unseen for two days, and then, murmuring a blessing on them and on their encampment, he left them in the night, taking from them the loan of an unwatched horse, and he rode back by short cuts to Emain.

When he reached the palace he was able to report that the king had gone so far he could not easily turn back; and at that news Maeve’s illness departed from her as suddenly as it had come.

In the morning she called for twenty of [Pg 42] the chief men of her bodyguard and gave them careful, separate instruction. Then she informed the domestics that her quarters must be thoroughly cleaned while the king was away, and that everything she owned must be put out on the sunny lawn for airing and counting.

[Pg 42]

The palace chamberlain came in great haste, but that suave man was soothed by Maeve and sent away with his dignity unhurt, but his mind exercised. He communicated his news to Lavarcham, who had retired to the company of her “babe” outside Emania. Within the hour Lavarcham despatched a flying messenger to Conachúr, but just outside the city mac Roth, who was waiting for him in a hedge, buzzed a spear through that man’s back as he went thundering past. But in the night Lavarcham, who left little to chance, sent other messengers, so that if some miscarried others would not.

But Maeve’s plan was at work, the men she had chosen for a particular part were acting in that part, and inside of ten hours her company was deployed behind her baggage, her march to Connacht had begun, and Conachúr was a bachelor again.

[Pg 43]

[Pg 43]

CHAPTER VII

It was as well that the king was in Leinster at the time of Maeve’s flight. Had he been nearer home he would have been obliged to do something, and, in such a situation, to do anything is to be ridiculous. He knew Maeve too well to imagine that she would return for a threat, yet he made the threats which seemed politic, for that was a matter of course.

But the messengers who bore these rigorous intimations to her father bore others to Maeve, and in these the son of Ness was humble as no one could imagine possible, and as his counsellors might not have deemed advisable.

There was no arrangement 

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