overthrown, and blood
fall this way and that as the whirled rains of
winter."

Fiona Macleod.

Then Lavarcam went her way, and returned to the palace at Emain Macha
and told Conor that the cruel winds and snows of Alba had robbed
Deirdre of all her loveliness, so that she was no more a thing to be
desired. But Naoise had said to Deirdre when she foretold his doom:
"Better to die for thee and for thy deathless beauty than to have
lived without knowledge of thee and thy love," and it may have been
that some memory of the face of Deirdre, when she heard these words,
dwelt in the eyes of Lavarcam and put quick suspicion into the evil
heart of the king. For when Lavarcam had gone forth, well pleased that
she had saved her darling, Conor sent a spy--a man whose father and
three brothers had fallen in battle under the sword of Naoise--that he
might see Deirdre and confirm or contradict the report of Lavarcam.
And when this man reached the house of the Red Branch, he found that
the Sons of Usna had been put on their guard, for all the doors and
windows were barred. Thus he climbed to a narrow upper window and
peered in. There, lying on the couches, the chess-board of ivory and
gold between them, were Naoise and Deirdre. So beautiful were they,
that they were as the deathless gods, and as they played that last
game of their lives, they spoke together in low voices of love that
sounded like the melody of a harp in the hands of a master player.
Deirdre was the first to see the peering face with the eyes that
gloated on her loveliness. No word said she, but silently made the
gaze of Naoise follow her own, even as he held a golden chessman in
his hand, pondering a move. Swift as a stone from a sling the chessman
was hurled, and the man fell back to the ground with his eyeball
smashed, and found his way to Emain Macha as best he could, shaking
with agony and snarling with lust for revenge. Vividly he painted for
the king the picture of the most beautiful woman on earth as she
played at the chess-board that he held so dear, and the rage of Conor
that had smouldered ever since that day when he learned that Naoise
had stolen Deirdre from him, flamed up into madness. With a bellow
like that of a wounded bull, he called upon the Ultonians to come with
him to the House of the Red Branch, to burn it down, and to slay all
those within it with the sword, save only Deirdre, who was to be saved
for a more cruel fate.

In th