Dublin by Edward Rutherfurd Page B

things happened of course. By the end of the following night, when everyone had been dancing and drinking, there would be all kinds of illicit couplings in the shadows. Young lovers, wives who had slipped away from their husbands, men who had deserted their wives. It was always like that in the May season. Not that she would ever have done such a thing. As the unmarried daughter of a chief, she had her reputation to think of.
      She couldn't behave like the farmhands or the slave girls. But what about her father? She glanced at him curiously. Since she was, she supposed, about to be leaving home to be married, her father would no longer have a housekeeper. Would he use the festival of Bealtaine to find himself a woman?
      There was no reason why he shouldn't, though he had given no indication that such a thing might be in his mind.
      She wondered how she would feel about it.
      Without her wishing it, her gaze wandered amongst the crowd. Conall was there somewhere. She hadn't yet seen him; but she knew he must be there. He had not come to look for her. She had seen that the High King was there with a large retinue; but she had not gone to see if Conall was there. If he wanted to find her, let him do so. If not… She could wait no longer. Her bridegroom was coming, and he could not be denied.
      Perhaps Conall wanted her, but only in the May Day fashion and nothing more than that. Would he approach her, offer her a night of love, and then leave her to her fate? No. He was too fine for that.
      But what if he did come to her, up on the hill, in the night?
      What if, like a phantom, he appeared at her side?
      Touched her? Asked her, in the dark, with his eyes?
      What if Conall… Would she go with him? Would she give herself to him, like a slave girl? The thought of it. She thought of it.
      As the sun was going down, the whole crowd started to move up : hill.
      There were people climbing hills like this all over the island.
      On Bealtaine eve, the whole community kept watch together to guard against the evil spirits who were abroad that magical night. The spirits were up to every kind of mischief: they'd steal the milk, give you strange dreams, bewitch you, and lead you astray. Just for their private amusement. But they liked to take you unawares. They were sly. If you were looking out for them, they usually went away. That was why, in the Celtic world, whole communities kept watch all night on the eve of May.
      Deirdre sighed. It was going to be a long vigil until the dawn. Despite herself, not meaning to do it, she glanced around once again.
      How strange Conall's face seemed in the starlight. One moment, Finbarr thought, it looked as hard as the five-edged stone that stood only forty paces away at the centre of the hilltop. Yet concentrate upon it for a while, and you might think it was dissolving into the darkness. Could Conall's face be melting? No. It was just the faint flickering glimmer of the starlight upon the dew which was forming on all their faces.
      Soon they would see the first hint of dawn. Then the sunrise ritual, and after that, in the full light of day, the great ceremony of the fires of Bealtaine.
      But as yet it was still night. Finbarr had never seen the sky so clear. The stars blazed out of the blackness; the plain around the hill was covered in a thin shroud of ground mist to which the starlight gave a soft sheen so that the Hill of Uisnech with its standing stone seemed to be set on a cloud at the centre of the cosmos.
      "I have seen her," he said quietly, so that only Conall could hear.
      "Who is that?" Conall asked.
      "You know very well it's Deirdre I mean."
      Finbarr paused, but getting no reaction from Conall he went on: "She is over there." And he pointed away to the right. Conall had turned his head so that his face was a shadow. "Will you not see her?" In the long silence that followed, the stars moved, but Conall did not answer. "You know