there was a big gate. More men in uniform were waiting for us there. The leader of the horsemen said to the one with gold on his coat, “The spies from the flying machine, sir.”
“Good,” said Gold-coat. And he said to one of his soldiers, “Go and tell the magistrate. He must be awake by now.”
The soldier said, “Yessir,” and went off through the gate at a run.
I realised, as we were towed through the gate into a square courtyard, that they must have been able to see us in the air for miles and had made ready for us.
The gate clanged shut behind us and more lowly-looking people hurried out to take the horses away. They wanted to take Green Greet away too, but Finn shouted, “No, no, this is the Guardian of the West! He stays with me!” while Green Greet flew shrieking into the air, alarming them all. They left him alone then, and he sat on Finn’s shoulder again. Plug-Ugly was invisible. I realised that he had vanished as soon as the horsemen arrived. And of course no one saw Blodred, hiding up Rees’s sleeve. So all ten of us were together as we were made to climb out of the boat and march into the great white building ahead.
Aunt Beck made quite a nuisance of herself. At first, she wouldn’t climb out of the boat and, when they tried pulling her, she shouted, “Take your hands off me! How dare you touch a Wise Woman of Skarr!”
Everyone hastily let go of her and Gold-coat said, “Madam, if you don’t get out by yourself, I shall personally carry you!”
While this was going on, I said despairingly to Rees, “What do we do now?”
Rees was looking quite unreasonably calm, to my mind. “Something will happen,” he said. “Just be patient.”
Meanwhile, Aunt Beck climbed out on to the flagstones with great dignity. Then we were marched off into the palace.
Logra people were certainly not early risers. By the time we had clattered through some very unimpressive wooden corridors and been herded into a bare wooden room, the magistrate was only just arriving, still struggling into his white official robes and yawning as he sat on the only chair in the place. He was a shaggy, stupid-looking man, as unimpressive as the room. About the only impressive thing there was a giant picture painted on the plaster wall of a bull with large blue wings. As the magistrate fussily settled himself, I pointed at it and asked Ogo, “Whatever is that?”
Gold-coat answered me, sounding shocked. “That is the image of the Great Guardian of Logra. Show respect, young woman.”
“I need to go to the toilet,” Aunt Beck announced.
“Show them where,” the magistrate said wearily. “Show them all.”
So we were led off again. Riannan, Aunt Beck and I were shown to a fairly well-appointed whitewashed place with a privy in it. I must say it was very welcome. I imagine the others felt the same. At any rate, Finn, Ivar, Ogo and Rees were herded back into the room looking a good deal more cheerful.
“Now,” the magistrate said, “can we begin, please?” He had been given a steaming cup of something while we were gone and he sipped at it, glowering at us over the top of it. “I must say you are a very motley lot of spies.”
“We are not spies,” Ivar said, glowering back.
“Then why are you here?” said the magistrate. “And you address me as Your Honour.”
Rees took hold of Ivar’s arm to shut him up. “Because,” he said, “er – Your Honour – I had the notion that the barrier could be crossed from the air and we wished to prove it. As you see, we did prove it.”
“A very inadequate story,” the magistrate said. “Of course you came to spy. What puzzles me is why there are seven of you from all over the place.”
Gold-coat said, pointing at Aunt Beck, “This one claims to be a Wise Woman of Skarr, Your Honour.”
The magistrate looked at Aunt Beck, with her hair half undone because of the winds. “Well, I’ve heard they’re all wild, mad females. She could be. It makes no difference to my decision. They’re all foreigners. Lock them all up until the Regent has time to deal with them.”
“Regent?” said Aunt Beck. “What Regent is this? I thought you had a king.”
“The Regent is the king’s brother, who rules because of the king’s illness,” the magistrate said. “And you address me as Your Honour.”
“Then you address me as Wisdom,” Aunt Beck said.
“No I don’t,” said the magistrate. “You’re a spy. Lock them all up.”
“But I’m a Prince of Skarr,” Ivar protested. “I shouldn’t be locked up.”
“Nor should my sister be,” Rees said. “She’s a starred singer of Gallis.”
“Address me as Your Honour!” the magistrate almost screamed.
“And I am a holy monk from Bernica,” Finn added. “To lock me up is ungodly.”
“Say Your Honour!” the magistrate yelled.
Ogo, rather hesitantly, stepped forward and said, “Your Honour, I am a citizen of Logra. I was born here and—”
The magistrate looked at him scornfully. “Oh yes? You come here wearing barbaric Skarr clothing and tell me that! You’re obviously one of the great tall savages they breed there.”
Ogo’s face was pink. He was, I saw, taller than anyone else in the room. He must have been growing madly lately. He started to speak again and the magistrate cut in with, “Now you’re going to bleat at me that you’re really a prince, like that boy there.” He pointed to Ivar.
Ivar said, “But I am!”
Ogo began, “Well—”
“Oh, take them away!” the magistrate howled. “Lock them up with the other prisoners until the Regent has time to deal with them.” He dumped his cup on the side of his chair and waved both arms with his hands flopping. The cup keeled over and crashed to the floor. “Now look what you’ve made me do!” he said.
I found it hard not to laugh, in spite of the trouble we were in. Riannan was laughing, with one hand over her mouth. But Ivar was seething. Ogo was breathing heavily and looked to be near tears. As the soldiers shoved us out of the room, Ivar took his feelings out on Ogo by saying, “Don’t worry. We all know you’re the Ogre from Logra.”
Rees expressed his feelings by saying, “What a very low grade of official. Can’t they afford anyone better? If that man was a priest in Gallis, he’d be serving in Synon.”
“Or in Gorse End,” Riannan agreed.
“Are those very low places?” I asked. “I do hope so.”
Aunt Beck startled me by saying, “He should be mucking out cattle.”
Gold-coat and the other soldiers made no objection to any of this. I had the feeling that they agreed with us, but the reason they said nothing may have been that we began going upstairs then, long wooden stairs. The soldiers panted and did not seem to enjoy this. We were all so used to walking up hills that we found the climb no trouble at all. We went down a corridor and then up some long stone stairs, and Rees talked all the way, describing Synon and then Gorse End, and exactly what miserable places they both were. I told him I was relieved to find there were parts of Gallis that were not idyllically beautiful.
“Oh yes,” he said, as we began on another stone flight, “there are parts of Gallis that no bard will visit, so they get worse all the time.”
By this time, we had climbed so many stairs that I was expecting us to be imprisoned in a high tower. I was quite surprised when we wheeled aside and clattered through a big anteroom that smelt rather deliciously of warm wood. Logra, I was beginning to see, was hotter than any country I had yet been in. It must