somebody seized hold of Aunt Beck where she sat in the front. I scrambled over, shouting, “Don’t you dare!” in a booming voice I didn’t know I had. The person let go hurriedly.
It wasn’t because of my voice.
Horsemen were galloping up, surrounding the crowd. They had swords out that were larger and wider than Ivar’s, and they were hitting people with the flat of them.
One of them called out in a loud, official voice, “Get back! Leave the prisoners to us!” They all wore some sort of uniform – soldiers, I supposed.
“Are we rescued?” Ivar said.
“I doubt it,” Rees said, but Ivar sheathed his sword anyway.
We were definitely prisoners. The soldiers wouldn’t speak to us, except to say, “None of you move.” Some of them cut the charred patchwork loose from the boat. Others brought up more horses – rather elderly, skinny horses that must have belonged to the ragged people, to judge by the yells of protest – and hitched a whole row of them to the boat. Then someone cracked a whip and we were towed off in a grim crowd of riders. We could only look at one another and shrug.
Haranded was barely a mile away. There were no walls. Houses just grew larger and more frequent around us and became crooked streets with shops to either side. I liked the houses, nervous though I was. They were all built of brick with red roofs, in hundreds of fancy patterns. People were busy rolling aside shutters over the shops, then pausing to stare at us. I was surprised to see it was still early in the morning for these people. I felt as if we had lived through most of a day already.
Presently, we came into a wide street leading uphill. It had statues on each side, mostly very big, of men and women in flowing robes.
“What a very boastful road,” I whispered to Ogo. “Who are all the statues?”
“Kings, queens, wizards – maybe some gods,” Ogo answered. “I think it was called Royal Avenue.”
He must have been right because the street led straight up to the white walls of the palace, where 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
