“Then the first of them, the one with the long lower lip, said, ‘I am hungry; what have you to eat?’ And they hastened to make her a pot of porridge; and she ate up the pot of porridge, and it was enough for a dozen men, and she cried out, ‘You are stingy; I hunger still.’
“Now on this night no request of a guest can be denied; and so the Queen set herself and her serving maids to make more porridge for her guests and put some oatcakes on the hearth to bake. But no matter how much food they set before the guest, she growled, ‘I am still hungry.’
“Then the second, the bearded one, complained, ‘I am thirsty.’ When they brought out a barrel of beer, she drank it all down at one draft and complained that she was still dry. And when they began to fear that the hags would eat all the provision for the winter to come, the Queen and the King went out and consulted together what they should do with their guests. And then one of the fairy folk appeared to them from out of a mound and gave the Queen good-day.
” ‘All the gods preserve you, good lady; why are you weeping?’ And the Queen told them of the three hideous hags and their fear that the creatures meant to eat them out of house and home, and then to eat the King and the Queen. And the Fairy Woman told her what she should do.
“So the Queen went in and sat down to her knitting; and finally the first hag asked, ‘What are you making, Granny?’
“And the Queen replied, ‘Knitting a shroud, dear Aunty.’
“And the second hag asked through her beard. ‘Who is the shroud for, Granny?’
” ‘Oh, for anyone I can find who is homeless this night, dear Aunty.’
“And after a while the third asked, kissing her pig, ‘And when will you be using the shroud, Granny?’
“And just then the King rushed in and cried out, ‘The black mountain and the sky over it are all on fire!’
“And when they heard that, the three hags cried out, ‘Alas, alas, our father is gone,’ and rushed out of the door, and they were never seen again in that country by any living man; or if they were, then I have not heard of it.”
Dieda fell silent. After a long pause, while the wind wailed loudly around the building, Miellyn said, “I heard Caillean tell a story very like that, long ago; did you learn it from her?”
“I did not,” said Dieda. “I heard my father tell it once when I was a very small girl.”
“I suppose it is very old,” said Miellyn, “and of course he is one of the greatest bards. But you told it as well as any Druid. You or Caillean could head the College as well as he.”
“Oh, no doubt,” Dieda scoffed. “And why not make us judges as well?”
Why not, indeed? Eilan wondered. Caillean would have had an answer to that, but Caillean was not here.
Thirteen
Once Gaius had reassured Valerius that his kinswoman was safe in Eilan’s care in the Forest House, he made plans to leave again before his father could begin nagging him again about marriage. Since seeing Eilan, he was even more determined not to be married off to some Roman girl. Ever since the death of the Emperor Titus and the accession of Domitian everything had been unsettled, and Gaius knew that his father was looking about for alliances.
After a time he went out into the town. The morning had been warm and muggy, but now great clouds were building in the west, and he felt his hair ruffled by a cool wind. An old centurion had told him once that in this country there were two ways to tell the weather: if you could see the hills, it was about to rain; if not, it was already raining. The man had sighed then, homesick for the flat blue skies of Italia, but Gaius took a grateful breath of the damp wind. As the first drop of rain fell, the Romans began to scurry for shelter. But there was one man who stood still, as he did, turning his face to the sky.