“As you are a great champion in your country it is not fitting for you to follow me into the city as a servant. You will walk up the road to the palace while I take a shorter one and prepare a welcome for you.”
Finn did as he was told. He was puzzled and anxious. He could not but feel that there was something wrong with this plan. The woman had put him under bonds to come as a servant, and now she made it appear that this was not what she wished. Finn wished that he had been able to keep his sword, but that the woman would not allow. Only one thought cheered him. Dermot was watching and listening, ready to come to his assistance at any time.
Soon he came to the gates of the palace. A great crowd of people rushed out as though to welcome him. The welcome was a deceit. The men pushed against him on all sides and shoved him from one to another until he was bruised and bleeding. Finn was the match for many ordinary men in strength. Still, without his swords, he could not stand off a multitude.
Thus pushing and jostling him the crowd bore him into the courtyard into the presence of the ruler of the nation. The king sat upon a raised platform and by his side, in the robes of a princess, was the woman who had brought Finn to the country under sentence.
When the king saw Finn he laughed long and loudly.
“What ho, Finn MacCool!” roared he. “Methinks this is a fine manner for the arrival of a champion of Erin.”
“My daughter asked me to name the thing I most desired in all the world,” went on the king. “I told her the one thing necessary to my happiness was the head of Finn MacCool. She promised to bring you here that I might take it myself.”
Finn’s heart sank. He felt that the hour of his death was very near. The king stepped down from his platform, sword in hand, and swung the weapon back and forth.
“You would not dare do that if you would let me have a sword,” said Finn, looking him squarely in the eye.
The king drew back and bowed his head in thought. Probably he had hoped to have Finn beg for his life.
“No,” he said at length, “I will let you think over the fact that you are in my power. It will be pleasant for you to lie and wonder how long I will let you live.”
He gave orders that Finn’s legs and arms be firmly tied with seven knots on each rope so that escape would be impossible. Then he had his captive placed in a dark dungeon. Each day he was to receive an ounce of bread and a pint of water, no more under any consideration. For a big strong man like Finn this was very little food. But being tied and lying in a black hole was even more likely to take the spirit out of him.