“... some to the mountains—others yielded to be slaves because of hunger—others to the seas—singing and sighing under the shadow of their sails.”
(From the Epistle of Gildas, the most ancient British author.)
“Prate to me no longer of marriage and giving in marriage. We love each other—that’s enough! Perchance we’ll love others, and a many, ere we die. Marriage, forsooth! And this new-fangled Christian craze—one man, one wife—’tis folly! Fit only for maids and striplings. Tush, boy! I have borne with thee, and humoured thee, because of thy hurt—but now I am weary of this madness!”
Cormac made no reply; only gazed with love-sick eyes at the speaker, Ethne of the Raven Hair.
She had brought him back from death to life; when he lay more helpless than a babe she had raised his head and put food between his lips; in hours of pain and weariness she had anticipated his least want. He had lost his father, his lands, his favourite horse—all that had meant the world to the boy—but Ethne remained, and he loved her.
“In a few more days,” she said, “you will mount your horse again.”
“My horse!” said the boy, bitterly. “I have not even the power to save his bones from the crows.”
“There are other horses in the world,” replied the woman impatiently. “You shall have another stallion, Cormac—blacker and more beautiful than the last. When you ride to battle again the banners shall bear the old device. The Black Horse is not vanquished—he is but worsted for a time—he will rise again victorious. The Black Horse, Cormac of Fail, the Black Horse against the White!”
The boy shook his head.
“I will never fight again,” he said, mournfully. “The world is lost to me—you are my world now, Ethne, and when you cease to love me I shall die.”
Again his thoughts wandered gloomily on the late events—the hideous defeat—the tempestuous sea—the days of agony and weakness.
They were sitting out of doors, at a short distance from the little wattled cote the monks had given them. The day was so warm that Ethne had unfastened the long gold brooch on her left shoulder and thrown off her brat, or shawl. Her white arms and bosom were bare, beautiful gold torques twined her arms; a gold crescent shone above her forehead. Her thick black hair fell about her to her knees—round her waist was a rich purple scarf, called a criss, fringed with gold and embroidery. Her saffron-coloured tunic was open at the bosom and showed an embroidered under garment called a lann. Her dress was that of a princess of Hibernia.
His words brought a smile to her face. Ethne’s beauty was gone when she smiled, for the turned back lips revealed a terrible defect—that her eye-teeth had grown double the length of the others and were sharp and jagged, like the fangs of a wild beast.
“Mere words!” she said, with the ugly smile growing stronger. “If you loved me, you would follow my wishes.”
“I will follow you to the end of the world,” he said. “Only try me.”
At his words the woman turned sharply and looked at him with glittering eyes.
“Do you mean this?”
“I do.”
Her nostrils grew large—her breath came loud and heavy. She raised her clenched hand upward. The boy’s spirit rose.
“Would you to battle again?” he asked. “Where—how?”
“Where!—how!” she screamed. “Here in Hibernia! Rally the men of Hibernia around you—and take your sword and strike at this Christianity that has cost us our home and country!”
She had risen in speaking. Now she sat down again and pressed her lips together; and she placed her hand upon her heart, trying to subdue her passion.
She looked at him narrowly, as though half fearing the effect of her words upon him. He trembled from head to foot.
“This is madness!” he said, in a low voice. “The madness of despair—and it is harder for you than for us, for you had not Elgiva’s cause at heart.”
“Elgiva!” she hissed. “Accursed Saxon name!”
Ethne leapt from her seat again; and, with her face and clenched hand thrown to the sky, let fall a hundred curses on her foes.
She had found a vent for her smothered wrath, and the boy forgot for the time her former words.
The fear and loathing of the Saxon were upon them both. They fell into each other’s arms sobbing and crying out that Rome had done this thing to them. Rome had deserted them in their hour of need.
“The Romans taught us to love ease and luxury,” cried the boy, “and to cry out for help when we were hurt! When we had learnt our lesson well, they sailed away and left us. Then that fool Vootigern did his pretty piece of work—he made room in the nest for the cuckoo who has kicked us out of fair Britain.”
“There is little left of fair Britain now,” cried Ethne. “They have made sword-land of half of it, the other grows smaller every day—this last defeat has cut it in two. Damnonia and Cornwall, with the precious fortress, Tintagil, is severed from the rest. Men say, too, towards Caledonia there is a weak spot, where the Angles of the North are pressing closer to the sea.”
The boy’s face grew sadder. It was monstrous—incredible! The fair isle of Britain over-run by barbarians; its gentle people made food for vultures, bound in hideous serfdom or hid like vermin in the crevices of the earth. Noble lords and tender ladies herding, like animals, in caves—and filling their starving bodies with oak-flittern and beech-mast of the forest! The boy folded his arms tightly over his heaving bosom. In all the bitterness and shame that his thoughts brought him—hardest of all was the knowledge that he had not died upon the battle-field. He had fled, he said to himself—unconsciously, indeed—but, nevertheless, he had fled! Flown before the Saxons like fire—as the heathen themselves were wont to describe it.
“It is late, Cormac,” said Ethne, suddenly, looking at the shadows of the trees. “Long past noon, and you have need of meat and milk. Soon, very soon, you will be well enough to fast one day and feast the next; but we have not finished yet our work of making flesh and blood!”
When they entered their dwelling, the little round building seemed all gloom and smoke. But a bright voice greeted them and, when they were seated, a young girl brought them bowls of broth. She had been standing over the smoky central fire, stirring the contents of an iron cauldron with a ladle of yew-wood. Her eyes were red from the smoke, and her hands black and scorched from handling some half-charred nuts she had been roasting in the ashes.
Ethne and Cormac seated themselves on some leathern cushions piled on a heap of dry heather; the girl drew a low stool of yew-wood before them, and laid their platters upon it. She threw herself down, at some little distance, and proceeded to eat the nuts she had taken from the fire. An old war-hound, blind in one eye and covered by half-healed scars, dragged himself towards her and lay down with his head resting against her knee. He had previously feasted well from the bones of the soup-pot; but now he took one or two of the roasted kernels she offered him and made a show of eating them, as though to please her. It was the same hound who had followed them on their flight from Britain, whose life the girl had saved and for whom she had received wounds from Ethne; he was a wonderful creature still, in spite of his age—all muscle and fire—of the breed the Romans had admired; so tall, his head reared itself to the height of a man’s shoulder; so strong he could bear a man over bog and boulder; his one great eye, set in a cavern, seemed lit as by a spark of fire; his lean form, clothed by shaggy hair, of a weird colour, resembling the hair-like growth of ancient pine-trees.