The four old men looked nervously at one another, coughing and sighing. The first said, “It is our age. Where else could we go? We are too old to be wandering the roads, looking for work and shelter.”

“It is our age,” said the second man-at-arms. “When you are old, anything that does not disturb you is a comfort. Cold and darkness and boredom long ago lost their sharp edges for us, but warmth, singing, spring‌—‌no, they would all be disturbances. There are worse things than living like Haggard.”

The third man said, “Haggard is older than we are. In time Prince Lír will be king in this country, and I will not leave the world until I have seen that day. I have always been fond of the boy, since he was small.”

Molly found that she was not hungry. She looked around at the faces of the old men, and listened to the sounds their seamy lips and shrunken throats made as they drank her soup; and she was suddenly glad that King Haggard always had his meals alone. Molly inevitably came to care for anyone she fed.

Cautiously she asked them, “Have you ever heard a tale that Prince Lír is not Haggard’s adopted nephew at all?” The men-at-arms showed no surprise at the question.

“Ay,” the eldest replied, “we know that story. It may well be true, for the prince certainly bears no family resemblance to the king. But what of it? Better a stolen stranger ruled the land than a true son of King Haggard.”

“But if the prince was stolen from Hagsgate,” Molly cried, “then he is the man who will make the curse on this castle come true!” And she repeated the rhyme that the man Drinn had recited in the inn at Hagsgate.

Yet none but one of Hagsgate town
May bring the castle swirling down.

But the old men shook their heads, grinning with teeth as rusty as their casques and corselets. “Not Prince Lír,” the third man said. “The prince may slay a thousand dragons, but he will level no castles, overthrow no kings. It is not in his nature. He is a dutiful son who seeks‌—‌alas‌—‌only to be worthy of the man he calls his father. Not Prince Lír. The rhyme must speak of some other.”

“And even if Prince Lír were the one,” the second man added, “even if the curse had marked him for its messenger, still he would fail. For between King Haggard and any doom stands the Red Bull.”

A silence sprang into the room and stood there, darkening all faces with its savage shadow and chilling the good hot soup with its breath. The little autumn cat stopped purring on Molly’s lap, and the thin cooking fire cowered down. The cold scullery walls seemed to draw closer together.

The fourth man-at-arms, who had not spoken before, called across the dark to Molly Grue, “There is the true reason that we stay in Haggard’s employ. He does not wish us to leave, and what King Haggard wishes or does not wish is the only concern of the Red Bull. We are Haggard’s minions, but we are the Red Bull’s prisoners.”