out they danced, swifter, more gracefully, wilder than any
maid could weave her way across the grass on Beltaine
Eve. In and out. . . . Now the wind was roaring so loud
she could hardly catch more than an echo of the murmur
from below.
MERLIN'S MIRROR 11
It was dull anyway. This feast which had promised so
much in the way of excitement had been spoiled by the
stupid affairs of war. Brigitta yawned widely. She was
both bored and disappointed. Distant kin had come riding
in yesterday, and she had had a wan hope that among
them her father would find a suitor he approved.
She tried now to search out those strangers below, find
one face which was to her own liking. But they were only
a blur of flesh, reddened by the flame play; the gaudy col-
ors of their plaid and checkered clothing bewildered her.
Though there were both young men and seasoned war-
riors, none had caught her attention when they arrived. Of
course she would have gone dutifully to the one her father
named.
That he did not name any was her present grievance.
They would march to war, all those possible suitors, and
many would die, so there would be far fewer to choose
among. It was a sad waste. She shook her head, muddled
by the ale she had drunk, the half-hypnotizing play of the
flames. Suddenly she could stand it no longer.
She rose from her bench and went back into her cham-
ber. The opposite door of her room opened out on the
parapet of the wall, their outer defense. It was tightly
closed, yet through it the whistle of the wind came even
closer. A lamp burned very dimly in the far comer. She
shrugged out of her robe and, in her chemise, her cloak
still about her, she burrowed into the covers of the bed
against the wall. She shivered, not so much from the chill
of the stone against which that bed was set as from the
menace of the wind and the tales she had heard of what
might ride its gusts this night of all nights. But she was
also sleepy and her eyes soon closed as the lamp sputtered
out.
Below, in the warmth of the fire, Lugaid's hand was
suddenly stilled. His head turned so that he no longer re-
garded Nyren or the man so eloquent in his plea for the
support of the hill chief and Ais people. It was as if the
priest of the Old Ones were listening to something else.
