“Whichever you like,” she said, so he read it then, but she never heard a word of it. Fortunately, the men-at-arms came in before he had finished reading, and he was too shy to ask her opinion in their presence. By the time they left he was working on something else, and it was very late when he bade her good night. Molly was sitting at the table, holding her motley cat.

The new poem was meant to be a sestina, and Prince Lír’s head was jangling happily as he juggled the end words on his way up the stairs to his chamber. I will leave the first one at her door, he thought, and save the others until tomorrow. He was debating his original decision against signing his work, and playing with such pen names as “The Knight of the Shadows,” and “Le Chevalier Mal-Aimé,” when he turned a corner and met the Lady Amalthea. She was coming down quickly in the dark, and when she saw him she made a strange, bleating sound and stood still, three steps above him.

She wore a robe that one of the king’s men had stolen for her in Hagsgate. Her hair was down, and her feet were bare, and the sight of her on the stair sent such sorrow licking along Prince Lír’s bones that he dropped his poems and his pretenses together and actually turned to run. But he was a hero in all ways, and he turned bravely back to face her, saying in a calm and courtly manner, “Give you good evening, my lady.”

The Lady Amalthea stared at him through the gloom, putting out a hand, but drawing it back before she touched him. “Who are you?” she whispered. “Are you Rukh?”

“I’m Lír,” he answered, suddenly frightened. “Don’t you know me?” But she backed away, and it seemed to the prince that her steps were as flowing as an animal’s, and that she even lowered her head in the way of a goat or a deer. He said, “I’m Lír.”

“The old woman,” said the Lady Amalthea. “The moon went out. Ah!” She shivered once, and then her eyes recognized him. But all her body was still wild and watchful and she came no nearer to him.

“You were dreaming, my lady,” he said, finding knightly speech again. “I would that I might know your dream.”

“I have dreamed it before,” she answered slowly. “I was in a cage, and there were others‌—‌beasts in cages, and an old woman. But I will not trouble you, my lord prince. I have dreamed it many times before.”

She would have left him then, but he spoke to her in a voice that only heroes have, as many animals develop a certain call when they become mothers. “A dream that returns so often is like to be a messenger, come to warn you of the future or to remind you of things untimely forgotten. Say more of this, if you will, and I will try to riddle it for you.”