Caught in a circle of badmen, his horse already taken and a knife flashing dangerously near his nose, the poet quickly obliges Sean's demand to tell us more about this princess.

He addresses me as he speaks, perhaps hoping for some crumb of mercy from the one called Labraid.

"I had the good fortune of finding my way to the royal keep of Princess Moriath just before Samhain, as I was traveling through Connacht on the road through Cruachu. The weather forced me to seek shelter there."

The poet pauses and frowns. "I travel that road each year and I had never known there was a rath beside the lake. The mists were thick, but the lights of the rath shone through them."

"Beside the lake?" I blurt out. The excitement of a sudden realization made me forget to speak in manfully low tones. Quickly I add, in a deeper voice, "Near the tomb-mounds? There are several roads there."

"Then you know this place, Labraid?" The poet's face relaxes into a smile. He thinks his troubles are over. I think his troubles have only just begun.

"As proof, tell me, what was on the door?" I ask numbly, knowing that the correct reply will force me to leave Magh Croimor and return to my home.

"Carved on the doorposts of Princess Moriath's home," he replies confidently, his smile spreading, "there was a herd of boars in procession, running up, down and all around each pillar! Now, what reply may I deliver to her, Labraid?"

The circle of outlaws closes in, all of them staring at me. Do I dare deprive them of whatever loot they would strip from this unlucky poet? I stare back at them, seeing each roughly weathered face through a blur of tears that rises in my eyes and stubbornly refuses to fall.

My arm is heavy, as if in a dream, when I reach out to push Sean's knife-wielding hand away from the poet. "Let him be. Leave him his horse too, for I will be riding away with him to deliver my own message to the Princess Moriath. We will leave immediately!"