The Hound of Ulster Read Free Page B

away, and there above them in the unharmed chariot stood Cuchulain alone, for the charioteer had been flung clear in the struggle, looking down at them out of his dark face with a smile that was both triumphant and a little sad, as though he were saying to his own heart that all good things passed too soon, and the horses standing with heaving flanks in their traces, and the last red dust sinking, eddying down about the wheels.
    â€˜Assuredly you are a warrior, and there is no place for you in the Boys’ House any more,’ the King said.
    And Cuchulain sprang down over the chariot bow to the horses’ heads, and standing between them with his shoulders leaned against the yoke, he set an arm over the neck of each horse. ‘Then if I am a warrior and have my war chariot, let theKing also give me a charioteer. No man can well fight his chariot and drive at the same time—not even Cuchulain.’
    â€˜Choose for yourself,’ said Conor Mac Nessa. ‘That is the right of every warrior.’
    Cuchulain looked about him, and saw among the crowding warriors the red head and long freckled face of Laeg who had been with him in the Boys’ House only a few months before. And he cared nothing for the fact that Laeg was older than himself and a noble’s son and should be no man’s charioteer, but called out ‘Laeg! Hai! Laeg! There is none that can handle a horse like you. Let you come and drive for me, that we may be together when the war horns sound!’
    And as for Laeg, he flushed like a girl under his freckles, and a light sprang into his eyes that made his whole face kindle, and he strode out from the rest to Cuchulain’s side. ‘Let any other man try for the place that is mine, Hound Cub!’ and he bent his head before young Cuchulain as though he and not Conor Mac Nessa were the King.
    By the time he was sixteen, Cuchulain had won for himself a place among the warriors that many an older one could not lay claim to. And dark and meagre and bird-boned as he was, women found him so good to look upon that wherever he went their eyes would follow him, and not only the eyes of the maidens, but those of other men’s wives; until the warriors and chieftains of Ulster began to urge him to take a woman of his own from her father’s hearth.
    Cuchulain was willing enough, but though he liked all women, he found none that his heart called to, until one day, at the great three-yearly gathering at Tara, he saw among the maidens in the Hall of the High King Conary M?r, one thatseemed to him to stand out from among the rest like a wild swan among herring-gulls.
    She was dark-haired almost as himself, and her skin white as mare’s milk, and her eyes wide and proud and brilliant like the eyes of Fedelma, his favourite falcon. Her gown was green, dark as the leaves of the hill juniper, and balls of red gold hung at the ends of her long braids and swung a little as she moved among the warrior benches to keep the mead cups filled. Cuchulain touched the wrist of Fergus Mac Roy who sat next to him, and leaning as though to share the same cup, whispered, ‘Who is she?’
    Fergus saw where he was looking and said, ‘That is Emer, the daughter of Forgall, Lord of Lusca.’
    â€˜She is very fair,’ said Cuchulain.
    â€˜She is fair enough, but her thorn hedge is thick. Best leave her alone.’
    â€˜And what is the meaning of that riddle, old wolf?’
    â€˜Her father is called Forgall the Wily. He is a Druid of great power, and it is said that he looks none too fondly upon men who come seeking to take his daughters from his hearth.’
    Cuchulain said nothing more, but he did not put the thing from his mind.
    If Emer had been his for the plucking like a strand of honeysuckle beside the track, he would likely have thought no more of her, but as soon as he knew that she might be hard and even hazardous in the winning, he knew also that of all the women in