The Lad of the Gad (7 page)

“What news?” said Lusca.

“What news from yourself?” said the woman.

“I give you news without disputing,” said Lusca. He told her all the adventures until that time out.

“And my news is this,” said the woman, and began to speak.

“A crowned king there was in the Land of Speckled Peaks. His name was Yohy Sharp-arm, son of Maidin. He had to him no children but two daughters only, and even they had not the same mother. The first daughter was Bright-eyed Faylinn; and if there were to be a single king over the three plunder divisions of the world, she would
be his match of a wife, for there was not in her own time a woman of better beauty than she.

“The queen died, and Yohy Sharp-arm married another, the daughter of the King of Dreolann, and she bore him another daughter and no more. I am that daughter. Behinya is my name.

“Then my mother grew hatred against Faylinn, and took her to swim by the waterfall of Eas Bomaine. When Faylinn was in the water, my mother worked enchantment on her and put her under crosses and spells to be a year in the shape of a beast, and a year in the shape of another beast, and to go, beast into beast, and year into year for ever, unless a man should find her in her own shape, for she is her own shape on one day of every year, to give her grief at every other. And if a man should find her in the shape of a cat he should claim her. There is no doubt but that you found my sister upon that island. Free Isle is the name pf that island itself, and Faylinn is the Cat of the Free Isle. But you did not know her.”

“And that same Bright-eyed Faylinn is the woman who has me under fetters of going and straying to find her,” said Lusca. “Is there no other way to fetch the woman?”

“There is no other. Crosses on the top of water are not forgiven. But go from here quickly,” said Behinya. “This island belongs to one fearful-ugly-monstrous Fomor. Blacker than a coal of sally drowned in cold iced water is every joint and
feature of the Great Man. There is nothing of him that is not black but his two eyes, and they are red. He holds me here. I have never seen of the people of the world, all the time I am on this island, but you alone. The day he stole me from my father's court I asked him to do me no harm till the end of a year; and he has me for a year all but today, and, my friends,” she said, “go quickly from the Great Man. You will not escape from him without death.”

“I would not take the gold of the world and not wait for tidings of the Fomor,” said Lusca.

At once they saw him coming; the Fomor; the Great Man, This was the way of him.

          
There were the skins of horned deer clashing on him

          
And a thick iron club in his round hand.

          
Seven sides upon the club,

          
Edge of a razor on every side of seven,

          
And seven chains about,

          
An iron apple-knob on every chain of seven,

          
And seven spikes about.

          
He never left horror or wild creature

          
Or senseless spectre in crag

          
Or hollow or rock or river mouth

          
That he did not rouse

          
With the noise that club did play.

And when the Fomor saw the sons of Irrua he gave a yell and a laugh of laughter, so that they could count the inside of him with all the opening he gave to his mouth.

Behinya changed shapeliness for misshape, loveliness for unloveliness, with fear for those bright-formed lads falling by the Great Man.

Then Lusca said, “May life be neither good nor pleasant to you, and may the house neither of sun or of moon give welcome before or behind you, hideous Fomor.”

And he rose,

The mantle beyond border,

The flood without ebb

And the torrent without breaking,

The champion who never gave back

One single foot

Before few or before many

In battle or in conflict

Went into his belts of thongs

And his thongs of warrior,

Making marsh of the rock

And rock of the marsh,

Until he gave the Fomor

The merry little heave

And threw him on his back.

“The fruit of vigour and valour to you, son of the King of Irrua,” said the Great Man, “in the mouths of poets and readers of flags for ever, and do not put me to death.”

“I swear before my thongs,” said Lusca, “if the gold of the world were given to me I would not accept it, if I were not to take the head from you.” He struck the Fomor at the joining of the neck, and
the head fell from the body.

Lusca and his brothers made ready the ship and straight without staying they left Behinya on the island, and voyaged over the stream of the sea, and journied through the thick red waves, for five years of their time, seeking the Cat of the Free Isle. But they did not find her.

Now, on a certain day that they were listening to the noises of the sea, they saw a ship with speckled sails coming towards them, and a single royal young warrior in the prow of that ship. He had a sickle of thick iron in his hand, and he reached out the sickle and lifted the ship of the sons of the King of Irrua high above the sea.

Lusca said to his brothers, “This is no crouching time.”

They drew their three swords, and hit three blows each man of them on the sail mast of the ship, so that they cut the mast upon the spot and the ship fell again to the bitter waters.

“My joy it is,” said the young warrior, “sons of the King of Irrua, to have combat with you.”

“Your joy it shall be,” said Lusca, “if we did but know with whom is the combat.”

“I am the Big Mokkalve, son of the King of Sorcha,” said the young warrior. “Grey-visioned will be good heroes, sad-palmed the maidens, wet-eyed the queens when this day is done.”

But, away to the Lands of Sorcha, there was a wizard. The Manach was his name. And it was
revealed at that instant to the Manach that death and the young warrior were to meet on the sword of Lusca; that Manach was himself the man of most desperate enchantment of all who came in his own time.

The Manach took his harrow-wheel of holly, and he got upon it, and he rose to the sky and put a dark fog of magic round about the ship of the Big Mokkalve, until he stole away the Big Mokkalve with him through that desperate fog.

When the water-mist cleared, the sons of the King of Irrua looked at the ship and were sad that a man should go from them without dying.

“What are we going to do now?” said Lusca.

“We are to find the cat,” said his big brother.

“We are to free you from your crosses and your spells, the decay and sad misfortunes of the year,” said his little brother.

“That is not my advice to you,” said Lusca. “We shall go to the Lands of Sorcha and give battle to the Big Mokkalve; for he came on us to avenge the killing of his father by our father, and he will not be stopped with enchantments.”

Then the sea stood up in wrestle and dispute with the ship, in green waves, rough and laughing; but when it found no weakness in the warriors nor terror in the young men, there dwelt a blossom of peace over the sea, and Lusca and his brothers came blithely to the Lands of Sorcha. They pulled the ship up her own seven lengths on grey grass, and
left her, and took their weapons against the hosts of Sorcha.

They were not long there when they saw one youth coming towards them. He had the garland of a poet around his head, a fair purple-bordered cloak about him, and a wand of white silver in his hand.

“It is not well, Lusca. And my advice to you,” said the youth, “is that it would be better now to turn again. I think it a sad pity, the thing you seek to do.”

“What is it that I seek to do?” said Lusca.

“To give furious, high-headed battle is what you seek to do,” said the youth.

“What is your name, poet?” said Lusca.

“My name,” said the youth, “is the Kurrirya Crookfoot, and I think it a sad pity that the two I love best are to fall together this day.”

“What is your friendship with us?” said Lusca.

“Your share of me,” said the Kurrirya Crook-foot, “is that my mother was a daughter of Irrua. And in very truth I have given to you the love of my soul.”

“No less for that,” said Lusca, “go you and proclaim battle against the Big Mokkalve and the hosts of Sorcha.”

The Kurrirya said, “It is a rope around sand, or the closing of the palm at a sunbeam, or it is heat against boiling, for you to meet the Big Mokkalve and the hosts of Sorcha.”

“Lay aside your silly talk,” said Lusca. He put his
hand into the hollow of his shield and he took out a ridged and polished lump of gold, and gave the gold to the poet. The Kurrirya took it and threw the gold on the ground.

“Are you refusing the gold?” said Lusca.

“I am not refusing,” said the Kurrirya, “but it is sad grief to me that the two I love best must fall here today.”

The Kurrirya Crookfoot left Lusca and his brothers and went to the hosts of Sorcha and to the Big Mokkalve. He said:

“Though plentiful your battalions;

Though warlike your champions;

Though valorous your warriors;

Yet valorless shall be your champions;

And weak your battalions;

And cowardly your warriors;

And unguideful your strong ones;

And thin your heavy hosts;

And dispersed your war-bands;

And unvalorous your well-born bands;

And championless your young kings.

In the hands of Irrua.”

But the Big Mokkalve took no notice. The Kurrirya went back to the hill where he had left the sons of the King of Irrua.

“What news?” said Lusca.

“Never were created woods, however close,” said the Kurrirya, “that the covering of the purple iron above the heads of the hosts is not closer still.”

Then Lusca gripped his spear against the hosts of Sorcha, and struck a shield blow and a fight kindling, so that there was neither a stone nor a tree but was in one quivering from him, and cowards went into trances of death from that great sound. He gave a kingly rush through the ranks of Sorcha, and neither loving nor friendly was the welcome. On the breaking of blue javelins even dear friends would not trust one man more than another, for the quickness of their striking and for the blood in their faces; but those who know say that fifty armed men went to madness with the wind at the sound of Lusca as he brought signs of death and shortness of life towards the Big Mokkalve, son of the King of Sorcha.

Yet all the more for that did Lusca remember the Manach, how he had brought enchantment of fog on his harrow-wheel of holly, and he looked with exceeding care. He saw the Manach, as a hideous giant, coming through the battle, fierce, red, stripped. Lusca reached into the hollow of his shield and took from it an apple-ball of iron and gave it a choice cast at the giant into the middle of the head and the face. The iron apple took its own size of brain out in fiery slivers through the back of the head of the Manach, and the giant let loose the screech of a scream and turned back the way he had come.

It was then Lusca found the Big Mokkalve and dealt him a blow that split the golden helmet on the
head. The Big Mokkalve gave another blow to Lusca, and split his shield and put him down on his left knee, and with his sword opened a gate in the side of Lusca. But Lusca sprang and put a second blow, and of that blow he took the head and the right hand off the Big Mokkalve.

Lusca lifted his helmet, seeking air; and there was at that hour a dark mist above the battle. He looked through the battle and wondered that he did not hear the noise of his brothers in it, and he went to seek them over a closeness of bodies so tight that it would not let blood pools walk and he was under rough-voiced creatures of the sky.

He found his big brother killed in the middle of the battle, his little brother killed near him, and the Kurrirya killed beyond that. He dug them a deep, long, wide grave, made a bed there of green water cresses, and laid them together on it and carved their names in flags above, to put them in remembrance, and in knowledge and poetry, for fear lest a drowning or lasting death of memory should go round upon them for ever. Then he went about the battle again, but it was vain for him, for there was never a body to tell tidings but was slain a long time before that.

Lusca gathered a heap of dead men for shelter against the dark night, and he sat down in his bleeding upon a rock. “Until today,” said Lusca, “I have never been alone.”

A swan flew in from the open sea and swam on
the blood. “I think it a sad pity the way I see you, son of the King of Irrua,” said the swan.

“Is it human speech in your mouth?” said Lusca. “If you have chanced on human speech, give me news.”

“If I were as you are now,” said the swan, “I should get that balm of healing, the Great Dug of the World, for my kindred.”

Lusca said, “Where shall I get the balm of healing? Is there a bolt for the gate of my side? How shall I close the blue mouth?”

The swan rose up and flew back over the sea, and, as it went, it said to Lusca:

“I have no skill in the matter of your anguish.

I cannot grasp the flame of agony.

I cannot stop the dark blood.

I am the Swan of Sorcha.

I am the Otter of the Waterfall.

I am the Cat of the Free Isle.

I am not the worst of women.”

Lusca took branches, rods of the thicket, of long wood, and he lit a tower of fire. And the darkness fell on Lusca; and the desolation.

But a short time after that work he saw a hag coming towards him. The hair of her body was touching the earth. One of her eyes was her breastpin. One of her teeth was her staff. She had one jointed sharp foot under her; and she sat upon the other side of the fire.