"Well, we'll see what we can do, shall we?" I said, feeling expansive and magnanimous. I stood up and waved cheerily to attract his attention.
Catching my signal, the young man made his way through the crowd, smiling. I didn't know what might have passed between them in the courtyard, but I thought his manner ingreeting the girl was warm, if still formal. His bow to me was slightly more relaxed; after the forced intimacy of our relations to date, he could hardly treat me as a stranger.
A few tentative notes from the upper end of the hall signaled an imminent beginning to the entertainment, and we hastily took our places, Jamie seating himself between Laoghaire and myself.
Gwyllyn was an insignificant-looking man, light-boned and mousy-haired, but you didn't see him once he began to sing. He only served as a focus, a place for the eyes to rest while the ears enjoyed themselves. He began with a simple song, something in Gaelic with a strong rhyming chime to the lines, accompanied by the merest touch of his harp strings, so that each plucked string seemed by its vibration to carry the echo of the words from one line to the next. The voice was also deceptively simple. You thought at first there was nothing much to it—pleasant, but without much strength. And then you found that the sound went straight through you, and each syllable was crystal clear, whether you understood it or not, echoing poignantly inside your head.
The song was received with a warm surge of applause, and the singer launched at once into another, this time in Welsh, I thought. It sounded like a very tuneful sort of gargling to me, but those around me seemed to follow well enough; doubtless they had heard it before.
During a brief pause for retiming, I asked Jamie in a low voice, "Has Gwyllyn been at the Castle long?" Then, remembering, I said, "Oh, but you wouldn't know, would you? I'd forgotten you were so new here yourself."
"I've been here before," he answered, turning his attention to me. "Spent a year at Leoch when I was sixteen or so, and Gwyllyn was here then. Colum's fond of his music, ye see. He pays Gwyllyn well to stay. Has to; the Welshman would be welcome at any laird's hearth where he chose to roost."
"I remember when you were here, before." It was Laoghaire, still blushing pinkly, but determined to join the conversation. Jamie turned his head to include her, smiling slightly.
"Do ye, then? You canna have been more than seven or eight yourself. I'd not think I was much to see then, so as to be remembered." Turning politely to me, he said, "Do ye have the Welsh, then?"
"Well, I do remember, though," Laoghaire said, pursuing it. "You were, er, ah… I mean… do ye not remember me, from then?" Her hands fiddled nervously with the folds of her skirt. She bit her nails, I saw.
Jamie's attention seemed distracted by a group of people across the room, arguing in Gaelic about something.
"Ah?" he said, vaguely. "No, I dinna think so. Still," he said with a smile, pulling his attention suddenly back to her, "I wouldna be likely to. A young burke of sixteen's too taken up wi' his own grand self to pay much heed to what he thinks are naught but a rabble of snot-nosed bairns."
I gathered he had meant this remark to be deprecatory to himself, rather than his listener, but the effect was not what he might have hoped. I thought perhaps a brief pause to let Laoghaire recover her self-possession was in order, and broke in hastily with, "No, I don't know any Welsh at all. Do you have any idea what it is he was saying?"
"Oh, aye." And Jamie launched into what appeared to be a verbatim recitation of the song, translated into English. It was an old ballad, apparently, about a young man who loved a young woman （what else?）， but feeling unworthy of her because he was poor, went off to make his fortune at sea. The young man was shipwrecked, met sea serpents who menaced him and mermaids who entranced him, had adventures, found treasure, and came home at last only to find his young woman wed to his best friend, who, if somewhat poorer, also apparently had better sense.
"And which would you do?" I asked, teasing a bit. "Would you be the young man who wouldn't marry without money, or would you take the girl and let the money go hang?" This question seemed to interest Laoghaire as well, who cocked her head to hear the answer, meanwhile pretending great attention to an air on the flute that Gwyllyn had begun.
"Me?" Jamie seemed entertained by the question. "Well, as I've no money to start with, and precious little chance of ever getting any, I suppose I'd count myself lucky to find a lass would wed me without." He shook his head, grinning. "I've no stomach for sea serpents."