The Hound of Ulster by Rosemary Sutcliff Page B

sprang a jet of dark blood that shot tree-high towards the sky and spread into a rolling murk that cast its shadow all about him.
    And watching him now, as the wild team swept nearer, Conor the King knew that he was like a bull run wild and would slay all things in his path, whether friend or foe. He knew also that only one thing would hold him and that was the shock of shame; and he sent word swiftly to the maidens of Emain Macha to fling off their gowns and run and stand naked in his path when the gates were opened.
    A score or more of the swiftest and most valiant did as he bade them, so that when Cuchulain crashed upon the gates of the D Å« n like a thunderbolt, and they were flung back (since none might hold them against him) he saw the girls standing before him all across the way, naked as the day their mothers brought them into the world, with the sunset light flushing their bodies to the rose and gold of autumn honeysuckle. And shame pierced through his frenzy and reached him when nothing else could have done, that the girls of Emain Macha must do this because of him, and as Laeg fought the maddened team to a halt, and the wild swans beat in panic overhead, he bowed his head upon the chariot rim.
    But still he quivered like an aspen tree, and the red light shone about his head, and Conor’s warriors came running, a score of them together, and seizing him from the chariot, plunged him into a vat of cold well-water that had been made ready meanwhile.
    Almost at once the water began to hiss and boil around him as though he were a red-hot sword for tempering, and the hoops of the great vat burst and the staves flew outwards, and they dragged Cuchulain from the wreckage and plunged him into a second vat and then into a third, until at last his battle-fury cooled, and they held in their midst only a slight, dark young man who seemed very weary.
    And presently he went to his own place among the bothies of the Red Branch Warriors, and put on fresh clothes in place of those that were sodden and scorched and blood-fouled, and then went to supper in the King’s Hall, just as though he had never set out to harry the Marches of Connacht.

6. Cuchulain’s Wedding
    NOW THAT HE had become a warrior indeed, Cuchulain knew that he could go to Emer whenever at all he chose, and that this time she would bid him to come in. But she had turned him away to please herself and now the girl should wait until it pleased him to come again. And so the days went by and he spent them hunting and hawking with his fellows, and did not go near D Å« n Forgall at all. There was plenty of time for that, or so he thought.
    And then one day, passing Fedelm the wife of Laery as she stood in the gateway of the Women’s Courtyard watching a group of children at play, he would have stopped to pass the time of day with her; but she cast one look at him and turned away to leave him with the words of greeting half spoken.
    Surprised and midway to laughter, he called after her, ‘Now, Fedelm, do you shake me off like a dung beetle about your skirts?’
    And she checked and looked back. ‘Surely I may choose who I speak with and who I do not speak with?’
    â€˜I have never been one that you did not speak with before. What have you against me, Fedelm?’
    Fedelm’s eyes flashed upon him. ‘I have this against you, that you forget too easily. Before you went to Skatha’s War School you were hot as fire to take Emer from her father’s hearth, and now you hunt and fly your hawks while the King of Munster comes courting her! It is in my heart to hope that her memory is as short as yours, for if not, it’s crying out for you she’ll be, since there’s little mercy she’ll get from Forgall her father, if her choice does not run with his! And you forgetting her all the while.’
    The laughter of Cuchulain went out as though she had struck him in the face. ‘The King of Munster? Grief upon me! I