were
ever red with the wind off the sea, her mouth was finely curved, but
tight-set withal, and she had more chin than women are wont to have. She
was very lissom in body, but her head never drooped."

And that is a most excellent description of the Bird Daughter, in fewer
words than most men might use to-day.

But of all this Brian noted at the moment only that before him sat a
girl-woman whose calm poise and confident power struck out at him like a
vibrant presence. Like himself, she wore a cloak of dark red, but no
steel jack glittered beneath it; there was a torque of ancient gold
about her neck, and her hair was caught up and hidden beneath a small
cap of red.

Brian thought of the woman he had painted in his mind, then laughed
softly. She caught the laugh on his face, and comprehended it, and was
pleased; then as she watched him very calmly, it seemed to Brian that
her sheer beauty was a thing of deception. It must be, for she was
surely a woman of blood. He had known enough of beautiful women, who
played the parts of men, to know that on the far side of their beauty
was neither mercy nor love nor compassion, that their lovers were many
steps to ambition, and that they were venomous. So his smile died away,
and his blue eyes glittered cold and dark, and this the Bird Daughter
saw also.

Now, there was no man on the dais save Muiertach, who mounted the two
steps with his keys jangling. As Brian would have gone after him, two
pikemen stepped forward to intervene. Brian looked into their eyes and
they drew back again. He and Cathbarr mounted to the dais, and he bowed
a low, courtly, Spanish bow, of which the Bird Daughter took no note.
Instead he heard her voice, very low and penetrating, and she was
speaking to the two pikemen.

"Go out into the courtyard," she said, "and give each other five lashes.
This is because you dared insult a guest, and because you drew back
after insulting him. Go!"

The two pikemen, rather pale under their beards, handed over their pikes
to comrades and strode out of the hall. She turned to Brian, speaking
still in Gaelic:

"Welcome, Brian Buidh. You have come to bring me tribute?"

"Yes, Lady Nuala, and the tribute is these ten men of the Dark
Master's."

She looked at Cathbarr; her eyes swept over his ax. Then she looked
again at Brian, and spoke to Muiertach in English.

"Truly, I have seldom seen such a man as this--"

A swift look of warning flashed over the seneschal'