Chapter XI.
HOW THE LADY AILINN DEPARTED OUT OF THIS LIFE AND OF THE COUNSEL THAT SHE GAVE TO HER DAUGHTER AITHNE.

THEN with the years so passing the time came that Aithne was a damsel grown, and many knights sought her love and many asked to have her in marriage. And it happened at this time that her mother, the Lady Ailinn, was taken with sickness, and though her malady was but light to the deeming of such as saw her and heard her speak thereof, yet inwardly she knew that the end of it was to be by death only.

So upon a day she lay in her chamber in the Castle of Kerioc, and Aithne sat there beside her and they talked together of this and of that. And at the last the Lady Ailinn ceased from talking, and then she spoke to Aithne again and said: My daughter, I would not have you parted from me by blindness, as others are parted from me: for they deem that in the Spring I shall be healed of this my malady, whereas I know inwardly that before the thorn is hoar I must be otherwhere. And of that, beloved, I say no more; for you too shall one day pass out by this gate, and I bid you to the Tryst after Death. But as for your earthly life I have a counsel for you: that you consider well to whom you give yourself; seeing that a woman should not love but after her own kind, and for one such as you are this may well be a hard thing to compass. For the half of your heart is with the faery, and the half of your days you live in a land that is no land of men. And of that land I also have had knowledge, for I was somewhile there in my maidenhood: and though I came never there again, yet have I remembered it in my dreams, and I know this, that few men find the way thereto. Yet will a maiden think, as I also thought, to take a man for lord and lover and to bring him in thither: but the magic of it is not so, for every man must win there by his own desire. Choose then whom you will, as of your sovranty: but if it may be, my daughter, before your choice be uttered, come you up hither into this that was my chamber, wherein also you were born, and remember me, and how that I spoke with you of that realm that is your heritage. So shall your choice be my choice, for good fortune or for ill, and we two shall not be parted.

Then Aithne when she heard those words held her mother fast by the hand and bowed her head down upon the pillow beside her: and she wept bitterly, for the heart of youth cannot bear to hear speak of death and departing. And it is no marvel, seeing that the darkness is great and the Tryst is very far off. So it was with Aithne at her mother’s departing; for in no long time afterwards that lady’s life failed her, as in this world, and she was gone. But Sir Ogier for all his grief was still the more minded to make for his daughter some marriage of good counsel: for he held women to be as it were ships, that may fetch and carry well enough, but without a master they are blown about and go no whither.

Now came again those knights of whom I spoke before: and they were by number a hundred from the first to the last. And they loved her all of them, not for her lands only, but each with such love as he had: for her beauty some, and some for her sweet voice, for oftentimes when she spoke and looked the blood would dance in them that heard her. And many there were that came from far countries, whereof some sought her for the praise that went abroad of her, even to the out isles, and some for the renown of her father Sir Ogier; for he was a great knight under shield, and a hunter that never knew weariness, and thereby he came quickly to his end, for he took the river with a horse that was wholly spent.

So Aithne was left alone, and her loneliness was great: for always in her castle of Kerioc she saw the faces of them that were otherwhere, and at night she had no peace for the crying of the sea-birds. And many times she made escape into her realm of Aladore: but there also was loneliness, for she had found as yet no soul to dwell with her. I speak not of fays, for of them there was great plenty: but they have no comfort in them, for they are born of moonlight and not of blood and breath. Therefore also they are from the beginning without transgression, and they know not pain or memory, neither do they fear or hope at all. And of these Aithne took no count, save that she dwelt often with them and was their lady in Aladore. But of the knights that were her earthly servants she took much pleasure and perplexity: and to one or another of them she came near to have yielded her.

Yet when the time came, at every time she held aback: for she remembered her mother the Lady Ailinn and the promise that she made to her at her departing, and always when she thought of her words she saw that they were true. And therewith she remembered a saying of her father, and she saw that this also was true, as for the most part: for he said of men and women that though they be born of one blood yet they are ever strangers each to other, both by kind and by custom, and though they sit at one board and lie under one blanket, yet they dwell apart all their life-days. But Aithne hated that saying in her heart, and in her hope she bettered it.