«That will be Ollgaeth of Cruachan, at the Court of Ailill and Maev, who put the geas on Uath.»
Brodsky, from beside Shea spoke up. «He’s the guy that’s going to put one on Cuchulainn before the big mob takes him.»
«Wurra!» said Cathbadh to Shea. «Your slave must have a second mind to go with his second sight. The last time he spoke, it would only be a spell that Ollgaeth would be putting on the Little Hound.»
«Listen, punk,» said Brodsky in a tone of exasperation, «getthe stones out of your head. This is the pitch: this Maev and Ailill are mobbing up everybody that owes Cuchulainn here a score, and when they get them all together, they’re going to put a geas on him that will make him fight them all at once, and it’s too bad.»
Cathbadh combed his beard with his fingers. «If this be true.» he began.
«It’s the McCoy. Think I’m on the con?»
«I was going to say that if it be true, it is high tidings from a low source. Nor do I see precisely how it may be dealt with. If it were a matter of spells only.»
Cuchulainn said with mournful and slightly alcoholic gravity, «I would fight them all without the geas, but if I am fated to fall, then that is an end of me.»
Cathbadh turned to Shea. «You see the trouble we have withhimself. Does your second sight reach farther, slave?»
Brodsky said, «Okay, lug, you asked for it. After Cuchulainn gets rubbed out, there’ll be a war and practically everybody in the act gets knocked off, including you and Ailill and Maev. How do you like it?»
«As little as I like the look of your face,» said Cathbadh. He addressed Shea. «Can this foretelling be trusted?»
«I’ve never known him to be wrong.»
Cathbadh glanced from one to the other till one could almost hear his brains rumbling. Then he said, «I am thinking, Mac Shea, that you will be having business at Ailill’s court.»
«What gives you such an idea?»
«You willbe wanting to see Ollgaeth in this matter of your wife’s geas, of course. A wife with a geas like that is like one with a bad eye, and you can never be happy until it is removed entirely. You will take your man with you, and he will tell his tale and let Maev know that we know of her schemings, and they will be no more use than trying to feed a boar on bracelets.»
Brodsky snapped his fingers and said, «Take him up,» in a heavy whisper, but Shea said, «Look here, I’m not at all sure that I want to go to Ailill’s court. Why should I? And if this Maev is as determined as she seems to be, I don’t think you’ll stop her by telling her you know what she’s up to.»
«On the first point,» said the druid, «there is the matter that Cucuc saved your life and all, and you would be grateful to him, not to mention the geas. And for the second, it is not so much Maev that I would be letting know we see through her planning as Ollgaeth. For he will know as well as yourself, that if we learn of the geas before he lays it, all the druids at Conchobar’s court will chant against him, and he will have no more chance of making it bite than a dog does of eating an apple.»
«Mmm,» said Shea. «Your point about gratitude is a good one, even if I can’t quite see the validity of the other. What we want mostly is to get to our own home, though.» He stifled a yawn. «We can take a night to sleep on it and decide in the morning. Where do we sleep?»
«Finn will show you to a chamber,» said Cuchulainn.
«Myselfand Cathbadh will be staying up the while to discuss on this matter of Maev.» He smiled his charming and melancholy smile.
Finn guided the couple to a guest-room at the back of the building, handed Shea a rush-light and closed the door, as Belphebe put up her arms to be kissed.
The next second Shea was doubled up and knocked flat to the floor by a super-edition of the cramps.
Belphebe bent over him. «Are you hurt, Harold?» she asked.
He pulled himself to a sitting posture with his back against the wall. «Not — seriously,» he gasped. «It’s that geas. It doesn’t take any time out for husbands.»
The girl considered. «Could you not relieve me of it as you did the one who howled?»
Shea said, «I can try, but I can pretty well tell in advance that it won’t work. Your personality is too tightly integrated — just the opposite of these hysterics around here. That is, I wouldn’t stand a chance of hypnotizing you.»
«You might do it by magic.»
Shea scrambled the rest of the way to his feet.
«Not till I know more. Haven’t you noticed I’ve been getting an over-charge — first that stroke of lightning and then the wine fountain? There’s something in this continuum that seems to reverse my kind of magic.»
She laughed a little. «If that’s the law, why there’s an end. You have but to summon Pete and make a magic that would call for us to stay here, then hey, presto!we are returned.»
«I don’t dare take the chance, darling. It might work and it might not — and even if it did, you’d be apt to wind up inOhio with that geas still on you, and we really would be in trouble. We do take our characteristics along with us when we make the jump. And anyway, I don’t know how to get back toOhio yet.»
«What’s to be done, then?» the girl said. «For surely you have a plan, as always.»
«I think the only thing we can do is take up Cathbadh’s scheme and go see this Ollgaeth. At least, he ought to be able to get rid of that geas.»
All the same, Shea had to sleep on the floor.
V
Harold Shea, Belphoebe, and Pete Brodsky rode steadily at a walk across the central plain of Ireland, the Sheas on horses, Brodsky on a mule which he sat with some discomfort, leading a second mule carrying the provisions and equipment that Cuchulainn had pressed on them. Their accouterments included serviceable broadswords at the hips of Shea and Brodsky and a neat dagger at Belphebe’s belt. Her request for a bow had brought forth only miserable sticks that pulled no farther than the breast and were quite useless beyond a range of fifty yards, and these she had refused.
All the first day they climbed slowly into the uplands of Monaghan. They followed the winding course of the Erne for some miles and splashed across it at a ford, then struck the boglands of western Cavan. Sometimes there was a road ofsorts, sometimes they plodded across grassy moors, following the vague and verbose directions of peasants.
As they skirted patches of forest, deer started and ran before them, and once a tongue-lolling wolf trotted paralled to their track for a while before abandoning the game.
By nightfall they had covered at least half their journey. Brodsky, who had begun by feeling sorry forhimself, began to recover somewhat under the ministrations of Belphebe’s excellent camp cookery, and announced that he had seen quite enough of ancientIreland and was ready to go back.
«I don’t get it,» he said. «Why don’t you just mooch off the way you came here?»
«Because I’m unskilled labor now,» explained Shea. «You saw Cathbadh make that spell — he started chanting in the archaic language and brought it down to date. I get the picture, but I’d have to learn the archaic. Unless I can get someone else to send us back. And I’m worried about that. As you said, we’ve got to work fast. What are you going to tell them if they’ve started looking for you when we get back?»
«Ah, nuts,» said Brodsky. «I’ll level with them. The force is so loused up with harps that are always cutting up touches about how hot Ireland is that they’ll give it a play whether they believe me or not.»
Belphebe said in a small voice, «But I would be at home.»
«I know, kid,» said Shea. «So would I. If I only knew how.»
Morning showed mountains on the right, with a round peak in the midst of them. The journey went more slowly than on the previousday, principally because all three had not developed riding callouses. They pulled up that evening at the hut of a peasant rather more prosperous than therest, and Brodsky more than paid for their food and lodging with tales out of Celtic lore. The pseudo-Irishman certainly had his uses.
The next day woke in rain, and though the peasant assured them that Rath Cruachan was no more than a
