bows to Deirdre.
OWEN -- to Lavarcham. -- Fergus's men
are calling you. You were seen on the path,
and he and Naisi want you for their talk below.
LAVARCHAM -- looking at him with dis-
like. -- Yourself's an ill-lucky thing to meet a


50

morning is the like of this. Yet if you are a
spy itself I'll go and give my word that's
wanting surely. [Goes out.
OWEN -- to Deirdre. -- So I've found you
alone, and I after waiting three weeks getting
ague and asthma in the chill of the bogs, till
I saw Naisi caught with Fergus.
DEIRDRE. I've heard news of Fergus;
what brought you from Ulster?
OWEN -- who has been searching, finds
a loaf and sits down eating greedily, and cut-
ting it with a large knife. -- The full moon,
I'm thinking, and it squeezing the crack in my
skull. Was there ever a man crossed nine
waves after a fool's wife and he not away in
his head?
DEIRDRE -- absently. -- It should be a
long time since you left Emain, where there's
civility in speech with queens.
OWEN. It's a long while, surely. It's