from donkey to donkey, raking with his claws at every one. You could not believe the yelling and braying that made. At length, Aunt Beck snatched Moe’s meal off her and drove her away down the track at a gallop. Moe was only too glad to go. The rest of us ran after her. The last I saw of the donkeys, they were in a fleeing grey huddle with Plug-Ugly bounding after them.
Ogo and Ivar thought it was ever so funny. When we finally stopped for lunch a second time, in a glen halfway up one of the low hills, they kept saying, “An attack by robbers!” Then they roared with laughter.
“Lucky it was,” said Finn, “that the robbers were not human.”
“Are there many robbers in these parts?” my aunt asked sharply.
“I have never been in these parts, Wisdom. I don’t know,” Finn said.
This made me feel quite nervous. But the boys continued to make jokes about the brave way we had beaten off the band of robbers.
“It wasn’t you, it was Plug-Ugly,” I said to Ogo while we packed up to go on.
“We all combined,” he said merrily. “A great combat.”
Plug-Ugly seemed to turn up again while we were making our way down the other side of the little mountains. I felt him brush against my legs as I walked. Green Greet could see him. I saw him swivel his head to look down at the place where Plug-Ugly was, and I wondered at the strangeness of both creatures.
As the track curved, we had a dim, rainy view of more small fields below. It looked as if we were coming to another kingdom of some kind. But it was all misty, until the clouds parted just a little to let through one bright shaft of sunlight. The brightness travelled across fields, and some houses, and swept on up and across us. For a moment, we walked in bright greenness and I distinctly saw the gaunt shadow of Plug-Ugly trotting beside mine, before the sunlight swept on, over the hill and away.
“Hm,” said Aunt Beck, watching it travel. “I’m not sure I like that.”
We went on to the next bend in the track, where we were suddenly surrounded by armed men. They seemed to come out of the rain from nowhere, all in black, with black beards and grim faces, and all with swords drawn or spears poised.
“Oo-er,” said Ogo. “Real robbers.”
My aunt stopped the cart and looked at them. “And what do you gentlemen want?” she said. “I assure you we have very little worth taking.”
The nearest and grimmest man said, “You’re all under arrest. The Queen’s orders.”
And they wouldn’t say anything more. They just crowded in around us, smelling of sweat and wet leather, and marched us on down. The only thing they said, when I asked, “Who is the queen here then?” was to answer, “The Lady Loma of course. Hold your tongue.”
Down we went, quite quickly, and very soon came into a wide yard inside a tall stockade. In the usual manner of Bernica, there were pigs everywhere, and some cows, and chickens too, but all silent and ominous. There were a whole lot more men here, and women too, who came to stand in a ring around us, arms folded, looking most unfriendly. The grim men made us get away from the cart and wait there in the rain while they scrambled into the cart and proceeded to go through our baggage. We had to watch them heave out all our clothes into the wet and then shake out our bags, then go through the remains of the eggs and the bread. They took a large cheese I didn’t know we had, but left the rest.
“This,” said my aunt, “is an outrage. What are they looking for?”
Whatever it was, they didn’t find it. They helped themselves to Ivar’s best cloak and my nice dress and Aunt Beck’s spare plaid, but they stopped when a murmur began in the watching ring of people. Some were saying, “Here they come,” and others were whispering, “Here’s the Lady Loma now.” The cheese and the garments were promptly passed from hand to hand and vanished as the queen arrived.
She was a mighty figure. I had never seen a woman so tall and so fat. She was all in red, a huge garment like a tent, that clashed with the mauve-red of her face and the ginger of her hair. And she was drunk. We could smell whisky from where we stood, and the several smaller women with her kept having to push her upright as she swayed this way and that until she fetched up against the cart with a thump. There she stood, squinting and glowering at us.
“Mercy!” I heard Finn say. “It’s the Red Woman herself!”
“What,” said Aunt Beck, “is the meaning of this, Your Majesty? I’ll have you know I’m the Wise Woman of Skarr, here on legal business for the High King, and I can’t be doing with this sort of thing.”
The Lady Loma answered, in a great slurred voice, “Hold your tongue, woman! You’re on trial for injuring my donkeysh, sho you are. Here they come. Shee. Look!”
And in through the stockade gate came trotting the whole herd of those wild donkeys, roped head to tail and led by a couple more of the grim men. There was no doubt they were the same ones that had mobbed our cart. I recognised the wicked black donkey with the upcurved hooves, second in the line. And I saw that it, and most of the others, had Plug-Ugly’s bleeding claw marks on its unkempt rump. Oh dear, I thought.
Ogo, who had rounded up more than his fair share of donkeys in his time, muttered, “How did they get them here so quick?”
A good question. And as the donkeys were driven up beside us, stinking and steaming, I was afraid I knew the answer. The Lady Loma seemed to cast a shadow across the beasts as they came near her, and that shadow showed another shadow inside each donkey, a shadow bent and skinny, with only two legs. I was pretty sure those donkeys had once been men and women. And I was very frightened indeed. I just hoped my aunt would be a bit more polite when she saw the shadows too.
But Aunt Beck didn’t seem to notice. She stared haughtily at the drunken queen. “So?” she said. “These beasts of yours attacked our cart for food. Do you blame us for beating them off?”
“I shurely do,” growled the Lady Loma. “Jusht look at the blood on my poor dumb beashtsh! You’d no call to hurt them sho! I blame you for that, woman!”
“They wouldn’t have gone otherwise,” retorted my aunt. “And if we’re to talk of blame, Your Majesty, who was it turned this herd out to starve on moss and small grasses? Who was it left their hooves in that state? Who was it never gave any care to their hides or their teeth or their health generally? I’ll tell you straight, Majesty, that herd is a disgrace to its owner!”
“It ish not sho!” growled the queen. “It ish a proud band, sho it ish.”
The two glared at one another. I could see what my aunt was trying to do. She was trying to impress the Lady Loma with her personality, the way she usually did others. But I was fairly sure it was not going to work, not when the lady was clearly a powerful witch and drunk besides. I could hear Finn whispering, “Oh, don’t, Wisdom! Don’t!” I could feel Plug-Ugly pressing himself invisibly against my legs and I didn’t wonder that he was frightened too – except that he wasn’t frightened really. He was trying to comfort me because he knew how scared I was.
“It is not proud,” said my aunt. “It’s one of the sorriest I ever saw. But, if it makes you feel better, I apologise for any damage to your herd. What recompense do you want?”
“Recompenshe!” howled the queen, swaying
