given Conall the idea. Each day he would scout ahead, then lead Deirdre forward to a place he judged to be secure. Moving off by himself, then, he would travel until he saw a farmstead. He had some days" growth of beard now. His shirt was not too clean.

By walking with a slight stoop, he made himself seem older. Taking care always to arrive on foot, he had no difficulty in passing himself off as a bard and in obtaining food and shelter for the night. In the morning he would beg some extra food for his journey, and this he would bring back to Deirdre. Not only did this solve the problem of feeding her but it also allowed him to keep informed of any news in the countryside. So far there was no word about his flight, nor any sign of a search party. This method of travelling also had another advantage for Conall. He was often away from Deirdre at night.

When a man is withholding himself from a woman, or a woman from a man, the most effective avoidance lies in the arrangement of circumstances. The method of travelling safely which Conall had chosen was so entirely logical that Deirdre could hardly question it. Some nights Conall stayed with her, but when he did he was tired; and so, although she was still puzzled, she supposed that he meant to put off the consummation of their love until they reached a place where they could safely remain, and that she need only be patient.

He had told Larine to meet him in fifteen days.

It should take the fellow three, perhaps five days to find the druid; and another three for Larine to reach the meeting place. Allowing a generous margin for error, fifteen days had seemed sensible. He had picked the meeting place carefully. It lay on open ground where he could watch the approaches.

To reach it from the north, the druid would have to take a winding path across a bog. He had told him to come alone, but even if his friend were followed, Conall would be able to make his escape before any pursuers could come close. The only problem he had not yet solved was what to do with Deirdre while he went there. Perhaps he would find a farmstead where she could await him; but that was risky. More likely he would have to find a safe place where he could leave her with provisions for a few days. Until then, he did not want to get too far from the meeting place. So it was that their journey was following a large westwards curve, rather than plunging due south into Munster.

His choice of Larine had been natural. If there was one person he could trust, and whom the king might listen to, it was the druid. It was Larine who must convey the all-important messages: first, that they had fled because of the threat from the queen. And second, that he had not touched the girl.

It had been that first day, as they were looking out at the Slieve Bloom Mountains, when he realised how important his abstinence was.

He had known, even that dark night when they had set out, that as soon as he got Deirdre out of danger, he would have to send his uncle some word of explanation.

He must tell him about the threat from the queen. He was fairly confident his uncle would know he was telling the truth. He had taken Deirdre only to save her life. For if the queen was determined to cause her death, sooner or later she would find ways of doing so, and surely his uncle couldn't want that. Perhaps, through Larine, they could reach an understanding. After a token pursuit, his uncle might even let him escape discreetly across the sea, and leave it at that.

It was during the morning that he saw other, more complex possibilities. What if his uncle sent the girl away for her safety, but demanded his own return? Or he might divorce the queen and send for Deirdre. Both unlikely, but possible.

Of course, he reminded himself, he could never go along with either. After all, he loved Deirdre, and he knew she couldn't abide the king.

But all the same, as he had stood with Deirdre looking at the mountains, the implication had suddenly hit him. For the negotiations to have any hope of succeeding, he must not touch her. Until then, she was still the king's woman, and his flight with her had been for her protection. Unless he could swear to Larine, with a druidic oath of the most solemn kind, that the girl was untouched, then all his explanations of his conduct would fall to the ground.

So it was that, for the time being at least, he avoided contact with the woman he loved. It was not something he thought he could explain to her.

Larine read the message on the stick. It was terse: a name, a place, a date, and the word "alone." Then he turned back to the messenger. It would not be difficult to find the fellow some employment. There were three or four chiefs still at Uisnech who, at a word from Larine, would give this bard a try and pay him something. If he was good, word would travel quickly enough.

"I can help you," he told him.

But the message from Conall was more difficult. The festivities had been continued, as they had to be, but the air was tense. The High King was outwardly calm, but to those like Larine who knew him, he had never seemed so angry. And therefore dangerous.

Even though he had the protection of being a druid, did he dare go on such an errand to the fugitive?

If Conall wanted to meet him, it might be to ask his advice, but it might also be to deliver a message. Did he really want to return and tell the king he had gone to see Conall behind his back? Was his friendship with Conall worth that much?

He pondered long and hard that day before deciding he would go. He was a brave soul.

They had rested three days now by the pool. It was a quiet spot, a little lake in a mountain declivity, fed by a stream, and from which, under an ash tree at the far end, a slip of clear water poured over a stone lip before descending through a gorsy gully into a winding ravine below. The slopes all round were thickly wooded. Nobody came there. Conall had built a shelter. They had fished in the pool, finding trout-small but good to eat. The first day they had rested there Conall had gone out, returning late the next morning with plentiful supplies and with wood he had cut for a fire. Deirdre, meanwhile, had washed their clothes in the stream.

The weather had been getting warmer for several days.

Overhead, the sky was clear blue. The light breeze of the morning was growing faint. Conall was whittling a stick to spear fish when she asked him casually if he was going down into the valley that evening.

"No," he answered quietly. "We have plenty of food. But tomorrow," he added, "I shall be going away for several days." Shortly afterwards, he waded into the pool and stood with his spear poised, waiting for fish.

Then she knew what she had to do. She did not know why, but she knew it must be that day.

It was early afternoon when they ate. She had cooked the two fish he had caught over the fire, which sent tiny wisps of blue-grey smoke into the still air.

As well as the fish, she had cooked beans and lentils. He had brought a flagon of ale with him the day before, so they drank from that. To follow, she had made honeyed oatcakes. And it was as he lay back contentedly after this meal that she gently remarked, "It is lucky for me that we escaped, Conall. You saved my life."

"That is probably true," he agreed, staring up at the sky. "The queen is a fearsome woman."

"Even without her, I'd not have gone back to the king.

It was only you I wanted."

"And yet," he tilted his head forward to look at her, "if ever the king's men catch us, they may kill me. Then you'd have to go back, you know." He smiled.

"Maybe the king would divorce the queen and send her away. It's possible. You'd be safe enough then."

But she only shook her head.

"The king will never have me, Conall. I'd kill myself." She said it so simply he supposed it must be true.

"Oh," he said, and leant his head back again and stared at the sky.

They remained silent after that, lying in the sun. There was not a breath of motion in the air now. The wisp of smoke from the fire was not dispersed, but rose straight up until it invisibly dissolved in the blueness above. It was silent all round the pond. Some way off, Deirdre saw a bird on an overhanging bough, its plumage gleaming like gold in the sun; but if it uttered any song, that sound, too, was stopped, as though the passing of time itself had ceased in the general silence of the afternoon.

Then, knowing what she must do, she quietly rose and, while he lay where he was, still staring up, went to the pond's edge and, slipping off her shift and underclothes, stepped quickly into the tingling cold water and swam out towards the middle where she could tread water.

Hearing the sound, but unaware that she was naked, Conall glanced at the pond and, after a little time, sat up to look at her. She Istayed where she was, making no suggestion he should join her, but quietly smiling at him, while he continued to look and the golden light was playing on the little ripples in the water that she made around her. They stayed like that, the two of them, for some time.

She swam a few strokes to the shallows and slowly rising up, with the water dripping from her hair and breasts, walked towards him.